Sacred Influence (35 page)
Yet when you talk to John, he keeps coming back to how much he appreciates Catherine’s patient spirit. If she had tried too hard, if she had kept pushing, she most likely would have moved John further away from the faith rather than closer to it.
Keep in mind that a cosmic spiritual battle rages inside your husband. Eternity is at stake. In the light of eternity, one or two decades aren’t all that long (even though twenty years can seem like forever). John remembers times when he saw Catherine and the kids getting ready for church and then pulling out of the driveway, and something inside of him would be saying, “Go after them” — but he didn’t know how. It took time. If Catherine had tried to force the issue, she would have made things worse, not better. Jesus tells us in Luke 8:15 that “by
persevering
[we] produce a crop” (emphasis added).
The Ultimate Surrender
Few things present more difficulty for a bride of Christ than being the wife of a man who is outside the faith. Catherine admits to feeling pulled hard in two directions. She loved her man and wanted her marriage to work — but she also loved God and wanted to put him first. It hurt deeply when she couldn’t immediately bring the two together.
The reality is, no easy answers exist. I can’t you give an ironclad recipe that will guarantee your husband’s conversion — and anybody who tells you differently, frankly, is lying. But a gentle and quiet heart, mixed with a patient spirit, in a woman who keeps praying and who finds ways to connect with her husband greatly increases the possibility that she will one day pray to the God of her dreams
with
the man of her dreams.
I can tell you this: 2 Peter 3:9 makes it abundantly clear that God does not desire anyone to perish, and 1 Timothy 2:4 declares that our Savior “wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” When you combine the favor of God, the guidance and conviction of the Holy Spirit, and the persevering love of a believing wife, I
like
that man’s chances.
God bless you in this glorious task! The most important place you can ever move your husband toward is
God
. When you consider the eternal benefits and your husband’s spiritual health, nothing else comes close. It’s not an easy battle, nor is there a guaranteed victory — but in the end, it’s a fight worth fighting.
*
This story is true, and all the quotes factual, but the names have been changed to protect the children.
A
s a new country began to take shape, a new child began to form in Abigail Adams’s womb. The year was 1776. The colonies had declared their independence from England, and their breakaway leaders were working hard to create a new nation.
It’s a wonder that Abigail and her husband, John, ever had time to conceive a child, given that John had to be away from home so frequently. But they did, although shortly after the conception took place in the early weeks of 1777, John had to leave once again, to attend yet another session of the new congress.
The pregnant Abigail knew she could have persuaded John to remain home. She said as much in a letter to a friend: “I had it in my heart to dissuade him from going and I know I could have prevailed, but our public affairs at the time wore so gloomy an aspect that I thought if ever his assistance was wanted, it must be at such a time. I therefore resigned myself to suffer some anxiety and many melancholy hours for this year to come.”
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Though Abigail knew she needed her husband nearby, she also believed their new country needed him even more. She willingly inconvenienced herself for the sake of her land.
John appreciated his wife’s sacrifice. He recognized her unselfishness, and he respected it. Abigail had a legitimate claim, and no caring husband could deny the hardship of a pregnant wife left alone during the winter. A famous pamphlet had called the revolutionary period a time “that tried men’s souls,” to which John responded that they were “times that tried women’s souls as well as men’s.”
2
And it’s not as though this inconvenience remained limited to a single season. In another letter, Abigail confides, “’Tis almost fourteen years since we were united, but not more than half that time have we had the happiness of living together. The unfeeling world may consider it in what light they please, I consider it a sacrifice to my country and one of my greatest misfortunes.”
3
Abigail paid a heavy price for her love and devotion. Not only did she have to share her husband with his country, but she also endured many vicious attacks leveled against government officials, telling one friend, “When [my husband] is wounded, I bleed.” Later in life, Abigail referred to their public life as “splendid misery.”
The couple also suffered their share of marital disagreements. John could be obstinate; though he sought his wife’s counsel, he didn’t always follow it. In fact, early in their marriage, the couple had an opportunity to prosper financially. Unlike today, succeeding in government back then held no guarantee of financial security. John Adams believed that land would make the best investment for their savings. When the opportunity arose for the couple to invest in newly available government securities, Abigail urged her husband to take advantage of them. But John remained suspicious of investing in “coin and commerce.” He understood land, the value of agriculture, and the importance of food, but he didn’t trust banks. As it turned out, “had the Adamses invested in government securities as Abigail wished, they would, almost certainly, have wound up quite wealthy.”
4
Yet there appeared to be no lasting bitterness over this lost opportunity. Abigail was a realist, as well as a passionate partner in her husband’s pursuits. She recognized that, though her husband excelled at diplomacy, his investment acumen fell far short of genius. Like all men, he had his limits. Abigail had made her choice, and she continued to support John in his strengths while remaining magnanimous about his weaknesses.
Abigail’s unswerving devotion cemented her husband’s heart to hers. When John became the second president of the United States, he wrote a long letter, begging Abigail to join him without delay:
I must go to you or you must come to me. I cannot live without you. . . . I must entreat you to lose not a moment’s time in preparing to come on, that you may take off from me every care of life but that of my public duty, assist me with your councils, and console me with your conversation. The times are critical and dangerous, and I must have you here to assist me. I must now repeat this with zeal and earnestness. I can do nothing without you.
5
John Adams felt
desperate
for his wife’s presence. He needed her conversation and her counsel so much so that he asserted, “I can do nothing without you.”
I’ve spent a couple of hundred pages talking about how a woman can influence a man, but Abigail obviously cornered this market over two centuries ago.
When Abigail lay mortally ill in October of 1818, her husband remained constantly by her side. In her last few days, she awoke from a delirious haze, saw John next to her, and gently confessed that she knew she was dying, and that if it were God’s will for it to be so, she was ready. She desired to keep living, she said, only for John’s sake.
When John heard that even death’s door hadn’t dampened her devotion, he became an emotional wreck, stumbling out of the room in a stupor. Downstairs, he told a friend, “I wish I could lie down beside her and die too.”
Two days later, Abigail did die; but John’s respect, loyalty, and remembrance lived on. Years later, when people complimented John about his son’s rise to the presidency and the pride he must feel about the role he had played as a father, Adams forcefully responded, “My son had a mother!”
6
The Romance behind the Labor
By now, some of you may be thinking, “This entire approach Gary’s been talking about seems like so much work! Where’s the romance? Where’s the fun?” I’ve retold the Adams’s story because I believe their marriage had the best of romance encased within the reality of sacrifice and personal struggle.
I believe in marriage — with all of its work, obligations, and sac-rifice, along with all of its joy, pleasures, laughter, and romance — because it’s what God calls most of us to do. If you’re reading this book, I suspect you’re not called to celibacy. Physically, emotionally, and spiritually, God designed you to live in a lifelong, committed relationship with one radically imperfect man. Can you trust God enough to believe that surrendering to this life — both the good and the seemingly negative or difficult — will, in the end, produce the most satisfying life possible: a love based in faith and built on a lifetime of memories, esteem from your children for holding your home together, and rewards from your heavenly Father for creating a family that testifies to his redemptive and reconciling love?
A lifetime of romance lies hidden in the work of marriage. In your own relationship, you may occasionally feel tempted to “lie down” and get lost in romantic comedies instead of studying how to love a real man. It may seem easier to withdraw from love, to get lazy in your affections, to coast in your marriage — but such an indulgent, soft way of life will ultimately steal your sense of well-being and even your happiness. You’ll lose any romantic feelings you once had for your husband, and you’ll eventually despise the person you’ve become.
God built us in such a way that, early on in a relationship, romance is unearned and often unappreciated. Intimacy is immediate and electric. In a mature marriage, romance is maintained only through hard work, deliberate choices, and concrete actions. You can’t force feelings, but you can choose to act so that feelings usually follow. If we act like we’re in love, we’ll keep falling in love. It’s a process of growth — toward God, toward each other, and toward personal holiness.
I look at it this way: everything that God asks of me is what I ultimately want to become — a loyal, loving spouse; a sacrificing, affectionate, and involved parent; an enthusiastic worker for the gospel; a faithful and loving friend. Everything I see resulting from the world’s view of romantic relationships is what I most despise —people getting hurt by betrayal and divorce; children being devastated by the destruction of their homes; individuals becoming more selfish and more hedonistic as they age.
If wisdom is known by her fruit, the Bible is the sweetest teaching that has ever been told yet is somehow strangely in competition with the most bitter of fruits, which appears ripe and ready to eat but which makes the stomach sick and sour as soon as it’s consumed.
Biblical love is a Christ-centered love that seeks to perfect holiness out of reverence for God. As we end this journey together, I ask you to pause and try to imagine the pleasure you give God by loving his son well. Your husband probably will, at times, take your love and devotion for granted. He may act in harsh and critical ways. He may be selfish and inconsiderate. But he’s not the only one living in your home! An all-seeing God receives great pleasure when his daughters love his sons, and he showers his spiritual blessings in the form of a soul-filling intimacy that is unlike any other: “How wonderful, how beautiful, when brothers and sisters get along! It’s like costly anointing oil. . . . It’s like the dew on Mount Hermon. . . . Yes, that’s where GOD commands the blessing, ordains eternal life” (Psalm 133 MSG).
Someday, in the not too distant future, a young woman will have the opportunity to make me one of the happiest fathers-in-law who has ever lived, simply by loving my son well — by being generous, kind, and encouraging; by helping him to become all that God intends for him to become; by forgiving him when he sins, lifting him up when he’s discouraged, comforting him when he’s sad, and sharing in his glory when he succeeds.
If I, a sinful man, can still feel this way about my son, just imagine how your heavenly Father-in-law will smile on you when you love his son!
I know that relationships can be difficult and hurtful. I know that being married to a man who “stumbles in many ways” (James 3:2) can grow tiresome and exhausting. But I also know that God is real, that his Son has made a mighty sacrifice for our sins, that his Holy Spirit will empower us, that his living Word will guide us, and that his promise of heavenly rewards is more secure and more certain than anything this world offers.
You have not chosen an easy life, but you are living a rich one, with unimaginable potential. God has gifted some women to build companies, some to write books, some to start ministries — but even here, I believe women still feel most fulfilled (and will be most re-warded) by loving and being loved and by exercising faith, growing in godliness, and sharing this life in intimate union.
As you continue on this life journey, seek the Lord for guidance on how to build the type of marriage he desires. Call on him to give you his wisdom in developing the “sacred art” of loving an imperfect partner so that your husband can became all that God wants him to be.
As you begin to influence your man, you will see the Lord influ-ence you as well — to draw closer to him.
Chapter 1: The Glory of a Godly Woman
1
. C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch,
Commentary on the Old Testament:
The Pentateuch
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), 103.