MAX ON LIFE

96. Our marriage is marred by betrayal. We don't trust each other anymore. Adultery has left us distant and bitter. We don't agree on much, but we agree on this: our marriage is a mess.

Let me direct my answer to the different parties.

Have you failed your spouse? If so, own up to it. Don't minimize or deny it. Confess it and seek the forgiveness of each person you have hurt. Then give them time to mend. It's not up to you to determine the recovery period. Don't attempt to dictate the time it takes for a heart to heal.

Suppose you are a company bookkeeper who has embezzled two thousand dollars a month for two years. You are genuinely sorry. And the first day after your admission you show up at work to continue your job. You expect your supervisor to entrust you with the company finances. How will the boss react? He may give you a broom, but he's not going to trust you with the books.

When you violated your marital covenant, you lost the trust of your spouse. Your confession may make you feel better. But your confession broke the heart of the one you hurt. The burden you got off your chest landed on the shoulders of your spouse. And your spouse needs time to recover. How much time? As long as it takes.

Has your spouse failed you? As difficult as it may seem and as impossible as it may appear, forgiveness is your goal. Seek to give your spouse what God has given to you - grace. Your marriage can be saved and intimacy restored, in time, as you are "kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you" (Eph 4:32).

What your spouse did was despicable, but who your spouse is, is essential. Your mate is God's child, bought by Christ and known by heaven. See less of your spouse's mistake and more of God's grace, and, with time, healing will come.

Have you failed you? Does shame from your youth hound you? Or mistakes from last week dog you? Unaddressed guilt stirs misdirected anger and unhealthy shame. It prompts people to lash out at and withdraw from those they love. Take your moral failures to God's throne of grace.

He restores spiritual virginity. He lifts his children to a blameless place. Remember the words of Paul? "Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we're a free people - free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free either. Abundantly free!" (Ehp 1:7).

Let God cleanse you. Tell God the name of the persons or the occasion of the pornography. Bring the moments into the light of God's grace. Sexual sin requires specific confession because it affects us so deeply. "There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for 'becoming one' with another" (1 Cor 6:18).

His grace is sufficient, and his mercy is ample. His word to you is his word to the ancients:

"Forget about what's happened;

don't keep going over old history.

Be alert, be present. I'm about to do something brand-new.

It's bursting out! Don't you see it?

There it is! I'm making a road through the desert,

rivers in the badlands. (Isa 43:18-19)

By: Max Lucado