Getting Back on Track

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By a Fellow Wife – who began this journey in October 2012 with me.  This is the wife who wrote:

Giving Up on My Dream for My Marriage

I’m Going to Stop Pursuing My Husband (in the Wrong Ways)

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This is something I wrote for myself… as a way to help this farther sink in and cement in my mind.  I thought I would share it.  Maybe other wives have felt discouraged when they got off track like I felt this week.:

I really believed that when I made it to the point of letting go of my husband and the controlling way I interacted with him that I was in the clear.  I thought I had this whole marriage situation figured out and other than practicing at what I was learning so that it became more familiar, that I was at the top. 

I was wrong.  That was pride…. and pride goes before a great fall.

It turns out that that controlling tendency in me had not died.  It had been properly dealt with but it was still there, hidden.  And it came to light that it was still there when I dealt with a situation and found myself acting in an old, familiar pattern.  You know, there is an element of comfort in misery.  It isn’t good but it is what you know.  It is what you are used to.  It is very, very easy to slip back into a pattern of the comfort of misery.

Sin sneaks into our lives so subtly.  I always picture it coming into our lives like a tiny, microscopic crack in a wall.  If we walked by a wall and saw that half of it was in shambles and on the ground, we would surely notice it.  But if it slowly happened, little by little, you would notice it much less and assign much less importance to it.  If the wall got a tiny little crack that ever so slowly gets worse and then maybe progresses to a break and then just maybe turns into a bit of the wall missing, that is a good example of sin creeping in.  At least, in my life.

This is how controlling tendencies crept back in to my marriage.  And I can look back and see that crack growing but was blind to it at the time.

Thankfully, because I had learned to let go of control in my husband’s life, it was easier to get back to that point.  It didn’t take quite the dramatic series of events to escort me back to that place.  But it did take some thought, repentance and determination.

I have come to the conclusion that repentance is the most helpful action in getting back on track.  Being truly sorry for going against God’s plan for marriage- once again-will restore peace to your soul.  

  • Asking God to help you get back to that special place you found is key.
  • Reminding yourself how good and precious it was to rest in God and the release of surrender is another helpful factor.
  • Getting back to basics is important.  For me, this meant reminding myself what my goals and game plan are.  Reminding myself exactly what it means to give up control of my husband.

God brought the passage of scripture in Genesis about Adam and Eve’s sin to my mind.  God tells Eve that her desire will be to rule over her husband (paraphrased).  I cannot discount this.  As daughters of Eve, this tendency is ingrained in us.  It is not going to go away.  I must always be on guard for this and realize this is a threat.  I can become stronger in being a wife that pleases God.  But I need to not become overly confident because I am always going to have this risk.  Realizing this is actually a very GOOD thing because it has taught me to be on guard.

From Peacefulwife – THIS IS SO TRUE!  AMEN! AMEN!

Thankfully, having a taste of the blessings of obeying God’s plan for marriage is very motivating.  Learning what joy and peace there is in this way of life is a magnetic force.  If you have gone off track, then give yourself the gift of grace.  Realize it will happen from time to time.  Shift your focus to getting back on track.  I have often heard it said at my church that it isn’t a shame to fall but it is a shame to not get back up.  Getting back on track is doable.  Then you move forward as if you never fell.

FROM PEACEFULWIFE:
 

We ALWAYS have to check our motives.  All of us. I sure do.  All day long. Every single day.  This is part of taking every thought captive for Christ.  I must evaluate my thoughts against God’s Word and reject any that don’t match up and don’t honor God.
We also must stay in God’s Word.  If I go more than about 24 hours without having serious time in God’s Word and deep prayer – I crash and burn quickly!  His Word is our spiritual food.  We can’t be strong spiritually if we are spiritually starving.  God’s Spirit gives us His power to enable us to obey His Word.  But if I have grieved His Spirit or neglecting my relationship with Him, He withdraws until I repent and return to Him.
I have to ask myself why I want to do things, and listen very carefully to the little fluctuations in my emotions and in my thinking and quickly squash and repent of anything ungodly.  It is much easier to pull out sin when it is a tiny 4 inch high sapling than when it is a 100 ft tall oak tree!
I agree that our old sinful nature will try to rise up at times, and we must be ready with the hammer to nail that nasty thing back to the cross and let it stay dead and buried in the grave where it belongs.  It is in the times when our flesh is weak, that this will be the most tempting.  When we are:

These are the times we will need even more than ever to depend even more on God’s strength and trust fully in Him and not “lean on our own understanding.”  Thankfully, in our weakness, God can also be most greatly glorified in us.

… in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.  II Corinthians 12:7-10