How Bad Do You Want it?

Sometimes it happens in an email. Sometimes it happens over coffee. Sometimes it happens after we speak at an event. We share our story of dysfunction, brokenness and restoration. We pull no punches about our mistakes and we don’t sugar coat how hard the recovery process was…how hard it is, still.

Then we’ll get an email; have a conversation or talk to a couple that pour out their heart about their marriage problems. She’s harboring resentment. He’s addicted to pornography. She’s had an emotional affair over Facebook. They live in the same house, but are more like roommates. The problems are all different, but their desire is the same: how can we fix it? How can we have what you have? They are desperate. They will do anything.

Trisha will return an email or I will start to talk about their need for marriage counseling or we will suggest our marriage coaching program or send a link to our MentorUs weekly subscription. Eyes gloss over. Emails aren’t returned. All kinds of reasons are given why marriage counseling won’t work. We want what you have, but don’t want to do what you did to have it.

When a relationship goes bad or a job is lost or our marriage starts to drift, we want God to intervene. We start praying and asking God for a miracle.  We are confident that God can do something about our situation. God can heal our hurt. God can restore our marriage. God can mend a relationship. There are times, if we are honest we want the benefit of a better life without the pain of making better decisions. We expect God to bring change that we aren’t willing to pursue ourselves.

• Some of us are waiting on God to heal a relationship…but we refuse to say we’re sorry.
• Some of us are waiting on God to get us out of debt…but we refuse to stop using credit cards.
• Some of us are waiting on God to give us the man or woman of our dreams…but we keep lowering our standards in the people we date.
• Some of us are waiting on God to give us a new job but we refuse to give our best at our current job.
• Some of us are waiting on God to fix our marriage, but we refuse to go to counseling.

How bad do we really want it? We want the blessing of what God can give us without the obedience that God calls us to.

Maybe there are times we don’t see God show up, not because of His inactivity, but because of ours.

How bad do you want it?