In the fall of 2009 I began packing my suitcase to head south for the Catalyst conference in Atlanta Georgia. As I packed the excitement washed over me that this year’s Catalyst would be different. This year I could focus on my own personal growth and the future rather than redemption of my past. It was at Catalyst 2005 that our marriage started to fall apart but in 2009 Justin and I returned hand in hand to redeem what was lost.

Its funny how often times we convince ourselves that we already know what God is up to before He actually reveals it. Can you remember a time in your life where you just knew God was going to “do something” only to find that His “something” is much different than yours? There I sat pen in hand eagerly waiting to “grow” and then this happened.

I… Was… A… Mess! Guilt, shame and embarrassment engulfed my heart and soul. The excitement for the personal growth I thought would come to fruition got lost in my desire to hide. I needed to hide from an area of my life I hadn’t thought about in years. I wanted to hide from the pain it would bring if I fully engaged in growth that God was longing to bring about in me.

Not too long after Catalyst my dear friend Lindsey Nobles went on a bloggers trip with Compassion International. As I read her post each day, for me, it was much like Adam and Eve hiding in the garden. I could her God call out to me “why are you hiding?” It was in that moment that God allowed me to realize that its never to late to start anything…forgiving, trusting, reading His word and yes even taking a packet!

I had no idea when I chose to step out and finally follow the prompting God had repeatedly placed in my heart all that He would do. We are so excited to announce that Justin and I and RefineUs are partnering with Compassion as Compassion Speakers. It is an honor to be able to use our voice to speak for children are given hope and a future with the help of Compassion.

Why is RefineUs partnering with Compassion? If we have learned anything as we have sought restoration, it is that healing begins when we stop focusing on ourselves and realize that God uses us even when we are broken. Often it is in those moments that God uses us the most.

We believe that this community can make a huge impact in many children’s lives as we come together and trust God to use us in eternal ways.

In just over a month, I have the opportunity to travel to Guatemala and meet my Compassion child. This trip is a reminder to me that it is never too late to make a difference. It is never too late to be obedient. It is never too late to make a dent in poverty. I’m excited to share this trip with you, as I will be blogging while I’m there.

God redeems even the smallest details of our story. Our partnership with Compassion is a reminder that often God is just waiting for us to say yes, so He can do what only He can do.

Would you pray about sponsoring a child? You can do so today by clicking HERE.

No one gets married expecting failure. No bride stands in a chapel full of family and friends, imagining how much she will despise her spouse in ten years. No groom gazes into the eyes of his bride, daydreaming of one day glaring at her across the courtroom as they divide their assets. We don’t aim for failed marriages, but the reality is that more than half of marriages in the United States end in divorce. Despite our dreams, despite our expectations, despite our intentions, one out of two marriages goes from “I Do” to “I’m Done.”

Maybe you are there right now. You may not be ready to hire an attorney, but you’ve resigned in your heart that this is as good as your marriage will ever be. It is easier to settle for what you have than to dream about what you wish you had. It’s less painful that way. So many couples experience a loss of hope and a longing for something to change, but convinced that change will not come. Your “I Do” is starting to feel more like “I’m done.”

What can you do when those feelings come? How can you change a marriage that seems unchangeable?  Here are some things that have been lifelines for our marriage:

-Pray this Prayer: “God, change my heart to be the husband/wife you desire me to be.” This prayer is a game changer. This prayer will not be one you will want to pray. But it is the only prayer that you have a part in seeing answered. You can pray for God to change your spouse. But you don’t have the capacity to change them. You have the capacity to allow God to change you. As God changes you, by default your marriage will change. This prayer is the first step into hope for any marriage.

-Tell Your Spouse: I can’t tell you how many couples we’ve met with and they have been feeling like their marriage was hurting; their love was wavering; they were questioning their desire to be married for weeks, months sometimes years. Nothing good grows in darkness. You aren’t going to recapture your love for your spouse by keeping your feelings from them. Honesty is the only path to restored intimacy. You will not see anything changed in your marriage by not talking to your spouse.

-Ask this Question: “Am I willing to do the things that caused us to fall in love in the first place?” Remember when you started dating? Remember staying up late at night talking? Remember arguing over who was going to hang up first? Remember looking for a dark street to pull the car over and make out? Remember the cheesy poem you wrote him? Remember when all of that stopped? Maybe you need to start dating again. Maybe you need to write her a love note. Maybe you need to put the kids to bed early, light some candles and fire up some Boyz II Men. Doing what caused you to fall in love will help keep you in love.

Marriage is hard. But it is possible to move from “I’m Done” back to “I Do”. These are three of your first steps in that direction.

Earlier this morning, Dave Ramsey posted this on Twitter:

I unapologetically fire people for extra-marital affairs. It’s a biz decision. If their spouse can’t trust them, how can I?

I love Dave Ramsey. Trisha and I are very, very close to being completely consumer debt free because of her hard work and his principles. He is an employer and has every right to fire people for anything. But as I kept thinking about his statement, what kept coming to my mind is just because you have the right to do something, doesn’t mean it is always the right thing to do.

From a business standpoint, firing a cheating spouse may be the best decision.

I think my opinion is skewed because I’ve been the beneficiary of such extravagant grace from Christ, my wife, my friends, my church…the list goes on and on.  While the consequences of my choices where painful and severe for those I love and for me, personally…It was grace that brought change to my heart.

Consequences do teach powerful lessons. But it is grace that gives us the power to change.

What are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree?

One of the most common questions we are asked is “How?”

• How did you overcome your struggle with pornography?
• How did you heal from sexual abuse?
• How did you forgive?
• How did you repair your marriage?
• How did you renew your relationship with God?
• How did you start over?
• How did you overcome?
• How did you find strength?

The answer to this question came as Trisha and I were speaking at a large church in Indianapolis and she said, “Justin is finally the man I always thought he was.” It didn’t hit me then, but over the past couple of years I have realized how profound that statement was.

What has allowed us to heal? Given me strength to not struggle with porn for six years? Allowed us to not just repair our marriage but recreate it?

I’m not pretending anymore. Trisha isn’t pretending anymore.

God won’t make us into what we are pretending to be.

We aren’t free because we pretend we aren’t in bondage

We aren’t strong because we pretend we have no weaknesses

We aren’t whole because we pretend we aren’t broken

We aren’t pure because we pretend we aren’t struggling with purity

Our marriage isn’t growing because we pretend like it’s healthy

We can’t forgive because we pretend we don’t hold grudges

We don’t live with joy because we pretend like we’re always happy

Transformation doesn’t come because we pretend we don’t need to change. Pretending is exhausting. Acting like you have it all together takes more effort than admitting you don’t.

How did I overcome porn? I didn’t. Christ overcame it after I admitted I couldn’t. How did we start over? By admitting we were at rock bottom. How did we find strength? By admitting we were weak.

Maybe we don’t experience life and life to its fullest not because of God’s ability or desire to give it, but because of our ability to pretend like we already have it.

Do you struggle with pretending things are better than they are?

A few weeks ago, our 12 year old son Elijah signed up to play football. I thought it was awesome and odd all at the same time. Awesome that he wanted to do that…but odd because he doesn’t love football. We started having a conversation about the commitment he was making and why he signed up and he made this comment, “I really want to play football because I know how much you want me to be athletic.” Immediately my heart sank. This quickly moved from a conversation about him playing football to me stinking as a father. I never want my kids to think that who they are isn’t good enough for me.

I spent a couple of days praying about what Elijah said. As I prayed about it, I felt like God spoke this to my heart: “Your job is to be a dream releaser for your sons, not a dream giver. I am the giver of dreams. I want you to release them.” Wow. That hit me like a freight train. It changed my whole perspective.

That night at dinner, Trisha and I explained to Elijah that we don’t care what he does, we just want to help him fulfill God’s dream for his life. Tears started to well up in his eyes and he began to talk about his passion for Africa and missions. He said, “I really want to raise $30,000 for Africa. I want to help kids that want to go on a mission trip that can’t afford to go. What if every single kid that wanted to serve on a mission trip could do so without worrying about money?”

I said, “Let’s go to breakfast on Saturday and you can share with me your plan and we can start working on next steps to make this dream a reality.” So on Saturday, we sat down and Elijah opened his journal. Here is what he showed me:

God gives dreams. As parents, we are to help release those dreams so God can fulfill them.

Maybe your kid’s dream for their life is different than your dream for them. Don’t try to give them a dream…release the dream that God has already placed inside of them.

That is you at your best…and God at His.

I first heard of Randy Frazee when I was a youth pastor back in 2001. I read a book he wrote called The Connecting Church. It totally revolutionized my perception of small groups and what authentic community really looked like. It is an honor for me to share with you Randy’s newest book The Heart of the Story.

What I love about this book is how Randy takes the entire Bible, God’s story, and weaves it together with application to our story. The chapters are short and easy to read and ties all the major themes of Scripture together. It is hard at times to understand God’s ways and see His plan. This book allows us to see the epic Story being written through out history and find our place in it.

I’m excited today to give away 3 copies of The Heart of the Story. It is pretty easy to enter to win. Here is how it’s done:

1. Leave a comment and tell us the last book you read.
2. Tweet this on Twitter: Enter to win a copy of @randyfrazee ‘s book The Heart of the Story from @justindavis33 http://bit.ly/nSz4A1
3. If you hit LIKE on the post, let me know and that will enter you again.

On Saturday, I’ll randomly select 3 winners and send you a free copy of The Heart of the Story. If you’d like, you can buy a copy from Amazon HERE

Last October, our family was gifted a beach house in Florida during our kids’ fall break. We had a blast playing on the beach and swimming in the clear ocean water. About half way through our second day, all of us started feeling numerous stings all over our legs and feet. As the discomfort became more intense, we began to notice literally hundreds of tiny jellyfish in the water and washing up on the shore. The truth is that these jellyfish had been in the water the entire time, we only noticed them when they started stinging us. That is how spiritual warfare works. There is a battle for your marriage all day, everyday. Most of the time we only notice it after we get stung.

As you go to work; as you clean the house; as you drop off your kids; as you make dinner; as you coach your kid’s practice; as you get the car worked on; as you wash dishes; as you mow the yard…you are in a battle. The battle you are in today isn’t with your spouse it is for your spouse. If you choose not to fight, it will fight you.

You will be tempted to make your spouse the enemy today. Remember, there is a spiritual battle for your marriage. Even when you don’t notice; it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Fight hard today. Know that your Heavenly Father is fighting for you and with you.

Is it hard for you to recognize the spiritual aspect of your marriage?

One of the things that I love about my wife is that she is a “whatever it takes” kind of person. She’s always been this way. When we got engaged we knew that our parents couldn’t afford to pay for our entire wedding. Trisha took a semester off of school to move home, work a full time job, a part time job and save for our wedding. She has been that way for the past 16 years…in our marriage; in friendships; in serving at the church; as a mom. She knows no other way of living except “whatever it takes.”

People often ask us how we survived the affair. How did we stay together? How did we make it? How are we making it now? There is no doubt that the number one reason we are together today is because of the grace and mercy of God. No doubt. Beyond that, the single greatest reason we are married is because we decided to do “whatever it takes” to have the marriage God envisioned for us. Even though she didn’t have to, Trisha said in a counseling session one afternoon, “I’m committed to do whatever it takes to have a new marriage.” That statement has paved the way to the marriage we have today.

As I meet with and talk to couples, I see this gap between what they want for their marriage and what they are willing to do to have the marriage they desire. Many people say that they are willing to do whatever it takes…BUT

• They won’t forgive
• They won’t say they are sorry
• They won’t stop drinking
• They won’t change jobs after having an affair with a co-worker
• They won’t be honest
• They won’t admit their porn addiction
• They won’t stop controlling and manipulating
• They won’t separate for the purpose of reconciliation
• They won’t go to counseling
• They won’t ask for help
• They won’t do the things that the counselor suggests to do once they do go to counseling
• They expect to have a different marriage without doing anything differently

If you want a usual marriage, keep doing things as usual. If you want something different, you have to be willing to do whatever it takes to have that marriage. Maybe today the greatest barrier to the marriage you dream of is one little word: BUT.

On Friday, we received an email that brought tears to my eyes. Here is an excerpt of that email:

I love all the encouraging stories of marriage being restored. I’m just wondering what about the ones that don’t. My husband has choose to file divorce and not have anything to do with forgiveness. I just feel like everyone has the great stories about the ones that get restored and God uses. But what about the ones who don’t, will God still use me? Is his Grace still for me? Does he even see me?

What do you do when the ending isn’t happy? For some of you there is no restored marriage. For some of you, your spouse did choose the other person. For some of you our blog is often a reminder of what could have been, and you wonder, “Why them, and not me?” For some of you, God left your life when your marriage ended; or at least it has felt like it.

Can I offer these words of truth to you today?

-Just because your marriage has ended, doesn’t mean your story has ended
Your story is still being written. God is still working. He is still moving. He is still planning. He can and will use, even the most difficult and hurtful times of your life to write His story in you. His plan for you isn’t dependent on your marital status. His grace is for YOU.

-The best thing you can do is pursue healing
This is hard, but so important. So many people want to pursue being used by God before they pursue being healed by God. I get it…I really do. The guilt of my choices and the destruction of my choices weighed on me so much that I wanted to make up for it. I wanted God to use me. But when we pursue God using us before we pursue His healing, we forfeit the heart wholeness He longs to bring. In the long run, we shortcut our own healing process and set ourselves up to repeat history rather than rewrite history. Pursue healing above all else.

-The hardest person to forgive is yourself
It will be the most difficult to forgive yourself. Can I encourage you today to recognize this and begin the forgiving process with yourself. God’s plan for you isn’t to live in shame and guilt. In fact, His word says that there is “no condemnation for those that are in Christ.” He forgives you. Forgive yourself.

-Your identity isn’t dependent on your marital status
God loves you single, divorced, remarried, separated. Your identity in Him isn’t dependent on your marital status. It will take a while, but as you begin to find your identity in Him, you will allow Him to use you, your story and your life.

It is easy to tie a bow around our story and think the happy ending is only for those who have been restored. Restoration is for you. Redemption has less to do with your marriage as it does your heart.

Even when it seems like your ending isn’t happy…remember it isn’t the end. He is still writing your story.

There are so many things that your marriage can survive. You marriage can survive miscommunication. Your marriage can survive busy schedules. Your marriage can overcome conflict with your in-laws. Your marriage can get through sexual brokenness and unforgiveness. But, there are two words that will eventually bring an end to your marriage…if not legally then definitely emotionally.

The two words are…

…IF ONLY…

If only my wife had sex with me more often
If only my husband looked at me like my boss does
If only we had kids
If only we made more money
If only we lived in a bigger house
If only we would have dated longer
If only she took care of herself like the lady at the gym
If only my high school boyfriend and I would have stayed together
If only we hadn’t had kids so young
If only she understood me
If only he listened to me
If only I knew we were soul mates
If only she cooked more or better
If only he could do things around the house

If only causes you to focus on what isn’t rather than on what is. If only allows your mind to fantasize about someone that isn’t your spouse. If only believes the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. If only paralyzes us in the pursuit of our spouse and convinces us that a perfect marriage is competently up to the other person. If only will slowly destroy intimacy and leave you in a place of resentment. If only will trick you into believing that the best days of your marriage are behind you and and not ahead of you.

The best thing you can do for your marriage today is remove “if only” from your mind and heart.

You can’t change the past, but you can prevent the past from destroying your future.

Do you struggle with the thought of “if only”?