Experiencing a Fulfilled Marriage (Part 2 of 2)

On our last episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, Patricia Ashley explained that her marriage was over. I mean, when I say it was dead, I mean that I didn't love my husband. I didn't hate him. I wasn't glad to see him come.

I wasn't glad to see him go. That's dead, huh? You'll hear how her marriage was not only saved, but how it began to thrive. Welcome to today's show. I'm John Fuller. Yeah, John, last time we heard that Patricia's marriage really was at that point of complete apathy. I mean, it was dead is what she said.

And you know, I'm so sad to say I'm sure a lot of people feel that way in their own marriages right now. And if you missed part one of Patricia's presentation yesterday, please get in touch with us. We can send you the entire message on CD or audio download with extra content. Or you can get the Focus on the Family app for your smartphone.

Yeah, listen in. Give us a call if you need that first part of the presentation. Our number is 800-A-FAMILY 800-232-6459 or you'll find the app and the online resources at FocusOnTheFamily.com To recap, part one, after five difficult years of marriage, Patricia and her husband became Christians.

That's a great first step. But that didn't miraculously heal their relationship. They were still avoiding each other, even to the point of reading their Bibles in separate parts of the house. But then an emergency in a friend's life led Patricia and Vernon to pray together. And when they said amen, they found that God had quickened their dead marriage and they felt a spark. They were drawn together again.

Isn't that awesome? But they still had issues to work on and that's what Patricia is going to describe today. And she's going to be very honest about this. Her message is based on what the Bible has to say about marriage. These are principles that Patricia began to apply in her relationship with Vernon. Let's go ahead and listen in now.

Patricia Ashley speaking to a women's conference in Indian Wells, California on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I like my daddy and he's just, when my daddy calls me, we literally, on the phone, laugh for about two minutes. I just be so glad to hear his voice and he be so glad to hear mine.

We just laugh. Do you hear what I'm saying? And my mother, if she calls me and if my father's at home, she will say everything she's got to say to me before she give him the phone.

Because she knows that once he and I start talking, it's all over. But you know what? I know and God brought me to a place as much as I love my father and enjoy him. And I think my father's a great man. Even when my mother used to get on his nerve and he used to get on her nerve. Even when I used to get upset with him about some of the things he did. To me, he was always a big man. In my sight, there was nothing he couldn't do.

And you know what? I had to take all of that admiration and I had to connect that to my husband. God had to begin to show me areas, not focus on his negatives, but focus on his positives. While he's still performing the negatives.

Come on now. You saw something in him. Start focusing on his positives and start letting him know. And let me tell you something. When you compliment a man and all of them are like this, even if they crazy.

All of them are like this. Giving them truth, not flattery. But when you give your husband true compliments. And when you say true positive things to him about him, it is like putting water on a plant.

Do you hear me? Even if they reject it. Even if they act like it didn't move them. Believe me, if you walk out the room and peek back at them. They like it. That's why our daughters are able to steal our husband's heart. Because they get out up under the car while he's changing it and they lay there and watch him work on the car.

Come on now. My daughter is 20 years old and there's nothing my husband won't do for her. And they had that kind of relationship. And I wonder, how did she have his heart? She would sit up at the dinner table five years old. I learned from my five year old daughter how to deal with my husband.

She would sit up at the dinner table and she wouldn't even have to talk. She just point for what she wanted. And he get it.

I said, what is this? I don't have that kind of control. And I said, I'm going to watch her and whatever she does, I'm going to do. Do you understand what I'm saying? Are you all listening, ladies?

I'm telling you how to experience fulfillment. When he'd be working on the car, she would go out there and lay up under the car, sit down on the side of the car and talk to him. So I started going out there, sitting at the side of the car talking. And when he'd be out in the backyard cutting the grass, she'd be walking up and down the grass with him and talking to him. And guess what? I started walking up and down the grass and I started talking to him.

Come on down. And when he came home from work, I'm telling you how to do it, ladies. When he come home from work, she'd run to the door. Now, she did this until she left home. She'd run to the door and be so glad to see him. How you doing, Daddy?

Give him a big hug and just act like her day had just begun. And guess what, ladies? Hey! Do you hear me? Come on now. I felt like this girl's got his heart. I want it. And I'm not going to compete for it because I want him to have a good relationship with her.

But I believe his heart is big enough for me and her. And so I just started doing it. She would sit down and pull his shoes off. Now, this is real deep now. She would pull his shoes off when he came home from work. Daddy, you want me to take his shoes off? And he'd kick back in the easy chair and say yes. And guess what? And it worked! He thought I was crazy at first.

But I'd take his shoes off and she'd massage his feet and I'd massage his feet. Come on now. And little by little, now at first he was suspicious and he thought I was crazy, but I was a woman on a mission. Do you hear me?

Yes, that's why marriages are falling apart today. I'm telling you. Listen, love reciprocates. After a matter of time, guess what started happening? Girl!

Or as they say, girlfriend. He started rubbing my feet and taking my shoes off. Yeah! I started telling him all of the good things about him.

Guess what? He started telling me good things about me. Now it took a while. I got to be honest with you.

It took a while. But God had to test me. God said, are you doing this to please me?

Or are you just doing it to reap the benefits? I said, God, if I got to stand before you to give an account, to give an account. And we're going to do that, ladies. If you're married, you're going to stand before God to give an account. If you're going to stand before God to give an account for the kind of wife that you are, get your feelings healed. They are hurt.

Some of them. Set your affections on things above. You know what happens when you do that? You stop having expectations out of your mate and you take the stress off of your marriage and you free him up. Because you know what? If there's something wrong with you, there's probably something wrong with him. Or if there's something wrong with him, there's probably something wrong with you.

Because you chose each other. Well, I didn't mean it like that. But you know what I'm saying?

You connected. And for the most part, we as women can see good from our perspective. And we can just see what we're enduring and what we're going through. But if we were to look at some of our relationships from our husband's perspective and see the world through their eyes and feel the world through their emotions, then we would see that they have as many needs as we do.

And it's a mutual thing. But we must come to a place, if we're going to experience fulfillment, is to release our expectations and say, God, I don't expect him to be sensitive to me, but I expect you to be sensitive through him to me. I don't expect him to love me unconditionally, but I expect you to love me unconditionally through him. I don't expect him to be sensitive to me and to dwell with me according to knowledge.

Come on now. I don't expect it to come from him. But God, all of my expectations is in you. I expect you to teach him how to be sensitive to me as the weaker vessel. I expect you to do it through him to me.

Now, come on. What have you done? You've placed that weight on God. You've cast those cares on God.

And guess what you do? You get out of your husband's face and you get in the face of God. You stop talking and pulling on your husband and you begin to talk and pull on God.

Come on now. So the thing is, what you must do is make a decision whether or not God is able. And you can know that he's able because of who he is. And then you must know that God is for your marriage.

He's for the success of your marriage, whether or not you chose him or not. God would desire to choose him for us. But most of us get ahead of God. And God has to make the wrong one the right one. Come on now. But he's able.

He can do anything. We want fulfillment in our marriages. We've got to look at it God's way.

We've got to leave and cleave. We can't put our marriages asunder. And then we've got to know what God's purpose is for marriages. God's purpose for marriage is that we have companionship. But now we must have companionship with God first.

Because the word in Amos 3, 3 says, Can two walk together except they agree? We should be able to agree spiritually first. We should be able to agree emotionally. And we should be able to agree physically. And see, for the most part, we want to go into it agreeing physically. We are attracted physically. Like I hear my daughter say, I like men with pretty teeth. I'm like, I said, baby, you better like more than that.

You better look for more than just pretty teeth. Come on now. And I know that she is. But that's just one of her things.

We have those kind of things. We had better know that God would have us to connect in the spirit realm first. That we would agree spiritually. And if there's not spiritual agreement in your house, begin to ask God to give it to you.

Because you know what? God loves your husband more than you do. Yes, he does. And he's more concerned with him than you are. Ask God for spiritual agreement. God knows what it takes to bring it about. And then, if we're going to experience the fulfilled marriage as it relates to companionship, our husbands must dwell with us according to knowledge in 1 Peter 3, 7. And then God intended for marriage, in order that it would be fulfilled, to accomplish enjoyment. We should be able to experience gratification, delight, and pleasure in our mates. But one of the reasons we don't always experience that is because of perversion. Remember we said that everything that God said was good?

Man perverted it. Now, from my understanding of what I've read in the Bible, God gave us physical intimacy as a wedding gift. Do y'all hear what I'm saying? Now, I don't know about some of you, but you try to give the best gifts that you can find.

How many of you are following me? In the mind of God, the best gift that he could give to a couple was physical intimacy. And you get the gift of children. It's a gift that keeps on giving.

You get the gift of children as a result of physical intimacy. Now, it's been so perverted. First of all, we perverted by opening the gift before time.

Yes, we do. You know, you've done that. Slipped and opened a Christmas present before Christmas. And when it becomes Christmas, there's no fun opening that thing up. You've taken all of the joy.

There's no rapture, an explosion of ecstasy. And so sometimes we can't enjoy the gift because we've opened it before time. So what we have to do is we have to go back and say, God, make this right in me. Purify me. First, forgive me for defiling my relationship. Ask God to take you back and to sanctify that which you have defiled by lowering your moral standards and being promiscuous and fornicating before you got married. Just ask God to go back. Cleanse me. Forgive me. Sanctify me. Make me whole. And then God began to work. Some of us have been molested, and that's why we don't enjoy the gift.

Come on now. Satan gets footholds in our relationships because we won't respond sometimes intimately to our husbands. We tempt them to lust. We cause, we incite lust in them because we won't respond to their needs. Sometimes we struggle. We're trying to change these men and create them and mold them and make them and manipulate them.

And you just end up frustrated. But God made him. And God is for your marriage.

And he's for your mate. He wants your husband to enjoy the marriage as much as he wants you to. Some of you just need to be more sensitive and ask God to open up the understanding of your eyes.

But the key is, place all your expectations in the Lord and know that he's for the success of your marriage. And we must take a responsibility. We as women of God, especially some of you older women, the Bible of God's going to get you. He said that the older women are supposed to teach the younger women.

And they're not doing it. The older women are going to teach the younger women. You have a responsibility. You're going to stand before God for not teaching younger women. You must go to younger women when you know they're pregnant and you must say blessed is the fruit of your womb.

God has done a good thing in you that he would trust you to nurture a life. We got to do that. You got to go out of your way. I don't care if she's a stranger.

Go out and find that woman. And those babies in their wombs. Listen, when I get a chance, I bend over and talk to the baby in the womb. I said, baby, you are blessed. God has purpose and plan for your life. We are eagerly and waiting for your birth with great expectation.

You're going to be a great woman, a man of God. Then I said, my name is Pat. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Then I tell the mother, I said that when this baby born, it's going to recognize my voice.

Do you hear what I'm saying? It's real. It's that real to me.

It's that real. We must make a commitment to encourage women to be fruitful and then become extended families. Women are not having babies because we live in a selfish and egocentric society. We don't want to make the necessary sacrifices.

My mother had five of us and we were considered a small family. Do you understand me? We must get the heart of God since that's who we're going to stand in front of one day anyhow. Get his heart now and ask God to forgive us for not encouraging women when they're pregnant and overlooking them. We should celebrate those women. And when you get a chance, bless these women and encourage them. God would have that our marriage would accomplish, that our husbands, that the marriage would be protected.

Let me tell you something. Whether your husband is saved or unsaved, do you know whether he's saved or unsaved, God can use him to protect you. Because if the truth were told by each one of you, if you can think of something, things that your husband warned you of, relationships that your husband disapproved of, and some of your other girlfriends, as that relationship developed, you found that there were things in it that was just a dead end. You ended up hurt or betrayed, or you ended up being used. And he tried to rise up to protect you by saying, you know what, there's something wrong with her.

I don't know what it is, but I don't feel good. I have listened to things that Christian women have told me that their unsaved husbands told them. And I said to myself, it couldn't be closer to the gospel if he hadn't read it out of the Word.

Because God will sanctify him and anoint him and use him to protect you, even if he's unsaved. Because that's what God intended for the marriage to accomplish. And sometimes they say marriage is like flies at a screen.

You got those waiting to get out and those waiting to get in. Some of us are waiting for excuses to abandon and abort our marriages. And we wait for an opportunity for our husbands to do what some of these folk tell us it's okay to do. But if it was okay to divorce your husband because he was found in adultery, then why do you deal with the guilt afterwards? Why do you deal with it? And you know you do.

But let me tell you something. There is no way around the guilt. And guilt is an indicator.

Just like you scream when somebody burns you with something hot. It's an indication that there's something wrong there. Guilt is an indication.

And you have to deal with that guilt. And I have met married couples who's now remarried. God has blessed them in a second relationship. But every last one of them that is living in the real blessings of God, you know why it is? Because they said that they came to a point where they submitted and they began to realize that what it took to make the second marriage successful, the same amount of prayer.

I'm telling you now. The things that they were running from in that first marriage, they met in the second marriage. The things that they had to overcome in the first marriage, they were confronted to overcome.

They had to still overcome those things. But now for those of you that have experienced that and you've gone through it, guess what? Don't keep that a secret. You should start investing into the marriages of other people. You should become men and women that's committed to the success of other people's marriage. Because you know how violent divorce is. You know how it's a terror. You know how painful it is.

And you must, if God has restored you and you are recovering in a second marriage, you have a responsibility to encourage young couples and people whose marriages that you know are in trouble. And you know when you see folk with their marriages and you know what they look like. Because you know what you looked like. You know how you felt. You can listen to women.

You can look at women and tell when they're in pain and when they're going through. Come on now. This is tight. But I'm telling you what God said.

Do you hear me? We have got to do this. We got to get in God's face. Don't take my word for it.

Get it from him. Ask God. Well, with those wise words, we come to the end of this terrific presentation from Patricia Ashley, who shared very honestly how God restored her marriage when it felt completely dead. And she shared those biblical principles that she employed along the way.

What a testimony, John. I mean, as we've said, Patricia and Vernon were able to celebrate over 45 years of a thriving marriage until his death in 2018. And that's our goal, to help your marriage not just survive, but to thrive and to thrive in Christ. And like we said last time, if you are in an abusive relationship, it's important that you get to a place of safety for yourself and your children. But keep praying for your spouse and for their healing. And if that's your situation, please call us to talk with a counselor.

It's completely free thanks to the donor community. We're a phone call away and that number is 800, the letter A in the word family, 800-232-6459. And when you call, just request a counseling call back. You know, last time we aired this program, we heard from a listener who said, when I heard your podcast, my marriage was at an all-time low.

The speaker, Patricia, said her marriage was dead. And I thought, finally, someone who understands me. I learned so much about what God says about marriage and am living my days with a better outlook, trying to apply these principles. I thank God for you. Focus on the family. That is awesome. And it's just one of the hundreds of calls and emails we received in response to this show.

That's right. And many other listeners said that they intend to use the biblical principles that Patricia shared because they know divorce is not the answer. And that is actually backed up by research. A 2002 study out of the University of Chicago, I quote this a lot, found that two out of three unhappily married adults who avoided divorce ended up saying they were happy in their marriage five years later. That's 66 percent of those couples.

They stayed in their marriage, perhaps getting help of some sort, and found happiness once again. And I think that is very encouraging. And if your marriage is in a tough spot right now, please consider our Hope Restored four-day intensives, which have a success rate of over 80 percent. That's incredible, everybody.

I think it's the best thing going that I know of in the United States. And the basic bottom line is you can fight for your marriage. Let us be in your corner. And if you were inspired by Patricia Ashley, contact us to get the free audio bundle that will include this message, along with extra content, plus five other popular broadcasts designed to improve your marriage. Visit us online to take advantage of the offer today. Yeah, it's a great collection filled with biblical encouragement and practical tips from some of our top guests, including Shanti Feldhahn, Kathy Lipp, and Dr. Greg Smalley.

Get your free downloads when you follow the link in the show notes or call for details. Eight hundred, the letter A, and the word family. And when you're online with us, look for a free PDF downloadable document that lists all of the scripture verses that Patricia has used in this message. On behalf of the entire team, thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Please take a moment and leave a rating in your podcast app and then share about this episode with a friend who might need the encouragement. That helps us spread the word about this helpful content. I'm John Fuller inviting you back next time as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. If you want biblical, practical and personal tips to your inbox, here's how. Go to MyKidsAge.com, put in your kid's age and get weekly emails that make a difference.