Making Marriage Work (32 page)

The Bible says,

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work:

If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!

Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?

Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
NIV

The three-strand cord is a picture of the power that takes place when two people agree for something in line with God’s will for them. As two people become one in agreement with each other, a power from heaven is released to bless their lives. Read Matthew 18:19-20 to understand the blessings that await couples in unity with each other:

As two people become one in agreement with each other, a power from heaven is released to bless their lives.

Again I tell you, if two of you on earth agree (harmonize together, make a symphony together) about whatever [anything and everything] they may ask, it will come to pass and be done for them by My Father in heaven.

For wherever two or three are gathered (drawn together as My followers) in (into) My name, there I
AM
in the midst of them.

It took me three years before I started to give in and try to come into agreement with Dave. The first issue I tried to see his way was over golf. While we were in “disharmony” I was the one that was miserable. Well, I eventually made him miserable, too, but my suffering became unbearable. I had no idea the fun that awaited me if I would just come into agreement with Dave.

When you demand your own way, you are the one who ends up suffering more than anybody else. God knew I needed something to do, some kind of entertainment or hobby to give me rest from the work I love. When I learned to play golf with Dave, it gave us time together that after all these years we still enjoy.

Don’t be bullheaded. Determine in your heart that you will take a new look at every disagreement you have with your spouse to see what God can do for you if you come together in agreement. You are most likely missing out on the very answer you have been hoping to receive.

You can have such fun in your marriage when you begin to agree with each other. Do you know that God did not put you together to be miserable? He didn’t put you together to fight, to pick on each other, to try and change each other, or just to buy a house together. The Bible says that a woman is to enjoy her husband. Think about that. I very rarely ever hear a woman say, “You know what? I really enjoy my husband.” And God wants us to enjoy each other. He wants us to have fun together. You need to laugh together and have fun together.

Genesis 2:24 says,
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother
. … If you are married, but you haven’t left home (both physically and mentally) you need to take care of this first step right away. …
and shall become united and cleave to his wife
. … Sometimes a wife clings to her mother, and her mother’s opinions about what she ought to do, or a man runs to his father for advice when they should be trusting and leaning on each other. …
and they shall become one flesh
.

Now the word “cleave” means “to adhere firmly and closely or loyally and unwaveringly,”
¹
to “be joined (together),” “stick.”
²
In other words “cleave” means to be glued to each other. Matthew 19:4,5 says,

He replied, Have you never read that He Who made them from the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall he united firmly (joined inseparably) to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?

Notice that these Scriptures don’t say the two are one flesh the minute they get married. It says the two shall
become
one. Now, how are two joined as one? Most of the people reading this book probably have enough teaching in the Word of God to know that you are a spirit, you have a soul, and you live in a body. You are a spirit being; you are not a body. For example, you can present an image of yourself to everybody that is a totally different person than that one who lives on the inside of you.

The real you is in the inner man. You have a personality and then beyond that you have a spirit. When a person gets born again, the Spirit of God comes to dwell on the inside of man’s spirit. So you are a spirit being; you have a soul which is made up of your mind, your will, and your emotions that is demonstrated through your personality. You have a body which everyone can see.

So how do these two people who are spirit beings with very different personalities, who don’t think alike, who don’t feel the same about a lot of different things, who don’t even many times like the same kind of food become one? We do know that it doesn’t just happen when you both say, I do. “Becoming one” is a process that takes time.

The Hebrew word for “one” in
Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance
is reference number 259,
echad
(ekh-awd’) and means united as one. Other descriptive words are “alike” and “together.”
³
It comes from the root word (#258) that means to “unify” as to “collect (one’s thoughts): — go one way or other.”
⁴
This depicts a unity or agreement in body, soul, and spirit. To be totally unified, then you must be one in all three areas.

If both people in a marriage relationship are not born again and walking with God, then they will never be joined spiritually. You become joined as one spiritually through your union with Christ Jesus. (1 Corinthians 6:17.) If you are both one with Christ in spirit, then you are one with each other in Him. Couples who do not have Christ as the center of their marriage are having trouble and most are not making it. One out of every two people who are getting married are not staying married. Even Christian marriages can have many problems, but the hope of Jesus keeps light in their relationship to direct their paths. Jesus has to be the prime focus in the home if you want things to be the way that they’re supposed to be.

The Bible teaches in 1 Corinthians 6:16 that two people are joined in body through the sexual relationship. So the physical process of becoming one happens quickly and even our society acknowledges husbands and wives as “one body,” sharing equal ownership of property and legally obligated to each other’s debts.

If you are both one with Christ in spirit, then you are one with each other in Him.

If you are both born again, then the spiritual union is in place. That doesn’t mean you are both on equal wavelengths, as one may be more mature in knowledge of spiritual things than the other. One may be Spirit-filled and the other one not, or one may be letting Jesus be the Lord of their life while the other one has just made a profession of faith but hasn’t started submitting to God. Being born again you are still in agreement over Jesus as Savior and know that you are both heaven bound.

The longest part of the process of becoming one is usually in the area of the soul. Couples are sometimes slow to agree in the way they think about things. How does this process of mental agreement take place? Most marital problems include strife from communication problems, sexual misunderstanding, money, goals, and how to discipline the kids. All of these things get worked out between us in the soulish realm of our union. They don’t have as much to do with the spirit or the body as they do with what we think about those areas. We can know spiritually what is the right thing to do, but that doesn’t mean that we will end up doing it.

And so, the primary focus of our agreement needs to be in the soul — the mind, the will, and the emotions. Your mind tells you what you think; the will tells you what you want; and your emotions tell you what you feel. When God first called me into ministry, I wanted to jump in full time, but Dave didn’t want any part of it. He just wanted to go to work every day. He was a great, fun-loving guy, a good father, and a good husband who played a lot of golf, watched a lot of sports on television, and was easy to get along with.

Basically, Dave’s will was to continue doing what he had previously enjoyed. He didn’t have goals beyond that. He was satisfied to go to work, bring home the money, watch a little television, play a little golf, and wrestle with the kids.

But God called me to preach, and I had a worldwide vision to go out and get people saved who are dying and going to hell. I wanted to help people to get their lives back together. And Dave just told me, “I don’t want to do that.”

We had a problem, didn’t we? But God changed Dave’s will in that area. I admit that for a while, I tried to change him, by harping on it, arguing with him, and nagging him with, “You’re not producing anything. If we will do this, we can help a lot of people.” But he firmly said, “I don’t want to do that. I just don’t want to do that.”

Finally, one day the Lord said to me, “Joyce, why don’t you just go do what I told you to, and just let Dave do what he wants to. Just love him and go do what I’m telling you to do.” Dave never told me I couldn’t do it; he just didn’t want to do it with me.

After three weeks, Dave came to me and said, “For three weeks, God has been dealing with me.” (As soon as I stopped dealing with Dave, God started working on him.) He continued, “I believe that you are called to do what you say you are called to do. I want you to know that from now on I’m going to support you in it. When you go out and teach, I’ll go with you and support you in things like that.”

My point is that Dave’s will was set in one direction, but God wooed Dave’s heart to comply with His own. If the two people are going to be in agreement where their will is concerned, they will have to lift things up to God and say, “Father, if I’m wrong about this, then change my mind or change my will.” God is the One Who will bring you into agreement, both to His will and purpose for your lives. You must be willing to be brought into agreement with that other person.

The Bible says that we are supposed to be in agreement. Dave and I have personalities that are about as far opposite as we could get. Yet God has brought us more and more together to where we are starting to think more alike and want more of the same things every day. We still have two different personalities, and now we can see that God put our differences together on purpose. It was not an accident because God knew we each have strengths and weaknesses that will complete the other when we become one.

The idea of saying, “Why aren’t you like me?” is no longer a question in our hearts. We realize that we need each other to be exactly who God created us to be. We no longer pick on each other’s weaknesses — instead we partake of our strengths and enjoy one another.

HOW CAN WE AGREE?

Amos 3:3 asks, “How can two walk together unless they be agreed?” Two people going in opposite directions are hard to unify. Matthew 18:19, says, …
if two of you on earth agree (harmonize together, make a symphony together) about whatever [anything and everything] they may ask, it will come to pass and be done for them by My Father in heaven.

If God can find two people on earth who will agree, He says, “Anything that those two people ask, I will do it.” He isn’t saying that you can just agree about the one thing you believe for; He is talking about living a life of agreement where you are walking in love and unity so that everything you ask will be granted.

There are no two people who are in a more important position to get in agreement than a married couple. God has done so much for Dave and me since we have gotten out of strife and learned to humble ourselves to the point that we don’t have to be right all the time. Many wars are started in our homes over some nit-picky thing that doesn’t make any difference at all, such as whether to go left or right out of the subdivision when both streets go to the same store.

If you want to have power in your marriage, and power in your prayer life, then you have to be rid of the spirit of strife, get all traces of it out of your home, and commit to finding your way to agreement. You can learn how to “disagree agreeably” without causing strife. I’m not saying you have to think exactly the same thing, but if you respect one another, you can disagree with manners by saying, “Well, honey, I don’t really agree with that, but we don’t have to agree all the time.”

We have a right to think for ourselves. If we want to have good relationships, we need to respect the different opinions of others. One of our greatest relational problems is that we draw out our little square box of what we think everything ought to be like and then we try to cram everybody into it.

The big question is how do people who are not of one mind get in agreement? The will, as I have pointed out, represents your wants, wishes, and desires. As you grow in Christ, you will become less self-centered. Without Christ, you will always be focused on yourself, but if Christ is at the center of your heart, you will see the needs of others and feel compassion to help them achieve their desires, too. If you want to have a good relationship in your home, you’ve got to learn to lay aside your personal wants for the good of the entire family unit.

For example, Dave once had a Z28. My husband got this idea that he had to have a sports car and he wanted a Z28. It may have been a crisis of his change of life, but he was feeling his youth again and wanted the car while he was young enough to enjoy it. Some men go out and look for a younger woman, but Dave just wanted a sports car, and he wanted it with four on the floor. Thank God they didn’t have his color with a four-speed transmission. They couldn’t find one anywhere, so he got an automatic transmission, but he got so good at shifting that it wasn’t any different than if he’d had four on the floor.

So picture Dave taking me to these meetings where I’m going to preach and here we go, Rrrrrrrrrrr, Rrrrrrrrr. We would zip around the corner, and he would shift it into another gear — Rrrrrrrrrr. I’m trying to pray and read my Bible while lunging back and forth as Dave plays with the automatic gears.