I didn’t physically bow down and worship my email friend, but I had certainly let him take Christ’s place of pre-eminence in my heart.

I soon discovered something else - it is one thing to give up a sinful ACTIVITY - it can be altogether a much harder thing to give up a sinful ATTITUDE, especially when it doesn’t FEEL sinful!

I tried to argue with God about this.

“But Lord, you’re the one who created people to love each other. And I haven’t committed any sin with him. I couldn’t even if I wanted to - he’s thousands of miles away!”

I knew I had to repent about the way I felt about this man. - because what I was choosing to call "love", the Bible actually calls “lust” and “evil desires”.

Indeed the Bible clearly tells us in Col 3:5

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.

And the original Greek word for “evil’ means “worthless, depraved, or wicked.” And the original Greek word for “desires” means “a longing (especially for what is forbidden), lust.

And in passionately loving a man who already belonged to someone else, I was lusting after something that was forbidden.

What made this “love” even harder to give up was that I had spent a great deal of time thinking about this man and how desirable he was in every way. And these trains of thought had become embedded in my heart as well as my mind.

Ever tried to bargain with God?

I assure you - it doesn’t work!

In cyber space I just lived for my contact with this man.

In the real world I was still hoping that a man of God’s choice might come into my life.

I tried to accept the fact that more than likely God wanted me to stay single.

I was a “Senior Citizen” as they say, but still capable of, and longing for marriage in the fullest sense of the word.

“Lord, I know it’s highly likely that I’ll never marry again. And my day-dreaming about this man gives me so much pleasure – and can’t hurt him, since he doesn’t know about it. Where’s the harm?”

The Lord promptly showed me that there were at least two kinds of harm:

• I was obviously rebelling against His will for my life;
• My daydreaming binges cut severely into the amount of time I spent in prayer for others.

Then recently my Lord drew my attention to repeatedly to a specific verse: 2 Samuel 24:24b

I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God ... offerings that cost me nothing.

I was stunned!

You may remember that earlier in the first part of this web page I mentioned the first Bible I ever owned, and added this comment:

“That particular Bible was to feature again much later in my life.”

The “much later” was now, as I struggled with both my wrongful love for my email friend, and my ongoing desire to remarry. You see, although I had only used that first Bible in my pre-teens and early teens, 2 Samuel 24:24 was the only verse I had underlined in it! It had never made any sense to me that a child should underline such a verse.

Yet, now it seems that God in His wisdom had caused me to underline it about 50 years before I would need it!

I have found it helpful to regard being single as a precious sacrifice I can offer my Lord. I offer Him my desire for marriage, being actively willing to forgo marriage, if I can serve my Lord better by being single. A web page that both contains that Scripture and inspired me along these lines is Singles: Celebrate your sexuality

The Lord and I are still working on this.

I would love to conclude my web page by saying that my stormy relationship with God, my roller coaster ride with Him, is now a thing of the past, since the Prince of Peace reigns supreme in my heart.

But I can’t.

Because the Christian life is a process of growth, I am continuing to suffer “growing pains”.

Every so often the Lord hones in on another aspect of my life which is displeasing to Him.

I rarely have any trouble acknowledging that I’m in the wrong. But it takes me a while to get to the place where I’m willing to let God change me. So my hot/cold relationship with God continues. Yet, deep down, I KNOW that He only wants what’s best for me. And I know and accept that this struggle will go on till I see Him face to face.

As the Bible tells us in the great chapter on love, 1 Corinthians 13, now I just see a pale reflection of myself in God’s mirror; when my life on this earth is over I will see myself as God sees me - as perfect in Christ.

Verses like Ephesians 1:6 that tell me that I am ALREADY “accepted in the Beloved” keep me going.

Christ’s strength is made perfect in my weakness.

Christ is the very core of my being - I can’t do without Him. Without Him I would disintegrate.

And The Struggle Continues ...

“Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved.” (John 13:23)

And because I couldn’t “feel” that Christ was holding me close, I felt that He didn’t want me personally - and I slid downhill into depression.

God kindly used Grantley Morris, an Internet evangelist, to talk sense into me. My dependence upon feeling God’s love is an insult to Christ, he said. He reminded me that there is nothing I can do about the fact that I’ve had an unpleasant past. Even now that past causes me to feel unloved. But it is your choice,” he told me, “whether you ruin your present by thinking poorly of the One who truly loves you and so refusing to enjoy his love. He issued the challenge: what is trustworthy: God giving his Word that he loves me (putting it in black and white in the Bible) or is my feeling that he loves me more trustworthy? He urged me not to exalt my feelings above God. Isn’t it dishonoring to the Lord to refuse to believe you are loved until certain things happen?

His strong words had the desired effect. I had been so preoccupied with my longing for closeness to, and intimacy with Christ that I have neglected how Christ through his Word has expressed HIS desire to be close to me.

John, the beloved disciple said in John 1:18:

The only begotten Son, ... is in the bosom of the Father

And Christ has said:

The Spirit of truth, ... dwells with you and will be in you. I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him. We will come to him and make Our home with him. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.

And John, the beloved disciple said in John 1:18:

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

And Christ said in His prayer to His father, the night before His crucifixion:

And the glory which you gave me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: ...You ... loved them as you have loved me. ... I desire that they ... be with me where I am, ... the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them.

And so I come full circle to: “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height; to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

And I repent ... of my stubbornness, hardness of heart and unbelief.

I have no way of really knowing how much I have grieved the Holy Spirit in this matter!