Tuesday, May 12, 2020
God, Free Will, and Healing/Not Healing
My wife and I talk to a lot of people in broken relationships. Mostly marriages. Sometime parents and kids. We have amazing miracles, including in our relationship. Horrible marriages now healthy. Parent/child relationships restored. God can do amazing things.
But the most painful thing we do is talk to husbands or wives whose marriage is not being healed. They beg God to restore their marriage and it doesn't happen. They are willing to change. Or to forgive. And they still end up in divorce court.
Because God will not fix their marriage.
Here is the hard truth about sin and marriage. It takes three to fix it.
God always wants to heal and restore, but if one spouse does not want to heal things, God will not force anyone to follow Him.
Free will. God cannot grant us free will and then remove it when we do not choose the right path.
So a husband begs his wife to return to him and the children. She chooses not to and that marriage is not going to be healed. A wife cries for God to make her husband love her. The husband does not. God will not force him.
You can pray for their heart to change. You can pray for God to put things in their life to perhaps make them look to him. But ultimately it is a choice. And it is one you cannot make for them.
It takes three. God. Husband. Wife. Two out of three will not restore anything. And you cannot force anyone to do what they do not want to do.
Free will. Free to make the wrong choice with unfathomable consequences. Consequences they choose. Sometimes eternal consequences.
So give them a chance to repent and change.
But sometimes you have to cut your losses and move on. Most painful thing ever.
Free will. Their choice. Even when it is wrong.
But the most painful thing we do is talk to husbands or wives whose marriage is not being healed. They beg God to restore their marriage and it doesn't happen. They are willing to change. Or to forgive. And they still end up in divorce court.
Because God will not fix their marriage.
Here is the hard truth about sin and marriage. It takes three to fix it.
God always wants to heal and restore, but if one spouse does not want to heal things, God will not force anyone to follow Him.
Free will. God cannot grant us free will and then remove it when we do not choose the right path.
So a husband begs his wife to return to him and the children. She chooses not to and that marriage is not going to be healed. A wife cries for God to make her husband love her. The husband does not. God will not force him.
You can pray for their heart to change. You can pray for God to put things in their life to perhaps make them look to him. But ultimately it is a choice. And it is one you cannot make for them.
It takes three. God. Husband. Wife. Two out of three will not restore anything. And you cannot force anyone to do what they do not want to do.
Free will. Free to make the wrong choice with unfathomable consequences. Consequences they choose. Sometimes eternal consequences.
So give them a chance to repent and change.
But sometimes you have to cut your losses and move on. Most painful thing ever.
Free will. Their choice. Even when it is wrong.
