Difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
Matthew 7:14b
1 John 3:13
Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.
Luke 6:22-23
“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.
I had a lot of rough weeks during my first marriage. Bob and I were married in 1967, just a few months after I graduated from high school, and after he had been drafted into the Army during the Vietnam war.
I became a follower of Yeshua, AKA Jesus, nine years later. By then we were commercial fishing in Alaska. We had two daughters, ages seven and three. I was 27 years old.
When I gave my life to Yeshua, my husband responded in extreme anger. He hated everything about Christianity. Very early in my walk with the Lord I memorized 1 Peter 3:1-2.
In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior. 1 Peter 3:1-2
I spent the next 20 years trying to figure out how obey that word.
About 15 years into my new life, in a particularly bad week, I asked the Lord, “How long, Lord? How long will it be like this?”
He answered me with a question, “What are you willing to go through for Bob’s salvation?”
“What do you mean, Lord?” I asked.
The Lord answered me with another question, “Are you willing to go through a divorce?”
I had to think about that. In those days I was working so hard to hold my marriage together, I couldn’t even say the “D” word. But after some prayer, and musing, I was able to answer, “Yes, if that’s what it takes.”
Then He asked me, “What if you and Bob are divorced and he gets married again?”
That was harder, but after awhile I said, “Yes, even if he gets married again.”
Then He said, “I don’t think you understand what I am asking. What if you and Bob get divorced, he gets married again, and then he surrenders to Me?”
“Oh,” I stammered, “you mean someone else gets the Christian marriage I have been praying for.”
“That is exactly what I mean,” the Lord answered.
I went flat out on the floor, face down, and wept.
I don’t know how long I lay there, maybe half-an-hour. Eventually, I stretched my arms out in front of me, palms up, and said, “Yes, even if that is what it will cost.”
Bob and I were divorced about five years later. What the Lord did not tell me was that as I waited for Bob’s repentance and salvation, I would be re-married. Tim and I have now been married almost 26 years, Bob is remarried, but as far as I know he has not yet surrendered his life to the Lord.
I did not write this blog to ask you to pray for Bob. That is your choice, of course. I wrote this to encourage you to listen to our Master, be willing to go through whatever tests He will put you through, trust Him, and be obedient. Do not be afraid of that lonely, difficult path He has marked out for you. His ways are not our ways.
One of my current axioms is about the things I take to God in prayer. I say to myself, “If God answers this prayer that will be awesome. If he does not, that will be ‘awesome-er.’ He has something better in mind. He is able to do exceedingly, abundantly beyond all I can ask, or even think.”
Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21
Rugged is the path that leads to life, and few are those who find it.
Faith Walking 