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While ministering to divorced single adults, the most common cause
for divorce I hear about is that a spouse was unfaithful and had an
affair. I have to ask myself "Why?". What was the
unfaithful spouse searching for?
Affairs are primarily matters of the heart.
While external factors do tempt, entice, and entrap, in the end it is
the heart that determines the path one chooses. The biblical story of
Joseph and Potiphar's wife illustrates this (Gen. 39). That's why the
writer of Proverbs warned his young apprentice in wisdom, "Above
all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life"
(Prov. 4:23).
But one cannot guard what one does not know.
Most people don't understand the underlying, deep desires of the
heart that they are unwittingly trying to satisfy with physical or
emotional pleasure. While much time and energy are consumed with the
concerns of daily living, little or no time is spent on exploring and
understanding the longings, hopes, and dreams of the heart.
The explosion of passion that erupts in an
affair often feels bigger than life because it taps into the desires
of the heart that have never really been examined or understood.
That's what happened with one man I talked to. By not understanding
the deep spiritual desires that could have helped him renew a healthy
passion for his wife, he allowed himself to be enticed and captured
by Vicki's attention and affection.
To understand why anyone can be vulnerable to
good, God-given longings gone astray, we must understand that in
every heart is hunger, pain, and folly.
We all long for something more than the
relationships we have been given. Something deep inside yearns to be
caught up in a romantic love affair of epic proportions. That's why
romance is the universal theme of every good story, including the
story of the Bible. We've been built for a sacred romance with the
Lover of our souls (Isa. 62:5; Eph. 5:25-32).
G. K. Chesterton, remarked, "The man who
knocks on the door of the brothel is looking for God." (The
Sacred Romance by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge, p.136) The danger,
intrigue, mystery, and madness of an illicit affair promises to
satisfy a hunger that in reality can be satisfied only in God. When
this underlying spiritual longing is not understood, our unsatisfied
hunger fuels the recklessness that can propel us into an affair, and
the painful disappointments of our relationships seem to justify it.
We have a craving for romance. Romance is far
more than the emotional fireworks and infatuation that get a
relationship started. Romance involves passionate pursuit. We crave
to be pursued by someone who fully knows and delights in us. What we
often fail to realize, however, is that the wonder of romance between
a husband and wife is meant not only to deepen the enjoyment of one
another, but also to arouse in the heart a deeper understanding of
our Creator's love for us. A loving spouse can mirror the romantic
pursuit of our loving God. Many spouses have enjoyed a taste of God's
delight in them through the sparkle in the eye of their mate.
When we don't pursue God to meet our deepest
longings, we choose others to substitute for Him. Often a spouse is
"set up" by being expected to satisfy our deepest hunger.
When a spouse falls short (as all will), our hunger for the divine
romance can be reduced to a mere physical craving for sexual
gratification that our hedonistic, self-indulgent society endorses.
We have a yearning for connection. We all long
to belong. God built us for connection with Himself and others. Jesus
prayed that we would enjoy the oneness that He enjoyed with His
Father (Jn. 17:21). Oneness is to be reflected in the physical and
emotional intimacy in marriage (Gen. 2:24).
If we don't pay attention to our hearts,
however, we will settle for the outward trappings of connection with
our spouses without enjoying the inner oneness God intended. If we
fail to cultivate an intimate relationship with God, our marriage
will be reduced to a relationship of selfish convenience without meaningful
connection. Eventually we will look for satisfaction of our hunger
elsewhere.
Our most significant pain often comes in the
form of disappointment and betrayal in the context of our hunger for
love, acceptance, and belonging. We all carry into our marriages
emotional pain that may have come from past troubled relationships or
from their failure to provide us with genuine love.
Our vision of marriage is often clouded with
the unrealistic expectation that our spouse will finally satisfy our
hunger for romance and connection. While a loving, faithful spouse
can provide a delightful taste of genuine intimacy, no spouse can
compensate for the other's lack of intimacy with God.
All spouses must face disappointment in their
marriages. No marriage escapes because no spouse's love is flawless,
nor can it satisfy our hunger for the divine romance. If we don't
face disappointment and allow it to drive us back to God, we not only
lose our romance with Him, we also sabotage a healthy delight in our
marriage partner. Instead of pursuing our spouse, we blame him or her
for our pain. Rather than mourning the loss of romance in our
relationship with God and with our spouse, we subtly use our hurt to
justify seeking emotional and physical comfort in the arms of another
lover.
We are aching from the lack of connection.
When we don't feel connected, we feel distant. Instead of oneness, we
feel separate and alone in a relationship that feels hostile, not
healing.
When we feel a lack of connection in marriage,
disillusionment soon follows. We end up just going through the
motions because "our heart isn't in it." We reduce our
expectations and live by the "shoulds" but not from deep
desire.
Even good marriages are disappointing,
difficult, and demanding. They don't satisfy our deepest longings,
nor are they as pain-free as we had hoped. Instead, they are
complicated and require constant maintenance.
The allure of an affair appeals to the longing
for a perfect relationship that satisfies our hunger, inflicts no
pain, and makes no demands. The mournful lyric "It's sad to
belong to someone else when the right one comes along" is the
theme song for many unfaithful spouses. The hope is that maybe the
next one will satisfy the hunger for love and salve the hurts.
In reality, the pursuit of an affair to deal
with one's hungry and hurting heart is a foolish attempt to push
one's way back into Eden.
The natural inclination of every human heart
is toward foolishness. Proverbs 22:15 reminds us of our roots:
"Folly is bound up in the heart of a child." No one learns
foolishness. It's part of what we inherited from Adam and Eve.
Instead of taking our hunger and hurt to God, we rebel and try
handling it on our own in one of the following ways:
Giving Up On Romance. Rather than feel the
gnawing ache of our hunger, we deny our need for romance and
connection by calling it a foolish dream. Losing hope of ever having
a deeper romance with our spouse indicates that we've abandoned our
calling to love our spouse the way God does. It also indicates that
we've abandoned our longing to be romanced by God. We become the
"half-hearted creatures" that C. S. Lewis describes as
"fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy
is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud
pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer
of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."(The
Weight Of Glory by C. S. Lewis, pp.3-4)
Selling Out To False Connection. The best
counterfeit to true intimacy is the false intimacy that sexual
indulgence provides. Forbidden sex gives an immediate and artificial
sense of being "alive" when in reality it deadens the
heart.
People who get involved in affairs are
deceived by their sinful, foolish hearts and refuse to remember God.
It is impossible to enjoy an affair and remain in close fellowship
with Him. They must say in essence, "Get out of my life, God. I
can't enjoy this new relationship in the presence of Your holiness
and righteousness."
Every affair is a running away from God. But
there's a bizarre twist. By the very act of running from God and
exchanging His truth for a lie, unfaithful mates are tormented by the
lingering consequences of their sin (Isa. 50:10-11). They also forget
that God is a jealous lover who will use even their foolishness to
arouse their hunger for Him. God's intent is to draw every heart back
to His table, where He will satisfy them with a taste of His own
presence (Dt. 8:3).
So, when you feel as if you need to embark on
the tragic journey of an affair, remember what you are really longing
for - a closer relationship with the lover of your soul, your
Creator. There are no substitutes! All else will fall short and leave
you empty and alone. As the Psalmist wrote, "As the deer pants
for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul
thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with
God?" (Ps 42:1-2). This is our true desire!
Curtis
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