Standers,

Has something happened that has caused you to enter into a pit of fear and despair? Something that has made you feel like it can’t be undone? It’s permanent and you just don’t see how this could ever change and be overcome?

God WILL keep His word to you. HOW He keeps His word and how LONG to fulfill His word to you, is what we struggle with and try to manipulate and control. It’s most often what pushes us toward giving up or pressing deeper into the knowledge and understanding of Him.

When they go off the path in our eyes, move in with them, marry them, have a child with them, move far away, or buy a house, these all seem like they have completely walked off the radar of God and there is NO coming back from it. Like these are irreversible choices.

We feel, “Well, now that is going to stop the promise God has given me. This has now become a permanent situation.” Or “This has now become a much harder way from them to come back because they have REAL ties to the other person.” Such as a child or their name on a lease or mortgage.

Did you not have a marriage certificate? Did you own things together? Did you have children together? Did you not have YEARS and YEARS of an established life together? Did you not create promises to each other?

Why am I saying this?

Because you see how easy it was for them to disengage. When a heart goes hard, it is able to justify walking away from everything that was established, and they were responsible for. No amount of reasoning or seeing how their actions are hurting and effecting what THEY HELPED BUILD will undo that blindness and hardness that overtakes them.

They know God, but they do not give him the honor that belongs to him, nor do they thank him. Instead, their thoughts have become complete nonsense, and their empty minds are filled with darkness. Romans 1:21 Good News Translation

In that hardened state of heart, that darkened state of mind/reasoning….they cannot see the light of truth. They can’t comprehend it, and it seems like an enemy to them. That truth, God’s truth, and conviction, that light that keeps shining into their darkness, is a threat. They LOVE twilight, (READ the article to understand precisely how twilight plays a role in this). They love to stay in the dark where they can be selfish, rebellious, and irresponsible.

This is the place they are at, and where God is USING the journey to change their hearts. We don’t understand this and it’s not logical to us because of the pain it brings. Why would God allow such a devastating thing to happen when He is all about love, respect, kindness and families staying intact?

He is not after an intact family that is not heading to eternity with Him. Not after a family that loves the world, lives according to the world, and will end up perishing because of it. He is not after lukewarm, worldly Christians who are teaching their children how to live as a selfish, self-serving Christian. He is not after a mind change, but a heart change. A heart that has the fear of the Lord and seeks to submit and serve Him all because that hearts LOVES Him above all else.

So rend your hearts and not your garments, and return to the LORD your God. For He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion. Joel 2:13 BSB

A change that can only come when they are making choices and living the outcome of their decisions. So while all these things are horrible to us, and we have to endure the pain of their choices, it is part of our journey and growth.

THEIR choices produce consequences which are OPPORTUNITIES!

Opportunities for both of you to take what is happening and seek out HOW God wants you to see it, learn from it, change, and GROW from it. The opportunity for the trial to produce a good transformation in you.

2 Esteem it all joy, my brothers, when you might fall into various trials, 3 knowing that testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect work, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1 BSB

We have to grow in faith, trust, and confidence. We have to learn to hand them entirely over to God. This is just a minor part of what standing is doing FOR us. Standing is not being done to us, but FOR us.

So, use those devastating decisions they make, to help you lean and press into God. To learn nothing is impossible for Him to handle, nothing is to permanent to be undone. That nothing they are deciding to do is a surprise to Him, and that He already has factored it in and will use it for the outcome He is after.

I pray for your heart as you endure these trials and sufferings, that you are able to feel His love and devotion to you and that you take comfort in His love. I pray that you don’t feel rejected and unloved by Him because of the choices that your lost beloved is making, but know and trust that God is still in this, and nothing that is being done is to harm you but to be used to encourage you in the best way. 

Standing with you,
Sheila Hollinger

 

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