This is a quiet conversation that came as a story from Holy Spirit one day while in prayer and He told me to write. So I did.
So I Can Finish Strong
I have a story……it starts this way……
I got a late night phone call from a man that I worked with asking me if I had time to give him a ride to Alabama to meet a family member.
I said, “Sure I have some time tomorrow but I needed to get back by 630pm because my wife and I have to be at our small group at 7pm.”
The next day came and I picked my co-worker up from a motel where he was staying because he was just kicked out of his family home where he lived with his wife and daughter and we headed down I-20. He asked me as we crossed the state, what was the group I was going to. I said Married for Life. He asked how long I had been married. I said 25 years.
My co-worker said, “So why do you need to go to a marriage group since you have been married so long.”
I said, “I am not only going but I teach it because I have a story. Everyone has a story.”
He said, “Yes I know that to be true. I have a story too but not a good one.”
I said, ‘That’s what I used to think too about my life story.”
The co-worker said, “Can you tell me your story?”
I said, “I was hoping you would ask.”
I started this way.
“I met the woman of my dreams. A true gift from God. She was everything I wanted in a friend, a woman, a wife. A real gem. I loved her so much I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe she was mine. I couldn’t believe God had given me someone this special and beautiful. I was in love forever. We had some good years. Even had a son and later a daughter. Then it went bad. I let go of God. I got distracted with work, life, myself and just got plain lazy about my life, my marriage and my kids.”
I looked at my passenger and said…”I got selfish. I had an affair. Then another and then another. I lied, I deceived, I cheated, I did all kinds of things a man shouldn’t do and then finally got caught in so much sin and selfishness I got another woman pregnant and had a child. I hit bottom. The pain got so bad in my soul. I left, walked out on my family. Left my beautiful godly wife to hold the bag of our lives. To raise the kids, to be in fear, to be angry and depressed. To go thru life alone. I threw her away for my own pain and sin. I threw away every dream I ever had with her and for her and myself. I loved sin more than her or my children.”
“I disobeyed God when he told me not to hurt her because she was the apple of His eye. I didn’t comfort her or love her or need her. I didn’t talk to her for months on end. I didn’t want to see her anger or pain that I caused. I became irresponsible to her and my kids.”
We kept driving passing one exit at a time.
“I knew God was done with me. I knew I had went too far. It didn’t matter what I knew about God, I believed the lie that God was done with me. When in fact He wasn’t. I was done. I felt so horrible about my life and choices I just tried to stay away from God. I realized later on that all that sin was pain..I was hurting. I was so broken from my childhood and not having a father I acted out. I repeated the same thing I was raised in because I made a judgment against my life.”
“I was a messed up man and didn’t even know it. I ran from help every way I could the pain was so bad. I tried to fix my life from time to time but it never stuck or worked. Why? Because I was doing it in my own strength. I thought I could fix my life. I kept on playing life, playing a role in a new place with a new family. I missed my family and wanted to go back but I knew I was a disgrace. At least that is what the demons told me daily. “
“That great gift, the wife I told you about….she never left. She prayed day and night for me. She loved me. She never gave up. She was angry. Oh was she angry at times. I still have the wounds from her anger in my chest. But she was amazingly strong and she stood where no other woman would have. She believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. She loved me when I didn’t love myself.”
“I later found out she even fasted for 40 whole days for me and my children to be set free from the sin of the generations. But I kept on in my rebellion against God. I didn’t call them, I didn’t see my family or check on them. Nothing. I just paid for them, if you know what I mean.”
“I just couldn’t leave them penniless, but I couldn’t go back. Not yet. I kept on in my sin and the more I tried to run from God and His call on my life the more miserable I became.”
“I tried to drown in it so many things but nothing really worked. Then one day…I heard the voice of God talking to me. Telling me about how he created me and plans He had for me. Telling me why He gave me my wife and what I was to be to her. I heard him talking about my future, never my past. Never. God told me how marriage is generational and affects all the children. He told me how I couldn’t do marriage without Him and that He has been with me the whole time, all my life. I could live better if I really surrendered my life to him and forgave.”
“He said He gave me a wife to help me where I struggled. He said that I had to stop trading my destiny for a temporary life and short term destination that will lead to eternal destruction of my soul. This went on for days…then one day while sitting in my car I heard…
“Read Zachariah 2nd chapter in the NIV and Message bible”.
I didn’t. Not at first. Then days later I found a bible my wife had given me and I read it. I knew. I knew it was God and I knew that was my last warning and I had to choose. Come back to God and go home or die. See I knew the sin I was in would lead to death. Maybe not that day but it would one day. I knew that.
I prayed quietly and asked God to take control of everything and help me in every place I made a mistake and sinned against Him. I instantly felt clean and didn’t feel alone. I didn’t feel the weight of my guilt and shame. I thought about my wife and my children and drove to where my things were with the other woman I was living in sin with. I only took the items that were mine and I told the other woman I can’t do this anymore my heart belongs to God. I have sinned against you and God and I won’t die in my sin and shame. I won’t die alone. I am sorry I caused you to enter into sin with me. I have to be with my wife God gave me. I left. I went home that day. A broken man but a changed man.
I go to Married for Life, I live my life intentionally for the Lord Jesus so I CAN FINISH STRONG!!!!!
I go so I can be the husband to my wife that she deserves and father to my kids that they deserve for the REST OF MY LIFE until God says its time for me to come home.
My friend, the coworker was crying when I looked over and was done with my story.
He said…..”Take me home. Please take me back home. I can’t keep running away. I want to change. I want to know Jesus. Take me home to my wife and children.”
I turned around at the next exit and drove him 50 miles back where we started and walked him to the door of his home a broken but changed man as I was that day years earlier.
This story was true and is now 20 years old. I have been married to the same women for 40 years now. That young man I gave the ride to that day gave his life to Jesus and his marriage restored. He saved his generation. His children, one became a pastor in the town, one became a missionary to an orphanage and one became a godly mom and wife.
Let God have your heart. Let him make you strong.
Delivered and Set free Pastor, December 2012
