Sacred Influence (10 page)

Now comes the hard part: will you give your husband what God has given you?

Form Your Heart through Prayer

Practice praying positive prayers for your husband. Find the five or six things he does really well — or even just one or two! — and try to tire God out by thanking him for giving you a husband with these qualities. Follow up your prayers with comments or even greeting cards that thank your husband personally for who he is.

I’ve practiced this with my wife — with amazing results. One morning, I awoke early and immediately sensed my frustration from the previous evening. We had an issue in our relationship that we had talked to death over the previous two decades. Lisa acknowledged her need to grow in this area, but events of the previous weeks had convinced me that nothing had changed.

I felt resentful, and in my resentful mood, I can slip into what I call “brain suck.” I start building my case. Like a lawyer, I recall every slight, every conversation, and prove to my imaginary jury how wrong my wife is and how right I am.

Suddenly, I remembered the widow of Zarephath. I decided to apply the truth from this passage, so I mentioned something about Lisa’s personality for which I felt very thankful. That reminded me of something else, which reminded me of something else, which reminded me of yet another quality. After about fifteen minutes, I literally started laughing. I saw so much to be thankful for that it seemed preposterous that I should waste time fretting over this single issue.

Prayers of thankfulness literally form our soul. They very effectively groom our affections. Leslie Vernick explains this from a counseling perspective: “Cognitive therapists know that what we think about directly affects our emotions. If we think on negative things, nursing bad attitudes or critical spirits, our emotions take a downward spiral. Conversely, if we think on things that are good, true, right, things that we are thankful for, then our emotions can be uplifted.”

Make liberal use of this powerful tool. We have to give it time. One session of thankfulness will not fully soften a rock-hard heart. But over time, thankfulness makes a steady and persistent friend of affection.

Drop Unrealistic Expectations

I found one of the wisest tidbits on marriage I’ve come across in a long time when I read the words of Patricia Palau, wife of the famous evangelist Luis Palau. Patricia says she knew, even before marrying Luis, that her husband intended to zealously fulfill God’s call to reach the lost: “God wants everyone to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4), and there have been times when I thought my husband was determined to do his best to reach the last four billion lost souls for Jesus Christ.”
⁶
Because of Luis’s call, Patricia faced certain difficul-ties that would drive some women crazy: “extensive travel, lengthy separations, and mothering four boys alone at least a third of the time.” Add to this an uncertain income and living in three countries during the first few years of their marriage, and you might expect to find a resentful, bitter wife.

Not if you talk to Patricia.

Here’s that bit of wisdom I said was coming: “We expected things to be different from the norm. We also knew up front that we couldn’t meet each other’s needs 100 percent. That realization protected us from disappointments that result from unrealistic expectations.”
⁷

Your husband will not meet 100 percent of your needs. He probably won’t even meet 80 percent. If you expect him to, you’re going to become frustrated, bitter, resentful, and angry. God didn’t set up marriage to meet 100 percent of your needs! Your beef isn’t with your husband; it’s with the one who created marriage! When you ask more of your marriage than God designed it to give, you have only yourself to blame for your frustration.

You may be tempted to reply, “But
my
expectations are legitimate, and he’s not meeting those!”

Just know this: that’s what
every
angry and disappointed woman says. I’m not saying this to scold you or to deny the hurt you’re feeling but simply to open your eyes to the hard, but ultimately nourishing, truth. I want you to find satisfaction rather than live in constant frustration.

Patricia discovered that accepting the role of the cross in her life helps her check her own desires. Listen once more to this wise woman:

Perhaps some things are improved by a lack of inward focus. Instead of focusing on our marriage or our desires, Luis and I have focused on the call of God on our lives. We have lived for a cause that’s bigger than both of us. And after forty years, we like each other, get along well, and have fulfilled one another as much as is possible.

Our fulfillment is doing the will of God. Our heart prayer is,
Not my will
,
Lord
,
but Yours
. This focus kept me from saying, “I deserve more help than this” when Luis has been gone for two weeks, leaving me with four little boys. I didn’t think,
I can’t believe Luis has to leave again so soon
, two or three weeks after his last trip. For me, the Lord’s command to “take up your cross and follow Me” has meant letting Luis go while I take care of things at home. No, it isn’t “fair,” but it brings life — eternal life — to others. And I gain peace, contentment, and satisfaction.
⁸

Patricia’s attitude works just as well for wives married to hardware salesmen as it does for wives married to evangelists or pastors. Patricia surrendered to
God’s will
, whatever it was. Raising children, supporting a husband, staying involved in your church — all of these activities can constitute a call “bigger than both of us,” even if such a call will never get celebrated in a history book.

Regardless of your life situation, the Christian life does require a cross. Your cross may look different from Patricia’s, but you
will
have a cross to bear. Resentment and bitterness will make each splinter of that cross feel like a sharp, ragged nail. A yielding, surrendered attitude may not make the cross soft
,
but it will make it sweeter; and at the end of your life, it may even seem precious.

When, as a mature woman married for more than four decades, Patricia testifies that she has gained “peace, contentment, and satisfaction,” she means she has found what virtually every woman wants — and yet very few women find. Why? Because so many women look at the cross as their enemy instead of as their truest friend. Peace? Contentment? Satisfaction? From a woman who raised four boys with an often absent husband? Who went through
two years
of chemotherapy? How can this be? Patricia understands something the world mocks: “In the end, nothing makes us ‘feel’ as good as does obedience to Him.”
⁹

If you don’t die to unrealistic expectations and if you refuse the cross, you’ll find yourself at constant war with your husband instead of at peace. You’ll feel frustrated instead of contented, and disappointed instead of satisfied. Why? We often forget that
both
partners in a marriage have their expectations, and sometimes these expectations conflict.

Martie Stowell, married to Dr. Joseph Stowell (former president of Moody Bible Institute), found this to be true in her own marriage:

When Joe and I became engaged, I had a set of assumptions about how our married life would be. One of those was that Joe would be home most evenings and we’d spend hours together talking, sharing activities, and dreaming together, just like we did when we were dating. But those expectations didn’t materialize. After we were married, Joe juggled seminary, a part-time job, and a ministry assignment in addition to his commitment to me as his wife. He often came home late and I would be upset about having to spend the evening without him after working hard all day at my frustrating job. I felt Joe was breaking some unspoken promise about spending time with me. But you see, that was the problem: I never spoke with him about my expectations. In my mind he was breaking a promise, but in his mind he was simply fulfilling his responsibilities.
¹⁰

Eventually, Martie talked to Joe about her desires, and the two of them worked out an arrangement to spend some evenings together. Because of his calling as a Christian leader, Joe is not home every night as Martie once dreamed he’d be; but also because of his calling as a Christian husband, he is home more evenings than he probably envisioned as a single man. Neither received all they wanted, but both bowed to something bigger than themselves. That’s why I say that harmony, joy, and peace will never grace a home ruled by expectations instead of by the cross.

In her book
It’s My Turn
, Ruth Bell Graham gets pretty blunt in this regard:

I pity the married couple who expect too much from one another. It is a foolish woman who expects her husband to be to her what only Jesus Christ can be: always ready to forgive, totally understanding, unendingly patient, invariably tender and loving, unfailing in every area, anticipating every need, and making more than adequate provision. Such expectations put a man under an impossible strain.
¹¹

Your Husband Isn’t a Church

This fallen world will unfailingly disappoint us; that’s why we need each other. You have a natural desire to know and to be known, to love and to be loved, to care and to be cared for. That’s why God doesn’t call us only into marriage; he calls us into community. Your husband may be a wonderful, godly man,
but he’s not a church
!

Your husband cannot possibly be all things to you. You are responsible to get certain things that you need for your own personal development — and emotional and spiritual health — outside the marriage. If you’ve blown off your support system — your female friends, your hobbies, your recreation, your spiritual friendships — hoping your husband could replace all of these while also meeting all your relational needs, then you’re setting up yourself (and your marriage) for disappointment and failure. No husband, by himself, is enough; you still need others, and it’s
your
responsibility to cultivate those other relationships.

Could someone else help fill some of that aching void of disappointment you feel with your husband? For instance, maybe you wish your husband would pray with you more about your family. While you’re working on that, why not find another woman and pray with her about your families? If your husband feels too tired or simply doesn’t want to go to those weekly Bible studies with you, ask a female friend. Maybe your husband is more of a couch potato than a running partner; so find a woman who will run a few miles with you.

If you get some of these understandable and natural desires met outside your marriage, you will become less likely to resent your husband for what he doesn’t do and more likely to recognize what he
does
do. Keep reminding yourself,
My husband is a man
,
not a church
,
and it’s not fair to ask him to be all things to me
.

It all goes back to God, and not your marital status, defining your life. You have all you need as God’s daughter to live a meaningful, productive, and fulfilling life. Such a life is best lived in the context of a church community. That’s where we get built up, and that’s where we find opportunities to serve.

Ask God to Change
You

As soon as you begin offering prayers of thankfulness for your husband, be sure of this: the enemy of your soul and the would-be destroyer of your marriage will remind you of where your husband falls short. You can count on it.

You’ll find yourself growing resentful: “Why should I thank God that my husband works hard during the day but when he comes home he won’t even talk to me at night?” “Why should I thank God that my husband has always been faithful to me — when he doesn’t earn enough money for us to buy a house and I have to work overtime more than I want to?”

You need to respond to this temptation with a healthy spiritual exercise: as soon as you recall your husband’s weaknesses — the very second those poor qualities come to mind — start asking God to help
you
with specific weaknesses of your own. That’s right — as backward as it may sound, respond to temptations to judge your husband by praying for God to change
you
. Go into prayer armed with two lists: your husband’s strengths and your weaknesses.

Lest you think I’m blaming women for everything, let me say that I do the same thing: I go into prayer armed with my wife’s strengths and my weaknesses. I think
both
husbands and wives should do this; but since this book is directed at wives, I’m emphasizing your response, not your husband’s.

Let me be brutally honest here: a husband married to a disappointed wife loses most of his motivation to improve his bad habits. Why do you think your husband worked so hard before you got married? Because he loved the way you adored him. He wanted to catch your attention, to impress you. And when he saw that you
did
notice and
did
appreciate him, it made him want to please you even more.
He felt motivated to move by the way you adored him.

The relational cancer of blatant disappointment will eat away any motivation for further change. Before you try to move your man, sit back, enjoy him, appreciate him, and thank God for him. Before you begin to think about what he needs to change, make an exhaustive inventory about what you want to stay the same. Then thank God for that — and thank your husband too.