"To Talk Or Not To Talk To A Prodigal"

 

Precious Ones (especially our brothers), We have been asked several times about whether a husband should try to "turn his wife around" by trying to "talk" to her, etc. We know that God wants the standing wife to be quiet and let God do the work in her prodigal husband, but what about the standing husband for the prodigal wife? We have tried to attempt to share our feelings about it and thought that we would also share them with you, below, in hopes of bringing some encouragement. If any of you have found other Scripture to give encouragement in this area, please let us know. God Bless!

Love, Les & Cindy

I Corinthians 11: 1-10; I Peter 2:23-25 & 3:1-7

Dear Brother, In regards to your statement: "I read where others say that I should say and do nothing. It seems that I must not even tell my wife that I trust God to restore us. Among the various ministries who deal with this issue, so many of the "success stories" have come from wives who stood in faith for their errant husbands. Winning one's husband by saying nothing at all is Biblical, and so I don't question the admonition by many to do the same. A husband standing for the restoration of his wife doesn't, to my knowledge, have a scriptural injunction to be silent. If you don't wish to deal with this subject, I will respect that, but I am saying, if you have anything from the Lord on this subject, or anything from experience, I welcome your comments."

We agree that there is a "difference" in how a standing wife should "minister" to her prodigal husband vs. how a standing husband should minister to their prodigal wife....we just wish there were Scriptures that guided us directly on it. We, too, believe that, with the man being the spiritual leader, God will and can guide him in different strategies of warfare that He would not lead a standing wife. The KEY to all of it, though, is allowing the Holy Spirit to guide you by continuing to "walk in the Spirit" and trust God all along the way! NO ONE can tell you what you need to do in your situation. God makes it this way so that we have to totally rely on Him. He knows exactly what needs done for your wife's deliverance. He even knows the DAY of her deliverance. Hallelujah! He's not "up there" wondering how this will end up or what He is going to do to fix it! He knew from the very beginning what and how He was going to do it and what all He is going to accomplish through it! Glory to His Name!!! We do know that, as with all things, if we do anything to try to "wake up" our spouse, or "help them to see", or "show them the error of their ways" when IT IS NOT GOD'S WILL OR TIMING......IT WILL ACTUALLY HARDEN THEIR HEARTS!!! So the KEY to allowing the Holy Spirit to guide you is just obeying the Lord. There might be a prolonged amount of time that goes by that He will instruct you to not say ANYTHING, then one day He might have you share a little something, etc.

One way the enemy uses our words is like this: For a husband to say something to his wife when it is not God's will or His timing, will make her feel as though he is trying to "control" her again. "See, he hasn't changed! He's just the same as he was! He's never going to change! I'm never going back to him!" To release our spouse into the Father's Hands TOTALLY can be scary, but it's the only way to hurry it along! They must feel the release...yet the standing spouse is continually doing warfare for them!!! I remember people telling me that I was going to have to get Les "into church to hear the Word of God or else he was never going to get healed!" That's NOT true! God told me that He was going to save Les out from among the heathen and that they would stand and see the Glory of God! And He did! Les was healed with no one preaching at him! He was at a secular movie and walked out HEALED!!! God reached down to where he was because Les could not reach up to where God is!!! I remember a testimony of a husband and wife from here in Indiana (we used to attend the same church). She left him and their two sons for another man, divorced her husband and "married" the man. Meanwhile, the husband got saved and as a baby Christian, started standing for his wife's return. Old & "wise" Christians told him he was a fool and should face "reality". He never gave up! He never had any contact with his wife...she didn't want to even see the boys. He just kept praying and believing that HIS GOD WAS ABLE TO RESTORE HIS FAMILY! Well, literally, in the middle of the night one night, his wife sat up SUDDENLY in bed, out of a sound sleep, looked at the "man" sleeping beside of her and said "WHERE IS MY HUSBAND?" The veil was removed and she could finally "see" what she had done. She woke-up out of her sinful sleep!!! Hallelujah!!! She looked at that man and said who is this, where is my husband???!!! She got up, packed and went home in the middle of the night to her husband....SUDDENLY!!! The next day her and her husband went together and filed for divorce from the "strange man", and a short time later they were "re-married" with their boys at their sides!!! Nine years later, they are still ministering for the Lord together in a church bus ministry! Thank You, Jesus!!! What would have happened if that precious, brand new baby, Christian husband would have BELIEVED what he saw with his eyes and NOT in the POWER of his Heavenly Father???!!! Well, we hope this has helped in some way! Please let us know if you have any other questions! Keep in touch; we'll keep in prayer!

Love, Cindy