In the early years of their marriage, Pastor Craig Hill and his wife, Janice, were often at loggerheads. 

“It would seem to me that sometimes there would be an offence in our marriage where I would offend Jan, and on a scale of one to 10, it seemed to me like the offence was a two, maybe a three. Like, it wasn’t that big a deal,” shared Ps Hill.

“But yet, I’d get coming back at me an emotional response, like a nine or a 10. It’s like, ‘Why on earth am I getting a nine or a 10 emotional response from a one or two or three offence?’”

If they had not learned how to deal with those issues, the Hills, now married for 48 years, would not have the marriage they enjoy today.

After being married for seven years, the Hills learnt how to fight without destroying each other and their marriage. Photo courtesy of Ps Craig Hill.

Ps Hill is the founder of Family Foundations International (FFI), a ministry dedicated to helping individuals, couples and families. He has trained ministry teams in more than 50 nations worldwide and conducted over 2,500 marriage and family blessing weekend experiences. He is also the author of 15 books, including the bestseller, The Power of a Parent’s Blessing.

Salt&Light caught up with Ps Hill when he came to Singapore in November to conduct a marriage seminar, Together Forever.

SALT&LIGHT: What are unhealed heart issues that can affect a marriage? How might a couple deal with them?

PASTOR CRAIG HILL: We find a lot of times, within marriage, people are triggered. They trigger each other, and the reason is because there are things on the inside that are not healed. There are wounds that people carry from childhood, and they don’t realise they’re there. Oftentimes they carry them right on into marriage.

You identify these wounds when you get an irrational response from your marriage partner. The reason is because you are tapping into a wound that was within her heart.

And I find the same thing was happening to me. She would trigger things, and sometimes I’d get angry about something that really wasn’t that big of a deal, or I would just close up and walk away and refuse to talk to her. Husbands tend to respond in those kind of ways.

God gave us a strategy after some years of how to come into His presence and to let Him identify those wounds and remove them.

The only way that you can bring healing is to come into the presence of the Lord and ask a very simple question: “God, where did this first start in my life? Why is it that I’m having such a huge reaction to something that maybe isn’t that big a deal in and of itself?”

You can’t deal with it in your spouse. You have to deal with it in your own life.

When God would reveal the root experience and the lie that was imparted, we would then ask Jesus to heal it: “Lord Jesus, what is the truth? Because there’s something in the depths of my heart that’s a false image, that’s obviously not true. Lord, what is the truth? Who am I? What did You want to impart to me? What did You want to say to me when that original wound happened, and I didn’t know You in those days? I didn’t know to run to You.”

Then the Lord will bring healing to that.

We found that the more Jan and I would do that in our own marriage, rather than than blaming the other person, which was the temptation, the better it became.

What tips do you have for couples to stay the course in a marriage?

The key is understanding the concept of a covenant, as opposed to a contract.

A contract, which is sort of what most people perceive marriage to be, is conditional. If you do your part, I’ll do my part. If you keep your word, I’ll keep my word. It’s revocable and it’s bilateral. It’s dependent on the performance of either party.

A covenant is an unconditional commitment that’s terminated only by death. A covenant has three qualities: It is unilateral, it’s unconditional, and it’s irrevocable.

You know the very vow that we normally say when we get married, “until death do us part”? Jan and I have found that that creates a security when we both realise we have a commitment to our marriage, we will be faithful until death does us part – not until you do something that deeply offends me, or you betray me, or you hurt me, or you abandon me, or whatever. But we will be faithful unto death.

Second, go into marriage with an attitude to serve. People go into marriage with an attitude of “I want to find somebody that’s going to make me happy.” Well, I can tell you, that person doesn’t exist.

The reason I say that is because you have two people who are, in essence, selfish. And they’re going to marry each other.

Jan and I had a lot of conflict in the first seven years of our marriage. After seven years, the primary thing I discovered, the reason we had so much conflict, was very simple: My poor wife married a selfish man.

But I did not realise my own self-centredness, that I perceived her goal was to make me happy, to please me.

I wrote a book called Two Fleas and No Dog. A flea is a parasite looking for a dog it can land on and just draw all its life from a big host animal.

And I find many people, when they get married, are like two fleas, each thinking the other is going to make me happy. That is a setup for divorce. That is a setup for huge conflict right there, because it’s rooted in selfishness.

God showed me after seven years that I basically was a flea looking to my wife to meet all my needs and make me happy. And God said: “Why don’t you change to become a rechargeable battery?”

If you think about a rechargeable battery, what’s the purpose of that battery? It provides life. It provides power. When does the battery ever say to the cellphone: “Look, I’ve been running out of power. I want to know when you’re going to give some back to me?”

The answer is, the battery never does that. But the battery does run out of life. What does it do when it runs out of life? It goes back to the recharger. It gets charged up with life.

A husband is a battery; a wife is a battery. Both are going to God and receiving their power. He’s the recharger.

So God said to me: “I want you to recharge from Me, not be looking to your wife to meet all your needs and recharge you.”

Those two attitudes are what will cause a marriage to persevere through years and decades of time – when you have an unconditional, unilateral, irrevocable commitment and covenant, which, by the way, is a prophetic image of how Jesus treats us.

Aren’t you glad that Jesus’ commitment to you is not dependent on whether you’re faithful to Him or not, whether you do everything right or not?

Isn’t it wonderful that He will continue to love you, accept you and forgive you, whether you do right or not? Whether you keep your word or not, He will always keep His word.

Paul told us in Ephesians 5:30-32 that if you want to find out how Jesus treats people, look at marriage.

He gives a long teaching on marriage, and then he says: “This is a mystery. I’m actually not speaking about marriage, but I’m speaking about Christ and His Church.”

Secondly, if I decide in my heart that my purpose is to bless my wife, to serve my wife; or a wife decides: “My purpose is to bless and serve my husband, not to be served, not to be made happy”, do you know what great fulfilment and joy comes from serving, not from being served?

And so those two attitudes I find are what cause a marriage to persevere through years of time.

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