For weeks my daughter had been pleading with me to allow her to invite her friend Anna round for tea. I had resisted on the grounds that while Anna was a sweet girl, she was also very high maintenance and about as welcome in our home as a tornado! Finally I gave in and after a surprisingly uneventful afternoon we were all sat round having tea when, in front of Anna, my daughter declared, “You see daddy, I told you it wouldn’t be a nightmare if Anna came round.” It was after this that we both became acutely aware of how challenging the apostle Paul’s description of love is, when he declares “love keeps no record of wrongs’. By contrast the love that most of us offer to one another falls far short of this ideal and not only keeps a record, but re-publishes at regular intervals, particularly when we are feeling hurt or insecure.
Great to know then that Paul is describing God’s love, and wonderful to realise that the character of God is such that while He knows all the things we get wrong, He also loves to forgive and when He forgives He forgets.
Even more wonderful to realise that when we know Jesus He slowly but surely transforms us into His character. After 10 years I hardly ever mention that tea party any more!