The exercise of the will

A pastor’s wife I know of, who was the picture of Titus 2:3-5—reverent, not a slanderer, commended for raising godly children, devoted to her husband for three decades—lost her dear husband two years ago. Yesterday I heard she had remarried.

Marriages soon after widowhood sometimes raise eyebrows or ruffle sensibilities, but it got me to thinking more wholesomely.

That the woman had loved her husband when he was alive is without question. That she mourned his death is also undeniable. Then how did she fall in love again, you ask? How could she in 24 short months meet, grow fond of, and commit herself to a new man? The answer is simple: She could now allow herself to—and that is perfectly fine.

As the Apostle Paul said:

“A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:39).

As long as this woman’s husband was alive, she guarded her heart and did not permit her eyes to wander. In those days she could have met this new man in a dozen venues and not have fallen in love with him. Why? Because of the devotion she bore for her husband, and because of the power of the will she exercised to not let herself “go there” in her imagination regarding any man not her spouse. But when her first husband went to be with the Lord, and she was no longer bound to him before God, there was no longer the need to maintain that invisible godly barrier.

The married person’s taboo (if I may put it that way)—her righteous exercise of self-restraint in her affections toward members of the opposite sex—is practiced so quietly and as a matter of course that it seems second nature, a thing unremarkable to even mention. And yet it is worth mentioning here because, for all that, it is the powerful exercise of the will that keeps a godly society functioning well.

It is when a culture shakes off all such invisible taboos that it begins to be destroyed from within. Let us enumerate some of those eroded biblical taboos in our day: the taboo against a man sleeping with his sister, the taboo against a man sleeping with his neighbor’s wife, the taboo against a man sleeping with another man, the taboo against a man sleeping with a child. You may say, “Well, I am never tempted by these particular things.” But that is the proof of the strength of the will’s exercise when supported by a culture. A virtue is no less laudable for being universal.

Ancient Israel sometimes wanted to be free of God’s yoke. God replied with pain and knowledge of what such “freedom” brings:

“And you, O generation, behold the word of the LORD. Have I been a wilderness to Israel, or a land of thick darkness? Why then do my people say, ‘We are free, we will come no more to you’? Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? …” (Jeremiah 2:31-32).

There is no freedom without a Master. What we laughingly call being autonomous and free—free to allow unbridled lusts and affections—is only bondage, and leads to ruin. God says it is as ludicrous as a woman declaring herself free of her beautiful wedding ornaments.

You can raise your eyebrows at the pastor’s widow who married soon thereafter. Or you can be more reflective and see it as a testimony to her character in having so long fixed her eyes only on her late husband.