I want you to read this. Not because it reflects well on me, but because it reflects well on my beloved wife. She posted this on social media, at our shared Facebook account, RC-Lisa, accompanied by video of me preaching at our small church here in Fort Wayne, Sovereign Grace Fellowship.
As most of you know I do not have the reach I once had. Much of that is the understandable fruit of some grievous sins of mine. What I still have is a commitment to God’s Word, and the doctrines of grace. What I have even more than I had in my younger years is a passion to help us all understand more deeply the depth of our sin, the saving power of our Redeemer and the unshakeable love of our heavenly Father. When the audience shrinks, the message grows more personal and powerful.
Which is part of the reason why this means so much to me:
I have watched my husband be cut down by those who once claimed to love him. Watched him stand faithful to a calling God has never revoked. I have watched people who think they know the story pour out accusations, speculation, and careless words over a man they never truly understood. They accuse him, while all along the guilt belongs to the very ones casting stones.
And still, I have watched my husband remain faithful day after day. I have watched him rise, steady and unwavering, take my hand, and lead us forward even with a broken heart. This is what faithfulness looks like, what it means to endure without giving up. This is what it means to keep climbing with a heavenly perspective, rising above the Sanballats God has sovereignly allowed on a hard and holy road.
I am an eyewitness to the grace of God poured out over his life. I have seen mercy sustain him, truth preserve him, and strength come to him again and again from the hand of God. And through that same grace, I too have been sheltered, strengthened, and blessed.
His life is a testimony that God keeps His own. God sustains the man He has called. And no opposition from earth can overturn what heaven has ordained.
This, friends, is what a man longs to hear. Not that he has this gift or that. Nor that he provides so well. Not that he looks so good, or is so handy. What a Christian man wants is to know that the one person who knows him best, his wife, believes him to be faithful. Not just to her, but to the Lord who bought us. He wants to know that she sees his effort, along with his failures. A man of God wants to believe that his wife can see that he is a man of God.
Perhaps most of all, however, a man of God wants to know that those under his care know that they are under His care. Thank you my love for filling my sails, and for travelling with me through this journey.