Won Over Without a Word

Proverbs 14:1 says:

The wise woman builds her house, But the foolish tears it down with her own hands.

I used to be that woman. The one who tore it down. And what was worse was I found myself doing it again, to my second marriage.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I had been born again. I had a fresh start. A man who had given his life to Jesus. This marriage was the real deal. This man was the real deal. He mentioned my kids when he proposed.

But day to day, I was desperately lonely in my marriage. I lived daily in the pain of rejection. He was actively avoiding me, and we would have epic fights where he refused to do things that were just obviously needed, like painting the house under threat from the homeowner’s insurance company. He would stubbornly refuse to help with things he had seemed excited about when we were dating, like helping my eleven year old son with his student lobster license.

Truth be told, I even sometimes harbored fears that I had just married the wrong man again.

It seemed the harder I tried to make our marriage better, the worse it got.

This time period breaks my heart to think about now. Because I was cheating myself out of one of the best men on the planet.

Because he was shut down. He didn’t say much. He would retreat, into video games, his phone. On Saturday mornings, he didn’t even hang around to have a coffee at home. He grabbed it at the gas station on his way to do stuff.

My experience has been that marriage is either in a virtuous cycle or the opposite. We were in a vicious cycle.

But the good news is, that can turn around in one moment.

It’s a moment of repentance, a moment of gratitude. For me it was a moment of suddenly seeing all the good that the vicious cycle had been blinding me to.

I started to express more appreciation, and more trust.

I started to give him more space to be himself and make his own choices, even if they didn’t make sense to me. If he suddenly got called off of work, rather than rushing in with my honey do list, I stayed in my own lane and enjoyed my own day.

It actually gave me my life back, friends. I gave myself permission to enjoy living my own life.

I wanted to give you a bit of my story as a background but then I want to give you something practical to take home. It’s something incredibly useful that changed my life. It’s also a vein that runs through all of Scripture, as I’ll show here in a minute.

Laura Doyle calls it Staying on my own paper. So what I want you to do is imagine you are a child in a math class and everyone is sitting at their own little desk with a math quiz. It is considered to be bad form to look at anyone else’s paper, and of course it is expected that you simply focus on doing your own work.

But yeah, no one taught me that. In fact, I was raised to believe that other people’s papers were my responsibility.

Romans 12:18 says, If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.

How many of you think that all men includes our husbands?

But how do you actually know how much depends on you?

I think as humans, we have a tendency to figure that out by our feelings, which means in our favor, or by our habits, which is why it has been very helpful to have this image of staying on my own paper to guide me.

I think that Gods heart is to transform us with his word, and that in order to cooperate with that, we need to take his word all the way to that place that forces us to surrender.

So let’s take a look at the power of staying on your own paper and using your influence powerfully from that place.

”So Isaac moved away to the Gerar Valley, where he settled down. He reopened the wells his father had dug, which the Philistines had filled in after Abraham’s death. Isaac also restored the names Abraham had given the wells. Isaac’s servants also dug in the Gerar Valley and discovered a well of fresh water. But then the shepherds from Gerar came and claimed the spring. “This is our water,” they said, and they argued over it with Isaac’s herdsmen. So Isaac named the well Esek (which means “argument”). Isaac’s men then dug another well, but again there was a dispute over it. So Isaac named it Sitnah (which means “hostility”). Abandoning that one, Isaac moved on and dug another well. This time there was no dispute over it, so Isaac named the place Rehoboth (which means “open space”), for he said, “At last the Lord has created enough space for us to prosper in this land.” From there Isaac moved to Beersheba, where the Lord appeared to him on the night of his arrival. “I am the God of your father, Abraham,” he said. “Do not be afraid, for I am with you and will bless you. I will multiply your descendants, and they will become a great nation. I will do this because of my promise to Abraham, my servant.”“

‭‭Genesis‬ ‭26‬:‭17‬-‭24‬ ‭NLT‬‬

So here we see that Isaac had a generational claim to this land amd these wells from his father Abraham who was respected as a great man when he was alive, even among the locals.

Isaac had every reason to feel that this was unjust. But what did Isaac do?

He moved along and dug new wells until he found the place of blessing.

I love doing read throughs because I want to come to know Gods heart on these things more and more deeply. As you know I am passionate about coming to understand God’s heart for marriage and He uses the metaphor of marriage throughout the Bible which I am always tracking.

But during my current read through, I have been drawn into tracking how God uses people who know how to stay in their own lane instead of despairing about things they can’t control. Actually, when people experience despair like Elijah did it is because of other people’s paper; for example these people are not going to stop trying to kill me or the prophets saying that people are not going to listen to me. And God is always prompting these prophets to take heart and continue preaching His word anyway.

I also keep seeing places where women exercise their power to influence situations from their own paper and their own conviction from God and then God makes it more powerful than they could ask think or imagine.

For example, let’s look at the Hebrew midwives in the first chapter of Exodus. They were facing strict orders to kill every male child upon birth. Rather than fighting this or despairing, they simply continued to do their job to support life coming into the world. And the scripture again immediately says that God blessed them for this.

Likewise, Moses mother and sister, rather than despairing that Moses’ life was in danger, did what they could. Which resulted in the miraculous outcome of Moses’ mother getting paid to nurse her own baby by the very family that was trying to kill every male Hebrew child.

So with Issac, the Hebrew Midwives, and Moses’ family we see that God blessed people who were not only obedient but stayed in their own lane, minding their own business and doing everything in their power to simply do their job well.

One thing that has greatly saddened me as I have come to know many suffering and discontent Christian women is that many of them are allowing the enemy to use God’s heart FOR them against them. For example, I used to feel condemnation when I read Proverbs 31 and that I could not measure up.

But I am incredibly encouraged by Proverbs 31 these days. This is because Proverbs 31 is such a wonderful example of the freedom and blessing that comes to our entire families when as women, we learn how to live well and fully our own paper.

Meanwhile her husband is doing his own thing.

It says, Her husband is well known at the city gates
Where he sits with the other civic leaders.

As an aside, I feel that this was built in to the culture in the past in ways that it isn’t now, right?

Men and women used to lead separate lives in separate domains and that was just the way it was.

I believe that by staying powerfully in her own lane and using her energy wisely there, the Proverbs thirty one woman brings blessing on her entire household and positions her husband to be able to focus on his work serving the community.

*When I read Proverbs 31 I can feel the pleasure and delight that she takes in everything that she does. A commitment to staying on my own paper is a commitment to delight. My desires and delights are like God sparkles that lead me deeper and deeper into understanding my purpose.

So back to my own marriage: back in the bad old days, I was obsessed with Jesse’s smoking, even though it hadn’t bothered me when we were dating. But once we started parenting together, it just got to me. I even suggested that he move back home to quit.

How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye. Luke 6:42 ESV

Once I learned to trust that my marriage got better whenever I stayed on my own paper, I relinquished control of Jesse’s smoking. I actually never mentioned it to him again. In fact, I didn’t even know when he quit, which he did on his own, by the way. He always told me that he wanted to quit and just needed the space to figure it out on his own.

It was easy to give him that space because I was too busy having fun with him. He couldn’t get enough of me and started following me around the house, wanting to connect. It was such a huge change from before that it was like I had a new husband.

There was so much laughter. We started going on romantic little trips together and so many more wonderful things that I can’t even tell you all of them but the best part has been this:

He has really stepped up as a spiritual leader and I have also seen the past through different eyes, seeing the leader that he always naturally was, but I couldn’t recognize it because of how I thought spiritual leadership should look. We are so well positioned to witness to our teens who are not believers yet, and we are in harmony as we raise our three little boys. We are building the Kingdom together. This is so important because God needs men and women on the same team to take territory from the enemy and build the Kingdom. “Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed.” Ecclesiastes 4:9

All of this happened without Jesse even knowing I was doing anything different.

Which is exactly what 1 Peter 3 says. It says that even if your husband doesn’t obey the word of God, they may be won over to Christ without discussion - without a word - by the godly lives of their wives.

There are actually several places in the new testament that point to this power that we have as wives. Power to use our feminine gifts for good. The amplified version of 1 Peter 3 goes on to say, when they see your modest and respectful behavior [together with your devotion and appreciation—love your husband, encourage him, and enjoy him as a blessing from God].

This is such an incredibly powerful passage of scripture. I know that many of the parts of the Bible where God speaks to us as women directly - and tells us about His heart for us - have been weaponized against women by men and by the enemy’s condemnation. So wrong. The worst possible way to take the Lord’s name in vain is to use His Word for selfish purposes. But I’m here to testify to you that if I can make this journey, any women can. Many - if not all of us women have controlling tendencies as mentioned in Genesis 3. I was chosen for the work that I do because I have an extra portion of victim mentality, anger, irritability, bulldozing tendencies. I have struggled with every dark tendency that women have mightily and still have to battle mightily to live in the light.

Even when it comes to living on my own paper, it’s a daily struggle. God is constantly peeling back layers of how I still try to manage other people’s perception of me, so I have tons of work still to do on this.

To remember that my life is built of my thoughts and my words.

I love what Molly said last month - God chose me because of what the enemy wanted to call my “mental illness.” God needs me with a screw loose to be crazy enough to take this work on.

So what is this work exactly?

Even after I was born again, God had me in a process of becoming a licensed therapist. And then had me in a process of becoming a certified relationship coach.

Which was confusing, because the true desire of my heart was to stay home and homeschool. My son who turns 17 on Tuesday needed me to homeschool and was constantly disrupting my attempts to work outside the home, plus having three children five and under means that a girl like me simply struggles to stay consistent in showing up to work, and being even a halfway decent mom too.

So why did God have me in this equipping?

These questions came to a head during fall of 2022 when PQ gave his sermon series that included “Moving Forward.” I felt a strong pull to do what I am doing now.

And I was still just so content to be a homeschooling SAHM. With the birth of my fifth child, Isaiah, I felt that I had finally just been gifted that contentment regardless of circumstances. I just wanted to stay there.

But last year, during our 21 days of prayer and fasting, when PQ encouraged us to ask the spirit what to fast from, I heard social media.

And on Easter of last year, when I picked it back up again, I had a clear sense of vision and that I was on mission to reach discontent wives with this invitation to victory.

Many of them have told me that they feel closer to Jesus than ever before. For example, in the week before Easter, we did a Be Still and Know Challenge inspired by PQ’s sermon on Silence and Solitude that changed lives.

God has emboldened me to do things that simply felt impossible, like start a podcast that has 28 episodes and has now been listened to thousands of times.

I don’t believe any of this would have happened without you, My Anchor family, teaching me what it really means to lead a Holy Spirit led life.

He has used the desires of my heart to motivate me. Things as simple as wanting to stay in my house. He has used this desire to push me out of my comfort zone to build a successful business.

The women I walk beside have often been encouraged to get a divorce by well meaning Christian friends (friends who are on their paper, by the way).

But when I ask them about their vision for their family, they tell me beautiful things. Beautiful visions of being on the same team.
They don’t want a perfect marriage. They just want to be on the same team.

Beautiful things are happening. They are living victorious lives.

The enemy hates that i am doing this, which has just been confirmation that I am on the right track. That’s why I need your prayers and your partnership. I am asking you all to circle around me and pray for me as Easy Biblical Marriage turns one year old.