Each week we receive calls and e-mails from people in pain across the nation and abroad. No matter what the intimate details involve, every person who contacts us feels as though they’ve been cut to the core by their spouse.
Based on their experiences as well as our own, we’ve come to realize that there’s one thing all their stories have in common. Whether it’s debt, addiction, infidelity, anger, or rebellion, the manifestation of marital breakdown is a secondary issue of something far greater:
-An unmet need for true intimacy and unconditional love that’s been lodged in our DNA since the Fall.
Let’s be honest. At one level or another, every one of us is guilty of trying to fill legitimate needs with counterfeit means. It’s the Enemy’s most underhanded weapon and it’s tearing at the fabric of our very existence.
Our intent in writing this post is not to split theological or psychological hairs over why we do the things we do. There are counselors, professors, pastors, and scholars whose years of study and research can speak to these things far better than we ever could.
Instead, the intent in posting our convictions here is to set the stage for a sobering question whose answer can determine our destiny as a nation.
What if we rise up against the real Enemy instead of each other? What if we—broken and humbled before God—confess our individual part in the breakdown of our marriages and families, receive His forgiveness, and extended forgiveness to one another?
Listen. We’re not saying that sinful behavior should be shrugged off or glossed over. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sin is sin and it must be dealt with. Those of us who’ve inappropriately indulged in self-gratification at any level must deal with the consequences of our actions.
What we are saying is that we believe all the outward manifestations of marital division have, as their source, a wound that runs much deeper. And, historically, it is an ache that has been gravely masked and grossly misunderstood. Until the true source of that ache is unveiled and addressed, the heights of intimacy and restoration in our nation will fall far short of what God intends.
What is this great ache gnawing at our hearts? Proverbs 19:22 says it best: “What a man desires is unfailing love.”
The Bible contains undeniable proof that human beings are capable of doing just about anything to be loved. We were, too. Relationships, material possessions, sex, academic pursuits, career achievements, food—you name it. Between the two of us, we tried many remedies in search of that one thing that would soothe our souls’ ache. And, we’re pleased to report that all of our attempts to find love failed…except for one.
Years of pining after lesser lovers resulted in the discovery that nothing on earth was created to fill the chasm in our hearts.
We were created with a God-sized gap and, try as we might, nothing can ever take His rightful place.
The bottom line? Division has inhabited far too great a territory. Battles between spouses are littering the landscape on every continent, leaving children in their wake. We look upon the devastation and the way it impacts this generation—as well as the threat it poses for the next—and our hearts break.
God’s heart is breaking, too.
So, in light of all this, we must ask: What if?
What if we answer the highest call imagineable…
to forgive instead of fight?
And, what if we allow God to do the very thing for which His heart longs?
To heal us.
We resolutely believe that the once-threatening tide of divorce will dramatically turn when we rise from the ruins…
And forgive.
(Taken from our book, Marriage on the Mend–Tangible Tools to Restore Your Relationship)
Today we concluded our teaching at the Bridge to Life Couples’ Getaway in Jugville, MI. It was time to place our hearts at the foot of the cross and there, make a divine exchange: sorrow for joy, pain for peace, doubt for faith, sin for pardon.
llided!): Love and wrath, God’s two extremes, were divinely reconciled at the cross. God’s love and wrath were poured out and fused together by the Holy Spirit’s ministry of reconciliation at the exact moment of Christ’s sacrifice. This is the true power of the cross and it is the only force that can reconcile the extremes in your lif…those things Satan wants to use to divide and conquer you. Remember, he will stop at nothing to make sure God’s mission is stopped.
When the extremes of God coexisted and were reconciled at the cross—the exact moment when love (one extreme) and wrath (the other extreme) collided and the veil was torn—we were not only given the spiritual power to overcome all darkness, but the plumbline by which we are to live out the rest of our lives for God, straight and true.
40-Day Marriage Mission Trip
Marriage on a Mission 
