On this podcast, we talk a lot about joy and of course, that means that we field a lot of necessary questions about joylessness. We've also talked in the past about how husbands take the leading role in seeking to grow the joy of their own homes. I'm thinking back to APJ 255, I believe it is.

Dad's role in homemaking, one of my favorites in the history of this podcast, APJ 255, dad's role in homemaking. But what about when this task seems especially impossible? It's a question from an anonymous man who writes this. "Hello, Pastor John. I praise God for your ministry. Thank you for staying in the course and serving the church so well for so long.

I would love your advice for my marriage. My wife and I have been married for nearly 18 years and have three young children. By her own admission, my wife is an Eeyore type personality. There are seasons where her gloominess and maybe borderline depression persists and has a significant impact on the joy in our home.

I feel helpless to help. When I try to address the issue with her, she ends up feeling like a failure and sinks even lower. What can I do to help her, Pastor John? I'm committed to our marriage covenant and desire that she and our family flourish." As I thought and prayed over this situation, and I know several marriages like this, long marriages like this, marriages where there's been hospitalization over and over again for a depressed spouse.

I thought of 10 words of counsel that I would share to this anonymous husband. And some of them are very short and others are a little longer, so let me just go through them quickly. One, join me, brother, in thanking God for giving you the grace for 18 years of faithfulness.

It is a beautiful Christ-honoring thing. That's my first word of counsel. God is amazing that He has brought you this far and that you care for her and want to be a blessing to her. Number two, put out of your mind every thought that you may be married to the wrong person.

The best way to know whether you are married to the right person is to look at the name on your wedding certificate. If it's her name, that's God's will for your life. Number three, recognize that some Christians will never in this life grow beyond certain limitations. I don't say this because God can't do it and indeed might do it, but because 1 Thessalonians 5.14 says, "Admonish the idle, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with them all." Paul seems to say that there will always be this kind of diversity of weakness among believers—not that there should be, but that there will be.

God assigns faith and growth according to His own inscrutable wisdom. Paul says that in Romans 12.3. In other words, it may be God's plan for you to shepherd your wife not out of her depression, but with her depression to the end. Number four, there's a principle of patience under God's sovereignty in 2 Timothy 2.24.

The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance. In other words, even though that's not talking about marriage and depression, there's a principle here. Isn't there? Kindness, patience, gentleness, willingness to endure sorrow might bring about change.

Whether it does or not, it's our calling to be that way. Number five, our calling as husbands is clear from Colossians and Ephesians. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. It's Colossians 3.19. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.

Ephesians 5.25. This is our calling, no matter how little effect it has on our wives. Let this sink in. Christ is married to a wife, the church, including us husbands, that falls far more short of the command to love him with all our hearts, far more short than our wives fall short of any expectations we have.

In other words, we fall more short of what Christ deserves from us than our wives fall short of what we deserve or hope for. No husband is promised a cheerful wife. It's not in the Bible, no matter how prayerful he chooses at the front end of that relationship. Number six, stay with her as a patient, gentle leader in the disciplines of grace, no matter how seemingly dull her emotional response may be.

That is, read the scriptures with her, speak promises from God to her every day, not criticisms, but promises, pray for her gently and out loud for her joy and strength, but not in a teachy way or a condescending way. Don't use prayer as an indirect way to chastise her or teach her.

Take her to church and sit with her in worship. Point her to passages of scripture that show that the saints go through darkness like Micah 7, 8, "Rejoice not over me, O my enemy. When I fall, I shall rise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me." You have no idea what the long-term effects of steady-state spiritual disciplines of grace may accomplish.

Number seven, do not fail to feed your own soul with the Word of God. Do it alone and do it with a band of brothers, not a big one. A few trusted friends who can pray for you and hear your sorrows and bear your burdens and exhort you to stay the course with joy.

Number eight, if it seems appropriate and if she's willing, encourage her to seek help from a wise, Bible-saturated, prayerful Christian counselor. He or she may be able to discern obstacles to her joy that you might have missed and she might have missed. Number nine, learn from scripture and from the stories of difficult marriages that the Lord has reasons for your trials.

Take for example the marriage of Abraham and Mary Lincoln. It was not a happy marriage. He brought many flaws. We could talk about those in another APJ, but let me just focus for a moment on the question at hand. God's purpose for Abraham Lincoln in a very difficult marriage with a woman who, according to Mark Knoll—so these are now quotes from an article by historian Mark Knoll—Mary often flew into rages.

She pushed Lincoln relentlessly to seek high public office, and she complained endlessly about poverty. She overran her budget shamelessly, both in Springfield and in the White House. She abused servants as if they were slaves and ragged on Lincoln when he tried to pay them extra. She assaulted him on more than one occasion with firewood, with potatoes.

She once probably chased him with a knife through their backyard in Springfield, and she treated his casual contacts with attractive females as a direct threat while herself flirting constantly and dressing to kill." But the two stayed married. What was the gain? Knoll asks this question. What was the gain?

And he gives two historical suggestions. How was it, he says, that Lincoln, when president, could work so effectively with the rampant egos who filled his administration? The long years of dealing with his tempestuous wife helped him prepare for handling the difficult people he encountered as president. In other words, a whole nation benefited from his embracing this pain.

And second, over the slow fires of misery that he learned to keep banked and under heavy pressure deep within him, his innate qualities of patience, tolerance, forbearance, and forgiveness were tempered and refined. In other words, embrace what God has given you and be made strong in the slow heat of the refining fire.

Finally, number 10, picture the thankfulness of your wife in the resurrection. When she has been set free and thinks back over the remarkable patience and kindness that you showed her for decades. Right now, she does not even have the emotional wherewithal to respond to you as she should and as you desire that she would.

But one day in the resurrection, she will have that capacity and her memory of your patience will be part of your joy. Thank you for putting this entire situational challenge within an eternal perspective, Pastor John. Thank you. And at the top of today's episode, I mentioned one of my favorite episodes of all time, APJ255, Dad's Role in Homemaking.

You can find it online. That's APJ255, Dad's Role in Homemaking. Whether you listen in the car, at the gym, doing chores, thank you for inviting us into your busy day. If you have not yet done so, you can subscribe to Ask Pastor John in your favorite podcast app in YouTube or in Spotify, and you can find other episodes in our archive or submit a question of your own, even a marriage question of your own.

You can do that by going online to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. Well just about every Christian wants to be used by God to transform the lives of others. But what is the cost of ministry? What's the key to effective ministry? That question is up next. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you on Wednesday.

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