The Missing Key to a Wise Marriage

Why do we know what’s right… yet still respond the wrong way?

In this first solo episode of Wisdom for Wives, Tara Lewis shares a personal look at one area where she realized she had been walking foolishly in her own marriage. From there, she opens Scripture to discover what God says about wisdom—from Eve’s decision in the Garden, to Paul’s command in Ephesians 5 to walk wisely, to Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish virgins.

What separated the wise from the foolish? And what “oil” was missing?

If you’ve ever struggled with your reactions, your words, or your ability to love your husband the way God calls you to, this episode will help you see that wisdom isn’t simply something we know—it’s the result of something we possess.

Join Tara as she uncovers the missing key to a wise marriage—and why it changes everything.

Transcript

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Marriage exposes and it reveals. It exposes our weaknesses, our frailties, our flaws, our faults, and it reveals our strengths. It reveals the things that we were attracted to when we said I do. It reveals those wonderful traits that caused us to have a desire to be married. Eve, she first listened. She listened to what Satan had to say. Remember when I said I would sit in my car, I would repeat these thoughts, that it's never gonna change, that God isn't gonna turn it. How is this gonna work? We're gonna end in divorce, arguing, fighting, disagreements. Those things were real. So the wise wife, she submits her thoughts, her feelings, her emotions, her beliefs, and her decisions to the word of God. That's how you understand what the will of the Lord is. The Bible says, let your kingdom come and let your will be done. We see that with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, to the Word of God, to God's will. Welcome to the pop and this wisdomful wives. Welcome to Wisdom for Wives. My name is Tara Lewis. I've been married for nearly 30 years. I'm a mother of four, and I'm a woman of God. I believe I've been called to equip wives, women who have a desire to be married, with the biblical wisdom that comes from the Word of God. One of the reasons why I believe this is because I've seen some of my greatest victories, triumphs, healings, and transformations in my own marriage. And what a blessing it is. It's not because it's been easy. It's not because I always got it right. It is because God has been faithful. The foundation of wisdom for wives comes from Ephesians 5, 16 through 18. Paul has given us a warning and an invitation. Do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the spirit. I believe that there's four commands that I want to address today. Do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the spirit. But before I ever touch on those, I want to talk about how God taught me to be a wise wife. Many of you may know that my husband and I got married in less than three months, 80 days to be exact. And in that time, you don't find out everything. You find out very little about your spouse, soon-to-be spouse. But my husband was a wounded adult when we got married. He was physically abused, verbally abused, rejected, and a latchkey kid, and an only child. And he was raised by his grandparents. And so those things entered into our marriage and they caused a lot of pain, a lot of suffering, disagreements, arguments, a lot of outbursts, and misunderstandings. And so when you don't know how to deal with those things, my husband himself did not know that all of those things were going to be exposed when he got married. Marriage does that. Marriage exposes and it reveals. It exposes our weaknesses, our frailties, our flaws, our faults, and it reveals our strengths. It reveals the things that we were attracted to when we said I do. It reveals those wonderful traits that caused us to have a desire to be married. But when the exposure comes, a lot of times we don't know how to deal with those things. And I think that's obviously on both parts, the husbands or the wives. And I did not know how to deal with those things. And one of the things, just one, I mean, one of the unfoolish things that I did, or would do rather, I would often get my keys, pack my bag, get in my car, and I would allow my thoughts, my feelings, my emotions, my doubts, my fears to overwhelm me to the point that I really didn't think that our marriage would make it. I just, it was hard to believe that what we were experiencing, that a marriage could really make it through that. And it was several years after consistently going in a cyclical cycle of the arguing and fighting. And before I heard God's voice and I did hear him say, When will you stop fighting against your marriage and start fighting for your marriage? Because what I was doing was foolish. I was fighting in the marriage, somehow thinking that if I said enough or if I said the right things, or even if I brought the right scriptures, that somehow I could reason with my husband and that it could all be over. That never worked. The scriptures are true. You cannot win your husband with your words. You must win him by your conduct. And I've been married for nearly 30 years, and that still rings true today. No, I haven't gotten it right perfectly. I have grown, and that's why I'm thank God that I'm able to sit here to encourage you and show you that there is a better way. Anyways, I was unwise. And those, although God spoke to me, the arguments didn't stop immediately, the tension didn't stop, things that we were conflicted with, those things still continued for quite a while. But something did happen that was a great change and turnaround for our marriage. And that is, I started obeying God in the area of fighting for my marriage. How did I do that? I started in the place of prayer. I started saying what God was saying about our marriage, and I stopped believing my emotions, my feelings, my thoughts, and the things that I had been believing. I no longer held on to those. I rejected those things and started speaking what God was saying about our marriage, that what God had joined together, let no man separate, that two were better than one, that we were blessed, that our marriage was blessed, that we were the head and not the tail, the victor and not the victim, that no weapon formed against us will prosper. I start, even knowing that arguments in the tension and the strife was continuing, I continued in the place of prayer to speak what God was saying. And I refused to quit, regardless of what I was feeling, and regardless of what I was experiencing. That's the first place that God began to teach me to be wise in the place of prayer, was to begin to agree with God. So let's start with what Paul said first. Do not be unwise. I want to look at the first woman, the first wife, and the first, I believe, unwise person in the Bible. And that would be Eve. Now, Satan didn't present the fruit first. No, Satan, he questioned God first. And after he questioned God, he contradicted God. And then when he contradicted God, he offered up another alternative. What did Eve do? Let's let's look at it. Eve, she first listened. She listened to what Satan had to say. Remember when I said I would sit in my car, I would repeat these thoughts that it's never gonna change, that God isn't gonna turn it. How is this gonna work? We're gonna end in divorce. So I was listening to the thoughts, and obviously in the face of what I was experiencing, those things, arguing, fighting, disagreements, those things were real. But I still was listening to the voice of the enemy because I was not believing God's word in the face of what looked like it was the truth. It wasn't the truth, that God was still in our midst, that God still had blessed our marriage, and that God was still working on both of us. But Eve, she's the example of where we need to look to say, don't start at the place of listening to the enemy, don't allow the feelings, emotions, and thoughts and even desires overtake you. You first need to recognize that those feelings, those thoughts and emotions, those are things that God still has victory over. He still can will allow us through his word to be overcomers. God can turn it, he can change it. So an unwise wife is one who relies on her feelings, her thoughts, her emotions, her beliefs, and even her decisions. That's an unwise wife. Then Paul tells us, but understand what the will of the Lord is. The first thing is, is the scripture tells us, do not be conform to this world. Romans 12 and 2. Do not be conform to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds, that you may prove that which is good, God's good, perfect, and acceptable will. It is first in the place of being renewed in your mind. And how do you do that? You renew your mind by what God has said. You make the word of God the final authority over your life, over your marriage, over your children. Because when you do that, you are agreeing with God, you're not agreeing with your experience. You may have argued, you may have said the worst things to each other, you may have said it's over, you may have, you may have said divorce a hundred times. And I get it, we do that in the heat of an argument. But when you decide, even in the place of prayer, meaning like you may not be standing outside screaming or declaring the verses over your marriage. So when you're in the place of prayer, in the place of faith, you begin to declare what God has said, and you make his word the final authority, that your marriage is blessed, that your husband is blessed, that God is able. What God has begun in you, he will complete in you and in your husband. So the wise wife, she cements her thoughts, her feelings, her emotions, her beliefs, and her decisions to the word of God. That's what the wise wife does. That's how you understand what the will of the Lord is. The Bible says, Let your kingdom come and let your will be done. We see that with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He said that if it be thy will, take this bitter cup from me. But nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done. He speaks about his emotions. He doesn't want to go through this agony. He doesn't want to go to the cross, his feelings, his thoughts about it, but he surrendered. Jesus surrendered his emotions and his thoughts and his feelings to the word of God, to God's will. That's what we have to do. We have to submit our emotions, our feelings, and our thoughts to God's will. Not my will, but thy will be done. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth, in earth, in earthen vessels, as it is in heaven. When we agree with God's will, we get heaven on earth. It may not happen overnight. It didn't happen overnight for my marriage. But through it all, God saw us through moment by moment. He saw us through day by day, month by month, year by year. God has seen us through because we use and believed God's word as our final authority. Then Paul says, Do not be drunk with wine. Here, the picture here is that to get drunk is to be in your flesh, to be ruled by your flesh, to allow yourself to get to a place where you no longer have control over your decisions, over your thoughts, over your actions. He says, Don't allow your flesh to rule you. And Jesus, of course, said it even better. Matthew 26 and 41, Jesus said, Watch and pray lest you fall into temptation. For the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. You can't rely on your flesh. You can't trust your flesh. Your flesh will lie to you every time. And here, this is getting into a place of carnality. Of course, you have emotions. Of course, you have feelings that are real. We saw that with Jesus. But here we're talking about things that lead you to carnality, things that lead you to do and make decisions that are of this world. In Romans 6, that the flesh is at enity with God. It's separated from God. It can't obey God. The flesh does what it does, it sins. And so when you are making decisions in your flesh, the outcome is not going to be wise. The outcome is not going to be profitable. It's not going to be fruitful. And so then Paul tells us be filled with the Spirit. Be filled with the Spirit. This is a continual filling. Be filled with the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, letting him indwell in you through prayer, through songs, through worship, through praise, through the reading of your Bible, these spiritual disciplines. That the spiritual disciplines are our encounters with God when we read our Bibles, when we spend time in prayer, when we worship. That is us in relationship with God. Those are not just activities, those are things that draw us closer to his presence. And he comes close and we come closer to him. And so being filled requires you doing something that ensures that you are staying focused on your relationship, that you're cultivating your relationship with the Father. You can be a Christian and not read the word, but you can't be a follower and not read the word. Because a disciple is a follower of Christ. If you are a follower of Christ, Jesus said, pick up your cross, deny yourself, and follow me. And that means when you follow him, you're going to follow his word. You're going to follow and obey his word. Isaiah says, if you're willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land, but if you rebel and refuse, you will be devoured by the sword. So being filled with the Spirit requires you doing your part and God does the rest. Let's talk about the five wise virgins and the five foolish virgins. They all had oil, they all had lamps, they all were waiting on the bridegroom, they all fell asleep, they were all tired. There is one difference. Five virgins came prepared, and the others didn't. The oil represents the Holy Spirit, it represents our relationship with God, it represents our preparedness. And the foolish wives, the foolish virgins, they wanted to borrow oil. You can't borrow someone's relationship with God. You can't borrow their time in prayer. When you think about your marriage and you find it difficulty, and you find it extremely difficult, and you don't find that you have help, you have to ask yourself, am I spending time with God in prayer? Am I agreeing with God in prayer? Am I cultivating my own relationship with my heavenly father so that I don't choose my own way, so I don't go my own way, so I don't make a foolish decision. That's when you get to see what's really in you. Because many women in many marriages will be tested and tried. And you don't really get to see what you're made of until the trial comes. Difficulties, they actually show you the strength of your trust. Ease, it doesn't reveal your faith. In fact, ease is something like the courtship. Eve is like the dating time that you spent dating. It's all the fun, it's all the you know, romance and excitement. It just ease just shows you that maybe, you know, this is wonderful. This is what you've been dreaming of, this is what you've been hoping for. But it's not the true place where you get tested to see, it's not the true place where it reveals what's really in you. It's not the place where it really exposes what's in you. It reveals those beautiful qualities. As wise wives, we stay full of the spirit while we wait, while you wait on change, while we wait on restoration, while we wait on God's promises, because the Holy Spirit sustains us while we wait. He is ever present. We can have joy while we wait in difficult seasons. We can now encounter the peace of God while we wait during hardships. We can encounter the grace of God every moment and every second of the day. If we are allowing ourselves to be filled with the Spirit continually, the character of wisdom is found in James 3:17. It is first pure, peaceable, gentle, full of mercy and full of good fruits, willing to yield without partiality and without hypocrisy. This is the character of wisdom. So if you want to know, actually, do I have the wisdom that is from above? Are you pure in your thoughts pertaining to your marriage? Are you believing for your marriage? Believing for what God's will is for your marriage? Are you peaceable? Are you gentle? The Bible calls us to be gentle. Are you full of mercy? Are you willing to forgive because you've been forgiven? Are you full of good fruits? Are you showing kindness? Are you serving well? This is the character of wisdom operating in your life. You can't accomplish any of this on your own. You can't. If you even attempt to, you're gonna see that you will fail. But you can do this by continuing to be filled with the spirit because the Holy Spirit will bring about these character traits in your life. He will bring about transformation in your marriage. The Holy Spirit is the one who works it in us. He is the one that reveals these qualities in us because we've been abiding in him. You see, when you abide in him, the Bible says that if you abide in me and I in you, these are the characteristics that are fulfilled in our lives when we walk in God's wisdom and we continually are filled with God's spirit. God has called us to be wise wives. Women of God who consistently submit our thoughts, our emotions, our feelings, and our beliefs to the Word of God as the final authority. Women that refuse and reject to walk in the flesh and to live in the flesh. We make no provisions for the flesh or its lusts. And women who this is how we live, and this is how God transforms our marriages. My prayer is that every woman and every wife would join me on this journey, wisdom for wives, shaping women in truth for every generation, and that you will experience the same faithfulness and transformation that I have seen and my marriage has encountered. Thank you and God bless. Follow me on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. And you can email me at terra at wisdom for wives dot com.