Do I keep going even though my heart isn’t in it?
Question:
I found your website just a few weeks ago, and I can't stop reading it.
My husband left our children and me over a year ago. He was committing adultery with a woman at his workplace, I found out about it, and he left to be with this woman. They currently live together, exposing our children to this lifestyle, which I strongly disagree with but cannot by law do anything about. The children live with me but he is their father and has visitation rights in which he takes them every other weekend. He is a Christian; I am a Christian; and until he left, we were raising our children in the church together. Now I am doing that alone.
I have two questions:
One is that I don't feel that my heart is right with God. I felt more secure and sure of myself and my relationship with God before all of this happened. Now I find myself doubting whether the things I believe in are true. Do I need to have that feeling, or are my actions good enough to carry me through this? I can continue the actions and teachings for the sake of my children, but God knows the heart and my heart is not in it. I feel like I want to do what is right for the sake of doing right versus doing something wrong, but not because I am driven by a love for God.
My other question is that there are some instances in which you seem to advocate divorce. If, for example, my husband and I divorced, which is what he wants, and he marries this other woman, you consider them to still be in adultery. However, they are married in the eyes of the law. But you are saying that to repent, they would have to get a divorce. Doesn't God hate all divorce? How can two wrongs make a right? I just don't see how advocating yet another divorce can be what God wants. And it is advocating divorce because the legal divorce must occur in order for them to stop sinning, from what I am understanding of your reasoning.
Answer:
I'm sorry that your husband is in sin and is no longer a faithful Christian. There isn't much you can do about the problem because he has chosen to sin and does not wish to stop.
Feelings can serve as a warning, but they cannot determine if you are right or wrong. Feelings can be manipulated. "He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, But whoever walks wisely will be delivered" (Proverbs 28:26). There are always times when you have to do what you know is right regardless of how you feel at the moment. After all, consider Jesus. The Bible is clear that he did not desire to die on the cross, but he went anyway because it was needful. Wanting to do what is right is being motivated by love. "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome" (I John 5:3).
Yes, it is hard to hold on to confidence when someone you trusted tore that trust away. But don't let your husband's lack of faith define your faith in God. The reason we can confidently say that what he is doing is evil is because of what God stated about the sin of adultery.
I don't advocate divorce. When a divorce happens it means one or both people in the marriage are sinning. " "For the LORD God of Israel says that He hates divorce, for it covers one's garment with violence," says the LORD of hosts. "Therefore take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously" " (Malachi 2:16). The reason God hates divorce is that sin is involved and a divorce does nothing to solve the matter of sin, if anything sin continues or increases.
Yet, because people are involved, divorces happen and there are teachings in the Bible on how to deal with divorce. The general rule is given by Paul: "Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife" (I Corinthians 7:10-11). A Christian generally doesn't seek a divorce, but if it does happen, then they remain unmarried until such time as the problem can be resolved. There is an exception to this rule, given by Christ: "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery" (Matthew 19:9). A divorce that involves adultery does allow the non-adulterer to remarry if he or she so chooses. See I need a dumbed-down version about divorce and remarriage. Your husband is in adultery. After the divorce, he will remain in adultery because he has no right to another marriage. The divorce will not make what he is doing right.
