Recently I was carrying some stuff from the pool to the house following a swim with Misty and the boys. As I reached for the door the items in my left hand shifted and I dropped something. Usually I am able to grab things I drop before they hit the ground because I have quick reflexes. This time I wasn't so fortunate because of the stuff I had in my hands. The one item that slipped out of my hand was Misty's wedding ring. And of course it didn't gently land on the ground and wait for me to pick it up. No, it landed stones down on the corner of our brick steps and rolled across the cement floor. As you can imagine, the ring did not come away unscathed. One of the stones on the ring was knocked out and fortunately no more damage was done. Thankfully for me Misty was understanding and I'm sure this will be the catalyst to her getting a well deserved and newer form of jewelry.
As I've considered what to do about Misty's ring over the past week, I couldn't help but think about how her ring was representative of any marriage. Marriage is the second most difficult job you'll have in life, just behind raising kids. When you consider what marriage is and was originally intended to be, you easily understand why it is so challenging at times. Marriage is God's perfect design for human relationships practiced by two imperfect people. Those two people are attempting to fulfill a perfect plan when they themselves are flawed, sinful, broken people. In the course of attempting marriage we all make mistakes. At times we make it all about ourselves and not about our spouse. We might put all our attention and focus into work. We may give all our energy to our kids, hobbies, or something else in life and none of it to our marriage. You can fill in whatever mistakes you've made in your marriage here. Simply put we all mess up in marriage and no marriage is immune to mistakes. But the way we respond to those mistakes made in our marriage reveals the true health of our marriage. If we shut down and refuse to work on the problems in our marriage, we are begging for more problems. When we refuse to work on the problems in our marriage we are inviting Satan to wreck havoc in our marriage and he'll gladly oblige.
If you'll come to a realization about a few things in your marriage, then you can begin to work through the problems you are facing. First, you probably didn't get into this situation overnight and you won't get out of it overnight. Be patient and willing to work on your problem for the foreseeable future. Secondly, you aren't perfect. No matter how perfect you think you are, you are just as flawed as the rest of us. That means you aren't always a joy to live with, but your spouse loves you anyways and wants the best for your marriage. Remember, they know you more intimately than anyone else and they love you in spite of your flaws. Thirdly, extend grace to your spouse. He or she needs more grace and less criticism when it comes to the problems in your marriage. Approach this the way Jesus would have, you know, treating your spouse the way you want to be treated (Luke 6:31). Lastly, your problems can destroy your marriage if you don't address them. Like a cancer or infection that goes untreated in the body, a problem in your marriage can start out slow but have grave affects on your marriage. When you stop communicating because of the problems in your marriage, you are putting the nails in the coffin of your marriage. You have to communicate to work on the problems in your marriage. If you don't communicate and aren't willing to work on your marriage problems, then you might as well realize that at best you'll have an unhealthy and miserable marriage and at worst your marriage will fail.
I'll close with this. The family unit in our society is daily being attacked by Satan. He is trying everything he can to undermine the success of God's plan for human relationships like marriage. Look at the cultural acceptance of same-sex marriages and cohabitation and you'll see how effective Satan has been at his job. Take seriously the vows you made before God and each other and work to make sure your marriage stands the test of time. It's one thing to have a marriage that has been dented and dinged by the trials of life, but it's a whole other thing to throw it away because you've not done what was necessary to keep it from breaking apart.
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| Not my plants! |
One of the things I despised as a kid but enjoy as an adult is working in the garden. My great-grandmother would have us picking beans and shucking corn the minute we were dropped off at her house during the summer. My grandfather had us picking up potatoes as he and my uncle plowed them up using a hand plow behind a 1949 Allis-Chalmers G. My parents and grandparents regularly used us in the garden to cut off cornstalks and harvest vegetables. As kids we hated it. Now that I'm an adult, I enjoy working in the garden with my dad or in my own raised bed garden in my backyard. This year I planted two tomato plants, two cucumber plants, a zucchini plant, a squash plant, and 3 pepper plants in my raised bed. I've been watering these plants nearly daily and put out fertilize a couple of times to help them get big and strong. Over the last 5 weeks I've been carefully training my tomato & cucumber plants on a daily basis to stay inside the cages I put around them. These cages help protect them from storm damage and to support them as they grow larger. These plants that started out small have turned into beautiful, mature plants that are starting to bear vegetables.
Last week as I was putting a cucumber vine back in the cage I thought about how these plants were similar to children. Like plants, children start out small and need many things to grow to maturity. They need the water of love and the fertilize of time with parents to develop into strong, healthy people. This work requires daily attention on the part of parents. They also need the cages of rules and discipline. To kids, rules and discipline feel as confining to them as the cages do around my cucumbers and tomatoes. But just like the plants in the cages, children thrive and flourish when there are rules and discipline used to train them. When parents consistently train their kids with firm rules and adequate discipline, then the children are better off because of it. We've all seen "those" kids who have never been disciplined a day in their life and never been made to follow a rule. We've all seen them in the store, or in church, or in restaurants, or at school. Why do they act like a cucumber vine growing all over the back yard? Because they haven't been trained and they are running wild. Unfortunately it isn't good for the kid and eventually you, I, and the rest of society will have to deal with the parent's lack of willingness to train their kids.
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| My plants. |
As my plants have grown to be healthy, strong, mature plants I've had a sense of pride in them. I look at them and think about all the mornings I've watered them after running on the treadmill. I think about the time I've put into pulling weeds so they didn't take over. As I picked the first couple of cucumbers the other day I was proud of what my plant was producing. When it comes to our kids, we can have the same sense of pride as we watch them mature into young adults who are emotionally healthy, spiritually strong, and mentally mature. The best way to accomplish this is through spending time with them and teaching them to be respectful of rules and the discipline that comes with breaking those rules. When they are older we will finally see the training we did when they were younger paying off.
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One of the shows I always try to catch, no pun intended, is National Geographic Channel's Wicked Tuna. For those unfamiliar with the show, it follows several fishing vessels out of Gloucester, Massachusetts as they try to catch giant bluefin tuna. It is always interesting to see how the process goes and how sometimes they land monster tunas and other times the fish gets away. One thing that always causes me to roll my eyes when watching this show is a reference I've heard from all but a few of the cast on the show. When things are going good or when things are going bad, they regularly give credit or blame to the "tuna gods." Sometimes they go as far as to put their hands together as if they were praying, look to the heavens, and plead with the tuna gods to give them a fish. There are a few captains who seem to be believers in Christ and give credit to Him for the fish, but all the rest seem to seek out provision from the tuna gods.
I realize many will say, "What is the harm in it? What does it matter if they playfully ask the tuna gods for a fish." The reality of the matter is that when it comes to everything in our life, good, bad, or otherwise, God has allowed it into our lives and He alone is to be praised for it. When we give credit to anything other than God, what we do is we put that "thing" above God, as if it were more powerful and more important than Him. Whether it is the imaginary good luck or bad luck we as humans have created or some fictional fish god, we are still committing good ol' fashion idolatry when we give credit to anything other than God. God is clear on this topic in the pages of the Bible and spells it out for us time and time again how He is the only one worthy of worship, praise, glory, and honor. This idea is most explicitly spelled out for us in Exodus 20:3 (NIV), "You shall have no other gods before me." He goes on for the next 3 verses and details how we aren't to worship other gods or have images of gods. God is serious about His worship and we should take it serious too. It is real easy for us as humans to give credit to anything and everything but God. We can worship luck, coincidence, fate, destiny, and a myriad of other idols without ever giving God the honor He is due. We are hardwired to worship God and often times we pervert that innate desire to worship by focusing our attention on other things. We have to be vigilant and diligent about making God the focus of our worship and then keeping our focus there.
Take some time right now to examine your own life and those areas where you have idols. Ask God to show you those idols and ask Him to bring you to the point of conviction and repentance over those idols. Then pursue Him as the only object of your worship. I'll leave you with this closing thought from Dr. Walter Martin and it best sums up why we need to only worship God. "[God] does not share His throne with Krishna, Buddha, Mohammed, Zoroaster, or any of the endless assortment of gurus and gods." This includes the tuna gods!
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