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Timothy to fully develop the gifts God gave him, and then he wrote, “Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress” (1 Timothy 4:15). Paul wants Timothy to know, “You’re not perfect, but people should see progress in your life. In five years you should be wiser, stronger, and more mature in character than you are now.”
    My wife married a very immature twenty-two-year-old. I sincerely hope that her husband is now more mature, more loving, and less selfish than he was back then. And I pray fervently that in another ten years, her husband will have become that much more mature, that much more loving, that much kinder and wiser and selfless.
    This growth won’t happen by accident, of course. It won’t occur unless I am — to use Paul’s words — “diligent in these matters,” unless I “watch [my] life and doctrine closely” (1 Timothy 4:16), “persevering” in them. If I won’t grow, my wife may well grow past me. I can’t give Lisa a perfect husband, but I certainly don’t want to give her a spiritually lazy one. I want to become “worthy” of her. I may never fully get there, but it won’t be for lack of trying. I’ll never be as thin as I once was, and I’ll never have the hair I did back then, but I can become a man whose character far outshines that of the twenty-two-year-old she married.
    You see, when you grow in character, when you sink your spiritual roots deep, when you learn to hear God’s voice and build your mind with his wisdom, when you allow his Holy Spirit to transform your character and reshape your heart — then you can make your husband fall in love with you over and over again, and he’ll be all the more motivated to maintain your respect and affection. Nothing compares to being married to a godly woman — nothing . And nothing gets more tiresome more quickly than living with a narcissist or a weak wife or a fearful one.
    Your husband chose you as you were and accepts you as you are — but you can bless him with the woman you want to become. Will you do that? Will you honor his faith in you by becoming a woman he could only dream about?
    Painful Perseverance
     
    The reason it’s so important for you to concentrate on your own growth is so that you can avoid the sin of pride, which constantly tempts us to focus on changing our spouses while neglecting our own weaknesses. Jesus warned against this with startlingly strong words: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (Luke 6:41 – 42).
    Making over your marriage begins with you . For me to suggest anything else would be to deny everything I’ve ever written. I’m not saying it’s wrong to desire more from your husband. I’m not denying that you might enjoy your marriage more if your husband would drop some bad habits and pay more attention to you. I am saying that if you use this book to focus on changing your husband in such a way that you neglect to grow yourself, all I’ve done is inspire another Pharisee, not the godly woman God seeks.
    Let’s agree to keep this perspective in mind throughout the book.
    How is God using the reality of living with an imperfect man to teach you how to grow in patience and understanding? How is God using your marriage to an irritable man to teach you how to love angry people? How is God using your husband’s sexual desires, your husband’s vocational insecurities, or perhaps your husband’s lack of social skills to teach you how to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow him?
    How is he using your marriage to teach you how to love?
    When you find yourself in a difficult