Pastor and author Joby Martin was writing a book about biblical manhood when he realized he needed to pick up the phone and apologize to his wife.
“I haven’t been loving you well,” he recalled telling Gretchen, his wife of more than 26 years.
The founder and lead pastor of The Church of Eleven22 in Jacksonville, Florida, shared the conversation with podcast host Brooke Taylor. His admission brought a discussion about strength and leadership down to something much closer to home: how he treated the woman he loved.
Martin said he was working from a tree stand in South Georgia when Scripture interrupted his confidence. As he developed the message of Stand Firm and Act Like Men, he felt he understood the call to stand firm, take responsibility and follow Jesus.
Then he reached the instruction to do everything in love. That sent him back to 1 Corinthians 13 — and into a much less comfortable assessment of himself.
The passage describes love through patience, kindness and a refusal to boast or insist on serving oneself. Martin recognized a gap between those qualities and his own habit of being loud, needing to be right and demanding his way.
He didn’t describe falling out of love with Gretchen. He described realizing that the feelings were there, but his behavior needed work.
Related: 4 Young Hollywood Couples Choosing Marriage and Family Early
“Would you say I’m patient and kind?” he recalled asking her. In his telling, Gretchen responded by asking what else he had on the list.
Her answer left little room for an easy pat on the back. Martin said he continued through the passage, recognizing how much of its instruction he wasn’t putting into practice.
“Man, I’m not doing what the book says,” he recalled thinking.
That personal reckoning sharpened the distinction he wanted men to understand. In Martin’s telling, a husband doesn’t demonstrate maturity by announcing his authority, beating his chest or insisting that everybody do things his way.
Earlier in the conversation, he had pointed to Ephesians 5, including its instruction to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ and its call for husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church. He described marriage as an opportunity for two people to serve one another, not compete for control.
“You’re thinking first about your wife or your husband, not yourself,” Martin said.
Taylor had opened the interview with her own family’s experience. After her husband read Martin’s book, she noticed him becoming more intentional about loving, leading and asking how he could improve. Martin, meanwhile, made clear that writing the message hadn’t exempted him from needing it.
He also drew an uncomfortable comparison between serving strangers on a mission trip and loving the person who shares your home. Sometimes, he said, people eagerly do the first while struggling with the second.
“Well, it was convicting to write it,” Martin said. For him, that conviction led to a call to Gretchen — not another lesson for somebody else.
Read Next: Alison Sweeney Shares Her Secrets To a Lasting Marriage: ‘Appreciate The Little Stuff’
Questions or comments? Please write to us here.
