Pastor Ron teaches a beautiful message on unconditional love and self-sacrifice and Lola is taking notes like crazy. Not only is she taking notes, she is texting friends the main points and tweeting the highlights. This is such great stuff she’s thinking. Pastor is on fire. That’s why I come here, she says. This teaching is life-changing. Later that evening, Bobby, her husband tells her that he won’t be able to pick up Johnny from the game tomorrow night because he is working late. Why is he working late so much lately? She starts thinking. Is his sexy admin assistant working late too? How long has this affair been going on? By the time she’s finished her internal conversation, she raging and proceeds to tell him that she refuses to live like this anymore and that she will not be a doormat. Bobby is mystified. He is speechless and blindsided. What happened to the impact of the message earlier that day?
One of the biggest complaints from the unbelieving world about Christians is that we are hypocrites. And if we are really truthful with ourselves, we realize that we do not always practice what we preach or what we hear from the pulpit on Sundays. As Paul says in Romans 7:9 “For I don’t do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do-this I keep on doing.“ How many of us can identify with this verse?
June leads a ladies home Bible Study on The Spiritual Disciplines. She is dedicated to preparing each week’s lesson and ensuring that her home is in order and that there is enough refreshments. One evening after the study is over, Larry, her husband tells her that if she doesn’t get help for her drinking problem, he is going to leave her and take the kids. She proceeds to tell him that he is the one with the problems and if he’s start going to church then maybe he wouldn’t be going to hell. On the phone with a friend later that night, she can’t hold back her sobs saying, “I don’t understand why this is happening to me. I go to church every Sunday and I serve on three dream teams. I have such strong faith.” Strong faith. What does that even mean?
Most of us who have been in church for more than two weeks have a fair understanding of right and wrong, good behavior and bad behavior, kindness and plain old meanness. We have lots of knowledge about Jesus and His teachings. And this is fabulous. This is intellectual faith. This is where faith starts, but it doesn’t end here. As we grow as believers, God moves our intellectual faith from our heads to our hearts, experiential faith. How does He do that? The only way He can really develop experiential faith in us is to give us tests, otherwise known as challenges, or trials, or husbands. Just like when we were in school, the teacher taught on a subject and then gave us a test a week or so later to make sure we really understood the material. God works in a similar way. But if we keep complaining about how hard our lives are and how difficult our husbands are, we’ll keep going round and round on the crazy cycle wondering when death will come. His death. And guess what? We’ll miss a glorious opportunity to reap the benefits of real mature faith. We ask God for more patience, but when He sends the lesson or opportunity, we have a temper tantrum and want out. I only know this because I’ve done this. There is a saying that our marriage is a barometer of where we are in our relationship with Jesus. How are you responding to your husband? What’s your barometer’s reading? Are you becoming more loving and forgiving of your husband as you grow stronger in your faith? If not, can we begin to allow Him to develop and mature our faith?
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