The Fighting Wife Episode Links
When You Pray, Pray and PRAY For Your Marriage and All You Hear is Silence From Heaven (PART 1)
When You Pray, Pray and PRAY For Your Marriage and All You Hear is Silence From Heaven (PART 2)
Have you ever wondered as a Christian wife actively pursuing God why your marriage isn’t reflecting God’s goodness? Almost like your faith has a split personality? Like your faith is your faith but when it comes to your marriage, that same faith doesn’t produce fruit?
My Marriage was downright unsaved
For me, I often wondered the last four or five years leading up to where I am now, if my marriage even had a faith. I had salvation and my husband too, but when it came to our marriage, it was downright unsaved and the way we treated each other in front of our children told me so. I wanted ever so much to raise my kids with a good model of marriage to look at. But it was so far from goodness, it would not be a reality if something wasn’t done and fast.
As if things could get any worse, I had absolutely no idea where to start to begin the restoration.
if this is you, where do you start?
Daughter of the Highest God, let me tell you exactly where to start if you are in the same place of desperation that I was once in. You start with The Knowledge of Truth!
If I know you like I think I do, I know you know that is true. Perhaps you are still confused. Let me explain. The reason you aren’t seeing the fruit in your marriage like you desire is because you need the knowledge of the truth. Yes, yes, I got that, you may be murmuring by now.
I’ll put it plainly
you may be actively learning but your methods for that One Truth you are after are wrong. Your heart may be right, but the means by which you are going about seeking Truth is wrong.
I am going to tell you 6 ways in which you are learning but not obtaining the Truth you are seeking!
This is a game-changer…
Once you know the lie and how you are deceived, you can kill it, then claim the victory that is yours in Christ Jesus. Moving on from a place of understanding, you WILL begin to see glimmers of the fruit you desire!
#1 Christian Wives are Consumers of too Much Selective Information
Never was there a time in history when as a culture we had so much information!
There is a surplus of solutions and people selling anything you are looking for. To their advantage, there are plenty of people lined up to buy the latest book custom-made for every issue they face. These over-eager consumers are convinced that if they could just apply the methods correctly, they can change their marriage.
How to Become a Better Wife in 3 Easy Steps…
How to Have a Better Marriage Overnight…
If you Want to Have a Better Marriage, Stop Doing This 1 Thing…
A serious Market for change
The target for such an audience is desperate people looking for promise—particularly Christian women.
As women who fit the bill, we boast in our bookshelves lined with books on everything from parenting, Christianity, and marriage. All that information would make such a woman a scholar, wouldn’t it? A woman who has consumed a lot of information must be smart, right? A lifelong learner of information is what God would delight in, wouldn’t He?
Yes, but not any kind of information.
Truthfully, we have so much “good” information that we are dumbed down to the real truth.
We have so many versions of the truth, that the One Truth is becoming harder and harder to see.
2 Timothy 4:3 says,
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
This includes Christian Wives
Christian wives are not excluded from this itchiness of ears. We seek every viewpoint to suit ours so that we can have that, “feel-good high” that we are doing the right thing. All this countless information is proving fruitless as we see that divorce is higher than ever in the church.
we have grown so desperate that we settle for any information, not necessarily the right information.
When I was going through the hardest times in my marriage, I thought that if I could just get my hands on the right book with the right answers, I could change my marriage.
I was always learning but never understanding.
It doesn’t matter what we consume or the amount if it isn’t the right information. I am not knocking any author or saying that Christian authors are unable to communicate the unfiltered truth effectively. But if you are desperate, turn to the Bible—the One True Source!
#2 Christian Wives are Not Seeking the True Knowledge of the Truth
always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.
2 Timothy 3:7
As Christian wives, we attribute it holy when we actively pursue knowledge.
“I don’t want to be naive, so I won’t be, and I’ll read a bunch of good books on various topics and then I’ll be deemed wise.”
Forget if we’re truly wise in God’s eyes. We look like it to others and that’s all that matters, right? WRONG.
Knowledge— the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association.
You are lacking this one thing!
One of the synonyms for knowledge (meaning the same thing) is wisdom.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Proverbs 9:10 (emphasis added)
According to that verse, we can only begin to scratch the surface of wisdom when we realize how holy God is and begin to revere Him in light of His holiness.
As a culture of Christian women, we are pursuing knowledge and forgetting to add the fear of the Lord. Fear doesn’t market very well. Even if it did, revelation and reverence for God isn’t something that can be summed up in a mission statement and imparted to others.
Not understanding in the right way
The definition of knowledge is not simply understanding, but understanding through experience.
Oftentimes, myself included, we can know another person’s story well. Glean from it, yes, but not have a true knowing through personal experience. It is every one of us and our story in light of God’s word, not simply a chosen few.
How to understand in the right way
Understanding to gain knowledge of God and His ways is wrestling with Him and His word until it becomes so a part of us.
It is knowing the truth (and ugliness) of our own marriage that creates accountability.
It is from that accountability of our wrongdoing that we can be forever changed by God’s word. Like Jacob who wrestled with God and was forever marked when he left that place. This accountability is the start of what can be a beautiful journey. But it has to produce humility before it can ever be effective.
Understanding so that you can be brought lower
You can be accountable to God for the condition of your marriage, but it’s where you go from there:
- Do you get angry?
- Do you get defensive?
- Are you prone to shame and guilt?
Look at a few verses about humility that should encourage you!
The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life.
Proverbs 22:4 (emphasis added)
But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
James 4:6 (emphasis added)
When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.
Proverbs 11:2 (emphasis added)
If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14 (emphasis added)
Be wary of false submission
Notice that this humility is as unto our Heavenly Father, not unto our husbands alone.
Forgiveness from your husband will be a part of the process, but it isn’t the process itself or where it stops. Humility as unto your husband alone is false submission.
Be wary of deceptive packaging
Not only are bookstores lined with self-help books, you can find any version of the truth on any topic that you want. If you want a narrative that says sin is not sin, you can find it packaged ever so neatly in deceptive packaging that makes you think it is of God. If you want to scratch the itch that love is all you need, they got you covered and will quote verses about love from the Bible.
As desperate Christian wives looking for answers, who have made it our goal to become lifelong learners of information, we have become vulnerable.
Be wary of knowledge on demand
Alongside our access to any information packaged beautifully and marketed in a way that seeks our desire for easy change, we have something else that is HIGHLY DANGEROUS.
In the 21st century, we have books on demand through kindle and the plot thickens! We have a surplus of “good” information ANY TIME we want to learn. Not necessarily when WE ARE READY.
#3 Christian Wives Learn & Then Concluded That They are “Good Wives”
Once we are snared, hook, line, and sinker with the wrong information, we can only break out with a true TRUE realization of who God is.
This was me!
I was so wrapped up at the beginning of my marriage up until a few years ago, in my qualifications that warranted me a pat on the back for being a “good wife” in my own eyes, that I was utterly and hopelessly blind to my true condition.
I had no idea what being a good wife meant according to God’s standards.
All I knew is that I was a good wife according to the world’s standards. But we know that we aren’t supposed to conform to the pattern of the world, don’t we (Romans 12:2)?
Being a newlywed himself, I’m sure my husband didn’t even understand but knew something was wrong and loved me too sincerely to not want to hurt my feelings by saying anything.
But oh, after a few years of marriage and being thrown around by his wife, he started to speak up and fight for himself and that’s when the fighting started.
I took this to mean he didn’t love me rather than God leading me to understand that something was not right. Remember, fighting is only the symptom of the real problem—it isn’t the problem itself.
From this place of blindness, it truly does oftentimes require a God-Saul moment, where we are blinded by God’s light and fall from our place of righteousness in our own eyes.
This is what undoubtedly happened to me, and I’m not saying I am perfect by any means, but it did come from a place of desperation and crying out to God to change my husband.
I was naive however to the fact that I was the one who needed to change.
If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14
When you and I start from a place of wrong understanding, it doesn’t matter if somewhere along the way we get it right.
As I explain in detail in the first part of my book The Quarreling Wife, if the foundation is wrong everything will follow that same degree of crookedness.
That’s why you can pray and pray and pray as I once did, even be sincere, for God to change your husband and nothing happens—something at the most fundamental part of your belief system is out of kilter.
Your heart may be right and seemingly pure as you pursue righteousness and remain secure in God’s inexplicit love for you, purchased by His Son’s blood, but your belief system can still be wrong and lead you ever-so in the way of deception.
As I explain in my book, once your eyes are opened it may very well begin a very painful time when God (only with your permission as He will never EVER force His ways on you) will begin demolition on your belief system.
This rocked me to my core and left me feeling barren.
But Beloved, if and when you find yourself in the same place of barrenness that I was in, you have something too beautiful to behold because before you even know it, God will begin laying fresh brick and mortar on the foundation of His truth.
Painful at first and what I liken so often to a bitter medicine that you will need to simply throwback, it will get easier and easier and you along with your marriage will begin to get well. Like a blank slate and a newborn baby, your pile of rubble will become a canvas that God can begin impressing His Truth upon.
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Psalm 34:18
and provide for those who grieve in Zion– to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.
Isaiah 61:3
4. Christian Wives Don’t Spend Enough Time With God to Really Know Him
It is interesting to me, as I read the journey of the Israelites in the wilderness in Exodus 16, that God gave them what they eventually would call manna, to eat but specifically instructed them to gather DAILY only what they needed. It is also fascinating to me that the manna that was saved by some, went rotten with maggots by the next day (v20).
This is an Old Testament story but we can so very much learn from it even though we reside under The New Covenant.
You and I need to be gathering fresh manna every day.
Let me say it again—you and I need God’s FRESH sustenance and provision every single day!
You know why?
Because what we need today won’t be what we needed yesterday, and what we need tomorrow will not be what God has given us today.
We need to be filling ourselves with God’s goodness every day. God desires to give you the very best of Himself. But if you refuse this freshness, what you have will go rotten and you will go hungry.
This daily, purposeful filling (as we indeed eat to live) of God on a daily basis is what brings us not only strength but guidance. Even if you are not reading something that pertains to your marriage, you are still being filled and your marriage will still be affected by that filling.
Remember, this process isn’t really about your husband and ending the fighting in your marriage—it is first and foremost your finest worship to the Lord.
To further illustrate this point, let me bring you to Mark 2:21-22 when Jesus Himself says,
“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, and a worse tear will result. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. Instead, new wine is poured into new wineskins.”
Each and every new day is likened to an old piece of cloth and an old wineskin by Jesus to illustrate that His newness cannot hold fast or fill something old.
What God has for you today will not be what you needed yesterday. It may shed light on what may or may not have gone wrong, but God knows what you need each and every day and He wants to give you the very best of Himself on a day-to-day basis. He intends to be faithful to that fresh outpouring.
Because of the loving devotion of the LORD we are not consumed, for His mercies never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness!
Lamentations 3:22-23
Consequently, you and I have a choice to accept or refuse this fresh outpouring and each decision comes with a consequence.
If you do accept it, the consequence is that you will grow yet another day closer to our God.
If you don’t accept His outpouring, the consequence will perhaps be fighting with your husband but also a deception from drawing off of old manna.
Last week’s manna will still be true, but wherein lies the deception is when you and I think that what we have is fresh.
That manna will go rotten and stop producing fruit. Not because it was bad but because it is old. Much like in the physical realm, we won’t immediately die when we stop eating. We may very well continue to live spiritually by last month’s outpouring. But if we don’t eat from God’s provision in the near future, we will waste away until we die.
5. Christian Wives Fail to Understand Fully Because They Don’t Read the Fine Print
We fail to understand fully because we don’t read the fine print.
As charismatics, we tend to either take out of context or not know the context in which scripture is written.
This is terrifying!
Let’s look at 2 Chronicles 7:14 again!
if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
As Christian women, we can look at this verse and without even knowing it remove all of the action words that are required of us to get the healing that our land (marriages) so desperately needs.
Our ground can be parched and ever-so weary and we pray and pray and pray to God because we know that we are called by His name. Before too long, we give up and even turn on God because He must not love us due to His lack of answers.
Something is wrong, Dearest Wife, and the writing is in the Bible…literally! In order to receive this healing, we are to HUMBLE ourselves, pray, yes, SEEK God’s face (daily, with intentionality), and TURN from our wicked ways. Only then does it say that God will even hear from heaven, forgive our sin, and heal our land.
Do you see that there is a process there and it requires work on our part?
Another verse I hear so often taken out of context in James 4:2 which says,
..You do not have because you do not ask God.
Even the newest women to faith know that it isn’t an asking problem that is the problem here! We ask all the time and get creative with our asking and perhaps manipulating of God. But God will not be manipulated into fixing our marriages especially when we don’t read His instructions in their entirety. What James 4:2 really says, along with verse 3 is,
You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
James 4:2-3 (emphasis added)
Another example is 2 Timothy 3:1-7 which says,
But understand this: In the last days terrible times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, without love of good, traitorous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. Turn away from such as these! They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.
If we’re not careful here, we can be SO deceived!
We may think because we don’t know the context of this passage, that this does not apply to you and me.
This verse starts out by saying, in the last days terrible times will come..and finishes with, never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Certainly, this is not I, and certainly, all the terrible things listed in between aren’t applicable to me! Oh, Sister, let’s look again!
The book of 2 Timothy is a second letter Paul wrote to Timothy.
Timothy was a faithful servant of Paul’s as they ministered together before Paul was imprisoned. Upon receiving this second letter from Paul, Timothy is currently ministering to the church in Ephesus. This letter is largely an encouragement to Timothy from Paul to continue fighting the good fight (that they had fought together for so long), written from prison in Rome awaiting his probable and almost certain death. Timothy had been imprisoned once already (Hebrews 13:23), so this encouragement was necessary as Paul would soon no longer be around to support Timothy in his ministry.
2 Timothy 2 concludes by warning & dealing with false teachers
chapter 3 picks up talking about …in the last days, perilous times will come. This entire book is a letter to Timothy about how to minister to the church—so it’s safe to say—this book is talking about THE CHURCH.
You and I and countless other believers, women, and men alike, can and do have a form of godliness for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).
And this form of godliness is what has us deceived as to our real condition. And to make matters worse, 2 Timothy warns against false teachers, which means there are people of faith that are false…that can and are worming their way into households and gain control over gullible women who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.
This is absolutely terrifying
If you and I don’t know the context of the Word in which we read, we are equally deceived as if we didn’t read it at all. Could scripture be saying here, that false teachers (who are Christ believers) are going to be teaching a form of godliness and therefore find and fill desperate Christian wives who are eager to learn and gain wisdom (but in fact are never able to come to a knowledge of the truth) because it wasn’t true, to begin with?
These are only a few of many bible verses that are cherry-picked and taken out of context or the context unknown altogether. For the sake of our families, we have got to know the truth of what we are reading!
6. Christian Wives Don’t Apply What They Learn or Don’t Want to Learn Because Then They Will be Held Accountable
As equally as important as knowing The Truth (scripture), we have got to apply it to our lives. Not so we can simply get what we want (which is a better marriage), but so we can be changed because of the day in age in which we live. We fight to learn and change because our children’s’ lives are at stake here, right alongside the livelihood of our marriages which comes full circle and will affect our children’s’ lives anyway.
It is terribly hard to be doers of the word.
I mean what does humble thyself even mean? How do I even begin to understand prayer and seeking God? How do I rid myself of wrong motives? How do I even begin to make sure that I don’t have a form of godliness?
Each and every command (written within the fine print that we so often remove) as Christian wives and women will set you on a lifelong journey. Learning more about God and His Ways has never been about arriving so we can be done. We will never be done.
God is too big and beautiful and unfathomable to even begin to understand.
As you dig deeper into each and every command that He gives in the only life-giving way that He can, we will be transformed and set ablaze. In light of this truth, how can 1 Peter 3:1 ever be wrong that says,
Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, (?)
As God changes you in the midst of submitting to your husband through the strength God provides daily, your husband will be transformed as well!
In the process of all of this will be another undergoing construction as well and it is your marriage. Let these truths set you free from these deceptions that are fighting for your life and you will look back and year from now and not even remember the girl that you once were!