His young wife told him she’d be working on her day off. “Diane said I can stay with her. That’ll cut my commute in half,” she told him. When she left for her last regular day of work that week, she took with her a small overnight bag. The next day, her extra work day, she telephoned her husband.
“Diane wants me to stay another night. Her husband went camping,” she told him. The young husband was disappointed, but because he knew Diane it seemed OK. Over the next several months the man’s young wife worked several times on weekends and stayed with her work friend, Diane, each time. He trusted his wife.
One night after a marriage counseling session, the young woman asked him, “What is the one thing I could do to hurt you?”
“If you were unfaithful,” he responded. Her expression said it all. She’d been unfaithful! Three years of marriage, lost. First there was numbness, then the pain of betrayal; of being replaced; of being deceived. He felt dead.
During your lifetime you may have felt “dead” inside. You lost a loved one and felt “dead” inside. You received painful news like the young man in our story. You were no longer wanted in the marriage bed. You “died” yet lived. Divorce is worse than death, someone has said.
These are times of devastating pain. You may even be suffering as you read this.
In the Bible, there are many people who faced a painful loss. They died inside, yet lived.
Read in your Bible about Abraham’s nephew, Lot (2 Peter 2:6-10). Read about the great people of faith and their suffering (Hebrews 11). Read the Bible book of Job.
Read about Abraham. He trusted God, even to the point of willingness to sacrifice his son of promise. He believed that God can raise even the dead (Hebrews 11:17-19).
Read about the death of King David’s first-born son, the son by his sin with the married woman, Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12:22-23). King David believed he would see his son again. He lived with hope! David was dead, yet lived.
Jesus requires that we deny living for ourselves. He requires that we live for Him. Jesus said, “every person who gives his life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:24-26). How can you die, yet live? Only by dying to your personal desires, and taking up your cross (the symbol of death), and then by living in Jesus!