False Starts

♕ Today's Promise: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." Ezekiel 36:26

Words of Encouragement

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Dear bro, 

As you continue to pray and God as He wrestles against all the situations that you’re facing and He wrestles with your wife’s heart for you, there are times when your prodigal wife has a moment of clarity. They get to that point when they want out of the pig pen,

Luke 15:

“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my: father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’So he got up and went to his father. 

It is  then that you get a glimpse of who they were or who they used to be and as you warm up to the situation they suddenly default back and the hardness of heart kicks back in. You thought the breakthrough was here but it was not the time. 

What to do in this situation?

It’s very discouraging to deal with, but….

I once heard this story that explains it very well.

Imagine that you had a big boulder and you have been tasked with reducing it to pebbles, but all you’ve been given is a little mallet not a bulldozer, not a sledgehammer, just a little steel mallet to break down this enormous boulder. How are you going to do it? Chip by chip. You’re going to work on it and it’ll flake away. Sooner or later they’ll be no boulder left. At first glance the task looked impossible  and looked like the boulder could not be shaken. But steel is stronger than stone.

Now I want you to imagine that this is what is happening with your prayers. Your prayers are busy chipping away and flaking away at the hardness of heart and later there will be no hardness of heart and your prayers will have broken through. 

Do not forget that your wife has made a lot of false commitments to her family, friends, and others. Even though the situation is bad on her side; she may be finding it hard to go back on those false commitments.

Back to my favourite comparison, Moses and the children of Israel. How many times did Pharaoh change his heart and then do a backflip. Was he successful eventually? No! His  false starts and stubbornness are completely defeated and devolve into one epic fail. 

I’m not saying that you should compare your estranged wife with Pharaoh but merely that Pharaoh had shown a willingness to change his heart, but always changed his mind, This continued until God struck the final blow and Pharaoh then let the children of Israel go.

Exodus 7 11-13; 22-24 (ESV)

So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. Yet Pharaoh’s heart became hard and he would not listen to them, just as the Lord had said.

But the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret arts, and Pharaoh’s heart became hard; he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said. Instead, he turned and went into his palace, and did not take even this to heart. And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile to get drinking water, because they could not drink the water of the river.

Exodus 8: 8-11; 18-19(ESV) 

Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Pray to the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people, and I will let your people go to offer sacrifices to the Lord.” Moses said to Pharaoh, “I leave to you the honor of setting the time for me to pray for you and your officials and your people that you and your houses may be rid of the frogs, except for those that remain in the Nile.”

“Tomorrow,” Pharaoh said.

Since the gnats were on people and animals everywhere, 19 the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” But Pharaoh’s heart was hard and he would not listen, just as the Lord had said.

You can see that Pharaoh wanted to let the children of Israel go. When the “heat” was turned on He was ready to do the right thing . But when  the “heat” was turned off he would default back to stubbornness . Therefore, Do not  become disillusioned with false starts rather allow these moments to bring you back to knowing that the work being done on that hardness of heart is underway, that this a maturing moment in our lives.  The easy response then is to back away, to quit, to see the whole thing as having been an illusion, a false start. Do not stop praying and never give up. 

~ Mathew