Buoyant Confidence

The prayer that I have prayed for more couples that were struggling, Ezekiel 36 26, where God says, I will take a stony heart and turn it into a heart of flesh, and I will put a new heart and a new spirit in you.

You pray for a heart transplant. Now, desperate with Jesus, who did, by the way, chose a wedding as the site of his first miracle. He still does marriage miracles. Welcome to family life today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson and I'm Dave Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our family life app. This is family life today. So Ann and I were getting ready to do a vertical marriage marriage conference, I think in Mississippi, a couple of years ago, and sat down with this couple beforehand and thought they were from this local area in this church and find out, long story short, this guy and his wife had driven eight hours or 10 hours to get to this conference for their marriage. And of course, we're like, I just said, what in the world?

Why are you here? And he said, oh, we watched you and Dave talking about your book on the Today Show. And he said, I turned to my wife and I said, hey, hon, our marriage is a 10 out of 10, right? He said she turned to him and said, no, we're one. So here we are.

We drove 10 hours to get here to find out how do we get hope and help for our marriage. And so we've got Ron Hutchcraft here, who is the master of hope. Yeah.

Oh, boy. I mean, in some ways, you obviously you write a book called Hope When Your Heart Is Breaking by Ron Hutchcraft, the founder of Ron Hutchcraft Ministries. You're on the radio all around the world. You're an author.

You're a little older than we are. So you've got all kinds of wisdom. No, but seriously, I mean, we're taking this whole idea of as we talked previously about. I love your term, defiant hope when your heart is breaking. And you did such a good job helping us walk through the choices that we make when we've lost hope or we've been hurt. We can choose to wallow in that.

We can choose to be healed and walk out of. You did such a good job helping us with that. And you shared about losing the love of your life. Karen, who you guys had been married 50 years. You have really been living out.

How do I find hope where my heart is so broken? And if you haven't heard and listened to Ron's story and how what we had talked about previously, I'd really recommend that you listen in on that one, too. Yeah. So today we would love to take your idea of hope and apply it to marriages and families. And I know you talk quite often in the book about four words, loss, grief, choices, hope. Walk us through that a little bit. And maybe as you do, think about marriages that have lost hope.

How would you apply that to that? Let me give my definition of hope. I wanted to come up with something, you know, four words.

You could make a campaign motto out of it or something, but it's a little more words than I wanted to get it all done. But here's what we mean by hope, because it really is sort of a floaty word. Hope. A lot of people have hope.

But to me, it's pretty gritty. It's a buoyant confidence. OK, let's stop for just a minute. Buoyant. Buoyant means it may go under briefly, but it comes back up. It's not a happy, happy, I'm happy all the time. Hey. But it's a confidence that things are OK.

They're in bigger hands than my hands. So it's a buoyant confidence which allows you to to make some choices that you wouldn't otherwise make. Acknowledging the hurt. So it's not a confidence that's just whistling along, going, you know, it's not that bad or she's in heaven and everything's fine. She is in heaven. Everything's beyond fine for her.

For her. We're here. So it isn't a denial, because often you just sort of live in denial, but it's acknowledging, feeling, experiencing the hurt. I think sometimes as believers, we're afraid to acknowledge the pain, the hurt. One of the things I had to realize, you know, as kind of radio guy and Christian leader guides one, I'm like, people will be wondering how I'm handling this, because anybody who knew us knew what Ron and Karen was one word and suddenly was just Ron. I thought, well, what do I do?

And I decided that I wasn't going to just give the Christian talking points. Well, Karen's in heaven and I'm fine. No, I wasn't fine. It's not fine without her. So I've probably become more transparent and more vulnerable than I've ever been in my whole life. I think when I started to write in that grief journal that I began after her homegoing, I just said, I'm going to be honest about this.

This is Ron in the raw. This hurts. And who is going to believe the hope that Jesus is if I'm not honest about the hurt? Just to say the hurts not bad, but Jesus is great. No, Jesus is big enough.

His love is powerful enough that it is even. The hurt has to be real for the hope to seem real. You know, in the daytime, if you look out and you say, are the stars out? Well, no, they turn them off to save electricity during the day. No, they're out.

They're out all the time. But you can only see them against the dark sky. Well, I had the dark sky. Now we need to say, OK, now the light shows up against the dark sky. And, you know, just people have read the book and I keep getting so many things back from them and they're saying, thank you for being real.

Thank you for being transparent. That you gave us, someone said you gave us permission to grieve. We feel like we've got to, we're Christians, we've got to be fine. No, Jesus goes to the Garden of Gethsemane and just about melts down emotionally. I mean, to the point of hematodrosis, blood, sweating blood, the capillaries are bursting in him from stress. So my savior, the man of all men, he cries, he weeps over Jerusalem, he weeps at Lazarus' grave. He's overwhelmed emotionally at the Garden of Gethsemane. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Let yourself mourn it.

Oh, I didn't finish the definition. A boy in confidence acknowledging the hurt, but anchored in an unseen but certain reality. It's anchored to something.

It's based on the fact that I have a reality I cannot see. But I know this Jesus walked out of his grave under his own power and it's an unseen, but it is an unmoving anchor. And I will tell you, like that gospel song says, the anchor holds so the ship is battered. The anchor holds so the sails are torn. I will fall down on my knees as I face life's raging seas.

The anchor holds in spite of the storm. Now you asked about marriage. We enter into marriage with our greatest hopes, our greatest expectations.

This is our answer. This is the end of our search. And for many people, they feel like their dream is turning into a nightmare. And now we are dealing with loss because not only do loved ones die, but marriages die. And our dreams go down with them. But the principles are not all that different in terms of, okay, I'm at choice junction now, you know. Hope this way, hurt that way.

What do I do? And I like the picture, and it applies to the marriage situation as well, of what happened on September 11th, about five o'clock in the afternoon. Now most hope of finding many survivors was dying. And USA Today said that it was the darkest hour on the darkest day.

But who will forget the photo? Three firefighters. Go find a flag, raise it over the rubble. And USA Today went on to say something like, this was hope on a day when it seemed like all hope was gone. They raised a flag, all there was was rubble around them. There's nothing to celebrate here at all.

It was awful, awful, awful. But hope is your flag over the rubble. Now, if you will first of all face into and say, okay, grieve your grief, realize you are grieving over a loss, you're losing your marriage, you're losing the love that you were counting on. What are some of the hope choices, because the hurt choices are really easy to figure out. Be bitter, give up, get a divorce. Or you can say, Jesus, my heart is broken, here we go again.

My heart is broken, it is wide open. And now I think step one is the prayer that I have prayed for more couples that were struggling. Ezekiel 36 26, where God says, I will take a stony heart and turn it into a heart of flesh, and I will put a new heart and a new spirit in you. You pray for a heart transplant, now desperate with Jesus. Yeah. Who did, by the way, chose a wedding as the site of his first miracle. He still does marriage miracles.

Oh, I like that. And ask him if he would keep that promise, because by now both of you, your hearts are turning hard toward each other. You're bitter, you're resentful.

You have a list of things they've done wrong. You can only see, yeah, you forget what you fell in love with. Why did I marry this guy? But if you will say, I need a heart transplant, I'm asking you to do. I don't even know if I really want it, but I'm choosing hope.

I need a heart transplant, I really do. Forget winning. The hope choice is to forget trying to win, because when you're trying to win the arguments and win this, you know, I'm going to come out on top in this thing, you're only wounding more. James 5 16 says, confess your faults to one another, not blame each other.

It says, confess your faults to one another that you might be healed. Now that's a road to hope. At 10 years, I told Dave, I have nothing left.

Like, I have no feelings. I don't have hope. We had just started this church and I had nothing.

Wow. And I remember being on my knees and I said that to Jesus. I have nothing. Like, I have no hope. My only hope is in you, Lord. You have to give me a new heart.

You have to give me new eyes to see, because right now I've been going down this bitter path and all I see is the negative. And I remember both of us got on our knees in our car and repented because I was trying to find my life through Dave, thinking that he would make me happy. He was trying to find his life through his career of starting this church, doing what God had called him to do. I remember when Dave repented, he prayed in front of me, Lord, I confess I have put this in front of you. I have put this in front of Ann. If someone would have asked me what my response to that prayer would have been, I would have said, amen, that's what you've been doing.

That's what I've been hoping for. But when he prayed that, my eyes and the Spirit of God who lives in me automatically said to me, and you, Ann Wilson, you have been trying to find your life through Dave. And I had that heart of, oh, yes, that's true. And there comes a point when all of us have to get on our knees and say, I surrender, God, I need that new heart.

I need those new eyes. I need to put my hope in you and not this person or thing to fill me up. Even if the desire is not there, even if you say, if you've given up, you've already kind of crossed a bridge in your mind. You're like, yeah, as soon as you start to think that way, you've guaranteed it'll probably end because you've allowed that option. So in a sense, you were grieving your loss.

You were very honest about, you know, but you weren't going to waste this grief. And giving Jesus the open door to come in and change your heart, but to do something else, this is part of the miracle, is to help you see your spouse through his eyes. What does he see when he sees Dave? Well, I'll tell you what I see. I see this guy who's driven by his career and he doesn't care about me. He loves that.

No, no, no, no, no, no. Lord, when you look at Dave, what do you see? And you know what you'll start to see?

He'll start to reveal to you, he sees the needs behind Dave's deeds. He sees the wounds. He sees the scars. He sees a man created in his image. He sees a man that was worth dying for as the son of God. So if you can begin to say, Lord, help me see them.

This is where the heart transplant comes along. You see them through God's eyes. You start to see yourself through God's eyes.

You're willing to start to say those three hard words. I was wrong. Let's say your spouse is 90% wrong. Would you agree with that? Yeah, yeah, at least. Okay, let's say you're just 10% wrong.

Unlikely. Now, would you deal with your 10%? Would you be willing to say, I need you to forgive me.

I was wrong about the way I haven't been or I have been. Take care of your part. See what God does. He says, confess your faults to one another that you may be healed. So would you do your part of that? Okay, good. And two things I would say to forget, these are the hope choices in marriage, are to forget winning and forget fixing.

Quit trying to fix your mate. I think Ruth Graham, Billy Graham's wife, said it very well. You guys have heard this quote.

She said, it is my job to love Billy. It is God's job to change him. That's a great quote. And I think that's where we get stuck because it's like, no, I'm bleeding and it's your fault.

I wouldn't be bleeding if it wasn't for you. And so it's hard for me because it's almost like I'm the one repenting. And we've had couples come up to us and say, you know, your story's so beautiful that both of you repented and God showed up and saved your marriage. My husband won't repent. My wife won't repent.

What do I do? I want to repent. I am repenting, but they're not. Well, first of all, I don't expect a sudden response. These wounds have accumulated over a long time.

Right. So a disease or a wound that has been a long time coming and doesn't necessarily be cured overnight. So it's going to take some patience, which you'll have to get from God. And here is an interesting prayer to pray. Lord, I'm really having a hard time loving her. There's not much I'm getting back that would make me feel those love feelings. But I know you love her and I know that you love her enough to die for her. So I'm going to take a risk and offer this to you, Lord. If you would give me your love for her, I will deliver it.

I have none or very little left to give. But I know that whatever happens to us, you still love her and you're going to keep loving her. So I'd be willing to be your UPS guy to deliver love from you. So would you put some of your love for her in my heart? That's the least I could do for you for the way you've loved me. These are prayers that, again, are not Lord if it be your will things. I've been waiting for that green light. He doesn't force himself into our situation.

He waits for the invitation. Again, these are the choices. And you know, Dave, let's go to the worst case scenario. He never repents. She does. She is at least blessable by God and has made her situation, put it into his hands. And she is, rather than making choices that will make her a harder person, a bitter person, a more angry person, a more frustrated person, a more controlling person.

She's making choices that will at least leave her with a soft heart instead of a hard heart, a closeness to God instead of a distance from God for not trying to cooperate with what he wants to do. Something happens when you see yourself as an instrument of God in your spouse's life to deliver what you don't feel like, but because you love God, you're okay. All right. You love him and I'll deliver. I'll try to pass on what you put in my heart to do.

I'll pass it on to him. Do you think it's possible to have defiant hope? And again, I love that term. If your spouse never does repent, can you hold on to that? Even though you're the UPS deliverer of God's love and you keep doing that and you're consistent that and you're just faithful in that and it just never turns his or her heart, can you still have defiant hope?

Well, first of all, I think I'd add a word to what you said. It has never yet happened. Now you say, well, it's been 10 years. Yet.

It could still. It depends on where your hope is anchored. If it's anchored to that unseen but certain reality to say, Jesus, I've made this your marriage, not my marriage to fix. I'm going to stop trying to fix him and I'm trying to have a forgiving heart. At least you will be a free person inside. He will not be until he reaches the same point, if he does. But now your hope is not contingent upon a happy ending. It may or may not have a happy ending.

But for you, you will be a whole, healthy, close to God, liberated person inside because you will know that you have done all you can do. Better yet, you're allowing Jesus to unite in his way anymore. You've gotten out of his way. Does that mean that your husband's going to change?

No. Your husband has choices to make too. Jesus doesn't make the choices for us.

He creates the environment where we will make the right choice. So, again, raise the flag over the rubble. That's what I would say too.

I can attest to that and would give testimony to that. When I repented myself, when I raised the flag over the rubble of our marriage. She's saying the rubble was me.

I think that's what you're saying. It was our marriage. I felt so lost.

I was miserable. And all I did in my head was think, if Dave would only. It just was this mantra.

If Dave would only. And I've talked to so many women that have that same verbiage and that same dialogue in their head. And our marriage wasn't fixed overnight.

But because of putting up the flag of, I can't do it. It's not my job to change my husband. Lord, but I'm going to keep my eyes on you and I'm going to follow you. And I found myself so needy. I had to pray that prayer continually. Lord, I can't do it apart from you. Give me your eyes.

Show me the way you love Dave. And I pray that you would change my heart. There was a freedom. Our marriage wasn't fixed yet.

It wasn't great yet. But there is this new hope, not in Dave, but it was in Jesus. You had shifted your dependency. Yes. From your husband to your savior.

Yes. Your husband might disappoint you. Your savior isn't going to. And that's why hope has won at that point. We have this hope, Jesus. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. Hope is a matter of choice. And someone's listening right now and I would say that your choices right now to open up your heart, which is probably already open through the loss you've been through, to this Jesus who loved you enough to die for every wrong thing you've ever done, who's powerful enough to conquer what only one person out of the billions that have lived on this planet ever conquered.

That's death. If he's bigger than death, he's bigger than what you're facing right now. And he can speak peace to your storm.

And it is possible to go through a storm with his peace, with his protection, with a sense of loved and being loved and okay. My prayer for Ron, for Dave, for Ann, for someone listening is Romans 15, 13. May the God of hope fill you with all joy, really, and peace so that you may overflow with hope.

Go figure. I barely have enough for me. You're going to have enough to give away. May overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit, divine power from the one who spoke billions of galaxies into existence to make you a hope deliverer. When you start to say it's not about me, it's about Jesus and it's about turning my hurt into hope for other people. And they'll listen to me because of what I've been through.

I've got the credentials now. Believe me, you will not be starved for hope anymore. And you will have hope even though your heart is breaking. You'll have a hope that is stronger than the hurt. That's my Jesus, the living hope.

I have been hearing ringing in my head the words to the hymn. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. If our hope is in our circumstances or in how someone else is going to behave or perform today, we will be disappointed. But when our hope is in Jesus and in the gospel, well, that's a different story. Dave and Ann Wilson have been talking today to Ron Hutchcraft, who has written a book on hope.

It's called Hope When Your Heart Is Breaking. And as Ron has shared with us this week, a lot of this comes out of the story of losing his wife five years ago and learning how to live with hope in a season of profound grief and profound transition in his life. And maybe you know someone you'd like to pass this book along to, or maybe this is a book you need for yourself. We're making Ron's book available this week to Family Life Today listeners who can help advance the work of family life, help us reach more couples, more moms and dads, husbands and wives with practical biblical help and hope through this daily radio program, this podcast online at familylifetoday.com, through the events we host and the resources we create.

Family Life Today exists to effectively develop godly marriages and families. And when you help to advance that cause with a donation today, you're invited to request your copy of Ron Hutchcraft's book Hope When Your Heart Is Breaking, Finding God's Presence in Your Pain. You can make your donation online at familylifetoday.com or you can call to donate. 1-800-FL-TODAY is the number. Again, the website familylifetoday.com or call to donate. 1-800-358-6329.

That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Be sure to ask for your copy of the book Hope When Your Heart Is Breaking when you contact us. Now, tomorrow, Dave and Ann Wilson are going to talk with Ron Hutchcraft about how shame and regret and past failures can rob us of the hope that we need in our current situation, our current circumstance. And I hope you can join us again for that tomorrow. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. Join us again tomorrow for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.