Expert: Thurman C. Petty, Jr. - 7/17/2010

Question
Hello my name is Bill, 52 married 34 years with twin 15 yr old girls. Both my wife and I are Believers as well as our children.
Reading your article on marriage and the scriptural references you used were very helpful in confirming the references I had found in Gods Word. Our marriage has me at a place where my faith is shaken to the core. My wife's family has been particularly meddlesome to the point my wife and I are divided and my heart is broken with no relief in sight. About five years ago a business I started failed and we ended in Bankruptcy. That summer her parents pressured her to come to their families gathering at the beach in Florida (an annual event for the last 25 yrs) I was not invited and despite my objections she went and since then every summer this is an issue. I confess that out of fear of her just blatantly ignoring me and going I encourage her to go and simply choke down the hurt and pain of missing a vacation with our girls in the company of those family members who have said in writing I am not welcome or wanted. I think my confusion is centered in seeing that many aspects of these feelings are associated with EGO or self. I love my wife and otherwise our marriage is fairly strong. I confess fear to make an ultimatum for fear of her choice between me or her parents. I have confronted her and to this day she has yet to own that she or her parents has done anything wrong. She refuses to acknowledge that there is anything to my hurt or pain or the damage exposing our girls to a lot of people that have such a dark view of me and how her presence sends the message that it's only supporting their dark views.
If you have any insights as to what I am missing scripture wise or in how to better discern God's Will personally? Thanks for listening. God Bless, Bill

Answer
Dear Bill,

My heart goes out to you. I can only imagine the pain you feel. And God feels your pain too. Jesus said:

Mat 11:28  "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Mat 11:29  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Mat 11:30  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

In seeking to learn more about God, I contemplated the message of John’s first letter:

1 John 4:8  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

The phrase, “God is love,” does not speak merely of a characteristic of God, such as “God is loving”: It describes the very essence of God, Who God is—God is LOVE!

The word “love” has become so watered down that it is used to describe our love for God, our spouse, our food, our car . . . almost everything we have or use is at one time or another “loved.”

So what does it mean “God is love?” What is the love that describes the very essence of God?

Paul described love in his first letter to the believers at Corinth, Greece:

1 Cor 13:4  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
1 Cor 13:5  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, . . .

The love that is God is not self-seeking; it is not centered on self, but on others. He demonstrates His Being in the fact that His love describes the relationship between the three members of the Godhead: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. His greatest demonstration of His love was in giving His Son to live among us for 33 years, and dying for our sins!

He rose again and spends all His time now interceding for us and comforting us who bear heavy burdens ( Heb. 7:25). He wants to carry those burdens for us.

How does all this affect us? When God made man, He made us in His image, after His likeness. So we not only had a physical likeness to God, but He made us to be His image—to be love like Him. He meant that we would be love like God is love. The Psalmist said, in speaking of the creation of man:

Psa 8:5  You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

The Hebrew word for “heavenly beings” is Elohim, the word used for God in Genesis 1. God made us a little lower than Himself. Talk about LOVE!

So God made us to be love too. But Satan destroyed that by leading us into sin, and love all but died in the human heart. 6000 years of sin has degraded us to the point that we have little resemblance to God.

Now why am I talking about this? Because God wants us, through Jesus, to become love again. Which means that in everything we do we should surrender ourselves to Jesus and let Him love through us. It means that in everything we think and say and do, we will let Jesus think and say and do through us. We need to spend time in God’s Word, learning about Who Jesus is, so that Jesus can demonstrate His love through us.

When my wife, of now 50 years, and I had finished college and the seminary, we were called into pastoral ministry in Baltimore, Maryland. We loved it so and worked together for the first couple of years. But then I began spending long hours in my work, away from her, visiting people, giving Bible studies, studying for preaching, etc. I’d often work 12-14 hours a day. I even missed our daughters birthday party because I had to visit some of the members of the church.

All this had a drastic affect on Martha. It came to the point that I discovered that she no longer loved me. She as much as told me so. It seems that the only reason she stayed with me was that she didn’t want to destroy my ministry!

We were called to another conference at about that time, and a close friend was one of the leaders of the conference. I confided in him my situation and he told me: “Next to your relationship with God, your marriage is the most important thing in your life. Your work has to come last. Take whatever time you need to win your wife’s love back. You cannot be effective in your work if you don’t have a loving, stable home.”

I took his advice and spent nearly ½ my time courting her all over again. We went shopping together, ate out more often, played games, put picture puzzles together (picture puzzles can be great healers—even if you don’t talk, your together for hours.). It took two years before she confessed that she loved me again. It was the most terrible and wonderful two years of my life. I vowed never to let it happen again. We’ve had other difficult time, of course, but none as bad as that.

Bill, demonstrate your love for your wife in myriads of ways. Do everything you can to win back her love. Spend much time in Bible study and prayer to let Jesus become your best Friend. As you do, you’ll discover that your relationship with Jesus will grow. And as you come closer to Jesus, you’ll find that your love for your wife will grow, and it will affect the way you treat her in thousands of little ways. And as she feels the security of your love—perhaps imperceptibly—her love for you should grow too. And perhaps she’ll not want to take that vacation time away from you. Perhaps she’ll want to stay with you instead of going to visit her family without you.

There are no guarantees, because we have to remember that every person has free will. But you cannot expect her to want to choose you over her family unless she really feels that you love her, and to know how much better it is to stay with you rather than to go and be with her family. She will accept you and the girls as her family instead of those she has left to be with you.

Lay your burden upon Jesus. Go to Him and weep on His shoulder. Regardless of how your marriage turns out, you will have made a Friend for life, and he will carry your burdens for you.

Jude 1:24  Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,
Jude 1:25  To the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and for ever. Amen.

Reading the Bible is so important to the Christian. It would be very difficult to maintain a saving relationship with God without it. And learning about God and His requirements for us would be nearly impossible without some connection with God’s Holy Word.

Actually, if we watch for it, we’ll find Jesus Christ in almost every passage of the Old and New Testaments. Sometimes He’s known as the Creator (cf. John 1:1-4, 10, 14); sometimes He’s known as “the Angel of the LORD” (Ex. 3:1-14; cf. John 8:56-58); sometimes He’s known as the “servant” (Isa. 52:13-53:12).

If you have difficulty understanding the Bible, there are many aids available to help you do this, (see list below). But above all, read your Bible for yourself, and pray that God will help you understand it.

Feel free to write me again, and to use my person e-mail address if you like.

Stay close to Jesus.

Thurman C. Petty, Jr.
PettyPress@gmail.com
www.PettyPress.com (20 Books; 42 Bible Study Guides; more)

Sources of Bible study aids and answers for your questions:
Mail order Bible lessons: Amazing Facts Bible Lessons, PO Box 1058, Roseville, CA 95678
Telephone questions answered: 3ABN 1-800-752-3226 (pastoral dept., ext. 1)
On-line: Bibleinfo.com; Itiswritten.com (Bible studies/Discover Bible Guides)
Television networks: HOPE Channel (Direct TV #368); 3ABN (Dish Network #9710)