Focus on the Family

John Fuller: Is your marriage struggling, communication breaking down, trust fading, conflict that never seems to resolve? There's still hope. Hope Restored marriage intensives by Focus on the Family help couples step away from daily life and focus fully on rebuilding their relationship.

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This is John Fuller, and please remember to let us know how you're listening to these programs on a podcast, app, or website. Today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, Pastor Doug Fields brings some hope for your marriage.

Doug Fields: Tension and conflict is not a sign, friends—it's not a sign that your marriage is broken, it's a sign your marriage is real.

John Fuller: Some interesting insights, and welcome to the show. I'm John Fuller.

Jim Daly: Well, John, we've heard lots of marriage experts talk about the fact that the initial thrill of a relationship, that infatuation stage, only lasts about 18 to 24 months. So when that infatuation wanes, if you've gotten married, you might wonder whether you married the wrong person.

Today's speaker, Pastor Doug Fields, wants to equip you to make it through that transition and create a firm foundation for a lifelong union. That's the way it should work. He has great advice for singles who are looking forward to marriage as well.

John Fuller: Here now is Doug Fields, speaking at Mariners Church in Irvine, California, on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.

Doug Fields: We are in a series called Proverbs for Your Love Life, where our pastor has done a masterful job of taking cultural proverbs like "follow your heart," or "let love find you," or "he or she is my soulmate," and then turning us to the scriptures to see what God's Word actually says in the book of Proverbs.

Next week is on intimacy, which I would have rather taught next week, but instead, we're talking about the popular cultural proverb to just basically cut difficult people out of your life. Like when there's tension, just get them out of your life.

That is a loud and proud cultural proverb that you see on Instagram, you see on TikTok therapists, reality TV, phrases like this: "Don't let negative people rent space in your head, raise the rent and kick them out." Or, "Life's too short to spend time with people who drain the happiness out of your life." If this was true, nobody would be at my house at Thanksgiving.

How about this one: "Surround yourself with only those people who are going to lift you higher." Well, thank you, Oprah. Easy for you to say, billionaire. Or how about this: "Your vibe attracts your tribe," which I'm not even sure what that means. It just feels like it should be on a yoga mat in Laguna Beach.

This idea of "cut difficult people out of your life"—I get it if they're harmful or abusive or unsafe. You absolutely need boundaries. But that's not what we're talking about. The cultural proverb that we are singing and dancing is way more general than that. If somebody annoys you, cut them out. If somebody disagrees with you, block them. If somebody makes you feel uncomfortable, ghost them.

This mindset isn't just with acquaintances or coworkers. It's made its way into serious relationships, including marriage. Half of our church is single, and if you're single and you want to marry, pay careful attention because you're going to be saved from a lot of pain today. If you are married, pay careful attention because we're going to reduce some of the pain you currently have.

I speak at marriage events all year long. It's kind of my fastball. I've written a bunch of books on marriage, and almost every time I speak, somebody will come up to me afterward and say, "Marriage just shouldn't be this difficult. Maybe I married the wrong person."

At which point I smile and go, "You did. You did. You married the wrong person." How can I say that? Well, if you expect your spouse to not bring any pain or any tension or any chaos into your relationship, you married the wrong person.

Let's be real here. If you're married, you married an imperfect person, right? In Bible speak, you married a sinner. And your spouse married a bigger sinner. And you got married and then you had little sinner-lings, right? That's total chaos, but you chose it. Welcome to marriage.

Marriage is not two people living in perfect harmony. Marriage is two imperfect people sharing the same house, the same thermostat, the same bank account, and then trying to figure out what we are going to watch on Netflix tonight.

Tension and conflict is not a sign that your marriage is broken, it's a sign your marriage is real. But you will always have tension in your marriage because you married a weirdo. You did. And that weirdo married a nutjob. Because if you understand this as a basic principle, then you can move forward.

I have been married to this incredibly beautiful woman, Kathy, for 40 years. And she is so delightful. She's calm, she's chill, she's fun, she's spontaneous, she's kind, and she's weird at times. Kathy thinks I have quirks. I don't think I have quirks; I think I have preferences.

I like a nice beverage, a Diet Coke. I'm a connoisseur of Diet Coke. Nothing but Diet Coke. So when people say, "Is Diet Pepsi okay?" I say, "Is gas station sushi okay?" Of course not. I'll have an iced tea then, which I don't even like iced tea because it's like water marinated in tree bark and you got to flavor it with a bunch of lemon and add in Diet Coke for it to taste good.

But anyway, when I have a good drinking experience throughout the day with that cup and it's in my car, I take it into the house and instead of throwing it away, I think, "It was a good cup. I had a good time with it. I've got other beverages in my house, I'll just keep the cup." Kathy thinks this makes me a nutjob.

If you can live with that right there, that serves us as we transition into God's Word with the reality firmly planted in mind where scriptures will show us some of the inevitable tension and conflict that is part of all relationships.

In Proverbs 25:24, it says this: "Better to live on the corner of the roof than share a house with a nagging wife." Okay, spanky. Here's another verse for you. Proverbs 17:1: "Better a dry crust with peace than a house full of feasting with strife." This is God's Word saying it's better for you to be starving and at peace than to live with strife.

I love God's Word. It's so practical, so clear. And these two Proverbs that I've shown you were wisdom warnings given to young men before they married. If you've been part of this series, Eric has been pounding every single week: choose character, choose character, go after character. Why? Because character shows up most in relationships, especially in tension and how that person's character is going to respond to offense or hurt or conflict.

Those of you who are single, I know you're making your list of what you want—outgoing, blonde hair, can recite Leviticus by heart, loves fiction, can play pickleball with both hands, whatever it is. You're making lists that are impossible for anybody to fulfill.

Remember this Proverb, this was in week three of our series: Proverbs 31:30. "Charm can be deceptive and beauty fades away, but a woman who honors the Lord deserves to be praised." God's Word says that over time beauty fades, but character grows, which is essential for all healthy relationships. Healthy relationships have people of character. Beauty fades, and our church is an example of that. Not this service at all. I'm talking about Saturday night—hideous people.

But beauty fades. Those of you who are single, I totally understand the importance of attraction. But if he or she loves and follows Jesus and their character is being molded by the Holy Spirit, that should be at the top of your list.

But even if you choose well, even if you choose really well, conflict is still going to show up. So the question becomes, when conflict shows up, will your relationship hold up or will it fold up? The cultural proverb says when it gets tough, remove the person to remove the problem or replace the person to make yourself happier. Remove or replace.

As Americans, we have bought into what I would call this upgrade mindset, where we feel natural upgrading anything. We upgrade our phones, we upgrade our houses, we upgrade our jobs, and why not upgrade my marriage when my spouse no longer meets my needs? We've turned this sacred covenant of marriage into a contract of convenience with just two words: irreconcilable differences.

There's a better way. We're going to see the better way here as we look at our primary text in Proverbs 10:12. Let's read it together: "Hatred stirs up conflicts, but love covers all offenses." If you live with this verse for just a second, you allow this wisdom to become the foundation of your relationship.

When tension arises, you have two options. Option number one is you can stir it up. You know people who are good at stirring it up. They're varsity at stirring it up. They can turn nothing into something. Everybody knows somebody who's a stirrer-upper. If you don't know a person, it's you.

The proverb says hatred stirs up conflict. My point is hatred that stirs up conflict can have a lot of different faces. It can have the face of screaming, it could have the face of the silent treatment, it could have the face of biting sarcasm. It has a lot of faces and it's easy to stir it up. Those of you who are stirrer-upper people, the scriptures tell us you don't even have to be smart to stir it up. It doesn't take intelligence to stir it up.

Proverbs 20:3: "Honor belongs to the person who ends a dispute, but any fool can get himself into a quarrel." Unfortunately, sometimes that fool is me. One because of my sinful nature, two, certified nutjob. But when tension hits, I can get defensive so fast. My mind works quick and I can lay out a menu of words that can cut like a knife.

My desire for revenge can bubble up fiercely. I can become a jerk faster than you can say chimichanga. It happens quick. But here's what I want you to hear. Every time I stir up a conflict, I give it energy. I give it oxygen. I give it life. I extend the life of the conflict when I stir it up. Even if I win an argument with Kathy, I lose the conflict. Some of you are going, "If you won the argument, you won the argument. Take the win and go."

That's not how marriage works. When God created marriage, he defined it like this in Genesis 2. He said, "That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife and they become one."

John Fuller: This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, and you're listening to Pastor Doug Fields. We'd like to encourage you with six full hours of hope and inspiration for your marriage in a free set of audio downloads. You'll receive this message from Doug, plus insight from Dan Seaborn, Dr. Ken Wilgus, Shaunti Feldhahn, Dr. Greg Smalley, and more. Sign up today for the Nurturing the Heart of Your Spouse collection at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast or call us for details. Our number is 800-A-FAMILY. Let's return now to more from Doug Fields.

Doug Fields: Let's just pretend this is my heart and this is Kathy's heart. There are two balloons here even though it looks like one. There's a blue balloon inside of a pink balloon. So this is our one heart. And when there is tension, if I go after Kathy's heart, if I want her to feel it, if I want her to pay for what she did, if I attack her heart, I also attack my heart as well.

When I allow a form of hatred to stir up conflict, what I'm saying is I can't isolate my damage to just her heart without damaging my heart too because we're in a one-heart marriage. Even if I technically win, I lose because we lose.

With option one, you can stir it up all you want, but it doesn't strengthen your oneness in any way, and any fool can do that according to scripture. Thankfully, the Proverbs give us another option when conflict arises: hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers all offenses.

Option one: you can stir it up. Option two: you can cover it. Notice I didn't use the word "cover it up." We're not talking about covering it up. It's not the same thing. We're not saying pretend the conflict isn't there and just cover it up. To cover an offense is not just forgive it; sometimes it's to overlook it, or to minimize it, or to not expose it. Essentially, the idea of this kind of love is that it seeks to heal.

All healthy relationships have this concept where repair is expected and reconnection is the norm. If you want to be in a healthy relationship, you got to stack hands to this idea that we're just going to expect repair to happen and we're going to reconnect. And when you do, all of a sudden what you do is you provide a safe and confident relationship, knowing that anything can happen in this relationship, but repair is expected and reconnection is the norm.

Kathy and I got married pretty young. I was 22, she was 20. And even though we were young, we were wise enough to stack hands on this idea that no matter what comes our way, repair is expected and reconnection is the norm.

We made a commitment as young people that we would never use the D-word in our marriage. We would never threaten it, we would never throw it around, and I can say in 40 years we have never even mentioned the word divorce. Now we have used the M-word a few times for murder, but here's the deal. All marriages drift at times. The question is, will we course correct quickly before there's too much distance and disconnection?

So if you were to take this idea of love covers offenses, as the scripture says, here's what I would love for you to do. I would love for you to start practicing this idea of love covering offenses. Start with the small things that bug you in your relationship. Just start with the small stuff that frustrates you.

"But Doug, we have big issues in our marriage." I know. And one of the reasons you have big issues in your marriage is because when there were small issues, you stirred it up, and they just became bigger and bigger and bigger. So start practicing this with the small frustrations and then see if that can lead to some of the bigger issues.

Like if the person you're married to loads the dishwasher the wrong way, instead of stirring it up, just redo it if that makes you feel better. Because loading the dishwasher is not a moral issue. It's an OCD issue, and it's your issue.

Obviously, there are things that are a big deal that are more difficult to cover with love quickly. I totally get that. That's why I'm asking you to start with the common frustrations. Start covering with love there because if you turn everything into a big deal—if you stir it up every time you're frustrated—what happens is frustration moves to resentment, and then resentment moves to bitterness. You see it all the time; people are just bitter and resentful at one another.

If you want to be frustrated, there's so much in marriage, there's ammunition all the time for you to be frustrated at. So I want to make this really practical. Tension is going to hit. So the next time the tension hits at the front door of your relationship, you answer that, and you're holding a bucket of fruit.

The Bible says in Galatians 5 that people who are filled with God's Spirit have the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. That's in your bucket. If you're a Christian filled with God's Spirit, you're developing that fruit.

So it could be as simple as this: "Oh, hey tension, I knew you were coming because I married a weirdo. So here's what I'm going to do. Instead of stirring it up, I'm just going to give this conflict the fruit of kindness. And I'm going to give it the fruit of self-control. That's what I need to cover up this tension instead of stirring it up."

When you're thinking to yourself, you're in an argument and you really think about it, you're going, "Wait a second, I'm trying to make my spouse more like me, aren't I? I'm coaching them." Every time I coach them to be more like me, I'm stirring it up. I don't need to stir it up. I need to cover it with love. My spouse doesn't need a coach, they need a cheerleader.

So I'm going to give this conflict the fruit of patience. I'm going to give this conflict the fruit of gentleness. I'm going to be so gentle this time that my spouse is going to think they're married to Jesus junior. I'm going to cover it with the fruit of God's Spirit.

And here's why I know that you can do this: because this is exactly what God has done for you. You've seen it in action, you've seen it with God doing it for you. If you're a Christian, your faults and your sins have been covered by the blood of Jesus as he sacrificially died on the cross for your sins. God led the way in covering you. And he's now calling us to a higher level of loving. 1 John says we can love because God first loved us. So I know you can do this because you've seen it done in your life.

The Apostle Paul takes the same language from Proverbs and in 1 Peter 4:8 says this: "Above all, love each other deeply because love covers over a multitude of sins." This is not just about relationships; this is the Gospel. God didn't cut you off when you were trouble. God didn't distance himself from you when you turned your back on him. No, what God did is God covered your sins with his love. Then he had the audacity to invade your inner being and take residency in your life through the power of the Holy Spirit to give you the presence and the power to meet others with this love.

So when that person is late, when that person doesn't do what he or she promised to do, when they say something that comes off as offensive or awkward and everything in your nature powers up, you get defensive and you want to counterattack and get even, you want to stir it up—that's when you remember the overwhelming love that God has shown you. And through his power in your life, you can extend that same love to others, extend a love that covers an offense.

Essentially, if you forget everything I've talked about today—which you probably will—I want you to remember just one line: I want you to remember the cross before you cross them. Remember the cross before you cross them. This will be a game changer in your relationship. You want better relationships? Of course, you do.

Remember the cross before you cross them. You remember the grace that God has shown you. Before you react with hatred that stirs up conflict, remember the cross. You've got that zinger in your mind, the show-stopper, the mic-drop comment that will just totally slay them. You remember the cross. You remember that you're a sinner covered by God's grace, and then you extend that same grace to that person you're supposed to love more dearly than anyone else.

I'm not pretending this is easy. I live in the real world. But I do know from experience that the more I cover an offense with love, the bigger my heart grows to love. The more practice I get, the bigger my heart is. Marriage sanctifies us. Sanctification is the process of becoming holy. I am more holy today at 62 than I was at 22 because of my marriage to Kathy.

I am more holy, but I want to say this: I'm also more happy. I'm also a lot more happy. Because we're not talking about holiness at the expense of happiness. We're talking about happiness because holiness was already there. You want happiness? Then meet it with holiness. Some of you are wasting your whole life, you're chasing happiness. You find happiness where holy lives.

So what that means is, then, in my life when I'm humble, when I'm sorry, when I'm patient, when I'm forgiving, when I'm grace-filled, when I am showing the fruit of the spirit in my relationship, I'm strengthening our "us." And I can only do this because of God's power in my life.

Jim Daly: And that's where we're going to have to end this presentation by Pastor Doug Fields on today's episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. What a great example of how Christian marriages can and should be more successful because we have the Holy Spirit working in and through us.

And I hope you found it to be encouraging for your own marriage today. And if not, if you feel like your marriage is in dire straits, don't lose heart. Please call us and let us come alongside you. We have caring Christian counselors who can give you a call back and listen to your concerns.

And we also have our Hope Restored four-day intensives with locations from coast to coast. Many attendees say it's like getting a year's worth of counseling in just a few days, and it's worth every minute. When we survey those couples two years later, 80 percent are still married, and many are still using the helpful principles that they learned at Hope Restored.

John Fuller: And Jim, as you know, Dena and I attended a Hope Restored intensive because we needed to tune things up after some struggles. And we learned so much and we've employed those tips day in and day out now for years.

Jim Daly: Well, and that's the point. I had a couple the other day say they referred somebody to Hope Restored and that's something you can do. If you know somebody at your church or in your circle of friends that are struggling in their marriage, refer them to Focus on the Family and Hope Restored.

The couple they referred did well. It's been six or eight months since they went and their marriage is so much stronger. And there's scholarships available, there's just no reason to say no. We can help you and we hope you will take us up on that.

We'd also like to encourage your marriage with a free collection of audio downloads called Nurturing the Heart of Your Spouse. It will feature this program from Doug Fields with some extra content, plus Bible-based advice from Dan Seaborn, Dr. Ken Wilgus, Shaunti Feldhahn, and Dr. Greg Smalley, and so much more. Six hours of great content.

And when you get in touch, please consider making a donation to Focus on the Family. Help us as we help other marriages and families to thrive in Christ.

John Fuller: Yeah, contribute today at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. And whether you donate or not, be sure to get that free audio collection. You can always call us for details; our number is 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY. 800-232-6459. And thanks for listening today to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller, inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.

Navigate all the ups and downs and in-betweens of marriage with our podcast. You'll hear tips about different marriage issues or just hear about making a good marriage even better. Listen to Crazy Little Thing Called Marriage at focusonthefamily.com/podcast.