Shut Up and Repent

Ann Wilson and her husband Dave had been married for a decade, and there was an ongoing, persistent source of conflict in their marriage. She called it the merry-go-round. And the merry-go-round was, I feel like you're never home, the boys need you, I need you, you're gone, you're doing all this stuff for everybody else, and we need you at home. And then Dave would get angry, he'd get mad, and he'd say, I am home, and he'd defend himself, and I'd say, no, you're not home, and that would just end. And so for a long time, that had happened where I was so angry. My anger turned to resentment, my resentment turned to bitterness, and my bitterness turned to nothing.

Just a hard, crusty heart. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson.

I'm Bob Lapine. You'll find us online at familylifetoday.com. What do we do as couples when our hearts have become hardened toward one another? We'll talk more about that today. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. We're going to revisit a classic story today. I don't know about classic, Bob. A defining moment in the Wilson marriage. You would say this was legacy-defining. Didn't know it at the moment when it happened, but now looking back, it changed everything. Not only in our marriage, but I really believe in our sons' marriages and our legacy. I first heard you share this story at a Weekend to Remember Getaway. This was more than a decade ago where you were sharing this with folks, and I thought, that's a powerful story. And when we sat down to map out the Art of Marriage video series, we thought, what are the stories we need to include?

And I thought, we should have Dave and Ann tell that story about their anniversary. So, you shared that. That got shared in the Art of Marriage. There have been more than a million people who have seen that in the Art of Marriage. Yeah, a million people have seen the worst moment in our marriage. Thanks, Bob. But you also, it was you that said to us, that's a book you know, which we had no idea.

We're thinking, no, it's not. And a year ago, you released the book Vertical Marriage, and this story's at the center of that. Now there's a video series for small groups called Vertical Marriage that's five sessions where you unpack the themes from the book. Well, the best thing about the video series in some ways is you read these stories in the book, you don't get to hear them. Now you get to hear them, especially from my wife, Ann, who brings all kinds of visuals onto the stage and creates magical moments, and you get to watch them.

You can find out more about the book Vertical Marriage and about the Vertical Marriage video series when you go to FamilyLifeToday.com. But I thought today we ought to listen back to the conversation we had about this chapter in your life. This was before you became the hosts of Family Life Today. Oh, yeah. We sat on the other side of this table. Yeah, with you and Dennis. Right. And we were scared to death.

And it's even scarier being on this side of the table. But yeah, Dennis Rainey and I got a chance to talk to you about this chapter in your life and in your marriage, and so we're going to listen back to Dennis and me interviewing the two of you about this turning point. If I had asked you, Ann, 10 years into your marriage, did you think you had a good marriage, 10 years in?

No. At 10 years in, I was very disappointed. I was frustrated. I was angry. I thought we would have an amazing marriage. And I felt a lot of guilt, too. We were starting this church.

Dave was starting it in terms of he was putting the time and energy into it. We had two kids at the time. They were little.

They were three and one. And so, I'm trying to keep the home front steady and still helping Dave as we start this church. But he was gone a lot and more and more. He was also the chaplain for the Detroit Lions, and so he was traveling with the team. He was doing chapels. We were both leading Bible studies for them. And then we had all this church stuff on top of that.

And when you're in ministry especially, it feels like you're competing with God because all the things Dave was doing were wonderful, godly, amazing things that were expanding God's kingdom. And I felt very selfish and self-centered to say, we need you at home. And I did say it, and I said it very loud, didn't I? Oh, she yelled it.

She's being nice right now. You know, and the interesting thing for me, and you heard this in The Art of Marriages, I was clueless to this. I would have told you our marriage was – Hold it.

Hold it. Very clueless. Well, thanks, Dennis. Thanks for clarifying that. Yeah, you thought your marriage on a 10-point scale was what?

I would have said a 10 or a 9.8, and I guaranteed you and agreed, you know. There you go. That's what I thought. I really did. I really did. I mean, people hear that now, and they're like, there's no way you thought that.

Here's what I thought. When we first got married, we struggled big time, went to the weekend to remember as an engaged couple, thought we'd just whiz into marriage and make it work. Six months in – this is in chapter 1 of the book, by the way – six months in, we're fighting so much. I go downstairs at 3 in the morning because I can't sleep, and I get on my knees, and I open the Word of God. Oh, and I walked into the room right at that point, and we had had a fight.

It wasn't resolved, and I wake up, and Dave's gone. And so, I go down into this room, and I see him on his knees, and I'm like, thank you, Jesus. He's finally on his knees, you know? And so, I see him.

I'm so excited to see him. And I'm like, oh my gosh, look at you. You're in the Word.

You're praying. And he goes, you know, I've just been reading God's Word where Paul said, to live is Christ and to die is gain. And I just told God, God, I'd rather be dead than married to Anne.

Oh, that wasn't what you were expecting, was it? Who says that out loud to their wife? I mean, I hear that now, and I'm like, what an idiot. I cannot believe I said it. I mean, I prayed it.

I really did pray that. Think about, you know, you laugh at it now, but you guys know, man, when you're in that moment, it's like, I'd rather die. Yeah. Well, Paul just said, death is glorious, and this is terrible. So, I meant it.

I'd rather die. But here's the other thing. It's funny now because, you know, we were mentored a little bit before we got married, and they said, tell your spouse every thought you ever have. So, that's why I told her. Did we say that after we came to remember?

No, that wasn't you guys. Okay, good. By the way, that's really bad advice. You don't tell them every single thought, which I did. And when I said it out loud, I thought, oh, I'm being authentic.

And I looked at her heart just went, I'm like, whoops. Why were you so miserable six months in? What was it that wasn't happening for you? Everything. I mean, we were your typical couple, madly in love, and you have these expectations that you don't even realize you're bringing in. And baggage. And baggage.

So much baggage. And then, you know, reality doesn't match up to expectations. There's this gap, and I filled the gap with, I married the wrong person.

And so did I. You were miserable because he wasn't the man you thought he was? I think it's that, and I think he had, we were fighting, and he'd leave the room.

And I'd be thinking, where are you going? We're supposed to work this out. We had differences in our past, in our sexual past, that were just very hard. I have abuse in my background, and so I felt insecure.

There was just a lot of baggage. But the amazing thing, in my mind, is I felt like we worked through all that. That's year one. We're now year 10. We've got it together. We have a couple kids. I'm starting to launch a dream of mine, starting a church.

I'm the chaplain of the lions. So here, you know, I'm living the dream, and I'm actually thinking our marriage is good now. That's why I would have told you it's a 10.

It's beyond good, and my wife feels the same way. And that all came crashing down in one night, one evening. Let me add, where Dave was a 9 or a 10, if someone would have asked me, I would have said a 1 and maybe a.5. And I was so angry that Dave didn't know how bad we were doing. So before we jump back into year 10, there are folks who are just saying, OK, how did you get out of six months in, I wish I was dead and not married, to six months later being, OK, we got this back on track? What happened in the intervening six months that helped fix some of those early problems? You've got to read the book, Bob. That's all I can say.

How's that for a new author trying to sell books? No, I think what actually happened, and it sounds simplistic, but we really did pull out the manual. The family life, we can remember manual. And I'm not saying it's magic and it's got all the answers, but it was our only source of what does God's word really say? And again, we had sat there on the weekend and listened, but we really weren't listening because we didn't think we needed it.

Now we're in desperation. And we sort of went back, two things happened. One, we pulled it out and said, OK, let's start at block one, what are the five threats, and we're like, wow, all of these are hitting us. What's God want to do? But number two was we started teaching it.

Yes. We had nothing else to teach. We didn't know anything else. We had this manual and we're like, there's people that want help. We're not able to help them because we're not far enough ahead of them. That's what we felt.

But we're like, we can give them what we got. And so as we taught it, we internalized it. And it literally started to change our life. It changed everything.

I would say, I would look at you both, Barbara and Dennis, and just say, thank you. I'm not sure in that year one if we had made it. And I'm not sure we would have made it out of year 10 had it not been for family life, the principles, the help, the tools, and Jesus.

He was the main thing. But those resources saved our marriage. The Bible says that faith comes from hearing and hearing from the Word of God. And I think one of the understated benefits of the weekend, remember, is for a couple, a husband and a wife, to sit in that conference and soak and listen and meditate and hear it said and see it illustrated and hear older, more mature couples talk about how they have endured trials, all applying the scripture to their lives. You leave that conference with fresh hope because the Bible brings it.

It brings it alive in more ways than one. Now I want to go back to your 10th year. You had this glorious evening planned for you. And you actually went out to eat and had the guy who served you armed with 10 roses. Tell them about the 10 roses. I was romantic. I was Mr. Romance. Hey guys, you guys need to write this one down.

It is good. I felt under the pile after I heard Dave Wilson pull this off. Just make sure if you're doing this that your wife doesn't think your marriage is a.5 when you try to pull it off. This is true. Yeah, I didn't get any points that night. But I thought I was. I mean, yet again, Ann didn't know it. So most of the evening was a surprise, even the restaurant.

And I'm pretty tight with my money, so we don't go to nice, nice $50 steak places. And we did, but I didn't tell her until later. I didn't even put this in the book.

I had a two-for-one coupon there. I knew that would ruin the evening if she ever found out. So I just let that be a little secret, though. But yeah, I had this deal with the waiter when I walked in. I said, I gave him 10 roses. And I said, when I give you a look, bring over one rose at a time. And so we brought rose number one, and we talked about year number one.

And actually, and then he did that with year two and year three all the way through 10. And I would have told you, I don't know what Ann would say. I was like, it's a great night. We are talking. And I mean, talking, because women don't want to talk.

They want to talk, right? So we're talking about our relationship. And all I remember about that conversation was it was all highlights. It was all memories of the first 10 years that were good. We didn't go dark.

We went to the best memories of our 10 years. Yeah, you were killing it. And I think that the waiter was like, this dude is amazing. Yeah, I was giving him a lesson in romance, right? Were you starting to soften and go, you know, he really is a wonderful guy, and I really am lucky to be married to him. Oh, Bob, I wish I could say yes. But no, my heart was so hard that intellectually, in my mind, I thought, this is good.

This is a good try, but it didn't go into my heart thinking I really like you now. If we'd had you tied up to an EKG, you'd have had an occasional blimp. That's a good way to put it.

But not many heartbeats for him. No. So you finished the 10 roses. You decide you're going to take your wife out and go show her the building you're building to start this church. But actually, you have ulterior motives even in that.

You know me well, yeah. And even Ann figured it out. But yeah, we're driving home, and another surprise was pulling the parking lot. We were about to start our church, Kensington, in a middle school.

And Ann had not seen this middle school. It was like our team had decided this. I thought, this would be cool. We'll park here.

We'll pray about God doing a miracle in that school and building the church. And then I thought, we'll go park. And you guys all know what I mean by park, right? I do, yes. Yeah, and I honestly don't even remember praying.

I don't know if we did. I just remember leaning over, and we're in a little Honda Accord, so it was a little tight. But I remember leaning over to kiss Ann. And again, at this point of the evening, I'm thinking, this is a great night. She loves me. I love her.

Romance, good food, great communication. It makes sense to end this night the way I have envisioned in my mind. And I thought, of course she's going to go there. And so I try to kiss her, and she turns her head. And again, I'm so oblivious to what's really in her heart. I think she just didn't even realize I'm trying to kiss her. So I didn't even think that she didn't want to kiss me, so I try again.

You know, you lean over from the driver's seat, and she definitely turns her head. And that's when, you know, I had the wits about me to go, okay, something's wrong here. I don't need to be a genius, but oh my gosh, so I just said to her, is something wrong? And my first response was no, because he had put great effort into making this night wonderful, and it was. And so I didn't want to wreck it for him. And so he said again, but it seems like there's something wrong. And to be honest, I didn't want him to touch me.

That's how far gone I was. And finally he looked at me and said, seriously, what's up? And I just was quiet for a while, and I thought, all right, here we go. And I said, I've lost all my feelings for you. I have nothing.

I feel nothing about our relationship, and I don't know what to do. But I don't, I'm not there. So I'm sitting there, and it was as quiet as it just was, because number one, I can't believe what I'm hearing.

Again, I have no idea this is what's going on in her heart, although there were symptoms and signs for the last year, at least the last six months, that I did not see, because my eyes were so driven on everything outside my home except my wife, and she's being left in the dust. So when she said that, at first I was like, because she said you're gone a lot, and I'm putting the boys to bed without you. And I literally turned with my right arm to reach into the back seat where my planner was.

Back in the days when you had the schedule on your planner, that's where it was. And this is what I did in arguments. If I stayed around long enough to argue, I would win it. So I was going to pull that baby out. I really was reaching back there to pull it out. I was going to open it up and prove her wrong.

I have been home. The other day I was home, because I knew it was in there. So I'm reaching back there to grab it, and this is where this thing turns. It was amazing what happened.

This only happened to me a few times in my life. I sensed the voice of God, and it wasn't audible. It was just a strong Holy Spirit nudge, but it was so strong I knew exactly what he was saying. It was two words. Shut up.

It was that strong. Shut up. Don't you touch that planner. Listen.

So, Ann didn't even know this. I just went like this and went and just put my hand back in my lap, and I said, Tell me more. What do you mean by that? Well, it was really interesting on my end, too, because I saw him reaching in the back, and I thought, Oh, here we go. Here goes the merry-go-round that we were always getting on. And the merry-go-round was, I feel like you're never home. The boys need you. I need you. You're gone.

You're doing all this stuff for everybody else, and we need you at home. And then Dave would get angry. He'd get mad, and he'd say, I am home. And he'd defend himself, and I'd say, No, you're not home.

And that would just end. And so for a long time, that had happened where I was so angry. My anger turned to resentment, my resentment turned to bitterness, and my bitterness turned to nothing, just a hard, crusty heart.

And so when he turned around and he said, Tell me what you mean, that was the first time he's ever said that. And so I shared all that. I feel like you're not home. I feel like I'm parenting alone. I feel like you're off winning the world and you've left me behind. And I'm mad about it. I'm resentful. I'm angry.

It's all of it. And I don't even care anymore. I'm not saying I'll divorce you, but I'm saying I have no hope that our marriage will ever be good. And so, and again, I didn't say a word, not a word, because I had heard very strongly from God, Shut up. Just zip your lip and listen. And so I just listened, and again, I heard the voice of God. It was almost surreal because I've got this horizontal conversation going on, but I have a vertical communication going on with God. And now I look back, he does that all the time.

He's always speaking to us. But he was very strong that night where I heard him say one word. And again, I'm listening to Ann, but it was so strong because he said it several times, Repent. Repent.

Repent. And it was interesting. It was like strong, but gracious, just like the heart of the Father. You know, it was like, this is very serious, but I love you and I'm calling you out of where you've been living.

So, of course, Ann doesn't know this. She's just sharing and I'm looking at her and I'm hearing this. And I knew, here's the thing, I knew in one word what repent meant. It wasn't I'm in moral failure, I'm living disobedient in a sin area of my life.

It was this simple. When I heard the word repent, I knew God was saying, You're lukewarm. You preach it.

You teach it. You're not living it. I can't remember the last time you and I had an intimate conversation, God and me. You're not opening the word of God to just love me and let me love you. You're opening the word of God to get a message to go give somebody so they'll pat you on the back and say, You're amazing.

You pray, Help me prayers. Again, this is all in one word. All of this is funneling into my brain.

It's like, Your prayers are helping me as you're walking on stage to give another message somewhere outside of your house. All of that's in one word. And I knew in this one word, here's what God was saying. If you want this, your marriage, to work, this has to come first. And I'm pointing at horizontal. If you want this horizontal relationship with your marriage and anything really to work, I have to be first vertically.

I have to be number one. It's never going to work without me being the center and the rock. And what you preach has to be real. All that was in one word, and I knew it. And when you say me, you're saying God wants to be the center. God has to be the center vertical first.

That's the whole concept of vertical marriage is what would happen if you went vertical with God and really established a relationship with Him and then out of that overflowed that into your marriage. All that was in one word. And again, I didn't know all the implications of that, but I knew this. I needed to repent right now. And so when Anne finished what she was saying, I said something like this. I said, we need to talk about everything you said, but before we talk, I need to do something and I need to do it right now. You don't need to do this, I do.

And of course, she has no idea what that was going to be. And for whatever reason, I felt like I needed to be on my knees when I did this. And I don't always pray on my knees, but there are times when I just want my posture to be in total submission. So I got on my knees in the front seat of a Honda Accord, don't ask me how, but I pushed that driver's seat back and I turned around, the steering wheel was in my back and I put my elbows on the driver's seat and I prayed out loud with my eyes closed.

So I don't even know what Anne's doing. This isn't about my wife, this is about me and God. And I just said, God, I need to repent.

I am a lukewarm Christian. You know me, you know I've always hated that in the church and I preached against it and now I'm that guy. And he was praying that out loud. Yeah, I prayed it out loud and I said, I'm asking you to make me the man. You called me to be the husband. I'm called to be the dad I need to be.

I'm submitting everything to you. It wasn't a conversion moment. It was just putting him back where he deserves to be, on the throne, the control of my life. And again, I had preached this many times and here I am not living it, so I was like, oh my gosh, God, I surrender everything. You have to be the God who you are in my life.

And I repent and I'm choosing to live the life you called me to live. And I thought we were done. I thought, okay, now let's talk.

And I look over and she's on her knees. I think when Dave got on his knees, it shocked me. I know that Dave loves God. I know that he's running hard after God, but that was such a vulnerable place to be of saying, God, I repent. And as soon as Dave did that, there was a conviction of my heart, realizing that I had put all my hopes and dreams in Dave and that my marriage had become an idol.

I was spending so much time complaining in my head about him that my walk with God had become subpar. I realized that I was thinking, if Dave would just get everything together, if he would be this guy, I could be happy. And my happiness should never be determined upon others' actions. My happiness should depend on who God says I am, who he is, and my walk with him.

That's where the real joy comes from. And I realized I've put Dave as the idol of my life. He was like on my throne. And so I got on my knees and I said, God, I confess and I repent too because I've put my marriage and Dave in place of you and I repent of that. My happiness has been determined by him and his actions, and that's just wrong. So I give you all of me, all of us, our future, our marriage. And we pray, God, again, we've grabbed hands at that point because we had done this on our honeymoon and other times too. God, take our marriage and make it great.

We can't do it apart from you. Some couples will have an experience like this and then the next day the habits, the old patterns are back and it was like we went to the mountaintop and nothing really changed. Things really changed for you, didn't they? Yeah, and I'm not going to sit here and say, man, it was like, boom. But it was the next day, it was like, okay, you can pray a prayer like that, but that's a daily prayer. It's something we have to establish rhythms and disciplines in our life and in our marriage.

I mean, there were many conversations after that night about the horizontal part because I had people come up to me after you shared a story and say, okay, you repented, what did you do? I'm like, well, one of the things we had to learn to do is say no. I had to learn to say no to so many things outside the house that I thought were very, very important, and they're important, but if I lose this, my wife and my family, I don't have a ministry. It's like, oh my gosh, I've got it all out of order. I'm saving other families and losing my own. It was like the only way I save my own family is I've got to save my own soul with God and be right with Him. And then here's the amazing thing I think about vertical marriage.

The concept is this. We come into marriage and we were doing the same thing even though we taught this differently. We were trying to get happiness from each other, right? And so when that doesn't happen, and that doesn't happen for almost everybody, at some point you're disappointed. Most couples, and we did the same thing, we think, I married the wrong person.

No, no, no, you're looking the wrong place. That's the answer of vertical marriage is when you look to the one who can give you the joy and happiness that you want, now you come back to your marriage, what? You're overflowing rather than I need, I need, I need. It's like, no, I'm called by my God to serve, and He's filled me up in such a way I can serve.

It literally changes everything. As you've been talking, I've been thinking about Psalm 127.1, which has been quoted many, many times here on Family Life Today. It really captures the concept of vertical marriage. It says, unless the Lord builds the house. That's the vertical. The other half of the verse says, those who build it labor in vain.

That's the horizontal. Who hasn't experienced that? I was thinking back into our marriage in 46 years. We perhaps didn't have a romantic night like you attempted, Dave, with the 10 roses, but there have been nights where we have missed each other, and the only thing that rescued it was repentance on the vertical, on submitting to God and to Jesus Christ afresh. Yeah, and the verse that popped into my mind as I was listening to you is one that I learned as a brand-new Christian, and that's Romans 12, 1 and 2. And the whole concept of do not be conformed to this world will be transformed. Being transformed is repentance. We can't become transformed unless we repent, and that's what we tend to do in our marriages is we become conformed to the world.

We're trying to do it in our own power and our own strength and apply what we think is going to work, but when we repent and submit, then He transforms us, and then we can experience exactly what you were talking about, Dave. Yeah, and I'd end with this. My hope is that there's people listening right now, and they wouldn't do this. Oh, we can listen to Family Life today, and we can get books and resources, and that'll save our marriage.

Those are awesome, and they're very important. I'm hoping they go, the only hope we have is Jesus. And I'm not kidding. I see people all around the world getting on their knees right now turning off the radio, getting on their knees and repenting. Even if you're doing it by yourself, even if you have a spouse that's not there yet, you can still get on your knees, give your life to Jesus, and re-surrender your marriage, your home, your kids, and He hears that, and He's fighting for us. Well, we've been listening to a conversation Dennis and Barbara Rainey and I had with Dave and Ann Wilson more than a year ago right after the release of the book Vertical Marriage, and I'm just thinking, the re-surrender of a marriage, the re-surrender of a life. This is the regular rhythm of the Christian life, isn't it?

Regular re-surrendering. It doesn't have to be a big moment. It's a day-to-day process of re-submitting yourself to the Lordship of Christ. That's become a habit of mine every morning. When I turn off my alarm, I lay in bed for just a few minutes and say, Father, I give you my life again today. I'm yours, let me be your eyes, your ears, your hands, your mouth, and I can't do it apart from you. And some of the most, as you've just heard, significant moments in our marriage have been surrender moments, together.

But yet, every day is a surrender. And often it's by myself, Ann's by herself, and other times we're together, but that moment of saying, Jesus, I want you to be in control, not me, is life-changing. You guys are doing something pretty fun this week. I know a lot of our listeners are maybe normally part of a small group with their church or a group of friends that get together, and a lot of that has been put on hold over the last several months. You're going to be leading a small group for three weeks, starting this week, Thursday night, 8 o'clock Central Time. We're going to be going through the first three sessions of the Vertical Marriage video series. So, listeners can go to familylifetoday.com and join the Facebook group that we're setting up. That will give you access to Session 1.

You can watch Session 1 whenever you'd like. And then on Thursday night at 8 o'clock Central Time, you can gather together with people from all over the country for a small group discussion around Session 1 of Vertical Marriage that Dave and Ann are going to be hosting. So again, go to familylifetoday.com for all the information and join the Facebook group for the Vertical Marriage Small Group series. Again, our website is familylifetoday.com. There's also information available there about the Vertical Marriage book that Dave and Ann have written and about the video series if you want to use this with your small group later in the summer or next fall. Again, go to familylifetoday.com.

All the information is available there. And then plan to join us Thursday night, 8 o'clock Central Time, to be part of the Vertical Marriage Small Group. This is really cool. I'm glad you guys are doing this. Now, we need to say thank you to a group of our listeners who are really the unsung heroes of today's program, and that's those of you who made this program possible. The reason you were able to hear Family Life Today is because you had friends and neighbors who said, this program matters in our community, and we're going to sponsor it. They've made donations so that Family Life Today can continue to be heard here in this community and in cities all around the world. So, if you're a regular listener, you have your fellow listeners to thank for today's program, those who have donated in the past. And if you're a regular listener and you've never donated, we want to challenge you to pay it forward, to make it possible for you and others to hear upcoming programs. Family Life Today is listener-supported.

That's how this works. And so, we want to encourage you, challenge you to be part of the Family Life team. Make Family Life Today possible in your community by going to familylifetoday.com and making a donation, or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY and donate by phone. We are grateful for those of you who have donated in the past, especially those of you who are monthly legacy partners. Thank you for your ongoing support of this ministry. Help us take this program to more people, more often, by donating today.

Again, donate online at familylifetoday.com or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate. And be sure to join us again tomorrow. We're going to talk about how we develop a strategy or a plan so that when conflict occurs in our marriage, we know how to resolve it. Hope you can tune in for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back tomorrow for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.