good morning.... I was wondering if it is wrong to mad or frustrated about a situation that you have prayed to god about for a while to change or at least to let help you get through the situation and nothing has happened????? I have tried to reconcile my seperated marriage.... she decided to leave with the children after things got bad with her and my family and she moved back in with her mother, its been almost a year and she has talked to me about the children.... but that's all.... I have prayed about it and asked god if I should stay even though I have tried on MULTIPLE occasions to try to work on things like counseling and group prayer but she wants to have nothing to do with me.... I have contemplated wether to stay or leave... I have prayed about it For Months and have gotten NO ANSWER!!!!!! anyone have any ideas on what I should do about this situation??? Any advice would help......
thank you very much
Hi.
Let me begin by saying that my own wife left me several years ago, and ultimately divorced me, and that we had three children together (they live with her, but only about 10 minutes away from me, and I talk to them, or see them, or both every day), so I have some idea of what you're presently going through.
That said, if I may be blunt, in answer to your opening question, yes, it is wrong for you to be mad or frustrated about a situation that you have prayed to God about because, truth be told, you're really mad at and/or frustrated with GOD HIMSELF, and not just the situation.
That may seem cold and uncaring, but, again, it's coming from someone who's been there myself, and who learned many valuable lessons along the way.
As the initial respondent to you suggested, ultimately, you cannot change anybody but yourself, and, even then, only by the grace and mercy of God.
My own mindset, which I adopted pretty early on (thank God that I did) in my own ordeal, was pretty much based upon the reality that gold is purified in the fire.
In other words, I saw my fiery trials, and, believe me, my life was like "The Towering Inferno" (if anyone here is old enough to remember that movie) for approximately 17 straight years, as a means by which God was seeking to purify my own heart because Jesus said that it is the pure in heart who are going to see God (Matt. 5:8).
No relief for 17 straight years.
Constant heat.
Flaming hot.
I vividly recall driving down the highway in my car one day and sticking my head out the window while looking up towards heaven and screaming "ENOUGH!!!"
That's the "bad" news.
The good news is that I continually allowed that heat to purify me, or I continually allowed God to use my fiery trial to expose the dross that was WITHIN ME (some of which led to the aforementioned anger and frustration), and I can honestly say that I'm a much stronger Christian man now than I ever was before.
MUCH, MUCH, MUCH STRONGER.
My advice to you is to stop complaining to God about your situation, and start asking God to purify you in the midst of your own fiery trial and to see what happens as the result of that.
No offense to you (especially since I already mentioned my own "dross"), but I think that I can say with certainty that God will keep you busy enough working on yourself while he attempts to work on others (we all have a free will, and there's no guarantee that your wife will ever submit her own self to God's will) that you won't even have time for anger and frustration.
Anyhow, that's my advice, and, again, it's coming from someone who's not only been there, but who also made it out the other side in a much better condition than I was initially in.
I'll say a prayer for you (and her, and your children) as soon as I'm done posting this.
God's grace is sufficient for you.
Of this, I'm sure.