Category Archives: Marriage

Encouragement, Issues of the Day, Leadership, Marriage

Life and Suffering

imagesAre you experiencing a struggle in your life or your marriage? If your answer to that question is “yes,” then my response is, good. Someone once said that, “Beauty is birthed in struggle.” Most of us have a natural tendency to avoid struggles in life. We dream of the life of ease, but is that life a reality and would we experience personal growth in that environment? Author Gary Thomas wrote, “Few people leave a marriage because it’s too easy.” To never encounter personal struggle and to only have ease and comfort would be to remain immature and walk through life with a lack of depth and character.

Do you desire your marriage, your life for that matter, to be seasoned and to experience growth and maturity? Suffering can be profitable and work toward this end as long as you find the purpose, walk through the process and personally grow because of it. If you think back through your life you will realize that it was the difficult times in which you grew (spiritually and emotionally) the most. imagesJesus suffered, as did many men and women of history. It was/is our Lord’s belief that something would be built in us as we would realize…For our present troubles are quite small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us an immeasurably great glory that will last forever! (II Corinthians 4:17)

Standard
Issues of the Day, Marriage

What if Divorce Included This?

images-19Author Gary Thomas once proposed this scenario, “You may opt for a divorce, but you cannot ever engage in sex again with anyone else for the rest of your life.” The obvious question that would follow would be just how many couples would actually divorce? Perhaps some women, but I am guessing very few men. I remember studying divorce and remarriage from every angle for our book, Called Together. We wanted to write what was biblically correct, while at the same time not provoke any unnecessary pain in those who have been through such devastation.

What I discovered was interesting; coming to the conclusion that while not every divorce was sinful, each one was the result of sin. And I also discovered that there was a certain divorce labeled as nonbiblical in which the two parties were to remain nonsexual by now remaining unmarried for the rest of their lives. (see I Corinthians 7:10-11) Jesus’ personal stand on divorce can be found in Mark 10: 1-12. I’ll let you read it and come to your own conclusions.   God’s first desire is always reconciliation, but within those verses found in the book of Mark, Jesus did tell us that divorce was not from the beginning.images-16

For those of you that have been through this heart wrenching experience, grace to you. For those of you contemplating divorce, please reconsider and ask God for a path to reconciliation if at all possible.

Standard
Encouragement, Marriage, Postmarital

Husbands, Stop Trying to Fix Your Wives

images-5Sorry guys, but your wife does not desire you to fix her like you fix the car or repair the broken dryer. But what she does desire is for you to attentively listen to her. I learned this lesson late one evening after a long day at the office counseling couples and individuals. Still in my “counseling mode,” Mary was running her day by me while I kept interrupting her with what she should have said or what she should have done in each case. Finally, in exasperation she quipped, “Oh, you’re the GREAT counselor swooping in to fix me and others!” What…? I was thinking, “She didn’t just respond that way when I was simply trying to help her did she?”

From that point in time and after that rebuke I learned that my wife simply wanted me to listen to her and not counsel or correct, fix or repair her. Listening is a developed skill and a wise husband will learn when to use it. I now ask her if she desires my input before opening my mouth. Do I understand this concept? No, not really, but then I don’t have to understand as much as I have to be understanding.images-4

Read this:  Proverbs 12:15   Fools think their own way is right, but the wise listen others.

Standard
Encouragement, Marriage, Postmarital

Wives, Stop Trying to Change Your Husbands

images-15Some women get into relationships thinking they will change him – they will not. Some women get married thinking they will change their husbands – they will not. Ladies, here is what you can do. You can affirm him, encourage him, speak life to him, honor him and esteem him. If your husband just mowed the lawn, find him and tell him, “You mow better than anyone I know.” You will turn a boring, mundane job into a lawn to conquer. When he cares for the children while you grocery shop, let him know he’s the greatest dad ever. When he comes home from work tired and feeling all used up, let him know he is one great provisionary. When you see him praying, reading his Bible or serving the Lord in some way, let him know how important that is to you and how secure you feel when he does those things.

Your man will respond to those words of affirmation before any word of criticism. He will feel better about himself and be drawn closer to you. He will want to spend time with you and maybe even take you on a special date. Your man is geared and created for compliments from his wife. You are the most important person to him on this earth and you have the power of building him up or tearing him down.

And, if in the end you still feel the need to change him, follow James 4: 1-2 – pray.

Standard
Marriage, Postmarital, Premarital

10 Ways to Divorce Proof Your Marriage

images-2The belief that one in two marriages end in divorce has been debunked regularly, but still today touted from pulpits and academic broadsides as truth. It is not true and NEVER has been true or statistically factual. Next we heard the one in four marriages end in divorce and that stat also being true in the local church. Is that your experience? I haven’t seen 25% of true believers divorcing.   It’s just plain scary to think about marriage in these terms. Would you get on a plane if one in four crashed? What is the truth about divorce statistics?

Shaunti Feldham in her book, The Good News About Marriage found during eight years of research of divorce statistics that the divorce rate overall may be around 31%, but for couples who regularly attend church it drops to 15 to 20%. One pastor she cited tracked 143 couples for 25 years and less than 10% had been divorced. We need to know this because the truth instills faith and gives us hope especially as couples go through rigorous premarital counseling and follow-up with postmarital throughout the first few years.  Consider these ten ways to divorce proof your marriage:

  1. Be committed to accountability and oversight for your marriage to a spiritual leader. Answer to someone(s) outside yourselves.
  2. Be committed to a local church where you not only receive truth, but where you serve together in ministry.
  3. Create a marriage mission statement that declares why you are married and what you are called to within marriage. Find your co-mission.
  4. Never, never, never mention the “D” word = divorce. Decide that divorce is not an option and neither of you will ever consider it.
  5. Receive marriage counsel as needed. When you run into a roadblock maturely enlist the help of others and admit your faults freely.
  6. Pray together creating the most intimate communication you can create.images
  7. Create a budget and be committed to follow it so that finances do not come between you. Find the strengths of each of your financial personalities and utilize them to generate unity.
  8. Know that marriage struggles will serve to strengthen you as you maturely deal with them, rather than avoid or run from them. The deeper the struggle the deeper the growth of your marriage as it is worked through.
  9. Praise in public and construct in private. Never put your spouse down before others. Speak life to one another and use language that builds one another up rather than criticizing one another.
  10. Seek God first and become intimate with Him so that He can continually change you. The marriage is not the issue, rather the two people in it are. Change and grow yourself and your marriage will also change.images-2

Finally, my personal bonus: Incorporate the nine most important words in marriage regularly: I am sorry; I was wrong; please forgive me.

Standard
Marriage, Postmarital, Premarital

Marriage and Values Differences

images-3We make decisions on a daily basis according to our personal life values. Our values are the key to our priorities and will greatly affect our lives and our marriage. Identifying those values can help you and your spouse bring your most important beliefs to the table for discussion. Many of our differences are actually rooted in our life values. For example, one of us might highly value being out of debt while the other sees certain types of debt as acceptable. What’s the difference? The difference is often found in our financial values.

Here’s a key: When we discover such differences it is actually an opportunity to find “us,” our value, rather than just his or her value. Finding us is crucial to growth and maturity as a couple. Finding our deeply rooted beliefs and how we will walk them out is a portion of the glue that holds us together. My wife and I struggled with the values of saving money versus spending money early on in our marriage. While that looks like polar opposites at first, it actually forced us to find our value. As we looked closer at the differences, what we discovered was that I was saving for a future need and she was giving to others for a present need. Combining those two values and keeping them in balance has been life changing to our relationship and to our finances.images-4

Take some time as a couple to look at your “opposing” values and you might just find a new normal that wisely incorporates the best of both for “us.”

Standard
Marriage, Postmarital

How to Change Your Wife

images-4How do you change your wife? Honor her. Weird, eh? To realize growth and change in your wife, honor your wife. To honor her means to esteem her, respect her, recognize her, credit her – to accept her for who she is. Consider this, …You husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat her with understanding as you live together…she is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life. (I Peter 3:7) Men, are you treating her as your “equal partner” and as a “gift” from God? She longs for you to do that.

Traveling around the world in ministry affords me the opportunity to observe the male leader who is married. One of the earliest things I like to do is to also meet his wife. When I get to know her and observe her spirit, along with watching how the two of them interact, I can tell if this husband honors his wife. Does she admire him, respect him, speak highly of him or is she weary, angry or unable to meet his impossible standards? It doesn’t take long to discover what kind of man this leader is through the eyes of his life partner.images-3

There is a bit of a caveat hanging onto this honor thing for us as men and husbands. The Apostle Peter writes that if we do not honor this woman and treat her, as we should, …”[our] prayers will not be heard.”

Standard
Encouragement, Marriage

How to Change Your Husband

images-3 Wives, did you know that you could change your husband without even opening your mouth? Impossible you say? Let me share my reference. In the same way, you wives must accept the authority of your husbands, even those who refuse to accept the Good News. They will be won over by watching your pure, godly behavior. (I Peter 3: 1, 2) Peter, by inspiration wrote “behavior,” not your strong rebukes, your forceful messages, your threats or your ultimatums. It is your behavior the scriptures state your spouse will observe and then consider change. This Bible verse requires an attitude check for every woman who thinks her Christianity is to be worn on her sleeve rather than in her heart.IMG_0605

Peter continues,” You should be known for the beauty that comes from within…a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God.” I know a woman like this. She found new levels in her spirituality through the Holy Spirit, but never competed with her husband who did not claim the same experience. She prayed at new levels of depth and saw miracles, but never threw those signs and wonders up for comparison with his faith. I watched her go through the loss of a teen child, grieve and then keep serving her many other children and grandchildren. And, I have watched her quickly fading and now heading toward her heavenly home still holding hands with her one and only man of 75 years. She has fought the fight and held onto her life-changing godliness. Her husband has watched, observed, changed and loved the…”beauty that comes from within…”

(I know a woman like that, my mother-in-law, age 93…who early one morning this past week did leave this earth for her heavenly home still loving her husband through a gentle and quiet spirit.  We’ll miss you, mom.)

Standard
Marriage, Mission Report

A Marriage Seminar in Western Kenya

IMG_1301Sitting at a coffee shop three hours west of Nairobi, Kenya would have been unheard of a few years ago. Yes, the coffee café craze has even reached western Kenya. I am in the city of Kisumu, teaching at amazing and growing DOVE International church’s found in Kadawa village and in the village of Musima on the topic of marriage. Our pastoral hosts have with keen foresight arranged the meetings and the couples have responded. It’s hot, it’s humid, but they take in new thoughts like a dry sponge absorbs water. They look at their spouse in amazement, eyes wide open and hearts challenged by God’s word. I ask them to interact together doing some couple exercises and at first it is very difficult, even a tinge of embarrassment comes over them. I keep pushing, asking for responses given out loud, and trying to discover if they are connecting with their speaker, his North American style English words coming through a translator.

IMG_1257Wherever I speak here, part of my introduction is the same, …”the husband of one wife.” There are multiple spouse families here and I ask my host to be the one to address those issues. It’s the third session in the first day and I see some tears and husbands who are noticeably uncomfortable with knowing how to help their wife. On the second day, I ask them the purpose of marriage and to follow that up with writing a marriage mission statement for the two of them. Later, I would ask them to share their statement. They become more comfortable; laughter is more at ease as they talk among themselves and respond much more freely to my many incessant questions. By the end of the two days they are easily encouraged to discuss, open up with each other and attempt to accomplish what this strange mzungu (white man) is requiring of them. And then, my ultimate reward at the close, watching them pray for one another and embracing in a very warm hug. It makes me smile.IMG_1256

Standard
Issues of the Day, Marriage

Liberation: The Toilet Seat is Up

imagesYou know your wife is away for an extended period of time if the toilet seat is left in the “up” position. As husband’s, we have been properly trained and groomed in toilet seat etiquette and flushing. But when our wives are away, all toilet seat bets are off and flushing is optional. What a pleasure it is to go into the bathroom, take care of business without having to first bend over and place our clean fingers on the germ-filled underside of a toilet seat. Then, having to go through a lifting up motion just to repeat the whole ordeal all over again placing the seat back down. They say it is the small things that bring pleasure to a man in everyday life and I am here to tell you this is one of those “small thing pleasures.”

Don’t get me wrong; it is not out of rebellion or a silent protest against my dear wife. (I actually caught myself once and almost put the seat down by automatic response.) It is a simple pleasure like relieving oneself in the woods where no extra bending over or lifting effort is ever needed. Yes, my wife has left for the day and she has placed her full trust in me to care for her well-kept and clean home. Heck, I even put the toilet seat up in our extra bathroom and I don’t plan on using that one all day…soooo liberating. This is to all those men who feel any sense of toilet seat control, here’s your chance to be liberated for a day and catch a smile forming on your face as you walk into the bathroom.   And may I challenge you one step further?  Maybe, just maybe dare to go without having to put forth the effort of reaching up and flipping the light switch on.  Now we’re talkin’.

I just heard the garage door go up, I gotta run and take care of a few things.

PS  Secret: You do not want to get caught with your toilet seat in the ‘up’ position so please for the sake of marriage harmony, plan your toilet seat strategy very carefully!

Standard