Growing in Christ
marriage
My Journey-Feets Friend
1
Our Senior Prom, 2003. There are other pictures, but they're ol'timey - i.e. nondigital.
Today marks a rather momentous occasion for us in the Young house. A decade ago – that’s right, 3,652 days (which is a lot) – I asked Michelle to start dating me. Now, for those who may not know, Michelle also happens to now be my wife, so this is a good celebration and not some creepy old flame I’ve held on to.
The conversation famously went like this:
Me: So… I know I’m a loser, but would you go out with me?
Michelle:…. Yes… And you’re not a loser.
As you can see, my ploy was to set up the conversation (in my truck, on the way to my house to hang out with our friends no less!) in such a way that if she declined, she’d knowingly be crushing me. I might never have recovered and very well could be babbling to the trees in the Gulf Coast somewhere if she’d responded unfavorably. But, to the estonishment of us all, the evidence that God has mercy upon poor souls, and my absolute delight, she said yes.
And now it’s been ten years. I think it’s fairly obvious to say things have changed. We’re ten years older (shockingly). Being older and a whole decade along, the news reports would have you believe we’re disenchanted with each other, less in love, and cynically resolved to quietly suffer. None are true and all are pure, hell-fire lies. We’ve known the steady, long-suffering, deep ocean of God’s grace towards us again and again. Our Father, who art in heaven, has been pleased to dwell lovingly with us mere mortals on earth. We’re more in love, and understand a wee bit better what it means to be so. I feel the increasing sense of being so undeserving of the Lord’s kindness to us, especially in our relationship these ten years.
It is now my pleasure to present another Young tradition: a poem. You may groan as old Bilbo’s audiences did, but here it is nonetheless. To my wife, on our Decade Dating Dangerous Duo Celebration.
My Journey-Feets Friend
Do you remember the timid question?
I was right to be afraid; beginnings are always treacherous,
Not knowing where your feets will lead,
Lands they’ll explore, or downs adventured,
Heights of sorrow, and depths in love;
I was right to be afraid.
But minuscule bravery birthed by love carried the query
(In that tired out, faded red pickup):
Would your feets journey with mine?
O what a dangerous beauty this decade has been,
My heart’s love, my home, my journey-feets friend.
27 Questions for your marriage
01 year ago
I’ve been thinking about marriage a little bit lately. Might be due to that gold ring on my finger (which, alas, however many times I try, has yet to read anything in Elvish in fire or turn me invisible). It might be due to living with this person that’s married to me. Or it could be the weddings I’m in this summer. Or it could be Prince William and Kate’s upcoming wedding… I think about that one a lot. (It comes with the territory of marrying a Brit.)
But for whatever reason, I’ve been thinking marriage a good bit recently. At a church meeting recently, our senior pastor held out healthy marriages as an area of growth for our church. As a means of growing healthy marriages, he encouraged us to take a look at some questions that Paul Tripp holds out in his book Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands as a good place to start in finding fresh grace and guidance for growth together.
One of the ways I wanted to apply these questions is to put them in the hands of some trusted friends and have them engage us about them. It’s one thing to discuss probing questions in your head, or even between you and your spouse. But there’s something revealing, something that makes you vulnerable opening up real issues to friends. Yet if they’re good friends, vulnerability will lead to grace. And grace is the beginning of tasting glory. And if we’re all really honest, what we really want in our marriages is glory – a glorious marriage that reflects the glorious God who thought the whole thing up.
So here’s Paul Tripp’s questions. I hope you enjoy thinking through them personally, but I’d encourage you to put them in your spouses hands, and in the hands of a gifted friend who can be an instrument the Redeemer’s hands for grace in your life.
What things did you see in this person that made you want to marry them?- What were your goals for your marriage when you were engaged?
- What things in your marriage make you sad?
- What things in your marriage make you happy?
- If you could press a button and change your marriage, how would it change?
- In what ways do you think God is honored by your marriage?
- How would you characterize your communication with your spouse?
- Describe how you and your spouse arrive at decisions.
- Describe how you as a couple resolve conflicts.
- How would you describe your spiritual life as a couple?
- Are there couples you look up to? What do you respect about their marriages?
- Why do you think you have struggled as a couple?
- What do you see as the strengths of your marriage?
- What do you see as the weaknesses of your marriage?
- What do you think you need to do as a couple to get from where you are to where you need to be?
- Describe the marriage of your dreams.
- What could your spouse do to greatly change your marriage?
- What problems in your marriage do you see as your responsibility?
- What specific things have led you to conclude that your marriage needs help?
- What do you think God is doing in your marriage right now?
- What do you think keeps you as a couple form solving your problems?
- Describe how your marriage has changed over the years.
- When you are hurt or angry with your spouse, what do you do?
- How do you communicate dissatisfaction to your spouse?
- Pick one area of your marriage where you think you have problems. Describe what is wrong and what each of you has done to solve it.
- In what ways have you attempted to communicate love and appreciation to your spouse?
- What are the biggest hot buttons in your marriage?
Thou must encourage thy wife!
0Last night was a very encouraging time at our community group, and it wasn’t even meant for me! In light of Mother’s Day impending arrival, our community group leader set out the discussion for the night: Husbands, encourage your wives. We went around and talked about how our wives were a blessing to us.
So there we were, sitting around together, with husbands coming to the end of words in expressing their gratitude for their wives. Who isn’t encouraged by a few man-tears? “I, I, I…. she’s… she’s… I couldn’t survive without her.” There is love on display. Quite naturally, the wives – though they try to play it off – were really blessed by it. Husbands babbling over how to express the blessing their wives are to them opened up a door deeper their hearts than the words spoken. Their very souls were on display to celebrate their wives.
So, I got to thinking about encouraging and wanted to put out a few thoughts on encouraging your wife.
Open up and just do it! Sometimes we want to think of writing these elaborate poems or letters, detailing in ultra-romantic lingo how beautiful and godly our wives are. That’s great. But if you’re not Shakespeare, you have to start somewhere. Just identify that she’s a blessing to you (ahem, insight #1 – She is!), and communicate that to her! Open up, make fun of yourself and bless her. If you need help on this, turn to the Bible. Proverbs 31 is a helpful place to turn.
Proverbs 31. This is, of course, one of the most “go to” texts in the Bible for defining a wife. That means that you’re job is really easy here. Go to these verses, and identify where and how your wife is exemplifying these. Chances are, she’s doing all of them. Take note of them. Encourage them. Seek to cultivate them. (As a note here, the Wisdom Literature of the Bible should be ordered like this in your Old Testament: Proverbs 31: Avoid Lady Folly, cling to and marry Lady Wisdom. -> Ruth: The example of Lady Wisdom. Marry her. -> Song of Solomon: Sex, one of the best parts of marriage. Enjoy it! Just stew on that one for a little while, and you’ll see the glory of it.) In applying Proverbs 31, note evidences of grace.
Evidences of grace. Some of the most encouraging things that any Christian can hear is evidences of God’s activity in them. Most Christians live oblivious to them. We don’t see the growth that others see. One of the great privileges you have as a husband is having the front row seat to what God is doing in your spouse’s life. Celebrate these and glorify God for them! And communicate those celebrations to her. So, think about your wife, and how the Bible maps onto her life, and tell her what you see. Be specific about this. Think about evidences of grace in this way: Characteristic in the Bible + Specific observation in your wife = Encouragement. Encouragement makes for a Christian who is happy in God. A happy Christian wife makes for a joy-filled Christian home, which is a blessing God desires for you to enjoy. Your wife is certainly merciful (Example A: She got married to you), so make note of particular ways she’s merciful. Communicate those. Now you’ve encouraged her. Do this again, and again, and again. It leads to great things, and cultivates a godly woman. I think this is a part of what it means to “wash her in the word”.
Encourage her regularly. This was added by my wife. By encouraging regularly, you grow a heart of gratitude to God and more easily recognize things to praise and celebrate in her. I remember reading the line “A mature Christian is easily edified” at Justin Taylor’s blog a while back. If you’re not easily edified by the growth in your wife, it might be because you’re not growing in Christ. Strive for maturity to be easily edified by God’s activity in her, and celebrate that regularly to her. Regularity of good things produces more good things.
One more note on this. If you’re looking for a helpful resource to grow in this area, I highly recommend you check out Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God by C.J. Mahaney. You can sample read the first two chapters of the book there. Read it. Digest it. Apply it.
Gnostic Masturbation
02 years ago
At the core of masturbation is that the self engages itself as an “other.” The sexual act is intended as part of a relationship. Essentially, when a man masturbates he engages himself (or a better way of thinking of it is that he engages his body) in a sexual act. Masturbation, or self-stimulation, is different from manual stimulation by another person. When he engaged in a sexual encounter with another person, it is truly a relationship (whether God-sanctioned or not). When a man stimulates himself, he treats himself as if he is two parts, mind and body. It is a fragmenting, a disintegrating act. The mind is what experiences the ecstasy, the pleasure and the transcendence of the orgasm, and the body is the mechanism through which we bring ourselves to that place. The body is treated as a tool for the mind and neither respect nor honored as having its own intrinsic value.
This view of the self is a neo-Gnostic view. The reality of our oneness, our entire being as singularity, is denied in the face of our desire to separate the mind from the body, the soul from the flesh. In this view the body is less important than the soul, and its desires are base and polluting. The body and its sexuality are partitioned and fractured with leads to psychological and spiritual distress.
~ Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain by William Struthers, p. 170
The Once a Year Date Night
02 years ago
One a year Michelle and I have one big date. We do regular date nights, one a week that is set into the budget. But this date is different. It’s a special restaurant, the type we could really only afford once a year. For now we call it the “Young Year in Review Date”. It’s a big deal. We’ve done this every year’s end since we’ve been married. We’ve been married a staggering two and a half years, so this was our third YYRD.
Structure
On the date, we go over a set of questions that I think through before hand. Rarely are they specific. They are questions seeking to look at the major themes of the past year, analyze what happened (positively and negatively) and from this discern what direction God is leading us for the year to come. The questions themselves aren’t rocket science (I went to public school you know).
I started us out by simply looking at what we’ve learned in the past year. Here, there were three simply categories: self, marriage, church. These are in some ways just following categories of responsibility (following C.J. Mahaney’s simple outline on productivity). We don’t have children, and our responsibilities with our jobs are relatively small; the struggles we do have with them fall more under personal issues than work-related (i.e. I’m lazy v. my boss asking me to work 70+ hours p/week). Under self, we talked through where we saw grace, growth, weakness and life with God. Under marriage, we talked through growth and challenges. Under church, we addressed what the most impacting sermons were of the year (and why), how things are in our community group, and the issue of sense of pastoral calling. Each of these are interconnected, and in some ways it’s helpful to answer the questions for each other when possible – especially to identify evidences of grace. (As a note here, the question of the most impacting sermons of the year really opened up a helpful window into God’s activity in our lives over the past year. I highly recommend the question for mediation.)
This set of questions provided a good amount of conversation, some interesting insights into ourselves, each other, our marriage, and the goodness of our Heavenly Father. The questions from here were: How did I do in romancing Michelle this year? (How can I grow? Are there habits/traditions I can put into place to grow this area?) What are our financial goals for this year? (If a couple has debt, this must be a priority in family budgeting. Debt must die, or a family is seriously hindered in serving God in many ways. Dave Ramsey’s material is very helpful in getting clear vision on this front.)
From here, we moved into a forward eye about the year to come. Essentially, we just took the conclusions and observations from looking at what we learned about the year past and asked, in light of all of this, Where do we think God is leading us to grow in the coming year? I know, pure brilliance. That, my friends, is Alabama education at it’s finest. This category is the area to address where we’ve seen sin and how God has been growing us to seek his grace for change. It’s also the place to think about what major decisions are coming up and the growth need (individually and maritally) to meet those challenges.
Resources
If you’re having trouble producing constructive thoughts on the material above, I’d recommend working through these books to prompt some thinking:
Living the Cross Centered Life by C.J. Mahaney
Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God by C.J. Mahaney
-> Or: When Sinners Say, “I Do” by Dave Harvey
Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor by D.A. Carson
A Godly Man’s Picture by Thomas Watson
I would also recommend reading Christian biography. Kierkegaard comments that we should read biographies not for information, but as examples of how to live. Carson’s book about his dad is one of the best on this very subject for all Christians, not just pastors.
Final Thought
For us, this practice helps us center and focus our marriage in the year to come. If you’re single, I think the principles still apply, and the Spirit can move mightily in personal mediation to give direction. But it might be helpful to draw a pastor or close friend in who has a keen eye on your soul. The discipline here is stems from being aware of your life, having a sense of your quickly immanet death, and seeks to “redeem the time” by consciously bringing it before the thrown of grace. We do not drift towards God. We must fight. The discipline should be done, in one form or another, by everyone. But in the end, our hope is not in our analysis, nor in our vision, but in Jesus’ finished work on the cross. Any sight of grace is an awareness of the blood of Christ for his people and an opportunity for gratitude, worship, and amazement.
I will be posting our thoughts on these questions in the days to come. Stay tuned!
How The Gospel Engages My Sorrow
12 years ago
The miscarriage happened a little over two weeks ago. That’s a strange thought. This has to have been the craziest month thus far in my life, followed in a close second by the month Michelle and I got married. Honestly, getting married was a lot more fun. I knew miscarriages were sad and unfortunate, but one of the things I hadn’t expected was the lingering, cloak-and-dagger type sorrow that follows behind the loss. The sorrow comes in waves it seems – no real trigger, if there were, I’d like to avoid it. And most frustrating and tiring of all, it seems to stick around. You’d think I could talk about it by now with a straight face, but my eyes still seem to leak every once and a while – I hold it back, who really wants to cry at work over computer parts?
There is the inner swarm of thoughts: Why’d this happen? Why this way? Memories of when it happened. My father’s reaction to when I told him in person that we were pregnant. Coming home to Michelle crying that evening. The doctor’s office where they confirmed it. Frustrations over how this affects Michelle. I find it difficult to find steady ground. I feel that all I have in these moments is the single beam of light from God’s Word that tends to the simmering coals of faith. I feel a naked faith of sorts, the kind that’s likened to anemic people in the hospital – still human, still living, just barely.
In my devotion reading this morning, David, carried along by the Eternal Spirit, sung to me, “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered” (Psalm 32:1). David’s statement is all encompassing, it’s a declaration. God has brought his righteousness near to me and covered me (Isaiah 46:13) because of Jesus work to take my sin upon himself (2 Cor. 5:21) that I might be forgiven and be blessed in enjoying God. Why is that so hard right now? Or is it? Joy isn’t always clothed in joyfully raised hands. Joy takes on the cloths of sorrow (that’s why 60% of the Psalms are in a minor key). At church this past week there were songs and prophetic words (if I remember correctly) about the Lord Jesus taking on our sorrows and griefs. He took these sorrows on that I might be declared blessed in the free justification of his grace. He has born these sorrows to a depth that I will not, because he’s made a declaration over me. So in my sorrow, I take hope that the one who has turned these events as they have gone is the very one to whom I must go, because that’s what it means to be blessed, to be surrounded by the steadfast love of the Lord (Ps. 32:11).
I trust in God, my rock and fix my mind on him in this sorrow that he would give me a perfect peace, the peace of Christ that surpasses all understanding and guards me from falling away (Isaiah 26:3; Phil. 4:7). Even still, however long that peace is withheld, he is strengthening these feeble legs of faith to walk after him; to step when the pain is in the walking. This is how the Gospel engages our miscarriage – Jesus has lead the way and taken the full force of sorrow and grief that we might know God. How do I know I don’t experience the full weight of the sorrow? Because I see Jesus, and he has overcome the world (John 16:33). All things are now not in vein.
Grieving As Those Who Have Hope
22 years ago
There is sad new to report here: we lost the baby Monday night. The miscarriage was confirmed yesterday when we went to see the doctor. The sorrow is deep, the miscarriage of answer prayers and the ensuing joy. But we do “not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13), Jesus has overcome the world (John 16:33). This does not dissuade the sorrow or pain. Grieving at the curse of the fall is the godly and right response here (John 11:35), a response born and carried by the Holy Spirit’s work in us, the fruit of Christ’s victory over death. In the simplest of terms, we know that Jesus loves us, for as John tells us, he loved us to the end (John 13:1); that is, we know Jesus loves us now because he loved us to the cross. My Lord has dealt us a heavy blow, but I return this heart, bruised and bleeding, to him.
At the moment, my simple prayer is that as the Lord has given us this turn of events, that I might have more of him. He does what is right, and in my heart of hearts I rebuke any thought that questions his goodness in these events – Who are you, O my soul, to answer back to God (Rom. 9:20)? I shall not. As a weaned child I will sit on my Saviors lap, I will not lift my eyes to high (Psalm 131). This is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, Self-Control with her twin sister, Peace of Christ, and they spread the grace of the joy of God in this valley of the shadow of death (Gal. 5:22; Phil. 4:7). I will weep, but I will not weep as those with no hope, for Christ is my portion. For Michelle and I, this is our prayer and only hope. God has chosen is infinite, holy wisdom to take our child from life. To the Great Redeemer I trust this little one. As for us who still walk this pilgrim’s road, I join the hymn and pray:
Let sorrow do its work, come grief or pain;
Sweet are Thy messengers, sweet their refrain,
When they can sing with me: More love, O Christ, to Thee;
More love to Thee, more love to Thee!
While On Vacation…
22 years ago
In light of the most recent posts, I thought I’d share this little bit of news…
Yes, we found out while in Disney World, which made the trip all that much more awesome!
We have been very excited and are very blessed by the news. God would be good whether we were to have children or not, but this is a blessing from his hand for our good that we’ve been praying for for a while. We found out Tuesday, and all day I felt rather speechless and overwhelmed with emotion. Of course this changes everything about our plans, but such interruptions are eagerly welcomed. I cannot describe the joy I now experience in seeing Michelle’s excitement in telling people around us. It feels, as best as I know, as a pure joy, completely at the sake of another’s enjoyment of blessing. Sure, I’ve desired to be a father with Michelle, but there’s a different aspect to this. To see the fulfillment and realization of the desires of my wife to be a mother is a consummation (of sorts) to the universe shaking redemptive grace from our Lord Jesus in her life. Often, it’s the sort of joy I can taste, the joy that’s deep and yet right on your tongue. Anyhow, I’ll stop gabbing.
Thanks for rejoicing with us. If you could, please pray for us and our baby; for both the health of Michelle and our baby. Pray for my own mind that I would have wisdom (James 1:5) because I lack it entirely in this area! Also, pray for me on the front of anxiety over misscarriage. We walked through a miscarriage with some close friends several months ago, so the memories are fresh and real. We are taking the posture that the more people who know, the more who can pray. We’re trusting God through this, but prayers on all of this are virtually expected of you!
Also: I took my blog off Facebook a couple weeks ago, partly because of the sensitive nature of the barrenness posts (where anybody – weird – could read the posts) and the fact that people find thing out way to fast via FB. So, I mention that just to say that I’d appreciate it if those who read here wouldn’t post anything yet on Facebook. Thanks!
