Keeping Eternity In View

Many women suffer in their marriages. I just met with a woman who is suffering, I mean really suffering if you looked at her outward circumstances but you would never know it by the joy in her face.

Most women I mentor are suffering. Usually the first few times I meet with them, they are in tears most of the time. They then learn the power of God's Word in becoming a godly, submissive wife and begin to feel hope. This woman I met with has been reading my blog for several years. She quit working to be home with her children and began a journey to become the woman God wanted her to be.

She has been renewing her mind with Truth. She consistently studies the Bible and encouraging books and blogs. She has become a true help meet to her husband and then the roof fell in as self-inflicted disaster struck her husband which may put him in prison. She feels God's presence keenly. She is walking close to Him and clinging to Him.

Some tell her to leave her husband, divorce him. She doesn't want to. She loves him. He loves her. The children love their Daddy. She is going to walk through this valley with him. She sees him growing closer to the Lord. God has a way of using tribulations to draw us closer to Him.

Is it going to be an easy journey? No, no one has an easy journey on this planet. I found this verse and thought of her, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us" {Romans 8:18}. Too many people live for the here and now, but, but we who are called by His name are living for  something so much greater than this, eternity with Jesus.

Her husband needs her now more than ever. She is staying with him through the "for worse" part of the vows she made to him on her wedding day. She sanctifies him as she stays by his side and gives him hope. She has eternity in view. She knows what God requires of her. Yes, there is sacrifice and suffering involved, but nothing compared to the sacrifice and suffering Christ experienced. Is this not what He calls us to, to lay down our lives for our brother? And He will walk alongside of us each step of the way.

Her hope is in Jesus and His promises. He brings beauty out of ashes and all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purposes. She deeply loves God. She is sowing good fruit. She will reap good fruit.

Oh, that the modern day believer would come to understand that this brief window of the pleasures of life is rare in the history of our faith. The world says leave the jerk, make sure your life's needs and comforts are met first, and run from your commitments if he breaks his. But we know that the Christ who lives in us turns the world's thinking upside down so that in giving away our lives we find abundant life and God's true rewards. 

***Remember, you are a new creature IN CHRIST, 
covered by His grace and mercy, and walk in newness of life!