You Are Not Your Spouse's Laborer
Let God Do the Work
Can someone really change? I mean, once and for all, really change? What about your wife, can she change? Can your husband change? What if they’ve been that way for 20 years? What if you haven’t seen any signs of change, like hardly ever? Could they really change?
The answer is, yes, people can change, even your spouse. However, the problem exists when we try to be the one to change them.
We’ve all been there—trying to change our husband, or change our wife. But I have found, as a spouse, when we are the ones always trying to get the other one to change, all that causes is more problems. These actions can create frustration, discouragement, distrust, cynicism, walls, and even chasms between each other. This can also create temporary changes, where someone changes just to get you to shut up, but it never lasts. Trying to make your spouse change doesn’t bring you closer, no—rather, it pulls you farther apart.
But what if they really need to change? What if there are areas that really must be different? What if you as a spouse know they are called to do more for the Lord, or greater for the Lord, but you aren’t seeing any changes or progress? Can anything be done?
When Matt and I were married, we were both very aware of things in each other’s lives that weren’t the best and would need to be adjusted. Having been in a relationship for almost four years before our wedding day, we had each seen lots of things that needed changing. Everyone told me, “You can’t change your husband” and that I was supposed to get married with the understanding that “what he is, is what he is and I’m choosing to live with it.” However, even though I listened to what they said and wondered if it were true and I was ready to accept it, I still had a hopeful side within me determined that somehow, someway, he would change. We would both have to change if we were going to do all that we were supposed to do for the Lord.
Well, that’s all easy to say when you are 19 years old and you have your whole life ahead of you and think, “How bad can it be?” But after days and days of living with someone, and then days turn into months and months turn into years, in some areas, you can get to really wanting your spouse to be different. For me and Matt, we both had things we wished the other one would change.
Through this testing and trying time on our marriage, we didn’t always do it great. I tried to be the one to change him, to make him change; and many times, he tried doing the same to me. But God was able to teach us and we grew to a place where we looked to the Lord for His wonder-working power, and not to our own.
The Bible says in the Book of Proverbs that God CAN change and turn hearts. Lasting change in someone comes as a result of their heart being changed—and that is something that only God can do. We can initiate a change in our heart by willingly yielding to God so He can change us, but God is the One Who does the wonder-working power in changing us on the inside.
The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, Like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes. (Proverbs 21:1, NKJV)
I remember the first time I saw this scripture in light of being married and, my oh my, was I relieved. I realized that my husband is like the “king’s heart in the hand of the Lord.” I saw that God CAN and WOULD change my husband and make him into the man of God he was meant to be. He could help him make heart adjustments. He didn’t have to remain the same forever! And I knew that meant I didn’t have to stay the same, either! Ha!
There have been many areas in my life that I just could not change on my own. My heart needed to change. And when God was able to change my heart, because of my yielding to Him, I saw a change in my life. It’s not enough that someone “wants” to change or knows they need to change. To see a real and lasting change, the insides of a person must be touched and affected by the power of God. I’m not just talking about huge heart changes like Salvation. I’m talking about even seemingly little heart changes that affect how you live your everyday life. Small changes like wanting to spend your time differently; eating better; personality changes; temperament adjustment; managing your finances differently; parenting changes; schedule changes; and the list goes on.
…for it is God Who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13, NKJV)
Thank God, He said our hearts are in His hands, and He can turn hearts! The Bible says IT IS GOD Who works in you…He is the One Who does that work. He can do a work in us and in our spouses! But how does He do it? There are principles regarding this that involve people, otherwise He would just reach down and change everyone into perfection. But He must have a way in. He must have a reason to do what He does in our lives.
While I can’t go into everything Matt and I learned in this area in just one email, today I would like to share and explore together one of the keys we learned. This is a key to being able to see God-authored and fruit-bearing changes in your spouse’s life that last, and your spouse seeing lasting changes in your life, too.
Yes, God changes hearts, but here is the key: He often uses other people to help in the process. When it comes to your spouse, do not assume that “you” are the one He is wanting to use. If you do, you could be getting in the way of God, muddying the water, and causing your spouse to resent your “help.”
I have found that most of the time, I am not my husband’s laborer sent by God for an area… and he is not always my laborer in a certain area.
You are not your husband’s laborer any time you want to be…. You are not your wife’s laborer just any time you decide you have something to say or see something that needs to be changed...
I don’t mean God won’t use you here, but it’s rarer than you might want to think. In order to see a real and lasting change that comes from the heart, you’ll need to have been sent by God with something “from” God, and not just “from you.”
What do I mean by “laborer”? Jesus described laborers whose “work” can affect a change in other people:
Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” (Matthew 9:37-38, NKJV)
Jesus told His disciples that the harvest is plenty but the laborers are few. He was talking about the harvest of souls, the precious fruit of the earth, when people are changed on the inside by the power of God as they come to know Jesus. He went on to instruct His disciples to do something about this lack-of-laborers problem. He said to PRAY. He told them to pray that the Lord of the harvest (Who is God) would send people as laborers (workers) to those who are ripe for harvest (ready for Salvation). This is a prayer that we are to pray for those who need Salvation. We pray and ask God to send laborers to the person who needs Jesus. These laborers are divine connections, where God connects one person to another person for the purpose of affecting a change.
Now, while Jesus wasn’t directly talking to marriages regarding praying for spouses, this prayer principle is still active when applied towards anyone who is requiring change. This same principle of prayer can be applied when we are trusting God to do a work in our spouse’s heart. In this regard, what does this prayer sound like? In essence, you are praying and asking the Lord for divine connections in your spouse’s life.
These divine connections can bring your spouse to a place where they begin to see things in a way that maybe they haven’t before. God can use divine connections in our lives to elevate our thinking and our vision.
It’s as simple as, “Father, I ask You in the Name of Jesus, to send laborers across my husband’s path. Send people to him who can make an impact in his life. Send people to him who will help him to see things the right way. Send divine connections into his life to help him become more like You, to draw him closer to You, to help him see a better way, a higher way, a greater way…”
These laborers who are divine connections orchestrated by God can be many different people. They can be leaders in our lives, co-workers, friends, pastors, church family, bosses, elders—people who God can use to make a difference and cause a change in our lives.
For example, there have been many times Matt wanted to get something across to me, or I wanted to get something across to him—something one of us needed to adjust in our heart, mind, or actions—and we just weren’t getting it from each other. But we didn’t give up. We would pray for each other, and in doing so, a door was opened for God to help. That help often came in the form of other people coming across our paths. As a result of this, there have been friends in our lives who God would use something they did or said to correct us; there have been elders who said something in just the right way that penetrated our heart and change began to take place. Our pastor has said the right thing at the right time in a service and we were able to see things differently. And funny enough, God has even been able to use video shorts on Instagram or Facebook to impact one of us! Ha! He’ll use anything!
One simple example, that happened early on in our marriage, is that for years I didn’t really want to wear makeup, and if I did, I wouldn’t put it on unless it “really mattered.” I would wake up in the morning and go about my day without much makeup at all. And sometimes I would barely fix my hair. Though I wasn’t a total bedhead day in and day out, I could have definitely looked better.
Matt had expressed to me many times how he wished I would “get totally ready” in the mornings when I woke up and spend more time to look as good as I could. Time and again, I would overlook his desire and not really give his request much regard at all. Well, I’ll never forget the day when I had shown up to where I worked at the little restaurant in a golf clubhouse, bright and early at 6:00am. That’s early!! As you might imagine, I got up in just enough time to get to work and hadn’t put on any makeup at all. I brought it with me, and I thought, I’ll get to it later.
My boss rarely showed up that early, but on this particular morning she decided to show up shortly after I had arrived at work. I was opening up the restaurant, getting things ready for the day, when she looked at me, and stopped. Full of attitude and disgust, she abruptly asked me in a short and corrective tone: “Where’s. Your. Makeup??”
That piercing line of correction was all that was needed to make a change in my heart in this area. She didn’t say anything else, and really, I don’t think I did either. This line pierced my heart and stuck with me and affected a change.
Did I do it perfectly from there on out? No, but from there on out, my thinking had changed. A correction was initiated in the way I saw this subject my husband had mentioned many times before. And I began to make changes in my life on the outside. As uncomfortable and humiliating as her question was, God was able to use my boss’s straight-forward correction to help me see what my husband had seen all along. I hadn’t received it from him, but that day, I was able to receive it from her.
As iron sharpens iron, So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend. (Proverbs 27:17, NKJV)
When you are being changed by the connection of others, you are being sharpened. You are being chiseled and formed and shaped. I have seen God do this sort of thing over and over again in our lives. I’m thinking of another time when God used another husband’s good example to pierce my husband’s heart in ways that inspired him to change for the better. God has used elders time and again to help shape us into who we need to be, better for each other and better as parents, better for the work of the ministry. These are real things where God uses other people and circumstances outside of ourselves to come to our aid in our marriages. This is why prayer in these ways are so important and are not to be overlooked or disregarded.
Along with praying according to Matthew 9:37-38—asking God to send people across our spouse’s paths to affect change—we can also pray according to these scriptures:
Epaphras, who is one of you, a bondservant of Christ, greets you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. (Colossians 4:12, NKJV)
The Lord will perfect that which concerns me; Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever; Do not forsake the works of Your hands. (Psalm 138:8, NKJV)
We can do like Epaphras and labor fervently in prayer for our spouse that God would cause them to stand perfect and complete in all the will of God, praying that God would perfect that which concerns them and that He would not forsake the work of His hands towards our spouse. It is God’s work within us, and as we give Him place, He is faithful to perform the work that He started. We are just giving Him place to do it. As we give Him place, He will bring help across our paths, across our spouse’s paths.
Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6, NKJV)
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it. (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, NKJV)
I would like to give one final example from the Bible so we can see even further how God will use other people around us to bring us to a place where our hearts can be changed. Remember how I gave the verse above from Proverbs that tells us how God can turn the heart of the king? If God can turn a king’s heart, we know He can and will turn your spouse’s heart, too.
I want to remind you of the story about Saul from all the way back in the First Covenant in the Book of 1 Samuel. I encourage you to take a moment and read the story yourself in 1 Samuel 9:01 through 10:16.
There was a prophet of God named Samuel. God told Samuel that He had heard the cries of His people and has decided to give them a king to reign over them who would save them from the Philistines. The Prophet Samuel knew he had heard from God that Saul was to be king. Saul was just an ordinary guy from the tribe of Benjamin, the smallest of all the tribes of Israel.
Long story short, Saul had found himself in need because his father’s donkeys were missing. Saul and his servant decided to find the prophet in hopes that he could tell them where the donkeys were. When they got to the city where the Prophet Samuel lived, they came upon each other. Just the day before, God had told Samuel that he was to anoint Saul as king over Israel. When the Prophet Samuel saw Saul, the Lord told him that was the man He was talking about.
Saul came up to Samuel and asked him if he knew where the prophet was. Samuel told him that he is the prophet and asked him to eat with him today, and then tomorrow he would tell him all that was in his heart. At this point, the Prophet Samuel said, my paraphrase, “Don’t worry about the donkeys. All of Israel desires a king, and are you not the man for the job?”
Saul’s response was one of shock, because he truly did not see himself as a king. He began to tell Samuel all the reasons why it shouldn’t be him. But Samuel was not moved by Saul’s response. He immediately took him into the chiefest place surrounded by around 30 people who Samuel had personally invited to eat with them. Samuel had called this a high place.
Is any of this ringing a bell? God is surrounding Saul with important people who he normally wouldn’t have access to. These people are helping him to see greater and bigger and more important things than just his father’s donkeys. These people are helping Saul to see himself in ways he never thought he could be. Yes, God cares about his father’s donkeys (lol) but the point is that Saul was called to more than just donkeys. He was called to greater. He was called to lead Israel out of oppression.
After they left the high place with all the important people, Samuel and Saul communed together at the house. The next day, early in the morning, Saul was about to leave and Samuel told him to hang back just a minute so that he could share with him the Word of the Lord. Then, Samuel anointed him as king, pouring the vial of oil upon his head and saying “Is it not because the Lord has anointed you to be captain over His inheritance?”
Now here is where the highlight of the story in regards to our topic comes in. Don’t you know all of this is still so new and somewhat foreign to Saul at this point? All he wanted was to find his donkeys. The last thing he expected was to be anointed as king. He didn’t look like a king or feel like a king. For all he thought, he wasn’t a king; but Samuel is telling him, “You are king, anointed by God.”
Did Saul immediately change as soon as the prophet anointed him? Not exactly. Saul still had some changing to do. How did God finally change him? What happened next?
God changed Saul into who he needed to be as king by bringing him into contact (divine connections) with even more people who were specially sent by God and anointed in helping with Saul’s changing process. First, the Prophet Samuel told Saul as he was leaving the city that he would meet up with three men of God and what would happen. (You can be relieved in knowing that here is when Samuel finally let Saul know that the donkeys had been found). Then, Samuel told Saul, “After that, you’ll meet a company of prophets, and they will prophesy.”
When did Samuel get all this information about what was going to happen to Saul? I can’t help but think that it was the night before, after they had left communing with one another, that Samuel spent time praying for Saul. Why did he pray for Saul? It’s possible he didn’t see the change he was wanting to see, or the response he was looking for from Saul. So, he prayed. And while he was praying, God was able to show him these things. Through Samuel’s prayers for Saul, God was given the place to orchestrate and move people into position, like pieces on a chess board. God was able to bring people across Saul’s path that would help to further him in the heart changes that needed to happen in order for him to step into his place as king over Israel.
Let’s read the rest of the story to see the factors that took place to enable Saul to be changed into a different man. As you read, you’ll see how God had a part—bringing people across Saul’s path; and Saul had a part—yielding to the Spirit of God that came as a result of the people coming across his path. His decision to obey the prophet and “do as the occasion demands, for God is with you” determined the amount of changing that was able to be processed. Just because God brings people across your path doesn’t mean you receive it. Saul was a great example to us to yield to what God is doing for us through other people, the laborers.
Samuel continued, “Then the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man. And let it be, when these signs [people] come to you, that you do as the occasion demands; for God is with you.
So it was, when [Saul] had turned his back to go from Samuel, that God gave him another heart; and all those signs came to pass that day. When they came there to the hill, there was a group of prophets to meet him; then the Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among them. And it happened, when all who knew him formerly saw that he indeed prophesied among the prophets, that the people said to one another, “What is this that has come upon the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?” Then a man from there answered and said, “But who is their father?” Therefore it became a proverb: “Is Saul also among the prophets?” And when he had finished prophesying, he went to the high place. (1 Samuel 10:6-7, 9-13, NKJV)
Saul had changed! He changed so much that everyone around him noticed! Verse 9 says that, as Saul went his way after talking with the Prophet Samuel, God gave him another heart. Verse 6 said he was turned into another man. Wow!! All this change in Saul came as a result of: 1. Samuel not being moved by Saul’s lack of change and choosing to pray, instead; 2. God bringing anointed men of God across Saul’s path; 3. Saul responding correctly and receiving from these anointed and divine connections.
And what was the final result? Saul was able to go up to a higher place (Vs. 13). God used the gifts in others—the group of 30 in the high place of the city, the 3 men of God on his journey, and the company of prophets near the hill of God—to stir up and bring alive the gifts and anointing in Saul, and he was turned into a different man.
See, so many times as a spouse we can see where each other can be better, be greater, do better and bigger, go higher. But, like Samuel, we need to see that we aren’t the whole answer. God has other people He can use to bring our spouse to a place of change. He has other people He wants to use to help bring our spouse to a place where they can be “turned into another man.”
Are these ideas far-fetched? No, this is a way God works. This is a way God changes us. This is what happens when we pray for laborers from God to come across our spouse’s paths. These laborers sent from God to change our spouse are ions more effective than our efforts to change them. We can pray that God would send people across our husband’s path or our wife’s path to impart spiritual supplies that they need to step into all God called them to.
The signs from God that came to Saul were people. This example of the story of Samuel and Saul goes to show you just how important spiritual connections and relationships from God are. One minister I read from says this about these divine connections from God: They activate spiritual endowments within us. They prepare us for our future. They inspire us to rise to new heights in God.”
And that’s what they did in Saul. They brought him to a higher place in God. And as a spouse, we’d all be thrilled to see our spouse come into a higher place in God.
A higher place in parenting, a higher place in relationships, a higher place in anointing, a higher place in handling finances, a higher place in our health and fitness! A higher place in our jobs and ministry!!
Won't He do it?! Yes, He will!!
All of this is so exciting as we choose to be doers and not “readers” only.
Matt and I love you all and pray for you regularly.
Going up higher together,
Jess