Over a decade ago our marriage was broken and quickly falling apart. I cried so many tears each day over our failures… But in the brokenness, I began to do something crazy. I began to trust in the Lord to fix my marriage. Now, looking back I can tell you the signs God is restoring your marriage.
There Are At Least 3 Signs God is Restoring Your Marriage
Do you ever struggle with a need to control your life?
Control. That is where I found myself. Stressed to the max, marriage falling apart, clinging with white-knuckled fists to anything I thought I could control.
I was miserable trying to control my life. It’s funny how God shows you things as you look back, well after the hard work of surrendering a thing to HIM.
That is when God began to shine His light on Proverbs 3:5-6; an amazing promise wrapping up an aggravating condition.
One of the first signs God is restoring your marriage is when He begins to highlight Scripture and keep it coming up over and over in your life
1. Highlighted Scripture Can Restore Your Marriage: Signs God is Restoring Your Marriage
Can God fix my marriage? I’ve asked it so many times. Have you? Honestly, I need a miracle to save my marriage after all that has happened over the years.
As I prayed over my failing marriage, God was very upfront with me.
To save my marriage, I had to trust HIM with all my heart. Sounds simple right? But it is not easy at all.
I could not trust myself with any portion of my heart.
The Lord laid out, in no uncertain terms, that if I wanted this marriage to work I had to let go of my understanding and lean on His. Challenging.
2. A Desire To Let Go and Let God Fix Your Marriage: Signs God is Restoring Your Marriage
Letting go of my understanding of life and love and marriage was not my first thought when our marriage broke. Can you relate?
I was hurting so deeply. There was no trust or security in our relationship. Nothing inside of me wanted to keep trying with Bud. Nothing.
But I knew what divorce felt like. I knew I was part of the problem in our marraige, even though I couldn’t pinpoint how at the time… And God had been moving in so many ways that I knew this was a prompt from Him.
Literally, Proverbs 3:5-6 was showing up everywhere. God is funny that way… or loving and patient that way… however you choose to look at it.
How Did You Let Go and Let God Fix Your Marriage?
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight “ (Prov 3:5-6 NASB).
Part of that involved forgiving my husband for the wrong he had done me… That was hard.
There is a whole series on HopeJoyInChrist about how to do that from the heart so it stops coming back up. Check out the beginning of that at the link below.
Related Post: How To Forgive Anyone In 7 Steps
3. God Asks For Your Trust: Signs God is Restoring Your Marriage
So, the truth is, that God often asks me to do things that make no sense in the moment. They are outside of my skills or comfort zone.
Trusting God was outside of my comfort zone. Forgiving Bud, well before he was ever sorry for hurting me or trying to fix things with me seemed illogical.
Truly, to trust in the Lord to fix my marriage seems to go against anything I have tried before or seen others do successfully.
What Does the Bible Say About Restoring Marriage?
If you know my story, you know that there was a moment in time when God called me out, to live differently. Now, to be fair, He calls us all to live differently from the world, but this was different.
I wanted a deeper relationship with Him. I wanted to experience the big miraculous things that were happening in the early Church.
He showed me that to live that way would require I take every issue in life to the Bible for direction rather than the church… because the church looks too much like the world and too little like the Bible most of the time…
So I took my questions to Scripture and found some shocking and encouraging answers.
- Does God want me to fight for my marriage?
- How to let go and let God fix your marriage?
- When to stop praying for marriage restoration?
- Does God restore marriage after adultery?
- Can God restore any marriage?
- When God releases you from marriage?
Related Post: Why I Moved from Christian to Disciple
Can God Restore Any Marriage?
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9 NASB)
Can God really restore any marriage? The obvious answer is yes, but the real answer is that it doesn’t always look like we hope it will look.
But God’s ways are always best. His ways are always right. I have seen time and time again how doing things in God’s way works.
Trying to hold tight to my way in my understanding only leads to a bigger mess. I have seen God be faithful in my life.
The biggest complaint I have is not wondering if the Lord will restore it, but being frustrated about how God restores my marriage. Slowly. Gradually. Painstakingly.
Does God Want Me to Fight For My Marriage?
Things have happened in my marriage where I was just done. I wanted to quit on my marriage. But I knew God hates divorce… and yet, there are provisions in Scripture for divorce… So this question rattled around in my mind on a loop.
Does God want me to fight for my marriage?
“And love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31 ESV)
The answer may surprise you. I believe God wants us to fight for our spouses, for their salvation, and for their growth spiritually. I also believe God wants us to fight for ourselves – to get unstuck in our faith. And through the fighting to love them like God loves us we will be fighting for our marriage.
But, how then do you fight for your marriage? Let go and let God fix your marriage.
All 3 of the signs God is restoring your marriage are wrapped up in Proverbs 3:5-6… learn more here! Share on XHow To Let Go and Let God Fix Your Marriage?
Our marriage seems impossible. Difficult. Crazily unequally yoked and filled with striving. And yes, I have seen this impossible marriage restored to something that glorifies God and is filled with hope and joy.
Impossible. So, how does an impossible marriage get restoration? By letting go of my need to control everything. By letting go of what I think my husband should be or look like and accepting the mand God is molding him into.
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Matthew 6:34 ESV)
How do you let go and let God? A whole lot of prayer and accountability.
Related Post: How To Let Go and Let God: Surrender Brings Peace
Does God Restore Marriage After Adultery?
This question came as I saw a clear Biblical president for fighting for my marriage even when it seemed impossible. Because my first marriage ended badly. Lying and cheating seemed like things we could never overcome. And I began to feel… guilt and shame because I didn’t fight hard enough to fix it…
So, I took this question to Him.
“Nothing is impossible with God.” (Luke 1:37 ESV)
There was an overwhelming sense of peace because I am completely forgiven. My part in that mess was real, but I hadn’t actually dealt with that… so we did. Then I began to see that restoration in marriage requires two and he was not willing. There was a genuine release of responsibility.
Now, years into coaching wives as they fight for marriages that are facing infidelity I see the same pattern. Where both are willing, change comes. At times, through intense prayer and serious boundaries, change comes. And sadly, sometimes one party is not willing and divorce comes.
God can restore any marriage, but we are not both always willing to surrender completely to Him to work the change.
Related Post: A Wife’s True Story of Rebuilding Marriage After Infidelity
When God Releases You From Marriage?
So, that naturally led me to this question. Does God ever release you from your marriage? Yes. There are BIblical grounds for divorce. There always have been. Always.
- Abuse (1 Corinthians 7:15)
- Affair (Matthew 5:32)
- Abandonment (1 Corinthians 7:15 as well)
However, I have seen God move to restore even these harsh and toxic situations. So I never issue a blanket statement.
Fight for your marriage, at times from a safe distance, until there is no way forward… and then just a bit farther.
Related Post: Is Virtual Infidelity A Ground for Divorce Biblically?
When to Stop Praying for Marriage Restoration?
So I know how this question sounds, but I am going a different way with it. You see, I had been praying that God would restore my marriage… almost from the very beginning of my marriage. Very Little change happened with only prayer.
So the real question is, when do I start doing something WHILE I pray for my marriage?
There is so much that you can do. God is forever calling us deeper into our walk with Him. Even when our marriage is struggling, we can be working to grow closer to Him. That is a huge way to restore your marriage.
“In the same way, you wives, be subject to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won over without a word by the behavior of their wives,” (1 Peter 3:1 NASB)
I wish I had started by combining doing the next right thing with prayer rather than having it take a decade or struggling. Don’t just pray. Forgive. Study the Word. Learn to be still. Worship. Learn to control your mouth. Do the next thing in your growth spiritually.
Trusting The Lord With My Marriage
The biggest common theme in all of this is to trust Him. Do you trust in the Lord with all your heart?
Y’all, God has shown up in ways that I could never explain. He has met needs in miraculous ways. God sent encouragement in my moments of utter despair. He has worked a change in those in my life I never believed could change.
God has changed me… when I assumed I was damaged goods not good for anything worthwhile.
And still, I have to remind myself to trust Him. Can you relate?
So I remind myself, over and over…
God Has been Faithful in My Life – I Can Trust Him!
I know I should do whatever the Lord asks, even if I don’t completely understand. Even when it goes against what the world around me deems the “normal path”.
But it takes a big step toward surrender to acknowledge Him in all my ways. Why is this so hard?
I could have never done what HE has done in my life. It is obvious to anyone who knew me before the change, that God changed me!
So, part of acknowledging Him is to remember my past and keep giving glory to God. It is challenging, but my heart’s desire is that God is glorified through this life He has changed.
He Has Directed My Path – I Can Trust Him!
In Proverbs 3:5-6 there is this amazing promise:
“He will make your path straight,” or He will direct your path.
God will show me, step by step, what I need to do and how I am to live. He has hundreds of times.
It can be aggravating though because He only shows me one little step at a time. I have no earthly idea where we are headed… But God is faithful and I am trusting Him as we walk this path together.
As I have trusted Him, He has led us financially, given me a purpose in life, and given me Hope.
Truly, I can say He directs my path.
Even when the path ahead is not “straight”, it is twisted and uphill and challenging, He directs me and we walk the path so that it seems smooth – and filled with peace.
God Has Already Changed My Marriage – I Can Trust Him
I mean, God has dramatically changed my marriage. The people we are today look NOTHING like the people we were when we said, “I do.” If He has already been working, I can trust Him to keep working. Logical right?
If He had not stepped in to change things I would be divorced now a second time. I can Trust Him!
There is a peace in knowing that He is faithful and unchanging. What He has done, He will continue to do.
“You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you.” (Isaiah 26:3 NASB)
The Lord Has Changed Me – I Can Trust Him!
When I said yes to Jesus for the first time I was 6 years old. He has changed every part of my life and story. Every part. Faithfully, He has molded me more and more into His image and I can see it clearly as I look back.
But in my marriage… I had not become a disciple of His about marriage. The LORD showed me I was living on autopilot (in my marriage) and acting like the lost world.
He forced me into the Scripture to see what advice He would give a wife who wants to thrive in her marriage. It was shocking how much I was not doing marriage God’s way. The change began with surrender and trust.
One of the most beautiful signs that God is restoring you is that awareness of where your life is not pleasing to Him… and the surrender you feel to begin to change. Beautiful.
Surrendering to God leads to a much healthier marriage no matter what season you are in.
3 Signs God is Restoring Your Marriage: Trust In the Lord To Fix Your Marriage
All 3 of the signs God is restoring your marriage are wrapped up in Proverbs 3:5-6.
- Highlighted Scripture
- A desire to let go
- The call to trust God
When God begins to call your heart nearer to Him, you will begin to see real change. The biggest changes in my marriage have always begun right here. He calls me to Trust in the Lord to fix my marriage.
Is He calling you to do that today?
A Marriage Challenge: Search Your Heart
Do you want God to fix your marriage?
Are you willing to let go of any thinking or acting that the Bible speaks against?
You must be willing to embrace God’s way, no matter how hard it seems.
If you haven’t experienced it, I know you will learn that God’s way is always worth it. It has certainly changed my life.
Take time every day this week to read and pray through Proverbs 3:5-6 over your marriage. Then allow God to search your heart and show you the areas that need change.
It is a great place to begin.
in HIM,
Tiffany of Hope Joy in Christ inspires Christian Women to grow in faith, live out Biblical Marriage Principles and raise Godly Children. Join the Wives Only Facebook Group here or keep up with her through Pinterest.
in you enjoyed this, you will love these articles:
Love this Tiffany ! Such a great reminder of His faithfulness on the other side of the struggle for us to let go.
And Amen to this !
“He laid out in no uncertain terms that if I wanted this marriage to work I had to let go of my understanding and lean on His. That is so challenging. God often asks things of me that make no sense. They are outside of my skills or comfort zone. They seem to go against the things I have tried or seen done by those around me.”
Thanks for sharing 😉
Love that! Trusting Him… even when we don’t understand… knowing that He sees farther and knows better. He will direct our path. Thanks for commenting!!!!
I am also learning to be a more biblical wife! God revealed to me a few weeks ago that my prayers for my husband had been solely based on changing him into what I want him to be. I had also prayed for me to change, but rarely, if ever did I truly pray for his salvation. I am learning to pray for him to be the man God wants him to be. Can’t wait to see what God has in store for him and our marriage!
That’s wonderful Kim. I’m praying for great things in your sweet family!
Isn’t it interesting that as Christians, we still place such an emphasis on “feelings”? The Bible verse says we are to walk by FAITH, not by feelings, not by sight. As an example, “I’m not going to be submissive, be ‘subject to’, adapt myself, to anyone. Especially my spouse!” But that’s not the attitude for a successful marriage that God wants us to display. Ephesians 6:24 reads “As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything…”
When we put SELF on the SHELF and get out of our own way, it’s amazing how God’s instructions in His Word come into play.
That is it exactly Mel!