Cheating Spouses & God's Providence

A really good friend of mine was telling me about a Bible study for men that he attended, where they looked at King David's adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, as a cautionary tale.  David was the only man that Scripture ever refers to as "a man after God's own heart" (1 Sam. 13:14; Acts 13:22) and yet, he later succumbed to the sin of adultery.  His lust burned to the point that he had her husband placed in a dangerous situation in battle, an act that brought about his death.  David was punished for his sin; God removed his protective hand and let David experience what a life apart from Him was like.  (It got pretty ugly - for David, his family, and his kingdom.)  The lesson of course is not to presume on your own strength.  Do not place yourself in tempting situations, and when you feel a twinge of lust don't allow it to take root and grow.  Call out to God at that very instant to untangle the knots starting to work their way through your soul.  Ask for the grace to look at that beautiful woman the same way that God does.  

There is another lesson as well, and this is the kind of thing that can only be seen in hindsight ... how God weaves even our sins into His plan to bring about salvation, our ultimate good.  David and Bathsheba, you see, became the parents of Solomon and one of Solomon's descendants was ... that's right, Jesus!  David and Bathsheba came together in the darkest way imaginable and yet, their son Solomon had always been in God's mind, always intended as a blessing to Israel (within his own lifetime), and then the entire world (through his descendant, Jesus).

What am I trying to say - that God willed the sin of David and Bathsheba to bring about some greater good?  Of course not!  What David did was evil, the exact opposite of what God desired.  It was horrible and even though David repented and God forgave him, David was still required to pay a temporal price for his sin.  (You and I are for our sins as well.  See here and here, for more.)

What I am saying is that we have a God Who is bigger than our sin, Who is not limited by it.  He sees our sins, our free choices to go against His will; and then in His own utterly incredible way He weaves even those sinful choices into His plans.  He is never the author of the evils we perpetrate; but He is the author of the good He is able to create out of our atrocities - the child conceived through adultery, fornication, or even a sin as despicable as rape - that child that, no matter how he or she was conceived, has been woven into God's plan to bless the world.  Only God, only God, can do this.  He stands outside of space and time and meets our freedom to sin with His own freedom to bless.

So whatever you are dealing with, whatever frustration or injustice - a cheating spouse, an act of violence, an illness, whatever it is - remember that Your Father loves You and that beyond all of our understanding, He is able to weave even this into His eternal plan to save you and this world.  That is our Faith.  It's written right there in Jesus' family tree (Mt. 1:6-7).

"O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways! ...We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose."  (Rom. 11:33; 8:28)

"Contraception? Oh, Come ON!"

That's the reaction I think most people have when they hear, yet again, that the Catholic Church opposes contraception. It seems like one of the stupidest positions you could take. I mean, the Catholic Church is the great enemy of abortion - and isn't contraception all about preventing the circumstances that lead to abortion?

Well lets start with what the Church means by "contraception." It is any act which intentional drives a wedge between the love-giving and life-giving aspects of sexual intercourse; it seeks to derail the natural procreative process with which God graced human nature. (This is a quantum leap from the legitimate method of postponing or avoiding additional pregnancies offered by natural family planning - a husband and wife using the latest medical information regarding the wife's fertile and infertile times to determine when intercourse will most likely result in conception.)

There seems to be this Western cultural amnesia that EVERY form of Christianity was morally opposed to contraception up until 1930 (not to mention non-Christians such as Gandhi and Sigmund Freud). That was the year that the Anglican Church decided that it was permissible in some cases, but emphatically warned against recourse to contraception because of "selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience." From there it was a snowball effect, one Christian body after another abandoning its historic position (Martin Luther had gone so far as to claim that contraception was, "far more atrocious than incest and adultery,"and John Calvin that it "kills the son, which could be expected, before he is born." WOW - have you ever heard a Catholic theologian take it that far?) By 1968, the Catholic Church stood alone; that was the year Pope Paul VI issued his encyclical Humanae Vitae, and reiterated this element of classic, orthodox Christianity - this truth engrained in the natural order. And he predicted that if the Truth was ignored, there would be dire consequences. (Sound kind of like Moses? the Old Testament prophets? Jesus? Paul?)

Now, today's subject is owed to an article I just read by Christopher West over at the Catholic Exchange website (I'm there everyday), that demonstrates the connection between our culture's embrace of a contraceptive mindset and the explosion of "adultery, divorce, premarital sex, STD’s, out-of-wedlock births, abortion, fatherless children, homosexuality," etc . (Chris has some fantastic books out there - but I digress.) I just want to quote from his article, because I can't say it better myself; and I know Chris would want me to pass the info along:

"What’s the connection with contraception? While today’s societal chaos is certainly complex, the following demonstrates the 'inner logic' of contraception’s contribution. People are often tempted to do things they shouldn’t do. Deterrents within nature itself and within society help to curb these temptations and maintain order. For example, what would happen to the crime rate in a given society if jail terms suddenly ceased?

"Apply the same logic to sex. People throughout history have been tempted to commit adultery. It’s nothing new. However, one of the main deterrents from succumbing to the temptation has been the fear of pregnancy. What would happen if this natural deterrent were taken away? As history demonstrates, rates of adultery would skyrocket. What’s one of the main causes of divorce? Adultery. Apply the same logic to pre-marital sex. Such behavior has, indeed, skyrocketed. Premarital sex, as a kind of 'adultery in advance,' is also a prime indicator of future marital breakdown.

"It gets worse. Since no method of contraception is 100% effective, an increase in adultery and pre-marital sex will inevitably lead to an increase in 'unwanted pregnancies.' What’s next? So many people think contraception is the solution to the abortion problem. Take a deeper look and you’ll see that that’s like throwing gasoline on a fire to try to put it out. In the final analysis, there is only one reason we have abortion - because men and women are having sex without being “open to life.” If this mentality is at the root of abortion, contraception does nothing but foster and afford this mentality.

"Not everyone will resort to abortion of course. Some will choose adoption. Other mothers (most) will raise these children by themselves. Hence the number of children who grow up without a father (which has already been increased by the rise in divorce) will be compounded...

"What about homosexuality? Our culture is impotent to resist the 'gay agenda' because we have already accepted its basic premise with contraception — the reduction of sex to the exchange of pleasure. When openness to life is no longer an intrinsic part of the sexual equation, why does sexual behavior have to be with the opposite sex?" [End extended quotation from Chis West]

DUDE! All I can say after that is, "Contraception? Oh, COME ON! Can't you see where that has led us?"