The Marriage Miracle That Takes Time

Tony Ranky (0:04)

There is a silent ache inside thousands of Christian marriages. And I have come to see the extent of this silent sadness. Because of how many times over the years I've read your stories, you send them to us in the APJ inbox. It's the silent pain of being married to a spouse who does not enjoy God. Not to the degree that you experience joy in God.

Some of you marry spouses who now seem to be completely numb to spiritual joy.

It causes a quiet pain that's hard to talk about. It can go unnoticed by almost everyone else, but you see it. So how do you endure this quiet pain in your marriage? And how do you love a spiritually affectionless spouse and love them over the long haul patiently without growing resentful to them? Today on Ask Pastor John, the marriage miracle that takes time.

And the latest version of the question comes to us from Mike. He's 38 and married Pastor John. After reading your book, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals and finishing a couple of chapters in Desiring God, the book, I find myself with more practical questions than when I started. The books have searched something very good in my own heart, but it has also led me to discover that my wife, who also professes faith in Christ, does not experience God like I do. She has a faith that seems more driven by duty than by delight and joy. She's not deeply moved by God's sovereignty in the way that I am. As her husband, what am I called to do? How do I love her without judging her and without trying to produce feelings inside of her that only the Holy Spirit could possibly give her?

John Piper (1:40)

My marriage of 57 years with Noel is solid and mutually faithful and deeply content and richly rewarding and centered on Christ and his Word, which we read every night together. Now, the reason I mention that is simply because I don't want Mike or anyone else to consider my sober, modest expectations for marriage that I'm going to talk about to be seen as a meant or a criticism of my own. I wouldn't trade Noel for the world. I would do it all over again. If I could start back in 1966 and choose another woman, I would choose Noel. But I think it is so crucial that single and married people have a sense that in this fallen, sinful, damaged, disordered, afflicted, beleaguered, and partially redeemed world, the expectations for marriage should be modest. As the vows say, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, marriage is a home of ecstasy and agony, peaceful and embattled, growing in understanding, and often utterly baffled. A place of fulfilled dreams and heart-wrenching disappointments, sweetest satisfactions, and exasperating frustrations. A bond where you can weep at being apart and dread being together. No one makes you happier. No one makes you more angry. Wonderful seasons that last for years that make you say, Piper sure got that wrong.

And then comes a season when you say, he didn't know the half of it. So Mike has discovered, well, he's 38 years old, maybe he's been married 15 years, maybe not, maybe one year, I don't know when he got married, but he's 38 and he has discovered that he's married to a woman who doesn't respond emotionally to Christ and to the glories of Christian reality the way it seems she should. And my guess is that describes 80% of the Christian marriages in the world. One spouse responds outwardly with more or less feeling to precious spiritual reality and is emotionally expressive. And the other one, the other spouse, man or woman, is not that way. And you wonder, what's going on inside? Hello? Is anybody home?

And you can't tell. You can't tell what's in there. So what should he do? And a few million other spouses, men or women, like him, what should they do? And here's my bullet list of suggestions. And I'll just tick them off. We can write a book about each one. So just pause and pray and think, test all things. Number one, fight for your own joy, Mike. Your own joy in Jesus, relentlessly. You want her to join you in your joy, not the other way around. And you dare not say, don't ever say, okay, you want to be glum? I can be glum. See what it feels like. Don't do that. That's totally un-Christ-like. It's deadly. Fight for your joy. Number two, be as warmly, cheerful as you can be, even when there's no emotional responsiveness from her. You'll think it's like playing tennis when the ball never comes back. Never mind. You're not God. Just keep knocking happy, expressive balls over the net. No matter what, emotional freedom is caught more than taught. Three, do not be crushed or ruined by failed expectations. Adjust your expectations. You thought you would be married to one thing. In fact, you're married to another thing. Adjust your expectations, otherwise, you will be your own enemy for decades, making you both miserable with endless efforts to fix what you cannot fix, but may in fact someday come to cherish.