Can God Save My Marriage?

This is a tough question many people ask.

• Is God strong enough to save my marriage?
• Is God loving enough to save my marriage?
• Is God willing to save my marriage?
• Does God know about my situation?
• Does God hear my prayers?
• Is there hope?

Good News and Bad News

Bad news first: God gave us freedom to choose whether to be good or bad, faithful or unfaithful, and we can hurt people or bless people just as we can please God or hurt Him.

What this means is that

• God is strong enough to save our marriages
• God is loving enough to save our marriages
• God knows about our situations
• God hears our prayers if we don't regarding iniquity in our hearts
• There is hope

The Bible tells us if we regard iniquity in our hearts, God will not hear our prayers. But, we have to be careful not to let this turn us into mercenaries bargaining with God telling Him we will be faithful to Him if He fixes our marriages our helps us escape the pain we are in. To be faithful to God, we have to be faithful at heart, and we have no right to expect anyone to be faithful to us if we won't be faithful to the One who gave us life and every blessing we ever had.

Sometimes we wonder why bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. But, this gives us all a greater opportunity to express a wider range of love or hate for God based on who He is rather than on what He gives to us. If all we have is roses and spring weather throughout our lives, we won't ever have the opportunity to praise God in the freezing winter or in the scorching sun. If we have no pain, if we cannot go straight into pain or into fear, then we can never master pain or fear and we can never have any courage or love to express to God or anyone else.

God only allows trials and tribulations for the purpose of bringing about a greater good. But, this is nearly impossible for the human mind to comprehend when it involves such extreme tribulations. It often seems if God were there, then the tribulation would not be so severe. But, no matter what range God allows for tribulations, the tribulations at the ends of that range will always be the greatest tribulations of our limited human experience and they will always appear extreme to us no matter where God sets the boundaries. But, we have to trust Him that He is loving and wise and able to set those boundaries in the right place.

When we learn to trust God through the trials and tribulations and loving Him faithfullly through them all, when we trust in His sovereignty and believe He is able to allow freedom of choice and pain and loss and injustice and unreasonable behavior and still cause all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, then we will be more joyful through the pain and more comforted, more calm, secure, assured, stronger, wiser, and more clear minded to handle what comes our way.

At that point, our faith and our love and our faithfulness is real because it is owned by God and is not controlled or tossed around by every wind that comes our way.