The Love You Long For: Jared C. & Becky Wilson

Becky: First of all, you have to completely just separate your heart condition—your spiritual condition—completely from any man in your life. You have to do business with Jesus before you even think about whoever it is that is hurting you, maybe, or causing you grief. That relationship has to come first. Once you get that relationship right, and pray through all the other things, I think the Lord will very specifically guide you.

Shelby: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Ann: This is FamilyLife Today!

Dave: We’re back to Day 2 of a miniseries—[Laughter]

Ann: —yes, we are.

Dave: —called “The Jared and Beck Wilson Story.” [Laughter]

Ann: Sounds like our siblings or our brothers.

Dave: People are asking, “Are these brothers or…?” No, they’re friends!

Jared: Brothers in Christ.

Dave: Brothers in Christ; brothers and sisters in Christ. Welcome back to FamilyLife Today.

Somehow, we’re talking about your book, Love Me Anyway, which definitely is part of the story; but man, yesterday, you started diving into your story. You probably don’t know our story, but somewhat similar. I had a porn struggle early in our marriage, and it was a secret, and I was a pastor. It was similar, but different. It’s not about us; it’s about you guys today.

Yesterday, as we walked through—again, if you’re a listener, and you didn’t hear yesterday, I’d say, “Hit the pause button. Go listen, and then, come back.” Because it’s truly a two-parter. The first part is where he gets to the point where—Becky, you were so honest: “This is not the guy I thought God was going to bring me to marry,” because you wanted a spiritual leader in your home.

Becky: Yes.

Ann: You got to the point where you were mad at God, because you felt like He didn’t answer this longing and this prayer that you had your whole life for a man to really be leading, spiritually. Even though you had a great dad, he didn’t have the spiritual component, and you were longing for that.

Becky: That’s right.

Ann: And Jared, you had been in depression. You guys weren’t even living in the same part of the house. You were in your own bedroom. But out of your desperation and depression, you called out to God. He met you.

Jared: Yes.

Ann: It’s miraculous, really.

And Becky is kind of watching you like, “Hmmm.” [Laughter] “Is this the real thing?”

And then, we ended with, Becky, you realized that your hope isn’t going to come from Jared. It’s going to come from Jesus.

Becky: That’s right; that’s right.

Dave: So how—did the love come back?

Becky: It did; oh, man. Of course, none of us would ever wish a situation like this on anyone—

Ann: —ever.

Becky: —but what I’ve learned is that the Lord does not waste a thing. Man, the conversations I can have with young ladies who are experiencing difficulty. I always say to them, “Listen, I can’t promise you that the Lord will redeem, but if He does, He will do so thoroughly.”

Ann: —“thoroughly.”

Becky: —“thoroughly.”

It’s been such a sweet—the fact that, not only did He restore our marriage, He restored Jared to ministry (over time, of course), and now, we get to do this together. We travel all over the world. I don’t do much. Mostly, I’m there to support him; but his whole life now is about spreading the gospel, and I get to be part of that. Yes, it was—again, I would never wish on anybody, but I know that the Lord used it so mightily.

Like I said yesterday, I know myself well enough to know that, had our marriage been a fairytale early on, I would not be clinging to Christ like I do today. Jared would have been my functional savior. I’m not proud of that, but I know that’s true of me. I hate what we went through, but I know that’s what it took for the Lord to get my attention.

Ann: I went through that same thing, where I had no idea, but Dave was my idol.

Becky: Yes.

Ann: I thought, “If he could just get his act together, we could be great.”

Becky: Yes.

Ann: And “I can be happy if he would just be great.”

Becky: Yes, yes.

Ann: I felt like Jesus said to me, “Dave will never do it, but I can.”

I’m imagining you; I was thinking about you, Becky. Had you not prayed that prayer on your way to work—you, basically, were saying, “Lord, I’m all in.”

Becky: Yes.

Ann: “I’m in. I’m not going to be mad at You.” I wonder who you would be, had you never repented.

Becky: I shudder to think. [Laughter]

Ann: Right?

Becky: Yes.

Ann: Would you be this bitter woman?

Becky: Yes; yes, for sure.

Ann: Yes.

Becky: And my family would be broken. I can’t even imagine what my daughters would be going through. The repercussions would have been endless.

Ann: I am thinking of listeners, who are in that spot right now, just holding on to that bitterness, feeling like, “He’s never going to change! And if he doesn’t change, I will never be happy.” Speak to that woman right now, who’s in it right now.

Becky: First of all, you have to completely just separate your condition—your heart condition, your spiritual condition—completely from any man in your life. You have to do business with Jesus before you even think about your husband, your boyfriend, or whoever it is that is hurting you or causing you grief. That relationship has to come first. And for me, it wasn’t for a long time. Once you get that relationship right, you know, and pray through all the other things, I think the Lord will very specifically guide you.

And listen, here’s what I want to say: “If you’re in an abusive situation, get out!”

Dave: Yes.

Becky: “Go away. Find a place where you can be safe from it.” I’m not ever condoning that any one stay in an abusive relationship.

But if it’s a matter of sin that is even gross and certainly hurtful, and that you don’t want in your life, you have to deal with your own sin first before you begin to bring the sin of your husband before the Lord, too. Just know that Christ is a better husband; and let Him be. Let Him be until He does whatever He needs to do in the heart of your husband, or your boyfriend, or whoever it is. If that relationship can’t be reconciled, that’s okay. Christ will still be your better husband.

Dave: Yes; it’s interesting. I’m listening to you, Becky, talk to the women, and I’m thinking, “Jared and I know—the guys—we try to do the same thing. We try to find life in our woman (in our wife). “More sex,” or “…be nicer to me,” or “…take care of me.” It’s the same thing, isn’t it? It’s like that can become an idol: “If you would just meet my needs, I’ll finally be good.” It’s never going to be solved horizontally. It’s got to be vertically! You’ve got to find your life from the Creator, who created you, who can meet that need.

Jared: Yes. There’s, I think, calibrating our emotional life to how things are going in general: how my work life is going, how my pursuit of aspirations and ambitions is going; but certainly, for the marriage, the cliché is, “If mama’s not happy, nobody is happy.” That can really be a functional sort of thermostat for men in their emotional health. “I need to make sure that she’s happy, and then, I’ll be happy”; or “…she has what she wants…,” or “…that she is taking care of me…,” “…that she is providing for me…,” “…that she is meeting the image I have in my own head of what a wife should be or what my wife should be.”

All of that is functional idolatry. All of that is! Because you’re tuning your heart to things that are so transient, and so mercurial, and subject to their own pressures, and just the brokenness of life.

If we tuned our heart to God, in whom there is no shadow of turning—who doesn’t change, we have a much more stable place, not only just for our own emotional wellbeing, but also, now, to love the people we are in relationship with, because we can love them without expecting them to do something for us or to give us something back, right? You find the reservoir of love for others in this idea of grace. It really is the secret of the universe: the grace of God. We just don’t wake up in grace-mode. We wake up in law-mode. [Laughter] We have to, somehow, intentionally reset, really, every day, on that.

Dave: Becky, you said something yesterday—and what Jared just said made me think of it—that I think so many of us experience: when you’re driving to work—correct me if I got it wrong, but you said something like the Lord said something to you along these lines: “His sin is different but not bigger—"

Becky: That’s right, yes.

Dave: —“than yours.” Talk about that, because I think we all do that. It’s like, “Your sin’s worse.”

Becky: Yes. Well, I think we would all say, if we were quizzed about it, “Oh, no. All sin is the same.” But we certainly know that we react differently, right? There are sins that are respectable, and there are sins that are not. For the longest time, all of my sins were respectable. It wasn’t hurting anybody; and, least of all, it certainly wasn’t hurting him.

Ann: What are some of the respectable sins? [Laughter]

Becky: All the little petty stuff: it’s the short temper, or the impatience, or selfish about the way certain things needed to be, or entitled about certain [things]. You know, all the little things that seep into any relationship, that you think, “Well, that’s just how they are.” “Well, okay, but they’re a sinner.” [Laughter]

I was just kind of thinking through all of those things and remembering [that] Christ took all that to the cross for me, and I needed Him to, every bit as much as Jared did. Just realizing that I am so far from perfect in the way I love him, in the way I love our kids—all the different shortfalls that I was bringing to the relationship. They were all there. There was a long list of them. [I needed] just to remember that Christ died for this, too. “I’m no better than him. I just need him to stop directing his sin specifically toward me,” and “We’ve got to find a way to walk through that together.”

Ann: That’s good.

Even, Jared, as we’re talking about your book, Love Me Anyway—and the subtitle is How God’s Perfect Love Fills Our Deepest Longing—and then, you take us into

1 Corinthians 13, which is the love chapter, which is most often read at weddings, probably. Why did you go there, into that Scripture?

Jared: For two reasons; one is the one that you just touched on. It’s probably the most famous passage on love in the Bible. Even at weddings, between people who don’t really have a connection to Christianity or what have you, if they want some religious read, it’s typically the love chapter from 1 Corinthians 13, which I think is wonderful, and at the same time, hilarious. [Laughter] Because we have it read as if it’s just some sort of—

Ann: —beautiful thing.

Jared: —religious—

Becky: It’s not fluffy! [Laughter]

Jared: It’s sentimental to us, but when we actually read what it says, that “love keeps no record of wrongs”—

Ann: —just that, right there!

Jared: —that “love is not self-centered.” All these sorts of things that really empty us of ourselves so that we might see the fullness of Christ take place in our relationships.

The first reason to use it is because it’s just so common; but the other reason to use it is so that we would actually look at it and actually dive into it, step by step, to see what kind of love that it directs us to. Really, it’s a portrait of Christ, if you who Jesus is as a person and as a lover of our souls. He is the perfect example of each of those aspects of love.

Dave: You define love—which I’d never seen it defined this way—as an orientation toward others for their glory and for their good.

Jared: Yes.

Dave: Walk us through that a little bit.

Ann: That’s really a good definition.

Jared: Well, the glory—

Dave: —That’s what I want my wife to do, you know?

Ann: Did you come up with that yourself? [Laughter] That’s really—

Dave: “Love me like that! I don’t know how to do it, but you better do it.”

Jared: I’m probably not the first person to articulate it like that.

The glory part, I think, is the really interesting aspect of that, because most of us can wrap our heads around an orientation toward others for their good. We want the building up of others or the good of others; but the glory of them is a little—

Ann: —yes, what does that mean?

Jared: It’s a little icky, maybe, or just iffy for some people. Basically, it means that I’m not trying to change them into something that I want them to be; I want them to be the best version of themselves.

Ann: See, just right there, if we just lived that out [Laughter] and sat on that the whole time—the heart, especially, of, “I’m not trying to change them.” Woo! 

Jared: Yes, the glory of them—I don’t mean that we would worship them or that they would have a glory like Christ has a glory, but that I want them to be the best embodiment of themselves. All of my good for them, or my love towards them, is not trying to change them into some projection of myself or some image. And, really, even coming to frame romantic relationships—and the book isn’t all about romance; it’s about relationships, generally, friends and others as well.

My approach to that came through just thinking through pastoral ministry and contemplating the congregation, because the minister is in the place of desiring change, right? We’re in the business of transformation, so we want to see people change. I remember the day I was reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s little book, Life Together, and he basically says, “Congregations have not been entrusted to ministers that they might become their judge before God and men.” He says that ministers have what he calls a wish-dream. The wish-dream is the vision for the congregation that you want; basically, what you want your church to be. Bonhoeffer says, “You need to be very careful with that, because when you get infatuated with the wish-dream, you cease to love the congregation as they are.”

Dave: Wow.

Jared: “Because you’re constantly measuring them against who they’re not.”

Dave: So true.

Jared: So, I first thought about that, just in the framework of ministry; but then, I thought, “This is just general life.” I cease to love Becky when I’m constantly comparing her to the Becky I want her to be or the Becky that’s the ideal Becky in my head. No one can live up to the idealized version of themselves. None of us will be that person until the Lord comes back and vanquishes everything—sin and brokenness, and we receive a glorified body.

Until that moment, I’m to love you as you are. That, actually, is for your glory, because it means I’m going to celebrate the good things about you. The bad things about you, I can forgive. I can hold you accountable in those things, but, ultimately, I’m not constantly measuring you against the wish-dream version of you that’s in my brain. None of us feels loved when someone “loves us that way” [as if] I’m only as good as some idealized version of myself; but [when] you love the real me, that’s when I feel loved. And when I feel actually empowered to grow and to change is when you love me as I am, which is counter-intuitive.

Ann: Everybody listening to that is resonating: “Yes! [Laughter] Yes! I want to do that. I want to do that. I can do it for a day, and then, I’m so irritated, again the next day. [Laughter] It’s impossible.” What would you guys say to those people who that feel like, “I just can’t do it!”

Jared: “Love hopes all things; it bears all things; it believes all things,” which is why, ultimately, true love is rooted in the gospel; because, if I’m not trusting Christ with how things are going, I’m going to get more impatient, I’m going to try to force things in my own power, and I am going to be pushy; but if I hand that all over to Him, then it actually liberates me to love somebody without this burden of, “You better change quickly, or this is going to be done.”

Ann: I remember being in a Bible study—I was in it for a couple of years. There was a woman, for years, she’s praying for her husband to come to know Jesus.

Dave: It wasn’t you, was it? [Laughter]

Ann: No, you definitely know Jesus. [Laughter] Every [week] she’s like, “You guys, I need my husband to come to know Jesus. I want him to demonstrate that in our home with our kids.” Finally, after several years, we’re all praying, he does [accept Jesus]! She still doesn’t like him.

Becky: Ohh!

Ann: That’s why I was thinking about your definition, because she can’t love him for who he is right now. She has this picture of who she thinks he should be.

Have you seen that, too, where people are thinking, “Yes, if they can just become a Christian—?” And it’s just our little mathematical equation: “If this happens, then he will be like this.” That’s not really the hope in the gospel; it’s in the hope of our husband changing.

Becky: At the end of the day, the only way you’re going to be able to do that is through the power of the Holy Spirit anyway. The only way you’re going to love someone, for their glory and good, is through the power of the Holy Spirit. You can’t do it on your own. I think it’s important to keep your prayer life really focused on: “What is it that I can be doing differently? How can I grow in my love of Christ more?” so that that just overflows out of me naturally, because, on your own, not going to happen.

Ann: Yes.

Dave: I remember preaching on 1 Corinthians. I mean, tell me your thoughts; you wrote a whole book on it. [Laughter] It’s impossible to do this! We cannot do it in our strength. It’s got to be God’s power, His Holy Spirit in us. There’s no way I can be patient like God wants me to be patient.

You can say whatever you want, but “love is patient and kind;” what comes to your mind first?

Jared: Love is patient in knowing that the Lord is at work in somebody else and doing things; a million things that I can’t see, so if I’m just judging on the micro level, I find lots of ground for irritation and impatience; but if I’m looking at the macro level, to know that the work the Lord began in them, He’s going to be faithful [with]. I can trust Him, and, therefore, I can be patient with others.

At the same time, I want to be patient with others because the Lord is patient with me!

Dave: Yes.

Jared: It’s a good question to ask: “Would we appreciate God treating us the way that we are treating others?” Even if it’s just an internal emotional response, like, “Ahh! I’m just really impatient with them.” I might not be saying anything, but I’m really impatient. What if the Lord felt that way about us? What would that do for our relationship with God?

I know that God is so patient with me. There’s not a day that He just sort of throws up His hands and says, “I’m done!” And therefore, I don’t want to do that for someone else. And then, “kind”—the motive of the heart. It doesn’t bring a sense of obligation to it. It’s just a matter of giving; it’s just a matter of wanting to be tender; it’s a matter of wanting to do good toward someone else. I think kindness comes from a place where we center the other in our heart and de-center ourselves.

Ann: I love what you said about that. You said, “Kindness can fix us.” Do you remember writing that? [Laughter]

Jared: No. [Laughter] But that’s a good line. [Laughter]

Ann: “Kindness can fix us. This is what God’s lovingkindness has done for us.”

Jared: Yes, yes.

Ann: I thought that was really good. You don’t think of that, that kindness can fix us.

Becky: Even Scripture says that it’s the kindness of the Lord that brings us to repentance, right?

Ann: Yes!

Becky: It’s not nagging—

Ann: —or rebuke—

Jared: —or law—

Becky: —or any of those things. So, if we’re kind to each other, what could that do in our relationships?

Dave: Well, it’s interesting; when you told us your story, there was patience and a kindness that you had to express toward one another. I mean, Jared’s sleeping in the dog room—the guest room. [Laughter] He has this moment and starts to change. I guessing he wasn’t back the next night in the master bedroom.

Becky: That’s right, yes.

Dave: It’s like there was some patience, and then, I’m guessing, kindness. It took time.

Jared, how did you take care of the porn problem?

Jared: It was the morning—the year previously, when she said, “I don’t want to be married to you anymore.” It cured it. That’s not my moment of gospel wakefulness, of joy, or anything, but it was like I saw that it had ruined my life. I just lost the appetite for the thing that had destroyed everything, including the one thing I still thought I could hold onto. That cured me: having everything collapse; which is why, in counseling young guys today (who, this is just a constant battle for them), [I] say, “You need to figure this out before you get to that point.” It took me, basically, having to lose everything before I lost my appetite for this thing.

Now, I would say, eventually, it was to see the vision that I have of the glory of Christ as more satisfying than any vision that I could pursue, which is the real antidote, really. You can’t behold the beauty of Christ, and at the same time, desire some kind of lesser, illicit image at the same time. The more we look to Christ, the more our heart is transformed into better appetites and good appetites.

Shelby: Okay, Dave’s got one more thought on why this is so important to address and be vulnerable about. We’re going to hear from him in just a second.

But first, I’m Shelby Abbott, and you’ve been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with Jared and Becky Wilson on FamilyLife Today. This has been such an important conversation. We’re excited because Jared has written a book called Love Me Anyway: How God’s Perfect Love Fills Our Deepest Longing. It really explores the universal human longing for unconditional love through the lens of 1 Corinthians 13. If you’re interested in picking up a copy of Jared’s book, you can go online to FamilyLifeToday.com, where you can find the book in the show notes section at the bottom of the page. Or you could simply give us a call at 800-358-6329; again, that number is 800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.”

We’ve been talking about marriage and relationships; and that’s what we love to talk about here at FamilyLife Today. The cool thing is that we still have 20 Weekend to Remember^® marriage getaways coming up between now and mid-June in cities all over the country. You can make a new commitment to your marriage by registering right now and see what God will do with that. I have great news, because it’s on sale right now for more than 40 percent off. You can find a link to the Weekend to Remember marriage getaway in the show notes, or you could go to FamilyLifeToday.com.

Alright, now, let’s hear one more thought from Dave Wilson.

Dave: The only thing I would add—and I know you guys would agree—is the stakes are so high, because you think it’s just your secret or your sin. It’s going to be a legacy.

Becky: That’s exactly right.

Dave: It’s going to—the sins of the father are going to visit down to the third and fourth generation, whether you tell them or not. If you don’t deal with it, you’re not just dealing with you and your marriage—

Ann: —it will deal with you.

Becky: That’s right.

Dave: You are dealing with your kids. This will go—

Becky: —we even tell young men who aren’t even dating or married yet: “You think this is only affecting you. I promise you, it’s not. This is affecting your future marriage.”

Dave: Yes.

Shelby: A lot of people talk about what it means to have gospel culture in their home and in their church, but how do you incorporate the gospel into everyday family activities and transform your family dynamic? Well, Jared and Becky Wilson are back tomorrow with our Wilsons, Dave and Ann, to talk about just that. We hope you’ll join us.

On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I’m Shelby Abbott. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

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