Identifying Negative Strangleholds in Your Relationships

Guest (Female): This program is sponsored by Focus on the Family and is made possible by generous friends like you.
John Fuller: Today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, marriage coaches Dave and Ashley Willis explain how to have a more peaceful home.
Ashley Willis: Because the world says you can only have peace when there's no chaos, or you can only have peace when everything's going exactly as you would like it to go. But the truth is every time we read about peace in the Bible, it really has nothing to do with our circumstances, but everything to do with the presence. Just His presence.
John Fuller: Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller. Dave and Ashley Willis are among our favorite broadcast guests and I know you're going to find this pre-recorded message fascinating. In a world that often feels chaotic, it's very important to maintain a sense of peace in your home for yourself and for your children. You'll learn how to do that today. Dave and Ashley have been in ministry together for the past 20 years, focusing on marriage and family relationships. They've authored several books and also have a podcast called Marriage on the Line. Here now, Dave and Ashley Willis speaking at a marriage conference sponsored by Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, Alabama, on today's episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.
Dave Willis: We're going to dive into this talk for the time we have in this session, talking about peace in the home. Here's the first principle. We can't control all the chaos happening in the world, but we can control whether or not we allow God's peace to reign in our hearts and our homes. The world is nuts right now. If you turn on the news for five minutes, you're just going to feel that lack of peace because there's just chaos happening everywhere. We can't control all of it. We need to be responsible to do what we can in our communities and globally even to be about bringing God's peace and God's kingdom to this broken world. But we're going to realize we can't control all of it. What we do have more control than we realize of is what happens in our own home. Is our own home going to be a sanctuary and safe place where we as a couple, us, our kids, whoever is there can experience God's peace in a place where there's joy and laughter? A place where we can bring the troubles of life and deal with them together and pray about them, but ultimately, it's going to be a place of peace. Maybe you didn't grow up in a house like that. Maybe you grew up in chaos and you think that's just how home has to be. But you get the opportunity and the responsibility to break and change that cycle in your home. You're not responsible for the kind of home you grew up in, but you're completely responsible for the kind of home your kids are growing up in. We've got the opportunity to say, "I want it to look different than it did for me. I want it to look different than it did in my grandparents' generation." Maybe they didn't know the Lord. Maybe they didn't know any better. But now, God is showing us there's a different and better way and we're going to talk about how to live in that reality in our homes. One time, we accidentally on a road trip left one of our children at a gas station. He's a middle child. He's used to it. No, so we stopped for a bathroom break because with that many kids, somebody's always got to go. So we pull off the road and I'm mad and I'm in a hurry and we get there and it's a one-seater and there's this huge long line for this one seat. I'm like, "We're not doing this. We've got a car full of boys. We'll find a tree. We'll find something. We're not doing this." So we load back up and we start driving down the road and my oldest in the back a few minutes later is like, "Hey Dad, where's Connor?" And I'm like, "What?" And he's like, "Yeah, I don't think he's here." And I look back and sure enough, he wasn't. So we drive all the way back to this gas station and Connor had stayed in that line and had made it all the way up the line and was now in there. So I run to the front of the line and beat on the door. "Connor, you in there, buddy?" And he's like, "Hey Dad, I'm in here." I'm like, "Oh good, I was just worried about you. You were taking a while. I told your brothers we couldn't get snacks here, but how about when you get out, you pick out whatever snack you want?" You know, all that stuff. He was fine. But I didn't feel so bad because Jesus' parents did that. If you've read this in the Bible, the people that God picked to raise His Son lost Jesus for three days. This was like 15 minutes. Mary, the "Mary did you know" that Jesus is missing and you need to put out an amber alert because it's been like a day before they even knew he was gone. I think God puts stuff like that in the Bible just to make us feel better. I just picture Mary and Joseph. Can you imagine that search? What are they feeling? When you lose Jesus, what marriage moment is that? We're definitely going to hell. We lost Jesus. I didn't even know that was theologically possible and we've literally lost him. But they found him and it worked out. It's all in the Bible. I don't make any of this stuff up. It's in the Bible. Every home has experienced some chaos. Every home has had moments of imperfection, moments where we need God's grace. But truly the good part is through it all, because of His ever-present indwelling of the Holy Spirit within us, we don't lose Jesus. He's with us through it all. Whatever chaos you brought in here this weekend, whatever fear, whatever uncertainty, whatever panic, whatever you're wrestling with, first off, the first thing I want you to know before we dive into the truth of God's word and what He wants us to know in those moments is you're not alone. Here's part of the reason how I know you're not alone. Every one of us in life are going to face moments that we just feel like, "I'm not equipped to deal with this. I'm not equipped to deal with what's happening in my marriage right now. I'm not equipped to deal with the news of wars and panic and chaos and all these things happening all over the world. I'm just not equipped and I don't know what to do." And the most underlined Bible verse kind of speaks to the same thing because this was underlined the most.
Ashley Willis: It's Philippians 4:6-7. "Don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus." One of my favorite parts of this verse is where it talks about how God's peace is something that exceeds anything we can understand. Those of you who've had those heart-wrenching moments where literally it takes your breath away, like you've had such a great loss, or you've just experienced heartbreak beyond anything that you could ever even imagine, in that moment when you really turn to the Lord, you had a supernatural peace that you can't even explain. We've had that in our life and we're going to share a little bit about that, but that's the thing about God's peace. It's not really how the world defines peace. Because the world says you can only have peace when there's no chaos, or you can only have peace when everything's going exactly as you would like it to go. But the truth is every time we read about peace in the Bible, it really has nothing to do with our circumstances. I take great comfort in the fact that we have a God, we have a Savior who is always all too ready to give us peace in the midst of it. Sometimes He provides peace by changing our circumstances, but most of the time, it has nothing to do with that change of circumstances, but everything to do with the presence. Just His presence. Knowing that we're not alone, knowing that He never wastes our pain, knowing that He really is the Prince of Peace in our life.
Dave Willis: Peace as the Bible describes it is a gift from God that we must pursue, promote, and protect. Something that Jesus, the Prince of Peace, wants you to have in your marriage and in your heart and in your home, even in those broken-hearted seasons. Because as the Bible says, He is near to the brokenhearted; He rescues those whose spirits are crushed. While we have God's presence with us all the time, it's like the Bible's saying we can experience God's peace in our life in a very unique way in those moments of heartbreak and in those moments where it seems like everything is upside down. That's where we can sense our Savior most. He's always with us. He's omnipresent. He's always with us. But He says, "I'm going to give you this extra portion of my grace and my presence in those moments when you need it most." I heard this mom who had 15 children one time being interviewed and they asked, "How do you love all your children the same?" And she said, "I don't love them all the same." And it kind of took the interviewer back. And the interviewer said, "Well, which one do you love the most?" And she said, "Whichever one is hurting the most." I think that's kind of a picture of the heart of God, our perfect compassionate Father, that yes, He loves us all with a limitless love, but yet there's this special place in His heart that's just for those of His children in those moments where "my kid's hurting." If you're a parent, you've got one of your kids and they're hurting, whether it's a little kid with a scraped knee or an older kid with their broken heart, you just want to hold them so tight and let them experience your love and your presence in that moment but to say, "I'm here with you through this." We have a heavenly Father who is there in our pain with us. To me, one of the shortest, the shortest verse in the Bible is so comforting. It just says, "Jesus wept." It reminds me that we've got a Savior who's not distant from our pain. He knows what that feels like. In our moments of tears and in our moments of pain, He is there to give us peace. Jesus says this: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give as the world gives. So do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." Ashley did kind of a word study a few years back on what that peace, what shalom really means, and discovered something that to me was just—it completely changed the way that I saw peace. Because I used to see it the way she described a lot of us seeing it, it's just the absence of trouble. There's always trouble around. And yet God calls us to live perpetually in peace. I didn't understand what that looked like until she kind of did this deep dive into the Old Testament and it was mind-blowing for me.
Ashley Willis: Years ago, I wrote a book called *Peace Pirates*, and I just have always longed to have God's peace in my life like most of us in this room. After I went through my anxiety and depression battle especially, I just really was like, "How can I keep God's peace in my life?" I knew that the original Hebrew word for peace is shalom. So when I went to those ancient Hebrew word pictures to see how they would have written shalom to each other, I found this. This is the earliest way they would have written this word to each other. Actually, back then, when they were reading it, we would start at the right and then go left. If you look at that first picture on your right, those are animal teeth and that stands for breaking. If you keep on following to the left, that is a shepherd's staff and it's facing down as if a shepherd was pulling in a sheep by the neck to pull that sheep in to him, and that stands for authority. That third picture is a tent peg and that stands for "established by" or "attached to." The last picture there is pretty—that's probably the most obvious picture—that's choppy waters, and that stands for chaos. If you want to write this down, this is something that has meant the world to me. I still wear it on my wrist. I have this stamped in leather on my wrist because I want to remember the meaning of what God's peace actually is in our lives, and it means this: God's peace is breaking the authority established by chaos. Breaking the authority established by chaos. When you really look at what that meaning is and how those Hebrews understood what their Maker really meant when He talked about peace in their lives, when they would hear about God's peace in their lives, it meant nothing about the circumstances and everything about who was the authority in their life. In essence, it's really about God being our authority and not letting anything else be our authority in our life. We can't allow that addiction to be the authority in our life. We say, "God, break this. Break this addiction and You be the authority over my life so I don't feel like I'm thrown to and fro by the chaos in my life." It means breaking the anger that is in your home. Not allowing that anger to be the authority, not allowing that to change how you think about your spouse and how you think about your circumstances, but allowing God to be your authority. He says you're a masterpiece, that He has good plans for you. Yes, there are real diagnoses that we all face, but we cannot allow it to be our authority. We must say, "God, You are still my authority. We know You don't waste pain. Lord, be the King over my life." The more we keep on surrendering our lives to Him and saying, "God, You are the one. You are the authority over my life," the more we will experience His peace. I just—I don't know about you, but I think that's amazing. Because to me, that says that we can get through anything. That says that we always have a Savior right there for us. But it does take us pursuing, promoting, and protecting the peace in our hearts and homes. But it starts with full surrender. I know this isn't easy. It's so easy as human beings to be taken back by the circumstances that come our way. It's so easy to allow the enemy to let shame set in. But shame is not meant to be a staying place. It's a place of conviction that leads to repentance, literally going the other way, walking away from the thing that is keeping you in shame. But it takes us recognizing what that thing is to be able to walk in that freedom.
John Fuller: That is Ashley Willis on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. If you'd like to learn more about how to find God's peace in your life, we highly recommend her book called *Peace Pirates: Conquering the Beliefs and Behaviors That Steal Your Treasure in Motherhood*. Get your copy from us for a gift of any amount to Focus on the Family, and we'll include a free audio download of this entire presentation with extra content. Donate and request those at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast or call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY. Let's return now to the presentation from the Willises as Dave reflects on Ashley's insights.
Dave Willis: When she discovered that, it kind of helped the scales fall off my eyes to experience God's peace in a new way and the gift of that to realize I don't have to be ever controlled or defined or ruled by any of the circumstances, any of the chaos that's happening outside in the world because none of that is my authority. It's just a reminder to me when I'm feeling fear or uncertainty or anxiety about that chaos or about whatever I might be facing, to run back into the arms of my Savior and remind myself that, Lord, You're my authority. You're my God. You're the one who's bigger than everything that I'm facing and You love me more than I can imagine. This pain that I'm facing is a temporary pain because that's the promise we have as Christians. Every pain we'll ever face is a temporary pain and every joy we'll ever experience is an eternal joy. When we keep that perspective, it helps us to get through those difficult seasons to know this, too, shall pass. This is temporary. And yet we have a very real enemy who does everything he can to try to make us feel overwhelmed by whatever is happening around us. That's part of his game plan. He wants you to feel overwhelmed, isolated, alone, in shame, in bondage, in guilt, and to make you feel like the chaos has completely taken over. We saw kind of a visual reminder of this on a trip. We took a big birthday trip for Ashley a while back and went to a place we'd always wanted to go and were hiking through a forest in Costa Rica, which is just a beautiful little place. It's so beautiful. And so we were there hiking around and we came across this big tree and Ashley asked the tour guide, "What's up with this tree?" And when he explained it, it kind of was like a reinforcement of some of these principles. It ties into this.
Ashley Willis: I said, "Can you tell me more about it?" And he's like, "I'm so glad you asked me about this because this tree is considered to be kind of a freak of nature." And he said, "It's actually a symbiotic tree. The tree that you're looking at used to have a host tree inside of it." And I was like, "What do you mean?" And he said, "Well, we actually call this tree the strangler tree." And he said, "And here's why." The strangler tree forms a root system close to a healthy tree or host tree. When it realizes that that healthy tree has a good light source, good water source, good air source, and good nutrients, it basically kind of slithers its root towards the tree and tries to act like it's just being a friend of that tree. Scientists literally refer to what the strangler tree does to the host tree as nature's unwanted hug, which I just thought was really sweet and kind of creepy. But anyway. So he's basically going up near that tree like, "Hey, can I just, can I get some of this sunlight with you? I just need a little bit and maybe just a little bit of your water." And little by little, that strangler tree goes around and around and around and its root system just keeps on getting tighter and tighter and tighter around the host tree before the host tree even realizes it. It forms this fortress around it and eventually, it sucks the life out of the host tree and literally chokes it out and takes all of its water source, all of its light source, all of the nutrients, and the very air that it needs to survive. As I was looking at this, it reminded me of another thing I found in my research when I was researching shalom. I found this other Hebrew word that is very closely related to shalom and it's the word shalal. It's spelled S-H-A-L-A-L. It's taking authority or seizing authority by destructive means. Yeah. So when I saw that strangler tree, I was like, "Well, there's shalal." There's a physical example in nature of what shalal is. Thankfully, we don't have to be like that strangler tree, but I do feel like there's things in our life that are like strangler trees. There's things in our life—relationships in our life, habits in our life—that are literally sucking the very life out of us. The enemy would love for us to believe that we're going to have to be like that healthy tree and allow these things to overtake us, but we have a God that says He is greater. That there is nothing that He cannot overcome. There is nothing in our life that He cannot help us with. But we have to be able to recognize it and it takes us being mindful and saying, "Lord, search my heart." And even as a married couple, "Lord, search our hearts. Please reveal the strangler trees in our life." Because just like that strangler tree was so crafty with that host tree, there's little blind spots in our life where we get going on autopilot and we're just trucking along and before you know it, there's this thing in our life and we're like that host tree. All of a sudden, it's like we have this fortress around us and we can't really think clearly and we can't really see clearly and our relationship is a little bit rocky and we're like, "What happened?" And that's why we've got to keep rooted and surrendered to the Lord because He will help us to see what these things are. I'm telling you, we have a powerful God that comes in and rescues us and busts up that root system and says He is my child, she is my child, stop messing with my kids. I just want to say this, that we have a God that we know in the word, it says He raises dead things to life. Well, He raises dead marriages to life. You might have come to this conference and felt like, "This is our last-ditch effort. We're going to go through the motions, we're going to say we did. We went through the motions, we tried." But I want you to know that God has you here for a reason because He wants to give you something new. He is doing something new for you and He is bringing you new life and He can take your marriage to a place that you never thought it could go. But it takes time. It takes also honesty, takes vulnerability, and being willing to reveal the strangler trees in your life and allow God to do the work that He needs to do to make you healthy once again.
Dave Willis: And that's a powerful and beautiful picture of what God wants for all of us. And so, how do we get there? We remember to embrace peace when we remember we don't have to carry our burdens alone. In marriage, especially, we should never carry our burdens alone. So you have a burden-bearer in Christ and also in your spouse. First in Christ, Jesus said, "Come to me all who are weary and carry heavy burdens and I will give you rest." Our Savior is calling us to Him and saying, "Let me take that weight off your shoulders." You were never meant to carry it. Let me carry that for you as you just put your trust and your hope in me. Let me walk with you through this. And then within marriage, we should do this: carry each other's burdens and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ. Your joys in marriage when you share your joys, the joys get twice as joyful and in marriage when you share your burdens, the burdens get less than half as heavy. Because when we're sharing each other's burdens, it makes the load much easier to bear. That's why there's never just his burden or her burden. It's always ours. It's always something we're going to face together. I think that we miss out on that sometimes because we're prone to focus on the wrong things. Like the enemy is a great distractor and he wants to get your eyes focused on the wrong things. He wants your eyes focused on everything that you feel is wrong with your spouse or everything they're doing that annoys you or everything that's chaotic out in the world or everything that you feel is wrong with yourself. We've got to sometimes start by shifting our perspective and say, "Lord, help me to be Philippians 4:8. Let me fix my mind and my thoughts on that which is good and beautiful and pleasing and excellent and worthy of praise." It doesn't mean I put my head in the sand to pretend like the problems aren't there, but it lets me look at those struggles with the right perspective. We've got to be able to put our perspective and our eyes on the right thing. Because you're going to find whatever you keep looking for. Jesus said, "Whatever you keep seeking is what you will find." So if you're always looking for a reason to be stressed, you're going to find reasons to be stressed. If you're always looking for those annoying things your spouse does, then those annoying things your spouse does are all you're going to see. But if you switch your perspective and say, "Lord, help me to see the reasons to be thankful. Help me to see the reasons to be joyful. God, help me to be reminded of Your promises. Help me to put my eyes on the right place." Because sometimes we don't know, Lord, where do You want me to fix my focus? Where should I be looking? Because there's all different kinds of things competing for my attention and help my eyes, my heart to be drawn to what You want me to focus on. Where He's going to draw your eyes over and over again is to that which is good and lovely and pleasing and excellent, worthy of praise. And when He draws your mind to something that's negative within yourself, it's because it's the Holy Spirit's way of conviction to say, "I'm drawing your eyes here because even though it's uncomfortable, it's a place where I want to work in you." It's a place where I want to come alongside you and bring healing. When He draws your eyes to something that's broken in the marriage, it's because He's saying, "This is a problem you guys have let grow worse by completely avoiding it and I want you to as a team come alongside me and let me carry you through this." But this is something that has to be addressed because until you deal with this, it's going to be what's holding you back. So part of our prayer should always be, "Lord, don't let me have blind spots. Show me what within me You need me to work on, what within our marriage You need me to work on. But help me always to defer to kindness and to look for the good in my spouse and to be their biggest encourager and not their biggest critic." Some people—have you ever been around somebody who acts like criticism is their spiritual gift? They make it churchy. They won't call it criticism, they'll call it discernment. "I'm just discerning. I can tell everything that's wrong with you." It's like, that's not a spiritual gift. You're being a jerk and making it sound churchy. But encouragement is a spiritual gift and it's one we're called to give. We've got to be each other's biggest encouragement.
John Fuller: And that's where we'll end this message from Dave and Ashley Willis speaking at Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, Alabama, on today's episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.
Jim Daly: What a great message, John, and I want to thank Dave and Ashley for allowing us to share it with our listeners, with you. I loved Dave's final point that we tend to magnify whatever we focus on and we need to be mindful of that. It's really not that hard to change our focus and be an encourager to our spouse and our children. If you struggle with that, let me remind you that Focus on the Family has a great team of caring Christian counselors that would be happy to give you a free one-time consultation. These are really talented, compassionate folks that can listen to your story, pray with you, and offer some helpful follow-up resources. Here's what we heard from Betsy about her experience with the team. "Over the years of raising four kids, I've spoken to your counselors for prayer and received so much support as well as several helpful books. A few years ago, my grown daughters called Focus for prayer and advice on a situation that involved a family conflict. I was so blessed that they too look to Focus on the Family for counsel. Thank you for being there for all of us."
John Fuller: And that's amazing. It really is. What a testimony to God's goodness to use this ministry to make generational impact.
Jim Daly: We can't do it alone. We thank the Lord for the work He's done through our counselors and we are also thankful to the families that regularly donate to support the ministry and that counseling work. You're making it possible to help other families like Betsy's. If you haven't given to Focus, may I ask you to consider doing so? You can do ministry by financially supporting us. I believe that's how the Lord sees it. I will commit to running Focus effectively and efficiently so you can do ministry through it. The best way to help us is with a monthly pledge. It doesn't have to be a large amount. It's the consistency that helps us balance our budget and plan for future outreach. When you make a monthly pledge of any amount, we'd like to send you a book written by Ashley Willis called *Peace Pirates: Conquering the Beliefs and Behaviors That Steal Your Treasure in Motherhood*. As the mother of four boys, Ashley has a lot of experience in this area. If you can't make a monthly pledge right now, we understand. We can also send you the book for a one-time gift of any amount.
John Fuller: Take the next step in pursuing shalom in your home with this great book from Ashley Willis. Donate at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast or when you call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY. When you get a hold of us by phone, be sure to connect with one of those counselors if that would be of help to you. Next time, a homicide detective uses his skills to assess the claims of Jesus Christ.
Guest (Male): If I don't trust anything the New Testament tells me about Jesus, is there enough evidence in the fuse and fallout of history to show me what happened in the first century, even if I had nothing from the crime scene, if I had nothing from the New Testament?
John Fuller: That's next time on Focus on the Family. Remember when you get in touch, let us know how you're listening: on our website, through our mobile app, or on our podcast feed. I'm John Fuller and on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, join us next time as we help you and your family thrive.
Guest (Female): Is your marriage struggling? Communication breaking down, trust fading, conflict that never seems to resolve? Well, there's still hope. Hope Restored marriage intensives by Focus on the Family helps couples step away from daily life and focus fully on rebuilding their relationship. Right now, through the marriage investment initiative, Hope Restored is investing $1,000 toward marriage intensives. Visit hoperestored.com/invest.