He Will Never Leave You Or Forsake You

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.””

‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭31:6, 8‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Two times in 3 verses, God said that he will never leave us or forsake us. If you are a believer, you cling to that promise. There is nothing we could ever do that would cause him to turn his back on us. This gives us courage. It should take away our fear. 

“Leaving” is a physical act. “Forsaking” is an emotional act. Regardless of what we do, God will never turn His attention away from us. ~ Jimmy Evans 

Marriage is a picture of Christ and his bride. Does our spouse feel the same about way about us as this promise we receive from Christ? Does our spouse know that no sin or shortcoming would cause us to leave or forsake them?

When our spouses disappoint us, and they will, do we emotionally turn away from them? Do we literally turn our back and protect ourself from further pain? How do we react when our spouses act like a wretched sinner that Christ died for? 

We are all a bunch of wretched sinners that are not worthy of Jesus to continue to turn his face toward us. Why does he continue to turn toward us and pursue us? How is this possible? We don’t even love ourselves at times. 

When our spouse doesn’t even love themselves, the last thing they need is for us turn away from them. If we could find the strength to continue to turn towards our spouse, even when they don’t deserve it, we will be a part of the healing process. I know you may say, “But you don’t know how messed up our spouse is.” 

This something that we won’t understand until the day we stand before our maker.  God will have the words that we long to hear. 

“Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things. “

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭25:21‬ ‭NIV‬‬

I want to hear that one day in the way I treated Mark when he disappoints me. And when I disappoint him, I hope and pray that he doesn’t turn his face away from me. That is the point of marriage. In a mysterious way, we growing closer to the Lord until the day we see him face to face. 

Making Marriage a Priority, part two.

When I wrote my last blog on marriage, I did not realize that many younger women were interested in reading about an older woman's perspective on marriage. Actually when I wrote the last blog, it was 3:30 AM and I was in the middle of an incredibly stressful time.  God said the words for me to type so fast, I could hardly keep up with his thoughts. I reread it yesterday and saw many grammatical errors! Yikes! They were my mistakes, not the Lord's:).

In retrospect, many more thoughts have come to my mind. I share them only in the hopes that a young married person, or any age for the matter, will take these words to heart and apply the Biblical principals to your marriage.

Ask yourself this question before you read another word. "What kind of a marriage do I want to have 5 years from now?" What kind of marriage do I want to have 30 or 50 years from now?" You can choose.  But realize that there are no shortcuts to an amazing marriage. A marriage that impacts other people. None. God does not live in a shortcut world. He does not look at my life and say, "Pat, you can take a shortcut, an easy way, a less stressful way, a non-suffering way to look more like my Son." He is clear that his way will be more difficult and he does not have to apologize about it. Jesus said in Matthew,

 “You can enter true life only through the narrow gate. The gate to hell is very wide, and there is plenty of room on the road that leads there. Many people go that way. But the gate that opens the way to true life is narrow. And the road that leads there is hard to follow. Only a few people find it.

See what I am talking about?  It makes me tremble when I read his word and allow myself to be confronted by its truth and not try to paraphrase it to be what I want it to be. How does this impact our marriage choices?

Begin by drawing a line in the sand(I love to say that) and deciding that you will make choices that will be difficult at times. Like waking up early and reading God's word and talking to Him. Mark and I wake up at 4:30 AM and read God's word and then pray together. Your schedule may not require such a ridiculous time. This is what our schedule requires this year. For years, we have made this a habit and so it was not so hard to keep this in place when my husband's job changed and he had to leave earlier this year than last year.

Here are the benefits of this. We both know what God's word says and don't have to take anyone else's word for it. We are more likely to live by the principals in the Word because we read them over and over again. They come to our mind often. God has some stuff to work with in my mind when he wants to remind me of something.

Also, it is really hard to be mad at someone if you know you are going to pray with him. Mark always has said this,"Babe, we are standing up in the foxholes and allowing the enemy to shoot at us. Let's get down and be protected together from the evil one who is trying to destroy us." That always makes perfect sense after he says that. We NEED to pray together. We HAVE to pray together to survive the bullets that are coming our way. By the way, if you don't feel any bullets coming your way and life is rosy all the time, be very worried. You must not be any threat to the enemy and he is not wasting his time on your marriage.

If you have continued to read this far, it must mean you are serious about this stuff and I am excited. Here's is the good part. The longer you continue to do this, the more attractive you will become to your husband. He will be more deeply in love with you as the years go by. You are building your marriage on a solid foundation and not on the sandy soil. When bad things come (and they will) you will be able to withstand it together. Your roots will be deep and not shallow. I love Psalm 1:

They love the Lord’s teachings
    and think about them day and night.
3 So they grow strong,
    like a tree planted by a stream—
a tree that produces fruit when it should
    and has leaves that never fall.
Everything they do is successful.

Good grief!!! How can you not want that for your life?  But it will not happen if you choose the easy way. Psalm 1 ends by saying;

The Lord shows his people how to live

but the wicked have lost their way.

If you choose the shortcut way, you will one day wake up and find that you have lost your way. That happens in a lot of marriages. It not only happens in marriages that end in divorce, it also happens in marriages where the two decide to just stay together because it is easier. You ask yourself, why did I choose this guy? I don't like the man he has become. I don't like the woman I have become. I don't know the right way anymore. 

I think I should add that the end result is not happiness and easy lives and riches and no health problems and no rebellious teens. Again, we cannot expect this side of heaven to be heaven. But we can face tomorrow with some resilience. We can face tomorrow with a clearer vision of where to walk. We can face tomorrow with the love of our life and it does not seem so scary anymore. 

I forgot to name the main reason why this is awesome for your marriage…this quiet time together every morning is like glue!  Your minds melt together. You are on the same page. Your priorities are going to start looking alike. Your desires begin to line up with God's desires so your desires line up with your husband's desires. I can say that no other single thing in your marriage will bond you together like spending time with the Lord together. Everything else is just icing on the cake. 

There is No Growth Without Change

There is no growth without change; there is no change without fear or loss; and there is no loss without pain. We fear these losses, even if our old ways were self-defeating, because, like a worn out pair of shoes, they were at least comfortable and familiar.

Every change involves a loss of some kind: You must let go of old ways in order to experience the new. ~Rick Warren

I love this devotional by Rick Warren. Pair of old shoes. Yep those shoes are comfortable and familiar. After 40.5 years of marriage, our marriage was comfortable. But God asked us to grow, to change, maybe lose some habits. Ouch! No, Lord, I’m comfortable. But we jumped out of our comfort and went to a marriage retreat. I have written several blogs about the sessions. But the telling part was what would we be willing to do to actually change?

I absolutely love this small detail that we have changed. The speakers, Les and Leslie Parrot, called this, “sharing withhold. “ I told Mark we were going to rename it because I can’t ever remember what it’s called. I am going to call it the two positives and 1 negative. At least once a week, we have done this and it is a game changer. I love it! It seems so small and insignificant. But isn’t that the way change often happens...beginning with a small thing?Bad or good change?

The reason it’s called “withhold” is because we “hold onto” a negative feeling about something that happened. There is power in holding onto that thought. It grows and grows and becomes larger than life. We will remember this action or the words that our spouse said and festers like a infection that does not get air or any way to get healing. 

By the same way, sometimes we hold onto a compliment that we noticed about our spouse and we keep it inside because they are not worthy of our praise. Oh my goodness, the compliment may have been the breath of life that our spouse needed to hear.

So here is how it goes...at least once a week one of us say, “How about two positives and one negative?” One goes first and says one positive, one negative and end with a positive. The negative can get sandwiched in the two positives. Here is the wonderful part, our spouse can only say “thank you” for all comments. If they have something else to say, they must wait thirty minutes to address any of the comments. You can guess, after 30 minutes, it will rare to even remember the negative.

This simple act is like a fresh rain on our marriage. It washes away the infection that had been hiding under a rock, waiting for an opportunity to bring it up in the worst way and the worst time. Cool thing, your spouse can not justify the negative for 30 minutes. We love to justify, don’t we? But this exercise gives us time to think about why our spouse said this...why this was important enough for our spouse to mention it. If we are wise enough to be quiet for 30 minutes and think about what they said, miracles may happen that we did not anticipate. Love this tiny change in our marriage that will help us grow our marriage for the next 40 years. I love you, Mark Cooper(aka Superman). 

Jesus Can Heal Anybody

At a marriage conference I went to last weekend, Michael Todd, pastor of Transformation Church in Tulsa, OK, was the keynote speaker. John 9:1-3 was the topic.

“As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

There is so much truth wrapped up in this story that I have missed most of my life. The disciples were analyzing the man’s problem. He had been blind from birth so obviously he did nothing wrong to earn this blindness. It must have been his parent’s sin. To have been born blind seemed like a punishment for something. However, Jesus says, “This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

Are there times in your life, maybe even your marriage, that you try to decide why are you being punished? You may think that perhaps your problem in marriage is caused by your sinful choices and that may very well be true. Maybe you put the blame on someone else like your parents got a divorce and so you did not have a good example. Or you just blamed it on your spouse. They never changed and you counted on them to become more mature or less selfish. Plenty of blame to go around.

Once we pull this story away from being about blindness, we may relate to it in a different way. There was a huge problem and the disciples wanted to place blame on someone or something. Once we place blame, we try to make plans on how to solve that problem.

But now we can hear what Jesus says in a different light.

Jesus says, “This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” 

Wow! Maybe the punishment is not a punishment at all but a way to provide a platform for Jesus to be amazing, transforming, and miraculous. Pause for a minute and read that again. This crisis that you are going through may not be punishment for what you or someone did. Maybe this can be viewed as a way to open our eyes up to “see the works of God displayed in our life.” Our eyes are temporarily blind to God’s power. But they can be opened.

Okay, here is the good part.

“After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes.” Verse 6

(The speaker brought this to life. He actually took dirt and spit in the dirt and put it on a guy’s eyes. Literally!)

What does this make you think about? How would you feel if the doctor told you that the cure for your problem was some dirt? What if he put some dirt in his hands and literally spit in his hands? I know you would have his license taken away. 😄😄😄

On the other hand, what if you had terminal cancer and this really was the cure? You would do anything. When Jesus took dirt from the ground and used his own saliva, that guy could have heard the spit with those blind eyes. (We heard it from the audience.) Other people in the Bible received their sight with a spoken word. Jesus used a really messy treatment...dirt and spit.

Brings us to a question...how bad do you want your problem cured? Is it worth getting really messy and embarrassed? If it is not a simple fix, do we decline the offer to have our sight restored and our marriage restored? If it involves hard and messy work, do we say ,”Never mind. I would rather keep my blindness.”

Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.”

‭‭John‬ ‭9:1-3, 6-7‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Notice that Jesus did not walk him to the pool to wash off his eyes. I bet it was a moment or two of total silence when the guy had to find his way to the pool. The speaker made a great point here. When God is silent, it’s like the teacher of a class and we are taking a math test. It is total silence in the room. God is waiting on us to be obedient to what he told us to do.

This blind guy got released! Jesus did not see the guy as the “blind guy.” He saw him as a guy who had the potential to see. He doesn’t see our marriages as too far gone. He sees us as two people who could receive release from our blindness. And he would get all the glory because the impossible just happened!

Know Your Spouse’s Worth to Christ

“Just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”
‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭5:25-27‬ ‭NIV‬‬

I believe that we will not ever fully understand how much Christ loves us. We have no clue. The minute we step into his presence, we will drop to our knees and be overwhelmed with the way Christ loves us and tenderly cares for us.  Notice that Jesus cleansed us and presented us as radiant, without stain or wrinkle.  Your spouse has that same worth.

How does God criticize us? Notice from these verses that Jesus does not get in our face and ridicule us and scream at us and make fun of us. He washed us with kindness. That’s how we should confront our spouse.

This was one of the biggest statements that stopped us in our tracks at the marriage conference that we attended last weekend. The way Jesus reacts when we are wrong. He never walks up to us and berates us. He never gets annoyed. He doesn’t talk about us in a negative way. He does not give us the silent treatment. He does not leave the house and stay gone to punish us.

I love that Jimmy Evans talked about the difference in the gardener mentality verses the consumer reality. The gardener sees a sick tree and tries to love it back to health. The consumer mentality sees a sick tree and takes it back for a better, more healthy one. Again how does Jesus see our worth? That’s how we should see our spouse.

The other illustration is the renter and the owner mentality. The renter has foundations problems. There is no way the renter would stay and fix that costly problem. The owner will stay and fix it no matter what the cost.  When we encounter a costly problem in our marriage, will we have a renter or owner mentality? People who are more likely divorce, according to statistics, do not have a strong work ethic and do not desire to stay and fix the problem.

Mark and I want to treat each other like Christ loved the church and knows it’s worth. Next time Mark gets me mad or annoyed, I pray that I react like Jesus treats me...with encouragement and underserved love. Next time I use up too much data accidentally or run into new garage door without opening it(how did that happened?). Mark, remember you are a gardener and not a consumer. You’ve had me too long and you can’t take me back.😊

Unpack Your Past

Mark and I heard some of the best speakers this past weekend at a marriage retreat. One of the most insightful talks was given by Tim Ross, Senior pastor at Embassy City Church. He talked about the baggage that we bring into our marriage. Baggage is not the problem because we all have baggage. Mark and I have referred to this talk several times since we heard him. Here is his four points.

First, bring your bags. Adam, and Eve were not aware. 

“The Lord God called to the man and said, “Where are you?” The man said, “I heard you walking in the garden, and I was afraid. I was naked, so I hid.” God said to the man, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat fruit from that special tree? I told you not to eat from that tree!””

Genesis 3:9-11 ERV

Think about that. Why did God have to point out that they were naked? That is the most obvious thing about us is whether we have clothes on or not. But I can honestly say there a lot of people I know that have no clue, whatsoever, that they came with baggage into their marriage. Their spouse may have baggage but not them...no way. Great marriages are two people who are self-aware. Keenly, self aware. They know what are their strengths and what are their weakness. They know how they are different from their spouse. Not a vague realization but a clear understanding of their difference and an appreciation of the fact that this is a good thing. 

Secondly, unpack your bags. When Samuel told Saul that he would be Israel’s first king, listen to Saul reaction.

“Then they asked the Lord, “Has Saul come here yet?” The Lord said, “Saul is hiding behind the supplies.””

1 Samuel 10:22 ERV

Saul was a head taller than anyone but he hid behind the baggage. Mark and I talked a lot after returning home about what was the baggage that we brought into our marriage 40 years ago. We had to get anything out in the open and not try to hide behind it and make excuses for them.

After we do this, we needed to sort through our baggage. Sort through our stuff and identify whose stuff is whose. When we come home from a trip, we always have to unpack our bags and just pick which things are ours. How foolish it would be to not claim any of the clothes just because we are too lazy to wash our things. But there are a lot of people who are just that unmotivated. They do not want to go to the trouble of dealing with their baggage. It is hard to deal with our faults. It much easier to blame everything on the other person and let them deal with it. 

Last step is to put away your stuff. If we came home from a trip and I washed all the stuff and put them in the middle of the floor until the next trip...not a good plan. Same thing with the baggage in our marriage, laying out everywhere. Sort it and talk about it and then put it up. It is much easier to deal with the individual item when it comes up again because it will, and you already know how to find it. 

Mark and I LOVED getting a lot of things out in the open. No matter how big or small your baggage was in your past, don’t leave it packed up. It will be smelly and wrinkled and gross if you leave it packed up and hidden in a suitcase. You are not fooling anyone, especially the love of your life. 

Are We Judging Our Spouse

“So why do you judge your brother or sister in Christ? Or why do you think that you are better than they are? We will all stand before God, and he will judge us all.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭14:10‬ ‭ERV‬‬

“So each of us will have to explain to God about the things we do.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭14:12‬ ‭ERV

I think if we let the weight of these verses hit us, it will change us forever.

Take marriage, for example. When our spouse disappoints us or makes us unhappy, we focus on their sin problem. We, in essence, judge them as it describes in verse 10. I think that we act as if God will not notice that we did that. However, it says in verse 12, we will have to explain "the things that we did."

I have to remind myself that I will stand before the Lord one day and explain how I treated Mark. Wow! Keep that thought in your mind when you judge your spouse. It will be silly to say to God, "Mark did not remember to take out the trash on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That made me mad." Keep in mind that I am using a silly example. Mark always takes out the trash, as long as I set it right by the coffee pot:):):).

Fill in the blank. God, my spouse does this____. Name it...whatever the thing is that gives you the right to judge him. Just name it. Practice saying this excuse before the Lord one day. Will this excuse hold up? Will this make it okay to judge him, even though Romans 14:10 says not to judge but to love?

I firmly believe that when I stand before the creator of the universe one day, He will want to know how did I love Mark. He put Mark in my life to love and cherish and serve. God will ask me, "How did you do?" Jesus loved Mark enough to die for Mark. I do want to wow God's heart when I loved Mark when he didn't take out the trash or serve me. I would love to hear God say, "I noticed that time when Mark did so and so and you forgave him and loved him anyway."

Who in your life are you judging?

Explosions in Marriage

Mark and I were talking and I sweetly mentioned one little thing…and Mark exploded in anger. Did you catch the phrase "one little thing?" Mark calls these "one word explosions" These explosions happen when one of us mention a topic that reminds our spouse of a ongoing disagreement. I asked Mark if he had taken care of something and he said he had not had time. I innocently said ,"you had time to watch the game last night." I knew when I said it that it would cause an argument. Why do we do that? 
There are topics in every marriage that we can't seem to get past. It is a different topic for every couple. I am married to a football coach. Football has been a part of our marriage for many years. There is absolutely nothing wrong with football. But football represents to me a different thing than it may to you. It reminds me of taking our boys to a million practices by myself. It reminds me of ballgames on Friday nights when I would rather have date night. It represents the fall season devoted to football on TV when I would love to watch a movie together. It reminds me of just being by myself a lot.We have been through this issue more times than I care to count. So when I say "you had time to watch the game last night" it means I am pushing the button. 
Now I must say, I have come a long way in understanding Mark's love of football. I look forward to football season and seeing the joy on Mark's face. He grieves in January when all the games are over and we have to settle for another sport. I am proud that he is pouring into young lives by coaching them in football. But there is still the time issue that we deal with and hence the comment I made. 
You have an issue that is your hot topic in marriage. It is the one that keeps coming up. When a hint of that topic creeps in…an explosion occurs. We were talking about this in our young married's class last Sunday. One of the guys suggested that we also know the one topic that brings a smile every time to our spouse. For me it is a short comment from Mark, "Hey slim." I guess that stems from years of being overweight and finally doing something about this three years ago. When Mark mentions something about me looking young, it is like a deposit in my bank account! I could live off that compliment for a long time. For Mark, it is a mention of how thankful I am for his constant leadership in our family. I could say anything that reeks of respect! I could have thanked Mark for all the times he has taken care of things instead of making a remark about the one time he did not.
I have to ask myself, "Do I want to make a deposit or a withdrawal to Mark's bank account?" Full bank accounts are nice to have. Having an emergency fund is a wise thing. It is not smart to jerk money of our spouse's emotional bank account when we could have avoided it. 
Remember, "A soft answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger." Proverbs 15:1

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