It’s amazing what you can do when you have the persevering will to do it! My husband Steve and I have been learning this with this new journey God has been taking us on with my brother. He has recently moved in with us while he’s going through massive health and life-changing issues. (Read the article, Success and Heroism in Marriage, to get some background on this.)
We have learned this concept in other areas of our life together. One of them is the journey of learning how to fall in love with each other again after we had “fallen” out of love. And when we’ve faced various health issues in our own lives and the lives of our sons and family members, we’ve learned what was needed. We’ve had the will to persevere, when it is needed.
The Journey of Persevering
Sometimes you sit back and say, “Lord, didn’t we just learn that lesson a while ago? And with Your guidance and empowering didn’t we at least somewhat succeed? If so, what’s this all about? Enough is enough, already!” But for whatever reason, we’re on another one of these journeys. Lord, help us! That is our prayer, and our plea. We acknowledge that God is God and we are not. We bow to that, and to His sovereignty in knowing what is best.
So right now, my brother is in the hospital again for the many, many health issues he has been going through. This has added to the activity level of all of the other things going on in our lives. And yet, it has helped. We’re learning how to better care for my brother medically than we would have otherwise. And my brother has been both gracious and grateful. Thank you Lord, for that!
You see, we took my brother in, knowing that we would be working with life and death situations here. And we knew it would stretch us in ways we could never imagine (and it has). But because of my brother being essentially homeless after his bypass heart surgery, we knew what God would have us do. God wanted us to bring him into our home and do the best we can. That’s what we’ve been doing.
Having a Persevering Will to Do What is Needed
But through all of this, I’m learning again (and again and again) what we can do when we have the “Heart to Do” what we know we should do. And in our case, these are things we must do. (Read the article, Having the “Heart To” Do What I Should, for a better understanding of this concept.)
As Steve and I have acknowledged, we’re way over our heads in being challenged daily to do things we never thought we could before all of this came into our lives. But out of necessity, we’re learning as we’re going along. And it has been enlightening in many ways.
I have great sympathy for those of you who are dealing with complicated marital problems. These are issues you don’t know what to do about and yet you realize because of the vow you made to your spouse and your God on your wedding day, you must address them somehow. I’ve been there in my marriage many, many times. And sometimes I haven’t handled matters very well. But I’ve learned that IF YOU HAVE THE WILL, somehow there is a way, with God as your guide.
Failing Forward
God has been faithful in helping us through our failures to fail forward. He is helping us to grow our marriage in healthy ways, despite ourselves. How I love the man I married! I couldn’t always say that, so it’s a wonderful and miraculous thing to be able to testify. And having just passed our 45th wedding anniversary, I’m all the more thrilled.
Now I’m not saying that if you have the will, and you pray, your marital problems will dissolve and you’ll have the marriage of your dreams. Life isn’t that simple. We live in a fallen world and it’s all complicated because of it. There is no magic formula involved in marital problems. Human beings, plus fallen natures, plus living in a fallen world bring complications.
But when God is involved, miracles can happen. They don’t always come in the ways we think they should. But nonetheless, they happen (although, often they are quieter ones). What I have learned is that if you have the will, and you lean upon God and you persevere and do as He directs, you will do the right thing. Prayer, perseverance, and having the will, plus applying it to do what is needed, will bring better results, than could ever be possible otherwise. Even in the midst of pain, chaos and disaster, there can be a “peace that passes all understanding.”
Help for You
We have a lot of articles posted on this web site, which you can pray through, glean through, and use as God shows you. It may be through applying bits and pieces here and there, or whatever way the Spirit leads through inspiration, that the advice given can be used.
The important thing is that you look to our Wonderful Counselor, our Holy Spirit, to guide you. And then apply your will to persevere, even if you don’t always know what you’re doing at the time. We sure don’t. I don’t. But God is able, so we are able, when He leads accordingly. I know that. I can testify to that!
Remember:
“Consider it pure joy, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4)
“You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.” (Hebrews 10:36)
“We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance. Perseverance develops character, and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:3-5)
“For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness, and to goodness, knowledge. To knowledge add self-control, and to self-control, perseverance. To perseverance add godliness, and to godliness, mutual affection. And to mutual affection, add love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.” (2 Peter 1:5-9)
This blog is written by Cindy Wright of Marriage Missions International.
Filed under: Marriage Blog