When Only One Believes

When I counsel couples getting married I remind them if they can’t live with that person the way they are for the rest of their life they have no right to marry them expecting them to change.

And up to this point, this probably hasn’t been super helpful.

A number of years ago we owned a speedboat that we kept at Beulah camp on the Saint John River. And one summer as I was putting the boat into the river for the first time, I carefully backed the trailer down into the river, released the lock on the winch and pushed the boat off the trailer into the deep water. Where it immediately began filling with water, because I had forgotten to put the plug back in place in the stern.

I immediately winched it back on the trailer ran around jumped into the Suzuki and pulled it up on the beach and watched as the water poured out of the stern. At that point, a friend walked over, looked everything over and said: “You should have put the plug in first.”

Not helpful. I already knew what the problem was, now I was trying to remedy it.

With that being said, Acts 16:1 still reads this way Acts 16:1 Paul went first to Derbe and then to Lystra, where there was a young disciple named Timothy. His mother was a Jewish believer, but his father was a Greek.

And so here is The Reality

Even with the warnings, even understanding the challenges it still happens, there are still marriages where one partner believes, and one doesn’t.

It was a reality for Timothy’s parents and it’s been a reality with some people in every church I’ve pastored. One person believes and walks with Christ and the other doesn’t.

Sometimes it because of a life transformation after the marriage happened. Neither partner is serving the Lord and then either the husband or wife become a believer. That’s probably how it happened with Timothy’s folks.

And that’s often awkward, because with that decision to follow Jesus, things change. Priorities change, morals change, people change. The nonbeliever finds themselves married to a very different person then they had stood at the altar with. It’s tough.

Sometimes it happens when both partners were originally serving God and then one decided to walk away from God. And with that decision, things change. Priorities change, morals change, people change. The believer finds themselves married to a very different person then they had stood at the altar with. It’s tough.

And sometimes . . . a Christian marries a non-Christian. They had the best of intentions. They knew that through the power of prayer and their stellar witnessing that the one they loved would see the light and become a Christian. And then they didn’t.

You see they didn’t take into account free will. God won’t make your husband or wife a Christian just because you are praying he will. God didn’t take away your free will and he’s not going to take away their free will. That doesn’t mean you stop praying, but maybe your prayers need to change. From “Make my Spouse a believer” to “Help make me the witness I need to be.”