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Stepping away from my church...


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#1 CHRISTOPHER310

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Posted 26 January 2014 - 10:11 PM

I am hoping that I am making the right move on what I have chosen to do today. Time will tell.

Today, I have decided to step done from my volunteering duties I do every Sunday at my church. I have decided to no longer go to a divorce recovery group I normally go to on Monday evenings at my church. And I have decided to step away from my church until who knows when.

Love my church and the people there. No question about it. It’s a great true community church that has helped save me from who I once was. The closest thing to I ever had to a real home and family. They have my heart, no doubt.

However, I am so very overwhelmed with so many struggles and demands from me by so many that I feel like I can not breath anymore. I feel like I have lost my place in my church and no longer serve any useful place there. The divorce recover group seem to be great, but causing me more pain than healing. So, I decided I need a break from everything and today was my last day at my church. It only hurts more to do what I think I need to do because there is a slightly older lady at my church who has become more than just friends with me. We keep it strictly friendly and only open at church in very respectful levels. We do not contact each other outside of church or engage in any improper behaviors. I just happen to like her and she likes me. I may not see her for a while it looks like.

There is another local community church very similar to my current one closer to where I live. It’s literally half as far away and just slightly different enough to make a differences. I will be setting an appointment with a pastor at that church this week to discover their church. It may just be time for me to move on and this may be just what is going on. I don’t know.

I know I am unhappy and unfulfilled. I feel lost and confused and stuck. I can not accept this so I have to do something. I am too proactive in living to stay stuck feeling as I do. I really wish my marriage would of worked out and could be saved, but it’s too late. I failed as a husband and my soon to be ex-wife is not a believer. She actually has a huge issue that I am. It won’t work out. Alone and unhappy in life and just getting alot worst. I have do fix this.
:(



#2 Kenny

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Posted 27 January 2014 - 06:17 AM

 I really wish my marriage would of worked out and could be saved, but it’s too late. I failed as a husband and my soon to be ex-wife is not a believer. She actually has a huge issue that I am. It won’t work out. Alone and unhappy in life and just getting alot worst. I have do fix this. :(

 

 

Hello Christopher

 

You probably are already aware of this but I will post it anyways just in case you have never seen it before.

This comes from 1 Corinthians 

 

7:12 But to the rest say I, not the Lord: If any brother hath an unbelieving wife, and she is content to dwell with him, let him not leave her. 7:13 And the woman that hath an unbelieving husband, and he is content to dwell with her, let her not leave her husband. 7:14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy. 7:15 Yet if the unbelieving departeth, let him depart: the brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us in peace.

 

Blessings

Kenny


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#3 CHRISTOPHER310

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Posted 27 January 2014 - 08:13 AM

Kenny, Thanks for your reply. I have read this many times, but am confused about it. I was always under the impression that we are not to be willfully married to a non-believer. My so to be ex-wife is not only a non-believer, she has a issue with believers. So this all is very confussing to me.

 

Plus, there is a long history with her and abuse she has taken upon me. Her anger and hate towards me in never changing and I can't be with someone who feels that way with me. What future or happiness could there ever be. There is no team work between us. Just a preditor versus prey connection.


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#4 Kenny

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Posted 27 January 2014 - 09:47 AM

Christopher

 

It often times happens that two unbelievers get married, and then at some point after they have been married that either the wife or the husband comes to faith in Christ and their partner rejects and desires to have no part of their spouses new found faith.

When my wife and I first got married neither one of us were believers. Then after we had been married for a few years I came to faith in Christ Jesus. My wife initially rejected any part in my faith for the next two years before she herself came to faith also.

Yet there are cases of other married couples where either the wife or the husband come to faith but not the other and in time the unbeliever in the marriage relationship decides to abandon the marriage. The believer should never be the one who seeks to be separated from an unbelieving spouse.


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#5 chipped china

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Posted 27 January 2014 - 06:01 PM

Sometimes the believer must be the one who leaves. It's not that we want to, it's just the abuse is too great to take. Yes, we failed for not living right in the first place but I believe God forgives us and can even bless us if we turn to Him and make Him the center of our lives. I do believe in the whole council of God and take it's words very seriously but our brother Christopher is hurting and we must let the love of God show through us to encourage him. I really believe though this refining experience you are going through, you will learn how much God loves you and His love will be enough. His love is sustaining, He never lets you down, He's always there, and He understands what you need. You will get through this! This time shall pass because this is not where our Lord wants you to stay. I know He will teach you your worth in Him so you will start bearing the fruits He has given you, not the ones the church puts on you, or you put on you. Hang in there brother, remember you must learn the lessons and He will set you free!!! In Christ's love, betsy


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#6 CHRISTOPHER310

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Posted 27 January 2014 - 07:23 PM

Thank you both for your insights. This does help me alot for where I am at in my life. I really rather not seek or be apart of divorce, but I am one part of the whole and thus, don't have complete power over my marrital relationship. I don't blame my wife for wanting to end our marriage. I don't agree with her, but I am one for facing my own reflections. I did fail as a husband on many levels. No, I didn't cheat on her or abuse her or drugs or so on. I gave up on her after so many years of her doing those things to me. I gave up on trying to love her and be a husband to her. I just stayed her husband but stop being one to her. That is on me enough to where I don't blame her. Not much I can do now. There are other areas in my life and faith I must seek resolution for that I can do something about. My wife I love and wish her the best, but she is not someone I blame or control.... :mellow:



#7 Ginger

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Posted 27 January 2014 - 08:42 PM

Christopher,

Praying for God to manifest Himself and His peace in this 'storm' don't know that the word 'storm' conveys the devastating affects.... Our Father God lets us go through many things and never abandons us....can't speak of others and my 'stuff' ... well what God is giving me is to pray for you and ask for you to be strong in Him and the power of HIs might... keep thinking of how Joseph went through such a process and how our lives are so varied from the 'stories' but we can get hold of what God wants us to have by the Holy Spirit .... Just thought of the different kinds of prisons people can be in and perhaps there is a personal nuance in Joseph's story and how God is over all and above all providences.... What the devil means for harm &/or many of the harmful choices we make ... like David and Bathsheba had mercy and grace and consequences... God works all things together for good to those that love the Lord and are called according to HIs prpose.... We are to be and will be conformed into His image.... and that is a lot to study on... and glean from....David had a lot going on and the Psalms he wrote can be over our heads for daily application in so many ways... So I'll go look at Psalm 91 and see if there is a verse that sort of leaps out to pray specifically for you and perhaps do some reference work and commentary reading to Scripturepray and to Prayscripture... I'm not able to do anything to fix anything but God can and He will in His way and in His time.... all for His glory and for your best.  God's love always does what is best and sometimes the hardest thing to do is to do nothing and to wait and pray and when God gives direction the clouds do part and the Son does shine.  One of the recovery support groups have the 3 C's about some situations.  We didn't cause it (some things)... We can't cure it (things) and we can't control it (things)... So many things happen .... Cause, Cure, Control ... to God I pray all are surrendered and His will be done... I don't know much about anything.... God KNOWS All about All....just put the words that popped into me old head... now to the 91st Psalm and what the Holy Spirit ministers.... God grant you all that you need to know and do and the strength to do that and no more or less that is His will and may His protection be like the protection that a young man saw when the prophet ask the Lord to let him see there were more on their side.... 1 and God is a majority... Peace.... Love and prayers,  Ginger


Edited by Ginger, 27 January 2014 - 10:01 PM.


#8 Gordy

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Posted 28 January 2014 - 01:46 PM

I pray that the Lord will show you what HE wants you to do.



#9 elizabethcog

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Posted 28 January 2014 - 06:03 PM

I join in with prayers for you friend and for God to show you where you will be,I've learned the wait answer is sure a challenging one but I have to prefer it over moving ahead ,of God that is....


Jesus and Jesus alone saves=D

#10 Ginger

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Posted 28 January 2014 - 09:14 PM

....... blessed with Psalm 91 and The Treasure of David by (Beloved) Charles Haden Spurgeon ....prayerfully posting a portion....
(Psalms)
Psa 91:9-10
9 Because thou hast made the Lord which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;
10 There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.
Psa_91:9, Psa_91:10
Before expounding these verses I cannot refrain from recording a personal incident illustrating their power to soothe the heart, when they are applied by the Holy Spirit. In the year 1854, when I had scarcely been in London twelve months, the neighbourhood in which I laboured was visited by Asiatic cholera, and my congregation suffered from its inroads. Family after family summoned me to the bedside of the smitten, and almost every day I was called to visit the grave. I gave myself up with youthful ardour to the visitation of the sick, and was sent for from all corners of the district by persons of all ranks and religions. I became weary in body and sick at heart. My friends seemed falling one by one, and I felt or fancied that I was sickening like those around me. A little more work and weeping would have laid me low among the rest; I felt that my burden was heavier than I could bear, and I was ready to sink under it. As God would have it, I was returning mournfully home from a funeral, when my curiosity led me to read a paper which was wafered up in a shoemaker's window in the Dover Road. It did not look like a trade announcement, nor was it, for it bore in a good bold handwriting these words: - “Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.” The effect upon my heart was immediate. Faith appropriated the passage as her own. I felt secure, refreshed, girt with immortality. I went on with my visitation of the dying in a calm and peaceful spirit; I felt no fear of evil, and I suffered no harm. The providence which moved the tradesman to place those verses in his window I gratefully acknowledge, and in the remembrance of its marvellous power I adore the Lord my God.
The Psalmist in these verses assures the man who dwells in God that he shall be secure. Though faith claims no merit of its own, yet the Lord rewards it wherever he sees it. He who makes God his refuge shall find him a refuge; he who dwells in God shall find his dwelling protected. We must make the Lord our habitation by choosing him for our trust and rest, and then we shall receive immunity from harm; no evil shall touch us personally, and no stroke of judgment shall assail or household. The dwelling here intended by the original was only a tent, yet the frail covering would prove to be a sufficient shelter from harm of all sorts. It matters little whether our abode be a gipsy's hut or a monarch's palace if the soul has made the Most High its habitation. Get into God and you dwell in all good, and ill is banished far away. It is not because we are perfect or highly esteemed among men that we can hope for shelter in the day of evil, but because our refuge is the Eternal God, and our faith has learned to hide beneath his sheltering wing.
“For this no ill thy cause shall daunt,
No scourge thy tabernacle haunt.”
It is impossible that any ill should happen to the man who is beloved of the Lord; the most crushing calamities can only shorten his journey and hasten him to his reward. Ill to him is no ill, but only good in a mysterious form. Losses enrich him, sickness is his medicine, reproach is his honour, death is his gain. No evil in the strict sense of the word can happen to him, for everything is overruled for good. Happy is he who is in such a case. He is secure where others are in peril, he lives where others die.

There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.
(Psalms 91:10 KJV)


Edited by Ginger, 28 January 2014 - 09:42 PM.