Behavior and the Heart

Last week I discussed how I had become lazy in my focus on my marriage, and how I often make it secondary to any number of things including my job, recreational activities, and even ministry work.  I then pointed out that we should make an effort to do something every day, each week, and yearly to show our spouse the importance of the marriage relationship and commitment made to each other.

You would think that would be an easy job, after all we promised to love our spouses until death do us part. But after the honeymoon wears off and the challenges of life start assaulting us, it becomes difficult.  Then, when we realize we have pushed aside our most important human relationship, we look for a quick fix: "Five Easy Steps to Improved Communications" or "Ten Ways to Heat up the Relationship."

Here is the problem... making changes to behavior is only a short-term solution to marital challenges. Don't get me wrong, making some changes to your behavior may be critical in the short term.     However, our God is not a God of behavior.  He is a God of the heart.  What God really desires is for you to change how you see your spouse and marriage.  When the way you see your spouse and marriage line up with reality of how God sees your spouse and marriage, then your behavior will start to change.  That change is what is needed for a marriage to grow.  Let me give you an example:

A few years back, Patty and I were reading a marriage book.  The author spent a lot of time focused on behavior. At one point while reading the book I had to stop and ask Patty what I could do to make her feel romanced.  She shared a couple of things that were helpful.  One way I could express romance was to open the door for her when she got in a car or entered a building. This was a behavior  that I should engage in according to the book.

However, knowing this, I then felt compelled to open doors for her.  In addition, once she told me this, there was an expectation on her part that I would follow through with the action because she had shared a simple way for me to romance her.  Therefore, she would stand at the door waiting for me to open it even when I forgot and entered the other side. When I forgot, I would look at her waiting by the door and begin to get a little frustrated while thinking "God gave her hands so I don't know why she can't use them." Then I would get out, go over, and open the door all the while grumbling under my breath.  After a while this built resentment and started to wear on me.

One morning, I was meditating on who God says I am.  God says I am loved, accepted, valued, a favored son, a servant, a saint, etc. But then, he started revealing to me who Patty was. Patty is a child of the King (that makes her a princess), a person He delights in, His favorite daughter, passionately loved, completely accepted, and highly valued.  God then started to gently reveal to me that He had given this favored daughter to me and, furthermore, had given me to her.  I was to be one of his expressions of love to her.  One of the ways I could express that love was to open the door for her.  I can't fully explain, but as this realization sank in there was a change in the way I saw both who she was and who I was in relation to our marriage. This realization changed the way I thought about opening the door for her. It was no longer a response to an expectation, or a behavior that might result in her expressing romance to me in another way (quid-pro-quo), but it became something I wanted to do because it was part of who I really am.  Part of my identify in Christ is that I am an expression of God's love to Patty and one way I can express that love is by opening the door for her.  This is the business God is involved in, renewing minds and changing hearts.

I know people who really don't want to be married, people who have given up on their relationships, or people who simply live together as room-mates.  They may try all kinds of things from the Love Dare Challenge to the Respect Dare Challenge to regain that spark in their marriage. What they really need is a new way of thinking.  A new way of thinking about their spouse, marriage, as well as themselves.  What they need is a revelation from God so they can see their spouse, marriage, and self from God's eyes.  They need His perspective and point of view.

This week meditate on how God sees you and your role in your marriage to his child.  Be open to hear from Him concerning how He wants to change the way you see your spouse.  Once you start to see these truths the behaviors can't help but follow.

Thought for the Week:  Am I open to seeing my spouse the way God sees my spouse.  Am I open to being a expression of His love for them.  

Prayer for the Week:  Lord, renew my heart.  Create in me a desire to love, cherish, respect and value my spouse.  Change the way I think about them and feel about them so as to change my behavior towards them.  

Romans 12: 12 - Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind...

Check out this link for ideas on how to value your spouse.

Advice for Wives

Advice for Husbands

I've Gotten Lazy

I have gotten lazy.  There, I've said it.  After 32 years of marriage I have realized that I no longer put the time and effort into my marriage that I once did.  It is not an uncommon situation in marriages but you would think I would know better.  After all, I am in the ministry of marriages.

Remember when you spent some time thinking about what you would wear, how your hair looked and whether or not you had taken a bath that week.  Remember when you spent hours on the phone with the last 30 minutes being a salvo of "you hang up first" followed by the response of "no, you hang up first" and so on.  Remember when you planned that trip and surprised your new wife, or went shopping at that special store in the mall that resulted in steamy response in the bedroom a few hours later?  But then something happened.  You got comfortable, then you got boring, and then you just got tired.

Don't get me wrong; we are not in a world that we can spend all our time focused on romance, candles, sex and chocolate.  There are kids to raise, ministries to attend to, families to check on and yards to mow.  Work demands more and more while our energy reserves are often in shorter supply.  But that is no excuse for a marriage that is in a slow fade.  Make your marriage a priority and dedicate yourself to a daily activity, a weekly activity, a monthly activity and an annual activity that will improve your marriage. 

Want some ideas, stay tuned for the next post.

Why Oh Why Did I Ever Get Married

If marriage isn't all that it is cracked up to be, why shouldn't I just stay single?  I think this is a valid question  many couples are asking since there has been a dramatic increase in cohabitation over marriage. After seeing a full generation of adults fracture their families through selfishness and divorce, many are saying there is no real benefit to marriage.  Myself, I have now written a number of posts on the difficulty of marriage.  We face real challenges merging two lives into one. The struggle of overcoming power and control issues as well as the selfishness and self-centeredness we always bring into a marriage are the top areas of concern.

So, what is the benefit of marriage?

From a social and physical standpoint, marriage wields huge benefits.  Studies reveal married couples are healthier, have better paying jobs, have better sex lives, and live years longer than their single counterparts.   Overall, they self assess as happier, healthier and more at peace.  However, it is the spiritual benefits of marriage that strengthen the case.  Marriage is the incubator for spiritual maturity.  There is no better place for the fruit of the spirit to be produced than in marriage.  There is no place where it is more difficult to overcome impatience, self-centeredness, bitterness, and harshness.  Two people living and loving together rub against each other like stones in a rock polisher.  With each interaction a fragment of self-centeredness is polished away, a sliver of impatience falls to the wayside, and bitterness turns to thanksgiving.  While there are those who are called to singleness, God most often uses marriage as one of his best tools in our ongoing sanctification.  Our marriage of today prepares us for our marriage in eternity.

I can't imagine being single because I love marriage.  Yes, it is challenging at times, and there are times when my self-centeredness, impatience and harshness would otherwise go unnoticed if not for Patty.   But...  I can't imagine facing this life without her.  Combine this relationship with the relationship each of us has with Jesus, and you have a cord of three strands, which is not easily broken.

Thought for the Week:  Am I allowing God to improve our marriage?   Am I allowing God to improve me through my marriage?

Prayer for the Week:  Lord, help me see my marriage as you see my marriage.  Work through me to make it a place of harmony, trust, respect, and sacrificial love.

Ecclesiastes 4: 12 - And if one prevails against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not easily broken.

Source vs. Resource

Want to know one of the biggest secrets of a successful marriage?  Your spouse is not your source of happiness.  Neither are they your source of security, love, sexual fulfillment, safety, fellowship....

In fact, your spouse is not your source of anything that a righteous person seeks.  Just to be clear, as a Christian, you have been given the righteousness of Christ, so you are righteous.  So let me make my case.

James 1:17 says that all good things come from God.  We see in Genesis that it was not good for man to be alone, so God created him a helpmate, a partner.  Providing man a helpmate/partner/wife was the culminating event in creation.  Man was blessed with woman, and that blessing was from God.  Scripture says that if you cannot control lust (bad thing) then you should marry (good thing).  The blessings of a wife are stated over and over in Proverbs.  The Song of Solomon is a whole book on the blessings of sexual union (good thing) in marriage.  Even Ecclesiastes, the book of doom and gloom of the Bible, extols the value of a partner (wife) to stand against the enemy.

So what is my point?  God is the source of every good thing.  We too often look to our spouse as our source of happiness, joy, entertainment, romance, validation, security, etc.  We look to our spouse to meet all of our needs and are disappointed, sometimes tragically, when they fail us.  Here is the secret...they were never designed to meet all of our needs.  Only God can meet all of our needs, and sometimes he chooses to meet some of our needs through our spouse.  However, God retains full responsibility for meeting our needs.  Let me say it again because it is that important...God is our source and our spouse is one of the resources he uses to meet our needs.

Understanding that God is our source for all our needs and that our spouse is a resource God uses to meet some of those needs is a freeing realization.  As a husband I can let God express his love for my wife through me as he desires.  However, I am not responsible for meeting all of her needs for love, security, safety, etc.  Only God can do that.  When she feels her needs are not being met, we can join in prayer and ask God for what only he can supply.  When I am feeling that all of my needs are not being met by my wife, we can join in prayer and ask why?  Maybe I am expecting the need to be met from the wrong source, or maybe, it's not a need at all, but a desire.

Being disappointed in our marriage because of unmet expectations is a disaster of epic proportion, and may be the primary cause of divorce in couples.  When we enter into a marriage with unrealistic expectations, and then focus on those expectations and our spouse's failure to meet them, we end up being contemptuous towards our spouse and sometimes even God.  Remember that only God can meet all of our needs. We must go to him with our expectations, so we can see our marriage in the right perspective.  This makes it easier to give thanks for what our spouse brings into our lives instead of expressing contempt for their perceived shortcomings.

Scripture:  Phill. 4:19  And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.

Thought for the day:  Contempt is conceived with expectations. Respect is conceived with expressions of gratitude. We can choose which one we will obsess over, expectations or thanksgivings. That choice will result in a birth, and the child will be named either contempt or respect.

Prayer:  Father, thank you for your provision and help me to be thankful for the blessings you have provided.  Help me turn to you with my desires, dreams and needs.  Help me to have faith in you to meet all my needs.

Bonus Assignment:  This week start each day identifying three things you are thankful for concerning your spouse.  Do this every day and see if your perspective concerning them does not improve.  At the end of the week share three things you appreciate in a card or note to your spouse.

Beware the Little Foxes

Scripture is replete with advice on marriage.  Church members from Colossus were given advice on family structure, Ephesus received instruction on how to relate to one another, and similar advice can be found throughout the Old and New Testaments.  One of the best pieces of advice can be found in the Song of Solomon.  The writer is speaking to the lover and the beloved and pens these words:  “Beware the little foxes that get into the vineyard.”

I love the fact that the marital relationship is compared to a vineyard.   The vineyard evokes images of long, fruit bearing rows;  of vines on the side of Tuscan hill warming in the evening sun.  What we often don’t consider is the constant attention required of a vineyard and the fact that the keeper of the vineyard had to be vigilant against those things that would destroy his crop.  Marriage is no different.

It’s funny that we seem to think that the most important human relationship in our lives do not need attention.  However, inattention is one of the most destructive enemies of our marriage.  Ask yourself these questions:

• How much time each week do my spouse and I spend in intimate conversation? (The average in America is less than 9 minutes.)
• What have I purposely been involved in to strengthen my marriage?
• What does my sex life say about my marriage?  (Sex life is an indicator of a healthy marriage, not the cause of one.)
• Are my spouse and I closer than when we first got married or are we growing farther apart. 

So what is the answer?  A quote that comes to mind is from Steven Covey in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, "put First Things First."  I facilitate a class based on this book and when we come to the third habit, "Put First Things First," we complete exercises concerning what is really important in your life and where you actually spend your time and energy.  It is at this portion of the training that I often face tears.  People start looking at where they have spent decades of their life as opposed to what is really important.  They start to realize they have neglected relationships in an effort to pay for a house that is three times the size they need or a car they bought just to keep up with their friends.  They recognize the folly of building relationships at work at the expense of the relationships that are dying at home.  In short, through either laziness or inattention, they have let the little foxes into their vineyard. 

Think about this over the next week or so.  What relationships are you investing in?  Are you investing your time and energy into the most important human relationship of your life?  Without giving it thought you will always default into investing in those things that are urgent, not important. 

• Are you balancing time with your spouse and time ...
• with your friends?
• with your children?
• in your ministry?
• with your family?
• Are you working on your relationship through ...
• praying together?
• studying together?
• planning together?
• working together in ministry?
• attending workshops (like Love and Respect)?
• spending uninterrupted time alone (like at a Marriage Retreat)?
• pulling the weeds in your relationship by ...
• working through issues instead of ignoring them?
• dealing with the sin in your lives together?
• finding a Marriage Mentor or Coach when issues arise? 

Without spending time defending against them, the foxes will attack your vineyard and undermine your marriage.  It is sometimes a slow process that goes unnoticed for years until the damage is done. 

One final thought; if you feel a little conviction, do not fear.  We serve a God of second chances, a God that is in the redemption business, and a God that can get you back on track in your marriage.  Reach out to a pastor, minister or friend that can help.  Of course, the Marriage Ministry at Colonial Hills is always there to support, help, and encourage you as you work to keep the little foxes at bay.  Give us a call at any time. 

Thought for the week:  What foxes have I let into my marriage and how will I start to defend against them?

Scripture:  Catch the little foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom. (Song of Solomon 2:15)

Prayer:  Father, be the defender of our marriage.  Defend us from those things that attack and undermine our relationship.  Reveal to us our weaknesses, strengthen us and guide us in overcoming them, and work in and through us to create a marriage that honors you.

Welcome to Three Strands Ministry

If you are joining us from the Colonial Hills Facebook page for the first time, welcome.

I was talking to a guy last week and we were discussing his marriage.  During the discussion I felt that I needed to point out that God called us to be sacrificial in showing love to our wife.  Ephesians says “Love your wife as Christ loved the Church and gave up his life for her.”  I pointed out that God calls men to be sacrificial to the point of dying for our wives.  Without missing a beat he responded “I don’t mind dying for her, it’s the living with her I can’t handle.”

Sorry, it’s an old joke but one that expresses the difficulty many face in their marriage.  The church is afflicted with dying, mediocre marriages by men and women who have no idea how to overcome the sins of fear, selfishness and laziness.   As a result they are in a relationship where manipulation and mediocrity rule.   When frustration sets in many follow their feelings and “punch out” by calling a divorce lawyer.  Our marriages look no different than those of non-believers because we use the same tools and methods that the world uses and face the same outcomes.   There is a better way.

What if you started seeing your marriage as a garden; a place where the sacrificial love and mutual respect of Christ creates a climate of growth, peace and harmony.  A place where weed pulling becomes a way of life as you work together to overcome the challenges and brokenness you brought into your  marriage.  A place where seeds are planted that result in the fruit of peace, joy and patience.  A garden designed to produce holiness instead of happiness (though happiness is often possible at times).  A garden doesn’t grow without work and neither does a marriage.  However, when you turn your marriage over to God and begin the work of abiding in his plan for your marriage, great things become possible.  

Three Strands Ministry is designed to help you on your way.  Maybe you are planning a wedding and want to start strong through pre-marital coaching.  Maybe you have been married a few years and need a tune-up.  Maybe you are in one of those “hot spots” that every marriage goes through and you need a little support.  Maybe you just want to better understand why your spouse is so hardheaded, non-committal, withdrawn, indecisive, talkative, quiet, infuriating, or delightful.  Maybe you don’t know what you need but you know you need something.  If any of these describe you, check out these links and see what is available to you regardless of where you are in your marriage.

Three Strands Ministry - The home page for the Colonial Hills Marriage Ministry.

Marriage Coaching - For those preparing for marriage or those who want to improve their marriage.

Love and Respect Conference- For singles and dating.

Love and Respect Workshop- For engaged and married.

Love and War- For additional study.

Weekend Retreats - To review workshop content and focus on your relationship for a weekend.

Marriage and Whitewater

Patty and I spent the day on the river a couple of weekends ago. We put in on the northern part of the Guadalupe with only a couple of hours to float. We took our recreational kayaks, which have never been on anything other than flat-water with the exception of when Patty and Matthew took it down the Sabine, resulting in her dumping it in muddy, snake infested water.  As a result, she was a little nervous when we put in adjacent to stage one rapids.

After we got off the water three hours later, I started thinking about how our trip was very much like a marriage.  We started with stage one water. These rapids are fun.  If you have any type of balance at all, you seldom have to engage in a wet-water exit.  They are exciting and a little challenging, you move fast and it's exhilarating. After a few minutes we hit flat-water where the water calmed, allowing us to float and relax for little while. Every once in awhile we would hit some rough water but nothing too challenging.  In fact, it got a little boring after a while.  After some time, I spun the boat around and started telling Patty that I wished we had a longer stretch of rough water, something that might challenge me a bit.  It was at that moment I heard a building roar behind me that turned into stage two rapids.  I have to admit I was a little cocky at one point and decided that I needed to try to catch a little air. I learned some valuable lessons.

Lesson number one; when a recreational kayak catches air, and you are in said recreational kayak, you may not return to the river at the same place as said kayak.  Lesson number two; when both you and your kayak are  bobbing up and down in the river, you just gotta  keep swimming.  When you're in deep water, you simply have to trust in your personal flotation device and keep swimming for the shore.  Lesson number three; when you're in deep water, there are usually people around willing to help. You should let them. Lesson number four; a kayak filled with 100 gallons of water is hard to bear alone.  Even if a 19-year-old girl asks if you need help, you should probably say yes.  Lesson number five; it's hard work to get back into the kayak, but you have to do it if you’re going to reach your final destination. First pump the water out, then find your balance, and last but not least you have to get back into the boat.  You really have no choice.  Lesson number six; sticking it out is worth it.  At some point you can look back and know you have a great story to tell.

Marriage is very much like this. You'll have some exciting times, you'll have some boring times, and at times you’re going to feel like you're in over your head. Just keep swimming. Stick with it. Don't give up. There is someone holding you up, and you can trust in Him.  Remember there are people willing to help, but you may have to set aside your pride. When people ask if they can help, let them. When people say they are praying for you, pray with them.  There's nothing wrong with people helping each other when someone is in over their head.  Don't procrastinate. Get help sooner rather than later. Putting a marriage back together is hard work, but you have to do it. It's the right thing for you, it's the right thing for your spouse, and it's the right thing for your family. It might seem easier to get a divorce than to pump out 100 gallons of water. It's not. The damage to your family and your friends is nearly impossible to completely repair.  There are times when divorce is what has to take place, but these instances are fewer and farther between than the divorce lawyers let on.  Stick it out, and one day you will be able to look back and tell a story of God's faithfulness and redemption.

I love my marriage.  It is both fun and scary at times.  It is sometimes easy to the point of boredom and difficult to the point of being too much to bear.   I wouldn't trade it for anything.  Patty is a huge part of who I am.  Jesus uses all kinds of things, people, and circumstances to shape and mold me into the man he desires me to be, but the tool he uses the most to create the man I am becoming is Patty. As I look back over the many adventures shared with the love of my life, I realize I will have some great stories to tell my grandchildren. My prayer is you will have a great story to tell as well.

Scripture for the Week:  Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Prayer:  Father, continue to teach us patience and perseverance.  Teach us how to forgive, how to express your love to our spouse, and give us persistence to stand and face the challenges of marriage together.