They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen...
ZECHARIAH 7:12
Before getting married, my idea of camping was sitting in a casual cafe overlooking a lake before returning to a rustic motel. James’s camping experience was vastly different. He remembers carrying his tent and food in his backpack and finding a different spot under the stars every night. Yikes!
As you can imagine, our first camping trip had its share of tears, conflict, and compromise. We were newlyweds living in Dallas. The young couples group at church was going on a camping trip. While we drove toward the campsite, I was sullen, quiet, and irritable. It was painfully obvious that this camping trip was not my idea. We had packed the tent (which James had put on our wedding registry), but I had left my smile back at our cozy apartment.
James pulled the car over right before we entered the campground. He turned off the engine and looked at me sternly. “Are you going to act like this all weekend long? Because if you are, we can just turn around and go home.”
I mumbled through tears, “You mean I didn’t have to come?”
I still laugh today when I think of that moment. I collected myself and realized I was being selfish. I promised to have a better attitude. When all the camping-loving wives greeted me, I hugged them back and smiled weakly. Although the weekend didn’t make me a camper, I survived and made some funny memories with my outdoorsy husband.
I was discovering that in a happy, two-way-street marriage, you have to be willing to budge. Being able to adapt to your spouse (and vice versa) is a valuable skill it pays to learn.
Adjustments and Modifications
The words adjustments and modifications may sound like they come from a manual for robots or a build-it-yourself computer. But all of us must admit, as human beings, we could use some occasional tweaking and minor changes. We must learn to adapt to our ever-changing circumstances and also to the needs of our husbands.
When you’re single, you can get along doing things your way. But when you are united with someone in marriage, the Bible says the two shall become one flesh (Genesis 2:24). That translates into some serious adjustments and modifications! In a marriage that works, you must constantly adapt to the needs of each other.
One day I was working out at home to a fitness DVD. The instructor on the DVD said you have to force your body to adapt. You have to force it to make changes. When you’re doing jumping jacks and your body tells you to stop, your mind has to tell your body what you want it to do. That’s a great picture of marriage. Sometimes you want to throw in the towel or say something that you shouldn’t, but you must force yourself to adapt. You must adjust. Life isn’t just about you anymore. “You” have become a “we.” And to be a happy “me” in the “we,” you must learn to adapt according to what’s best for your marriage, not just for yourself.
Remember Lynn Donovan in the spiritually mismatched marriage? She wanted her daughter to attend a Christian school. But her husband felt strongly that she should go to public school. Lynn prayed about it and adapted to her husband’s wishes. Their daughter is eighteen now and loves Jesus with all her heart. Lynn trusted the Lord, adapted to her spouse out of respect, and is reaping benefits in her close-knit family.
It’s also helpful to adapt what we expect from our husbands. Leslie Vernick has a happy marriage, but it hasn’t always been a happy soul-mate kind of relationship.
I know his strengths and I know his weaknesses. They used to really bug me early in our marriage. I would complain and criticize and all that. He didn’t change them and it only made our marriage worse. So I’ve accepted that he’s not a handyman. He’s not going to help me in the yard; he hates gardening. He’s going to watch more TV than I would choose to watch.
But these aren’t deal breakers. This is part of learning the attitude of forbearance. In any good relationship, you forbear with one another’s weaknesses or differences. We have accepted who each other is and we’re not trying to change each other. That’s a tremendously freeing thing. My husband isn’t trying to make me into his ideal wife, and I’m not trying to make him into my ideal husband.1
Put Your Will into Drive
When I asked Liz Curtis Higgs if she’d ever said in her marriage, “I’m not budging!” both of us had a good laugh. Liz replied,
I’m afraid there have been lots of times when I’ve put my foot down and said I think it should be done this way. But I’ve discovered that when I do that, Bill loves me enough to say, “Okay, we’ll do it your way.” And then after a bit, I realize this was not a good idea to begin with. I am learning there are hills worth dying on, but most of them are not. I guess that’s what twenty-seven years of marriage does. You find out the stuff that really matters. When you say, “I will not be moved on this,” there’s got to be a biblical reason why. It can’t just be because I want this.
Liz travels extensively, speaking to thousands of women every year. Since she travels so much, she doesn’t need a car. Liz says Bill is extraordinarily frugal, so having one car for the two of them worked out great. But one day, Liz headed out to her driveway to go somewhere when she realized Bill had the car. She was stuck.
When Bill got home, Liz said, “Maybe we need to think about getting a second car.” He said that was fine but that the car needed to be inexpensive since it wouldn’t be used that much. Liz realized she had to lay down her dream of having a nifty car to zip around town. She asked the Lord to find them a car that would make both her and Bill happy. And now Liz is the proud owner of a ten-year-old car with tons of miles on it, but at least it’s a red Mini Cooper! Liz says,
I could have been a real pill and found ten reasons why I needed a new car, but that would have been stupid. We don’t need a car payment. We don’t need a new car in the driveway. This one is perfect. Sometimes it’s a matter of compromise—a happy medium, if you like those words better. How can I get what I want and still make this wonderful man of mine happy?2
Sometimes you have put your will into drive. Naturally you may want that new car (or whatever it is you are wanting right now). But the wise woman can adapt to achieve what’s best for her family.
In Zechariah 7:8-10, we read that God wanted the people to show mercy and compassion to one another. He did not want them to oppress the widow or the fatherless. He did not want them to plot evil against each other. But the people refused to listen. They did not adapt and they made their hearts as hard as flint.
Flint is a hard gray rock that in ancient times was used for tools or weapons. As wives, our hearts over time can harden like flint. We can say things like I will not budge. I will not cooperate. I will not adapt. That unwillingness to change can become a weapon of war in a marriage. Don’t let that hardness ever form around your heart. Be willing to change and open up your life to endless possibilities.
Today’s Picture
When it comes to being willing to work with your spouse, are you hard like flint or soft like clay? Which object describes you better?
Today’s Prayer
Lord, make me an instrument of love in my marriage. Help my heart to be soft like clay, willing to adapt to Your will in my life. Mold me into something beautiful for You. Help me to be adaptable. I don’t want to be stuck in my ways. I want to grow. In Jesus’s name, amen.