Demolition Queen No More

Series: When He Doesn't Believe

(Yelling in the background)

Leslie Basham: I’m not trying to pry, but you’re not a “demolition queen” are you?

Women yelling: First, we’re going to start with my husband’s annoying habits and his pitiful work ethic.

Leslie Basham: Today’s guest on Revive Our Hearts, Nancy Kennedy, explains.

Nancy Kennedy: Demolition queens tear their houses down.

Woman yelling: If I have told you once, I have told you a thousand times. . . . You always. . . . You never. . . . Okay next, your communication techniques. . . .

Nancy Kennedy: It’s rarely because we want to tear our houses down. We have the right motives, but the wrong methods.

Leslie Basham: This is Revive Our Hearts and “Rebuild Your Homes” with Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

We all know what kind of wives we want to be: kind, gracious, patient, refreshing. But what if your husband doesn’t know Christ? Well, that’s all the more reason we need to avoid tearing down our own homes, as we’ll hear today. Here’s Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Our guest today says in her book, When He Doesn’t Believe, that she missed her calling in life, that she could make big bucks going into demolition work. Nancy Kennedy is our guest. Thanks, Nancy, for being with us again on Revive Our Hearts.

Nancy Kennedy: Thanks Nancy. This is fun.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: We’re going to talk today about what you call “demolition queens.” Now your book is written, targeted specifically toward Christian women who have unbelieving husbands. But I want to say, having recently read this book, that I think it’s a book that would be helpful for every Christian wife.

Nancy, just to give a little background for those who may not have been with us when we talked previously, you were married as a nonbeliever. You married a nonbeliever. And a few years into your marriage, which was laid on a real rough foundation, you came to know Christ and had great hopes of your husband coming to faith with you. But it didn’t happen in the way that you envisioned it might.

So for over 20 years you’ve lived in a marriage with a man who doesn’t share your faith. And God has given you so much grace and so much wisdom that I think is very needed for women in marriages today.

Talk to us about what you call in your book, what it means to be a “demolition queen,” and maybe how you’ve found yourself in that position in your own marriage.

Nancy Kennedy: Well first of all, Proverbs 14:1 says, “The wise women builds her house while a foolish woman tears hers down by her own efforts.” And “demolition queens” tear their houses down by their own efforts. It’s rarely because we want to tear our houses down. It’s usually because we have the right motives but the wrong methods. What I’m talking about is that God has created women, married women, to be encouragers to their husbands and to be helpers, helper-completers.

We tear our houses down when we instead of offering words of encouragement, we nag. Now Dennis Rainey said that to a man, if you tell him something more than once, it’s nagging. And now we as women . . .

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: We think we’re just reminding.

Nancy Kennedy: Yes. We’re reminding. And because he hasn’t done it when we think that he should, we have to remind him again. Well, if you tell a man more than once, he interprets that as nagging. And a nagging wife is like water that goes drip, drip, drip—according to the Proverbs. God knows.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: It tears a house down.

Nancy Kennedy: It tears a house down one drip at a time. There are many ways we tear our house down. If you are in a marriage where you are a believer married to an unbeliever, you can tear your house down by trying to be the Holy Spirit to your husband.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: You can do that in a marriage where your husband is a believer.

Nancy Kennedy: That’s true. “He’s just not growing the way I think he should.”

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Right.

Nancy Kennedy: And, “Here honey. Let’s do this Bible study together. Here honey. Read this. It might help you in this area of your life.” And to a man, that is nagging. So you’re tearing your house down.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: And doing the very opposite of what you had hoped to do, which was to draw him closer to Christ. You may actually be driving him away from Christ.

Nancy Kennedy: Right. Right. Then, of course, you get frustrated, and it causes tension in the home and arguments. But what God wants us to be is just a cool glass of water, a calm breeze. It’s our gentle and quiet spirit that is so attractive to a husband, and it’s pleasing to the Lord.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: So how can a woman, believing husband or non-believing husband, begin to have a positive influence on the life of her husband to be an encourager and a helper rather than tearing down that marriage?

Nancy Kennedy: You just said the word encourager. I think that is probably the best thing that we can do. I did a little experiment with my husband one day. He was out raking leaves. I went out and I picked up a rake, and I was raking alongside of him.

I looked at him and I said, “You know Barry, I don’t think I could do what you do.” I said, “You are so faithful, and you are such a good provider for us, and you always put me and our girls ahead of yourself.” I wasn’t buttering him up for anything.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Genuine.

Nancy Kennedy: It was genuine. I wanted to see what it would do for him. He stood up straight and his chest puffed out, and the whole rest of that day he just had a lift to his spirit. That’s what encouragement does to a person, to any of us.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Nancy, I’m thinking about someone who’s listening to us right now who’s saying, “That’s nice. Your husband’s a provider. My husband doesn’t. He’s lazy; he’s not meeting our family’s needs, and all that responsibility is resting on me.” I just want to say, and I think you would want to say to those women, that God has still called you to be an encourager and a helper to your husband.

Part of your challenge is to ask the Lord to show you what will encourage your husband, to look for those things that you can genuinely praise and to thank the Lord and to thank your husband for those things. Because encouragement really does build up a home, and discouraging, belittling, critical words really do the demolition job.

Now in addition to encouragement, Nancy, what’s another way that you have found that you can build up your home, your marriage, and your family rather than tearing it down?

Nancy Kennedy: When you want to encourage your husband towards Jesus, the best thing you can do is to give the man space and let him figure things out for himself. I had a pastor who once told me, “Always leave your husband wanting more.” When he asks about your faith, first of all don’t volunteer information.

Again, there’s a principle in Scripture, 1 Peter chapter 3 (verses 1-2) exhorts wives to basically be quiet about their faith, especially if they’re married to a man who isn’t at the same spiritual level, and to live out your faith before him that they may be won by the purity of your life and your behavior. Then when a man starts asking questions about your faith, just give him just the facts. Men like just the facts.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Not the whole dump truck load.

Nancy Kennedy: That’s right—and keep him wanting more. Then as you see your husband edging towards Jesus, don’t mother him. You see, we as women, we’re nurturers, and men tend to see that as being smothering. A man doesn’t want to be married to his mother. He wants to be married to his wife.

Men find it a great encouragement if you will let them figure things out for themselves.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: So sincere encouragement, answer his questions about faith honestly, but don’t preach, provide a safe environment, a lot of space. Any other ways that come to mind, Nancy, that a woman can be a builder, constructing her home rather than tearing it down?

Nancy Kennedy: One of the ways that we can be that helper/completer to our husband is to be his friend and to do things together. Sometimes we go our separate ways—I have my activities and he has his activities, and every once in while we come together. We sleep together in the same bed and we share the same children, but we really don’t have the same interests.

I would say to find something that you and your husband have in common that you can build on—even if it’s just that you both like chocolate chip ice cream. If that’s the only thing you have in common, build on it. In that way, the more you build on a common experience, the closer you’ll draw to one another.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: It may be that that means developing some new interests of your own in order to become interested in some of the things that are important to him.

Nancy Kennedy: That’s right.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: You know one of the passages of Scripture that we come back to from time to time on this program is in Colossians chapter 3 where the apostle Paul says, Colossians 3 verse 12, “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these things put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (verses 12-14, ESV).

These are really the qualities that will build a home. It’s the opposite of these things—the anger, the impatience, the unforgiveness, the bitterness—that’s the demolition crew. Those are the tools with which we tear down a home.

So let me ask you. Are you tearing down your home? Are you a “demolition queen” or are you building up your home, your marriage, your family by the power of God’s grace in His spirit within you?

If when you’re honest you have to say, “I’ve been tearing down my home with my words, my spirit, my attitudes. I’ve been an uptight, angry, controlling, domineering, nagging wife.” Then be honest. Be real with the Lord. Acknowledge to God the truth. Agree with God. Ask His forgiveness.

Then you may need to go to your husband and to your children as well and say, “I’ve been tearing you down. Please forgive me, and by God’s grace I want to love you in the way He has loved me.”

Leslie Basham: We’ve been listening to two Nancys, Nancy Leigh DeMoss speaking with Nancy Kennedy, who’s the author of a book called When He Doesn’t Believe. I really like the subtitle for her book. It is: Help and Encouragement For Women Who Feel Alone in Their Faith.

If you’re in that boat, you can probably identify. You do need help and encouragement. You need to know you’re not alone. Nancy’s book is available from us at ReviveOurHearts.com as well as a CD recording of this week’s programs with Nancy Kennedy.

Find out more at ReviveOurHearts.com. Our program is listener supported. That means we couldn’t make it without your prayers and your giving.

Have you signed up to be a Revive Our Hearts prayer partner? You can do that at ReviveOurHearts.com. And for one more week, when you ask for it, if you make a donation of $25 or more, we’ll give you an updated version of the book and study guide by Nancy Leigh DeMoss called Lies Women Believe. A special bookmark comes with it, too.

Again, you can go to ReviveOurHearts.com and click on where it says, “Make a Difference” either to pray for us or to give.

But if your computer tempts you to become a demolition queen, use the phone instead. Our number is 1-800-569-5959.

Tomorrow we’ll hear about an evangelistic . . . bird? I hope you’ll join us for that on Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.

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