Work and ###

[Chrysostom]

We join with you in bringing these burdens before the Lord and we have prayed for you.

We ask our Father in heaven, in the name of Jesus Christ alone who is our only hope and Savior, to provide for your daily needs. We pray that He will open doors for honest and fruitful work, grant you favor with those who can offer freelance opportunities, and give you wisdom and strength as you labor. May He quiet your anxiety and remind you that He sees your struggle and cares for you.

We also lift up your marriage and your husband before the Lord. Marriage is a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and God calls husband and wife to honor one another and to live with faithfulness and self control. We pray that the Lord will deliver your husband from drinking, give him a desire for sobriety and for wholeness, and bring conviction and healing where there has been stress and hurt. We pray that He will give you grace, gentleness and steadiness as you walk through this trial, and that He will draw both of you closer to Christ.

We encourage you to continue in prayer, to seek the Lord in His Word, to pursue fellowship with faithful believers who can support you, and to seek wise and godly counsel and practical help in your community for the struggle with alcohol. If you are ever unsafe, please reach out for immediate help from trusted family, church leaders or appropriate services.

May the Lord grant you peace, provide for your needs, and work in your home for His good purposes. We will continue to pray that He sustains you and leads your husband toward freedom and restoration.

 

[Silas]

Thank you for sharing your heart so honestly about the struggle to find work and the pain caused by your husband's drinking. These two burdens together can feel very heavy, and it is right to bring them to the Lord.

God saves us by His grace through what Jesus has finished for us on the cross. It is His work, not our own, and He draws us to Himself and gives us faith to believe. That same grace is at work in you now. Often the Lord does a work in us before He does a work through us. He shapes our character, smoothing rough edges, even when that shaping feels painful and we do not understand why He allows it. Scripture encourages us to consider it joy when we face hard trials, because God is forming us and preparing us for the good purpose He has for our lives. He is at work within you because He has work He wants to accomplish through you, and He has not finished with you yet.

Concerning your freelance work, God is the one who gives wisdom and skill for all kinds of work and who stirs the hearts of people to do it. His work is done through willing hearts. Continue to seek opportunities diligently and to do whatever work He provides as service to the Lord Himself, not merely to people. A faithful attitude and careful work without complaining is a strong witness. The Bible also teaches that if a person is able to work, they should work quietly and provide for their own needs, and that God honors that diligence. At the same time, waiting on the Lord is not passive. Often impatience gets in the way, but if you wait and trust Him, He will work things out in His time and in His way. Keep praying for open doors, keep using the gifts He has given you, and trust Him to guide you to the right openings and to provide for you.

Concerning your marriage, God has given a simple pattern that brings closeness when it is followed. The wife is called to respect and to come alongside her husband as she would unto the Lord, and the husband is called to love his wife as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her, and as he cares for his own body. When a husband shows that kind of self giving love, it becomes much more natural for a wife to respond with respect, and when a wife shows respect, it helps a husband grow in love. When either part is missing, the relationship is pulled apart and strain multiplies.

Drinking to excess does not reflect the love of Christ. It is not self giving or protective, and it understandably brings stress into the home. You cannot make your husband stop, but you can entrust him to the Lord and live out your faith before him in a quiet, pure and reverent way. Scripture speaks especially to a believing wife with a husband who is not walking with the Lord, urging her to win him more by her life than by many words, through respect and holiness. That does not mean you must submit to anything that would violate your conscience before God, and it does not mean you are to lord over him or to nag. It means you continue to honor the lifelong covenant of marriage between one man and one woman, you do not leave him if he is willing to remain, you set healthy and loving boundaries, you seek wise and godly counsel and practical help for alcohol use when needed, and you pray steadily for the Lord to change his heart.

The Lord sees your stress and your need. He knows your need for provision and your desire for peace at home. Bring both to Him in prayer, resting not in your own efforts but in the finished work of Jesus for you, and asking for His Spirit to continue His work in you and in your husband.

May the Lord show you His grace afresh, provide for your daily needs, open the right doors for work, give you strength to work heartily as unto Him, and bring conviction and healing to your husband. May He draw you both closer to Jesus, and use even this difficult season to shape you more into His image and to display His love in your home.