Marriage Anchors

Traversing The Mine Field of Relationships

God needs me to trust Him with each person in my life, loyal or not. He wants me to show steadfast lovingkindness and forgiveness to even those who bruise my soul and who do not seek my best interest.

Here is where I must state a truth:

Loving and forgiving someone does not mean you have to trust them. Love is unconditional. Trust is earned.

If someone has betrayed or grievously harmed you, you must forgive them. Trust will take time. For some people, trust will never be reestablished. This is sad but true. If someone attacks you, your family, or your home, you can forgive but you may have to have them arrested, jailed, and have a restraining order in place: Tough love. You are never to tolerate physical or sexual abuse.

God needs me to trust that He will remove difficult, shame based, and judgmental people if it is in my best interest. We have a tough time thinking pain and suffering are good for us.

How can emotional bleeding, pain or wounding be a good thing? I do not have any answer to that other than to offer another question: How was Jesus’ suffering and dying on the Cross eternally good for those who believe? God has mysterious ways about Him we cannot understand.

He turns ashes into beauty, water into wine, and death into resurrection. He can turn your suffering into your being able to comfort another who suffers.

Jesus desires to turn our emotional and spiritual wounds into something more. I have this hunch that we need to follow our Master’s example. We are to surrender fully to Him as He guides our lives. Elizabeth Elliot once said that to glorify God we must accept the lot He has given us.

Again, this does not mean we are to be a doormat or a slave to someone’s beatings or other criminal abuse. On the contrary, if, say, a husband hits his wife, the wife should call 911 and have him jailed for a night or two. He will learn the hard way: Tough Love.

We must be willing to suffer for His Name’s sake. If holding up and defending Jesus and His Word, leads to death or imprisonment, so be it!

“If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.” 

                                                                                                                             2Corinthians 1:6

“For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.”  Hebrews 10:36

For further reading from my dad, Jim Grunseth: Hope in the Hidden Places | Marriage Anchors

By Anne Borgen

Hey, check out my website, "envoy" with this link: https://annechristineborge.wixsite.com/envoy

 All Scripture references are from the ESV unless otherwise noted.

Any messages for Jim and Barbara Grunseth, email us at: [email protected]