Silas
Beloved of All
Thank you for sharing this so honestly and for giving thanks to God for Jesus Christ and for His word. It is good to hear that you want to pray according to God's will and to set self aside, and that God gave you a quiet, listening spirit on the phone with your husband. That first call ending quickly and then your calling back to check on him opened a door, and the Lord used your willingness to listen.
There is much to thank God for in what your husband shared. Watching the leaves fall and remembering childhood memories led him to speak openly for the first time about his confusion. Growing up going to church on Sunday and Wednesday and then to the nightclub on Friday and Saturday would confuse anyone about what it means to walk with the Lord. Scripture says God is not the author of confusion but of peace, so that divided pattern does not reflect God's way. It is understandable that he would feel torn, and it is a mercy that he is now putting it into words.
Your prayer for him to come to know Jesus Christ and to have a real relationship with Him is exactly right. The Bible teaches that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works. No one is made right with God by keeping the law or by trying to earn it. At the same time, the faith that truly saves is never empty. It shows itself in a changed life. As James writes, faith without works is dead. Paul and James are not in conflict here. Paul shows that we are justified by faith alone, and James shows the kind of faith that justifies, a living faith that produces the fruit of the Spirit and works of righteousness. Works do not create faith, but true faith will bring forth works as evidence of what God has done inside.
Abraham is given as the great example of this. God counted his faith as righteousness, and that faith was then seen in his obedience. The New Testament remembers the triumphs of his faith and passes over its lapses, which reminds us that God uses imperfect people and that faith grows over time as we walk with Him and learn His faithfulness. Even those who are called people of faith can have lapses and struggles, and God is patient to teach and strengthen them. Your husband's confusion does not put him beyond God's reach. Faith is not blind. The person of faith begins to see what cannot be seen with natural eyes, that the things that are seen were made by God and that His promises are true.
For you as his wife, Scripture gives clear comfort and direction. If a husband does not yet believe and he is pleased to dwell with his wife, she is not to leave him, for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife. You are bound to him as long as you both live, and your faithful, loving presence, your prayers, and your quiet listening are a powerful witness. The trying of faith proves what is real, not for God's benefit, for He already knows, but to show and strengthen what He is doing in a life.
So we will join you in prayer that according to His perfect timing, the Lord would dismantle that spirit of confusion in your husband's heart, mind, and thoughts, and reveal Jesus Christ to him clearly. We pray that God would grant him the gift of faith to believe the gospel, to trust Jesus alone for salvation, and that this new faith would then be seen in a new life that desires to follow Him. We also pray that God would continue to give you wisdom, patience, and grace to love well, to keep listening, and to keep praying with self set aside and Christ at the center.
May the Lord who is faithful complete the work He has begun and bring peace where there has been confusion, through faith in Jesus Christ alone.
There is much to thank God for in what your husband shared. Watching the leaves fall and remembering childhood memories led him to speak openly for the first time about his confusion. Growing up going to church on Sunday and Wednesday and then to the nightclub on Friday and Saturday would confuse anyone about what it means to walk with the Lord. Scripture says God is not the author of confusion but of peace, so that divided pattern does not reflect God's way. It is understandable that he would feel torn, and it is a mercy that he is now putting it into words.
Your prayer for him to come to know Jesus Christ and to have a real relationship with Him is exactly right. The Bible teaches that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works. No one is made right with God by keeping the law or by trying to earn it. At the same time, the faith that truly saves is never empty. It shows itself in a changed life. As James writes, faith without works is dead. Paul and James are not in conflict here. Paul shows that we are justified by faith alone, and James shows the kind of faith that justifies, a living faith that produces the fruit of the Spirit and works of righteousness. Works do not create faith, but true faith will bring forth works as evidence of what God has done inside.
Abraham is given as the great example of this. God counted his faith as righteousness, and that faith was then seen in his obedience. The New Testament remembers the triumphs of his faith and passes over its lapses, which reminds us that God uses imperfect people and that faith grows over time as we walk with Him and learn His faithfulness. Even those who are called people of faith can have lapses and struggles, and God is patient to teach and strengthen them. Your husband's confusion does not put him beyond God's reach. Faith is not blind. The person of faith begins to see what cannot be seen with natural eyes, that the things that are seen were made by God and that His promises are true.
For you as his wife, Scripture gives clear comfort and direction. If a husband does not yet believe and he is pleased to dwell with his wife, she is not to leave him, for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife. You are bound to him as long as you both live, and your faithful, loving presence, your prayers, and your quiet listening are a powerful witness. The trying of faith proves what is real, not for God's benefit, for He already knows, but to show and strengthen what He is doing in a life.
So we will join you in prayer that according to His perfect timing, the Lord would dismantle that spirit of confusion in your husband's heart, mind, and thoughts, and reveal Jesus Christ to him clearly. We pray that God would grant him the gift of faith to believe the gospel, to trust Jesus alone for salvation, and that this new faith would then be seen in a new life that desires to follow Him. We also pray that God would continue to give you wisdom, patience, and grace to love well, to keep listening, and to keep praying with self set aside and Christ at the center.
May the Lord who is faithful complete the work He has begun and bring peace where there has been confusion, through faith in Jesus Christ alone.
