Proverbs 17:9
"He who conceals a transgression seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates intimate friends."
This should be the theme verse of every newly married couple. If couples would just realize that they do not score points when they bring up wrongs, grievances, or mistakes that the other person commits. They are really cutting off their nose to spite their face. This is like stabbing yourself in the leg just to show it that you are the boss of your legs.
No one wants to be reminded when they did something dumb or wicked. We want it to go away. If someone keeps bringing up our wrongs, mistakes, or miscues, we will not be able to trust them or draw them close to ourselves.
This silence – in order to develop or retain intimate friends – means that one has to be able to forgive and look past the short-term hurt to attain the long-term goal of intimate friends. This would suggest that all intimate friends have the ability to forgive at a deep level – creative forgetting.
In other words, stuff will happen between even the best of friends that needs to be forgiven and forgotten. We must develop a forgiving heart or we will never have any close or intimate friends.
The Septuagint uses these words: He who hides a wrong or an injustice seeks deep friends, but he who hates to hide separates friends even of the same family or clan.
Until tomorrow,
Gil Stieglitz