What If – What Is

Only one letter is different in the title, but that one letter will describe a world of difference.

Last night I was talking to a friend, which may shock some of you that I have a friend, at Bible Study. Yes I study the Bible, it is not a book that occupies a space on the table or sits on a shelf somewhere. Any way, I had shared part of my life’s story about how I came to know Jesus as my personal Savior. The story included the fact that I had been married for two and a half years in the late ‘60’s, that’s the 1960’s not the 1860’s, I old, but not that old. I came to know the Lord in 1974 and shortly after that the Lord revealed to me my shortcomings in the marriage. I told the Lord, “She is somewhere in California and I don’t know where. Have her call me in the next week and I will ask forgiveness for my faults in the marriage.

I must insert here that she left me while I was at “Summer Camp” in the National Guard, for two weeks. I came home and she told me she wanted a separation. This action turned into her living with another man for several months and then she moved to California with him. When she left for California, I filed for a divorce. And the rest is history.

Back to my story…. I told the Lord, “Have her call me within the next week and I will ask for her forgiveness”. She called two days later. I had moved two or three times in those eight or ten years, so you have to know, “It’s a God thing”. I did what I said I would do and asked her forgiveness and she told me it was all her fault and it was OK. I went back to my mistakes and faults and asked again for her forgiveness. She accepted it request and started to cry and said she had to go. That was in the spring of 1975.

I did some Bible study about a year and a half later, on the topic of marriage and divorce, which would have been in late 1976. Let me first say that God hates divorce. It is a ripping and tearing of the flesh of the two that have become one. The scar is always there and the wound is very deep, even if they are not Christians in the true Biblical sense; and more-so in the true Christian marriage. My marriage to that woman was before I was a Christian, but the scar was deep and the nerves were pulsing.

She called me in, I think 1978, and was back in Indy and asked if I could go to her father’s funeral with her. I told her no, because I had remarried in July of 1977. The phone call was very short after that.

This is where the “What if” comes into play. In 1987 or so, she called me and told me she had finally gotten this “Jesus thing”, and had asked Jesus to be her Savior. My mind began to play the “what if” game. What would have happened if I had waited for her to come to know the Lord? Would God have been more please if we were to remarry and start life together again? I had to stop myself from playing that game. There are no “what if’s” in God’s economy. I couldn’t let it happen then and I can’t live my life today, “playing that game”. I would not have the great kids I have or the great in-laws and
out-laws I have. Not to mention the wonderful G’kids I have. Life would have been totally different. And I don’t think I could live with that.

That brings me to “What Is”…. When I did my study on marriage and divorce, I took that information and made life decisions based on God’s Bible. I did not make decisions on how I felt that day. My feelings change based on several influences and I would probably make some bad decisions if I did not “run it past God’s guidelines”, the Bible.

I must now look at and live my life according to His word and the leading of His Holy Spirit. There are no “What If’s” in the Bible. There is an abundance of “What Is”. So, “What is” in your life? Are you playing the game and falling for the temptations of what might be? There are always answers if you are willing to look for them. Then you have to have the courage to live by them.

I have been studying the Bible for nearly to 36 years, I am not a Biblical Scholar, but a serious student of the Bible. If you have question about your life and things that don’t seem to be right, drop me an email, reskew@aol.com title it “Life Questions”, some of your emails might go to spam, so I need to know I need to answer it.

Following the Shepherd,
Ron
reskewsquad.blogspot.com