The Second Happy by Pastor Kevin Myers

Scriptures: Matthew 19:4-6, Matthew 18:19-21, Proverbs 5:15-19

You Can Find a Better Happiness

Everyone wants a happy marriage. And nearly all marriages start out happy. Our marriage was no different. It started out happy as we enjoyed a honeymoon season, but it didn’t take long to lose a lot of that happiness. We think that’s pretty typical of marriages—or at least 99 percent of them. 

For most of us, we become less happy with our marriage as time goes along. It’s a lot like the way most of us feel about our houses after some time has passed. For example, when our kids were young, we became unhappy with the house we were living in, so Marcia and I went searching for a new one, specifically one with a big front yard for the kids. We found it, and we loved it—for a while. But the truth was that the master bathroom was small. I mean really small. The forty-two square foot space (it was seven feet by six feet) included a toilet, a shower, a sink, and a linen closet. We accepted that cramped footprint at first, but over time we became less happy with it.

What did we do? We sold it and moved into a new house. We were so happy. But after living there for a decade or so, parts of it became dated. Other parts were worn out. We started to get irritated by its flaws. So we had to make a decision: What were we going to do about it?

Rather than moving again, we chose to invest in the house and improve it. Over the last few years, we’ve renovated the master bathroom and closet, the kitchen, parts of the living room, and the basement. And guess what? We fell back in love with our house. We discovered the Second Happy in the same house.

The same thing can happen with a marriage. You may have become less happy with it than you were when you started. But here’s the great news: You don’t need to end your marriage and look for another one to be happy again. You just need to invest in the relationship you have to find the Second Happy. That’s really the way God designed marriage to be anyway—lasting and fulfilling.

Prayer: God, help my spouse and me to remodel our relationship so that with your help we discover the Second Happy in our marriage.

Scriptures: Exodus 17:8-16, Psalms 33:20-22

Get Your Hands Up!

Most people underestimate the power of prayer, and they don’t understand it. They see it as a religious activity, separate from the other parts of their life. They think there is a wall dividing the spiritual world from the physical world. 

But those two worlds—the unseen and the seen—cannot be separated. Those two worlds always work together and influence one another. If you want to have a successful marriage, you need to knock down that imaginary wall and enlist God’s help through prayer so you can win everyday battles.

The best picture in Scripture of this interaction between the spiritual and physical can be seen in Exodus 17. Joshua, Moses’s right-hand man, commanded the Israelites for the first time in battle. As the Israelites fought, Moses prayed, and God was answering his prayer. But when Moses grew weary and let his hands drop to his sides, the Amalekites gained the upper hand. When Moses raised his hands back up, the battle turned. “As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning” (v. 11).

I wonder how long it took for Moses to figure this out. Did he notice it first, or did Aaron or Hur, the men who went to the top of the hill with him? Did they have a hard time believing their eyes? Did they wonder how a real-world physical battle could be controlled by the hands-up battle of prayer? We know somebody figured it out because the passage says, “When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset” (v. 12).

No one who is married can afford to miss this. Prayer was not supplemental to winning the battle; it was instrumental. Too often we see prayer as passive, but it’s not. It’s vital. It’s foundational. It’s as critical to victory as Joshua and the fighters on the battlefield. Moses recognized there would be no victory unless he contended in hands-up prayer.

Have you figured out what Moses did yet? If you want to win in your marriage the way Moses and Joshua won in their battle, prayer isn’t optional. It’s a necessity. It’s life or death! Prayer was the only hope for Moses. It was the only hope for Marcia and me. And it is the only hope for you.

Become a warrior who fights for your marriage, but remember that prayer is more than half of the battle.

Prayer: Lord, teach me the true value of prayer. Help me to pray for my spouse. And reveal how my time with you makes a positive difference in the physical world.

Scriptures: James 1:6-10, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Pick a Fair Fight

Conflict in any marriage is inevitable. It’s impossible to agree on everything with your spouse because you’re two different individuals. How you deal with that conflict will determine the health and length of your marriage. You can pretend the conflict doesn’t exist and let it eat at you internally. You can become passive-aggressive, never really dealing with the problems or resolving them, creating a tense environment. You can get into verbal or physical brawls that create emotional and relational damage. Or you can do what Marcia and I eventually did: learn to fight fair.

Have you ever thought about the idea of a fair fight in marriage? Some people voluntarily agree to step into a literal ring or an octagon to face an opponent in an official contest. Those fights are planned, and they are designed to be fair. The two opponents agree to face each other. The event is scheduled, with the time and place mutually agreed upon. The fight has boundaries and specific rules. A referee makes sure the participants follow those rules. 

This kind of fight became our inspiration. What if Marcia and I could pick a fair fight? What if we could set up some boundaries—some fair-fight rules—and follow them to resolve our conflict? We learned by doing that, instead of one person’s hand being raised in victory at the other’s expense, we could finish with both of our hands raised in victory? That led us to create our fair fight rules:

How to Pick a Fair Fight

• Call for a fair fight without throwing any “punches.”
• Summarize the issue you want to fight about.
• Stop and set a date and time for the fight.
• Prepare to step into the ring fully engaged and ready to fight clean until the fight is done.
• Agree that the fight will end with a hug and an “I love you.”
• Agree on the penalty for anyone breaking any of the rules.

How to Fight Fair

Round 1: The less talkative person explains their perspective on the issue, “speaking the truth in love,” while the other person listens without interrupting.

Round 2: The listener communicates the heart and message of the speaker back to them until the speaker agrees that the listener understands them. 

Round 3: The two change roles, and the more talkative person shares their perspective on the issue, and the other person listens. 

Round 4: The new listener communicates the heart and message of the new speaker back to them until the new speaker agrees that the new listener understands them. 

Round 5: The less talkative person offers their solution while the other person listens without interrupting.

Round 6: The more talkative person offers their solution while the other person listens without interrupting. 

Round 7: Both people freely discuss possible solutions until they agree to a solution they both think they can live with. They agree to pray about it.

Round 8: At this point, the fight has ended. After they pray about the solution, if they find peace, they both commit to it. If not, they repeat rounds 5 through 8. If they still can’t find resolution, they bring in a pastor or counselor as a referee to help them.

Prayer: Lord, help me to become better at listening and understanding instead of getting my way, and help my spouse and me to resolve conflict in a way that honors you and builds our marriage. 

Scriptures: Genesis 2:24, Romans 12:9-12

Slow Down or Speed Up?

Marriage is unlike any other relationship on earth. It is the only relationship that God ordained for oneness. This oneness is not a romantic notion; it is a new condition a couple enters when they get married. It’s not an emotion or a feeling; it’s a fact that defines who they are. And it becomes physical through sex. No wonder Jesus said that adultery is a violation of the oneness of marriage. Oneness is sacred. It is a deep bond between a man and a woman both emotionally and physically and is meant to endure until death separates them.

Oneness is the highest value in marriage. It’s much greater than unity. When you live it out, you’re experiencing marriage the way God envisioned it. You’re making your marriage happier than your honeymoon, because you’re experiencing sustained oneness as a couple, not the fleeting thrill and novelty of oneness that you felt on your honeymoon.

Oneness requires us to submit to one another. If you’re looking for a practical “nonspiritual” application for how Marcia and I do this to maintain oneness, we’ll give you an example. Marcia is a runner, and I’m not. I’m happy to go on walks with her, and we’ve covered many miles at that pace. However, Marcia spends many hours running every week, and I want to be with her more. So guess what I decided to do? Spend some time running with her. My goal was to be capable of running the first three miles with her on  a run. That makes me what? Her warm-up band? Anyway, after three miles, she continues on the seven, ten, fifteen, or however many miles she’s planned to do.

So, on many days, we run together. But we immediately discovered something the first time we did this. She’s a runner, and I’m at best a jogger. We don’t run at the same pace. I had to speed up to be with her, and even then, she had to slow down to be with me. She has chosen to do that for her first three miles.

Perhaps you’re getting the picture. Marriage thrives when we figure out what it means to be in sync with each other. It usually means one person has to speed up a bit and the other has to slow down a bit. This is a principle you can apply to any aspect of your marriage: money management, career aspirations, the processing of emotional baggage, spiritual growth, decision making, etc. Submitting to one another means subjugating your will for the benefit of your spouse and for the oneness in your marriage.

Prayer: Lord, please help me to value my spouse above myself, adjust to my spouse’s pace, and make the changes in myself to create and preserve oneness in my marriage.

Scriptures: Matthew 23:1-12, Matthew 7:1-5

Evict the Elephants from Your Marriage

There’s a phrase for disregarding a big problem. It’s called ignoring the elephant in the room. Imagine if a real elephant walked into your living room with your family, and you pretended not to notice: a huge elephant of a problem wreaking havoc on our household, blasting our ears with its trumpeting, and assaulting our noses with its pooping, and pretending it’s not there. The absurdity of it reminds me of a cartoon I once saw where an elephant is lying on a psychiatrist’s couch and lamenting, “Sometimes even if I stand in the middle of the room, no one acknowledges me!”

Yet that’s what we often do in our marriages and families. In my family of origin, we ignored the elephants, and we knew not to say anything about them. We learned to pretend that everything was fine. We became the Fine Family. We put all our efforts into trying to look better than we actually lived. And we never addressed our real problems. We ignored the temper tantrums. The fights between mom and dad. The yelling and the cursing. The violence. The financial mismanagement, poor work ethic, pornography, adultery, and hypocrisy.

Pretense! What a great strategy for success! If you don’t talk about  the elephant, you’ll be fine. Right? Nope. Our elephants never went away. And we were not fine. We were deeply broken.

I’m not attacking my parents or my family. Lord knows I’m not good enough to condemn anyone else. What I’m saying is that pretense kills. Ignoring problems and being silent about them is a death sentence to a marriage. And to a family. My parents divorced when I was in middle school. Our family pretense ruined my early life. And if you don’t deal with it, pretense might ruin yours.

How do you begin to evict your elephants? First, evict the elephant inwardly. At its core, pretense is rooted in self-deception. You have to say to yourself, “I have a problem, and I’m going to stop pretending I don’t.”

Second, you have to evict the elephant outwardly. You need to go to your spouse or your family and say, “There’s an elephant in the room with us, and we need to deal with it to have a better, richer, happier life.” Begin talking with your spouse about the problem and you will be on your way to getting that elephant out of the house. But you’ll need to take one more step to complete the process.

Third, you have to solve the problems one shovelful at a time. You must take action to change. And you have to work your way out of the consequences of your actions. That may feel daunting. Just focus on one shovelful of the fallout at a time.

Prayer: Lord, show me the elephants I am ignoring in my life, give me the conviction to name and confront them, the courage to bring them up with my spouse, and the power to remove the fallout of them one shovelful at a time.

Scriptures: Romans 12:10, John 15:12-13, Ephesians 5:21-33

Who’s the boss in your marriage? 

When we’re growing up, we know who’s the boss. We start life with parents, and they are in charge. If they love you and follow God’s design for your development, it’s great. Parents who lead well and create a loving, healthy environment usually have kids who flourish. But even in cases where parents don’t do a great job—or when we disagree with good parents—we still know they are in charge. Mom or Dad is the boss.

Then, when we go to school, our teachers and the principal are the bosses. When we learn to drive, we realize quickly the police officer is the boss when it comes to speed limits. Marcia and I have enough tickets to confirm this!  And on it goes. 

But here’s the question: who’s the boss in your marriage? If there is the least bit of tension over who’s in charge, if there is a battle of the wills, if there is confrontation about who should have the last word, you need to recognize that for what it is: You’re fighting to be the boss of your marriage instead of recognizing that you already have a boss—and it’s neither of you.

Who’s the boss? God! God is the boss of your marriage. The husband and wife are called to experience oneness, not to bicker over who’s the boss. 

Marcia and I are both strong willed and stubborn. Early in our marriage, we had to learn to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. To wash one another’s feet. To put the other ahead of ourselves. That’s a practice we describe as mutual voluntary submission.

Mutual voluntary submission is one of the most biblically radical insights we’ve ever learned. The whole idea of submitting to one another and honoring one is revolutionary in a world full of people who are trying to get others to submit to them so they can impose their will on others. But it is the golden nugget at the core of oneness in a marriage. It transformed us. It wasn’t until we practiced mutual voluntary submission and acknowledged that God was the boss of our marriage that we truly experienced the oneness we desired. Only through mutual voluntary submission were we able to create the unmatched happiness of oneness that every married couple desires. Honoring one another above ourselves is an internal and external expression of true love.

Prayer: Lord you are the boss of my marriage, not me. Please show me where I need to submit to and honor my spouse in reverence to you, and help me to do it with a cheerful and grateful heart. 

Scriptures: Proverbs 15:1, Proverbs 29:11, Proverbs 15:18, Ephesians 4:29-32, James 1:19-20

Put Out the Fire

Early in my career as a pastor, I heard John Maxwell teach a concept that I’ve often used in my marriage, family, leadership, and church. It’s a simple concept, but I think it is one of the clearest pictures and the most profound practices for developing and maintaining healthy relationships. 

Here’s the concept. Imagine that everyone carries around two buckets in life. Every day. Everywhere. One bucket contains gasoline, and the other contains water. How you use those buckets will either build things up or burn things down in your life. This idea has transformed my life and my marriage. And its value has only increased over the years. Marcia and I believe that if you choose your bucket wisely, it will not only build your marriage, but it will change your life.

Whenever a problem arises—a spark of disagreement, an ember of anger, a flame of offense—when you respond, you choose one of the two buckets and pour it on the problem. If you choose the water bucket, you extinguish the flames and stop the fire. If you choose the gasoline bucket, you turn that small spark into a raging, destructive fire. That’s all there is to it. In a window of time as brief as two seconds, you make a choice of which bucket to use.

Almost anything can start a fire in your marriage. It can be something as small as a misunderstanding, an unkind word, an unmet expectation, or even some imaginary offenses. Or the problem can be much greater, such as broken trust, a betrayal, or adultery. No matter the size of the spark, when you fight fire with fire by pouring gasoline on it, what blows up is your marriage.

If Marcia and I could convince you of one thing, it would be the power of the water bucket to calm conflict, diffuse anger, prevent malice, and diminish disrespect toward one another. The power of the water bucket can revive a marriage through forgiveness. It can wash away bitterness. If you have become bitter and feel imprisoned by it, know that you hold the key to unlock the door and let yourself out whenever you choose. All it takes is a commitment to choose the right bucket.

Prayer: Lord, please help me to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Help me to be kind and build up my spouse in even the most challenging circumstances.