Episode S6E04: Ringleaders: Living a Marriage of Oneness

THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES OF MARRIAGE

In this episode, Hal Habecker and Dr. Ken Wilgus discuss the theological principles of marriage, emphasizing the importance of recognizing Jesus as the creator and sustainer of marriage. They explore the concepts of treating one's spouse as one's own flesh, loving one's wife as oneself, and serving one's wife as serving oneself. Wilgus highlights the significance of prayer, both individually and collectively, in maintaining a Christ-centered marriage. They also address the challenges of over-psychologizing marriage and the importance of mutual respect and appreciation in a Christian marriage.

Transcript

Narrator: 0:02

ANNOUNCER today on the finishing well. Podcast,

Ken Wilgus: 0:06

Christ wants you to treat her as your own flesh, very familiarly, intimately, make sure she knows that she is known that you are thinking of her.

Narrator: 0:18

Welcome to the finishing well. Podcast where we encourage believers of every age to find meaningful ways to impact their world for the kingdom of God. Our mission is to prepare and encourage every person to live well and to finish well. We pray this podcast will be a source of strength and encouragement as we seek to glorify Christ as we engage him in our aging years. Now here's your host for finishing well. Hal habecker,

Dr Hal Habecker: 0:43

welcome back again. Podcast land, finishing well ministries. Our vision is to encourage us as we age, to be more perceptive about how God uses us and how He wants us to grow and impact others and continue to develop ourselves. And today we're doing that on marriage with Dr Ken wilgis, good friend. We have just gone through the ringleaders four concepts. I belong to Jesus, the creator of my marriage. He has joined me to my wife as one flesh. That is Jesus joined me. He did that at the wedding at Cana of Galilee, and therefore, to love my wife is to love myself, because she's part of me. To serve my wife is to serve myself. And finally, I am to my wife as Jesus is to me. Am I growing in my theology of Jesus' love for me? And why doesn't it spill over and how I think about her. And by the way, if you put because after that, I am to my wife as Jesus is to me, because I belong to Jesus, the creator of my marriage, the next thing you know, it's a loop. Well, these four principles really help me. They, in some ways, don't make life easier, because you still have to do with the fundamentals of differences. God made Vicki the way she is, made me in his image. He has given us skills and backgrounds, but he has brought us together as one flesh. He's created us. So go back and re listen to the podcast. These are brilliant principles. Ken, I love them. I have loved them ever since we first talked about them. And they're true. They resonate to the heart of marriage, to your own heart. They emerge in every marriage I work with. So this, this podcast, will be a little bit different than the first one, building on those principles. And again, go back and re listen to them. Could we talk about some particulars as we wrestle with these issues of marriage? Talk more about particulars? We mentioned some of them. So for example, let's start at the top. I belong to Jesus, the creator of our marriage, my marriage. Why is it that I don't think about that? I mean, it is so fundamental in Genesis two. Matthew 19, right. Ephesians five. I mean, it's, it's as fundamental to marriage as salvation is.

Ken Wilgus: 3:07

You could argue that different generations have had different reasons to why they struggle with remembering or focusing on that I belong to Jesus, who has created this marriage the current. You know, it might have been in the past age that this was an arranged marriage. And, you know, I didn't ever want to be with this person, whatever the current thing, I think that distorts that is that we tend to think that we are the ones that controlled everything. I might have married in the wrong way or for the wrong reasons. You know, I mentioned last time that stories of how people come came together couples, I think, don't do enough of really thinking about how did God bring you together? Because you may have your own idea of what you did, and you certainly did. But in the long run, God never wakes up the day after your wedding going, Oh no, those two, you know he knew that and joined you. Why don't

Dr Hal Habecker: 4:02

we remember that? I mean, it seems like marriage ought to be a rehearsed scene. And this is so true. How many Psalms rehearse the character of God and what He did? Yes. So you think about your marriage, Jesus, the my belonging to Jesus, the creator of my marriage. So in my mind, almost daily, moment by moment, I'm circulating again. I'm remembering why Jesus brought Vicki to me and what he wants to do in our marriage. That's right. He did it.

Ken Wilgus: 4:33

That's right. And again, I think it depends on who you are, but the most common mistake I hear is, to be honest, an over psychologized rewriting of history that creates doubt. Did God really bring you into this marriage? You can almost hear Genesis three. You know, you're being tempted to rethink the source of this. And it's important in our age that, again, there may be tools that are helping you in your marriage, but never for. Get that God isn't standing back waiting for you to create this unity. You are unified. What you have instead are ways that you perceive and interact with each other that actually frighten or push the other away from feeling connected. That's the part that's different you and I've talked about this Genesis. Three was essentially the fall where we started thinking about everything our own way, like our own God. And you'll notice that before God shows up in the story, the man and the woman are both ashamed. They're ashamed of themselves, and they cover themselves, but they don't cover themselves in the same way, because their bodies are different, and a man's shame is looking at himself that I'm not competent, I'm not enough. It's so fundamental, it's hard to think about in the class. Anytime we talked about this, you may remember the class always got very quiet because men do not want to talk about shame that I'm not enough, and that's his own judgment of himself. The funny part in that little example is that he covers himself so that he wouldn't show his own inadequacy. Well, who's he covering from God hasn't shown up yet. Then that gets the ridiculous part where they run try to hide from God in the truth he's hiding from her. He thinks she thinks he's inadequate. He is certain of it. Well, he doesn't even notice that she's not looking at him. She's busy sewing her own leaves together to cover her shame, which is basically the fear of unattractive connection is so much more vulnerable for women and to receive her husband to be lovely, attractive to him, all that women are quite certain their husbands don't love them, that maybe never did. I don't. It's he's not thinking about me, or he's just wanting something from me, but not really me, that that's her level of shame. And marriage brings those things out, and that's where we start rethinking instead of that, this is something God is doing in me, and this moment to moment, love and struggle and all this is pleasing to God. We tend to over psychologize all this into first of all, nobody talks about men and women different, because that's you're not supposed to do that anymore. Everyone's an individual. It's not been my experience. Men and women may be similar, but husbands are similar to husbands. And wives struggle in the same way that other wives struggle. Marriage is kind of the great equalizer of all people. You find yourself in this marriage covering with the fig leaves, the deepest insecurity that you didn't even realize is in you, because you're pretty darn sure it's your spouse. Does that make sense?

Dr Hal Habecker: 7:45

It does. Does to me say a word. You know this, bring leaders. Is for men as leaders, right? Initiators in their home, in their marriage, right? And I don't want to miss that, but comment on the wife's response to this well.

Ken Wilgus: 7:59

So you know the third one, when we say to love my wife is to love myself. Serving your wife, serve yourself. You know, Scripture is really big, and we talk to men about loving her as your own flesh. There's a particular way that is helpful. It can't fix it, but it is the kind of thing that really ministers to a wife is for her to be reminded that she is known, thought about, that her feelings and her needs are important to her husband. For a wife, it would probably be a little different. That is to respect your husband, to appreciate your husband is to respect Jesus, because, remember, he says that wives respect your husband or submit to your as unto the Lord, which is almost like I've always said. You know, your marriage is like an Off Broadway production of Christ in the church. It is Jesus is the director, and he talks to the two actors differently. He talks to the husband with a constant, hey, how I chose you for this role. You're the guy, but you're like me, you're like why did she say that? Then I don't think I'm you know, talks to us about our inadequacy, but he talks to our wives very specifically in saying, Listen, do the same scene again. Be respectful of him. Be submitting to him, but do it as if it's to me. That sounds like a director who's trying to seduce that actress, and he is, he is after our wives. Marriage is about Jesus and you. So Jesus is trying to show me he is all that I need. He is my adequacy. He is my strength and the purpose of this marriage. As much as I want to be with my wife and have this or that kind of relationship. It's really first about me knowing and deepening my connection with Jesus and for our wives, it is the same thing, but in a different way. First of all, I've learned a lot from so many wives who've felt so alone and and Jesus has been that fulfillment for her. Here, but for all wives, at some point, I remind them this husband that you're so disappointed in, no offense to him, but he's a stand in your real guy is Jesus and and knowing when you feel that cosmic alone, knowing that Jesus isn't just a God who's distant and and loves everybody. He is a lover who knows her and likes her and has chosen her to be his own and wants her to carry that out. That is the only way you can imagine commands like a wife who's married to an unbeliever should stay with him, and through her gentle, quiet spirit might change what, what kind of an unfair requirement is that, well, it's much, much deeper than fair. It has to be that that woman can do, and I've seen this, women have taught me so much about real intimacy with Jesus, where she can be gentle, she can be quiet, even when she's pretty sure what he just said is not fully truthful to me or confirms her fear that she's unloved. It is Jesus' love for her that is the calm, that is the peace that she can bring into the marriage.

Dr Hal Habecker: 11:16

We would say that about the first principle, that's right, that's right, I belong to Jesus, the creator of my marriage. For Vicki's standpoint, Jesus created our marriage. So whatever problem she has with me, or how our individuality surface and maybe juxtaposed to each other, you both start at the same principle, it's true, Jesus brought that person to me, and we are married in him, in it. The other thing I just I have never heard Jesus is trying to seduce you. Yes, you know, I think of John 15. You know, we've talked, I've never heard John 15 and abide in Me, talked about in discussions of the husband and the wife, and Jesus says, Without me, you can do nothing. So it's not his problem to fix her. It's not her problem to fix him. Jesus wants us for himself, and in that oneness, which you talk about, the second he has joined me to my wife as one flesh, it's in that seducing there is actually victory, and we become his slaves to do His will with all the love in the world.

Ken Wilgus: 12:25

And really, at our stage in life, we have a better chance of seeing that, especially if you're listening to this and you're kind of tired, we just seem to be in our own sort of lanes. The spouse and me, it's like, maybe with that fatigue, you can lean into that and just give up on what you thought you had to do and get and really know what it means to watch what Jesus is doing in this you know, for us as husbands, it may overstate it, but for me, a lot of times I feel humiliated a little bit like the way she talks to me, this is not her doing it, but it is my sensitivity it feels. And to go back in there and say, Do you want to do this or that runs the risk of feeling again like a fool again. She's not doing that, but that's how it feels. But I have prayed before, and you can sense Jesus. That's when you're Christ. Like, get in there and be hurt again. Get in there and feel like she does not really get what you're trying to do for her. That's Christ. Like, there's nothing glorious if Jesus and the church were just compatible. And we decided to give it a shot. That is not the Gospel. The Gospel the gospel is the most passionate love story you could imagine, where God comes across the universe to get his bride. That's just stunning, and includes the struggle that he's gone through that I think, you know, in my prayers, where I'm like, I'm so discouraged, I think Jesus has the right to go. Yeah, that's exactly when you're me get in there and let her, you know, not believe what you're trying to say or mislead you do it anyway. And there are times again, I'm sure wives are thinking, what weaklings you all are? Well, I got to tell you, on behalf of us husbands, yeah, it's, it's, it's because our wives have no idea the power they have over us. Imagine if our wife knew how easily we could be, if she knew that had the confidence in her beauty in our eyes, and use that like she could. That's scary. It's dangerous, but yeah, that's that's the impact that my wife has on me, not because she's an ogre at all, but I'm so sensitive to her, because she's so important to me.

Dr Hal Habecker: 14:43

So another concept you and I have talked about, we haven't you've touched on it here is the significance of prayer in our lives. I mean, you could say each one of these four principles are, I mean, it's a matter of prayer. Do I pray like. Like I belong to Jesus, the creator of my marriage. I mean, am I praying about his problems, or am I praying about my problems, or am I praying and asking him to create in me a new sense of the oneness with which we have with you and you want us to experience.

Ken Wilgus: 15:16

And there's really two levels of prayer, you know, again, we psychologize everything, and you'll hear a whole lot about communication, which we're even discovering in psychology, is not the golden path to unity that we thought it was, but there's a way that even Christians will recommend prayer. This may bother some people, that you need to pray together, and that's a kind of communication that will melt your heart together and whatever. Okay, number one, I think that's great. I do. I do too. However, as you know, it's hard. There's points that being that kind of vulnerable with her is difficult, which is absurd, but it is and I think especially when we think about in prayer, it's not primarily the performance of prayer together. Yeah, I think it really starts in prayer yourself alone, especially for husbands, if we are to be Christ like we know that it is Christ who intervenes for us and prays constantly for us. And so I think surprisingly, prayer starts with a husband praying for his wife alone, including praying for what do you want? What are you doing here? What do you want me to do? And that then would lead secondly, to, I guarantee you, a wife wants to find a way to pray with her husband. It is pleasing to her, unless she's suspicious or has other reasons wives want that. And so prayer, both individually and together, is essential in keeping your sanity that you're not alone in this. God hasn't stepped back and hoping you're do it right. He's right here, and his spirit has joined you, and he's told you how to operate this and to work that out together. And so prayer, nothing more than just the constant addressing the presence of Jesus in the spirit that is there with you right now is essential.

Dr Hal Habecker: 17:11

I think of Jesus when he said in John's gospel, I do nothing on My own initiative. You know, that's huge in marriage. It is. I think. What do I need to do to change this? What do I need to change me, or change her, or change the circumstances? But Jesus always depended on his father. He had a life of prayer, so I'm constantly praying about this, right? I'm not absorbed by all the things in my culture, right? Our culture separates us from pursuing God. We get involved in all kinds of distracting things, and we get tired in our marriages, and we, in a sense, give up and we're happy to become roommates without pressing in on the oneness that God has. So if you don't pray, and that's not your heart hunger, like you mentioned earlier in the first podcast, every hour. I mean, go,

Ken Wilgus: 18:01

Yeah, every hour I have to and the decision to become roommates, I can tell you, as a psychologist working with hundreds of couples, you're lying to yourself. That doesn't work deeply. You have been joined like Christ and the church, and I've seen many couples that you'd think, well, my grandparents were my favorite example. My mother's parents were Christian people. They went to church and they weren't going to divorce. She had her bedroom, he had his, and it was almost like a stamp for me. Of I guess that's what old Christian marriage is, until my grandmother had a series of strokes that left her two things, one, she did not know anyone. She only knew my grandfather. And number two, she'd never knew that she was at home. So she shuffled around that house for two and a half years saying, Ike, we need to go home. Ike, when? And we knew that my grandfather would be a good man and put her somewhere. How this was the part that I've never I'll never forget this. He wouldn't hear of it. He suddenly knew her need for him, and he took care of her. They started kissing and stuff. It was like gross. What is your old Christian married people? It was like a firsthand front row seat in seeing what looked like they were just roommates. Was a lie. Her need blew his resentment, the deep resentments that he had completely out of the way, and she could not help but need him, and he loved her. He wanted to be Christ for her. And it took that, if you will, for that to be displayed, but you couldn't say that. Well, seeing my grandfather, he knew how to do he was the good guy, but he wasn't that kind of guy. He just, all of a sudden, was playing the role of Jesus, and I've never forgotten that it is the work of God in us, and what he does and is doing, and he will be displayed in your marriage and roommate marriage is not in any fashion. Can you say that's kind of the way Christ is in the church? No, it is not. Chris. Christ is not our roommate, and we are not compatible. We are needy, helpless. We don't even know where we are, and sometimes the only thing you know is his name. And isn't

Dr Hal Habecker: 20:10

that the lesson we learn by marriages all around in our culture? Let me suggest two of them. You know, there's a significance of a divorce in the grain years. Yeah. What is that again? Well, it's people whose marriages fail and they choose to go their own way. It happens primarily in boomers whose divorce rates were high in their younger years. Yeah, but you get more used to, well, I'm going to pursue my own life. I'm not happy with her. Yeah. And then the other thing I want to throw in there, Ken is, you know, you can read in the news everywhere, almost every day, where some spiritual leader has had an affair for years, or he's jettisoned his marriage. And I understand why people feel betrayed, but we don't practice our own theology very well.

Ken Wilgus: 20:57

Or in this again, I feel a bit responsible as a psychologist, or we have bought a vision of marriage that, I think, accidentally, is being promoted in psychology, that if you have a good, godly marriage, you'll like each other, you get along well, you're just fun friends. Well, that can't be what Paul means by Christ in the church, and I can tell you, it doesn't mean what marriage really is, because I have a really good marriage, that does not mean it's been smooth. I mean, there are times that woman makes me crazy and I've put her through a lot. But you know what? That's more Christ in the church than this. I worry that people are punting on marriage with this vision that if it's this painful, no knowledge of the in between, like what's actually the joining, if it's painful for you as an individual, then you need to get out rid of that. And it's not like you're reading the great literature on the happy, gray, divorced people who are having a great time. I happen to know a lot of them, they're not doing well. You go out of the frying pan and you end up in the fire of aloneness, like, like, boy, you can't believe

Dr Hal Habecker: 22:09

you know, just parenthetically, you know our mission and finish well Ministries is how to live well in your older years. So you're really impacting people by letting them Watch God work in your life. That's right. And it seems to me, this is the impact of marriage. You know, as you age, on your adult kids, on your grandkids in a church, I mean, you're on display,

Ken Wilgus: 22:31

and how does it look? Does anything about you and your spouse look like Christ and the church? And I would just relieve people, if that doesn't mean that you're all happy together all the time. That's not what it always means for husbands. It means giving to her, serving her, and for wives, it generally means trying to show appreciation and respect for a man that hasn't earned it, but right behind him is the director of your play going, sweetie, say that line, but say it to me, not to him.

Dr Hal Habecker: 23:03

So on, the third essential to love my wife is to love myself. To serve my wife is to serve herself. What would you say about the wife side of that? I think that's my husband.

Ken Wilgus: 23:12

I think that's to respect my husband. To show respect men I don't have as much. I know there's in our current age, the idea that, well, men haven't earned that, or women want to be respected, that's just not been my experience in marriage. I think that's a theoretical idea. There are many women who are very respect worthy. They're certainly powerful in their careers, but they are hungry in their marriage for whether he is thinking of her and whether he knows her in return. There are many husbands who have many successes and all this, but as you can attest, as well as me, it's stunning how much I need to be treated as if she respects me, as if I'm just very sensitive to that, and it helps me take a wife listening, who wants to try to help her marriage? Well, it's reasonable for her to say, well, you know, I write him little notes, I make his lunch and whatever. I would just say, that's fine, but I can tell you that's not what really speaks to a husband. A husband is really met with things like, Hey, I was thinking about yesterday when you came home and you said that I love that he needs to know he has impact on you, because, as I tell so many wives, whether you like it or not, you're playing the part of the church, and wives don't like that. It's like being a princess. I don't want to be a princess. I want to be a down to earth worker. No, no, no, your husband wants to have impact on you, and he wants to know from you how he's doing, as you can imagine, in a culture that we think we kind of invent our own roles all the time that can be disappointing. Like, I don't want to be that kind of a wife. Well, you don't have to be, but I can tell you, it does light up that insecure husband of yours when you tell him. Hey, the way you talk to our children, I think that's fantastic. It means a lot to me.

Dr Hal Habecker: 25:05

So I'm going to go a closing route on this discussion. Let's say, you know attorneys in a legal case. You know closing arguments? Yeah. So what would you say to a group of men, first taking ringleaders, going through the four principles, what would your closing argument be to them as a group, to us out and as we listen in on our this discussion. And what would be your closing argument to wives or women on ringleaders?

Ken Wilgus: 25:37

It's a good way to put it for men. I think my closing argument, my summary would be, are you talking to any other Christian man about your marriage? And I mean, where it's not going well a Christian man, someone who's for marriage, do you know that you're not alone in that struggle and in so doing, be careful what rule book you're playing from Christ wants you to treat her as your own flesh, very familiarly, intimately, make sure she's knows that you, that she is known, that you are thinking of her.

Dr Hal Habecker: 26:13

In other words, these four ideas are in his rule book for us.

Ken Wilgus: 26:17

It's pretty much, yeah, it is. And knowing that Jesus is watching this. And so when it quote doesn't go well, yeah, he's right there. He knows that, you know, too often we get in the idea, so what's the, what's the technique that makes this work? I don't have that we have the what we have is the command that that you can be pleased, that Jesus is pleased with you, that you are making that effort. And that's where it becomes a test of, I can't tell you how many times I've if someone had said, Well, I think God was happy with what he did. Well, I don't care. She didn't seem to like it. Like, how absurd is that, that I'm not moved by pleasing God instead of whether the impact I had on my wife? So it is about following his command and love your wife, both intimately, your own flesh and sacrificially, which basically means giving up what you want for what she wants for wives. I think it is that she probably is talking to others about her marriage. There's more and more women not doing that, which worries me. Do talk with other Christian women about your marriage, but at the same time, it's harder now to think about playing the role of wife and basically trusting the impact you really do have on your husband. Wives don't know that. They really don't. It's so I can't tell you how many times I've said to a husband, so what you're saying is, when she's upset, it really rattles you. And men will always go, Well, of course, and I and he goes, why? And I'll go, because she doesn't believe you, do you? And she'll go, No, it doesn't rattle. He just wants to be left alone. She doesn't know that. So for her, in this culture, it's the harder summary of saying, I would recommend that you in faith, trust that you are playing the role of church, share your needs with your husband, risk letting him know what's important to you, and for heaven's sake, try to give him. I call it cheering on a one yard gain what he does an effort to do. Thank him for it. That little guy needs more encouragement than you can imagine from you, more than you need from him, telling him thanks for you know for doing the dishes means a lot more to him than it does to you. It's important to him to know that he's having impact on you.

Dr Hal Habecker: 28:36

So in my experience as a pastor, been in church for 50 years. Plus, we don't have many discussions like that in the church. Why is that? Well, it's the same question that I'm asking about finishing well, we don't have many discussions about what it means to be aging well as believers. I mean, we don't retire from doing what God wants, even practicing this kind of marriage. And we don't talk about aging issues as much as I think we should. We don't talk about marriage issues as much as we should. And I'm not talking about talking them down to people or whatever, but just their healthy discussions on what life is. How do we age? Well, how do we do marriage? Well, how do we do our kids? Well, you know, those kinds of things so true.

Ken Wilgus: 29:24

I think we're alone. And I think people, yours and my age, are actually living in holding on to the value that young people don't even know could be there. You can have entire evenings together with no screen, and sharing your life together. And not only is that harder to do, I'm not sure people even know it as a real thing.

Dr Hal Habecker: 29:48

Good stuff, Ken, I love this

Ken Wilgus: 29:50

stuff I really do, and your intensity about it is very encouraging.

Dr Hal Habecker: 29:54

We're listening wrapping up our discussion with Dr Ken wilgis. He's been a close friend. And confident and has a lot of wise advice encouragement for us these four building blocks we've talked about. I ringleaders. I belong to Jesus, the creator of my marriage. Jesus has joined me to my wife as one flesh. Therefore, to love my wife is to love myself. To serve my wife is to serve myself, and ultimately I am to my wife as Jesus as a it's a fundamental theological issue which undergirds everything in

Ken Wilgus: 30:30

Scripture that places your marriage in the presence of the Spirit of Christ, who's right there, right now,

Dr Hal Habecker: 30:36

Ken, thank you. If you have any follow up ideas about this conversation, we'd be glad to invite Ken back to talk about it some more, but Ken, I can't thank you enough. And may the Lord bless your ministry and what you're doing. And I think there's a book out there in marriage for you to write somewhere, somehow. But thanks for your friendship, thanks for your sharing your wisdom with our listenership, and for those of us who are aging, let's finish well, let's abide in Jesus personally. Let's abide with him in our marriages. Let's abide in Him with our families, our grandkids. And as we go through this important Season of Life, which is our last lap of life, so to speak, right, let's live it to the hilt for the glory of God. Thanks, Ken. God, bless you. Thanks for being here.

Narrator: 31:24

Thanks, Hal, take care. You've been listening to the finishing well podcast. Let's keep pursuing Jesus together and encourage each other to follow him in our aging years. Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts, or you can find us at finishing well ministries.org/podcast, our vision is to change the way we think about our aging Season of Life, equipping you to actively pursue God's calling in your life. May the Lord bless and encourage you and we'll see you next time on the finishing well. Podcast, you you.