Flesh Versus Spirit (Part 5) Conditions and exclusions

We’ve all been to weddings – and just love them!  In spite of the increasing divorce rate (70% of divorces are initiated by wives), they restore excitement to our own marriages and a hope in happily ever after – or at least they try to.

Every part of the wedding ceremony is filled with wonder, but my favourite part is the vow exchange.  After my husband became a believer, one of the first things he did was to re-propose to me.  This is a portion of the vows that I spoke to him at our re-dedication ceremony:

I will be yours in times of Plenty & Want and Health & Sickness, Joy & Sorrow and Triumph & Failure.

I promise to Cherish and Respect you, Care For and Protect you, Comfort and Encourage you, and stay married to you until I die.

I will continue trying to be the completer God designed especially for you.  In confidence I will submit myself to your headship, as to our Lord.  Therefore I pledge my life to you as an obedient, faithful and loving wife.

These words inspire such hope and confidence.  As I wrote them, I could feel my courage and boldness grow.  But, what if we change them slightly?  What if we add just a few conditions.  A sort of safety net for our feelings to protect ourselves.

I will be yours in times of Plenty & Want - provided the ‘want’ isn’t too great and doesn‘t happen too often

and health & sickness - provided the sickness isn’t too inconvenient and I’m able to deal with it.

Joy & Sorrow - provided the sorrow isn’t too deep and doesn’t hurt me too much.

and Triumph & Failure – provided these failures don’t interrupt our flow of life for too long and don‘t happen too often.

I promise to Cherish and Respect you – so long as you do it first for me.

Care for and Protect you – so long as I feel cared for and protected I will reciprocate.

Comfort and Encourage you - so long as I feel you’re worthy of it.

And stay married to you until I die - unless I fall out of love with you.

I will continue trying to be the completer God designed especially for you - unless you change too much or make it too hard.

And in confidence I will submit myself to your headship, as to our Lord. - As long as you behave like the head (our Lord) and don’t hurt me with any bad judgments or mistakes in life.

Therefore I pledge my life to you, as an obedient, faithful and loving wife - so long as I think you are being an obedient, faithful and loving husband.

Hmmmm, conditions are interesting.  In no way would I want God to apply any conditions to my relationship with Him – because I fall so short of the mark myself.  Yet, if I honestly look into my past, I’d have to admit that there was a time when my love was conditional upon my husband’s behaviour; not very attractive for a professing Christ follower.

love one another in marriage

It is because God makes it explicitly clear that nothing will cause Him to drop me (Romans 8:35, 38-39) that He expects my love (His love in me) towards my brother to be likewise – No conditions added.  One of the reasons Jesus came as a person was to show us what this “one another” looks like, I give you a new commandment:  that you should love one another.  Just as I have loved you, so you too should love one another. -John 13:34

forgiving in marriage

And become useful and helpful and kind to one another, tender hearted (compassionate, understanding loving-hearted), forgiving one another[readily and freely], as God in Christ forgave you. –Ephesians 4:32

forbearing in marriage

Be gentle and forbearing with one another and, if one has a difference (a grievance or complaint) against anther, readily pardoning each other; even as the Lord has [freely] forgiven you, so must you also [forgive]. –Colossians 3:13

 doing good in marriage

See that none of you repays another with evil for evil, but always aim to show kindness and seek to do good to one another and to everybody. –Thessalonians 5:15

Choosing God’s Spirit instead of the temptation of my flesh means I respond the way He responds to me:  no exclusions or conditions.  He told us what to do.  Jesus showed us and the Holy Spirit empowers us.

Although we don’t say on our wedding day, but if we break the unity with our brother in marriage – drop him; our actions prove, that is what we really meant:  My promises were conditional upon my brother’s behaviour rather than God’s sovereignty.  This was one of the scariest things that I had to learn about myself.  It was at the exact moment that I had been packing to leave Darrell that God showed me that I wasn’t really trusting Him.

(Previous posts in my series Flesh Versus Spirit  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)

To leave or to love?

To love will be a fight to go against the flow.

Today I was reading a post from Lee Lumley over at The Divorce Covenant.  He was talking about how difficult it is to encourage people to go in the opposite direction of bitterness and hatred, and to encourage hurting people to fight for their marriages.  You can read his full post here.  The part that jumped out at me and took me down a memory lane is the part that I’ve underscored:

“Recently I began participating in a divorce forum in an attempt to let people know that there is healing to be had and that bitterness and hatred doesn’t have to reign in divorce. I’ve posted encouragement to hurting individuals to fight for their marriage and not give up hope. Unfortunately for every one post of encouragement by myself or people like myself on this forum there are 100 posts discouraging reconciliation and encouraging moving on.” 

Years ago I remember experiencing something similar to this, but I wasn’t the one trying to encourage others; it was me who needed the encouragement.  There was no place for me to go to get the kind of encouragement that helped with the walk that I was on.  Both in church and at church activities I was surrounded with women that were coaching me to give up on my marriage and seek divorce, just like they had done.  I heard story upon story upon story of how much happier they and their kids were because their husbands just had too many problems and were not living ‘good’ Christian lives.

The encouragement that I received fell into two distinct camps each one having its own unique consequence:

1)         “Leave him.  The Lord wouldn’t want you stay where it’s not safe and where you aren’t happy.”  When I didn’t agree, I was left on my own (emotionally speaking) with future nods of, “Well, you are bringing all this difficulty on yourself by not leaving.  The Lord has given you lots of ‘outs’, but you refuse to take them in order to be happy, so you must be able to handle this on your own.” – Consequence:  a heaping of rejection.

Or,

2)        “Oh you poor,  dear how hard your marriage must be.  It must be so difficult for you and your kids to honour and serve the Lord in that environment.”  Seeking any encouragement from this camp, only brought pity on me. – Consequence:  compounding self-pity.

Nobody believed, or could stomach, that God was asking me to stay.  Yet I was being shown that His best for me included staying in my marriage rather than to abandon my husband because he wasn’t who (and what) I thought he should be.  If you’ve not read my story, Darrell and I were married as non-believers and it was after four years of marriage that I was spiritually born.  God had a purpose in me being unequally yoked; and so, there I was.

Neither camp helped me and in a very real and painful way, I lived abandoned by the majority of my family of faith.  During the beginning part of this season (which lasted 14 years) I was blessed with 1 (ONE) friend to help, then during the last part (which was the hardest) God sent me another (you both know who you are!) to shoulder this burden that He had asked me to see through to the end.

There were no small groups for women who’d opted to stay in really tough marriages, regardless of what is going on.  Perhaps there are now, but back then there was a huge void.  The only support groups that related to marriage were couples groups or pre-marital counselling, which were obviously not for me; I learned that from experience.  And, divorce recovery groups, which were obviously not for me either.  There were no groups or weekly meetings for, My Marriage Sucks and I Hurt So Bad And Am So Alone And Afraid In This Big Pit By Myself.  Or, Help I Hate My Husband And I Want Him To Die.

Not something that really has its place on the church bulletin, is it?  Besides, shhhh, we aren’t supposed to feel, much less, say such things in church.

Yet now, I find there are many of us that are called to not leave but rather, to love.  That’s part of the reason for this blog.  I hope to capture in a net of encouragement, those women who’ve purposed not to give up on themselves, their husbands, their marriages or their God.

I wish to be a voice that inspires unity through reconciliation in the fruit of peace, longsuffering, mercy and forgiveness among the brethren, rather than one that sows seeds of discord through encouraging the disunity of divorce. (Proverbs 16:14, 19 and Romans 16:17)  To encourage and strengthen a walk of courage and conquering through the worse – whatever that ‘worse’ may be.

Years ago, one of the many pivotal turning points in my relationship with God, was in the area of my growth to actually want to stay married.  I understood with my head knowledge that God wanted me to stay, but my heart just wasn’t into it.  I was obedient outwardly, but my heart was not humble, soft and loving – the way His is.

God used the parable of the Good Samaritan to show me the difference between His heart and mine.  I saw the story in a person form rather than remembering the story itself in the memory form of words.  (Luke 10:30-37)  But, what I saw wasn’t a faceless man lying on the ground covered in blood and dirt – this ‘stranger’ wore my husband’s face.  It was Darrell who had been stolen from, beaten up and left for dead –  by Satan.  Just like the wounded man in the story who had nothing to give the Samaritan, Darrell, as an antagonistic non-believer (bleeding and bruised in his soul), was blind to his need of healing, and required something that God wanted me to give him.

God had chosen me to be the vessel for His love to come through and reach Darrell.  And His love is free flowing without reservation and without conditions.  God wanted my heart to go out to this man because I knew his condition.  He ended the lesson for me with a question:  “Will you leave like the priest and the Levite did?  Or, will you love like the Samaritan did?”

It was in this experience I started to understand God’s heart and that He was never going to tell me that I had to stay, or that I should.  He did something much more powerful to me.  He welled up in my heart and spoke to my spirit, that I was needed just like the Samaritan was needed.

I’m very thankful that I didn’t throw away my marriage like so many ‘encouraged’ me to do.  Walking through a worse part has certainly brought us to a better part!

“You don’t throw away a whole life, just because it’s banged up a little.”

~ Seabiscuit, the movie ~

what is this thing called marriage (part 2)

Marriage is the single most challenging adventure of all the earthly experiences.  It is the most significant institution we will ever join.  And it is the relationship with the most consequential and far reaching effects in our lives.  Yet there are no courses on how to choose a spouse.  There is no graduate department in spouse selection studies.  Institutions of higher learning devote more resources to semiotics than love.  Yet anyone can get a marriage license with zero training or preparation.  Almost no one is foolish enough to imagine that he automatically deserves great success in any field of activity; yet almost everyone believes that he automatically deserves success in marriage.

So… why do we get married?

Is it because of some innate fear of not wanting to be alone?  Or is it because, its just what’s always been done; you know, your born and you grow up, go to school, fall in love, then get married and have kids.

You know, its interesting.  I cannot find anywhere in the Bible where God speaks of falling in love.  And yet the Bible is full of love talk isn’t it?  Why do we say, I fell in love.  The word itself, falling … has a sense of non-ownership of responsibility and commitment.  If the marriage goes ugly you can always convince yourself that while you were falling in love, you fell for the wrong person.  We humans do that.  Right from the beginning of our history, in the garden, when God looked to Adam for culpability of his actions.  Adam blamed God and Eve, The woman YOU gave me did it.  And then with Eve, she tried to pass the buck too, by saying it was the snakes fault.  It seems none of us want to take responsibility for our actions do we.

The best description I’ve ever heard as to why people get married is from the movie, Shall We Dance, “we need a witness to our lives.  There’s a billion people on the planet.  I mean, what does any one life really mean?  But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything.  The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things .. All of it, all the time, every day.  You’re saying, ‘your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it.  Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness.’ “  And although that might be a beautiful sentiment and a worthy declaration, I don’t believe that is entirely what God had in mind when He established marriage.

When the first marriage was officiated in Eden, it was an act of purpose.  There was a reason for it.  The voice that breathed all life into existence now united a team.  It is interesting to note that God could have created Adam and Eve at the same time, but He didn’t.  He chose to create man to be alone.  God doesn’t say, “uh-oh, Adam is alone — didn’t see that one coming, I thought for sure one of these other creatures would suffice.”  No, there was a reason for Adam being created alone, in a vacuum of sorts.  God is omniscient, He knew that when He brought all the creatures to Adam, “to see what he would call them … that there would not be a suitable companion for him.”  (Gen 2:19-20)  God could have just as easily told Adam the reason, but He didn’t.  He wanted Adam to go through the motions, in real time, to experience this aloneness for himself.  And we can see that Adam did experience this because of his response to Eve when he meets her, he declares, “Finally!  Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh!”  There was a sense of assuredness in his tone.  I think it would be like being alone in a foreign land where you don’t know the language, and no one knows yours.  And then!  After a long period of aloneness, you finally meet someone who knows English.  Finally!! Now here is someone I can talk to!

They were supposed to see that they needed each other, that they had to depend on each other … not blame each other.

~ Holding fast … ON PURPOSE ~

~When we first meet our future husbands, we usually have that ah ha moment, finally!  This IS the guy!

 Don’t look at what happened yesterday or anything else that’s negative that’s happened between the two of you …

 …just reminise about that very first time you KNEW~

~Do you remember your promise to him?

And your vow to HIM?

Copy out your wedding vows and ask God to renew your heart about the promises that you spoke~

following the Romans

The remarkable work of Edward Gibbon who, in 1787, after 20 years of labour, completed his book The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, concluded the fall of the Empire was based on these premises:

(1)  The rapid increase of divorce; the undermining of the dignity and sanctity of the home, which is the basis of human society.

(2)  Higher and higher taxes and the spending of public monies for free bread and circuses for the populace.

(3)  The mad craze for pleasure; sports becoming every year more exciting and more brutal.

(4)  The building of gigantic armaments when the real enemy was within … the decadence of the people.

(5)  The decay of religion – faith fading into mere form, losing touch with life and becoming impotent to warn and guide the people.

Point number one bears repeating:

The rapid increase of divorce; the undermining of the dignity and sanctity of the home, which is the basis of human society.

I wonder …. do we see  ANY similarities here??

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

~  George Santayana’s  ~

Reason in Common Sense, The Life of Reason, Vol. 1

Staying Married Makes You Lucky?

If you’ve been married for any length of time you’ve heard this statement.  And the longer you are married, it seems, the more frequent you hear it.  And we heard it, again, as we are drawing near to our 24^th year of marriage.  We were out for a coffee and in the course of chatting with our server she said it to us:  “wow, 24 years, you guys are one of the lucky ones.”  Now, I like to see the best in everyone and that includes this server; I really don’t think she (or anyone else who has said this) means it in a demeaning or hurtful way.  I just don’t think they understand what, exactly, they are saying to those who have not been divorced.

Now what makes this such a bizarre pattern is that the only people who tell us we are ‘lucky’ are the ones who have been divorced.  Those who haven’t been divorced will give a, “congratulations to the both of you,” or “awesome, keep at it,” or sometimes its just a smile and a knowing nod; anyone who has been married for any length of time would never ….. Never, use the word LUCKY.

For they know, luck has squat to do with it.  And that blood, sweat and many tears has everything to do with it.

Some of the ‘lucky’ seasons in our marriage have gotten so ‘lucky’ that we’ve been like two boxers in a ring, neither one willing to throw in that towel; yet both of us are so physically exhausted that we can hardly stand up; and so emotionally drained that our vision is blurred and we can hardly see were that opponent is dodging to, to grab them for another shot to the head (metaphorically speaking of course).

No, luck is the furthest thing away from what keeps you in the ring of marriage.  Its sheer diligence and an unwillingness to go back on our word of promise, and the biggest dose of faith in God you can imagine, to stay where we are at and continue in the marathon race called marriage.  Interestingly, when you train for a marathon race it requires all the same elements, commitment, diligence and a willingness to stay the course.  Can you imagine, saying to the winner of an Iron Man Triathlon … “wow, your lucky to have won!” … talk about diminishing all of their efforts they put forth to actually win.

Seen from the prospective of someone who is married and striving to hang on; to tell them they are lucky is just like negating all the work they are doing.

Its about choosing to stay married and giving it your all.  Giving until you are empty and it aches … and then giving more.