Lisa Barry: Welcome to this Friday edition of Gateway to Joy. This is Lisa Barry along with Elisabeth Elliot and special guest, Nancy Leigh DeMoss. Nancy will be the featured speaker on the soon-to-be-released program, Revive Our Hearts. It's been a delight to visit these last few days.

Elisabeth and Nancy, I'd like to tackle a few issues that typically come up in the life span of a marriage. I'll start with you, Elisabeth.

I often hear women complaining about their husbands. And the only answer in their minds is to change his behavior. Should a wife try to change her husband?

Elisabeth Elliot: Well, I just happen to have here a wonderful letter from a woman who tried for a long time without much success. And she said,

"The Lord is penetrating my marriage specifically through my heart attitude toward my husband. I now can have a heart of submission because I can trust God. I have struggled wondering how to submit when it seems he does not lead. God has shown me how to quiet down and especially how to notice my husband's unspoken leadership and my surrender to it.

When I put my personal desires aside, I saw that Bible study day is my husband's busiest as a schoolteacher--his most difficult day. This is an opportunity for me to minister to him by keeping a peaceful and calm atmosphere, making him a hot lunch. My attendance at Bible study group is something I can offer up to God. As I fall into step ministering with my husband, it is an honor. Better to do the menial within God's boundaries than the godly outside them.

Through the letting go and the offering up, I am isolated, for we have only one vehicle. My husband almost always uses it for school and work. God now lavishes me with blessings by giving my husband thoughts and decisions that are amazingly not his own, like his out-of-the-blue desire to go camping as a family this summer--something I've longed to do and tried to get him to agree to but gave up trying. My husband is not a gift giver. But on Easter he gave me a very sweet gift that was not just chocolate--a thoughtful gift, a particular thing that he knew I'd enjoy. Very special!

I'm surprised at how protected I now feel in my skirts and dresses. When I see men take notice of me, I have nothing to offer if they should happen to take a full gander. This affects my thought life in a protective way and eliminates the temptation for my mind to wander where it ought not, as it once had when I knew a man was enjoying my 'goods.' It's a safe feeling I never experienced before.

Perhaps these things are obvious to some, but it is a new revelation for me. Many Christian men admit their struggles with lust. As I look on the course of this world and the women who are around me, I suspect this might be a new angle for man. A change in dress code cannot be imposed on another. Without God-breathed conviction, it amounts to legalism. If someone asks me about it, I will trust that God has prepared that heart to receive."

Lisa Barry: A transformed marriage.

Elisabeth Elliot: Totally transformed.

Lisa Barry: How does transformation take place? Somebody is listening and their marriage (they feel) is beyond hope. You've just read that and they get a glimmer, "Yeah, maybe God can transform my marriage." Where do you start?

Elisabeth Elliot: Where to start, I would say, is down on your knees. Lay before the Lord everything you can think of that you have been doing which has bothered your husband. And everything you know that you would like to do to make him happier as a husband, ask the Lord to enable you to do that and to remember it. Just mark it down on something and start working on that.

Golda Meir said, "When you are at work you think of the children you left at home. At home you think of the work you've left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent."

And I'm sure that is one of the big problems with so many women who are obliged to go to work. But I have had a number of letters from women who have laid it all before the Lord. The Lord has changed their husbands' hearts and their husbands have agreed to scale down in the way they live in order to allow their wives to stay home and take care of the children. It may mean a very drastic sacrifice. But many letters that have come to me have revealed the joy and the peace that have come through the willingness to forget about the world's notions of what you have to do and what you have to have and where you have to go.

Nancy DeMoss: And Elisabeth, aren't you really talking about the need for a woman to wait on the Lord and to trust in God to do in her husband's heart what she can't do? The Scripture says that the king's heart is in the Lord's hand. He turns it as the rivers of water whithersoever he will.

A wonderful illustration from the Scripture that comes to mind is that of Mary of Nazareth who had this remarkable, never to be repeated, visitation from the angel telling her that she was to bear a child, the Son of God. Joseph didn't have that experience when she did. He didn't see the angel; he didn't hear the angel speak; and it appears from the passage he may not have believed her story initially. He was minded to put her away, to divorce her. He wanted to save her from embarrassment and shame. But there is no evidence that Mary took it upon herself to try and convince him that what God had said to her was true.

I think so many times as women, being more sensitive perhaps, we do believe we may have an insight from the Scripture or a spiritual sense about a matter before the men around us. The dangerous thing is when we make it our job--take it upon ourselves--to tell our husband, to tell the pastor, to tell the men in leadership in our churches this is the way it is to be--this is what God has told me. We feel it is our responsibility to get them to see this great truth. And invariably, my observation is, that pushes the men further away from wanting to respond to the Lord.

But because Mary knew how to ponder things in her heart, to keep them there, to treasure them, to be quiet and to wait on the Lord, in God's time He sent an angel to Joseph to give the same word and then Joseph was faithful to believe and to act on what God had shown him. But I think it is so hard for us to just wait! We are natural "fixers," controllers, manipulators, and we have to fix everything and make it right. God is saying to us, I think, "Wait on Me and give Me a chance to act in the heart and life of that man."

Elisabeth Elliot: As D. Gordon, in his book Quiet Talks on Prayer, says: "Waiting means steadfastness, that is, holding on; patience, which means holding back; expectancy, which means holding the face up; obedience, holding oneself in readiness to go or to do; listening, holding quiet and still so as to hear."

And Psalm 27:14 is about waiting on God. "Wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."

Nancy DeMoss: Elisabeth, I love what you said about the starting place for a transformed marriage being on the knees. A letter comes to mind that I received not too long ago from a woman who had come to one of our women's conferences. She told me how she had heard me speak years earlier.

She said, " At that time my husband and I were having many problems. I was living in fear and much condemnation. Someone prayed with me at the conference and encouraged me to be honest with my husband and to ask for forgiveness for many things. He lovingly forgave me and our relationship has grown from an uncomfortable, rocky place to a teachable, fertile soil of love, compassion, mercy and grace." Then she says, "God gave me a strong desire to pray for my husband. Not just, God bless Dave" but to pray for him seriously from his head to his toes."

She said that she joined with about eight other women. They formed a prayer group just to pray for their husbands. She said, "We called the group 'In His Hands.' God really blessed that little group and showed us that we needed to change before our husbands can change. Now my passion is to encourage women to cover their husbands with prayer and love instead of nagging and complaining. And I want other women to see the danger they are in when they are not under the protection of their husband's authority. Obedience can be a painful process, but it is worth it. We have been trained to be independent, obstinate and aloof to any authority from husbands."

And then I love..here's her bottom line to what God did in this marriage. She said, "My husband and I have gone from yelling and screaming to peace. He now prays over me..."

She prayed over him all those years waiting on the Lord. She says, "He now prays over me with his hand on my head before he leaves the house each day and I am blessed. God is good!"

And He really is! That's the power of God in response to a praying, submitted wife.

Elisabeth, another thing I have picked up from that first letter you read is the way that the woman came to see the importance of focusing on the positive qualities of her husband. It does seem that with those that we are living the closest to we often start to pick out their negative points.

One of the challenges I have been giving women over many years, and they have thanked me for this, is a 30-Day Challenge. It has two parts: a negative part and a positive part. The negative part is that for the next 30 days they will not criticize anything about their husband--to him or to anyone else, not to his mother, not to their mother--nothing negative about him for 30 days. Of course, for some women who are in the habit of picking on the negative things, this is something of a challenge!

And then I suggest that every day for the next 30 days they find one thing that it is--they target one thing--that they do appreciate about their husband, that they are grateful for, and they tell him. And they tell someone else about their husband something that they appreciate. And again, some women may be thinking "Well, I'm not sure I can think of 30 things to focus on." Well, that means that they have been focusing on the negative qualities and it may be they need to pick one quality and mention that every day for 30 days!

But I say to women, "You know, your husband may not change at all over those 30 days, although he may wonder if he is married to a different woman. But chances are you will change as you start to see your husband through different eyes, through eyes of praise and gratitude. After all, there was something in him that attracted you to him in the first place."

I think to go back and refresh and restore those qualities that are enduring can really rejuvenate and bring new life to a marriage.

Lisa Barry: Thank you, Nancy. And I think that is a positive way to end our discussion today. Nancy Leigh DeMoss has been our special guest all this week and what a treat it has been.

For those of you listening, you may be wondering how you can establish a godly home and marriage. Well, I have just one thing for you. Elisabeth Elliot has written a very practical book on this subject called "The Shaping of a Christian Family." I say it is practical because you won't get a lot of unproven theory in this book but a real live look into the daily practices of a family that left a rich heritage for the next generation.

For information on how you can get a copy of "The Shaping of a Christian Family," get in touch with us here. Give us a call at 1-800-7594-JOY twenty four hours a day; that's 1-800-7594-569. Or, write a letter and send it to Gateway to Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, NE 68501. Or a third option is our Web site and it can be found at gatewaytojoy.org.

Gateway to Joy has been a production of Back to the Bible. And people like you make it possible. Monday we begin the final week of broadcasting on Gateway To Joy, so make it a point to join us when Elisabeth welcomes back Nancy Leigh DeMoss and Bob Lepine of FamilyLife Radio.

This is Lisa Barry, thanking you for listening and be sure to join us for a special week of programming starting on Monday on Gateway to Joy.