We all have expectations in life and many are what we expect of others.  All too often we expect our husbands and wives to become kinder, more loving and compassionate, joyful, gracious and even more humorous each year, and we expect those we meet in the parking lot after services and during the week to be – well – different than those who have not come to the “minimal requirements” for getting into heaven.  And when they don’t we brood or begin judging them.  Seldom does a day pass without a husband and/or wife wanting me to help them change their spouse believing that it’s just their spouse that’s the problem.

Here’s an emotion charged phrase that I’ve heard both Dallas Willard and John Ortberg use – “fulfilling the minimal requirement for getting into heaven”.  If we’re to become the individual that God called and created us to be, such a statement will strike something deep inside our soul that will rise and speak to us.  It may be a small or large dissatisfaction with our life today, because we were not created for minimalist things. We were created for a life giving, life fulfilling, interactive, dynamic, powerful, relationship with our creator.  The bible calls it being conformed to the image of Christ and transformed by the renewing of our minds.

Sadly, what we expect in others, but often not ourselves, is that they will progressively become more of what Jesus would be like.  In our own eyes, we’re doing fine, and don’t have to work at ‘becoming” the man or woman that behaves more like Jesus with each day we live.  After all, we’ve met the requirement for getting into heaven.  That our faith might actually be the minimal  aspect of a life in Christ is not raised or entertained in our thoughts.

The good news from Genesis forward is that we were created in God’s image – imago Dei.  Then Paul tells us that we are designed (from before the foundation of the world) to be conformed to that image, the image of Christ, and that we’re to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  In both the Old Testament and New, we are told to be holy and to be imitators of Christ.

This transformation is not something that comes by osmosis – it comes by personal interaction with Christ and intentional choices and action on our part.   It comes by taking responsibility for me, not others – it comes from falling down on my face before the God who knew me before creation, and formed me in my mother’s womb, and has a plan and purpose for my life that is awesome (because it is His plan).

As we do this and are transformed – we are in a much better place to see our marriage grow healthier and stronger to become that marvelous “Display Case” for Christ and the Church as described in Eph 5:32..

It gave Daniel the ability to walk with confidence into the fiery furnace and lion’s den, and ultimately what gives us the ability to live with someone of the opposite sex who is so-o-o different from ourselves.

In his book “What Did You Expect?” Paul David Tripp shares how an injury that might leave us with a stiff knee may give us a hard time walking.  At first the pain causes us to limp and we are quite aware of it.  But over time it becomes less and less noticeable to us – to the point we do not notice it at all.  It has become the new and almost comfortable norm.  Then we run into a seldom seen friend who is startled by it.

We forget we have this “unnoticed limp” over time until someone who knew us long ago, brings it up. Left untreated the knee continues to deteriorate until it painfully comes back to our awareness – often requiring more repair than we would have needed if we’d dealt with it earlier.

Just as wounded knees do not heal themselves, and must be repaired by skilled technicians called therapist or surgeon – so our marriage easily drifts into an unnoticed limp – a new norm that misses the wonderful plan of God to become a great display case to others of the Kingdom of Christ, and live out the greatest tool of evangelism I believe God has given mankind.

We have a choice.  We can let time, neglect, apathy, busy-ness, and sin, slowly unravel our marriage or we can put prayer, time, fun, education, spiritual and emotional connecting effort into our marriage and arrive at a display case worthy of King Jesus.

Love is a purposeful, unconditional, sacrificial giving to our God and is often revealed in how we love our spouse.  The model for us is Christ on the cross.  We can only reach this ‘agape’ kind of love by recognizing that we are able to love only because He first loved us (1 John 4:19), and with intentionality seek to  live before Him in ways that help us live out of Romans 12:9-19, and 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

seeing Galatians 6:22-23 as the result:

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Where do we begin?  We must surrender ourselves to God and work on our vertical relationship with Christ.  Recognize that the list above is impossible for us in our own strength – that our surrender reveals a sold out personal love for Christ that comes from, and is returned in faithful gratitude, TO God.  His grace is truly sufficient for us and it is our love from and to Him that makes it happen.  As we grow the vision of Christ living in “me”, He will change and MOLD our character into godliness – and when we have the intention to become all that He designed “me” to become, He provides the means to achieve it.

A marriage without work never works, because good marriages never happen by accident.  A lazy coasting marriage produces emptiness, mediocrity and disaster, a marriage built on a vision of God’s plan, with intention to live that vision, has the Christ given means and opportunity for marital growth.

Your marriage may be brand new or better than it once was; BUT it is not yet ALL it could be. God’s desire is that your marriage be a great display-case for the relationship between Christ and the church – lifting the Kingdom of God not the kingdom of self.  Life is to be lived and shaped by the relationship we have with Christ as we choose to live our lives with His plan for our lives always on our horizon, in our thinking and actions.

In September 2009 I went on staff at Scottsdale Bible Church as the Director of Marriage Ministry.  Only God could have such a plan for such as I.  So at a few months shy of my 65th birthday, I found myself responsible for a ministry in a church of 6000, with some 2000 married couples.   Responsible yes, competent nope!   But God led the way then and every day since to bring the most wonderful team of folks to encourage, work ahead of me, beside me and behind me (I need a lot of clean up).

The year has flown, and we’ve seen God touch the lives of many couples, healing some, challenging all comers, and giving us many new ways to bring our mission to fruition.

Along the way He has revealed Himself in the Scriptures, in exciting ways.   In Revelation He showed that marriage was created by Him to be the Display Case for the relationship between Jesus and the Church – and pointed out that my marriage and most of those I know have much to learn about being good Display Cases.   His daily guiding has helped Mary Jane and I start nearly every morning in unrushed prayer for each of our days and for those we will be spending time with on.

He showed me statistics – 50+ divorce rate for first marriages, 60% for second, 70% for third, 90% for fourth, and 96% for co-habiting couples – then shocked me with the study that shows those couples who hold hands face to face and pray together daily (we’re talking true communication with our Lord and Creator) – well their divorce rate is 1 in 1153 – less than 1%.

I am still in shock at the blessing I have to be a part of His Kingdom and to be even for today a tiny cog in sharing the good news of an intimate walk with the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, my Savior and God.

Blessings to all – hopefully I’ll do better in the next 12 months in sharing here.

don

The premise is that we all need time for just plain fun in our marriage, and the “date night” fulfills that with only one rule – just fun, no serious issues talked about.   “Marriage Staff Meetings” are designed as time set aside to discuss issues, calendars, plans and goals.  Over the years we’ve been asked about the structure, and how to keep them from being emotional times of venting and turning bad.

This month I’d like to give you some tips on having productive and healthy “Staff Meetings,” that will take your marriage to closer and more intimate places.  They are designed to give of you an openness; creating an environment where you each can confide in one another.

The steps are Schedule, Location, Timing, and Process.

The Schedule is up to you. Weekly is best, but will be determined by the things that are going on in your life at the time.   I recommend that you limit your time to ninety minutes. The Location is best determined as a place where you’ll both be comfortable to share with each other.  It may be at home, in a restaurant, on a walk, in the car, etc.  I recommend it not be in your bedroom, as that should always be a place of comfort, rest and intimacy, just for the two of you.

The Timing is crucial.  Come to listen attentively to one another, and hear each other’s position on a matter.   Pick a time when you both are able to be fully “present” with one another without distractions and see each other as on the same team, with a desire to live out Romans 12:10-18  – “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor . . .”

Keep in mind that you didn’t marry an adversary – and with God’s help both must resist Satan’s attempt to see their spouse in that light.  The desire to live before God in obedience and to show a 1 Corinthians 13 love is vital to your spiritual health, and your marriage.

Begin your time with prayer – asking God to open your heart for the things to be discussed.  The Process then follows five steps that were originally penned by noted psychotherapist, Virginia Satir as The Daily Temperature Reading.

The DTR begins with Appreciation. Each should take a few minutes to share what you currently appreciate about each other.   It should be things completed and be specific and sincere.  (Not something like “I appreciate that you’ll do the ironing or take out the garbage next week”.)  Both are to come prepared to show genuine appreciation to
the other.

Next, each shares the New Things in their life.  He might share an accomplishment he has had since the last meeting, or that he made an appointment with their dentist, and she might share that she will be having dinner with her bible study group, etc.    The listener is to be fully present, attentive, caring, and affirming – not questioning.

Then share Puzzles and Schedules – those things we are aware of that need to be accomplished.  He might say that he thinks the car needs to go in for service, or that he thinks they need a new pool sweep.  She might say that she’d observed a broken sprinkler in the back yard, or that she thinks their child needs braces.

Each brings a list with their agenda items, and for notes.   After sharing puzzles/schedules, we can tackle each issue to be resolved.   Again, we are to keep in mind that while we have different approaches to a given issue, we are on the same side (our marriage), and that first and foremost we desire to do what is best before God.  Listening, validating, and seeing where we can move toward each other’s view on things will take us much closer and bring a quicker solution.

The fourth step is Complaint with a Request for Change.  I’m guessing that we all have things we’d like our spouse to do differently.  This step is the opportunity to share our issue with them, and to politely and kindly ask for a change.   It’s not pointing fingers, attacking or taking pot shots, nor is it criticizing one another.   At first It may take courage, but it’s vital to share our feelings about a behavior that troubles us, and let our spouse know what we’d prefer.

It can be “scripted” like this:  “I feel (sad, angry, hurt, frustrated, etc) . . . when you (and tell of their specific behavior).  What I want instead is (tell the clear, specific, unambiguous change you’d like).   Resist the temptation to ask – “Will you do that?”

Complaints/Requests are to be listened to and our partner’s feelings validated.  It is NOT the time to defend our position, to criticize, blame or walk out.   We don’t have to agree with them (they wouldn’t have a complaint/request if we did), but it is a time to let them know we heard their feelings.  Repeat our understanding of what they said, and ask if we have it correctly.  If not, ask them to tell it again, until we truly have understood their thoughts.  What we do with what we heard is between God and ourselves.

After both have shared any Complaints/Requests, we move to step five.  Sharing our Wishes, Hopes and Dreams.  They may be immediate, or those in the future.   This sharing might stimulate more discussion about how we can help our spouse meet their dreams, or it might be a time to write them down and go away and pray for Gods’ wisdom.

If your meeting becomes too emotional for either of you, ask for a break.   Perhaps you’ll need to pick it up later that day or week – but if you persist in rescheduling your regular Marriage Staff Meetings and face your differences packaged between genuine appreciation and your hopes and dreams, you’ll find it a fundamental building block of a
superior marriage.Don Farr is a Certified LifePlan™ Facilitator and Life Coach in Paradise Valley, Arizona – visit www.lifeplanningcoach.net

Our expectations and dreams are our baggage (stuff) – unique and quite different from those of our spouse.  What we experienced and learned in our homes and school as young children can be, and often are as different as night and day – but usually we’ve not delved into our expectations before the wedding, so reality comes with a crashing and often crushing impact.

Researchers know that dealing with our own “stuff” – usually from our past must be seriously undertaken, for us to be healthily engaged in a relationship. The old adage that you can deal with your baggage in this marriage – or the next is all too true, and mostly neglected.   Dealing with our “stuff” takes work, and when your marriage is suffering, it is nigh unto impossible to do that with your spouse and often there is not enough energy or wisdom to do it alone.

The same authors of the book featured in May have another work that we think is powerful in helping us get the strength to deal with our “stuff”.   Actually it’s a set of two books (sold together) that takes the reader on a twelve week study of themselves.  Joe and Michelle Miller have put together the idea of working on our “stuff” by having a same gender friend we trust, who has a strong marriage, work through the lessons as a partner.  They created a workbook for the hurting individual, and a same-gender partner’s companion book.   It’s designed for the two to meet for an hour a week for 12 weeks.   Their study is called “Marriage911”.

If the couple is still together and both parties want to see God honored by their commitment to one another, then we ask each of them to find a same gender friend and work on their own “stuff”, often before beginning to deal with the issues between them.

In a society where marriage has become a “throw away”, those of us who are followers of Jesus, must become beacons for God’s design and plan.   The courts will continue to devalue marriage unless society as a whole sees a significant difference in our lives.   If we are to live out our own marriages as those beacons in the fullness of lives lived in Christ., we must stay close to the source of living water and allow ourselves to be a strong testimony for the goodness and rightness of marriage.

Our goal is to help marriages become the union that God intended from the beginning – as Paul put it so well in Ephesians 3:16-19. Don Farr is a Certified LifePlan™ Facilitator and Life Coach in Paradise Valley, Arizona

That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; [and] that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

“I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit.”

Reflecting later on that line “happy in the Lord” left me wanting to know what George meant, and that led me to want to know more about this Mr. Müller.  I discovered it came from a pamphlet he’d written in 1841.  With some further research I learned that when he died at age 93, the ministry he founded was caring for over 7000 orphans. Astonishingly, today his ministry lives on, still guided by his key principles of seeking money not through asking  for funds from others, but through prayer alone.  After WWII when orphanages were determined to be less effective than fostering and adoption, his foundation shifted its emphasis to residential care for the elderly and those with special needs – whether Spiritual, Emotional or Physical.  Today they continue to sell Bibles and literature at discounted prices to the needy and support Missions in England and around the world.

Astounded by a ministry that has lasted more than 160 years, God impressed on me to try and understand George’s simple goal of daily “getting happy in the Lord.”   His answer was contained in the next part of his pamphlet.

“I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God, and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, by means of the Word of God, while meditating on it, my heart might be brought into experiential communion with the Lord.” Read the entire text at: http://www.ncs-az.net/georgem.htm

As Jesus led me deeper into His presence day by day, I found that George had been right, and that the other things I’d heard from Dallas that day were golden nuggets leading me to a relationship with the Lord that previously I’d not known – even though I’d been a believer for 30 some years.

Today, I see that without that relationship investment on our part, all other relationships are flat, and there is a longing that spouses, family and friends cannot fill.   Finding that delightful place with God is also the building block for a strong marriage.  God designed men to be the Spiritual head of the home, and women to respect their husbands.   I believe both to be improbable over time without that “happy state in the Lord.”

Far too many of us in the church have never experienced the Living Water and Abundant Life that Jesus revealed to us in John 4, 7 and 10.   Only as we seek that “happy state In the Lord” do we find it – available as we yield to His guiding hand through our consistent and purposeful time in the Bible.

“Everyone who drinks of this water [from this well] will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”            John 4:13b-14  NASB

As Christians, this choice is ours; to live our lives welcoming God only on Sundays and special holidays, or to open ourselves to the Master Builder, and allow Him to lay a refreshing foundation in our heart that will live in that “happy state” daily and throughout eternity.

Some will use gold or silver or precious stones in building on the foundation; others will use wood or grass or straw. And the quality of each person’s work will be seen when the Day of Christ exposes it. For on that Day fire will reveal everyone’s work; the fire will test it and show its real quality.  If what was built on the foundation survives the fire, the builder will receive a reward.   But if your work is burnt up, then you will lose it; but you yourself will be saved, as if you had escaped through the fire. 1Co 3:12-15  Good News  Bible

Let’s tie this all back to marriage.  With the divorce rate at 1 in 1153 for those who hold hands and pray together daily as opposed to the church in general where more than 1 in 2 marriages fail, it would appear that connecting with our spouse in such a meaningful expression as we talk to God is a significant factor in marriage success.  But I suggest to you that it is more about our individual walk with Christ, and the quality time we spend alone in the Word of God that has such a God honoring result.  That said, I encourage you  to find time in your day as George did, to dig into the Bible as a serious student asking God to reveal more and more of His truth for your life, and for your marriage.   You and all around you will reap blessing upon blessings for it.