When a Wife Encourages Her Man

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Proverbs 31 is well known to many people. It's about the attributes of what we call a godly wife.

And one of the verses in Proverbs, chapter 31, is she opens her mouth with wisdom and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.

And I'm John Fuller, along with Dr. Greg Smalley and his wife Erin, who lead the marriage team here.

You talked to a lot of couples. You have a vibrant counseling practice.

Last time we mentioned you're also doing a doctorate. You're kind of busy. You're a mom and obviously you've got a very loving husband right there next to you.

What would you say just kind of a top-of-the-head estimate for the couples who come in?

One of the reasons they're seeing you in a counseling office is because she's not encouraging her husband in a way that's meaningful to him.

Oftentimes when couples come in, John, there's been pain. And so pain and hurt impacts the heart.

The heart that's closed doesn't encourage because typically when a, especially a wife comes in and the husband saying,

well, I need her to encourage me. She's dealing with her own pain. And her heart's probably closed, maybe calcified, maybe hardened because there's been a pattern of something that has inflicted pain.

And her heart doesn't feel safe. The good news is she can really focus on getting her heart back open regardless of what her husband does or doesn't do.

It doesn't mean relationally that everything's okay, but she between her and the Lord can get her heart back open.

And a heart that's open is going to exude kindness and encouragement.

And most women honestly want to encourage and they're willing to, especially when a husband brings something to them and says,

man, I'm struggling with this thing because generally speaking, wives access the empathy part of their brain quicker.

So it really is something that typically will come more naturally, but not always.

Yeah. And we're going to hear now from somebody who said, I had to learn this and Wilson.

So let's go ahead and turn to a conversation, focus on the family president, Jim daily head on his show with Dave and Ann Wilson.

And I think that's the, yeah, if you were to look at our emotional gas tank, I don't know about you, Dave or John.

But I mean, your wife is the one that gives you nine tenths of the gas in that tank.

It's not, it's not the stage.

We have no idea.

It's not the stage accolades. I mean, for me like that, people will say, oh, Jim, that's a great speech.

You're so insightful. It just bounces off of me.

And what matters the most to me is what is Gene thinking about?

You know, and that that's the right thing, but it's also a very cutting thing if that's not wielded.

I came home one night on a fall weekend for me back in the day when I was the lion's chaplain.

I would preach twice on a Saturday night and go down to the team hotel, down a Detroit, do chapel for the team.

So give another seven basically come home, sleep, do three more preaches Sunday morning, and then go to the game, be on the sideline.

And we probably lost.

And so then I come home.

A different era for the wise now.

It's awesome. Why am I not to do chapel made all the difference?

Yeah, I guess the new javelin did it.

But I'm going to forget this one night.

I crawled about it like 1130.

And I just make this comment to Anne and I'm exhausted.

All I want to do is go sleep.

And I said, man, I'm getting a lot of critiques lately on my sermons.

And back then we had these little cards that people were supposed to write prayer requests on.

They wrote critiques on, you know, in pencil and no name.

So they're not honest, but I was getting some negatives.

And so I just say that as I'm crawling to bed.

And her response was.

This is how it's just what you said, Jim.

Well, what had happened was I felt like I was starting to get control of my life, my thoughts, my words.

And so I felt like God was saying pay attention to your words.

And I started asking myself the question, should I say this, whatever comes to my head?

That was the first question.

Yes. Should I say it?

Should I say it?

Asking God, should I say this?

And then if he gives me the green light, when should I say it?

And how should I say it?

So Dave made that comment as I was getting into bed.

I asked, and here's what I thought.

This is what I thought.

And I would have said it generally.

I thought, well, if you would spend more time on your sermon prep and being in the word,

your sermons would be way better.

I would have said that naturally.

And so I asked God, should I say that?

No.

No.

And then I prayed this prayer, God, should I say anything?

And then this thought came to my mind and I said it.

I can't imagine what it's like to be you.

Like you have thousands of people depending on your walk with God.

What a weighty thing to carry.

And then there was silence.

And then Dave leaned in, hugged me and whispered in my ear.

You are my life.

Wow.

And what if I was saying, you just spent more time studying the word?

But Jim, what happened is I did not think, I'm going to pull her to myself and say,

it just spontaneously happened.

Why?

Just what you said.

If somebody that's a stranger or, you know, someone comes up and says something good to you,

I'm going to throw out players when they do that.

You know, the fans come up and the players look at me and they go, they don't know.

Yeah.

So you smile and you say, thank you.

But when somebody that knows the good and the ugly and the bad says, you're amazing.

It's the gospel.

You're powerful wives.

You understand that's your, this whole book that Ann wrote, I think is about the theme is,

God has given you women influence and power beyond what you can imagine.

So true.

And you can use it to encourage or discourage.

Man, when you understand how God has gifted you and put you in this position,

wow, you can bring life to your man and bring life to your marriage and bring life to your legacy.

I mean, that's, that's sort of the whole idea.

God has given you a gift that you can use.

No, it's so true.

And I, just a sidebar here, you know, with Christian leadership.

If, if you're in that, a pastor, senior pastor, et cetera, if those things are feeding your ego,

you're in trouble.

Oh, yes.

They should be bouncing off you because you should know yourself well enough to know you're not that good.

Exactly.

And if you think you're that good, you're in trouble.

Yeah.

And I think what you'd refer to, I'm a visual learner and teacher.

And so as I was discovering this, and actually it was Gary Smalley too,

who showed, did this years ago about this plant illustration.

And Gary, do you remember this?

Oh, this is 80s.

Yes.

Yeah.

He was so good.

He was so good.

He was so good.

I know.

So I thought, oh, Greg probably remembers him doing this too.

But I put a plant on the stage because I thought I need women to understand the power that we carry

and how this affects our men.

And so I had a plant on the stage.

I said, this plant is like our men.

You know, we're like, this is the one I want to marry.

Look at him.

He's green and lush.

But then we're married a while and we say, oh, look, he's got a brown leaf.

And it's my job to get rid of that brown leaf.

So we get our little scissors and we prune it a little bit.

And then we're married even longer.

Like there's all kinds of leaves.

And it's my job to fix him.

So we see all those flaws and we get the hedge clippers out now.

And we're just cutting down everything because you're not romantic.

You don't talk anymore.

All you want to do is watch ESPN.

So we're telling them, and our kids, we're just chopping away to the point where there's a stump of a man left

because we've cut all of these great leaves off of him.

And the first time I did that, it was at our church at a thing that we were doing.

And there was this couple sitting in the auditorium.

Everyone had left except for this couple probably in their 80s.

Oh, boy.

You guys, it makes me tear you thinking of it because there's a man who's sitting there leaned over.

He's crying and the tears are just popping on the floor.

And his wife's beside him, I walk up to them and I said, what's going on?

And she said, I don't know.

Ever since you did that plant chopping thing, he's been crying.

And he lifted his head and he points to the stump of the plant.

And he said, that is me.

Wow.

And she said, I had no idea.

I really thought I've been helping him all these years.

Wow.

Well, Greg, it seems like in some respects, every man out there is really just a little boy.

We need encouragement.

And we really want that encouragement from our wives.

How has Aaron's encouragement to you through the years been meaningful?

What did she do or say that showed you?

I'm with you.

I'm with you.

Yeah.

You're right.

It is important because women do such a good job with each other, of validating, encouraging,

speaking life, pointing out, I love those shoes.

Where did you get that?

You know, new shirt, you're whatever.

We just don't do that as guys, typically.

Nice police by the way.

Right.

Yeah.

I feel the judgment from both of you right now.

Comfortable.

So what is so amazing when Aaron, when she validates, when she affirms me, one, it makes me feel seen.

And so the fact that she's pointing out something that she notices either about what I've done or who I am, that I feel very seen.

That's a big deal, especially in this world where oftentimes we can feel alone, we can feel isolated, we can feel unseen.

So I know for me that that's a big one.

I think it also gives me a confidence that when she's affirming something, when she's encouraging me, I acquire something.

I acquire a courage to really go out and face whatever is going on in my life.

And you know, Aaron, when Aaron and I teach, we often talk about this word encourage means to make courageous.

And so when Aaron is encouraging me, I'm gaining some courage to go out and hit the ground running, sort of speak.

And so I feel seen, I feel this bolstered and courage in my life.

And I think that it's easy because Satan's always going after our minds to convinces that we don't have what it takes, that we're not good enough, that we're a failure, that whatever.

I think many wives would be surprised to realize that.

Just that inner voice that I think Satan really contributes.

I mean, I certainly contribute to that old recording that I hear, you know, you can't do it, you're never going to do it right.

Just screw it, whatever those are.

And that's what I so appreciate, Aaron, about when you point something out, when you encourage me, when you say,

here's what I notice about you, there really speaks against that.

It's a part of how I combat, then Satan's lies is, you know, my relationship with the Lord, his truth, but also Aaron, as my greatest fan and support and cheerleader.

And that's at least how it impacts me.

So it's hard to even put in the words, the depth of how meaningful it is when Aaron, when you encourage me, and that's a big deal.

And it's hard because it's hard to ask for that kind of stuff.

Yeah, you don't want to go say, hey, yeah, how'd I do? How'd I do?

Yeah, but there's say something good about you.

Well, you do say every day.

One of the most painful things when we're going through something difficult is feeling alone.

And so in those moments, when I'm able to encourage Greg or when he's able to encourage me is the fact that we are no longer alone in it.

And we were not created to journey this life alone.

God created marriage, and we get a journeying buddy that we can walk through those trials with, as well as God is always available.

And he created us to be in community.

So so powerful when Greg is able to ask me or I see an opportunity to encourage, to make courageous, to change the whole dynamic of everything.

Yeah, and that's what Anne was talking about as well in the conversation.

And she's written this terrific book, how to speak life to your husband when all you want to do is yell at him.

It's a great title.

And I think you heard the heart of Anne and Dave both.

This marriage relationship is meant for both of you to show up and do the encouraging.

In this case, the target audience for Anne's book is wives.

She wants to empower you to reach out into your husband's life and give him that courage.

Get a copy of the book from us here at Focus on the Family.

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800, the letter A in the word family.

Next time we'll hear from Dr. Gary Chapman.

He'll have three questions that you can ask your spouse to have a better relationship.

For now, on behalf of Greg and Erin Smolley and the entire team, I'm John Fuller and thanks for listening to The Focus on the Family Strengthening Marriage Podcast.

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