The Word “Works”

The Power of Romans 15:5

My husband and I just returned from a marvelous vacation in Mexico.  We have arrived at the stage of life where we’re traveling and experiencing new adventures, seeing new places, meeting wonderful people, witnessing other cultures and just plain enjoying life and each other.

Ahhh, wedded bliss.  But don’t be fooled.  It hasn’t always been like this.

Two people don’t make it through 35 years of marriage without some bumps in the road.  In our case they were more than bumps…they were more like craters, sinkholes…black holes, threatening to swallow up everything in their midst.

It was rocky from the start.Thank God we had children early since they caused us greater pause and consideration when contemplating throwing in the towel. I know some experts advise not to stay together just for the children, but in our case, many times we did.  But it bought time….time for God…to do a work…and He did.

So now, when people ask my advice on marriage, “Stay” is the opinion I give.  “Don’t quit”.  If you can, just “stay” and give God time to work.  Time to change a heart, if a heart is willing, although I know some aren’t.  Time to instruct. Time to correct wrong thinking and wrong living.

However, more than this, the very best advice I have to give is to never underestimate the power of God’s Word to affect change.  Remember,

 …the (whole) world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear. Hebrews 11:3

And remember also…

… the word of God is living and active… Hebrews 4:12

That word “active” is from the root word “work”.  In other words…God’s Word works!  Literally.  You don’t have to know how, in fact Jesus said that when seed produces (according to Mark 4, God’s Word is seed), the farmer who plants the seed “knows not how” it happened (Mark 4:26-27). I heartily attest to the truth of that. I have no idea how God changed our marriage. When I tell you it was a disaster, I am putting it mildly. But years ago while reading the Word I came across a scripture that spoke encouragement to our discouraging situation.  When all seemed hopeless and I had no idea how it could ever change or even if I wanted it to, I began to speak this verse over our marriage.

Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus, so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Romans 15:5-6

 

It seemed impossible, but that appears to be what God does best. Like that farmer, I planted the seed of Romans 15:5-6 in the ground of my heart and persevered by refusing to dig it up, and, like that farmer, I truly “know not how” it finally produced…but it did.

Several years after God had put our hearts back together we were co-teaching an Old Testament Survey class at a local Bible college. At the end of one class I asked the students to write a paper about something they had learned that they were not aware of before. It was an interesting mix of answers, mostly dealing with specifics of people or events in Biblical history.  However, one paper had nothing to do with the Bible…yet everything to do with it.

One of our students wrote that the thing he had learned and never known before was how God could use a married couple, together, powerfully, to serve Him as one.  He wrote that watching my husband and I minister together had given him a vision for he and his wife and their future as a Christian couple….united to bring God glory.

I wept when I read it.

And I laughed.

And then I laid that paper face-down, on the ground, under my feet, where he could see it and said, “Take that, devil.”

To God be the glory!