Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Guest (Male): Everybody longs for deep, lasting love. But strong relationships don't just happen by accident. Today on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, we're continuing our series called Finding and Keeping the Love of Your Life. Rick Warren will share practical biblical wisdom for building healthier, stronger, Christ-centered relationships.

Whether you're single, dating, engaged, or married, this series will help you grow in love, communication, and lasting commitment. So let's get to Rick. Here is part one of a message called How to Get a Marriage Makeover.

Rick Warren: Now, some of you could relate to this letter. "Dear Pastor Rick, when I first fell in love with my husband, I was sure, absolutely sure, that he was the right person for me. But over the years as we've lived together through a lot of messy situations, I've seen many sides of my husband that I don't like.

My feelings toward him have turned from respect and attraction to disappointment and sometimes even disgust. I now feel like maybe I married the wrong person. Why do I feel this way, and what can I do about it? Something has to change."

We've all seen these fairy tale weddings that end up as horror stories. We've all seen things that started off so right that ended up so wrong. How does that happen? Sadly, many marriages deteriorate in three stages. They start off with harmony, and they move to hostility, and then eventually move to apathy.

They start off in harmony, and we're in love, and everything is great, and it's rhapsody and bliss. But then as time goes by, we begin to have hostility, and we start fighting all the time. We're picking at each other, and we're angry all the time. If you don't get some resolution in that stage, it moves to apathy. "I just don't care anymore."

Now what causes that? What causes such a great beginning to have such a terrible ending? How does Mr. Right become Mr. Wrong? And is there anything you can do about it? Today we're going to look at some tough steps, but they're the steps to a marriage makeover.

You've all seen what a physical makeover is. Somebody loses a bunch of weight, they get some new clothes, they get a new hairstyle, new makeup, and all of a sudden a very average-looking person is stunning. They're incredibly beautiful. And we go, "Wow, what happened? They had a makeover."

Today, I want to talk to you about a marriage makeover, a relational makeover, where God says, "I want to change you, and I want to change your spouse, and I'm going to put together a marriage that you will find unbelievable, the marriage you've always dreamed of." It is possible if you'll do it God's way.

Before you can work on your marriage, before you can improve it, you've got to understand what causes marriages to go wrong. What causes them to sink? What causes them to go stagnant? What causes them to go from harmony to hostility to apathy?

I've counseled many, many people over the last 25 or 30 years. I've discovered that it all boils down to four things. There are four things that cause a marriage to go bad. If ever there was a week to take notes, this is the week because it'll not only help you in understanding your friendships and your marriage, but hopefully, you'll see the steps that God has said can turn things around.

There are four major causes that cause a marriage to go sour. The first thing that sinks a marriage is unrealistic expectations. I don't know any area of life where we have higher expectations and more unrealistic expectations than we do in marriage. "I'm getting married! My life is going to be incredibly perfect from now on!"

So many things set us up with these false expectations. First, Hollywood sets us up with all these fantasy films where the knight in shining armor rides in on a white horse and saves the beautiful damsel, and they ride off into the sunset. I hate to tell you this, but nobody's ever going to come to your house on a white horse. If you ever ride off into the sunset, it's probably smog.

Things just don't happen the way they do in the movies. Then there's the whole dating process that sets us up. Dating, courtship, engagement, and marriage. You act in ways you would never act in a normal way if you were dating. Men will say things like, "Would you like to go to the opera?"

What decent man would ever really suggest that, except when he's dating? No man in his right mind would ever say that. The things that we do. We do unnatural things like buy things for strangers. A guy walks into a singles bar, walks up to a total stranger, and says, "Can I buy you a drink?"

Think about this. If he's sincere, is he going to go up and say, "Can I get you a toaster? Care for a washing machine?" You're on your best behavior, and you don't really act in a normal way when you're dating. All these expectations are unreal and unnatural about your behavior.

Even the way we prepare for the wedding sets up this enormous expectation. Have you ever read one of these brides' magazines? Really, they should put a warning label on the front: Science Fiction. They have no basis in reality, and everybody's been airbrushed perfectly.

As a pastor, I have been in some of these Disney extravaganza weddings where you've got the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, and a cast of thousands. Oh, by the way, single men, if you ever get married, you need to realize the star of the show is the bride, the co-star is the mother of the bride, and everybody else is supporting cast. You really don't matter.

It's all just this big extravaganza. Then they take the bride away and they hibernate her for three days, turning her into a goddess. On the day she walks down that aisle, everybody knows she's never, ever going to look that good again. It's bait and switch, baby. She is never going to look that good again.

Just to make sure that the bride really looks good, they make all the bridesmaids dress in really dorky dresses. Floofy things and different weird colors. Have you ever known a real woman to wear a bridesmaid dress anywhere except at a wedding? They're ugly suckers. But it makes the bride look great.

Then you finish the wedding and you go to the honeymoon. The honeymoon is supposed to be this place that nobody can afford to go, and it's supposed to be picture-perfect. It just doesn't happen that way. Now, you fast-forward about six months, and they're sitting at the breakfast table. She's in curlers, he's got a stubby beard, and they both have morning mouth, body odor, and other noxious gases.

They're going, "What happened? I thought I was marrying Raquel, and I got Roseanne. I thought I was marrying Brad Pitt, and I got the prune pit." Since nothing has higher expectations in your entire life than your wedding and marriage, nothing sets you up for a bigger fall, more disappointment, more letdown, or more "What happened?"

We're going to have fun with you this morning. In these four areas that cause a marriage to sink, I want you to write down something if you're married. Write down now something that was an unrealistic expectation that you had about your mate before you got married. This will be fun. What did you have as an expectation of your mate before you got married that was really unrealistic? I'm going to wait till you write it down.

I was a youth pastor when I got married, and my expectation was when I married Kay, it was going to be one long quiet time and sex. Well, it wasn't. So write down an expectation. The truth is, every marriage is composed of two very imperfect people. When you take two imperfect people, there's no way it's going to be a perfect relationship.

Part of understanding marriage and keeping it out of hostility and apathy is just to grow up. Be realistic. Realize that your mate is not perfect, but neither are you. Neither are you. Now let's see if you can figure out the second problem that sinks a marriage.

The second thing that sinks a marriage is unaccepted differences. We are different. We not only recognize it, we don't accept those differences. In fact, we resent those differences. You've all heard the cliché that opposites attract, and it's true. But after marriage, opposites attack.

What used to fascinate you now frustrates you. It irritates you. This is kind of an interesting thing because God wired you up in such a way that you naturally seek out people who complement you, who are a little bit different. In fact, it's fascinating to meet somebody that's a little bit different from you.

For instance, people who are very structured in their life tend to seek out and find people who are spontaneous. Because we're different, we just go, "Look how different." People who are reserved tend to seek out people who tend to be outgoing, and there's something attractive about that. At first, we're fascinated with opposites.

I'll admit when I first married Kay, I was totally intrigued by this woman because she was so different from me. She didn't think like me, she didn't act like me, and she wasn't boisterous like I was. I was very fascinated by this for about six months. Then it started irritating me. I'm going, "Why does she think like that? Why does she act that way? Why is she so different?"

We had no idea how profound our differences really were. The truth is, everybody does this. Before marriage, we tend to overestimate what we have in common, and we tend to underestimate what we don't have in common with our boyfriend or our girlfriend.

You'll meet these people all the time. They've been dating for two or three weeks and they say, "Oh, we have so much in common!" No you don't. You may think you do, but you do not. In the first place, you're a woman and he's a man. That means you think in totally different ways. That's a big difference right there.

This thing about men are from Mars and women are from Venus? No, it's two different galaxies. Men and women do not think alike. They're different in every cell of their bodies. You may have something alike, but believe me, you have more not alike than you do alike with your husband, fiancé, or boyfriend or girlfriend.

You have to learn to get along. You have to learn to accept differences. That doesn't mean just tolerate them. It means value them and celebrate them. It means realizing that God wants to use them in your life. In God's humor, he always puts opposites together for a purpose. He enjoys doing it. I think the angels go, "This is going to be a riot, watch this. Sparks are going to fly."

For instance, how many of you are early risers? You like to get up in the morning. You're larks. You married somebody who doesn't believe in God before 11:00 a.m. Larks always marry owls. One of you in a marriage is daring and impulsive, and the other one is cautious and reserved. You need both elements for balance. When you eat, you eat with a knife and a fork, not two knives.

As we said last week, when two of you agree on everything, one of you isn't necessary. So we're going to have you be different. One of you loves to talk. You love to talk, talk, talk. You just love to talk. And the person who just elbowed you is a bump on a log.

How many of you love to spend money? I do. You married a tightwad. A little miser penny-pincher, and we have to squeeze every bit out of it. One of you loves to cuddle, and the other is a porcupine. "Oh, don't touch me!" Tom told me, "You know, ever since Chandel and I bought a waterbed, we've been drifting apart."

When it comes to sex, one of you is a firecracker and the other's a dud. One of you wants to say "drop everything" when it comes to sex, and the other one says "drop dead." I heard about the guy who handed his wife two aspirin and said, "This is for your headache." She said, "I don't have a headache." He said, "Gotcha!"

One of you is neat, you're organized, and you're always on time. Most likely, that was a guilty laugh if I ever heard it. One of you is neat, organized, and on time, and the other one is flexible, mellow, and late. We have to learn to accept our differences, not resent them. One guy said, "I knew I was marrying Mrs. Right, I just didn't know her first name was Always."

Did you know that God's number one tool in your sanctification, if you're married, is your partner? God uses your husband or your wife more than any other tool in your life to help you to grow up spiritually. It doesn't even matter if they're a believer or not; he will use them. He will use them to rough sand off the rough edges in your life because we need each other. Nobody has it all together.

God's number one tool in your life to grow you up—and growth is often quite painful—is the differences between you and your mate. I have discovered that the greater your differences, the more potential for spiritual power in your marriage. I don't worry about marriages where people are really different. I worry about marriages where the people are too much alike.

When they have the same weaknesses, the same problems, and the same depression, they get bored with each other. I can honestly say I have never been bored with my wife. Frustrated, yes, but never bored because we are so different. God says, "I want you to learn to accept the differences because they're intentional so you can grow."

I want you to write down one of the ways that your spouse is different from you that you have a difficult time accepting. Go ahead, this will be a lot of fun—as long as your spouse doesn't see it. This will be one of the ways that your spouse is different from you that you have a hard time accepting.

Guest (Male): What a special message from Pastor Rick. And now let's hear how lives are changing through Daily Hope. Here's Rick with a letter from one of our listeners.

Rick Warren: Hi, everybody. Today, I want to introduce you to Allison. She recently wrote me to tell how God had saved her from a life of prostitution and used Daily Hope to help her grow as a young Christian. Here's what she wrote.

"I grew up in an atheist family, and I was taught that people who believe in God are crazy, stupid, and brainwashed. I ended up being a hardcore drug addict for 15 years, and to pay for my habit, I sold my body on the street, and I was homeless. But I found a Bible in a hotel room where I was working, and the Lord radically saved me through His word. Then an amazing church family embraced me fully and helped me to grow in the Lord."

"One day, Pastor Rick, I came across your TED Talk on the internet, and I was blown away. So I looked up your website, and I downloaded the Daily Hope app, and I started listening to your sermons every single morning. I then bought the book, *The Purpose Driven Life*, on audible.com. I've enjoyed it immensely. I am so blessed to give a monthly donation so you can share your message all over the world. Your Daily Hope message has meant so much to me in the past year, and I'm just an infant in Christ. I appreciate all the encouragement that I get from listening to you. Thank you, Pastor Rick."

Allison, I can't thank you enough for writing to me and sharing your story. We live to get these letters. It's so exciting to hear stories from people like you who have been radically touched and transformed by the message of hope through Daily Hope. Of course, I appreciate you giving a monthly donation. Thank you for your prayers for this ministry so we can pass this good news of hope on to others. I want you to know that I'm going to be praying that God continues to use you in the lives of other people and use Daily Hope to help you grow more like Jesus. God bless you, Allison.

Guest (Male): If you'd like to help support Pastor Rick's Daily Hope with convenient, automated monthly giving, just go to PastorRick.com. Or text the word "hope" to 70309. When you do, we'll send you a very special welcome gift to say thanks. Again, that's PastorRick.com, or just text the word "hope" to 70309.

Thank you so much for your support. Be sure to join us next time as we look into God's word for our daily hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.