Chrysostom
Beloved of All
We have heard your prayer and we have brought it before the Lord with you in this year of aching and longing. To love someone deeply and to feel circumstances keep you apart is a heavy sorrow, and your willingness to say, if it does not align with your will, help me to surrender, is itself a holy and precious offering to God.
True love is not measured only by the strength of feeling. There is a human love that loves exceedingly for its own sake, and there is a love for God's sake that is mingled with reverence and fear of God. The apostle Paul shows us this pattern. He longed painfully to see those he loved, and he prayed continually for them, yet he did not desire to see them contrary to what seemed good to God. His longing was always mingled with submission to the will of God, and whether he was heard quickly or after delay, or even when he was not heard, he gave thanks and followed where God led. That is the measure of love that remains within the bounds God has set, and does not love contrary to what seems good to Him.
For this reason we must be honest about the power of strong affection. Every passion, when left to rule us, becomes cruel and tyrannical and insatiable. It never ceases to devour the soul, and it can make a person despise even the kingdom and the judgment to come for the sake of its desire. If we do not put such passions to death here, they will exact a heavy penalty. The remedy given to us is not to feed the feeling but to bring it to Christ. His precious Blood, received with full assurance, has power to extinguish every disease of the soul, and together with it the Scriptures carefully heard and a life of mercy and prayer help to mortify what is disordered and to make us truly alive.
We do not know all your circumstances, but we know what God has revealed about union between a man and a woman. He created marriage to be a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and He has set apart sexual union and living together as belonging only within that covenant. Any love that seeks to be pleasing to God must desire to be pure within that design. To love for God's sake means to want for the other person, and for yourself, what God wants, which is holiness and wholeness before happiness as the world defines it.
So we pray with you not simply that your desire would be fulfilled, but that God's perfect will would be done in both of your lives.
We pray that the Lord would search your hearts and make His will clear, that He would give you wisdom and godly counsel in your church, and that He would guard you both in purity and peace while you wait. If this union can be formed in a way that honors Christ and keeps His covenant for marriage, we ask that He would open the right door in His time and give you grace to walk through it faithfully. If it cannot, we ask that He would do what you have asked, that He would grant you the grace to surrender, to be thankful whether you are heard quickly or slowly or even otherwise than you hoped, and to put your lives with full submission under His governing hand as clay under the potter.
May He keep you close to the Scriptures, to prayer, and to acts of love toward others, so that your strength is not consumed by this one longing but is renewed by love for God and for all people, even for those who may not understand your pain. May He heal what is wounded, cleanse what needs cleansing, and make you both to desire Christ above all.
We will continue to remember you before the Lord, asking that you may know His nearness, His guidance, and His power to make you steadfast in His will. Amen.
True love is not measured only by the strength of feeling. There is a human love that loves exceedingly for its own sake, and there is a love for God's sake that is mingled with reverence and fear of God. The apostle Paul shows us this pattern. He longed painfully to see those he loved, and he prayed continually for them, yet he did not desire to see them contrary to what seemed good to God. His longing was always mingled with submission to the will of God, and whether he was heard quickly or after delay, or even when he was not heard, he gave thanks and followed where God led. That is the measure of love that remains within the bounds God has set, and does not love contrary to what seems good to Him.
For this reason we must be honest about the power of strong affection. Every passion, when left to rule us, becomes cruel and tyrannical and insatiable. It never ceases to devour the soul, and it can make a person despise even the kingdom and the judgment to come for the sake of its desire. If we do not put such passions to death here, they will exact a heavy penalty. The remedy given to us is not to feed the feeling but to bring it to Christ. His precious Blood, received with full assurance, has power to extinguish every disease of the soul, and together with it the Scriptures carefully heard and a life of mercy and prayer help to mortify what is disordered and to make us truly alive.
We do not know all your circumstances, but we know what God has revealed about union between a man and a woman. He created marriage to be a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and He has set apart sexual union and living together as belonging only within that covenant. Any love that seeks to be pleasing to God must desire to be pure within that design. To love for God's sake means to want for the other person, and for yourself, what God wants, which is holiness and wholeness before happiness as the world defines it.
So we pray with you not simply that your desire would be fulfilled, but that God's perfect will would be done in both of your lives.
We pray that the Lord would search your hearts and make His will clear, that He would give you wisdom and godly counsel in your church, and that He would guard you both in purity and peace while you wait. If this union can be formed in a way that honors Christ and keeps His covenant for marriage, we ask that He would open the right door in His time and give you grace to walk through it faithfully. If it cannot, we ask that He would do what you have asked, that He would grant you the grace to surrender, to be thankful whether you are heard quickly or slowly or even otherwise than you hoped, and to put your lives with full submission under His governing hand as clay under the potter.
May He keep you close to the Scriptures, to prayer, and to acts of love toward others, so that your strength is not consumed by this one longing but is renewed by love for God and for all people, even for those who may not understand your pain. May He heal what is wounded, cleanse what needs cleansing, and make you both to desire Christ above all.
We will continue to remember you before the Lord, asking that you may know His nearness, His guidance, and His power to make you steadfast in His will. Amen.
