1John 4:19(NLT)
We love each other because he loved us first.
When you see a couple together out in public, can you tell if they’re in a solid relationship? At a social gathering, I recently saw several married couples taking a picture together. They were well dressed, poised, and smiling from cheek to cheek. From their body language you couldn’t tell if they had happy marriages or not, but that didn’t stop some folks from giving their opinions. The fact of the matter is that these couples have been married many years. We all know that marriage requires work, communication, and commitment. So, no matter what their faces did or didn’t show, the reality is, they’re together. Regardless of the opinions of others, they’ve been determined to remain a couple. When there’s this kind of determination, there’s hope, and God can do the miraculous whenever we dare to hope.
I couldn’t help but overhear some of the comments of a few single women that were there. They remarked that they’d rather remain single than be married and deal with some of the issues some of the married women had endured. I thought to myself, “Is this the reason the Lord can’t get the blessing of a husband to many single people? Is it because their inability and refusal to deal with discomfort is causing a roadblock in their minds and hearts?”
Colossians 1:11(NLT) says, “We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light.” Do we think that this kind of endurance and patience just magically happens? I assure you it doesn’t. James 1:3-4(NLT) gives us wisdom for understanding how patience and endurance are forged. It says, “3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”
It doesn’t matter what it is, if we desire it greatly in our hearts, the devil is going to test us. We will have to prove how much we desire it, and not only this, we will have to prove we are spiritually mature enough to handle what we have prayed to receive. If we have a tendency to put our desires above our obedience and commitment to please and honor God, the devil will sniff this out and continually hold it against us. In other words, if we don’t have God as number One in our hearts, the devil has a legal right to keep us separated from our great desires.
Proving our faith once or twice is not going to do it. Our faith is going to be tested many times throughout our lives. As long as we are guided by our faith in God, the enemy will seek to come against it, but he cannot win unless we let him. God tells us in Romans 8:37(NLT), “overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.”
Our refusal to surrender our comfort level is often the blocker. God knows our weak parts in the faith. He knows the areas where it is crucial that we be strengthened in Christ. And very often, these are the areas where we take a posture of “hands off!” We don’t want to be stretched and we can’t imagine why others would allow themselves to endure it either. That’s the thing that gets in our way. Everyone is different, and so are the lessons they need to learn in order to grow in faith and increase in the example of Jesus Christ.
We are not equipped to sit in the seat of judgement. Our responsibility is to hold ourselves up to the scrutiny of faith and see where we land. Is arrogance getting in the way of you receiving the blessing you’re asking of God. Is it that you don’t believe He’ll give it to you? Or do your expectations exceed your level of preparation? God is not withholding the blessing from us. We withhold it from ourselves because we won’t stretch beyond our comfort zones to meet His requirements. We won’t see that the relationship we have or don’t have is a mirror that reflects where we need prayer and spiritual strength.
We must do some things differently, and all those things are related to growing in patience and endurance according to God’s Will and plan for our lives. Patience and endurance are not qualities we can forfeit as His children. They are aspects of God’s nature that define us to the core. They are aligned with our identity in Christ and therefore, they cannot be negotiated or neglected.
Understand that your assumptions and expectations about what you do or don’t deserve or what you will or won’t tolerate or go through are not a barometer for God’s Will. He’s the One in control of our destinies. Your criteria cannot dictate your dedication and commitment to your husband. Only God’s love can do this, and we must be committed to love through Him, because His love cannot fail. Life will teach us when we get this wrong, and because some of us don’t want these lessons about how wrong our opinions, beliefs, and attitudes are, we are in effect sending the message of refusal to the heavens and everything beneath them. We can get this right through faith and we should.
All of us know of many couples that have struggles in their marriages. Some of these issues are very challenging and may even step outside the bounds of morality. This is because neither person has figured out how to invite the love of God in Christ into their hearts in the way God requires. Like all of us, they are works in progress, and our responsibility is to pray that God will come into their hearts and marriages profoundly so things can be turned around.
There is never a time that faith in God doesn’t work when we are diligent to put Him first. If we are not seeing this clearly when we’re single, we will not see it clearly when we’re married. So, our charge right now is to get beyond the roadblocks that set us up for doubting God’s power. We must see Him for the glorious and loving Father that He is, and trust that He will walk with us as we learn to love despite the struggles. As we patiently endure, He will take control if we allow Him, and He will bring us out on the other side victoriously every time. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Getting Past the Roadblocks” written by Kim Times, edited by Fran Mack for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2022. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!