Unequally Yoked | Lynn Donovan Encourages Those in a Spiritually Mismatched Marriage

Apr 4

You’ve seen them – men and women sitting in church week after week by themselves. Or maybe that person is you. You may have found Christ after marriage or returned to the faith in which you were raised, but either way – you are pursuing a relationship with God, while your spouse is… not.

Lynn Donovan, coach, speaker and founder of Spiritually Unequal Marriage online ministry, offers wisdom and support to those in a spiritually mismatched marriage. Her work offers hope and help to a Christian learning to be united with their spouse, even when he or she holds very different beliefs. Lynn’s words ring true, as she’s experienced the loneliness and difficulties firsthand as a Christian married to a non-believer.

Although she grew up in Sunday school, like many who journey away from the Lord in their early 20s, Lynn was “living in the prodigal badlands” when she met and married her husband. Three years into her marriage she felt the call of God to return to her Christian roots. Lynn embraced her rekindled faith wholeheartedly but realized her unbelieving husband was not enthusiastic about her newfound religious zeal.

Their different beliefs and her changing value system caused marital conflict. Lynn realized the two were unequally yoked, and that this was going to be an issue. “In the early years my husband was not happy,” she said. Lynn wanted to honor God and the marriage covenant she had made. As a believer, her greatest desire was for her husband, the father of her children, her best friend, to come to saving faith and join her someday in heaven. She also experienced the emptiness of not being able to share how God was transforming her life.

How many can relate? They didn’t consider their faith or religious background to be important when they were dating, but the reality of a life apart from God and/or the desire to replicate their upbringing when children join the family change the circumstances. They become aware of what they’ve done and seek help living with their choices.

“In the early years faith wasn’t important to me,” Lynn said. “But as we turn back to the Lord and start to engage, faith is a part of you that feels rejected by your spouse. You are having amazing experiences with God, and you want to share them with your best friend, and they just don’t want to hear it. Going to church alone is a really big challenge.”

God says in the Bible to win over an unbelieving spouse by your behavior without words – to love them into faith. While Lynn continued to pray for her husband’s change of heart, she also learned what not to do. Guilt, begging, and manipulation don’t work.

She wondered how to love God, handle tithing and conflict over social or political issues, raise kids and practice her faith. In the early 2000s there were very few supportive resources. Lynn started blogging to connect with and help others on the same journey. She wrote what she was learning and found her words resonated. Lynn’s blog posts grew into her book, Winning Him Without Words: 10 Keys to Thriving in Your Spiritually Mismatched Marriage, which won the Nonfiction Book of 2011 Award from the San Diego Christian Writers Guild.

“Winning Him Without Words presents ten Christ centered keys to thriving in a spiritual mismatch. Readers are encouraged to commit to Christian community, to release their spouse to God's capable hands, to find peace in their relationships with Christ and with their spouse, to continue their pursuit of a growing faith, and to love their spouse with fresh enthusiasm,” Lynn explains on her website, https://www.spirituallyunequalmarriage.com/.

Her quest to raise godly kids despite an unbelieving husband led to her to write, Raising Kids in a Spiritually Mismatched Marriage. “How do you show your faith to your children even when dad doesn’t go to church?” she asked. A key lesson: If a husband refuses to assume a spiritual leadership role, God expects the wife to step in and do it until her husband will step up. If a husband abdicates or refuses, God calls her to lead in her home.

“While Lynn continued to pray for her husband’s change of heart, she also learned what not to do. Guilt, begging, and manipulation don’t work. ”

— Lynn Donovan

This message is one Christian women desperately need to hear, as many struggle with guilt, shame and uncertainty because they have been told their husband should be the spiritual leader of the household. But if he won’t, “God does not want you to leave your home in a void,” Lynn stressed. “I was given permission to share everyday moments of faith with my kids while driving to school in the car, say a simple prayer, and take the kids to church even if dad didn’t go.

“Women feel like they have to do it all on their own. ‘Yeah, you do,’” she added. “It is worth every single effort. Dad is also watching. If you are the believer in the house, your presence establishes tremendous authority and prayer power. We need to hear it’s ok. Step into the role, embrace it, you have the energy. It’s worth it.”

Even though women with unbelieving husbands want so desperately for them to join them in their spirituality, Jesus will occupy the spaces they look to their husbands to fill. “If you turn to God and believe what he says, there’s more than enough love to fill the gaps,” Lynn said. “Yes, you can do this. You will do this well.”

“A key lesson: If a husband refuses to assume a spiritual leadership role, God expects the wife to step in and do it until her husband will step up.”

— Lynn Donovan

Lynn started living her life – raising her children, tithing, making media choices – to please God and found the closer she drew to Jesus the less she felt the compulsion to worry about what her husband was doing. “I assigned him to Jesus,” she said. The two forged a co-acceptance, although she kept praying.

“Your unbelieving spouse’s unbelief will cause you to grow your prayer life. We pray and pray and fight. Every church should find the unequally yoked and get them on the prayer team, because we know how to pray,” she said. Lynn prayed for her husband to turn to Christ for 20 years with “zero results.”

She realized as she was praying for her husband to change, that it was really about her changing Lynn. She began releasing her unrealistic expectations for her husband and letting her intimacy with God the Father meet her needs.

“Jesus filled all these empty places where my husband couldn’t,” she said.

In 2012 she recalled an intimate encounter with the love of God that became pivotal to her prayer life.

Once Lynn understood her authority in Christ, she learned how to stand for her marriage, cooperate with the Holy Spirit and pray more powerful prayers that launched her into a new season of faith.

“Forgiveness is absolutely critical. When you actually deal with trauma and disappointments, you release them. It liberates you and your spouse. We become the ones who are the most free who can walk with joy. It’s the love of Christ that draws people to repentance.”

She felt led to conduct a seven-year prayer march around the walls that were figuratively blocking her husband’s heart. Lynn describes the process in her book, Marching Around Jericho, that models her method of praying an unsaved spouse into the kingdom.

“It was an amazing journey,” she said. “I’d written everything I could write, but my husband never came to faith.” Once Lynn ceased pressuring him, her husband became more open to consider things and allowed God to work. She started noticing hints of evidence that his heart was beginning to change.

“I felt a peace when I realized that deep down, he did get it, he’s just not a ‘church person.’” Lynn felt God telling her his journey would end with a baptism. Six weeks later, she walked into church with her husband on their 27th wedding anniversary. He was baptized that day!

She noted that the two are still in different places in their faith walks – he’s not going to jump right into church and lead family devotionals, but she can see the process working in him.

Lynn encourages others not to manipulate their spouse but to “live your faith out loud. You can overcome fears and difficulties. When there is ridicule and pushback, it doesn’t hurt as much when you know who you are and whose you are. Partner with faith instead of fear. The spirit will come alive and affect how you interact with others, and all for good.”

Winning Him Without Words offers practical steps Lynn continues to supply on her website today.

*Cultivate a church connection that includes corporate worship with people who love God.

*Find a place to serve.

*Look for another person sitting alone on the periphery at church and sit by them.

*Attend a Bible study with other women where you can make friendships and talk to others about God.

*Read your Bible. Lynn finds when she makes time in the morning to be with God, it charges her up for the day.

*Recognize you may need to take over the spiritual leadership of the children and do so.

She stresses that it is important to have honest, respectful and open communication with one’s spouse. Set appropriate boundaries and prayerfully approach where to compromise and where to remain resolute.

“For me personally, church attendance for me and my children was a non-negotiable issue,” she said. “I needed church, and if he didn’t want to go that was ok. I also needed to be able to pray in my house and feel safe.” But boundaries can change. “Pick and choose what is really critical to faith, life and family. It was ok to choose not to go to church on a Sunday to spend the day doing something special with dad because I was choosing to be intentional about loving him.”

Finances can be another contentious issue – how a couple spends their money, and especially if a believer desires to give to support the church. Lynn advises compromise and coming to a mutual agreement.

“Giving money secretly is not honorable,” she said, “but your spouse can’t say, ‘Don’t give anything,’ either.” You can tithe in different ways – in service or through time or prayer. “That’s God’s heart. How can you give in a way that fulfills God’s purpose for you. Be respectful and honorable, and you’ll sort it out.”

Media choices also can be a problem if the unbelieving spouse wants to watch something the other feels convicted is harmful. “There are programs I just won’t watch. I leave the room,” Lynn said. “What we let into our spirit through our eyes and ears will either draw us closer to or away from the Lord. When you get that check in your spirit, God’s alerting you, and typically you have just a split second to decide.

“The older I am, the more sensitive I’ve become. I want to hear God’s voice clearly and be in line with his spirit. That’s the life I want – wholehearted living in the joy of Christ, walking in holiness and being a light in a dark world.”

Lynn’s 2024 book, Spiritual Enforcer, is modeled after Ephesians 6 and explains spiritual warfare “As a believer married to an unbeliever, we’re in warfare all the time. We do not battle against flesh and blood– we’re not really fighting against our spouse. The conflict we are having is not with the other person, the evil source has some sort of inroad through a belief system or lies we believe,” she said.

“You are the spiritual police enforcer of your home and self. You have the ability to change and direct everything that falls under your love, stewardship and jurisdiction. You can partner with the Holy Spirit in prayer, standing on your identity in Christ and in faith. As you use your voice, you can pour the Kingdom of God into a situation and change the direction of your home, family, church, city, and nation,” she continued.

“We don’t understand the power and authority we carry because we’ve been deceived by lies from the enemy. What kind of prayer do you pray when dealing with an angry spouse? There are ways to take authority over the spirit of anger. Her book equips Christians to stand firm against spiritual opposition.

Lynn also introduces the idea that Christians can advance the Kingdom by blessing others with God’s Word. “Our voice is so powerful!” she added. The book continues with strategies, tools and prayers to bless others.

“You have hope in Jesus Christ. Use your influence as a blessing. God will show up in amazing ways!”

Lynn wrote the following prayer for marriages.

“Father, in the name of my Savior, Jesus, I repent from all judgement, labeling, and misconstrued opinions birthed of the demonic realm. Please forgive me for any and all words spoken that create a wall between my husband (others) and myself. Wash these sins with the blood of Jesus and remove them from my permanent record.

Father, open my eyes, physical and spiritual, allow me to perceive my husband and others as you see them. It’s my desire to understand and honor them properly. Show me their innocence and reveal their pain, the deceptions that bind them, and grant me revelation to enable me to love them into your wholeness. In Jesus’s name, amen.”

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

1 JOHN 4:18

“When you start to live a life truly committed to God, he will use you. Just follow what the Bible says. We fight against it, but it is the best blueprint,” Lynn said.

“The best and highest and most rewarding life is following hard after Jesus Christ.”