The Fighting Wife Episode That Goes Along With This Post:
How desperate are you as a wife?
Maybe that is a strange question you’ve never been asked before, but it is a VERY REAL ONE that you need to answer before moving forward.
As excited you are to jump into the meat of this blog, restrain yourself and clean the house of your heart first.
Before God comes…
you want to be ready for all that He will bring with Him!
Lasting change will not come if you don’t first start here and take that question and the answer to it very seriously.
Before you scream, “Yes, I’m desperate!” it is crucial that you understand what being desperate actually means.
If you truly desire to rebuild your house from a house of strife into a house of peace, you need to determine what is lying just beneath your desires of change. Do you simply what change so that your life can get better or do you want change because without it, it’s over? Maybe you enjoy complaining about your husband to your friends so you can play the victim and be the center of attention, or are you willing to acknowledge that the change you desire just might start with you?
Sadness in your marriage IS NOT an indication of desperation.
James 4:2-3 says,
You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures
As you can see, not asking is not the problem here. We know how to ask, beg, and plead with God to change our husbands. The problem is that we ask with the wrong motives.
You see, we don’t desire just any kind of change. At least we shouldn’t. We desire the change THAT CAN ONLY COME WHEN GOD MOVES IN HIS RIGHTEOUS POWER. We don’t want change at any cost. We want change that cost Jesus everything and He has already paid for in full.
This change includes you and will benefit you, but IT WILL NOT be through your power!
The peace you are after is included in the packaging of being saved and it is yours free of charge, you just need to know how to access what is already fully available to you.
So, are you desperate?
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, desperation is the loss of hope and surrender to despair (utter loss of hope)
Synonyms (meaning the same thing):
Forlorness—sad and lonely because of isolation or desertion
Desolate—devoid of visitors or inhabitants
:showing the effects of abandonment and neglect
:barren, lifeless
:devoid of warmth, comfort, or hope
You need to ask yourself…. “Is this me?”
Why is being desperate so Important?
Because desperation is key.
The state of truly being desperate has the power to strip away things that will keep us from all God has. Desperation is what makes any of us turn to Christ!
It has the power through an upsetting situation in our lives (like a marriage filled with fighting) to bring us low. Not everyone whose desperate turns to God though and that is why at this point we are faced with what to do next.
Are we like the wife building on the solid rock (which is Christ), or do we build on sand that will be swept away yet again?
How to Determine Whether You Are Desperate or Not
And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”
“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”
But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
Mark 5:25-34 (emphasis added)
Are you like the woman with the issue of blood?
This woman—more commonly known as the woman with the issue of blood—was desperate. And you know what her desperation did? It moved her to take action. It made her brave and it made her forget what was socially acceptable and the labels of her that said she was “unclean.” Being desperate made her risk everything, maybe even her life as she was disobeying the rules. Most importantly, being desperate made her perhaps do something she had never done before, which is true, because the Bible says she had spent all she had… she hadn’t met The One True Healer before!
You have spent all you have to try and be made well
Maybe this has been you while looking for a remedy for your broken marriage.
Perhaps you have spent money on Christian counseling but that is not the only thing you have spent. Maybe you are depleted of energy because you have been running yourself ragged and SPENT it all. You are tired and are ready to just close your eyes to your marriage, and give up the last bit of life it has left.
That’s not all…
Not only have you spent your remaining energy, but perhaps you have SPENT the last of your prayers. You find that you don’t even pray anymore.
You find yourself asking, “Does God even exist?”
Maybe you don’t even know why you’re reading this now because you’re convinced there is nothing to save since your marriage is already dead.
Sweet Daughter, I think just might be desperate! God loves revealing Himself to people who ask that very question…
You are growing worse
Despite spending all that you have to get better, the fighting in your marriage continues.
You are convinced that you cannot have a great marriage because you would need your husband’s active participation and it’s just not going to happen. Relinquishing what energy you have left for solitude, the still ensues whenever you and your husband are in the same room.
For a marriage that you thought was dead, it is still causing so much pain.
You find yourself wishing it was just over. God doesn’t endorse divorce, but maybe it would be a lot better for everyone, including your children. At least the hate you and your husband seem to have for each other wouldn’t be on display for them to see.
Daughter of the Highest Living God, I think you just might be desperate!
You are ready to risk your reputation to be made well / you don’t care what other people think anymore
If there was however a guarantee to save and restore the marriage you and the man of your youth share, you would do it in a heartbeat. You without even care what your friends thought, although they’ve stuck it out with you.
Maybe your friends and everyone in your church think you have a solid marriage and envy what they think you and your husband have.
But a guarantee—if you had that, you would forsake your impeccable. He is the father of your sweet children, and you would destroy them if you split from their father. You would do anything for them!
Maybe your husband has some behaviors he needs to change
If abuse is a part of your marriage of any kind, please know that this is not God’s desire for you. Seek a friend, parent, or someone you trust right away!
I am not here to proclaim that your husband has NO faults or things that God doesn’t desire to change in him as well. I am simply here to proclaim God’s government and His ordained way in your marriage. When God’s government is activated in your marriage, it will bring about the change you are after.
Your friends just might think you are CRAZY!
Maybe applying the things I am about to tell you, your friends will look at you and wonder out loud. Perhaps some of what they say will try to discourage you from taking this stand and trying something new. They might even say that your husband doesn’t deserve your respect…but if you had a GUARANTEE of positive change in your marriage, you would do anything—even look like a fool to your most loyal of friends.
You catching onto this, Dear One? This is what desperation looks like!
What to do if You Are Desperate
If you are finding too many similarities (maybe more) to count from the woman I described above, I think you might be desperate! Praise Jesus—you are in a perfect place. You just might look back a year from now when you are in the middle of a restored marriage to this place right here where it all started!
If you’ve determined your desperation, my prayer is that you are feeling Hope. CLICK HERE, dear Wife, to move forward to the next prerequisite.
What to do if You Are Not Desperate
If you did not find any similarities to the woman I described above, you will know. There is no condemnation for those in Jesus Christ, and chances are great that He is still drawing you unto Himself. If this is you, I am not certain of your next steps, but I pray God’s perfect peace over your sweet spirit and pray that He draws you unto Himself like no one can. No one can pressure you and God WILL NEVER force Himself on you.
Desperation makes you open to trying something you haven’t tried before.
It makes you carry on in that healing even when it’s hard or not what you expected.
I’m not going to say that the journey you’re on here is going to be an easy one. But I can guarantee that if you continue onward in this process, you will be the giant whose shoulders future generations will be standing on.
That’s what is at stake here!
They will look back on your life and call you blessed for the unshakable foundation you laid for them.
Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent Me and I live because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your fathers, who ate the manna and died, the one who eats this bread will live forever.”
Jesus said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. On hearing it, many of His disciples said, “This is a difficult teaching. Who can accept it?” Aware that His disciples were grumbling about this teaching, Jesus asked them, “Does this offend you? Then what will happen if you see the Son of Man ascend to where He was before? The Spirit gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. However, there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray Him.) Then Jesus said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless the Father has granted it to him.”
From that time on many of His disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him. So Jesus asked the Twelve, “Do you want to leave too?” Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that You are the Holy One of God.”
John 6:56-69