Breathe Spiritual Life Into Your Marriage (Part 1 of 2)

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That's FocusOnTheFamily.com Pastor Appreciation. When I thought my greatest need was to be loved, a good day was when I was noticed, appreciated, cared for, and shown affection. Now a good day, if I believe my greatest need is to learn how to love, is when I can notice, when I can show affection, when I can serve. That's Gary Thomas describing a profound change in perspective that really transformed his marriage. And today you'll hear how God wants to do the same thing for you and your spouse. This is Focus on the Family with your host, Focus President and author, Jim Daly, and I'm John Fuller. John, when it comes right down to it, I think every husband and wife secretly wants the happily ever after part of marriage.

Who doesn't? Now, we don't really believe in fairy tales, but there's this innate desire and longing, which I think is God-given, that wishes for something better and more loving and more intimate with your spouse. Admittedly, it's easy to get distracted by the busyness of life and we can put marriage and family on autopilot and cruise along thinking everything's okay. But as followers of Christ, we know that our marriages are meant to be a spiritual symbol of something much bigger and deeper than we can even imagine. In Ephesians chapter 5, the Apostle Paul calls marriage a mystery and compares it to the relationship Jesus Christ has with the church. So we really can't afford to take our marriages for granted. And the good news is that God does have something better, more loving and more intimate in mind for you and your spouse. And we're going to hear about that today from Gary Thomas.

Right. Gary was our guest at a special event just a few months back where we interviewed him on the stage of our chapel before a live audience of about 40 couples who are friends of Focus on the Family. And our topic was Gary's book, A Lifelong Love, discovering how intimacy with God breathes passion into your marriage.

Jim, here's how you began the conversation with Gary Thomas on today's episode of Focus on the Family. Okay, you've written this wonderful book, A Lifelong Love, but I got to get right to it. You admitted that when you first got married, you did it for all the wrong reasons.

I think I know what that means, but you said it was all selfish. It was. It was a shocking time of prayer for me when I was just asked, I believe by God in prayer, why did you marry your wife? And there were a lot of reasons for me to marry someone like Lisa. She had so many good qualities. I love the way she looked. I thought she would be a great mom. I liked the way her mind thought. I knew she loved the Lord and I was like, well, she's this, this, and this.

You know, you should have started with that one. I'm just saying. But it hit me that in many ways, I got married to Lisa because of everything that I thought she would bring to me. I thought I would have a better life if I could get Lisa to marry me or if I could get Lisa to marry me than someone else.

And while we all kind of make those decisions, it was just shocking to realize that it was selfishness that was moving me into marriage when I believe God designed marriage to pull us out of our selfishness. Yeah. I think that's pretty normal for most of us though. I think that's how we start.

You know, we notice somebody that we're attracted to and then it moves from there. You use a term in your book called spider spouses. Yes. Yeah. So that sounds a little creepy. Yeah, it is. What's a spider spouse? Think about how nefarious this is. This spider constructs this web for one purpose, to catch victims and then eat them. That's what it is. And what's the analogy to marriage?

I'm sorry. But in some ways we construct these webs. How can I look attractive?

How can I do this? How can I get you to consider this? So that then I can go and you can meet all my needs and I can feed off you. You feed off your affirmation, feed off your wealth, feed off your sexual interest. I mean there's a lot of different reasons that move people to get married. And that's it's really a disgusting picture that to show our selfishness for what it really is. And again, if God's agenda in marriage is to pull us out of our selfishness, whatever led us into marriage, we have to realize, okay, if I want to go God's pathway into marriage, I've got to stop being a spider spouse. I've got to look at marriage from an entirely different perspective. I've got to look at marriage from an entirely different angle, not to be a spider, but to be someone who blesses my spouse.

Yeah, that is so good. You go on to say in the book about 1 Corinthians 13 that that's the marriage passage. I think many of us know that passage, but what stands out in 1 Corinthians 13 for you? Well, how so often when people come into me for counseling, they don't realize how they are directly contradicting what Paul tells us to do in 1 Corinthians 13. Love doesn't boast and they boast about how they're the better spouse. Love keeps no record of wrong. And the wife will say, do you realize when he was in college, he got fired from Taco Bell for this and he got kicked out of school for that. And you got that.

Okay. And if I would just read 1 Corinthians 13 right there, they go, oops, because they're coming here with all the things that their spouse doesn't do. And I'm saying, well, yeah, that's true. And you're not doing anything that Paul describes as love in 1 Corinthians 13. And that's really what we look at marriage as, is that it's not that one person is right or wrong. It's how marriage helps both of us become more right, more loving, fulfilling 1 Corinthians 13.

Because I don't think that most of us get married with the agenda that God has. And if I could just add on to when I got married selfishly, the other thing I think so wrong when I got married is I thought my greatest need was to be loved. I loved movies. I loved pop music.

I love novels. And every one of them were in agreement that that was what was be fulfilling. I had to find that love.

That was my greatest need. And I believe that God would have told me, no, your need to be loved has been met perfectly in the person of Jesus. No one can love you more than I've loved you. I died for your sins. I've given you my spirit who comforts you, who convicts you. If you start to do those stupid things, it makes you miserable, so you turn around and come back. And so if you were in Christ, I don't believe your greatest need is to be loved.

Your greatest need is to learn how to love. Well, that's a big paradigm shift. It was months for me. It's like, well, this is God dropped in. And I really struggled with it for months. But then I put in the scripture.

I don't want people just to take my experience. There's so many verses that say love extravagantly. The love you have for everyone should be increasing.

Love even your enemies. There isn't a single verse that says to be fulfilled, find a romantic partner who will love you like you've never been loved before. So I think the silence of scripture is very loud. And the overwhelming witness of scripture is you need to learn how to love. I didn't get married for that reason. But I believe God wanted me to get married for that reason. And I grew in my appreciation and satisfaction in marriage when my agenda began to align with God's rather than trying to get God to give me what I thought I needed out of marriage. Well, and again, with that paradigm shift, you also talk about a monk's marriage. Now, I didn't know monks could be married. That's a big paradigm shift. That is a paradigm shift.

So first of all, I need that definition. What did you mean by follow a monk's marriage? Well, it's a little bit of a creative thing, but I go off Psalm 146 that says do not put your trust in princes, in human beings who cannot save. So let's go back 3,000 years when that Psalm was written. It doesn't sound that shocking to us now because kings are sort of figureheads.

Back then, kings had unrivaled, unquestioned authority. If they said you're poor, you're going to be poor. If they said I want your wife, they got your wife. If they said you're going to die, you died.

If you go to prison, they did everything. And so when the psalmist says don't put your trust in a king that you can see. Put your trust in God who you can't.

It was a shocking thing because everything within you would say I have to have favor with the king because he can determine my life on earth. And the psalmist is saying no because in the end, he doesn't determine your destiny. You have to trust in the God who you can't see. So let's apply this to marriage. We put our hope in a spouse we can see, not in the God we can't see. How I tied it in with the monk, it may be the weird way my mind works, but you guys know I like to read the Christian classics.

I would read these books of monks and nuns that had very satisfying lives because they were so in love with Jesus. And I thought well they're happy but they're not having all, they don't expect a spouse to do this or a spouse to notice this or hear this or provide this or offer that and yet they're so happy. So what if I could have this monk's attitude that I will find my fulfillment and joy and meaning and purpose and affirmation from God and then everything my spouse gives me is extra.

It's not an expectation. It's find my satisfaction in God and so then instead of being frustrated I'm not getting this because I want that and that because I want that. It's like I have this from that and I get your smile too or your kiss too or your attaboy too and and because it dawned on me so often when we're dating we have this attitude wow you got me flowers, you got this present, you sent me a card and then the wife says after they're married you got me flowers again, you got me a card that you didn't even write. I mean it the thing that delights you as boyfriend or girlfriend can frustrate you as a husband or wife it's all because of expectations. There you don't expect in dating that they have to do it now they're a spouse and you expect them to do it so you lose the joy. So it's really this way of saying how do we recapture the joy in marriage by saying married people should be just as dependent on God for their satisfaction, for their affirmation, for their hope, their joy, their peace and then marriage is added on to it rather than try to draw the majority of our affirmation satisfaction joy and peace from our spouse and go to church once a week and remember that God loves us and forgives us. I think you're saying some wonderful things here and I remember being criticized by in a book I wrote about keeping your expectations low about people that way your disappointments are pretty rare and that's what I got criticized for.

Daily's best advice is keep your expectations low but you're saying the same thing I am that in marriage put your hope in God, put your trust in God. Now let me just play you know the opposite side of this. It's great it sounds wonderful in theory to be that in love with God that all your needs are met in your relationship with the Lord. Lisa's sitting right here have you been able to achieve that? No.

Sorry. Here's what I've realized and maybe this is why I write about it because you see your own weakness as I often tell people my marriage books are the stories of my failures and God trying to call me out of them to be honest. Which helps the rest of us by the way thank you. And obviously we have the same critics because I recognize that voice but I was reading the Philokalia I don't know how you pronounce it it's this eastern orthodox group like 4th to 15th centuries the great classical writings from the eastern orthodox church. I like to read out the tradition and one of the things that keeps coming back if you read through that I mean it's gigantic so you usually read sections but is and I love it because the east looks at things differently than the west this lust for praise that they insist cannot be satisfied and the lust for praise is every bit as strong as the lust for more money materialism the lust for excitement sexual lusts gluttony what they're saying is you start to give into it if you need it it grows it's not satisfying it demands more and more of you until it ruins you and I never looked at my lust to be appreciated and desired and praised in that light as a sin and something dangerous until I was reading these great church fathers that mentioned how it was I mean I was a master this is so pathetic but one of Lisa's love languages would be acts of cleaning very much more specific yes that must be the sixth language I've not come across that one she's invented her own one right and so I knew this and so I was a master she was off somewhere coming back from a bible study she's usually at home at 8 30 at 8 27 I'm splashing some water in my face I have a vacuum cleaner or broom in my hand or something like I've been cleaning up the house just because I if I'm if I'm cleaning I want to be noticed by doing it and realizing that if I and I talk in Lifelong Love about acts of secret service which and the whole point was how many wins I get one I'm able to serve my wife without her knowing it and so I look for things to do that she'll never know about it purifies my heart secondly I believe they're heavenly rewards when we do good works out of secret it turns my heart to think about how do I serve her instead of how am I being noticed or served they're like five wins when you start to say how can I be giving I want to be the opposite of a spider spouse I want to give even if it's in secret even if I'm not noticed forgiving and Jim there's a joy from the Lord when you're loving his daughter out of love for him in a way that only he sees and it's a whole lot more than you could ever expect and we're gonna unpack more of that because I love that idea that you married God's daughter so watch out he's your father-in-law but I also was caught by something that you mentioned in the book where you encourage spouses to become counselors for the defense side of the courtroom rather than on the prosecution side okay I just gotta say we got a lot of married couples here how many of us tend to work for the prosecuting attorney at times in your marriage anybody want to put your hand up look nobody just me okay there's okay three more okay but how is that the case why do we not first go to defend our spouse rather than go to the prosecutor's bench well I believe a lot of it comes down to remembering and living out the gospel first John 4 19 we love because he first loved us and when I remember that God isn't my prosecuting attorney that in fact he is my defense counsel he's often defending me from me I'm talking about myself some way that injured God he doesn't want me to talk about me the way I talk about me but there was a story I just thought was brilliant of a woman she was in England and she was complaining to her the rector at the at the church where they were at about her husband was doing this and that and this and that and and he he said I've been listening to you for weeks complaining about your husband is I just want you to do one thing for me I want you to go back and I want you just to sit before the Lord and ask God why your husband might be the way he is and she was like of course he's a man he's gonna take the husband's side this is just ridiculous so she did and God began to speak and she went through the early years of their marriage just about how what he went through with his mom dying and the humiliation of losing his job and having to move back in with his parents and and all of these things I don't have time to go into all of them but she realized she just felt so sorry for him and she realized okay yeah sometimes he might be short sometimes he might be impatient and she goes but look at the pressure he was under look at the shame he was doing and that never excuses Jim and I know you know this it never excuses a husband being short or sharp or or inattentive but sometimes I found that it's really helpful to say when we're most frustrated with what our spouse is doing God why is she acting this way God why is he acting that way not to excuse your spouse but to understand your spouse and often you'll hear that God's saying you know what it's not acting perfectly but if you ever thought about this is the wound that they're carrying and then we can be a part of healing not by condemning them and sending I mean look a prosecuting attorney means you send your spouse to jail who wins with that quite an insight from Gary Thomas this is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly I'm John Fuller and Gary has written a very insightful and at times challenging book for married couples called a lifelong love discovering how intimacy with God breathes passion into your marriage we do have copies of that here at the ministry call for yours 800 the letter a in the word family 800-232-6459 or stop by the episode notes for all the details and let's continue on now with more from Gary Thomas on today's episode of Focus on the Family. I think it was in a broadcast taping of this that we had done earlier that you had mentioned something like that and I remember going home Jean is always excited when I come home and I say hey you know let's spend 10 minutes together uninterrupted she'll say who did you talk with today so I'm usually giving you a lot of credit but this is one that I took away from our conversation some time ago you know when you're in the midst of a discussion a heated discussion with your spouse do you realize she's the daughter of God why that changes your paradigm it has been the single biggest insight that has changed the way I look at marriage and try to live my marriage and the way I look at my wife I was not being a good husband and there are many times that that was the case and just in prayer applying first John 3 1 behold how great a love the father has lavished on us that we should be called the children of God I claim that as a single man that's my identity I'm God's son no one can take that away and God was pointing out to me Gary it's also true of your wife Lisa's my daughter she's not just your wife she's my daughter and I expect you to treat her as such and then when I had daughters it was a whole new element we also have a son but I realized if you want to get on my good side it's easy just be good to one of my kids be kind be loving be their best friend I'll love you if you're my kid's friend and if you want to get on my bad side it's just as easy be mean to one of my kids shame one of my kids break one of my kids heart my blood pressure will go up if I even see your name because I'd rather you mess with me than one of my kids and when I realized that's how God looks at my wife as his daughter in a holier and purer and more intense way everything about my marriage changed because the reality is the Bible promises us we marry somebody James 3 2 who stumbles in many ways our spouses in a worldly sense are not always worthy of being loved God is always worthy of being worshipped and revered and when I love my wife out of reverence for God because she's his daughter there's always the reason to love her I mean I never run out of it she's always lovable because of that it's not the only reason I love her but it's a motivation that goes beyond the fact that I stumble in many ways that she stumbles in many ways we honor the God who created us and and we worship him through that and so stopping to just think of God as my heavenly father and remembering that he's also my heavenly father in law has something that has just transformed the way I look at marriage you believe every marriage should have a magnificent obsession mine happens to be cleaning my garage is that am I missing the boat does it make it magnificent does that fit in your definition yeah it's my wife's is cleaning the kitchen so there we go we can't leave the house if it's not obsessively clean because we might die when we're gone and somebody might see our kitchen when we go back I always think it's funny anyway the magnificent obsession is I'm stealing that phrase from a classical writer several hundred years ago to summarize Jesus's words in Matthew 6 33 when he says seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness that word first is very important the word seek is very important in Greek it's continuous present tense continually keep on seeking above everything else the kingdom of God and his righteousness and it's my belief that that is the best agenda for a lifelong love a satisfying marriage because it deals with the two issues that brings most marriages down I've been dealing marriage ministry now for decades and two of the things that I see the first one that brings a lot of couples down it's not some mystical thing it'll almost sound mundane but the reality is couples get bored with each other they left apart they just drift apart and then the kids are graduated they don't even have that to share anymore and so they drop the kid off at college and stop at the lawyer on the way home and say okay we're done seeking first the kingdom of God just points out the fact that we were made for more than marriage that's why we get bored with each other none of us are so fascinating we can keep each other enthralled for five or six decades we're just not that five or six dates you can five or six years is a challenge I like that low expectation well five or six decades it's not going to happen but if you're seeking first the kingdom of God what I've found that's what gives meaning to your life I believe God wants us to be discontent and listless if we're living a selfish life we weren't created to live a selfish life and living for romantic happiness is a selfish life living for just financial comfort is a selfish life living just to have even a happy family in one sense can be a selfish life we were created to impact eternity for God to impact eternity through us and so what I found is that it gives you a reason to pray for each other and with each other it gives a new respect I tell husbands if there are husbands listening how do I get my wife to be impressed by me here's the easiest thing to do offer yourself in service to God because you find out the Holy Spirit is real and he will gift you if you make yourself available and he will use you and your wife will say man I didn't know he had that I mean it's just fun and Lisa I've even noticed this is empty nesters now that we've been empty nesters we do a lot more together and we started doing most of our premarital counseling together so the first time I'm with a couple and there's this going on and I'm asking this and I'm pointing out this you gotta look at this and we get done Lisa's like wow you're pretty good at this and there was just this new appreciation or respect but it's not me I mean it's you offer yourself to the Holy Spirit and he uses you so I just say if you want to get your husband's affection or your wife's affection just get the Holy Spirit on your side and you get the Holy Spirit on your side by seeking first the kingdom of God which is why I say don't worry about falling out of love neurochemically that's going to happen worry about falling out of purpose that's good so the first part is don't worry about falling out of love worry about falling out of purpose the second one is don't worry about falling out of love worry about falling out of repentance because when I'm Because when I'm seeking first his righteousness, I'm becoming the kind of person a woman wants to be married to.

I'm dying to the things that destroy most marriages. Anger, rage, malice, lust, greed, all of those things that make somebody miserable to be around. And righteousness isn't just avoiding the bad, it's building the good of Christ.

I'm growing in patience, and kindness, and gentleness, and love, and understanding, and humility. Those are the things that somebody wants to be around. And so by seeking first his righteousness, I'm becoming the kind of person that somebody else wants to be around, which ultimately builds my marriage. And I'm just telling you as a pastor, 90% of the issues when somebody comes into my office, it's an issue of character.

Somebody is acting with anger, or lust, or a lack of self-control, or spending is out of control, or whatnot. And so if we would follow the magnificent obsession, and build our marriages on purpose, and righteousness, we kill the two things that destroy most marriages. That's good. Some profound observations from our guest today on Focus on the Family, Gary Thomas, based on his book, A Lifelong Love, Discovering How Intimacy with God Breathes Passion into Your Marriage. I really love how Gary keeps pointing us back to the solid foundation of God's Word, because let's face it, our popular notions of love, and attractiveness, and passion, are all self-focused.

It's all about me. And in effect, we're ignoring God's plan and design for what marriage should be. As believers, we need to be mindful of this issue, because we are Christ's representatives to a watching world. How you interact with and treat your spouse will determine whether or not your faith is seen as legitimate and real. And that's why I recommend Gary's book, A Lifelong Love, to you and your spouse, whether you're newlyweds or have been married for decades. This is an excellent resource that can take your relationship to the next level, and help you grow in your faith as a couple. I think single adults will benefit from this book as well. I'd love to send you a copy in exchange for a gift of any amount to Focus on the Family.

That's our way of saying thank you for supporting and encouraging marriages today. And I invite you to do ministry through Focus on the Family. Give generously so that together we can respond to the hundreds of thousands of couples who will contact us for help and resources for their families. We need you, and I look forward to our ongoing partnership. Donate today and get Gary's book, A Lifelong Love, when you call 800, the letter A in the word family, 800-232-6459, or you can find all the details in the episode notes. And we have a free marriage assessment to help you evaluate how the relationship with your spouse is going, and it'll identify your strengths as a couple and some areas where you may need some improvement.

Again, you'll find that free assessment. The link will be in the episode notes. We'll plan now to join us tomorrow for more insights and encouragement from Gary Thomas. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ. I've received some great tools from the counselors that have changed my life and my marriage. To begin the journey of finding health, go to HopeRestored.com today.