Consequences

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6:23

On the most basic level of life, there are decisions and consequences. If we eat ice cream, we get fat. If we are attentive to our spouse, we get intimacy. See how that works?

If your relationship has reached the low point where consequences for your destructive actions no longer matter, it’s time for intensive focus because you’re dealing with issues that began much earlier than your marriage.

Consequences have no influence when past personal pain is so intense, and the need to numb it is so strong that you almost find yourself wanting to get busted in hopes it goes away.

We get to a level where we’ve been hurting for so long that no consequence short of death could make us feel any worse about ourselves. That’s a very dangerous place to be. It’s also where addictions and abuse are waiting.

How do we know there are such serious past pain issues that may be manifesting themselves in problems that are only now hurting your marriage? It’s usually when accountability and boundaries are established that these darker issues come into the light.

Please take this as positive encouragement for setting boundaries and placing accountability systems in place. Otherwise, it would be like avoiding the doctor because your arm got chopped off. Avoiding is not healing.

While you may be immune to the harsh effects of negative consequences of your behavior, your spouse, family, and loved ones are not. They suffer like you do, except they feel the pain.

Heal and know peace!

CALL TO ACTION:

Write out a list of three negative events in life that were a result of your bad decisions. This isn’t to cast shame, but to illustrate the reality of how directly linked your choices are to consequences.

Now think through or discuss how different each of the three scenarios would have been as they affected your life.