Silas
Beloved of All
You are carrying a heavy weight, and the depth of your heart is clear in every word you have brought before the Lord. The ache of a fractured home, the longing for your son to be raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and the burden for a soul that seems so far from repentance, none of this escapes the notice of your Father, who collects every tear.
The counsel of peace you have already begun to embrace is sound. You are not bound to that unequal yoke any longer. Light and darkness cannot share one room, and there is no true fellowship where the foundation is not Christ. When an unbeliever chooses to depart, the call to peace is a release, not a failure. You are free, and that freedom allows you to entrust her entirely into the hands of the only One who can open blind eyes. Your part now is not to cling to what God has severed, but to walk in the liberty He has given, while still pleading for her soul, just as Job prayed for his friends even after all the wrong they had done.
The desire to see a fair and reasonable arrangement regarding the video calls and the finances is right before God. It is not uncharitable to seek order and to refuse to fund a lavishness that troubles your conscience. A child benefits from the steady, predictable love of his father, and reasonable boundaries that allow you to be fully present and awake at a humane hour are a blessing to him. You are not being harsh; you are being responsible. Ask boldly for what is needful, and then leave the outcome with the One for whom nothing is impossible.
Your deepest plea is for repentance, not a shallow, worldly sadness over consequences, but a godly sorrow that leads to a true and lasting change of mind. That is the only kind that saves. The self-righteous must be shown the axe laid to the root of their tree. All the outward religion in the world cannot substitute for a broken and contrite heart. Pray on. Fast on. Do not grow bitter. The Lord is not willing that any should perish, and you may never know whether the very delays you now endure are part of His patient design to grant her space for that change.
And then there is your son. What a blessed thing that he can sense your love and see your face. Do not underestimate the weight of that. The faith of a little child is precious to the Lord. Train him when you have him, not by rote only, but by letting your own heart speak with God so he learns that prayer is real. The culture around him may be corrupt, just as it was for the boy Samuel ministering before the Lord in the midst of Eli’s wicked sons. And yet Samuel grew, and God was with him. So it can be for your boy, even in a divided home. The Lord is able to guard the tender shoot of faith against every storm that would destroy it. Keep speaking into his life the wisdom of the Scriptures, which are able to make him wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
Bear the crosses that remain, the silences, the suggestive profiles, all that is so deeply wrong, not as a victim who must retaliate, but as a man who has already let go and walks in peace. You do not need to answer vindictiveness with more of the same. Speak tenderly when you must speak. Let your prayer closet become the place where you pour out the things you cannot fix, and let the Holy Spirit’s still, small voice draw you back again and again from the impulse to run or rage.
The Lord may indeed allow things to crash around her, just as He shakes what can be shaken so that what cannot be shaken may remain. A typhoon may frighten for a moment, but only the Spirit’s gentle breath can lead her out of the cave and into real obedience. Keep asking. Keep trusting that the end of the Lord’s dealings is good, and that He gives a future and a hope. For your son, for her, and for you, the final chapter is not yet written. Yet it is written in heaven, and you may safely leave it there.
The counsel of peace you have already begun to embrace is sound. You are not bound to that unequal yoke any longer. Light and darkness cannot share one room, and there is no true fellowship where the foundation is not Christ. When an unbeliever chooses to depart, the call to peace is a release, not a failure. You are free, and that freedom allows you to entrust her entirely into the hands of the only One who can open blind eyes. Your part now is not to cling to what God has severed, but to walk in the liberty He has given, while still pleading for her soul, just as Job prayed for his friends even after all the wrong they had done.
The desire to see a fair and reasonable arrangement regarding the video calls and the finances is right before God. It is not uncharitable to seek order and to refuse to fund a lavishness that troubles your conscience. A child benefits from the steady, predictable love of his father, and reasonable boundaries that allow you to be fully present and awake at a humane hour are a blessing to him. You are not being harsh; you are being responsible. Ask boldly for what is needful, and then leave the outcome with the One for whom nothing is impossible.
Your deepest plea is for repentance, not a shallow, worldly sadness over consequences, but a godly sorrow that leads to a true and lasting change of mind. That is the only kind that saves. The self-righteous must be shown the axe laid to the root of their tree. All the outward religion in the world cannot substitute for a broken and contrite heart. Pray on. Fast on. Do not grow bitter. The Lord is not willing that any should perish, and you may never know whether the very delays you now endure are part of His patient design to grant her space for that change.
And then there is your son. What a blessed thing that he can sense your love and see your face. Do not underestimate the weight of that. The faith of a little child is precious to the Lord. Train him when you have him, not by rote only, but by letting your own heart speak with God so he learns that prayer is real. The culture around him may be corrupt, just as it was for the boy Samuel ministering before the Lord in the midst of Eli’s wicked sons. And yet Samuel grew, and God was with him. So it can be for your boy, even in a divided home. The Lord is able to guard the tender shoot of faith against every storm that would destroy it. Keep speaking into his life the wisdom of the Scriptures, which are able to make him wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
Bear the crosses that remain, the silences, the suggestive profiles, all that is so deeply wrong, not as a victim who must retaliate, but as a man who has already let go and walks in peace. You do not need to answer vindictiveness with more of the same. Speak tenderly when you must speak. Let your prayer closet become the place where you pour out the things you cannot fix, and let the Holy Spirit’s still, small voice draw you back again and again from the impulse to run or rage.
The Lord may indeed allow things to crash around her, just as He shakes what can be shaken so that what cannot be shaken may remain. A typhoon may frighten for a moment, but only the Spirit’s gentle breath can lead her out of the cave and into real obedience. Keep asking. Keep trusting that the end of the Lord’s dealings is good, and that He gives a future and a hope. For your son, for her, and for you, the final chapter is not yet written. Yet it is written in heaven, and you may safely leave it there.
