There are many areas in my life where I need to remind myself daily to trust God’s leading instead of following whatever feels right to me at that moment. The biggest example is probably the decision to wait, pray, and remain committed to my ex-wife.
God has made it clear to me through a variety of ways that He wants me to leave the door open for the possibility of reconciliation. All throughout scripture I see God restoring what is broken rather than creating something new. I hear the command to love my wife as Christ loved the church, and He continued to love the church even as they rejected Him over and over. Ultimately, God has put His unconditional love in my heart for her—which means my love for her is not conditional on her returning any love back to me.
If I am being honest though, there are many days where I am tempted to listen to my friends when they tell me it’s time to move on. Sometimes, if I find myself becoming interested in a girl I know, my mind starts to wander into what-if situations. I begin to justify in my mind why it makes more sense for me to start dating again. After all, what happens if my wife remains single for ten years and then marries someone else? At that point, I’ll probably be old(er) and bald(er) and wouldn’t be able to find a girl to date even if I wanted to.
But God never promised me we would get back together—He only asked me to wait for her. So for all I know, the good in my life He is orchestrating through this time of waiting may be something completely different from the restoration of our marriage.
Perhaps He knew I would never have the time to write a book if I were married. Maybe His purpose is for my divorce to be an example to other men of how much pornography can cost them. I don’t know.
What I do know, is even if God doesn’t bring us back together, He’s doing something good through my waiting. And trusting that allows me to respond to Him with thankfulness rather than worrying about my life.
Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.
(Philippians 4:6–7).
So instead of worrying about whether or not I’m going to be single for the rest of my life, I leave it all in God’s hands, remember the ways He has taken care of me, and trust that He will continue to lead me down the best path for my life.
And that gives me peace.
How is God asking you to trust Him today?
