It seems to you like this will never change.

 

From your perspective this is gonna go on until . . .  well, forever.
Nothing has happened even though you’ve prayed.  The days turn into years and he’s just not interested in spiritual things.
It’s enough to make a grown woman cry.
And you have.

There’s an aching aloneness every Sunday when you awake.
The most loving group of believer’s still can’t compensate for his absence, his unparticipation in the thing that means everything to you.

Even in a good marriage, a happy marriage, the ache is bone deep.
The longing to share God with the man you share everything with.

 

This morning I read about Joseph in prison in Egypt.
Tucked in the fold of his jail time storyline is the strange tale of two of Pharoah’s servants who are also there.
Pharaoh’s cupbearer and his baker are both doing time for some offense.  Each having had a troubling dream, they recount them to Joseph and he gives each man the interpretation of his dream.

Have I lost you yet?

Didn’t I say this was gonna be an encouragement to wives with unbelieving husbands?

 

I did.

When Joseph tells the cupbearer that he will be restored to his position he also asks the man to remember him and speak to Pharaoh to get him out of prison.  He wants this trial to end.  Who wouldn’t?

But the man doesn’t carry through.

After two whole years, Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing by the Nile. . .
Genesis 41:1

 

*First word of encouragement—don’t think God doesn’t know how time feels to you in your trials.

AFTER TWO WHOLE YEARS

 

God knows how long you have been waiting for the desire of your heart.
He is waiting too.
God loves your man more than you do.  He’s been pursuing him since long before you were in his life.
That truth is important in helping you keep a single motivation for his salvation.

 God’s will is that none should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Getting our personal investment in a husband’s salvation out of the mix is tough, but necessary.
Ask the Holy Spirit to help you purify your motives.

 

*Second word of encouragement—God is at work in your man’s life.

Even if you don’t see it.  Even if he doesn’t seem to know it or respond to it.

God is at work for His own purposes.
Ask Him to send others into your husband’s life with a Jesus message and a compelling example of Christianity.
Stop preaching to him yourself.  Only talk about spiritual things if he asks.
Otherwise just live your faith and let him experience the beauty of what God has done in his wife 😉

 

*Third word of encouragement—you’re growing stronger as you wait on the Lord.

God is at work in you stretching your spiritual muscle and strengthening your faith.  This is the ministry He’s committed to you, to live before this guy and to pray for him consistently.  Here’s a little commentary from Psalms  about Joseph’s time in prison.

His feet they hurt with fetters; he was laid in chains of iron and his soul entered into the iron,
Psalm 105:18 AMP

Let your soul enter into the iron.

 

 But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.
1 Peter 5:10

after you have suffered awhile. . .
This is a clock known only to God.

Joseph didn’t know what God was doing in Pharaoh, or why he had to stay in prison so long.  We don’t know God’s timetable, but we know Him.

Trust Him to bring your man to Jesus.

Trust Him to see you through the waiting.