Stripping Off My Former Nature

[from the archives]

My story is taking several blogs to cover (starting here). I’m going into the details in order to expose the realities of dealing with our flesh, and the relational nature of what God is wanting to do in us. So often we mentally agree with truth, while failing to see how that truth is supposed to be impacting our REAL life and changing our REAL relationships. My husband Tim was doing this by praying in agreement with letting go of pride and drawing closer to the Lord. (see my previous two blog posts) He mentally agreed with the truth—we need to put down pride and tell the truth—but he didn’t apply this thought to his relationship with me and the way he was treating me with such arrogance, self-serving untruthfulness, and self-justification along with resentment. In his REAL life ways of relating, the truth of our need to put down pride and tell the truth, with which he mentally agreed, didn’t REALLY happen.

Now I’ll go back to the conclusion of my story. The next day, day four of Tim’s emotionally punishing grudge and now silent demand that I take responsibility for lying, not caring, (which I didn’t do) and not apologizing for those things, Tim woke up with his anger in tact and still avoiding me. Part way through the morning he suddenly snapped out of it, and began to talk to me and relate normally as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. I had been treating him lovingly and cheerfully all through the days even though he was not receiving any of it, but now he began to look in my face and talk with me about this and that.

A little later in the day, Marilyn called to see how I was doing. I told her about how Tim had stopped punishing me. She was glad of that, but since he didn’t repent or apologize at all for his unloving treatment of me over the past 4 days, she said that I should tell him that I was glad he had stopped punishing me, and even though he wasn’t mature enough to apologize, I forgive him anyway.

Inside my old fleshly ways of thinking just crumbled at the thought of saying something like that. He just stopped his punishment of me, and I felt like that would stir it all up, which would mean more suffering for me. I objected to Marilyn. She reminded me of how I had already been telling Tim the truth about his behavior, and I needed to keep on telling the truth.

Was Marilyn’s suggested statement really true? Tim’s behavior toward me was completely unloving in every way—that was true. He had not apologized for any of it—that was true too. Why didn’t he apologize? Because he still believed in stubborn immaturity (temper tantrum/pouting fashion) that I was the one in the wrong—that was true too. Did I forgive him? Yes, that was true. I had walked in forgiveness toward him the entire time. I realized I needed to tell him these truths, but my flesh was afraid for the potential backlash.

In the car on the way to the store a bit later I rose up in courage over my self-serving fear of confrontation and rejection, and as cheerfully as I could muster I said, “I’m glad you decided to stop punishing me, and although you aren’t mature enough yet to apologize, I forgive you anyway.”

He burst into ridiculing laughter, and then said, “I can’t believe you! You are going crazy!!” He kept shaking his head as he drove, but he didn’t go back into anger or his grudge.

Perhaps you thought I was telling this story because Tim melted into repentance at the end of it. No, that didn’t happen until 9 months later. This story is significant in MY process. I started out this series of blog posts (with Peeling Bananas in Secret) describing how I previously responded to my husband’s angry outbursts. In my selfishness my goal was to make his angry outbursts be over as quickly as possible by agreeing with his accusations, apologizing profusely for making him angry, beating myself up for making him angry and doing everything I could to keep him from getting angry in the first place.

God led me through a process of learning what not to think about my husband’s anger (Wrong Thinking) and what not to do about his anger (Slaves to Sin or to Righteousness? and Dead to Sin) and over the course of 8 months He led me to see clearly and tell the accurate truth about my husband’s unloving ways of relating. (Becoming Objective and Accurate) I had begun to tell him the truth about the way he treated the kids, (No Longer Blind and Telling the Truth) but my obedience in this interchange brought my ability to tell the truth to a whole new level. Now I was able to confront him and tell the truth about how he was relating with ME, and in doing so I was stripping off my old nature by being dead to it’s desires.

Eph 4:22 “Strip yourselves of your former nature [put off and discard your old unrenewed self] which characterized your previous manner of life and becomes corrupt through lusts and desires that spring from delusion.”

I could see now that God’s work in Tim’s life required me to put down my lower, short-termed selfish goal for His higher long-term loving goal. The Lord led me through a process of becoming above reproach, and learning how to meet Tim’s true need in love. I had wanted to end each angry outburst for my own sake, wrongly thinking this was grace and submission, but God wanted Tim to become entirely free from the anger altogether, so that he could be reconciled with us and with God.

This process required long-suffering on my part. Suffering the brunt of Tim’s four day long emotional punishment without trying to manipulate or talk him out of it for my sake, or going back to my old ways of embracing his untruthful accusations. I suffered through many such interchanges in the coming months as I cooperated with God in Tim’s process.

P.S. My husband Tim gives me full permission and his blessing to share these stories about our past. He is no longer an angry blaming man who carries grudges. We hope these stories will help others to see controlling and being controlled behaviors in their lives, and come to repentance and reconciliation with the Lord and with the people in their lives.

You can learn more about our story and Tim’s testimony in Empowering the Transfer of Moral Values and Faith.

My story continues here.

[originally posted December 2010]