MAR 17, 2024
“For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.' Romans 8:24-25
From what have you been set free?
To what have you been set free?
Are those questions confusing? Let me ask in a different way. When a marriage is in the restoration process from sexual betrayal, what is it being restored from? And then, what is it being restored to?
When God sets us free, He sets us free from the place we were and then sets us free to the place He created for us to be. So we are moving away from one and toward another. When we were rescued from our sin, we were set free from sin and death, which are the in the dominion of darkness (Colossians 1:13). Because of how miserable sin and death are, this freedom is awesome!! But we are never left stranded in limbo after that.
The rescue continues.
We are then placed in the freedom of all He wants us to have and experience, and God does this for a reason. He does this so that, in this life, we can reveal who Christ is, and demonstrate His love for us, which is our inheritance. He wants us to take hold of it and build it into our lives permanently, and this is a part of the restoration process.
Hope is the tether to the things God longs for us to have, even and especially after betrayal. Hope is the means by which our loving Father continually fills the spaces that sin and brokeness once occupied in our hearts and minds. Hope becomes the catalyst to see the heap of rubble that once was our marriage, slowly replaced with a palace of glory that we get to be a part of constructing.
For me, when I married the godly man I saw my husband to be, I yearned to experience Christ through his life. I believed a covenant marriage created by God was meant to strengthen me from within and birth the beauty and character of God through our covenant. I still believe that is true. The problem is that porn and sex addiction involve conterfeit covenants. They are counterfeit in every way and full of death as they invade the gaps in the marriage bond, weaken Hope, and slowly erode the betrayed bride's heart for experiencing Christ in marriage.
But a betrayed heart is not abandoned by God. I have experienced that God is especially tender toward His beloved who has endured betrayal. In absolute empathy, He not only bore our sins, but embraced the pain of betrayal, namely the betrayal from the ones He loved the most.
'Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life.' Proverbs 13:12
Hope shows us where we are going before we can see anything. How much Hope is in your daily life right now? Where can you go to find Hope, if it is lacking? What God wants to give us in the aftermath of betrayal is enormous and worth waiting patiently. He wants to nurture our hearts and revive us tenderly. However, He also wants to give us all that we need to overcome and prevail in the life we live from this day forward.
In the coming months, I look forward to sharing with you what God gently started bringing to life in me after being betrayed for over 2 decades. Like I once did, you may struggle to see it now, but God wants to give us many valuable things that are a part of Himself. I pray at this point in your journey, Hope will open your eyes more and more to see what God has planned for you, His beautiful beloved bride!!
Warmly,
Jana
Beginsathome22@gmail.com
#3. Hope: The New Things We Expect
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