The Power of Your Words

Dannah Gresh: If you’re married and if you had to compliment your husband every day for a month, what would you say? Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants to head off this objection.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Maybe you're thinking, I can’t think of thirty things I appreciate about my husband. Then think of one thing you appreciate and say it every day for the next thirty days.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Choosing Forgiveness, for Monday, July 17, 2023. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Last week and this week we’re hearing a series from Nancy called "Here Comes the Bridegroom." She’s reminding us of something amazing about your identity when you come to faith in Christ. It's this: you are part of His Bride! You’ve been chosen and loved even though you know you don’t deserve it.

Nancy’s been showing us these truths from the Song of Solomon and other Scriptures.

Today, Nancy wants to pause and insert a thought about human marriage. Earthly husbands and wives always fail each other. But we can apply the truths from this series to our own marriages. Since God loves us, we can learn to love each other, imperfect as we are. Here’s Nancy.

Nancy: Times come as I hear from wives from every marriage relationship—even the best—where they lose the sense of intimacy of romance. They don't feel as much in love as they thought they were when they walked down the aisle. Kids come, lives get busy, schedules get full, and you can end up being kind of roomates and not really connecting with each other.

I hear from wives often at this season of life. If may be that it has gotten even worse than that. Not only has the romance gone out, but it seems like the light has gone out altogether in many marriages.

Wives write, or they call, or they speak to me, and they are crying out, "How can we rekindle and restore the love that we had at one time."

I heard about a wife describing her husband, and she say, "I don't even like him!" And they were what you consider a good Christian marriage. But at that moment in her life she's saying, "I don't even like this man!" The reason you're smiling is because you've had similar thoughts at moments.

Those times do come in a relationship in a marriage. Could I suggest that you do what this bride did? Go back and remember, recall, recount, rehearse what it was that attracted you to him in the first place. Chances are there was something that drew you to that man in the first place. There's a good chance that some of those qualities were enduring qualities.

But what has happened is you've become more conscious of your differences in the time that you've been married. You've become more focused on the things that annoy you—the things that maybe didn't bother you at all when you were courting. In fact, maybe they intrigued you, because he was so different than you.

He was so quiet and so indifferent. And you just talk all the time. You loved that when you were courting. Now it drives you crazy because he won't say anything!

So now you're focused on the differences. But go back and think about what were the things that did draw you, that did attract you. Begin to highlight those things. And then begin to tell others and to tell him what it is that you appreciate about him.

In fact, if you'll put on a different pair of glasses—take off the critical ones and put on the grateful, appreciative ones—you'll probably find that there are still qualities in him that are admirable.

If you begin to focus on those, I can't begin to tell you what will happen to him, but I can tell you what will happen to you: you'll begin to see that man differently. You'll find that love being rekindled in your own heart.

In fact, I've given to women over the years a thirty-day challenge along this line.  Here's the challenge: every day for the next thirty days, if you're a married woman, there are two parts to this challenge. First of all, the negative part. For the next thirty days, I'm going to challenge you not to say one negative thing about your husband to him or to anyone else about him—not to your mother, not to your kids.

Some of you look like maybe you are going to pass out here! Like, could this be possible? If you gotten into the habit of being critical and focusing in on the negatives, this will be a real challenge! But you can do it, by God's grace. God will help you do this, for the next thirty days to not say a critical, negative thing about your husband, to him or to anyone else about him.

Then here's the positive part of that challenge. Every day for the next thirty days, I want to challenge you to say something that you appreciate about your husband. Say it to him and say it to someone else about him.

Now maybe you're thinking, I can't think of thirty things I appreciate about my husband. Well, then think of one thing you appreciate it and say it every day for the next thirty days.

Does he bring home a paycheck? Is he sober? Is he a good dad? Is he prompt, on time? Does he pay the bills? Think about some things that you appreciate and begin to express those, not just think them. Every day for the next thirty days tell your husband. 

Now you can say it. You can write it. You can write it on the mirror. You can write it on a card and stick it in his computer case as he goes to work or whatever. But say it to him in some way, and then say it to someone else about him.

You say, "What will happen in thirty days? Will my husband be different?" I won't make any guarantees about anything that'll happen to your husband, although he may wonder if he's married to the same woman.

There is not anyone who won't flourish in some way under appreciation and genuine gratitude and admiration. Your husband needs that as much as anyone.

But I'll tell you something for sure. You will change. You will change. You will find yourself being grateful, appreciative. You will find yourself loving your husband in a whole fresh and new way.

Let me read to you a letter I received I received from a woman who took that thirty-day challenge. This was a woman who was in leadership in a Bible study ministry. And she wrote after she heard that challenge and she said,

My marriage has been, how shall I say it? Less than desirable for months. Communication is the biggest problem. When you talk until you have no more to say and you get no response, you kind of just come to the conclusion that this is the way it is. Live with it the best you can. I knew I had pride in my life, but I just wasn't willing to give it up. Finally, I got down to business with God. I waved the white flag of surrender concerning my pride and the wall came tumbling down.

She was willing to take the first step, to be the first one to move, rather than doing what so many do in a marriage and that's wait for your mate to move. She said,

I did not really want to take your thirty-day challenge about encouraging your husband. I do have a wonderful husband and we've been married for eighteen years but I think we became too comfortable with each other and began to take each other for granted.

Can anybody here can relate to having had that happen in your marriage perhaps?

Then communication breaks down and things build up and eventually erupt. Then I began to think I'd be better off without my husband. Divorce has never been an option. I'm very much committed to our covenant relationship, but the thoughts were still there.

I want to tell you: if you let the thoughts stay there, in time you'll be vulnerable to act on thoughts that you never thought you'd act on. That's why you've got to deal with those thoughts. She said,  

I put many expectations on him to meet needs in my life that he had stopped meeting. The bottom line is that God showed me it was up to me to humble myself and be the wife God desired me to be, no matter what kind of response I got from my husband.

I got home from the retreat on Sunday and I worked in a word of encouragement. I had not spoken to him [here's the tragic part] like that in years.

Now, should it have come as any surprise to this wife that her husband had gotten tired of trying to meet her expectations? That he didn't communicate? I don't know the wife. I don't know the husband, but I can picture (because it's true in so many relationships), he just got tired of it—tired of being criticized, tired of being picked on, tired of being told what to do, whatever.

I don't know how extreme it was in their situation, but he did what so many men do. He just clammed up. "When I do open my mouth, I get shot down. So I'm not going to open my mouth." A lot of men feel that way.

Some respond the opposite way, which is getting violent and angry. They tend to go to one of the two extremes. In this case, think about a wife who, for years, had not spoken words of encouragement to her husband.

Now, I don't think she started out thinking, How can I tear my husband down. I'm sure she didn't. And I'm sure she didn't even realize that's what she had done. But as she began this positive exercise, this challenge to build up her marriage, to encourage her husband, God began to change her and ultimately, her husband. She said,

I have thought the words before, but I could not bring myself to say them.

And then, she just wrote, "PRIDE." And isn't it hard when you've been hurt or your husband's not been expressive of his love? You have to humble yourself to be the one to say, "I'll be the encourager. I'll start," with no expectation put on him. She said,

Monday, he was off and home all day. We had the most wonderful day together.

Now, I'm not promising that if you start this thirty-day challenge that tomorrow you and your husband will have the most wonderful day ever. It may get worse before it gets better. But in this case, God began quickly to reward her for just the little bit of encouragement she invested in her marriage. She said,

God showed me that the wall of pride I had allowed to divide us was hindering my husband from responding to me. I had just prayed for God to work in my life and now I am reaping the benefits of many changes in my husband's life. God is continuing to transform my marriage one day at a time, simply because I was finally willing to bring down the wall of pride.

Before we move on I just want to ask, "Is there a wall of pride in your marriage?" If there's a wall, it's there because of pride. If there's contention, Proverbs says, "Only by pride comes contention" (13:10). And you can't make your husband do anything about that wall, but you can do something about it.

 

One of the ways that you can begin to tear down that wall . . . Of course, forgiveness may need to be sought, repentance, confession, but also you can begin positively to rebuild that relationship by speaking words of encouragement. Are you willing to take that thirty-day challenge if you are married? Every day for the next thirty days express your admiration. Express your appreciation. Watch God work in your heart and in your marriage as a result

Father, I pray that Your love—the love of Christ—would rule in every marriage represented in this place, and that Your love would be the measure of our love for one another.

Lord, I especially want to pray for a wife who is listening who it's been thirty weeks or thirty months or thirty years since there has been a sense of warmth and love in her relationship with her husband.

O God, how I pray that even through this little exercise over the next thirty days that You would rekindle something there, that You would renew and restore that which has been lost, that You would bring healing and hope and help to that woman's heart, and that she would begin to love her husband in that selfless, serving way that You have loved us.

Thank You, Lord, for what You'll do over these next days as wives all across this country begin to love their husbands in a whole new way and to express that love for the sake of Jesus. I pray in His name, amen.

Dannah: That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth challenging us as wives to take the 30-Day Husband Encouragement Challenge. There’s a link to it in the transcript of today’s program, at ReviveOurHearts.com. 

Nancy has offered that challenge multiple times here on Revive Our Hearts. Let me say this: the Husband Encouragement Challenge isn’t magical. It will not fix all your marriage problems, and it could be that you will not see any change in your husband, even if you do it.

But I will also say this: we have heard from countless women who have taken the challenge and can testify to ways God has used it in their marriages. Like Lorraine.

She and her husband were in counseling. Lorraine’s pastor noticed how often Lorraine interrupted her husband and asked her to consider to learn how to respect her husband. She looked back at her past and noticed some patterns.

Lorraine: My parents divorced when I was thirteen.

Dannah: And Lorraine sometimes threatened to leave during conflict with her husband.

Lorraine: Just the first thing I would think of was that was what you were supposed to do. I was just immature.

Dannah: But there was a bigger issue.

Lorraine: It was more questioning in my mind his decisions.

Dannah: As Lorraine second-guessed her husband and tried to take over practical matters of running a home, her husband tended to step back and let her take over.

Lorraine: When we met and married, I was twenty-one and just very independent. I didn’t know how to lean on him or to look to him because I could pretty much figure out things and do things on my own. I wasn’t putting any trust or faith in anything that he was doing. I was not valuing him or valuing his decisions.

I actually was questioning if he was walking with God, and all the while I was not even looking at me. I just kept looking at him and trying to find out what he had done wrong. I was not looking at my part in it.

Dannah: These long-standing patterns were about to be rocked when Lorraine did an online search for the words “How to Respect Your Husband.”

She ended up at ReviveOurHearts.com and to go for the thirty-day challenge.

Lorraine: I have my original copy right here in front of me, and I said, “I began today, June 19, 2006.

Dannah: As she began the study, Lorraine was struck by Proverbs 31:11–12.

Nancy: “The heart of her husband safely trusts her; so he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil all the days of her life” (NKJV). 

Lorraine: That was the very first verse that convicted me the most because my husband didn’t trust me, and I certainly wasn’t doing him any good. That was the first time looking at myself that I had a part in this, too.

Dannah: So Lorraine continued the challenge to say nothing negative about her husband. And she continued speaking life, using ideas in the booklet, The Thirty-Day Husband Encouragement Challenge.

Lorraine: I noticed a difference in him by like the fourth day. I was like, “He has changed.”

Dannah: Lorraine had been struggling with an issue at their son’s school. Early in the challenge, her husband took initiative, stepped in, and started solving that problem.

And more change was still to come, especially in the area of finances.

Nancy: Day seven: Money is the root of much marital discord. Ask yourself, “Am I being negative toward my husband in the area of finances?”

Lorraine: And in my notes, I’ve written, “I have been.”

Nancy: Determine not to speak evil of your husband in this area. Discover ways to encourage and help him instead.

Lorraine: He just started handling some things.

Nancy: If he’s weak in this area, encourage any good decisions that he does make.

Lorraine: And he took this on quietly and started doing things. Again, it was just something I had to stay out of and let him deal with. It was hard not to do it. But he stepped right in.

At the beginning it was hard because I didn’t know if he was capable of taking on the responsibility. I had to trust God to work through my husband.

God kept asking me, “Lorraine, do you trust Me?”

I was like, “Yes, Lord, You know I do.”

Then He’d say, “Trust your husband.”

It was really hard to let go, to let him do it his way. That’s why it was hard at first to trust, because his way is different than my way.

Nancy: Men respond to women who respect them. What do you respect about your husband?

Lorraine: That respect caused him to rise up and take that responsibility and that role.

Nancy: Nearly every man has some core characteristic that can be nurtured and respected.

Lorraine: It’s been wonderful. It was a big turning point for him when I started doing these things. It is life-changing.

Dannah: After completing this challenge, Lorraine found out that her husband had been praying for this kind of breakthrough for years.

Lorraine: He couldn’t change me, so he had quietly turned me over to God and let the Lord fix me.

Dannah: And we’re thankful God chose to use the 30-Day Husband Encouragement Challenge.

Lorraine: It’s been kind of a joke between us—who changed the most. I can finally see that it was me that needed to change the most.

Dannah: Dannah: As we explore the power of encouragement, I want to acknowledge this: You might be in a very difficult situation, one that involves grievous sin against you. Abuse, for example. Hear me loud and clear: we are not saying, "If you just encourage your husband more, he'll stop abusing you."

No, that's not what we're saying. The responsibility for the sins of others rests completely on their shoulders. And in that kind of scenario, you desperately need the wise counsel of a godly person, someone who can look at your circumstances from an objective and biblical perspective, someone who will pray with you and advise you. Does that make sense?

Most of us wives need to do a better job of encouraging our husbands. But some wives in certain specific scenarios actually need to take the courageous first step of reaching out to stop the madness in your world. Now, having said that, we turn to a woman named Julie. She longed for her husband to lead her family in godliness, so she let him know her expectations.

Julie: A lot of it was me pushing him, especially on the spiritual side, to be a spiritual leader that we all long for.

Dannah: And he didn’t respond exactly as she hoped.

Julie: Because of my husband’s upbringing and his involvement in the church and his relationship with Christ, he was never really taught how to be a leader.

I’m in ministry, and he is not, so he sometimes feels as if I am trying to instruct him or minister to him instead of allowing him to minister to me.

Dannah: So when she talked with him about growth opportunities, it sounded like this.

Julie: “Hey, there’s this class at church,” or “Hey, there’s this Bible study,” constantly just kind of pushing him.

Dannah: And Julie’s husband didn’t jump at all these opportunities at church, she interpreted his response this way.

Julie: Typical male reaction of dig in your heels and get resentful. A lot of times he would verbalize that saying, “You don’t think I’m spiritual enough,” or “You’re judging me,” or “You make me feel as if I’m not doing my job.”

Dannah: Julie was about to be challenged to change her tactics. She attended a True Woman conference.

Julie: They had a video at the conference of a pastor’s wife.

Dannah: The pastor’s wife on that video was Kim Wagner.

Kim Wagner (from True Woman video): I didn’t realize that I was emasculating my husband.

Dannah: One point in Kim Wagner’s story stood out to Julie.

Julie: That it was her job as a helper to help him change.

Kim Wagner (from True Woman video): I thought the helper role was: You help your husband improve. I could help him with his grammar. I could help him think more logically. I could help him to be more organized.

Julie: Myself as well as the ladies I was with at the conference were really struck to the heart of how maybe we don’t outwardly say some of the things she had said to her husband, but the attitudes of our hearts were pretty close to her attitude.

Dannah: She visited ReviveOurHearts.com and signed up for the thirty-day challenge. Here’s what she read on day one.

Nancy: Day one. To refresh your memory, here’s the challenge. For the next thirty days, you can’t say anything negative about your husband, to your husband, or to someone else about your husband.

Dannah: Julie didn’t think she spoke negatively to her husband, but she did complain about him to other women.

Julie: It quickly brought to mind a lot of conversations and a lot of comments I had made. I was like, “Oh! Those are what that’s talking about.”

Dannah: Not long after starting this challenge, Julie was with a group of wives. When they started complaining about their husbands, Julie realized she couldn’t participate.

Julie: I chose instead to say, “Guess what he did last week?” I would chose to find something he did well.

Dannah: Julie was also struck by another paragraph from day one of the 30-Day Husband Encouragement Challenge.

Nancy: Have you ever thanked your husband for choosing you above all other women?

Julie: He took the initiative, and he chose me. Am I making him feel good about his choice? Or am I making him regret that he chose me instead of someone else?

Nancy: He found you attractive as a person and appreciated you.

Dannah: This especially meant a lot to Julie since she and her husband married when she was in her mid-thirties.

Julie: I was waiting to be found. A lot of people were like, “Oh, I can’t believe you can’t find a man.”

And I’m like, “I’m not looking. I’m waiting to be found."

I just said, “You went through your whole twenties, and you could have chosen someone then, and you didn't. I'm just so thankful that you waited for me, and that you fought for me and pursued me when we did meet." So I just thanked him for being courageous in doing that. 

Dannah: As a result of the challenge, Julie backed away from pressuring her husband to grow in leadership.

Julie: I wouldn’t appreciate if my husband would find me a book on how to lose weight. It’s the same thing as buying your husband a book for spiritual leadership. It's like, "What are you really saying?" 

Dannah: And God was working on the heart of Julie’s husband, encouraging him to become more of a leader. Julie can see how this process was enhanced by her month-long focus on encouragement.

Julie: The thirty-day challenge really added more fuel to the fire of him feeling uplifted and more appreciated.

I think as wives we sometimes drain our husbands because we want all this stuff from them—we want them to love us, we want them to care for us, we want them to protect us, we want them to listen to us. We take a lot from them. If they are trying to lead the best that they can, sometimes it can become very draining. So I felt like the thirty-day challenge really gave him wind in his sails.

Dannah: Julie’s husband is now involved in a year-long leadership training class at church—a decision he made without pressure from his wife. And Julie is trying to make encouragement a regular part of her life.

Julie: You would be surprised at how those little things not only affect him, they affect you.

Dannah: Well, are you ready to join Julie and countless other women who have seen God work powerfully through this Husband Encouragement Challenge?

Let your challenge begin! Here’s how: go to ReviveOurHearts.com. At the bottom of the page click on “challenges,” then click on the 30-Day Husband Encouragement challenge, or just click the link in today’s transcript.

We will send you an email every day for thirty days helping you prepare your heart for each step of your challenge, and the email will also remind you to encourage your husband. 

Again, there’s no guarantee, but this really could be a lifelong marker in your marriage. Get all the details at ReviveOurHearts.com.

We’re able to provide challenges like this via email thanks to listeners who support the ministry financially. When you give to Revive Our Hearts, you are doing something tangible to help hurting marriages thrive.

When you donate any amount at ReviveOurHearts.com, we’ll say thanks this week by sending you a notepad with a powerful quote from Nancy. It says, “Anything that makes me need God is a blessing.” You could use the pad to send encouraging notes to friends who need that reminder. Again, donate at ReviveOurHearts.com and ask for the notepad, or call 1-800-569-5959. 

The Bible begins and ends with weddings. Nancy will show you why the whole Bible is a love story on tomorrow’s program. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants to keep reminding you of your new identity in Christ.

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