Surviving a Spiritual Mismatch in Marriage- Part 4 of 4

This transcript has been adapted from the attached audio. It may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAND: Leslie, you say that believing spouses often get exasperated because one day the unbelieving partner will seem interested and the next day they seemed to have relapsed. Tell us about your experience with that and how you handle that.

LESLIE: Well I don’t know that I always handled it very well. I mean, it is a roller coaster like we said, and you’d get your hopes up when you see him going to church, asking questions, reading books and materials, and then, out of the blue, would come home and be angry and irritable and you’d mention something feeling you are at liberty now to talk about what God taught you today and he’d blow up, so suddenly you were back to square one and I know that, again, it always comes back to having that mentor and someone that you can talk to. Women, I believe, process and work out how to handle situations by talking. So, when you are in that, you need to be able to do that, as well as just prayer. I mean it always came down to, “I have nothing but you Lord, I don’t know what to do. Linda, my friend isn’t in the house with me right now, it’s just Lee and I and we are in the middle of an argument and I have no one but you.” And I would just pray and ask God to help me to know what to do, how to navigate it. And, honestly, you know, there are so many times I look back now and, like Lee was saying, it was my reaching out to him when there would be some ice forming in our relationship. That was so unnatural for me, it is still unnatural, for me to do that. But the Holy Spirit in those difficult times would be so good and gracious to allow me to be someone I’m not naturally and when he would be in his corner and I would be in mine, God would just give me the grace and the courage to go up and put my arms around him, tell him I’m sorry, tell him I didn’t want God to be what comes between us.

LAND: Now, in light of the turmoil that you experienced in your relationship as a result of one person being a believer and one being an unbeliever and having a mismatched marriage, you have a very strong warning against dating unbelievers. Just talk to us briefly about that and answer the question of so-called missionary dating.

LEE: Yes, missionary dating is when, this is so dangerous, this is when a Christian begins dating an unbeliever and thinks that they have an opportunity maybe through this dating relationship to lead them to the Lord. So, they rationalize and justify, “Oh yeah, the Bible says don’t become unequally yoked and, sure, we are dating and headed toward a more permanent relationship, but, you know, we’re sort of an exception to the rule because, oh, he’s so close, and he’s so open, and I just know that if we get married that certainly he is going to come to Christ in short order,” and it is amazing; I was speaking at a church in Chicago, Willow Creek Community Church, on this topic once and I gave a forty minute message on the pain and the turmoil involved in a spiritually mismatched situation, and a woman comes down to me after the service and she is saying, “You know, well, I’m dating this guy and he is so close to becoming a Christian, we are engaged and I just that after the marriage he is going to come to Christ,” and I said, “read my lips, do not become unequally yoked with a non-believer.” This is dangerous and my advice to her was find a male, another guy, who she can introduce to this guy and allow that person to be the one who presents the gospel and befriends them and helps them go spiritually toward Christ. To get out of that situation, because you are not going to be able to separate your feelings of romance with your evangelistic imperative.

LAND: Plus, the unbeliever is going to not always give honest answers when there is a sexual attraction and a sexual agenda.

LESLIE: But guys are just sort of wired up to get the marriage thing done. Men are focused to get the prize and to go after the goal. If the goal is this woman that they love, then they will do, not in a malicious way, but they will do what it takes to get it done and if church is important to her. Then they will go to church, and they will say what needs to be said, they will do what needs to be done, but after the honeymoon is over, suddenly if the reality wasn’t that they cared for church and for Christ, then they won’t after marriage, so you are stuck.

LAND: Now you also mentioned in your book, other mismatches. Talk to us for a little bit about the mismatch between partners who are believers.

LEE: Yes, sometimes this happens. In fact, more often than maybe we like to think and that’s a situation where both partners are Christians and, yet, one of them is lagging behind spiritually. One is growing, one is participating in ministry, one is wanting to be part of a small group and wants to open their full life to Christ; the other one is kind of dragging their heels a bit, kind of not as excited, not as on fire and, believe me, that can be a very difficult situation.

LAND: Particularly, I mean, my experience has been that, not always, more often than not, it is the woman who is becoming more spiritually mature because if the husband is becoming more spiritually mature, the wife will respond to that because wives are responders. They will respond to that spiritual leadership of the husband. The problem is when the wife is growing and the husband is not.

LEE: That’s right, and I think one of the questions you have to ask in a situation like this is the tough question. The tough question is, is my spouse really a Christian? At some point you’ve got to say, if you go to the airport and the airplanes are not taking off and airplanes are not landing, you say something is wrong; an airport is designed for airplanes to land and take off. If you see the life of a Christian and you don’t see the evidence of Galatians 5:22-23, the fruit of the Holy Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control, these things being manifested increasingly over in time in their life, a desire to worship God, a desire to grow in the relationship with Christ, if you don’t see these things, you’ve got to raise the tough question, maybe this person is not really a born-again follower of Jesus, and so we’ve got to ask that. Then once you get that out of the way, I think sometimes, and this is difficult for me to say, having been a pastor, is sometimes you need to consider switching to a church where both of you can flourish. And then I think the other thing is, it is important for the one who is really growing spiritually to respect your spouse for what he does do spiritually. In other words, to cheer them on, to encourage them. I have a friend named Tom, he married a woman named Shondell. Shondell grew up in a strong Christian home with a very missionary-minded father and mother, so she had a very strong vibrant faith. She married a guy named Tom who was a Christian but he was fairly young in his faith; but instead of finding fault with him and trying to nag him into growing, she just would find instances where Tom would be showing examples of growth and she would cheer him on and she would encourage him, paint a picture for the future of what it could look like if he continued to follow Christ. Well, Tom, eventually went to seminary, became a pastor, and is now one of the best teaching pastors in America at one of the largest churches in America. It is because Shondell nurtured him in his relationship with God.

LAND: Now, what final bit of advice would you have for a spouse who has been hoping and praying and trying for years to win her partner to Christ.

LESLIE: You know, I would say three things. We have touched on all of them, but, first of all, continue to grow in your relationship with God, allow the Holy Spirit to train you and teach you and to transform you so that you will become who He wants you to be and ultimately that is what we are called to do as Christians, but second then, nurture your relationship with your husband. As Lee had mentioned, you married each other for a reason, you have common ground, you have a history, you have a lot between you that you can continue to share and enjoy and just keep nurturing that relationship. Do what it takes to build on what you have. Third, to find a mentor or a support group, particularly as women, but, again, if you are man to find a man or a group of men that you can meet with and pray with and be growing together with in your walk and in your relationship with God so that you have that group of people that you can just really ask them to pray for you and talk through some of the things that you are going through knowing that they are safe and that you will then be able to do the hard work of living in that mismatched marriage.