Do you remember being in school and the first assignment back from summer vacation or Christmas break was to write a paper. The title of the paper had to be the same but the content of everyone’s paper was different. The title was “What I Did on My Summer Break.” Our family never had money, so the content of my paper wasn’t ever that exciting. But as we were driving back from Indiana, I thought of some things that I learned over Thanksgiving break.

Trisha and I are in a season of processing some deep hurts. My parents’ divorce is still on the front burner. Family dynamics as a result of their divorce have changed, and we are adjusting. Finding out that my dad isn’t my dad and I am adopted is still at the top of the list for me, personally as well. I feel like I am in a new season of refining, and while it is hard, I know it is worth it.

Here are some things that I feel like God revealed to me as we drove back from Thanksgiving. Maybe these are things He wants to share with you as well:

1. Time is more valuable than money.

It is easy for me to think that money holds the greatest value. I was reminded though a number of situations that time is so much more valuable than money. My wife wants my time more than money. My kids want my time more than money. I can’t build intimacy with money. I can’t create depth with money. I can create the illusion of a relationship and the feeling of appreciation but not true intimacy.

2. Forgiveness is a choice I have to make over and over and over again

My wife is the most grace filled person I know. The fact that she has so selflessly forgiven me, you think I could have learned this from her. In a way, I guess I did, but in a way I had to experience it and realize it for myself. I have to choose forgive the same person sometimes over and over. As the layers of hurt are revealed in my heart, I have a choice to make more than once. Will I forgive the hurt today? Maybe you are there today? Maybe the most important decision you can make today is to forgive.

3. I can’t force someone else to pursue health and wholeness.

I know that I can’t change someone’s heart. Only God can do that. As I interact with those I love, I can see the brokenness they carry. I can sense the pain that lives in their heart. I am no better. I am just as broken. I guess the only difference between us is I recognize how jacked up I am and want to pursue the health only Christ can provide. As much as I want to, I can’t force anyone else to pursue wholeness, they have to pursue it on their own. Maybe for you today, you need to find freedom in your inability to force someone to pursue health.

4. I can pretend that everything is okay in a relationship, but I’ll never have the relationship I desire.

I am amazed at our ability to pretend everything is okay. I can pretend that a relationship has no problems. I can pretend that a wound doesn’t exist. I can pretend that feelings haven’t been hurt. I can fake even myself out at times, but I will never have the intimate relationship I desire by pretending. By sweeping things under the rug or pretending the past will take care of itself, I will always settle for a counterfeit form of intimacy with that person. Honesty paves the way to intimacy.

This post wasn’t intended to be a therapy session to help me deal with Thanksgiving. 

I felt led to share these with you as this is where God has me today. What about you?

Out of the four listed, which do you think you need to process the most?

Trisha and I get asked the same question a lot. “What can I do to save/improve/restore my marriage?”

Because every situation is different; personalities are different; problems are different; mistakes are different; there isn’t one answer. But more often than not, our encouragement to every couple is to talk about their problems with someone. Sometimes we suggest meeting with a counselor. Sometimes we ask people to share what they are experiencing with their small group. There are times we suggest they share with a family member.

Most of the time, not always, those suggestions are met with an unwillingness to take that risk.

I don’t know your story. I don’t know if there is a hidden sin in your life. I don’t know if your marriage is on the verge of implosion. I have no idea if you have an addiction that you have tried to overcome. But I know this to be true for me and I think it is true for you.

When our pride or our reputation or how people perceive us is more important than our healing, we will not heal. I said no to healing in favor of reputation for years. In the end, I lost both.

When you care most about healing; about becoming whole; about overcoming what has you in bondage…you won’t care who knows. You will stop worrying about what others think.

Maybe what’s keeping your marriage down isn’t your spouse…it’s your pride. Maybe what’s keeping you addicted is your unwillingness to come out of hiding.

Maybe today is the day that healing becomes more important to you than your pride…than your rep?

You are not your past

You are not your failures

You are not your parents

You are not your sister

You are not your regrets

You are not your sin

You are not your weight

You are not your divorce

You are not your unemployment

You are not the choices someone else made for you

You are not your brokenness

You are not your bitterness

You are not your abuse

You are not your loneliness

You are not your marital status

You are not your tax bracket

You are not your crisis

This is who YOU are:

You are loved

You are forgiven

You are redeemed

You are destined

You are set apart

You are a new creation

You are valued

You are gifted

You are chosen

You are prized

You are reconciled

You are called

You are noticed

You are pursued

You are a child of The King

You are a co-heir with Christ

You are a royal priesthood

You are adored, cherished and treasured by the God of this universe.

When you choose to stop living out who you are not and you start to live in who you are…

It changes everything.

Sin has a way of messing with your mind. It wears you down. I think that sin’s greatest strength is not that it causes you to take giant leaps away from God…its that it lures you into tiny, unnoticeable, justifiable steps. It doesn’t always come against you with blatant lies; it just distorts and twists the truth. It hides, it compromises, it shades, and it bends.

What we begin to believe is that choosing our own way will work out. It will be okay. We can get over it. People will heal. It’s not that big of a deal. What we begin to convince ourselves of is 2 months from now…life will be better.

Maybe you’re contemplating sin right now. It talks to you. It taunts you.

It’s not an affair…it’s just text messages. A little Internet porn never hurt anyone. You deserve to have someone listen to you, and if your husband won’t you’re your old boyfriend on Facebook is the next best thing.  Your wife doesn’t admire or respect you anymore, but your secretary does. Leaving your wife won’t damage your kids that much. Telling one lie doesn’t make you a liar. It’s not cheating; you’re just being flirtatious.

I.Have.Been.There.

When I told my wife that I didn’t want to be married anymore; that I would be happier without her; that she would be happier without me; I was leaving her; it was because I had convinced myself that my way will be better. 2 months from now, it will all blow over and life will be back to normal.

Can I share with you from personal experience…if you are contemplating or involved sin…here is what I learned the hard way:

• 2 months from now the grass will not be greener
• 2 months from now the lie will not be truth
• 2 months from now your kids will not be over it
• 2 months from now your pornography addiction will not be more manageable
• 2 months from now text messages will be more sensual not less
• 2 months from now seeing your kids every other weekend will still suck
• 2 months from now you won’t be happier without your wife
• 2 months from now what you’re hiding will not be easier to bury
• 2 months from now your ability to carry your regret will dwindle
• 2 months from now you’ll be further away from God than you ever thought possible

We are a product of our decisions. What you decide today…the compromise you choose today…the justification you settle for today…will greatly affect who you are and who you become 2 months from now.

Has sin ever blinded you to the consequences of  your choices?

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I can remember sitting in a counseling session talking to our marriage counselor. Trisha and I were still separated at this point. One of the things were discussing was integrity. When you’ve had an affair, there’s no doubt that you lack integrity…but this discussion was about something bigger.

This conversation was about the origin of integrity lost; it was about how my heart initially got disconnected from Truth. At one point, our counselor said, “You seem to lie, even when the truth would do.” That statement hit me right between the eyes.

The lies I told weren’t always big lies. Sometimes I left out a detail; sometimes I added details; sometimes I embellished; sometimes I exaggerated; sometimes I withheld truth. My motivation for lying when the truth would do was to look better than I really was. I wanted to appear smarter; more gifted; more capable; more spiritual; more impressive, more lovable.

One of the things that our counselor helped me realize is that my desire to stretch the truth; to withhold truth; to embellish a story; to exaggerate details is directly connected to my intimacy level with God.

This temptation is almost like a gas gauge to my spiritual life. When I’m tempted to compromise truth, that is a red flag to me of a heart condition that I need to recognize…a distance exists between God’s heart and mine. If left unchecked being tempted to distort truth will turn into a loss of integrity.

My guess is you have the same gauge in your heart. It might not be the same as mine, but there is a signature temptation in your life that indicates danger. It isn’t something that starts out big; it’s not something that starts out destructive; it’s not something that would appear to do damage to your relationship with God or others. But you know that when that temptation hits your mind, it is a huge sign that you’ve drifted away from the heart of God. It is in that moment that so much hangs in the balance; and you have the potential to choose life or death.

So often we lose sight of the opportunities we have to avoid sin. Because of insecurity, or pride or our shallow character we don’t admit the temptations we experience. As a result they grow into destructive behavior patterns.

My prayer for the last five years has been “Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.” Through that prayer, God has revealed in me the “why’s” of my sin, and not just the “what’s”.

Without understanding the motivation we have to allow compromise in our life, it is almost impossible to overcome that desire to compromise.

Is there a signature temptation that you have that indicates distance between you and God?

About a month after Trisha and I separated, we went to our counselor’s office for a very pivotal appointment. The first phase of forgiveness had taken place; trust had begun to be repaired; Trisha had allowed herself to be vulnerable again. The mission of this appointment was to confess anything that I had not confessed about the affair over the course of the previous thirty days. We walked in, and our counselor asked if I had anything to say. Unfortunately, I did have something to say. I had details that I had withheld for the previous month that I confessed right then.

Read the rest of this post on our friend Lindsey Nobles’ Blog. We have the honor of guest posting there today.