Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listends to the word bu does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in the mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it -- he will be blessed in what he does. -- James 2:22-25.
I wrote Friday that I was ready to step off that ledge. Boy to have that courage all the time. I don't know what God's trying to tell me, and I don't trust my own judgment. I wish it were easy, but I know that God has purpose in everything, and the lessons I'm learning may not be sinking in now, but I am grateful that I know when I get through this God will have blessed me with a new wisdom about his love.
Friday afternoon, Bob asked me lunch. I went, fully prepared to tell him that it's time for us to move on. And he hit me with a curve ball that I didn't see coming. He said he was willing to do the counseling. "I don't think we need it," he told me, "But you do, so I'll do it." He even agreed to come clean and tell the counselor that we're living together.
Now what? Saturday he bumped into the counselor (they were both volunteering at a church event) and he told her we planned to start seeing her both together and separately. And she offered to reduce the rate for us, without any prompting from Bob.
I find that ironic, because one of his objections was that it was too expensive. But the counselor also told him that we had no chance at all without the counseling. And I'm not sure what she's going to say when we tell her we're living together and that our beliefs are on two different plains. She told us before that our faith could get us through anything. And I believe that.
But I also believe that faith has to be shared for it to be strong. And ours is not. He thinks it is, I don't. We don't see eye to eye on the living together thing. We don't pray together, we don't even pray at meals anymore. We don't study the bible together. And on the rare occasion when we talk about the bible, we often have opposing views.
The verse that jumped out at me today (above) -- James 2:22-25 -- breaks my heart. This has been my conviction all along. That even if you're saved by the blood of Christ, you MUST walk in God's commands or you're not truly saved. We're not walking in God's commands.
But every time I make up my mind to tell Bob to move out, something else is thrown at me making it appear as if God is telling me not to do that yet. Is it God? Or is it Satan, trying to trick me into believing it's God? I'm so bloody confused.
