Be holy as I am holy. -GOD

Experience with “counseling” my husband

Note: Before some of you fly off the handle and say a wife should never counsel her husband because he is the head of the house. I mean it in the terms of an listening ear, a helper, one who deeply care for him. One who had victory in her live and wanted it for her beloved. But still it was counseling and he will testify to it and so do I. Anyway….

My husband of 32 years, was one of these “Christians” I counseled. I meet him in the full time ministry and fell in love. He loved God and was a good man. He expressed compassion, kindness and love towards others. After we we’re married I discovered, to my horror that he wrestled with lust, anger, and fear, etc. He didn’t express these all at once or certainly not everyday, but when the heat of daily life arose so would one of these. The fear was the most constant one. These problems only appeared in private with no public outbursts or interactions. I was the only one who truly know his struggles. When he fell, he was mostly quick to repent and to the Lord. He would also ask my forgiveness which I always gave. Then we would at length (sometimes all night) what did he thing was the root cause of his failures. We would go round and round until some morsel of light seemed to break through to him. We would both have hope that he would remain an over comer. And we would move on. I would pray “Oh thank you Lord that he sees the error of his way and repents.” We both actual so moved on from each of his “events” that it took years to realize that there was no true lasting victory. It took me 31 years. Wow either I’m really slow or extremely patient.

He would bemoan that he never had a dynamic salvation experience with the Lord like I had. I would reply “oh honey everyone has a different experience don’t lament the one you had.” But he would always preach “I want all of you to get saved like my wife and not me!” I would mainly encourage him when he failed, but sometimes I would be angry and frustrated. I would pray “Lord what is wrong with him, how can he keep sinning and falling. I don’t believe that a Christian should sin, it hurts Your heart too much. You’ve set me free from sin, it has no power over me, why not my husband? Oh Lord help him.” But he continued to wrestle, not daily or weekly, but sin would always rear its ugly head at the most inopportune times-like when we we’re going back into ministry.

We started and were co-pastors over two different small churches during this time. We were also leaders in a full time ministry. These ministry time didn’t occur consecutively, so we were in and out of ministry so to speak. But we always wanted to be in full time ministry, always. So when the Lord would call us back into ministry, my husband would get serious about his sin. Knowing from experience that ministry was tough, he better strengthen himself. He truly desired not to sin but he keep falling in his mind, living a Roms 7:14-25 life.

Even though he believed the word of God said not to sin he had no power within him to over come it. He would say “I need to confess my failures with lust, I know I shouldn’t live in sin, that sin should have no dominion over me, I need to deal with this.” And earnestly he would pray, promise, plead, and quote scriptures loudly and with authority “consider yourself dead to sin and alive to Christ.” I would say to him “now you have it, praise God, this is a new determination I see in you, Glory, finally you will overcome this.”

But sadly sin was never vanquished from him. Oh, things would improve but only for the short term 6 months at most. And they only would improve if he stayed in his hyper-kinetic, aggressive, battle mode to beat sin out of him. He followed all the Christian 10 point programs. Averting his eyes, driving different routes to work, filling his mind with scripture, listening to worship music on his head sets before going to sleep, singing loud praises to the Lord, attending renewal meeting nightly for months, soaking in the presence of the Lord etc etc. (sounds exhausting doesn’t it-well that’s because it is!) He was living a life or resolving not to sin. Actually relying on his own strength to fight it.

He had learned that when he got tired these lustful thoughts would come and that’s when he would fall. So he determined never to get tired again, ( how stupid is that, but the is what the books say). So he tried to go to bed at the same time every night and get up at the same time but life with kids has a way of disrupting the best laid plans. But alas, he would wear out and eventually get tired and fall in sin. Even if victory lasted for six months, his sin was always lurking around every corner and a fall was inevitable.

In the early years of our marriage, I had great hope in God that my husband could overcome these sins and be totally set free, but after 31 years, I had lost hope. We had fights over his lust, and his worry over our finance ( to much debt and not enough income). He also complained about never feeling rested-I would arrange a vacation so he could relax, but with two active boys it was hard for him to rest. I on the other hand could find rest with just a few hours of quite-Christ in me was my rest, my hope, my life. But, my husband could never find this rest-“why Lord“ I would think “I don‘t understand“ “we serve and know the same God, but he struggles and I didn’t.”

It must be a male struggle that I don’t understand. I read all the books I could on this subject of lust and they all confirmed that men DID wrestle with lust far more than women. Yet I knew my God could deliver a soul from this darkness, but how? I surmised that he just needed to know a different aspect of God’s character and then his sin would be conquered.

So I read every new Christian book under the sun for the correct key that would unlock my husbands understanding. ALL the books on who God is to you. He is a Father, Friend, Lord, Master, Helper, and Deliverer etc. etc. I’d encourage him to examine his heart to see if he related to God on these terms. We had many talks on these subjects and he appeared to receive the Lords Light and wisdom. He would express deep honest things concerning these new concepts; victory was on the horizon I would think. But no-only more understanding and knowledge, but no victory.

Then I read all the marriage books and applied them to my life and his life, and we would talk for hours on end to solve our problems. Now we had marriage, finance, and childrearing problems. Life was so busy there was no time to fix any of them. But by the mercy of God we survived these active years. Now the kids we’re gone and we had time to fix us and him and me! By now I had stopped trying to help his spiritual (sin) problems. I had no answers.

All this time the outside Christian world viewed my husband as a model servant of the Lord. And in this “Christian” world he was a model citizen and radiated kindness, love, understanding, and sympathy to others. He was an encourager to all around him. He loved to worship, and sing praises to the Lord. People genuinely loved him, and so did I more now than when I married him. He loved people and always wanted the best for them in the Lord.

He was as frustrated as I was with the sin in the American church as a whole and he hated it. When Christians would preach “we all sin in word, thought and deed everyday” it would make his blood boil. Together we shared this sentiment about the church. But what a contradiction he was, wrestling with his own sin, and hating it, and all the while not being able to stop. His male church friends struggled with lust, but they just didn’t talk about it anymore. They only thought about the positive and down played the negative (sin). He learned this in the Faith Movement. If you ignore the negative and never speak of it, and proclaim loudly the positive, according to scripture, all will be well with your soul. But this had not worked for him.