It is one of the most painful things to hear of the downfall of those who call themselves evangelical Christians. I’m a great follower of the family that once aired on TLC called 19 Kids and Counting.
While I don’t know if being fruitful and multiplying to that extent is what we are called to do, I do see the heart of Jim-Bob and Michelle Duggar in wanting to raise their 19 children to love and follow God and to obey His Word. Their eldest son Joshua married Anna and together they have had 4 children. He moved away from his home town in rural Arkansas and got a impressive position in Washington D.C. In his new world, he started making some very unwise and hurtful choices. While proclaiming his strong conservative beliefs on one hand, on the other, he had got himself an account on the Ashley Madison website, had affairs and sunk into a dark and ugly abyss.
When the Ashley Madison website was hacked, he got outed and all the muck he had been hiding was gleefully spewed across the pages of the international press. He made a statement and promptly booked into rehab for sex addiction. The story is long, as TLC had already pulled the 19 Kids and Counting series off air for previous Joshua Duggar indiscretions, but of that you can research for yourself.
My interest for how the family would react mainly centred around Anna, the lovely, cheerful, hardworking wife of Joshua who was left surrounded by splinters of a shattered marriage. I have watched to see what Anna would do and it seems that she is going to offer grace and mercy to Joshua and remain with him.
This morning Joshua Duggar came to mind when I was sitting in church hearing a sermon on the woman who was caught in adultery.
It’s John 8 vss 2-11
2 At dawn He appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered round him, and He sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing Him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with His finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, He straightened up and said to them, ‘Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ 8 Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’
11 ‘No one, sir,’ she said.
‘Then neither do I condemn you,’ Jesus declared. ‘Go now and leave your life of sin.’
The phrase that jumped out at me was “the older ones first”. We older ones have more experience – we understand how imperfect we are. We understand how desperate we are to need Jesus to give us a second chance.
Joshua Duggar was caught.
He too deserves a second chance.
Anna plans to stay in her marriage. While the journey to healing will be long, it can be done. She is not alone as a wife of a man who made bad choices. Another name came to mind.
Ted Haggard.
This is taken from saintjameschurch.com
“Ted Haggard is the founding pastor of St. James Church in Colorado Springs, CO, the second church he and his wife, Gayle, have started during their 36-year marriage. Their first church, New Life Church, enjoyed 22 consecutive years of double-digit growth, primarily through conversions, and grew from 20 people meeting in the basement of their home to 14,000 people meeting on a $60 million campus. Ted served as president of the 30 million member National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) from 2003-2006. During these years, he often represented evangelicalism in the media and with world leaders. He also built, the World Prayer Center and worldprayerteam.org, which was the largest network of praying believers in the world, coordinated at the World Prayer Center. He also founded the Association of Life-Giving Churches, which merged with the Association of Related Churches in 2006. Ted resigned from all leadership positions for a period of healing and restoration in 2006.”
From 2006 to 2010, Ted needed healing and restoration for the indiscretions that blew his life into a million pieces. He lost his prestigious position, respect and trust.
Gayle stayed.
And wrote a book.
From tyndale.com
The Haggard family have more perspective of how it can turn out.
My prayer for Joshua and Anna Duggar is that God will heal Josh and that they too will find a way back to a ministry that glorifies God and reveals that His mercy and grace is for everyone.
Leave your life of sin. There is a way back.
God bless you.
In His Grip,
Helga