Is the Hard Heart From God? Marriage Restoration

I am going to propose a question to you with some scripture for you to consider and study so that you can come to your own conclusion.

We know our spouses have hard hearts when they decide to separate and divorce.

4 And they said, “Moses permitted to write a roll of divorce, and to send her away.”5 But Jesus said to them, “He wrote this commandment for you because of your hardness of heart; Mark 10

We know this came about the moment they chose to follow after their own flesh/selfish desires and ambitions.

We see that some of them are sorry and want to come back. But they can’t. Why? Is it because the hard heart, which they chose to allow to come over them, prevents them from having a choice on HOW to be free? It would be like walking into a prison cell of your own free will, but when the door closes and locks, you are in disbelief that you don’t have the key to get out.

King Solomon, who loved and sought wisdom to gain understanding and explanations, understood the snare that people stupidly fell into, AND he understood HOW to be free.

25 I directed my mind to understand, to explore, to search out wisdom and explanations, and to understand the stupidity of wickedness and the folly of madness. 26 And I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a net, and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is ensnared. Ecclesiastes 7 BSB

My spouse was not the only one that was in awe that he could not get out of this snare; I didn’t understand it either. It made no sense to me as I talked to him, and he showed an apparent desire to end his affairs and was sorry that he was hurting me. But every plan he had attempted to free himself failed.

 No amount of WANTING and PLANNING – to fix our marriage, stop sinning, and stop falling into temptation with the other women – was working. He kept falling into the snares. He kept falling into these patterns of anger at me, life, and God and was in disbelief at why he could not just choose to set things right and back to normal. 

I was also in disbelief that he found it that difficult to get himself out of what he got himself into. We talked for hours, and I was convinced he was sincere in his desire to be free from the snare, so why couldn’t it be that easy?  I was actually tormented and sometimes fell for the lie, that if he truly wanted out, truly wanted to be free from her, he could easily do it. It made no logical sense to me why he was unable to set himself free from what he got himself into. I lived in this torment until God showed me the truth and kept insisting on this truth.

Why Could He Not Unharden His Heart?

Our hearts want our spouses to choose us. We want our spouses to break up with the other person (if there is one) and stop listening to anyone that is influencing them to leave our marriage because they deserve to ‘be happy.’ We are overjoyed when our spouse starts to want that too. So it can become bewildering when they want it but can’t seem to obtain it.

While it is not wrong to desire this, it’s a priority that needs to be exposed and put into its proper place. God created us to be married, but he did not create marriage, our spouse to replace Him and be our most important relationship. Nothing should ever be more important than Him.

 This is evident because the FIRST commandment is to love God FIRST with ALL your heart/soul/mind. It doesn’t say your spouse. MANY Standers start out wanting their spouse to want them first and to turn their hearts back to them, above all else. God wants BOTH of you to turn to Him first, just as He commanded. Why? Because loving God does something to us that would stop us from going down that wrong path and STAYING there. 

Loving God doesn’t stop us from making mistakes – look at King David and Bathsheba. Loving God did not stop King David from making huge mistakes, but it did cause David to sincerely regret his actions and WANT to repent because he understood his actions because of the close relationship he had with God.

To Repent is to change your inner self—your old way of thinking, regret past sins, live your life in a way that proves repentance, seek God’s purpose for your life. We know that our spouse’s hearts are hard.

We know that this appears to be a cookie-cutter-type situation as hard-hearted spouses think, feel, believe, and operate almost the same exact way. We know that our efforts to change that are futile and fall on deaf ears that are closed off and impenetrable.

 We know that we (at first) are working on our agenda to restore our marriage, while God is working with a different agenda to restore HIS RELATIONSHIP with our spouse and us FIRST and THEN our marriage……

So, is this hard heart from God?

I have talked to many spouses who shared that when they made the decision to follow the lusts of the flesh; they never dreamed it would lead to wanting to separate, even divorce their spouse and create a whole new life. Some of them did want out, but they never expected the level of ‘hatred’, coldness, anger, and resentment to well up out of nowhere. ALL of them expressed a level of fear, shame, and double-mindedness, that followed them into restoration, that was and still is, a battle they are trying to overcome. 

The lost spouses shared that they never dreamed they would become such a prisoner in their sins, until they turned around and thought they could just leave and found there was no easy way out. At every ‘door,’ there was no key; at every window of opportunity, there was some obstacle that prevented them from doing what they really wanted to do…….return back to their spouses and families.

It was ONLY when they turned to God for help and asked Him to show them the way out, did those doors and windows start to open, so that they could begin the journey to freedom. They were able to SEE clearly, understand that snare, and learn how to unshackle themselves.

As they began to realize that God held the keys to their freedom from the sinful choices they made, it was only then they understood that getting right with God….was the path to restoring their marriages and families.

And God won’t have it ANY OTHER WAY for a reason!

God hardens hearts for a reason. To execute His plan. First, we must understand that God never hardens a heart against Himself.  The hardening is the hedging up their ways to stop them from being fulfilled by anything that would replace HIM as talked about in Hosea 2.

4 because they are the children of adultery. 5 For their mother has played the harlot and has conceived them in disgrace. For she thought, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me bread and water, wool and linen, oil and drink.’

6 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her path with thorns; I will enclose her with a wall, so she cannot find her way. 7 She will pursue her lovers but not catch them; she will seek them but not find them. Then she will say,‘I will return to my first husband, for then I was better off than now.’ 8 For she does not acknowledge that it was I who gave her grain, new wine, and oil, Hosea 2

People are always seeking to put other people, other relationships into that space in us that was created for God. Our spirits were created to be ONE with Him, but when we are walking in our flesh and soul, not in our spirit, we are blind to this. So God has created a plan to ensure that we are forced to acknowledge Him and given the opportunity to turn to Him and get right!

This plan of His can sometimes seem unfair, painful, frustrating, and unbearable. Can’t God get our attention any other way? Can’t He fix our relationship with Him without our marriages being destroyed? Why is it necessary for us and our innocent children to suffer to this level?

I asked those same questions. And the answers I found came from Who I know and trust Him to be through His character and nature found in His Word!

He is GOOD, and He is for us.

He is not out to destroy us, harm us, or do things unnecessarily. So if this is what He came up with for us, then He has a very good reason for it. If there was a better way, a better plan, then He would use it. But since this is a tried and true method that seems to work and seems to get the results that God is after, He uses it.

God allows a lukewarm person, who has very little care about God and how He feels, to make that first fatal step and enter the snare. He then allows that choice of theirs to entrap them. IN the snare……that is where revelation, truth, wisdom, understanding, and explanations start to happen for BOTH the lost spouse AND the Stander. This is where it all becomes clear. One of the biggest arguments I had with God was why did I have to suffer for my husband’s choices? It seemed very unfair and didn’t make sense.

But I see it now. The snare that my husband entered saved us both. The snare that God would not allow my husband out of until He repented and turned to God saved us both. The longer he stayed snared, the better it was for ME because I was stubborn, and my heart still would not fully depend on and desire God. The snare my husband was in was the best thing that was for ME because it kept me knocking on God’s door. At first, asking for Him to save my marriage, but then, asking for HIM personally because I wanted to get to know Him, and that is when I Knocked with a New Sound that opened the door, and I was forever changed as He adopted me! I encourage you to read this article to gain a better understanding.

We all hate the snare until we learn to embrace it and put in the work so we can understand that the snare was designed to SAVE OUR SOULS and introduce us to God in a way that we may never have been introduced. What was meant for harm surely turned out for our good! The quicker you can embrace this season of your life and let it work for your good, the better. The more you fight against it and try to make that snare open without using the right key, the more you will wear yourself out and even want to quit.  Surrender to God and what He has planned out! It’s for YOUR GOOD!

Standing with you,
Sheila Hollinger