…when your Husband is not.

PODCAST version

The danger of growing closer to Christ when our husband is not, or, is not -right now.

This is true. Satan is in for the fight, let me tell you, and he’s not going to roll over and die when we’re in a spiritual battle for our marriage-for ourselves.

Disclaimer, as always, if you’re in an abusive marriage, I will never advise you need to stay there. Get godly, biblical help & make a plan. Abuse is inexcusable and you need to be safe.

In our society, the truth is wives seek out help for their marriages 9 to 1 than do husbands. It’s also true, Christian women try, try again to make things work, even when they have little responsibility for the issues that have been destroying their relationship. That brings up today’s topic: The Danger of Growing Closer to Christ when our Husband is not.

Can it really be dangerous? I think the answer to that is, yes.

When I first got married, I was relishing in a growing relationship with the man I loved, and not just the one I married but also the One who created me. The Lord and I were in sweet fellowship. Life was exciting, joyful and all around happy. Todays were filled with smiles from eyes open to lights out. Tomorrows were dreamt about with great expectation.

Hold that thought for a moment.

Fast forward to years and years later. Because of God’s grace, time passing in life’s trials, circumstances and growing in the Lord, some spiritual maturity on my behalf led me to a different season in marriage. Things had been a struggle, we’d lived in crisis, at this particular point, more than half of our marriage and parenting. I had a renewal in my walk with the Lord as He graciously showed me how to live differently inside of my own marriage when things were really hard. Again, I was relishing in a growing relationship with the Lord. His joy was (and is) still mine, but smiles were replaced with a heavy heart most days and tomorrows were hard to face.

Back to that thought. Sometimes a growing relationship and sweet fellowship with the Lord doesn’t *feel* the same in our lives. Just because life is hard doesn’t mean God has changed or we are not walking with Him. And when we are walking close with the Lord, and our husband is not, we realize a separation of sorts. It isn’t easy, and it doesn’t feel comfortable.

He’s still trustworthy. He is still faithful.

Remember when Abraham was 100 years old, his wife Sarah in a similar state, God told him he would have a son and would be the father of many nations? I’m 55. I’ve struggled with infertility and wished for babies for most of my marriage. But if I get to be 80 or 90 and hear that I’m going to be pregnant soon, I’m going to say that I probably won’t believe it. Even the word from the Lord, with all the things we *know* about life, I’m probably not going to believe it-well, I can be even more sure, because when most things were lining up that I should expect to realize I was indeed pregnant, I had a hard enough time believing it then!

But Abraham did believe. In fact, he believed against all hope:

Romans 4:18 Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations; according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.

Do things seem hopeless in your marriage? Does it feel like an impossibility that your husband or the way things have become will ever change? If Abraham was here, I think he’d tell us to believe God’s word…against all hope. You can decided to do that, you know. It won’t be easy. It’s definitely not easy when we weigh the choice to believe against the struggle we know it to be, but it IS possible. Believe it, God can do miracles in your life and marriage, against all hope!

Not only did he believe, he was not weak in his faith! He wasn’t stupid He knew how this worked, and old men and menopausal women didn’t get pregnant. Yet, he considered those details not to be an obstruction to the God he knew and served.

Romans 4: 19And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara’s womb: 

How’s your faith? Is it weak? Have you ever stopped to think about just how our faith grows and strengthens? Could it be the Lord increases our faith as we serve Him and through the very trials we kick and scream against? I have never known a trial, and we’ve lived through quite a number of them, that I embraced. But, I sure did grow in the Lord through them.

Could it be that someday I will actually count it *all joy* when I’m faced with these hardships in my life? I know the latter part of this verse, but have I practiced the first half? I can’t say I have…it’s a difficult thing to wrap my head and heart around, honestly. Even knowing and living the truth of God’s purpose and perfection in my own trials, my flesh doesn’t welcome trials.

James 1:2Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

But Abraham, he didn’t waiver. He didn’t misstep or stagger in any sort of unbelief (and his face wasn’t buried in the sand). He believed. His faith was strong. He gave God glory. He completely believed to the point of being fully convinced that exactly what God had told Him is truth and would come to be in his life. God, His creator, counted it to him as righteousness. His Heavenly Father approved of his faith. I want that kind of faith! Do you?

Romans 4:20He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; 21And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. 22And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.

So, here comes the point worth noting where most of us jump off of this account of Abraham’s life. See, it isn’t just about Abraham. It’s about you. It’s about me!

Romans 4: 23Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed (credited, counted) to him; 24But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; 25Who was delivered for our offences (sins), and was raised again for our justification.

Just as we read in Romans 15:4
For everything that was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope.

Now, this is my point here. Not always does walking closely with the Lord feel like we’re on cloud nine, sometimes it can feel like we’re dragging heavy weights around with us.

That’s where we need to look ourselves in the mirror. Those weights don’t belong to us. Step out of them. Friends, we’re most often to blame for the shackles we feel around our feet. Please don’t tune me out now. Listen, I know it’s not your fault the way your husband is living. I understand a godly man loves and obeys the Lord in his own life, whereby he then loves and serves and leads his own wife as does Christ, even your husband may realize that, but you aren’t going to change him by telling him anything. If Christian marriage problems were ‘fixed’ by a wife’s words, the church would have no marriage troubles.

If Christian marriage problems were ‘fixed’ by a wife’s words, the church would have no marriage troubles.

Tamara ~A Girl in the Middle

So then what?

We have to realize that God is God. We have to find it in our own resolve to believe against all belief, through prayer –great place to ask your friends to pray, “I have something on my heart that I need God’s help in, would you pray for me?”

Those shackles? For years I felt like I was spinning around and around the same merry-go-round in my marriage. By the time I’d get bounced off, it seemed I found myself back running in circles. Why? Because I kept doing the same thing, and then the same argument would ensue, with the same result. Nothing changed and the carnival ride was in full motion yet again. Did my husband put me there? Nope. I did. I kept going back to the same venue and getting the same show, why should I be surprised? Finally, I was able to see things differently.

Though I’d prayed and prayed for things to change, for me to change (and let’s not overlook this-God has changed me and grown me through my own marriage trials-Friends, mark it down, He Is Faithful and He loves you!). The change came in an unexpected way.

If you know the Lord, you know God isn’t ok with your sin. Sin separates us from the Lord. Why then did I keep trying to change things, submit more, try harder when it was my husband’s sin that was causing turmoil in my heart? That’s stupid. Think about it. God never tells us to fix someone else in order to become the person He wants us to be, or to be the recipient of His grace, goodness and love in our own lives.

When I realized the Lord isn’t ok with my husband’s sin, I found a freedom to acknowledge his behavior as sin, too. And let’s be sure to realize again, I’m not a sinless person and I’m not condemning my husband’s past actions or saying he’s less deserving of God’s grace as am I (none of us deserve God’s grace, actually). I’m saying this, your husband’s sin doesn’t deserve your enabling or your condemning. Both are wrong. You can disallow yourself from being weighted down with the things you cannot control by staying out of that show.

One of the things we-nope, not we, me-one of the things that has caused me so much grief over the years has been waiting for my husband. It didn’t matter if we were going out for a walk or heading out to a friend’s wedding. (Unless it was work related, and even then sometimes it was harried), if I waited for my husband, we would either be late or never leave. Knowing this tried and true, how come it took me more than 25 years to come to the conclusion that I was out of my mind to think it would be different this time? Why would I be enflamed in anger when he, who had done the same thing f-o-r-e-v-e-r, wondered why I was so upset? This is just one small example, but do you see how it was me jumping into that spinning carousel? It didn’t really bother him.

Slow learner that I am, I finally realized that I could listen to his words, or trust his behavior over the past couple of decades. But if I chose to listen to what has never been true instead of expect what had been consistent, I had no reason to be angry or complain. Step out of the shackles or buckle them in? My choice.

Now, when I can afford not to do whatever it is, I know I can wait for him to be ready (he still won’t be), or I can go without him. My choice, but expecting him to change or becoming angry because his words fall flat again is inexcusable on my part.

Will the Lord ever make a change in this instance, because I’m sure you can understand the ramifications of ‘such a little thing’ in the big picture of years? I’m not sure, but now I don’t let it affect me like I used to. As children become adults, things like this manifest in their own lives and relationships with their father, too. It’s hard to see, but because the Lord has shown me how to live peacefully through it, I can help them. The truth is still hard; it often looks like (husband, dad, brother, son…) would rather do whatever he is doing than keep his word, spend his time, with those who love him. Hard, no fun…various trials.

I know there are much bigger issues we face in our marriages. And I know the same God sees them too. He is no respecter of persons and sin is wrong. He doesn’t approve. He doesn’t want you to coddle your husband’s sinful lifestyle in effort to submit or love him better. Trying harder to be ok when we’re flailing due to our husband’s choices is not the answer. Jesus is. And breaking free from what we cannot change and finding freedom to be the person the Lord wants us to be is a big part of it.

Quick refresher, I know there are a lot of marriages where the problems fall pretty equally on each side of the wedding bands, but right now we’re discussing the homes and marriages where the wife feels hopeless out out of options in changing her spouse’s harmful and sinful behaviors (not abuse-remember, that’s never ok). This is for the women who, though not without sin, are trying to live their lives honest and open before the Lord and their husband…and to no fault of their own, their man continues to live selfishly instead of spiritually. These marriages CAN be restored and God CAN do incredible miracles. In the meantime, let’s see if we can encourage one another how to live strong, healthy and joyful lives in the Lord.

Is your husband angry all the time? I’m sorry. Yes, it’s affecting your household, but no, you’re not in control of his temper or words. Does he struggle with porn? Horrible feeling, I’m sure. Do you know what studies have shown as to why most men who look at porn do so? Wives are left shattered-and, hello, how could they not be? But the statistics say it’s because of selfishness. So really it isn’t about you and it is about them. Not ok, but maybe a bit of relief to your own thought process if you’re blaming yourself. Men need godly men in their lives, too. They need the accountability of brutally honest and God-fearing men. Let’s face it, they’re in a battle and with so much to lose (their wives, children and family), they’re targeted heavily by the evil in this world. I could go on and on, but what I need you to hear are these two things:

1. It’s not ok for your husband to consistently treat you in these sinful selfish ways, but it is not your responsibility to change him.
2. Your worth isn’t in your husband, it’s in the Lord, and He is still everything you need to live a full and joyful life despite the trials that come.

Believe against all belief that God is for you, and that His plan for your life (YES! His plan for you from before you were born!) is still intact. He still loves you…love Him back and trust Him. He’s big enough to deal with your husband, and He’s loving enough to protect you through it. OK?

Abraham, who against all hope, believed in hope.

Abraham. You. God. See the similarities?

Stay off of that merry-go-round, step out of the shackles and get work strengthening your faith and believing God.