Gary L. Thomas's Blog, page 43

The Second Half of Marriage

Emily
is a gifted interior design artist. After the birth of her third child and her
decision to homeschool her children, she decided to sell off all her design
books, close the business bank account, and focus on her family.

When
Chip and Joanna Gaines became household names, Emily and her husband Doran
watched Fixer Upper religiously. Emily began missing the life she had
left behind. She told Doran one evening, “I have this dream: when the kids are
older and I can get back into interior design, I want to start a company called
Woods Design House” (Woods is their last name).

Doran
listened attentively but soon redirected the conversation. He’s tech savvy, so
following the date he went online, found that the website for that name was
open, bought it, and even designed a rudimentary site. He also went on social
media (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest) to find “handles” compatible with Woods
Design House.

“I
captured Woods Design House everywhere I could,” Doran told me.

On
their next anniversary, Doran brought up Emily’s dream. He wondered aloud
whether the website would even be available, so he said, “Why don’t I check?”

After
opening the search engine on his phone he said, “Oh, I guess somebody already
owns it…”—pregnant pause—“we do” and he showed her his phone.

There
wasn’t a better gift Doran could have given to his wife that year.

The
plan was that they could sit on the website and social media handles for years
until the kids were fully grown or at least done with homeschooling, but when
Hurricane Harvey hit Houston in 2017 and thousands of homes flooded and needed
to be rebuilt, Emily agreed to do one house as a favor for a friend at church.
Word got out and the demand became so intense the business started before they
became empty nesters, but I like the principle: a husband appreciates the
sacrifice his wife is making while the kids are young and plans for the day
when he can help make her original dreams come true.

We
need to think seriously about how to prepare for and enjoy the “second half of
marriage” because life is much different for us than it was for our
great-great-grandparents. In 1900, life expectancy at birth in the United
States was just forty-seven years old. Most people felt blessed to live long
enough to even become empty nesters, much less enjoy several decades as
empty nesters. Today (2020), a child born in the United States can be expected
to live about seventy-eight years.

This
exploding lifespan gives married couples a chance at two lives, one of which their
ancestors could only have dreamed of: a life spent raising children, and a life
spent after the children are raised. How do we prepare for this second
half of marriage?

Two
Childhoods

Expanding lifespans means many of us not only will see our children become parents, but we can watch our grandchildren become parents. We get to live through parenting twice. Grandparents can play a significant role in a child’s life; because we don’t have to (and shouldn’t try to) do the discipline and training, we can be the encouragers, the cheerleaders, even the fun oasis in a life of disappointment and expectations.

Doug and Julie have been retired for some years and moved to Florida to be near Doug’s aging parents. After both his parents passed, they found out their son and daughter-in-law (and just as importantly, their first grandchild) were moving to Boston. Guess where Doug and Julie packed up to move during the quarantine?  

Young families often feel like they are under assault today; supportive grandparents can be a lifeline. While it may take some relocating and life organizing to stay close to our grandchildren, some of the happiest empty nesters I know are the ones who have doubled down on this role. Laura and Curt have made Valentine’s Day an annual ritual where each one of their children get to go out on a romantic date while Laura and Curt set up a special Valentine’s Day evening for all the cousins. Skip passes on his love of reading by taking two of his grandchildren to Barnes and Noble every Sunday afternoon. He pays for the books, a small price for a lifetime memory of sharing a passion with your grandchildren.

Just
about every parent, in retrospect, wishes he or she could have spent more
unfettered time with their children. We can get a second chance with
grandchildren.

Resurrect
Stalled Dreams

As Doran and Emily discovered, some dreams need to be paused as we parent, particularly when the kids are very young. Most young parents I know would pay for more sleep if they could. But when you get to that point where there’s a little more free time, pause to reconsider if it’s time for a “big change.” A few years ago I told Lisa, “You’ve sacrificed so much for this family. Now, whatever you think God is calling you to do, let’s do it. If you want to go back to school; if you want to start a business; if you want to vacation more or get more involved at church, I’ll support whatever you want.”

In
our case, Lisa decided she wanted to work more with me. When the kids were
young, she travelled with me about ten percent of the time. Now, she’s with me
about eighty percent of the time. If it’s a trip to New York or Florida, she’s
with me. If it’s a short stop in Winnipeg during the Winter, she’s probably
not. But it’s her choice.

Did
your husband give up regular rounds of golf? Did your wife put off that trip to
Europe? Did the two of you spend your remodel money on college tuition? Now is
your chance to take what was paused and move it forward.

Reconnect

Perhaps even more important than what you do with your new time is what you become in your new time. The empty nest years give us an opportunity to reconnect as a couple. I’ve watched a lot of couples go through this and I urge you to make this a top priority. If you don’t choose to move toward each other right away, you may fill up the free time with independent pursuits instead of each other.

Instead of asking, “what can I do with all this free time,” ask “What can we do with the extra time?”

Admittedly, I’m able to work longer hours now but still spend more time with my wife. With just one person to focus on, I’m more aware of how crucial it is for Lisa and me to connect meaningfully at the end of the day. When the kids were young, I’d come home and think, “Okay how’s Graham doing? What’s Kelsey’s up to? Is Allison all right? Amber (our dog) needs to be walked, and Lisa looks a little tired. Better try to help out more.”

Now that it’s just Lisa, I can
come home an hour or two later and give her four times the attention. I’ve got
to be honest—as a guy with a strong work ethic, it feels great to have more
guilt-free hours to work and still
have more quality time with my wife.

What
Lisa and I have found is that moving toward each other instead of filling up
the time with other things has made this time one of the sweetest seasons of
our marriage. We loved being active parents and wish we could have raised more
(we had three). But we are enjoying the renewed friendship and the renewed
freedom to reconnect.

I’d
encourage every empty nest couple to discover one or two of your spouse’s
natural passions and start joining in. Just try a shared activity, without
making a lifelong commitment. If it doesn’t fit, try doing something else you
both enjoy together. But make that initial investment—think, “What can we do together?”

We read a lot about “gray divorce” (divorce after 50) but much of the cause behind gray divorce stems from the fact that couples have lived as strangers for years. They think they’ve become estranged because there’s something wrong with each other rather than the simple fact that the relationship is starving. It’s often a “software” problem, not a “hardware” problem. Instead of getting a new marriage we can invest the same time and energy into feeding the old one. In the end, that’s the truest road to happiness.

A New Challenge

One of the things Lisa and I
have become fond of as empty nesters is international travel. It does something
to your marriage when you’re in a completely foreign place you’ve never seen
before and you’re dependent on each other. Lisa and I will never forget trying
to figure out how to pay for and thus get out of a parking garage in the
Netherlands. In the United States, there are red buttons (cancel) and green
buttons (enter). Imagine finding yellow and blue buttons surrounded by a
foreign language. We eventually got out, obviously, and then lived through my
enjoyment of some of the best stew I had ever tasted. It was sold as the town’s
signature dish so I thought I’d give it a try. It was so delicious I wondered
aloud what was in it and the person sitting next to us (in pre-COVID-19 days the
restaurant put you right next to fellow patrons) overheard us talking and asked
me, “Do you really want to know?”

Yes, I did.

“Horsemeat,” she replied.

I couldn’t take another bite.

When the kids were young, Lisa
and I couldn’t have imagined getting away to other countries. We didn’t have
the time or the money. Part of your joint journey might be finding ways to
slowly save up for a trip together. If you can afford it, we highly recommend
it.

Seek First

More than we think about old
dreams or new experiences, however, empty nesters should consider our Lord’s
call who tells us to “seek first the kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33). Here’s the
marriage miracle I’ve seen when couples embrace joint ministry in the second half of marriage: new respect
and appreciation for someone you’ve known your entire life.

You
think you know all about a person. You’ve been together for three or four
decades and it’s easy to assume you’ve got everything figured out; there’s
nothing more to share, nothing more to discover, nothing more to talk about.
Ministry of any significant kind raises a whole host of other issues; you see a
side of yourself and each other that you never knew existed.

The
other factor is that the Holy Spirit equips those he calls. If you want to
impress your spouse, tell the Lord you’re available to serve him.

Lisa
now sometimes joins me when I counsel a premarital couple. After one session,
two very serious issues arose. I helped them think through them, and urged them
to talk and think about these issues in light of their faith.

As
we walked away, Lisa hugged my arm and said, “Huh. You’re pretty good at this!”

Anyone
who offers herself or himself to God will find out that when you step out in
faith, God gives you words, insight, and caring abilities that you don’t
possess on your own. That’s why serving the Lord together can bring new
respect, appreciation, and admiration.

My
friend Sheila is a Canadian blogger, speaker, and book author. Her husband
Keith is a pediatrician who got his dream job at a teaching hospital just three
years before they became official empty nesters. As Sheila’s platform grew,
they found it difficult to connect relationally.  Keith believes Sheila has a vital and unique
ministry, so he quit his “dream job” to go part-time in their hometown, freeing
up his schedule to travel with and support Sheila. They came to the conclusion
that “we don’t need the money, but we do need the marriage.”

Kevin
and Karen Miller write these powerful words about rediscovering joint ministry:
“We hunger for this today: cooperating together, meshing, working like a
mountain climbing team, ascending the peak of our dream, and then holding each
other at the end of the day.  God has
planted this hunger deep within every married couple.  It’s more than a hunger for
companionship.  It’s more than a hunger
to create new life.  It’s a third hunger,
a hunger to do something significant together. 
According to God’s Word, we were joined to make a difference.  We were married for a mission.”

Being
“married for a mission” can revitalize a lot of marriages in which the partners
think they suffer from a lack of compatibility; my suspicion is that many of
these couples actually suffer from a lack of purpose. Jesus’ words given to individuals is perhaps even truer in
marriage: when we give away our life, we find it. When we focus outside our
marriage, we end up strengthening our marriage.

The
second half of marriage provides a wonderful opportunity to “recalibrate” and
rebuild your marriage on the back of shared mission. Whether you seek to become
the sports/coaching couple, the Bible study leading couple, the local school
mentors couple, or the hiking club couple, using extra time for a divine purpose
refuels marriage, passion, appreciation, and fulfillment. It can revolutionize
a marriage. You know you can’t “re-create” the initial infatuation you felt thirty-five
years ago, but you can create and
re-create the even more powerful bond of purpose and spiritual mission.

A
woman once told me, “I have found that when my husband and I focus on our own
needs, and whether they’re being met, our marriage begins to
self-destruct.  But when we are
ministering together, we experience, to the greatest extent we’ve known, that
‘the two shall become one.’”

Many
Paths

None
of these callings are necessarily exclusive. You can resurrect paused dreams,
carve out time for grandkids, double down on your work for God’s Kingdom, and
still take an occasional trip overseas. But if, while you were reading the
above, you felt your heart “spike” at the mention of one of them, go with that
first and reach out from there. Read this article together and talk about which
point made you spontaneously respond, “We need to do that…”

Because
I think God’s work on this planet is paramount, I do hope that every empty nest
couple will eventually find their way to the last point, investing their time
in a new or more focused mutual ministry. As empty nesters, we can step in
where younger parents can’t and end up renewing our own mature marriages even
while serving younger marriages.

The
danger of using the “empty nest” moniker is that it defines this season of our
lives as devoid of something (i.e., “empty”); once our kids are grown, our
marriage isn’t just empty of kids; it’s full of promise for a new future. Let’s
take advantage of that.

The post The Second Half of Marriage appeared first on Gary Thomas.

One Woman's Sexual Awakening

“Over
the course of my marriage, intercourse has drastically changed from something I
just endured to something that frustrated the heck out of me to something I
crave.”

Ruth
Buezis lived with various degrees of sexual frustration for about twenty-five years.
She has spent the past decade making up for it. And she has dedicated this
portion of her life to helping women find new pleasure and enjoyment in bed
with their husbands.

In
her Awaken Love workshops, Ruth helps wives move from thinking sex is
something they have to endure for the sake of their husband, to being something
that is designed to thrill, pleasure, and comfort them and to draw them
ever closer to their husbands. Ruth doesn’t blame her husband for the lack of
sexual excitement in the early years of their marriage, saying it was as much
her fault as his. Her book is the story of how a woman found her way to the
best sex of her life in the third decade of her marriage.

I’ve read a lot of books about marriage and even
a good number of books about sex in marriage, and I found Ruth’s Awaken
Love to be among the best. She writes as a woman to women, but more
particularly as a woman who settled for sub-par sex for far too long, and who
not only found the way to enjoyment, but who has taught many other women to get
there as well. That journey has seasoned her advice and it has aged well.

One
woman struggled with believing her husband was sexually attracted to her.
Because of this, sex was guarded, and in the dark. After being set free, she eventually
ended up doing a strip tease for her husband. It didn’t go all that well the
first time, but the second time… Too good to share the details. You can get the
book for that.  

Awaken
Love
is balanced in dealing with the spiritual issue of dealing with your sexual
past.  Ruth encourages women to think
about what was done to them, or what they did, that has given them misguided
thinking about sex and therefore has held them back. She then—and I had never
heard this before—gets women to pray out loud specifically for where they want
freedom and how they want to grow sexually, whether that might be allowing
their husband to perform oral sex on them or make love with the lights on.

She
then moves on to offer much practical, helpful information. This is the stage
of a sex book where I expect that everything the author says will be something
I’ve read a dozen times before. I was pleasantly surprised.

Near
the end, Ruth comes to an astonishing conclusion that helps reshape the way
women in particular can be motivated to heat things up in the bedroom: “I used
to think my husband needed creativity in the marriage bed. I thought I needed
to dress up, surprise him in new locations, or come up with a new move. It
weighed me down and made me feel inadequate. Honestly, I don’t think my husband
really cared that much. I now understand that creativity in the marriage bed is
something that I need. Women are the ones with fifty pairs of shoes, not our
husbands.”

Particularly
with younger husbands (who aren’t looking at porn), you don’t usually have to
try that hard to get your husband interested in sex. But to keep you interested
in sex? That requires creativity. Brilliant advice.

As
a guy reading a book written for women, I was struck by how Ruth’s practical
but not always obvious tips for increasing sexual pleasure are thus focused
ninety percent on increasing the wife’s pleasure. As a husband, I’d want
my wife to read this book, because I know the more she enjoys sex, the more
interested she is going to be to have even more sex.

A
lot of wives are understandably put off by the many sex books that have been written
by men. Sometimes it’s the locker room language. Sometimes, it’s the male
author’s assumptions. Other times, you may feel he just doesn’t understand
women—how they think, feel, or function. If that’s been you, I think you’ll
appreciate Ruth’s woman-to-woman counsel.

Let
me stress: this is not a sponsored post. I’m writing this solely because I
believe this is a book that can serve many marriages and thus help build up
God’s church.

You
can find more information about Ruth’s book or workshops by going here:

Discover God’s Design For Sex – Christian sex classes, blog and speaking

The post One Woman's Sexual Awakening appeared first on Gary Thomas.

One Woman’s Sexual Awakening

“Over
the course of my marriage, intercourse has drastically changed from something I
just endured to something that frustrated the heck out of me to something I
crave.”

Ruth
Buezis lived with various degrees of sexual frustration for about twenty-five years.
She has spent the past decade making up for it. And she has dedicated this
portion of her life to helping women find new pleasure and enjoyment in bed
with their husbands.

In
her Awaken Love workshops, Ruth helps wives move from thinking sex is
something they have to endure for the sake of their husband, to being something
that is designed to thrill, pleasure, and comfort them and to draw them
ever closer to their husbands. Ruth doesn’t blame her husband for the lack of
sexual excitement in the early years of their marriage, saying it was as much
her fault as his. Her book is the story of how a woman found her way to the
best sex of her life in the third decade of her marriage.

I’ve read a lot of books about marriage and even
a good number of books about sex in marriage, and I found Ruth’s Awaken
Love to be among the best. She writes as a woman to women, but more
particularly as a woman who settled for sub-par sex for far too long, and who
not only found the way to enjoyment, but who has taught many other women to get
there as well. That journey has seasoned her advice and it has aged well.

One
woman struggled with believing her husband was sexually attracted to her.
Because of this, sex was guarded, and in the dark. After being set free, she eventually
ended up doing a strip tease for her husband. It didn’t go all that well the
first time, but the second time… Too good to share the details. You can get the
book for that.  

Awaken
Love
is balanced in dealing with the spiritual issue of dealing with your sexual
past.  Ruth encourages women to think
about what was done to them, or what they did, that has given them misguided
thinking about sex and therefore has held them back. She then—and I had never
heard this before—gets women to pray out loud specifically for where they want
freedom and how they want to grow sexually, whether that might be allowing
their husband to perform oral sex on them or make love with the lights on.

She
then moves on to offer much practical, helpful information. This is the stage
of a sex book where I expect that everything the author says will be something
I’ve read a dozen times before. I was pleasantly surprised.

Near
the end, Ruth comes to an astonishing conclusion that helps reshape the way
women in particular can be motivated to heat things up in the bedroom: “I used
to think my husband needed creativity in the marriage bed. I thought I needed
to dress up, surprise him in new locations, or come up with a new move. It
weighed me down and made me feel inadequate. Honestly, I don’t think my husband
really cared that much. I now understand that creativity in the marriage bed is
something that I need. Women are the ones with fifty pairs of shoes, not our
husbands.”

Particularly
with younger husbands (who aren’t looking at porn), you don’t usually have to
try that hard to get your husband interested in sex. But to keep you interested
in sex? That requires creativity. Brilliant advice.

As
a guy reading a book written for women, I was struck by how Ruth’s practical
but not always obvious tips for increasing sexual pleasure are thus focused
ninety percent on increasing the wife’s pleasure. As a husband, I’d want
my wife to read this book, because I know the more she enjoys sex, the more
interested she is going to be to have even more sex.

A
lot of wives are understandably put off by the many sex books that have been written
by men. Sometimes it’s the locker room language. Sometimes, it’s the male
author’s assumptions. Other times, you may feel he just doesn’t understand
women—how they think, feel, or function. If that’s been you, I think you’ll
appreciate Ruth’s woman-to-woman counsel.

Let
me stress: this is not a sponsored post. I’m writing this solely because I
believe this is a book that can serve many marriages and thus help build up
God’s church.

You
can find more information about Ruth’s book or workshops by going here:

Discover God’s Design For Sex – Christian sex classes, blog and speaking

The post One Woman’s Sexual Awakening appeared first on Gary Thomas.

More Power Than You Need

Do
you want to cultivate and enjoy a great marriage?

Do
you want to be more energized and less discouraged, regardless of what is
happening around you and how others are treating you?

Do
you want to see God use you in tremendous ways?

In
one sense, it all begins in your head.

During
my Cherish marriage seminars, I make
the case that those who are able to sustain a cherishing marriage with an
imperfect spouse (of course there are no perfect spouses) meditate often on the
kindness and grace of God; those who give up cherishing their spouse meditate
often on the faults and failures of their spouse. A high-functioning
marriage depends largely on what direction our minds are pointed: “Be
transformed by the renewing of your minds” (Romans 12:2).

The
same is true for effective parenting, or for any lasting and great
accomplishment for the Kingdom of God. Our thoughts encourage or discourage
us on an hourly basis, growing hope or sowing the seeds of anger and fear.

I’m
not advocating the power of positive thinking; I’m advocating the power of
focusing on God. One of the most helpful, joy-producing
disciplines for me over the past two and a half years has been learning and
re-learning to set my mind on who God is, what he has done, and what he
promises, rather than the fears I am facing.

In
the past I have spent entirely too much time obsessed with myself, my
circumstances, and my obedience, or (more commonly) my lack thereof. Meditating
on myself is the certain path to discouragement because I’m not all I want to
be, whereas God is everything we need him to be and so much more.

What
we think about most often will usually determine how we feel most often.

I
am currently going through the entire Bible writing down every positive
statement about God, transferring that onto a list, and spending time each day
meditating on one of those affirmations:

“God
has reconciled you through Christ to present you as holy, without blemish, and
free from accusation” (Colossians 1:22). This is great medicine for a day in
which I feel I’ve blown it.

“God
rewards us” (Colossians 3:24). This is great encouragement for when I feel
taken for granted by others.

“God
will strengthen and protect you from the evil one” (2 Thessalonians 3:3). This
is a much-needed reminder when I feel I am under spiritual attack.

I
could have learned this decades ago if I had just listened a little more
closely to my theological mentor and advisor in seminary, Dr. J.I. Packer. In A
Passion for Faithfulness, he urges us to follow Nehemiah’s example and focus
our thinking on the beauty, power, glory, and might of our God. This was the
discipline behind the strength, motivation, and empowering presence that fueled
Nehemiah’s incredible accomplishment of rebuilding Jerusalem’s wall in just
fifty-two days:

“The
God of Nehemiah is the transcendent Creator, the God ‘of heaven’ (Nehemiah 1:4-5;
2:4, 20), self-sustaining, self-energizing, and eternal (‘from everlasting to
everlasting,’ Nehemiah 9:5). He is ‘great’ (Nehemiah 8:6), ‘great and awesome’
(Nehemiah 1:5, 4:14), ‘great, mighty and awesome’ (Nehemiah 9:32)… Lord of
history, God of judgment and mercy, ‘a forgiving God, gracious and
compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love’ (Nehemiah 9:17; see Exodus
34:6-7). God was to Nehemiah the sublimest, most permanent, most pervasive,
most intimate, most humbling, exalting, and commanding of all realities. The
basis on which…Nehemiah attempted great things for God and expected great
things from God was that…he had grasped the greatness of God himself.”

To
do great things, meditate on a great God.

To
build a great marriage, meditate on your great God.

To
overcome great challenges, spend more time meditating on your great God than
your troublesome trials.

Don’t
focus on how weak you or your family are or how desperate the situation is with
one of your children. Focus on the greatness of your God. It’s entirely
reasonable to do this, as God has already saved the radically rebellious in
numbers too many to count, so yes, he can save your loved one. He has emboldened
the cowardly; he has healed the sick, given wisdom to the foolish and even made
this amazing world out of…nothing. He
raised Jesus from the dead! A God who can do all that is a God who can do
whatever needs to be done in your life, family, or ministry.

Think
less of the problem, and more of God’s intelligence; less of the challenge, and
more of God’s provision; less of your sin and more of God’s grace; less of the
need and more of God’s promised provision. Begin your prayers thanking God, end
your prayers adoring God, and never let a significant point of time go by
without celebrating the wonders of God.

God’s excellence in every way is the surest platform from which we can face every challenge.

The post More Power Than You Need appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Only God Can Change a Heart: When Your Spouse Fails You

This week I’m excited to announce that a book I’ve been talking about for months is finally available: Together Through the Storms by Sarah and Jeff Walton. I can’t imagine a more appropriate time for a book that addresses marriages learning to survive and even thrive in the midst of challenges, heartache, setback, and struggle. Here’s just a taste…

He’ll never understand how I really feel. He wasn’t there for me when I needed him most, so how can I trust him when he can’t see how deeply I’ve been hurt.

After days of heated conversations,
tears, and unresolved hurts boiling over, I wondered if there was any way
forward. On one hand, it was a miracle that my husband (Jeff) and I were still
together after all we had been through: my chronic illness, him being on call
24/7 for nine years, a child with special needs, four children with Lyme
Disease, job loss, financial loss, several major surgeries, and intimacy
struggles… And yet, on the other hand, we had been in survival mode for so
long that neither of us had had the time or energy to face what was brewing
under the surface. With significant challenges demanding our constant
attention, the seemingly less urgent things, those hurts and disagreements,
continued to go by the wayside.

Then we found ourselves in a brief season
of slight reprieve, and those “lesser” things began to demand attention.
Feelings that I hadn’t even realized I was carrying started brewing in me.
Anger, resentment, hurt, and trust issues began to erupt as though an emotional
volcano had been simmering below the surface for years too long.

For the first time in our marriage, we
began to understand how easily couples reach a breaking point from which escape
seems to be the only answer. Though we never verbalized or acted on these
thoughts, I know they were there.

I attempted to share with him how the
layers of hurt and the painful experiences that I had walked through day after
day had left deep scars. Yet every time I attempted to describe my pain and
what I thought he needed to hear, trying to articulate my feelings in ways he
could understand, I only walked away more discouraged and angry. It seemed
clear to me that he needed to change for us to move forward; and if I could
help him see where he needed to change, we would be on a path to healing.

I don’t know how long it took for me to
realize the futility of my attempts to convince him to “see me” in the way I
thought I needed him to. There came a point, though, when the Lord began to
show me that though my desire for healing wasn’t wrong, my focus on Jeff as the
sole problem was. While I was trying to open my husband’s eyes, the Lord was
opening my own. After weeks of exhausting conversations and tension between the
two of us, I increasingly brought my heartache and frustrations to the Lord. I
stopped pleading with Jeff, and I started pleading with the Lord.

As I began to pray and spend more time in
God’s word every day, I felt a burden begin to lift off my shoulders. Instead
of trying to come up with new ways to make my points to my husband, I started
to share with him how God was growing me—including confessing to him ways that
I had wronged him, but had been too blind to see. Instead of trying to convince
Jeff that he needed to change, I trusted God to do the changing work as he saw
fit.

Though we still had many hard, honest
conversations to navigate, they became more fruitful. Amazingly (but not
surprisingly), when we stopped trying to change each other and started asking
Christ to change our own hearts, God began to do a deeper work in each of us,
and a wonderful work of healing began in our marriage. That season of struggle
for us has now become a marker of God’s faithfulness.

Although circumstances will vary, many
marriages experience similar struggles, which are likely magnified for those
who have endured more extreme suffering. Sometimes they come when the
storm is at its fiercest, but oftentimes they hit when the storm itself has
blown out and left some wreckage to sort out in its aftermath.

How do we prevent things reaching this
point? Or, if they have already done so, what does it take to move forward?

THE ONE PERSON YOU NEED IS NOT YOUR
SPOUSE

If we get this backwards, then our
pursuit of joy and our desire to be known and unconditionally loved will be
primarily directed at each other, setting our marriages up for frustration,
disappointment, and hurt when our “needs” and desires fail to be met. You will
actually enjoy your spouse more when you’re not looking to them to be
everything you need, or demanding they change to become who you want them to be
and then resenting them when they don’t.

The truth is, there will always be something
that you desire to change about your spouse, and there will always be things
that they desire to change about you. But when you look to Christ to satisfy
your desires, you will place fewer unrealistic expectations on each other and
enjoy one another more freely.

THE PERSON WHO MOST NEEDS TO CHANGE
MAY NOT BE YOUR SPOUSE

How easy it is to read Jesus’ warnings
against double standards and think of other people who need to hear it—and how
ironic it is that we so often do this. But when Jesus asks, “Why do you see the
speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your
own eye?” (Matthew 7 v 13), he is talking to me—and, likely, you. We are all
prone to downplay our own actions and motives while condemning the actions of
others and assuming the worst about their motives. It’s no different in
marriage. We tend to fixate on our spouse’s shortcomings while excusing or not
even seeing our own.

Paul says a Christian should “not …
think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but [should] think with
sober judgment … according to [his God-given] measure of faith” (Romans 12 v
3). Only when we see ourselves rightly can we “in humility count others more
significant than yourselves” (Philippians 2 v 3).

If you are a Christian, your faith tells
you that you are a sinner in need of mercy. Living in view of that truth will
make you quicker to forgive, and much slower to assume that the problem is your
spouse. The answer may not be “yes,” but the question always to ask as you look
in the mirror is “Am I the main problem here?” Answer that question and
your marriage will be more likely to enjoy an atmosphere that promotes growth
and unity, rather than dissension and distance.

THE ONLY PERSON YOU CAN CHANGE IS YOU

Whether your spouse is a Christ-follower
or not, you have neither the job of changing them nor the ability to do so. But
God can, and will, change you. So you
can “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who
works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2 v
12-13). Galatians 5 v 25 calls this keeping in step with the Spirit.

God calls us to walk in holiness, and he
empowers us to do so through his Spirit.

You cannot change your spouse. So if you
desire change or growth in your marriage, it always has to begin with you. Take
your eyes off of your spouse and their flaws, and humbly ask the Lord to show
you where you need to change, and to work in you by his Spirit so that you can
change.

THE ONLY PERSON WHO CAN CHANGE YOUR
SPOUSE IS GOD

If God can change you, he can change your
spouse! He alone has the power and wisdom to convict, grow, and shape their
heart to reflect more of his. So, ask him to do those things—ask him to change
your spouse if and where he sees best. Rather than challenging them, growing
frustrated, and nagging, we can pray! It is hard to be angry with someone we
are praying for. It is easier to love someone we have asked God to be at work
in.

And then be patient. Often there are no
quick fixes, either for our own heart or our spouse’s. God’s timetable and ways
are not our own, and it is often through long seasons of waiting that he
chooses to work. Jeff and I walked through 13 years of marriage before God
suddenly moved and changed both of us within a matter of months. Was that long
season difficult? Immensely. But I believe those years were preparing us for
the work God had planned to do in each one of us. And for that, I am thankful.

If you’ve been humbling yourself,
praying, waiting, and hoping for change that seems like it may never come,
don’t lose hope. It’s not your job to change anyone else—it is your task to
love them. As we will discuss in a later chapter, seasons of waiting are never
pointless, and there is always more going on than we are able to see in the
moment. Keep asking for the change to come. And you never know—God might just
change your own heart in the process.

The post Only God Can Change a Heart: When Your Spouse Fails You appeared first on Gary Thomas.

A Fruitful Life

When
I start writing a book, I wear the hat of an explorer. I have a general
destination in mind, but I don’t always know where I’ll end up until I get
there. Sometimes, it’s only until after a book is finished and I start regularly
teaching on it that I finally understand the implications of where I tried to
point readers to.

Such was the case when I wrote When to Walk Away: Finding Freedom from Toxic People. While I briefly mentioned how important it is to live a “fruitful” life in the book, as I’ve taught on it in live sessions and sermons, I’ve emphasized this issue a whole lot more. One of the primary (though not the only) reason we need to feel free to walk away from toxic people isn’t just because they bug us, abuse us, discourage us, or hurt us (though those can be good reasons). It’s also because they keep us from doing what we are called to do: bear fruit. And bearing fruit is what we were saved to do.  

I grew up in a Christian tradition where “being holy” meant not doing a lot of bad things. The mind change we need is that being holy isn’t primarily about not doing sinful things; it’s about being set apart for glorious eternal things. Jesus said, ““My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit” (John 15:8). He didn’t say God is glorified when I manage to not do the sinful things that many others do, but rather when I am faithful to do the holy and good works God has created me to do.

As
a boy, I was terrified of being cut off by “sinning away” my faith. Ironically,
when Jesus talks about something being “cut off” it’s not because of what someone
did, but because of what they didn’t do: “I am the true vine, and my Father
is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while
every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more
fruitful.” John 15:1-2

A
similar sentiment of Jesus’ can be found in his famous Sermon on the Mount: “So
every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the
fire.” (Matthew 7:19) I thought the “fire” was reserved for those who said bad
words, looked at bad movies, took bad drugs, or did bad things. No one that I
can remember ever told me that Jesus’ anger is aroused when we fail to produce
good fruit.

The
need to create and preserve a fruitful life becomes passionately important when
we read of Jesus’ plaintive request for his disciples to pray to the Lord of
the Harvest for more workers (Luke 10:2). Why? Obviously, because there aren’t
enough! There will be never be enough. Which means all of us who do consider
ourselves to be workers need to make the best use of our time, making every
minute count. Instead of “spinning our wheels” with toxic people who will never
be pleased and never be helped, we can walk away to a situation where God has
prepared a person’s heart for a rich harvest.

If
we value fruitfulness as much as Jesus does, then all of us—literally, all of
us—will need to be more intentional about cutting some less than fruitful
encounters and relationships out of our lives from time to time.

It’s
not that we don’t want to be bothered; as Christians, we live to be bothered!
It’s rather about taking yourself and your calling more seriously. If someone
is making you less fruitful than God calls you to be, walk away. That’s
what Jesus did, and it’s what we should do.

You were saved for a mission

When Jesus spoke the famous words of Matthew 6:33—“Seek first the Kingdom of God,” he wasn’t talking to people who were paid to do Christian work. He was speaking to farmers, parents, grandparents, carpenters, laborers. He was telling some very seemingly insignificant people that they could and should live a life of profound eternal significance.

In one of his final addresses to his disciples before His ascension to the Father, Jesus helped them understand one of the best ways to seek first God’s Kingdom: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19). This is an explicit commandment to find people who are willing to learn what it means to live a life of obedience to God. If someone doesn’t want to live such a life, they can’t become a disciple.

This was the clear message of the early church following Jesus’ ascension. The apostle Paul mirrored Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Mount with this sentence in his letter to the Corinthians: “Christ died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them” (2 Corinthians 5:15). Christ didn’t die just to save us from our sins, but to save us from lives without purpose or passion, self-centered lives of no account.

Paul’s “great commission” that so closely resembles the language of Jesus prior to his ascension can be found in 2 Timothy 2:2: “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.”

Jesus
and Paul agree: the focus of Christianity isn’t on not doing bad things; the focus
is on investing in good people. Christianity is an endless, persistent and sacrificial pursuit of
investing in reliable people

By
extension, we are not called to invest in unreliable or toxic people.
Instead we should be investing in people who are willing to obey everything
Jesus commands.

Here’s
the rubric through which you understand whether you need to walk away: what’s
keeping you from bearing fruit?

Is
it a toxic relative? A toxic co-worker or boss? Satan may tempt you to stay in
a situation that is destroying your ability to produce fruit by getting you to
think it’s a “sin” to walk away from someone who seems so needy. In fact, what
if the sin is staying in a place that is undercutting your self-confidence (so
that you don’t believe you have anything to share with anyone), destroying your
joy (since the joy of the Lord is our strength, letting someone destroy our joy
is to let them make us weak) or destroying your peace so that you are not free
to dream of how God wants to use you?

Frequent
readers of this blog know I am not saying sin doesn’t matter. I am
saying that if you grew up with the same baggage I did, you might want to think
less about potentially sinning by not being “nice” to a toxic person, and more
about how wasting your time with that toxic person is keeping you from living
the life God created you to live.

Follow
in the footsteps of Jesus and learn when to walk away.

The post A Fruitful Life appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Using the Quarantine to Build Quality

When doing premarital counseling, I’ve found that the session when I take couples through their “Prepare and Enrich” test results is often the most helpful and revealing session of all. The test tells couples where they are likely to stumble and serves as a general measure of overall compatibility.

As a tool, it can be
very revealing:

“Oh, that’s why she
responds that way.”

“That makes so much sense. Now I understand why he does
that.”

It also warns couples where hot-button items might threaten
their relationship and suggests various points in the relationship that need to
be addressed.

I’ve since come across an assessment that works for couples
who are already married. Lisa and I recently took the Relate test that asks you
to evaluate your spouse’s personality, temperaments, and relational strengths
and weaknesses. It helped give us a glimpse of what seems to be working in our
relationship but also what needs to be worked on.

It’s so, so easy to just start coasting in marriage. Taking a test was a gentle wake-up call that could guide us out of our well-worn ruts.

I’ve gotten to know a couple guys on the PGA tour, and one
of the things that struck me most was how many “coaches” they have: a strength
and conditioning coach, a swing coach, a nutrition coach, often even a
psychological coach. They seek help not because there is something “wrong” with
their game—they are literally among the best players in the world—but because
“good” isn’t enough in their competitive field. They want to be among the very
best.

I wish we’d look at marriage the same way—not viewing
counseling or tests as something to do when things have fallen apart and we
need to put them back together again, but in an effort to take our marriages to
the next level.

Because so many couples are spending so much more time
alone during the Covid-19 shutdown, I thought, what if we took a little time to
work on our marriages? In less time than it takes you to watch a single episode
of Tiger King (not counting the amount of time it’ll consume to take a shower
afterwards because you feel so dirty), what if you joined Lisa and I and took the
Relate survey? If you use code “GARY” you get 20% off.

I suspect for many of you, you’ll intuitively know the
results, even if you’ve never seen them on a graph before. Others of you may be
led into a new season of discussion and discovery. Each one of you will
probably come up with at least one area where you know you can grow
individually.

I frequently tell my premarital couples that they shouldn’t
put so much work into the relationship before marriage (we typically meet for
ten to twelve hours before the wedding) and then stop cold-turkey after the
wedding. Great marriages aren’t just planted; they’re cultivated and
maintained. Now there’s a tool to help couples do just that.

If you do decide to take the Relate survey, would you
please come back and leave your thoughts? I’d love to get feedback as to
whether this is a tool we should keep promoting to help marriages continue to
grow stronger. Let us know what you found out!

To take the Relate survey, go here https://relatefoundation.com/couples/ (and make sure you use code GARY to get 20% off).

If you’re interested in the book I use for premarital counseling, you can get it here:

The post Using the Quarantine to Build Quality appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Spiritually Drunk on the Worries of Life

Have
you ever known someone who cares about their physical health so much they
forget to enjoy life?

Everything
they eat, everything they put on their bodies (soap, toothpaste, shampoo,
sunscreen) have to be approved by the right magazines and “authoritative”
organic websites. More than they fear sin, they fear parabens and sodium laurel
sulfate in their cosmetics, and trans fats and high fructose corn syrup in
their foods.

But
you wonder, does their soul suffer from all the stress and worry
over their physical health? I heard a guy determined to push back from the
weekly advice about what new food was taking years off our lives tell me, “If
eating tortilla chips takes a year off my life, I’m good with that. I’d rather
live 80 years with tortilla chips than 81 years without them.”

Admittedly,
most of us fall way too far in the other camp—not giving enough thought about
what we eat or put on our bodies. Physical health is of some value,
which is why I am grateful for a wife who challenges me in this area—but
godliness has value for all things (c.f. 1 Timothy 4:8).

In
the same way that some people obsess over physical health almost to the
detriment of their enjoyment of life, it’s possible to care about our marriages
too much to the detriment of our spiritual enjoyment.
It may seem bizarre that someone like me would write that last sentence, but
it’s true. The healthiest marriages aren’t lived by those who obsess over
their marriages. Marriages need space to breathe, and even more
importantly, spiritual light to flourish.

The Worries of Life

Jesus
says in Luke 21:34: ““Be on your guard, so that your minds are not dulled from
carousing, drunkenness, and worries of life.” The first key word here is
“dulled.” Other translations use “weighted down.” What Jesus is saying here is
that a certain mindset, an over concern or participation in the wrong things,
leads us to a drugged state, spiritual speaking.

These
wrong things are the “worries of life” which Jesus elsewhere (explicitly and
implicitly) describes as what we’ll eat, wear, the size and condition of our
house, how others view us, our financial status, an insatiable search for the
next pleasure or power elevation, and the state of human relationships. When
the “worries of life” become our focus, we become spiritually inebriated.

“Carousing”
is used in other Greek literature as a hangover headache or drunken nausea.
It’s probably a metaphor for living in a spiritual fog. You know what “drunkenness”
is. The startling part of this passage for most Christians may be that Jesus
compares being too concerned with the things of this world to being drunk.
The spiritual damage they do is equal because both dull us to the spiritual
realities of life in Christ and his certain return.

To
understand what Jesus is saying, think of the condition more than the cause:
when “worries of life take over,” you can’t think clearly, you can’t act
decisively, and you can’t focus on what you want to focus on because you’re
like someone who is intoxicated or who is suffering from a huge hangover
headache. Your next drink, your next sexual fix, or the current status of a
human relationship so consume you that you can’t think about the things of God.

Luke’s
warnings about the “worries of life” is a favored passage in the Christian
classics which they usually apply to human affection more than substance abuse.
The classical writers warn that too much earthly affection (even for family)
undercuts divine affection. It’s possible to focus so much on our earthly
relationships that we lose sight of the life-giving, soul-clarifying, love
affirming relationship with God.  

William
Gurnall, author of the Puritan classic The Christian in Complete Armor,
writes, “The heart of man hath not room enough for God and the world too.
Worldly affections do not befriend spiritual. The heart which spends itself in
mourning for worldly crosses, will find the stream runs low when he should weep
for his sins.”

I
can’t think about my sins before God when I’m consumed with my spouse’s sins
against me. I can’t delight in all that God makes available to me when I’m
obsessed with all that my spouse isn’t providing. Another way to put this is, do
I focus more on what my spouse isn’t and doesn’t do than on who
God is and the many kindnesses He dispenses? Far from excusing a
spouse, this spiritual exercise helps you to tolerate a spouse! When you
know you are supremely and divinely loved, it’s easier to face earthly turmoil,
neglect and disappointment in any other human relationship (friends, parents,
children, spouses).

I
have said and earnestly believe that every married couple should read at least
one marriage book a year and go to a marriage conference of some sort every
year because marriage is such a foundational relationship that we need regular
tune-ups. Because of my work, I read about five to ten marriage books a year
(which is too many), but I read even more spiritual growth books. I don’t want
to focus on marriage too much because the worries of life—even marital
worries—can turn me into a spiritual drunk.

The
apostle Paul specifically categorizes marital issues as part of the “worries of
life.” That’s why he urges believers to consider singleness: “But those who get married will have many
troubles in this life. I want to save you from that” (1 Corinthians
7:28).

As
much as I love marriage, Paul warns me that along with its many benefits
marriage brings a huge potential temptation: I can get so weighted down
with marital issues that I forget about Christ’s work on this earth and His
coming return.

A New Mindset

What
kind of mindset does this call us to?

We
must care more about what God thinks about us than what our spouse or children
think about us. We must care more about hearing, “Well done my good and
faithful servant” from our Heavenly Father than “You’re the best father/mother/husband/wife”
from a family member.

I
don’t like pitting these against each other, because I think part of the “well
done” from God will be loving our spouse and children sacrificially and even
extravagantly, but our motivation to love must come from above, not from
any relationship on earth. And only God gets to determine how
well and obediently we have loved. A gaslighting spouse or parent may try to
shame you for the very thing that makes Heaven give you a standing ovation.

As
much as we love marriage and family, we can’t forget that Jesus absolutely
refuses any believer the option of making an idol out of family life: “If
anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children,
brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my
disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my
disciple” (Luke 14:25-27). The word “hate” here is a comparison word—there must
not be any competition at all when it comes to focus, motivation, and
allegiance being set on Heaven rather than on earth.

The
failure to grasp this point, by the way, is what made When to Walk Away:
Finding Freedom from Toxic People so necessary for me to write. In some
sectors, human relationships, especially marriage, are put above a person’s
service and allegiance to God in such a way that a spouse virtually replaces
God in importance and focus. That is directly contrary to Scripture.  

We
can embrace this warning about the worries of life with boldness because
putting God first will make us better spouses, not neglectful spouses. The
difference is that our motivation for being a better spouse will flow from
being loved, affirmed, and empowered by a perfect God who has great compassion
for us. You’ll particularly find this helpful if you are married to a
selfish spouse, a neglectful spouse, a distant spouse, or a lazy spouse.

So
what do we do in response? Instead of thinking life will only get better when
our spouse gets in line (a form of codependency or even co-addiction), we
double down on the divine relationship. As Paul writes in Ephesians
5:14: “Get up, sleeper, and rise up from the dead, and the Messiah will shine
on you.” Give the first thoughts and first efforts every morning and every
night to your relationship with God. Pray something like this, “Shine on me,
God, so I am not dead to your presence. I don’t want to live my days like a
spiritually intoxicated person who doesn’t even realize what’s going on.”

Christian
obedience means we continually struggle against letting the worries of life
drown out the purpose of life. If your life is right
with God in worship, service and prayer, you can sustain a less desirable
marriage while laying the groundwork for a better marriage. Friends, this
brings tremendous joy! God’s Kingdom is moving forward gloriously. When I read
and hear of lives being changed as people encounter Christ, I can’t stop
worshipping. Marriage becomes an additional delight, not the substance
of my hope and joy.

If
you don’t win this battle against the worries of life and you find yourself in
a less than pleasing marriage, you are setting yourself up for a life of
negativity or a life of addiction as you seek to escape the pain. A good and
healthy marriage can help you fight both negativity and addiction, but a good
and healthy marriage requires two individuals willing and able to pursue the
same thing. A spiritually prosperous life, on the other hand, requires one
willing human and an already eager, overwhelmingly generous, capable, and
powerful God. Your odds are pretty favorable in that regard. You can
have a spiritually prosperous life if you want it, regardless of the state of
your marriage.

Here’s
the surprising takeaway of Christ’s contrary words: some of you might actually
improve your marriage by thinking less about your relationship with your spouse
and more about your relationship with God.  

The post Spiritually Drunk on the Worries of Life appeared first on Gary Thomas.

The Wonder of Marriage: Celebrating the Benefits of a Lifelong Love

Britney
is in her early thirties and has mostly married friends. As a single, Britney told
me she sees marriage from the perspective of what you gain, but almost all her
married friends see marriage from the perspective of what they have lost. They
seem frustrated with what their marriage isn’t, while Britney sees so
much of what their marriage is and provides.

“When
I get married,” Britney told me, “I hope I can remember that it’s such a
blessing just to have someone who is there for you. He might not parent your
child the way you want him to, but at least he’s having a child with you. He
might not help clean the house as much as you hoped he would, but he’s there to
get it dirty! He might like to occasionally go out with his friends, but he
comes home to you at night. When you’re single, you’re all alone all the time.
I hope I can remember what this feels like, that it would be such a blessing to
have someone who wants to do life with me.”

It’s
so helpful for me to talk to people like Britney because I’ve never really been
single. I got married when I was twenty-two so I never had an independent
“adult” life without a spouse. If Britney had been my friend back then, she’d
probably have seen in me what she sees in her friends now—someone who takes the
benefits of marriage for granted while complaining about the biggest
frustrations and losses to my single friends.  

The
personal benefits of marriage are enormous. For me, I’ve seen how marriage has
helped me in three particular areas: personal healing, happiness, and growth in
holiness.

The Healing Power of
Acceptance

The
spiritual art of “accepting” each other is one of the best and most healing
aspects of marriage; it’s also a biblical command: “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in
order to bring praise to God” (Romans 15:7).

Lisa
and I met two friends for dinner after work. I arrived first, and then the
couple; Lisa came last since she was traveling from home. When my wife slid
into the restaurant booth, she snuggled up right next to me, giving a little
exclamation of delight.

“Are you cold?” asked
the young woman.

“No,” Lisa said. “It’s
just that he’s been gone all day. I haven’t seen him yet. I miss him.”

Her comment, thirty
years into our marriage, made me feel like a king. She missed me.

One of the most healing
aspects of marriage for me has been the fact that I live with a woman who knows
me better than anyone else ever has or ever will and yet she still likes me.
She even respects me. Even with all my particularities, bad habits, and
weaknesses, she truly wants
to be with me.

That
brings a lot of healing to a basically insecure man (and says some even more
marvelous things about the graciousness of my wife). When Lisa married me, I
was the player who was second or third-string on every team he played on until
he started running cross country. The only job I had was part-time and my
prized possession was a ten-year old Ford Maverick Grabber. I had a college
degree in English Literature which meant my first job offer after four years of
study was as a busboy–not even a waiter, a busboy!

But
Lisa chose me and continues to choose me. I’m in a world where everything I do
gets evaluated; every sermon, every book, every blog post. But no matter how
poor the sermon, how misguided the blog post, or how boring the book, Lisa’s
going home with me.

Shannon
had a “colorful” background as a single woman before she became a Christian,
which was about a year and a half before she met Jason. Jason had been a
committed believer his entire life, was raised in a homeschool, and his regular
prayer since the time he was twelve years old was that God would provide a
“godly virgin” for him to marry.

As
they got to know each other, Jason told Shannon about his early prayer, not
knowing anything about her past. Shannon wondered if she should end any
romantic hopes right there. But the rest of the relationship seemed so good
that eventually she took a deep breath and told Jason that before she became a
Christian, she had been with…several…men.

Jason
smiled—he smiled!—and said, “Of course you were. But none of those men
will love you like I will.” Jason’s acceptance of her past told Shannon, “You’re
not damaged goods. You’re the woman I want to spend my life with.” Shannon found
great healing from past shame, proving the sweetness of that Scripture we have
already quoted, “Accept one
another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God”
(Romans 15:7).

Happy

Many funny articles have been written about
how awful family vacations can be and the hazards just waiting for a married
couple that dares to get on the road with their kids, but a long trip with her
entire family helped Alison see just how happy marriage has made her.

“I realized this summer what I love most (about being married),” Alison told me. “I have gone on a few trips to visit family with just my kids. Greg has stayed behind to work. After a few days I was ready to go home. I missed being home. This summer our family of five took an almost two-week road trip and there wasn’t one second I wanted to go home. I looked at Greg one evening and told him he was my home. Wherever he is, I am home. Thinking about what home represents summarizes marriage to me–so much security, love, family time, rest, quiet times with Jesus, safety in storms of life; that is my husband and my favorite part of marriage.”

Ever notice how if someone is laughing alone,
you kind of wonder if they have a mental illness, but when two people laugh
together, you wish you were in on the joke? 
That demonstrates the “happy-making potential” of marriage.  Michelle, a mom of five, told me, “Eric makes
me laugh. That might not seem like much, but when you have a pile of laundry
that grows faster than you can wash it, five children who get hungry before the
last meal’s dishes are washed, and too few hours of sleep with which to face
the next day, a good laugh in the morning and the evening can do wonders for
your soul. Eric can mimic our kids like a professional comedian, and just when
I’m about to explode at them with frustration, he can make me laugh so hard I
want to hug my kids instead of throttling them. Never underestimate the power
of a good sense of humor to keep a marriage going.”

Holy

If you’ve read any of my books, especially Sacred Marriage, you knew I’d end up here. When Jesus tells us to seek first His kingdom and righteousness (Matthew 6:33), and Peter tells us to make “every effort” to add to our faith by growing spiritually (2 Peter 1:5-15), and the writer of Hebrews tells us to “make every effort” to be holy (Hebrews 12:14), it stands to reason that the fundamental human relationship—husband and wife—is tailor made by God to help us grow in holiness.

I found marriage to be a giant mirror helping me see character flaws and weaknesses I was blind to as a single man. I’m not the only one. Alexi is a woman of great passion. She told Brett she was going to marry him on their third date. In hindsight, she feels terrible about the friendships she allowed to grow distant as she wanted to spend every waking moment in the company of her new love.

Alexi and Brett got married, probably too soon, and then got pregnant within months. Instead of post-partum depression, Alexi experienced post-partum infatuation with her infant. Brett became an intrusion on her time with her baby girl.

I’m summarizing a story too long to tell here, but the near-breakup of her marriage and licensed counseling convinced Alexi that she had spent her entire life being ruled by her current passion. Instead of choosing where to invest her time, she followed whatever she felt. It took months of therapy for her to understand what was going on, and her marriage provided the mirror to show her what she was. She used to take pride in her ability to feel things so passionately, but now realizes that sometimes her response to that passion was downright sinful (and nearly destroyed her marriage).

If we are healthy believers who value growing in holiness, then we’ll learn to appreciate these revealing moments of marriage rather than resenting them. It could have been disastrous if Alexi had tried to force Rob to visit a counselor to overcome his “jealousy” of their child instead of honestly working through why he was feeling jealous.

Every marriage has a different story. Maybe you need to learn to stand up for yourself. Maybe you need to learn to listen. Maybe you need to show more empathy or maybe you need to stop expecting your spouse to overlook irresponsible behavior. Marriage gives us opportunities every day to take off our selfishness and to put on service; to get rid of being harsh and learn to put on gentleness; to stop expecting perfection from an imperfect person and learn the art of patience. The more I accept Scripture’s call to take spiritual growth seriously, the more I appreciate my marriage.

Getting Better All the
Time

When Lisa had to undergo an operation to remove a fast growing tumor on her lung, she had two requests—that I be there to pray over her and kiss her as they wheeled her away, and that my hand be holding hers when she woke up.

For
many young, healthy, and vibrant couples, their view of marriage is about being
young together, filled with energy, experiencing excitement, and moving from passion
to passion. Those are all wonderful things but as Lisa and I go through the
years, we’ve learned that some of the best parts of marriage are growing old
together, remembering the past, grieving disappointments, and facing new,
unforeseen challenges side by side.

The wonder of marriage is that it reveals new benefits every decade you stay married. Some former benefits fade into the background. Holding hands after a serious surgery may not sound “sexy” to a young couple, but it can knit the heart of the middle-aged or older couple. What aging takes away from us, long-term marriage replaces with previously unforeseen marital benefits. In fact, the longer you are married, the more you can appreciate the wonder of this union.

I
don’t believe marriage is an easy relationship, but even so, because of these
benefits (and many more left unspoken), if I had a hundred lives to live, I’d
want to be married in every one.

The post The Wonder of Marriage: Celebrating the Benefits of a Lifelong Love appeared first on Gary Thomas.

For Such a Time as This

A
few weeks ago, a good friend of ours texted both Lisa and me to ask what was
going on. She had had a terrifying dream about us the night before. “You and
Lisa were in this tall tower,” she explained, “and this red plane was headed
straight for you. I could see both you and Lisa overcome with sorrow and the
plane was aimed right at you to finally take you out, but we couldn’t find a
way to get into the tower to help you. I spent most of the night praying for
you two. I couldn’t stop crying.”

God
had “outed” our pain, so to speak, so we shared the details with her. When I later
explained all that was going on in our lives to a counselor (I hadn’t been to
one in over twenty-five years) and then sheepishly told him about our friend’s
dream, he paused and said, “Uh, do you guys have anyone who can pray for you
regularly? Because I don’t think that dream is too far off.”

Because
the situations (there are multiple) don’t involve just us, Lisa and I don’t
feel free to share the details widely. But we have certainly felt targeted from
just about every angle we can imagine and since I began meeting with that
counselor, an entirely new front has opened up so apparently the “red
plane” hasn’t run out of fuel yet (and prayers of protection and conquering for
our entire family would be most welcome, as God leads).

Perhaps
that’s why I was primed to be enthralled when a publisher sent me an amazing
book of devotions to preview: Jeff and Sarah Walton’s Together Through the
Storms.

We
all know the biblical Esther was made queen “for such a time as this.” I
believe God can also use books for such a time as this, and in the
extraordinary turn of events our world has seen in the past month, I can’t
imagine a more appropriate, helpful and encouraging book for marriages than this
one. I believe God inspired it and prepared it just in time, as I am sure many
couples, now more than ever, are facing multiple challenges and “red plane”
attacks of their own.

Here’s
the beginning of their story (and their book):

W e remember it like it was yesterday. The sun
was shining, everyone was smiling, and, other than the fact that the DJ played
the wrong song for our first dance (which we eventually laughed about), it was
as close to a perfect day as it’s possible to be. I was twenty-three. She was
twenty. Sarah and I were young, we were in love, we were excited, and we were
ready (or so we thought) to embark on a life together.

We didn’t expect life to be
perfect, of course—but we nat­urally assumed our marriage would be filled with
more of the “better” than the “worse.” So with stars in our eyes and big dreams
for what the future would hold, we confidently vowed:

“
I take you … to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for
worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, for as long as we
both shall live.”

That was nearly sixteen
years ago. Little did we know that those years would bring chronic illness,
financial loss, job loss, special needs, suffering children, overwhelming
stress, and the marital strain that accompanies each. We never imagined that
we’d experience so much of the “worse,” “poorer,” and “in sickness” parts of
our vows.

The Waltons’ marriage barely got a chance to breathe before they faced a monumental challenge. What is often a very happy time for couples became terrifying for them:

Less than three years into our marriage,
we excitedly wel­comed our first child into the world. All was going well until
he spiked a fever and was hospitalized with a severe infection at seven weeks
old. After five days in the hospi­tal with terrifying, inconclusive reports, we
were sent home without answers. We thought it was an isolated incident, but
over time it turned into years of life-altering neurolog­ical challenges that
have forever changed our family’s lives. Every day, we helplessly watched as
our sweet, smart, funny little boy would turn into someone else, displaying
behav­ior that was extremely difficult to control and navigate. Countless
consultations, tests, and evaluations left doctors shaking their heads, and all
we were left with in the end was an increased financial burden, a stressful
home life, and growing fears for him and us.

This wasn’t just a tough challenge, it became a long-term challenge and might even turn into a lifelong challenge, depending on God’s healing mercy. But in many ways the Waltons had just begun their season of storms:

Along with that, Sarah’s health was rapidly declining, and with each of our four children that she bore, she was increas­ingly unable to function through her own chronic pain and illness. On top of that, an ankle injury that she sustained in high school has now led to five surgeries and an inability to do much of what she loves anymore.

As
our son’s disorder continued to intensify, and as Sarah grew sicker and our
younger children began to exhibit their own chronic pains, my job as a
consultant to orthopedic surgeons often kept me from being home. Our marriage
began to suffer under the weight of it all.

Eventually, doctors were
able to pinpoint the myriad symptoms of Sarah’s (and several children’s)
maladies to Lyme disease, but they weren’t able to offer any clear consensus on
what to do in order to treat the neurological and physical ailments. Reading
this story, I could imagine the checks flying out the mailbox and the bank
account depleting as they sought to do their best to overcome a tricky and
nefarious disease.

Unfortunately, even more bad
news was ahead:

When we were at our lowest point, convinced that we couldn’t
endure anything else, it became clear that I could no longer sustain my on-call
job. So I left it behind, along with half of our income. We sold our dream home
and downsized to a smaller rental home. A year later, my new company began to
struggle and suddenly I was without a job—leaving us with no income at all.

Our family was in crisis.
Most of our time spent together as a couple consisted of doctor appointments,
navigating challenges with our son, soothing crying and hurting chil­dren,
discussing what treatments we could afford, healing from each of the nine
surgeries undergone between the two of us, dealing with Sarah’s chronic pain,
and stressing about our draining finances, all the while being too exhausted to
address the tensions
that were building within our marriage. We were both broken and both wondering
where God was and why he was allowing such deep and layered suffering. As we
endured one loss after another, we found ourselves bat­tling despair and hopelessness, and being confronted with deep
questions of faith that neither of us had faced before. We were surviving, but
we—and our marriage—were hanging on by a thread.

But
we’re still here. Still together. And, somehow, stron­ger for it all.

If ever a couple had “street
cred” to write about pain and its impact on marriage, the Waltons do. What
amazed me about the book though was the faith and inspiration that breathes off
every page. While avoiding easy answers and sentimentality, the Waltons have
found hope, healing, and strength to persevere in their faith in God and the
rich treasure trove of truths found in Scripture.

In this time of trial for so many marriages, Together Through
the Storms can be a life preserver for marriages going through similar
trials. You’ll still have to learn how to swim (or at least paddle) in the
midst of your trials, but the truths discussed in this book will keep you from
drowning in sorrow, doubt, and despair (natural temptations all). Unfortunately,
the book isn’t available until May 1, but pre-sales are crucial for any new
book and I’m hoping this one finds an enthusiastic response. Christian Book
Distributors, Barnes and Noble, Amazon—anywhere you normally order books, you
can pre-order Together Through the Storms.

I’ll end this blog post by quoting Jeff (chapters are written from
both the husband’s and wife’s perspectives, and both Jeff and Sarah are
excellent writers) and urging you to take advantage of a book that I truly
believe was written and is being published “for such a time as this”:

We’re writing in the trenches, right there beside you, not from
the mountaintop. But we have written these pages as a testimony to the faithful­ness,
goodness, and sustaining grace of Jesus. He has been and continues to be our
help, strength, song, and salvation.

So this is a book about marriage, but it’s very different than
most books on marriage. It’s for the storms—to prepare you for them in the
future, or to help you navigate them in the present, or to help you deal with the
aftermath of what you’ve just come through. We hope to encourage you by
acknowledging many (though certainly not all) of the chal­lenges that we can
face when storms come into and against our marriage. That’s not because we’ve
navigated our storms and safely reached the other side, but because Jesus
Christ has been faithful to strengthen us, carry us, and change us and our
marriage as we continue to weather them together.

Every marriage begins in the sun; every marriage must pass through storms. For you, maybe those storms have brewed within your marriage—from rubbing up against each other’s weaknesses, differences, and sins—perhaps from the pain of infidelity, addiction, hurtful patterns of sin, or an unbelieving spouse. Or maybe for you it’s been the storms of circumstances around your marriage: the experience of excitement over starting or growing a family becoming a deeply painful struggle with infertility, loss of a child, or special needs; or living with chronic illness, a life-altering injury, something that was done to you in the past, financial loss, tensions in your extended family, or a rebellious child.

Whatever your storms have been, or will be, these trials will inevitably cause you to wrestle with difficult and complex questions of faith—and they will either drive you closer together or further apart. It’s where and to whom we turn to for the strength and hope that we need to endure the storms that will make all the difference.

The post For Such a Time as This appeared first on Gary Thomas.