Winning Him Without Words: 10 Keys to Thriving in Your Spiritually Mismatched Marriage (9 page)

The key seems to be in the third line (“those who hope in the L
ORD
”). Could it be that we place our hope in the transformation we so desperately desire in our spouse and not in the author of our faith, Jesus? Are we looking in the wrong direction?

When we keep our eyes on our situation and our unbelieving spouse, how can we possibly continue to hope, let alone have wild hope? The burden of unfulfilled desire becomes the object of attention and saps the strength we need. The burden is too heavy for us to carry, because we’ve switched from relying on God’s strength to depending on our own very limited supply.

When do you feel as if you can’t go any farther because you have no more strength left? When you’ve prayed over and over again for your husband to believe in Christ? When you’ve prayed over and over for a child to be healed? For a job? For a difficult situation to find a peaceful solution? For a loved one to come back to you?

Now ask yourself this question:
What am I waiting on?
Did you answer that you are waiting on:

• Your spouse to come to faith?

• Your child to be healthy again?

• The right job to come your way?

• This situation to be fixed and go away?

• Your loved one to come home?

Now go back and ask yourself,
Who am I waiting for?
If those who hope in the Lord will be strengthened, then by keeping your hope firmly placed in God (the only One who has the power to bring your husband to belief), you can persevere and continue, even when things appear utterly hopeless.

With God we can soar above the murky waters of hopelessness. With God we can rise above our own limited ability, and we can trust completely in a God bigger and stronger than anything we are dealing with, even the most stubborn of men. With God we can have wild hope—the kind that perseveres even when someone asks you, “How can you be so sure?”

I know my God. I believe my God. I hope in my God. He can do anything. We can choose to believe this completely. When we keep our eyes focused on God and place the burden of proof, so to speak, on Him, we are free to walk in a hope that is not of this world.

It’s God’s wild hope.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit
.

ROMANS 15:13

One day I wrote this verse on an index card in the most delicious shade of pink. (How could I miss it?) I love picking apart God’s Word. I’ve found that just about everything in the Bible has at least two layers, or two meanings. Isn’t that just like God? Nothing lost and everything to gain. He wastes nothing and redeems everything.

In reading this verse over and over again, two things stood out to me. The first thing was that God is “the God of hope,” which tells us that just as Christ is the author of our faith, He is also the creator of our hope. We can’t manufacture hope by our own ability. If we’re to truly know a hope that endures, we must pray and let God do what He does best.

The second thing that stood out was “overflow with the hope by the power of the Holy Spirit,” which affirms what we’re told in the first part of the verse. Again, it’s only by God’s power that we not only know hope but also overflow with it. I don’t know about you, but knowing that the hope I want most will come from God and not from me lifted a weight off my shoulders. Yet another thing I don’t have to strive to accomplish. (Whew!)

Now the deeper layer (or the creamy filling, if you prefer) in this hope-filled nugget: In reading the Bible, I found one word that is constantly used in association with hope and faith. If you guessed “trust,” you’re exactly right. Look at the verse again. God tells us that
He
will fill us with joy and peace as we trust in Him so that we can overflow with hope (meaning that you must have one in order to accomplish the other).

Joy, peace and hope can’t exist where trust is lacking.

Our trials are designed to bring us to a place of complete and total trust in God. No, this process won’t be completed until we join our Lord and Savior in the heavenly realms, but our time here on earth is about preparation for what’s to come. (That’s what I tell my daughters when they get frustrated with the here and now—it’s just a blip on their eternal lifeline.)

So if you’re struggling to find hope, trust in the fact that we serve an ever-faithful God; and call out to Him to restore, renew and build your hope. Write Romans 15:13 down and pray it every day. Replace each “you” with “me” or “I.” This is a vital weapon in the battle for our faith, our hope, and our unbelieving husband. God didn’t just give us His Word to read. He gave it to us to use—to
learn from and to grow on and for battle and protection.

Finally, the most precious layer of all (like I said, God wastes nothing and redeems everything): God has absolutely everything we need. He planned it that way. He never intended for us to walk this path alone. He’s right there, waiting for us to ask for His help. Or we can just sit at His feet and bask in His glory.

Or we can pray verses written on bright pink index cards.

You’re getting close to experiencing wild hope in your marriage, so don’t stop now! Ask God to open your eyes and heart to hear His truth and promises as you work through the discussion questions.

1. Think about your husband. Do you respect him in the way that God is asking you to respect him?

2. What deep needs are you expecting your husband to meet? Write down each one, and then pray and seek God for fulfillment (or release) of these needs.

3. Rate your prayer life on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being “I pitch an occasional prayer” and 10 being “I pray until I’m blue in the face.” (If you wrote “10,” I definitely want a picture!) Even when you don’t see immediate results, do you keep praying? If not, what can you do to build those prayer muscles? Be specific.

4. Draw three columns on a sheet of paper. In the first column, make a list of your unanswered prayers. Examine each one prayerfully, asking God to reveal anything you need to do, change or accept in regard to each one. In the second column, write down who or
what you have placed your hope in for each prayer. Read Hebrews 12:2. How can you make a prayer out of this verse, telling God you will keep your eyes on Jesus for each concern or issue? Write down your prayer and make a commitment to God to follow through as He leads you. (We’ll fill in the third column after you read
chapter 10
.)

5. How hard is it for you to trust God for the salvation of your husband? Do you trust God to equip you with everything you need to thrive in your spiritual mismatch?

6. Look up Ecclesiastes 3:11. God’s Word says He makes everything beautiful in His time—not ours. This verse also tells us that God set eternity in the hearts of men. Do you believe this to be true of your husband? Create a prayer for your spouse, using this verse to ask God to awaken a longing to know God and His eternity in your husband’s heart.

Lord Jesus, be the author and perfecter of my faith. Be the source of an enduring hope planted deep within me and overflowing to Your glory. If I have looked to my husband to fulfill a need designed to be filled by You, forgive me and show me how to seek Your fulfillment, Lord, for You are my portion and everything I really need. Help me to understand that truth
.

Lord, You know my struggles and weaknesses. You know the heartache I face on a daily basis. You know how I struggle
some days just to keep going. Help me to remember that I can draw strength—strength that does not run out—from You and only You. Holy Spirit, alert me when I make that subtle shift from God’s strength to my own
.

And lastly, Lord, give me a wild hope to not only persevere but also to truly thrive in my marriage and leave the results to You. In Jesus’ precious name, amen
.

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate
.

MARK 10:7–9

“How did we get here?” is the question we all dance around. The one we sometimes want to ask but don’t. The one we dread when asked of us. The one we know the person’s dying to ask us when we tell them that our spouse doesn’t share our faith.

“Did you know he wasn’t a Christian when you married him?”

I can hear the universal cringe. Believe me, I know. Been there, done that, a dozen times at least. I don’t mind the question when it comes out of genuine concern—someone in need of understanding for his or her own situation or for a friend or loved one. It’s when I hear the judgment playing peek-a-boo as a question that takes me right back to the guilt.

For years I had good answers for this question. I had all kinds of ways to say “I had no idea what he was” without making myself look bad. But does it really matter?

In Matthew 6:34, Jesus tells us not to worry about tomorrow. He has our future covered if we trust in Him. With this being true, why would this great big God of grace want us to dwell on the past when He sent His Son to take care of it?

We don’t have to live in the shadows, lurking behind a shield of shame. This is not what God wants for us. He’s calling us, no matter how we arrived here, to be the presence of Christ in our husbands’ lives. And I don’t mean browbeating him with a Bible or with our “Christianese.” I mean living our lives in obedience to Christ—obeying His call to act or not to act, to speak or not to speak. Many times Jesus spoke the loudest through His silence. He knew how to read and speak between the lines.

Do not let the enemy weigh you down with guilt over a decision of the past to marry your unbelieving spouse. Confession frees the spirit, literally. Regardless if you knowingly or unknowingly married an unbeliever, confess your error, accept God’s forgiveness, and move forward. God will still bless your marriage. My marriage is a walking, talking testimony to this truth.

Shame and condemnation are tools the enemy will use to great advantage to diminish or even prevent our witness. And that cloak of shame can’t exist while we are sporting our shield of faith—part of the armor of God (see Eph. 6:10-12). In
chapter 10
, we will take a detailed look at this passage and how it is lived out in our unique marriage, but here, the point I want you to understand is that we have no reason to feel shame or condemnation for our choice of a husband.

Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign Lord, and you became mine
.

EZEKIEL 16:8

One evening, my oldest daughter surprised me by pulling out our old family videos. The first one she popped into the machine was, of course, the wedding video.

I don’t think I’d viewed the footage for a good 15 years. We marveled at how young her dad and I looked and how much the styles had changed in 20 years. (Hey, it was the eighties!)

As the video played, my husband arrived home from work and joined us in my daughter’s room. At this stage in the video, the ceremony was at the point when the pastor instructed us to repeat our vows, and he prayed—a lot. I honestly didn’t remember the wedding being so steeped in prayer and verse. As we watched, I wondered what my husband was thinking as he saw himself as a very young man bow his head and recite the Lord’s Prayer. Needless to say, I observed myself as a young woman do the very same thing, and I realized how little I knew God at the time.

One part of the ceremony struck me especially: The pastor spoke of marriage as a covenant and that ours would be blessed if we lived in obedience to God. If anything, I’ve learned over the years just how important obedience is. And I’m still learning this, to be perfectly honest.

But exactly what is God calling us to do in our unequally yoked situations? Is He asking us to do anything different from what He would do in an equally yoked covenant relationship? The Old Testament repeatedly mentions the covenant God made with His people, Israel. The very first thing He required of the Israelites was their commitment to put Him above everything else. He was to be first and foremost in their lives:

Hear, O Israel: The L
ORD
our God, the L
ORD
is one. Love the L
ORD
your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength (Deut. 6:4-5).

What God requires of all covenant relationships, including marriages, is that He be at the center. Whether your husband believes this or not doesn’t matter. This is the obedience God requires of us and is a major key to thriving in a spiritually unequal
marriage. When our eyes are focused on God, our circumstances stay where they belong—in His most capable hands.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose
.

ROMANS 8:28

The longer I walk this journey with God, the more I’ve come to realize that everything has a purpose. God is not wasteful. He uses every detail of our lives—the good and the bad—to bring about His purpose. As I shared earlier, God laid claim to my life at a very young age. And now, at the midway point of my life, I can look back and see parts of the puzzle coming together.

I can say without a doubt that God put my husband in my life at this particular time to fulfill His purpose. Did I know this in the beginning? No. Did I know this when my husband finally told me he’d decided that he was an atheist? No. Do I know what the result of God’s purpose will be in my mismatched marriage? No, but I’m willing to trust Him to the end and find out. Like reading a good book, I’m hooked now and have to finish the story, and God is the best author I know. His endings never disappoint.