Jeremy:
Want to talk a little bit about, what do you do when you are beginning to look around at other women and you’re beginning to get frustrated with your relationship with your wife? There’s a moment in most marriages where men begin to compare their wives with other women, and they begin to dream, think about, maybe you’re in a hard season with your wife. And so you’re beginning to think about, “Oh, did I make a mistake?” Or “Maybe my life would be so much better if I was with her instead of my wife.” And I just want to get really real with you guys. There’s a proverb that for me, has really helped just change the whole frame of that line of thinking and not really give that space to the enemy.

And it’s in Proverbs 19:14, and it says “Houses and wealth are inherited from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.” There’s a bunch of proverbs that say this, there’s a bunch of verses in the Bible that talk about this, but this is the frame you guys. What the Bible really teaches is that wives are a gift to men from the Lord. This is all the way back from the beginning with Adam and Eve, God looked at him and said, “Oh, you poor guy. You need help. Let me make a wife for you.” And so he crafted Eve and gave Adam the gift of his wife.

Now, the way that I think of this is this is a little bit different than I think the way we generally think is that we encounter the world as men who are looking for a wife. We’re like, “Oh, there’s thousands of options. And I got to pick one.” And we pick one and we get married. And then we’re like, “Oh, did I pick the right one?” And so the way that we frame this conversation always within our own heart is, “Did I make the right choice?” And that kind of framing is going to potentially lead, particularly in hard seasons with your wife, to endless questions about, “Maybe I made a bad decision.” That’s a huge burden to put on your heart and to put on your marriage.

I think that that’s actually giving into a lie. This is the truth I think you guys. The truth is the wife that you have right now is a gift from the Lord. And you should not compare her to the thousands of other women that you might’ve chosen. You should compare her to being alone. You should compare her as if there was no one else in the world. Once you’re married, you should think about it this way. Whoever you marry, that is a gift from the Lord. The Lord said, “Oh, you were alone, Bill, Bob, Jim. I want to give you a gift. I love you. I don’t want you to be alone. I’m going to give you a wife.”

So if you were to take a step back and think about compare having your wife, and your relationship with her, and all of the blessings and goodness that she brings into your life, do not compare her to some other woman. Compare her to you being alone, as if you had no one else, because that’s the state you are in when the Lord gave you this gift. And if you really believe that, if you really believe what this proverb says, which is that it says that “A prudent wife is from the Lord.” Then you will constantly feel a well of gratitude spring up in your heart, even through hard seasons.

Because I think you guys, that it is absolutely unquestionably true that I am so much better off being with April than being alone. I am so glad that God has given me her as a wife. And I’m not saying that in a way to compare her to other women, because I have no idea what it’s like to be married to other women. I don’t care. I know what it was like to be alone. And it sucked. I was horrible as a person alone. I was a miserable person. I lacked self control. I was very lonely. And so for me, whatever challenges we meet in our married life, in our family life, I feel unbelievably blessed from the Lord that he gave me the gift of a wife.

And so I think it’s been super helpful because this comparison game is cancerous. And if it starts to well up in your heart, you’re not only doing something that could violate your marriage and your family in the future, but you’re doing something that is really not true according to the scripture. You’re saying, “God can give give me that gift and that gift and that gift,” but God didn’t give you those gifts. God gave you your wife, and he didn’t want you to be alone. He loved you enough to say, “I don’t want you to live your life alone. You need to have that person in your life.” So this frame for me, just really believing it and just preaching the truth of it to your own heart of what this verse is saying, what the Bible says from the beginning to end that wives are not something that we deserve. They’re not something that we earned. They are a gift from the Lord. What are your thoughts about this, Jeff?

Jeff:
Yeah, I agree. And this is huge because it really is the battle, which is actually the scriptural battle of all spiritual formation, the battle versus entitlement and thankfulness. That if you believe you’re entitled to something, then you will nitpick it through a filter of judging it, or that you deserved it, or that it’s good enough or whatever. And that is just horrible. It’s corrosive, it’s acidic. And it can do that. It’ll do that. All those things, it’ll do that to your marriage. It’ll corrode the marital intimacy. Then God’s design is thankfulness. Thankfulness for a gift. When you get a gift, you’re thankful. When you think you earned it, you’re not thankful because you think you earned it. But God wants us to be thankful for the gift of marriage, for the gift of a spouse, for the gift of a wife.

And like you said, Jeremy, I think, yeah, once you start seeing that, I know at least in our marriage, man, I wouldn’t be the half the man I am today. I wouldn’t be half of even the things I’m really proud of in regards to integrity or character, hopefully and all these other things if I wasn’t actually married to Alyssa, because she in a weird way pushes me there. She forms me in that direction. And yeah, like you said, I had way less self control. I was way less formed. I was way less… I wasn’t the best version of myself in Jesus until I got married. Now, of course that’s different if you’re single and et cetera, we’re not saying that you can’t be the best version of yourself unless you’re married.

We’re not saying that at all. But when God puts you in that context, then he had that design for you, he had that idea, and that call on your life. And then it takes you in a certain direction. And then one last thing I’ll say too, is this is huge guys, because I think there’s two different ways this plays out. There’s one way this plays out, in the more just normal way when you see other wives and other marriages, and then resentment starts to build up, and you start to measure and do all these things, that’s really corrosive to your own heart. That one’s bad. But I also think we have to have the conversation about even pornography, because then I think there’s also this really corrosive idea in fatherhood or among men that you start then comparing.

Because I think over here, you compare your wife to wives. And then in the pornography side, and lust, and all those aides, I think you compare your wife to women. Does that make sense? This weird ideal version, and this fake version, this evil version, that’s in the pornographic industry, and that’s just as corrosive. So there’s kind of these two roads. And just guys, I want to let you hear us, that if there’s any semblance of porn or any battle of porn going on, you have to claw absolutely as hard as you possibly can out of that with professional help, with counseling, with church help, with accountability, whatever it is. Yeah, you can come in, buddy. This is the last episode. But could we just be a little quiet? I got to finish this, okay? Do you want to come sit up here? Okay. And then the one last thing I’ll say too, is what Jeremy said is… Oh, he’s naked. So I have a naked butt sitting on me.

Jeff:
This is Five Minute Fatherhood right here. One thing I’ll say too is that-

Jeremy:
Hey, Kannon!

Jeff:
Can you say hi to Uncle Jeremy?

Kannon:
Hi!

Jeff:
One thing I’ll say too, is that Genesis, like you said, Eve wasn’t just Eve to Adam. Eve was woman to Adam. So Eve was the very standard of… Eve represented womanhood to Adam. Eve didn’t just represent Eve, if that makes sense. And so we have to let our wives be that same standard of beauty and standard of womanhood, because he had nothing else to compare it to so she represented the entire genre of womanhood.

Jeremy:
I love that.

Jeff:
Can you say that about your wife, that God has actually called you and your wife together and that she is the standard of beauty. She’s the standard of womanhood.

But that’s what I would say for that one is, can you say the wife is the standard of beauty? So we’ve got to get going. I think this guy wants something, but we love the guys, this was a fun episode.