Seven Wise Choices

The following program is a Family Life Today Classic. God wasn't really asking me to trust Ron. God told me to love Ron. But the flip side of that was, but who was I supposed to trust then? And he was asking me to trust him. So it took me about a two-week period of asking God daily, you know, can I trust you? Do I trust you? Should I trust you? Can I trust you? And then there was a day when, you know, I was seeing Ron changing.

And I remember there was a day when I just decided, absolutely, I can trust you. 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. I don't know if you guys know about what happened during the Zappia's wedding. The couple are joining us, Family Life Today.

Welcome back, guys. Do you know about the smoke? It sounds like an interesting story.

I want to know. I won't tell you about it. We'll let Ron and Jody tell the story.

Let me introduce them first for our listeners. Ron and Jody Zappia are the authors of the book, The Marriage Not, seven choices that keep couples together. Ron is a pastor at High Point Church in suburban Chicago. The Zappias have been married since 1989.

They've got three kids and something happened at the wedding, right? Well, you know, I got to ask this, and I'm not sure we've got Ron Zappia in here. He looks like and sounds like Jim Caviezel. There's a smooth radio voice.

You have kind of been doing the whisper Caviezel thing here. I know our listeners are thinking that. Is that Jim? We've got Jesus in the studio. This is radio.

They can't see him. What happened at the wedding, Jody? Oh, I think you're talking about our unity candle moment. Oh, no. Yeah. Thankfully, somebody had the forethought to make veils non-flammable.

Yes. Because my veil started smoking. I don't know, Jody, it was on fire.

No. Well, there was a little smoke and a little melting. Thankfully, it didn't torch. Could you smell it?

Because I had long perm hair. And so, thankfully, his cousin was ready to jump. He saw it go down. I didn't even notice it at first, but it snuffed out my candle before we even could light the unity. Did you stop, drop, and roll? Yeah, we were very close. The cousin was about to tackle me. With our story, our marriage was about to go up in flames. That's the metaphor I was going for right there.

I stole it from you. We've already heard this week about really a remarkable story. The first six months of your marriage, you guys were living in separate cities because of business things. It eventually ended up with, Ron, you having an affair that brought you to a local church for some counseling. The pastor said, before we talk about your marriage, we're going to talk about Jesus. You both came to faith in Christ, and God began a new journey of restoring the fact you're still here together.

The fact you're pastoring a local church is evidence of the grace of God from almost three decades ago now, as you guys sat in that church and were confronted by that pastor. The book you've written, The Marriage Knot, has seven choices that you say will keep couples together. Can we just run through some of those? The analogy here, we didn't come up with a knot. If you think about it like this, knots loosen over time if they're not checked, if they're not tightened. The picture that we have is of the marriage knot, that these are the choices you need to make to tighten the marriage knot. This will hold you together. Yeah, that is the picture of what holds us together. We can just make these up.

These are something that we learn. People are under the impression that somebody has the perfect marriage down the street or whatever it is. Any marriage is in danger of loosening. These are the choices that couples need to make in order to tighten and strengthen the marriage knot. At our Weekend to Remember Marriage Getaways, we say that all marriages are drifting toward isolation.

They're drifting toward looser knots. It's a decision. It's a choice you make to tighten the knot, to come back toward oneness. What's one of those choices, Jodie? Can I ask you to go to the first choice, choose to grow spiritually. What does that look like? Because you guys have already talked a little bit about you started to grow spiritually.

How do you do that? Jodie, how did you specifically do that when it came to forgiveness? That was one of the very first big faith steps that I needed to take. And I describe it as a faith step because it did feel like I was kind of walking off a ledge. It felt very risky to forgive.

And even more risky was the idea of trusting Ron, staying married. Because I remember coming to the point where, no, I do think I can forgive. I've just been forgiven, but I didn't want to stay married.

I didn't think that equaled, do I still have to stay married to him? Because I don't trust him. And what was interesting is in this growing spiritually, the first thing that had to happen, and the assignment I had been given was to start, well, you have a new relationship with God, and you need to work on that. And the first thing I needed to deal with God was whether I trusted him. Because honestly, I had this answer to prayer, which wasn't an answer I had wanted. I basically found out my husband was having an affair, and it was still fresh, and it was shocking to me. And I wasn't sure if I trusted God.

I felt like maybe he was being a little harsh. And yet, I know I needed to answer that question because what became apparent to me was that God wasn't really asking me to trust Ron. God told me to love Ron. But the flip side of that was, but who was I supposed to trust then? And he was asking me to trust him. So it took me about a two-week period of asking God daily, can I trust you? Do I trust you? Should I trust you? Can I trust you? And I was seeing Ron changing, and I was deciding I wanted to change.

Could I change too? And I remember there was a day when I just decided, absolutely, I can trust you. And that opened the door to me being able to now, because now it was kind of like, I don't know if Ron is going to continue on the path he's on.

Like right now, I know I'm seeing some changes in him that I know he can't do himself. And that was really encouraging to me. But I thought, even if, worst case scenario, even if he turns around and does this again, the difference is now I've got God, and he will tell me what to do. We will often talk about the first step in a spiritual relationship as trusting Jesus. That is a one-time choice, but it's an ongoing choice that you make every day. I'm going to keep trusting Jesus.

I'm going to trust him today. So the declaration is, this is the new trajectory of my life, that I will trust Jesus. But you have to make that choice over and over again, don't you? Yes, and really all of these choices are like that. They're choices that we need to intentionally make over and over, day after day. How do you two grow choice number one spiritually, together? Is that something you do together?

What's that look like? Just to back the bus up and say it like this, for us, it was about religion, and we didn't have a relationship with God. And so a relationship with God through marriage crisis, and it brought us to him. And we began learning things, and these choices began developing out of us reading God's Word.

I mean, it's as simple as that. I remember back in the early stages when we were given the assignment in this workshop to read the Bible, and we'd read a passage in the Bible, and we were committed to it. Like, I remember sitting on our bed, and we'd read a passage of Scripture, and we'd look at each other.

I didn't know what it was talking about. And then we're like, well, I don't get that one. So we'd look at each other, and then we'd just pray. Let's go to the next.

But I'm just telling you, it works. So you'd read the Scripture, and then you'd pray. Yeah, we'd read the Scripture, we'd pray. You know, we used to do these little book studies together, and so we were being fed spiritually speaking. And I just want to say it was really important for us to get involved in a church where we were learning truth, biblical truth, and sitting there and hearing the principles, and all of these choices, which we'll get to some of the other ones, all of these choices are really grounded in biblical truth that we didn't know. And to think that you can grow spiritually as an individual or as a couple apart from active engagement with a local church is just foolishness. And let me just say, when I say active involvement, I don't mean you show up twice a month and you say, well, I'm actively involved, I'm a member of my local church. No, I'm talking about engagement with other people.

I'm talking about it being central. You're smiling here, Pastor, right? Do you agree with this? Yeah, and it's actually proven statistically. It's a pretty unknown statistic, and I've actually quoted it myself from the pulpit wrongly. You know, you say, what's the divorce rate in the church? And most people say the same as in the non-church, 50%. And then when you do the research, it never was 50% in the church.

It's like 23%, still higher than you would want, but much lower than, so what's that mean? That means if a couple is actively involved, and again, I think it's so key, I don't just show up once a month. I decide to take a step and grow spiritually in community with others, and then it's going to affect not everything, but especially my marriage. Here is the key to that statistic that you're quoting. If you say, what's the divorce rate in the church, it's one number. If you ask, what's the divorce rate among people who attend church weekly and who pray together, you ask that question, it goes down to like 2%.

The input that you're going to get from a book or from a radio program or from watching church online, that's helpful. That's not life on life. That's not community.

It's like you're getting one vitamin, but not the multivitamin. You're missing the good stuff. And you're going to get into this, but one of the keys, the reason you show up is community.

You can't do a lone ranger marriage, even just you and your spouse, in your book as well. It's like, it's so important. You've got to be surrounding yourself with other couples. You guys started out with no friends.

Yeah. For us, we got involved so much so is as soon as we got saved, we got ourselves into a small group and then we went through it together. And then we were leading a group so quickly.

Which some people are saying, I could never do that. I don't know enough to lead. I would say, jump in and rely on the Spirit and rely on God. And if you've got some good trusted leaders that you can go to and help, you know, sometimes we think because we're damaged or going through difficulty, we can't be used of God.

And that's so false and so wrong. Your spiritual growth accelerated when you were leading more than when you were attending. And that's the growth spiritually.

It accelerated because we got ourselves involved. Now, we're not saying quit your job and go to seminary and become a pastor and a pastor's wife. But if you want to grow spiritually, there's nothing you can do that's greater than what? Certainly spending time with God and getting close to Him individually. And as a couple, praying together, talking about what you're learning.

But serving other people is so important. And how great a story, as I'm listening to this, to think there's somebody out there listening going, I can't be used by God. My darkness, my sin in the past is too great.

And I'm sitting across from a couple. The great sin in your life, God is using you in a great, big way. So I want to say to that listener out there, just surrender and leave it to God.

He's going to do something absolutely powerful with your story, just like he is with you guys. Pick just one other of the seven choices. Like if you had to zero in and say, this is one where... They're all significant, but what's one that you just say, this is the one I'd want to drive home? Well, I know that communication is a pretty huge one.

So we have choose to communicate respectfully. What's that mean? Are you asking because you don't know?

She doesn't know. This is when you get to practice like all the time, right? I've been practicing a very long time. Let me give us some statistics just to start us out. On average, married couples communicate only 27 minutes per week.

I mean, think about that. That's less than four minutes a day. So what we need to do is we need to communicate respectfully and oftentimes for many couples, for us too, it involves learning how to handle conflict resolution. All these things are so critical in this critical choice. And how do you talk for the couple that's like, we've got four kids, they're all so close together, we can barely survive, we're both working, we don't have time to talk.

What would you say to them? Well, it takes intentionality like anything else and really recognizing that the best thing you can do for your kids is to have a strong marriage and to make that investment in each other. You have to be targeted at making time for one another so that you can communicate. The fact is that many times what will happen is you'll have many things that you have to talk about, whether it's dropping the kids off, picking up, doing this, all these tasks and all these things.

And I know you guys recognize and have been through all these different stages as well. But if you're not taking time communicating deeply from the heart about what is happening, your feelings, what you want, what you see, what your dreams, what your goals are, those are pivotal conversations that husband and wives need to make time to have those conversations. And you added a word respectfully to the communication process.

How do you do that and why did you add that word? Well, we ended up coming up with kind of a creative way of doing it. We called it the Ten Commandments of Communication. Healthy communication. Healthy communication.

So within there are quite a few. And when you talk about respectfully, we can so quickly. It's easy to tear down with our words.

It doesn't take a lot of thought. In fact, it happens when you don't think before you speak. So one of the Ten Commands would be like, choose your words carefully. These all come right from Scripture. So like James 1, verse 18 and 19 says, be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. So right there, you've got like a little equation. And if we're doing those first two things, if we're listening intently and we're responding slowly, oftentimes that takes care of that third one. It helps us to be slow to anger. But those would be three right there that come right out of that one verse.

It's just packed. And boy, the thing Ron and I had to learn as we were growing spiritually and all that was we would take these verses and we were actually just trying to do it. Okay, well, it just says here that I'm supposed to focus more on listening. Well, that was not something I naturally did. And so I remember having to work on that and like not interrupting.

Ron had to work on not, when I was talking, not solving my problem real quickly, but actually listening to hear what was maybe behind it, what was in between the lines. You guys were catching on to something real quickly, real early in your marriage that it took me a long time to catch on to, and that's this. I would read my Bible and I would read something like James 1, be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, and I would think, well, that's how we should treat one another in the local church. This is how we should get along as Christians. I didn't think, and that's how I should do it with my wife.

I bet Marianne appreciated that. I would read these one another passages and think, well, that's how we're supposed to get along with our friends at church. And I would read them and think that's how she's supposed to act. How she should get along with me. I would think she needs to listen to me more, and I never would think this is written to me.

Well, it's interesting because I think this was a problem for me. Because whatever came into my head, I would say it. In whatever form it came into my head, it would come out of my lips that way. Yes, she would.

I was there. I remember a day realizing I need to take this to God first, and I need to ask this question, God, should I say this? And the second question is, if he said yes, and first of all, obey the first one. But if he said yes, the second question I had to ask God was, God, how should I say it? Or when. Exactly. There are several questions to take God, and then to listen and to wait for those.

I think in my younger years, I wasn't patient enough, and I wanted to get my way more than God's way. I've heard her on the phone with friends or other wives. I walk through the kitchen, and I hear her going, so tell me how you're going to say that. Oh, no, no, no, no. Do not do that.

You can't say it like that. And again, you're sitting there going, wow, people really do not know. They have to think, okay, I've got to think about this. I want to do this respectfully, and it's going to look like this.

So it's a great choice. All of us know, if you're speaking extemporaneously, you may put your foot in your mouth. But if you think through what you're going to say, then you have a chance to communicate a little more carefully and a little more clearly. If you were going to go sit down today, and let's say we said, we're going to have an audience with the president, he's going to give you a half hour, and he just wants to hear what's on your heart and wants to know what you think he should do in leading the country. You wouldn't go, I'm just going to say the first thing that comes to my mind. You'd spend time going, wow, I should think about that, and how would I prioritize it, and how do I want to say it respectfully to the president, because he's the president, right? We should do that with one another. Well, Dave is the president in my life.

Not true. And there was a night, you guys, I was working on this and I was really bad at it, but I remember this one night, he got in bed, and our church was fairly young, and he got in bed and he just moaned and he said, boy, I'm getting so many critiques lately about my sermons. You guys, the first thought that came into my head was, well, if you'd spend more time with Jesus, your sermons would be better. I would have said that back in the day. She would have said that. And I remember stopping and saying, God, should I say that? I knew, no. Jody said that to me on the way over.

You guys got to stop talking. Hey, Jody, I've got a book you should read. It's called The Marriage Not. So the next question was, God, how should I say this? And this thought came into my mind.

I know that God put it there. And I said to Dave, I can't imagine what it's like to be you to carry the responsibility of thousands of people's walks with God based on your own walk. There's a heavy burden that is for you.

That's got to be really hard. Not thinking anything of it, he pulls me over, hugs me, and he whispers in my ear, what did you say to that night? I said, you are my life. And the interesting thing on my side is I had no idea what her other thought was.

Never came out. All I heard was that, and I needed affirmation, and words have power, as you said, in this whole choice. That's why it's respectful. And those words powerfully, I mean, it's like, you're my partner. You're my completer. I want to do life with you.

Thank you. That's a choice that's hard to make, but it is life-changing in a marriage. Somebody's going to be more verbal, usually, in the relationship. Someone's going to be more nonverbal. And it's not always, you know, you don't know, but depending on what home you were brought up in, sometimes you express your feelings, sometimes you don't. I mean, these are all things that we needed to learn and we needed this choice to really grow in the way we could communicate with one another.

And I just want to say, I mean, it's a lifelong learning process, each of these things. I mean, tensions rise, things happen, life changes, and it's so easy to fall into some old traps of communication to where we need to resolve things in a way that's proper and respectful for the marriage and for us as individuals. Here's what stands out to me. We've been talking about stuff that the Bible speaks too clearly. Most of us read the Bible and kind of think of it in philosophical terms rather than in shoe-leather, practical, oh, I'm supposed to do this, like you guys were saying. We're supposed to be quick to listen.

I'll start doing that more. The Bible has a ton to say. I mean, stop and think about this. Jesus said all of the law and the prophets can be summed up in love God and love your neighbor. That means that the Bible, everything in the Bible is about one of two things. How do I love God or how do I love my neighbor? And if your closest neighbor is your spouse, then as you read the Bible, you should say, oh, this is either about how I love God or how I love my wife or my husband.

And now all of a sudden, verses you may have skipped over before or thought, I'm not sure what that means. How do I do that with my husband? So you get to the end of Ephesians 4, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. Oh, how do I do that today with my spouse? How can I be kind? How can I be tenderhearted?

How can I forgive, even as Christ has forgiven me? God's given us a great gift in his word to say, here, this is how life works. One of the things that I love about you guys, too, is that you read the word, you did it. It's beautiful. Yeah, that's what hit me, and I was thinking of so many people listening to your story.

It's almost easy to miss that part of it. It's like, I could picture myself listening to this story and going, God healed their marriage, but he can't heal mine. There's so many miracles in your marriage. Church across the street, woman, you know, that you bump into and point you to this, but here's what is the encouragement for everybody. The reason God did a miracle is you followed through every step of the way. I mean, you could have walked across the street, said, I need help with my marriage. That woman tells you where to go, and you say, eh, I'm not gonna do that. You pick up the word of God, you read a verse, and you say, eh, it's too hard. I'm gonna hope Ron does it.

I'm gonna hope Jody does it. So God has his part, and it's so easy for us to just say, God, you gotta do this, and just sit there. No, no, no, we cooperated. Just everything Bob's saying is like, to bear with one another, I have taken a step.

So I wanna make sure listeners don't miss that. God will heal your marriage, but you've gotta participate, and when you take a step, he'll meet you right there, and here's the other side of that. You can't control your spouse, but you can control you, and if you take that step, God will meet you there, and a miracle's waiting on the other side of that obedience. There are choices you could make.

In fact, there are seven of them, right? In the book, The Marriage Not, you guys talk about seven choices. If somebody will say, I will choose to do these seven things, whether my spouse does or not, I'm gonna choose to do these seven things.

You do that for a year, and then write me and tell me this thing doesn't work. If you will choose to live out these seven things you talk about in the book, God will do a transforming work first in your heart and then in your marriage and in every other relationship you got. This is really good stuff. Thank you guys for sharing your story with us, for sharing your wisdom with us, and for being guests here on Family Life Today.

Thank you so much for letting us be here. The book we're talking about is The Marriage Not, seven choices that keep couples together, and we've got copies of the book in our Family Life Today Resource Center. You can order the book from us online at familylifetoday.com or call 1-800-FL-TODAY.

This is a great companion to Vertical Marriage by Dave and Ann Wilson, so maybe get both books when you go to familylifetoday.com or again when you call 1-800-FL-TODAY. Now, have you ever wondered just what it is that wives are longing for in a marriage relationship? Tomorrow Dave and Ann Wilson address that subject looking at what it is every wife is longing for.

I hope you can be with us for that. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine, and we'll see you back 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. The preceding program was from the Family Life Today Classic Archives.