Dr. Ron Sumners
January 31, 2010
A young minister and his wife came to me for counseling years ago. After four troubled years of marriage and two children, they were contemplating divorce. She was the saddest looking wife I have ever seen. The husband nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other, while his wife sobbed out her confession.
“There is absolutely no hope for our marriage now,” she cried. “We are in two different worlds. He is so wrapped up in his work; he has no time for me and the children. My whole world has been wrapped up in him; but now I’m tired of sitting at home, waiting for him. I am so unhappy. I’m not accomplishing anything on my own. I don’t even know if I love him anymore.”
It hurt me to see such a beautiful young couple acting like strangers to each other. I recognized the cause of their problem immediately. Both were bored, restless and unhappy with each other.
Almost all young couples in the ministry go through some of this difficulty. They once stood before a minister with their hearts filled with hope and anticipation that the marriage would be happy and fulfilling. Now, just a few years later, their hopes are in ashes. They have become disillusioned, and, try as they may, they can’t seem to rekindle the spark of first love.
I looked at the young wife and said, “What a shame that all your happiness depends only on what your husband does. You are telling me that if your husband spends less time in church work, and spends a little more time with you, then you will find a little happiness. When he lets you down you have nothing left. Your whole world rises and falls on the actions of your husband. That is why you feel so empty.”
She had not expected that reply and she nodded sheepishly that it was true. She had depended on her husband to make her happy and he wasn’t doing his job because she wasn’t happy.
Surely there were some time issues and priority issues that the young minister had to work on. If she expected or if he promised to make her happy, she was asking and he was pledging the impossible! They both came to realize that their happiness would come from a new relationship with God!
Many husbands and wives are becoming emotional cripples who lean on each other, causing both to fall. We mess up our relationships because we live under the influence of a lie. We have convinced ourselves that we have a right to happiness and that our spouses are morally obligated to create it for us. The danger of that lie is that when we can’t find the happiness that we expect from them, we put all the blame on their failure to do what was right for us!
Our divorce courts today are overcrowded with husbands and wives seeking divorce simply on the grounds that their marriage gives them no happiness. One such divorced husband told me, “God bless my wife, she tried so hard. I had hoped that she could learn to understand me and meet my needs. She just didn’t have it in her. She did not know how to make me happy.”
The man probably got married once or twice more, hoping a new wife would succeed where the first one failed. Some keep marching down the aisle with one new partner after another, trying desperately to find one understanding soul-mate who will create happiness for them. They seldom find it. Their misery and unhappiness increase with each new relationship.
No other human being on earth can create happiness for you. You must create it for yourself through the work of God in your own life. Marriage is not made up of two halves trying to become a whole! Marriage consists of two whole people who are bridged by the Spirit of God. Marriage never works unless each party maintains his or her identity, settles their own values, finds their own sense of fulfillment, and discovers their own source of happiness. Each must be complete, through the Lord.
Why allow what someone else does to destroy your life? Why let the actions of another rob you of your peace and joy? Look life straight in the eye and say, “From now on, I will not allow someone else to drag me down. I am determined to be a whole person, and I will be happy because of my relationship to God. No more leaning on someone else to give meaning and purpose to my life! I want a happiness that will not be lost just because somebody fails me.”
Let me say to all the housewives and working moms here today, “Step out of your bondage of living your life only through others. You are not just your husband’s wife or your children’s mother. As important as those roles are, you are so much more. You are a whole, complete person!” I am not suggesting that you forsake family, just forsake the notion that your happiness can come only from your relationship with them. God wants you to live a life of happiness and contentment. I know you do all the things you do out of love and do not begrudge any of the tasks you perform for your family, but don’t forsake your happiness while you seek your happiness through the ones you love. “They can’t make you happy.”
This is also a message that every young person must heed to the pressures of broken relationships so common today. How can young people be happy when their parents are splitting up and their security is crumbling? They, too, need to learn not to depend on others for their happiness.
We must give ourselves to the needs of others. We must help heal the hurts of those we love. We must help with the burdens of others, but we can do all this when we are happy with ourselves.
We can help others find joy and happiness only after we have found ourselves in the Lord.
I believe that the way to come to true happiness does not depend on what others do. It is a happiness that does not come and go, and it is not affected by the moods, words, or actions of people in my life – even those I love the most. What is the secret? I have discovered that my needs are basically spiritual, not physical. Our basic human needs include food, water, shelter, and the air we breathe. Beyond that, our needs are spiritual. And those cannot be met by any human being. Most unhappiness is a result of trying to meet our needs through human relationships. When another human being fails to meet our needs, we become frustrated and unhappy. For example, the husband comes home from work tired, short-tempered, and feeling a need for a kind, understanding word from his wife. He is depressed, and he wants his wife to make him feel better. In turn, his wife has her own needs. She is exhausted, feeling down, lonely and wanting him to lift her spirits. So, they lean on each other. The unspoken message rings out, “I’m hurting honey, heal me. I’m depressed, make me happy. I’m blue, take the blues away. I am in need, meet that need.”
Of course, neither of them can adequately meet the other’s needs; the needs are spiritual and only God can meet those needs. You can be in the arms of the one you love all night and still awake crying inside. The discovery is soon made that those needs cannot be met by sexual intimacy or by tender words.
We expect our spouses to do Godlike work. We expect miracles of them. We know only that we have overwhelming need and it must be met!
I have had lonely people tell me, “If only God would give me someone to love, I’d be such a better person and a better Christian. I know that all my unhappiness is a result of being so alone all the time. I need a friend, a new husband or a new wife, only then will I be happy.”
I say, in love, “Not so!” Another person may give you temporary relief from the loneliness, but unless you are a whole person, with your own source of inner strength, the old feelings of despair and loneliness will once again overwhelm you.
In a previous pastorate, I had a young divorced woman come to visit me for counseling and introduced herself as the loneliest woman in South Carolina. She said, “If I could only get my husband back. I want him back so badly. I know I messed up our marriage – I was so crazy and immature. I think I have grown up. I’ve matured. I know I can do it right this time. Preacher, would you pray that God will send my husband back to me? If he doesn’t come back, I think I’ll just go and find a man that wants a woman to be with. At least I wouldn’t feel so lonely.”
I told her that I would not pray for his return, because she was not ready for him. She would mess up all over again. Why? Because she was still not a whole person. She was ready to abandon her morals if he did not come home to try once again to make her happy. That is why many people do not get their prayers answered as they desire. They are not ready to try again.
They would make the same mistakes all over again! They are still leaning on others, always using someone else as a crutch to hold them up, they have not become whole persons, and they are not complete in themselves.
God alone is the only source of all happiness and contentment. Paul said, “…my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in the glory of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19) It is not your husband or your wife, pastor, psychiatrist, or your best friend, only God! Go ahead and share your problems with your friends, pastor and especially with your spouse. In the final analysis, you must turn to God and allow Him to make you whole!
When your relationship with the Lord is wrong, it affects all human relationships, especially those with our wife or husband!
You can be happy! You can be joyous! You can be a whole person, and you never need again lean on another human being. That is not to say that we do not need each other. We need the prayer, help and comfort of loving friends and family. But there can be no lasting happiness if we expect others to create it for us.
Why not allow God to renew your heart, renew a right spirit within you, and reveal to you that in His presence there is fullness of joy and pleasures evermore? That is why Jesus said, “Be of good cheer…Lo, I am with you always…” (Matthew 27).
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