This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Melanie Simpson Co-host 0:00
Heidi, I think that for folks who’ve been married more than a day, we come to a place in our marriages where it’s just hard. It’s hard to be married. Either we are just struggling with the idea of marriage, with the idea of staying, or maybe our partner is expressing a lack of interest or being unhappy. There are times when it seems like it would be easier to call it quits. And yet we know in God’s Word that marriage is important to God and it’s a binding contract, it’s a covenant with Him. So what do we do, Heidi? How do we push through in a way that honors the Lord, so that He is glorified in our marriages?
Heidi Franz Host 0:45
Welcome back to Parenting to Impress, your go-to podcast to learn practical ways to love God and love others and impress this on the hearts of your children. I am your host, Heidi Franz, and I am joined by my dear friend, Melanie Simpson. Two moms who have made a lot of mistakes but have found grace and truth along the way.
Melanie, I think a lot of women and men can understand on a very personal level what you’re sharing. Marriage is hard, the day-to-day grind of two sinful people coming together and living as one.
Melanie Simpson Co-host 1:29
Right, and I think that maybe our first disclaimer for this episode is that we are speaking specifically to married people who are believers in Jesus Christ. I think most of us would say we know we’re supposed to stay married, we know that’s what God wants, but we may not really understand why or how specifically that’s expressed in the scripture. So, as we always do, let’s start off with why. Why is marriage so important to God?
Heidi Franz Host 1:57
And if we don’t understand the why, the rest of it doesn’t matter. I think the first reason why marriage is so important to God is that it is the image of Christ as the bridegroom and the church as the bride. We are a representation of this relationship between Jesus and the church.
Melanie Simpson Co-host 2:21
Beyond that, there are several other passages where God talks about how it is a binding agreement. It is not something to be entered into lightly, nor is it something that should be broken lightly. We’re not going to get into all the ins and outs of and reasons for why it is permissible or not permissible to divorce or anything like that. We’re just kind of taking this thousand-level view to say that marriage is important to God. It is a way that we reflect Christ to the world and it’s also a way that we glorify the Lord as we live out our years with another person in a married relationship.
Heidi Franz Host 3:00
Because you can’t be in a marriage relationship and be selfish.
Melanie Simpson Co-host 3:03
Well, let’s say you can’t be in a healthy relationship with your spouse and be selfish.
Heidi Franz Host 3:12
Another point of marriage is that marriage makes us more like Christ. So that selfishness is going to have to get rubbed off if we truly desire to grow in our relationship with our spouse.
Melanie Simpson Co-host 3:29
It is, in itself, an expression of the union we have with Christ. The union in the Trinitarian relationship. There are so many images in scripture about coming together and being bonded together, and marriage is one of those. So it’s such a privilege to get to bear our union with our spouses as a foundational concept in scripture.
Heidi Franz Host 3:55
And when we live that out, we are being examples to the next generation. If we have children, we are making disciples in our own homes and so furthering that union, having that union as an example, is raising Christ’s followers.
Melanie Simpson Co-host 4:17
Now that we have answered the question affirmatively, that God does care about marriage, (in fact, it is important to him enough that he speaks of it in several places in Scripture) let’s tackle the lie that the world tells us, which is that your marriage is not important. You can come and go as you please. If you’re unhappy, just break up, it’s fine.
Heidi Franz Host 4:38
I think one of the lies that the world tells us is that there is one person for us, that soul mate. And if you can just get with that one person, it’s going to make everything perfect. The problem is that the one person isn’t perfect. And you’re not perfect. So the combination of two imperfect people coming together in a perfect situation doesn’t work.
Melanie Simpson Co-host 5:08
It’s a fairytale. The world: its bread and butter, is romance novels and romantic comedies and the idea that the world is conspiring against you being with your person.
Heidi Franz Host 5:29
So what happens is that you get into a situation, and I’m going to tell you whether you’ve been married five days, five years, or twenty-five years, Satan still attacks and goes “Well if you would have married somebody else…”
Melanie Simpson Co-host 5:36
You married the wrong person because the right person would be able to make you happy. The right person would read your mind, do the things, whatever the longings of your heart are, that that person would be able to fulfill those for you.
Heidi Franz Host 5:49
That word that you just said, that happiness word, that’s a second lie that the world tells us. The world says marriage is to make you happy, and if you’re in the right marriage you will be happy. No, the purpose of marriage is to make us holy, and I’m going to be the first one to say the process of becoming holy is hard. It’s not fun, because nobody likes to be sanded. But it’s in that process of sanding together, of iron sharpening iron, that we become who God desires us to be.
Melanie Simpson Co-host 6:29
The other thing is that the world is all about quick fixes, and instant gratification. So, in the moment that we don’t think our marriage is what it should be, the world tells us, “Find a different marriage.” Get out of this and live your truth. Be who you’re supposed to be. But as a believer, that runs counter to everything scripture tells us, which is actually that you need to change. As Heidi was saying, you need to become more like Christ. You, in fact, are a sinner and flawed, and yet there is a solution. It is through Jesus Christ, and that requires time. Yes, you become a new creation of Christ at your point of conversion, but then you spend the rest of your life getting to be sanctified. It is a privilege and a blessing to be sanctified in Christ.
Heidi Franz Host 7:26
The Holy Spirit just brought this question to my mind. Melanie, have you ever doubted your marriage? I’m going to also say yes, just being totally transparent. In a month, how many times do you doubt your marriage?
Melanie Simpson Co-host 7:42
That’s a really great question and I would say that in the season that we are in now, not very many, but there have been seasons, Heidi, where it was a daily, maybe even an hourly thought that came to mind. That’s really the key. There is an ebb and flow in any relationship.
Heidi Franz Host 8:00
But I think the question the Holy Spirit just gave me here, I think that’s another one of the lies. It’s the lie that everybody else is happy. I mean, Melanie, my husband and I have been married 25 years. You guys have been married 24, and even now we have days where we go, oh, what did I do? What was I thinking? This is not working, and so I want young moms to hear that the doubts you are having in your head are normal. But we can call out those lies that we’re hearing and replace them with the truth that there is no perfect person, there is no soulmate, and that your happiness is not what you should be focused on. Instead, it should be your purpose of holiness.
Melanie Simpson Co-host 8:57
Right, because I think the other common rebuttal you’ll get is, but you don’t know my husband. Or you don’t know my wife. You’re right, I don’t. But I know that God has shown me time and again in the Word of God and in prayer that God wants me to be concerned about me, and my relationship with the Lord. I’m not over there hovering over Jeff while he’s praying or while he’s having his quiet time with the Lord. It’s between me and God.
Heidi Franz Host 9:25
Well, and when you stand before God on judgment day, you’re not standing before him as a couple, you are standing before him as his daughter when he says what have you done for me? What is your relationship with me? I look at the statistics. A study found that two-thirds of unhappy adults who stayed together were happy five years later. They also found that those who divorced were not happier on average than those who stayed together. In other words, most people who are unhappily married end up happy if they stick to it. So even statistics are showing us, beyond what God has given us in his wisdom, that staying the course is best.
Melanie Simpson Co-host 10:16
That really speaks to what we know to be true about relationships between believers. Where there is mutual sacrifice, there is mutual satisfaction. Our hearts desire to be more intimately and deeply knit together with those who demonstrate their love for us through self-sacrifice and service.
Heidi Franz Host 10:45
So, Melanie, you brought it up a few minutes ago, but I’m going to say it again. I can still hear the wife who is saying you seriously don’t understand my situation. What would you say to that woman right now?
Melanie Simpson Co-host 10:58
First, I would say, barring any extenuating circumstances involving abuse. We believe by faith that God has called us to stay married. And you’re right. I don’t know. I don’t know your husband, I don’t know your circumstances. What I do know is that the Lord desires for me to be holy, and holiness comes about through my sanctification. It’s not my job to make my husband holy. It’s not my job to sanctify my husband. It is hard when we think we know what God wants for our marriage and maybe it is a really good and right view of marriage. But the fact of the matter is I can never presuppose to know what God is doing in my husband’s heart. I might think I know, but God is infinitely wiser and infinitely more knowledgeable about what’s happening in my husband’s heart and mind than I am. I can’t be his Holy Spirit. I’ve tried to be Jeff’s junior Holy Spirit and I can tell you that it has worked zero out of a million times. What God is calling me to do is to go before Him, and I need to ask Him, what does He want to teach me. He says, “Let me tell you how I am going to call you to live your life in such a way that it is transformed by my spirit. It was transformed by my son. It is for your good and is for my glory.”
Heidi Franz Host 12:46
I think about the Re-Engage class that our church offers, and the big thing that they focus on is the idea of staying in your circle. What that means to me is looking in the mirror. What am I doing? And I think about 1 Corinthians 13:4-9, which are the verses about what love is. Love is kind, love is patient, love does not demand its own way, love does not envy. That is what I would encourage this wife to do is to sit down with a humble heart and ask God where am I not loving my spouse? Am I demanding my own way? Am I being impatient? Am I envious that he gets to go to work and I’m stuck at home with littles? What is it that is causing the strife from my side?
Melanie Simpson Co-host 13:49
And let’s be clear, your heart motive matters. As you said, with a humble heart. And I’m just going to say because I did it without a humble heart, I came before God and I read that passage and I still walked away thinking I can still manipulate this. If I do these things, if I act this way, then my spouse will respond in kind and you can’t use Scripture as a tool for manipulation.
Heidi Franz Host 14:16
You can’t use yourself as a tool for manipulation.
Melanie Simpson Co-host 14:21
I say with full vulnerability that I was that wife who abused Scripture. That’s what I did. I abused Scripture and I have had to go back and apologize to Jeff, my husband, for not being a good example of a Christ follower, not loving him well as a Christ follower, and, quite frankly, abusing Scripture in an attempt to manipulate our marriage.
Heidi Franz Host 14:45
I appreciate that honesty because I think that’s going to resonate with a lot of women. 1 Peter 3:1 says “Wives in the same way, submit yourself to your husband so that if any of them do not believe the word, they may be one over without words by the behavior of their wives when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.” Melanie, that is exactly what you just said. It is not: manipulate your husband so that he starts believing or he starts doing what you want. It’s submit. Submitting is not being a doormat. Submitting is not this idea of giving over all yourself and losing yourself. Submitting follows respect. It’s the opposite of control and anger.
Melanie Simpson Co-host 15:44
It’s a reflection of what we do with the Lord. We submit to God, we submit to Christ, we submit to the Holy Spirit. It’s not a negative word and I just want to encourage women too; that when God created Eve, he said that Adam needed a helper. And Scripture uses the word “ezer” which is only used in Scripture for when God is talking about himself. There is nothing submissive about the Lord. He is all-powerful, almighty and I’m not suggesting that we are, although sometimes we feel that way. But in the context of submission, we know that God is not asking us to die to self in a way that is anything other than God-glorifying.
Heidi Franz Host 16:35
Absolutely, and that goes back to the purpose of our marriage. Are we glorifying God? So in closing, Melanie, I want to ask you this question. If you were to sit down with yourself when you were at your seven-year anniversary, what would you tell yourself?
Melanie Simpson Co-host 16:55
I would say it’s going to get so much better, so much sweeter, so much richer. But I want you to stop being so critical. I want you to stop trying to have it all figured out. I want you to rest in the knowledge that God is doing a work in you, in His timing, and that if you would trust the Lord as much as you think you trust yourself, there is good ahead of you. How about you?
Heidi Franz Host 17:31
You know the seven-year itch. I know so many people who have said that is the toughest year of marriage and I don’t know what it is about year seven, but I would agree that was a tough year for us and I’ve seen it played out in many, many couples. What I would say would be very similar in that it gets so much sweeter. You can never begin to imagine the hills and valleys. But walking through those valleys together, even if you don’t feel like you’re on the same page, maybe you’re walking faster than your spouse or your spouse is walking faster with you, but as long as the Lord is in the middle of that, you will get through that valley. And in that valley, you are going to be shaped and you are going to be formed and you’re going to be changed, which makes marriage so much sweeter. I would also say you know, seven years was when we had our first child and then we had three more after that. I would also say, to guard your marriage. Because now that I’m looking on the other side as our children are leaving the nest, I am so thankful that my husband made our marriage a priority. He shut down things that I would have done as a parent, not understanding the negative implications it would have had on our marriage. That is what I would encourage – guard your marriage and don’t stop because it gets so much sweeter.
Announcer 19:21
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