Take The Time; Make The Time; Do The Time

Every year I have intentions of keeping our yard weed free and the flowers blooming.  My wife and I both have pretty busy schedules in the summer, and sometimes watering the flowers and keeping the weeds at bay and the trees and shrubs trimmed and

pruned just doesn’t happen.  Not only do I get exasperated with myself for not being more disciplined, I also get a letter from my homeowners association.  That makes it even worse.  This year I was bound and determined to get it right.  I started early and I worked a couple of hours each night in the spring getting all the beds cleaned out.  After all the shrubs had lost their spring blossoms I started trimming away.  My wife planted flowers in the yard and I made a concerted effort to water them regularly—especially in the hottest and driest weeks of the summer.  Guess what?  No letter from the association this year!  The yard looked great.  Even some of the neighbors said so.

But then . . . The last few weeks in August hit.  Time got away and we were gone over Labor Day weekend. When we got home all of our flowers had pretty much bit the dust and the weeds were taking over.  I still haven’t gotten to them.  In fact, I could be out there weeding right now but I have chosen to be inside writing this blog instead!  I tell myself to take just a couple of minutes every morning and pull a few weeds and the task won’t be so daunting.  But I don’t and then the task seems too daunting.  So it doesn’t get done.

Having a garden and a nice yard is a lot of work.  You have to keep at it constantly.  Weeds are relentless at trying to take over everything while the heat of summer seems to suck all the water out of the soil so the flowers wilt.  Nicely pruned and trimmed trees and shrubs don’t stay that way for long—they just keep growing and doing their own thing.  You are never done tending a garden or a yard.  You have to work at it every day and then some.

The same is true when it comes to marriage.  That is why I always tell couples in pre-marital counseling that when they get married DON’T FORGET TO KEEP DATING!!!!  If couples tended to dating the way many couples tend their marriages there wouldn’t be very many marriages.  The point is we tend to work at dating, but then when we get married we figure we are done (I caught the fish).  But remember, the goal of marriage isn’t being married (nor is it children).  The goal of marriage is companionship.  Marriage is just like a garden—having a beautiful one means constantly working at it.  The weeds of selfishness, hobbies, community and organization involvement, career, family, children (yes, children), and the like are all vying to take over the garden of this beautiful union that God has created between a man and a woman.

When dating we are willing to put in the time necessary to be together.  We are willing to change schedules, set aside other things we may want to do or get accomplished, and cut back on time spent with other friends and family all for the purpose of spending time with each other.  And why do we do this?  Because we deem spending time with the other person to be so important to us that we are happy to work at it.  And the result of all the work at dating is worth it because the relationship brings joy and happiness to our life—even meaning and purpose and satisfaction.  I know, I know, when you are married it is different—there is work and other obligations; there are the time demands of children; and there is a need for alone time as well.  Believe me, I get it!  But the reality is this—if you can find the time to be together when you are dating, then you can find the time to be together when you are married.  If anything, marriage should be easier than dating because now that you are married you come home to each other, whereas when you were dating you went home to your own place, then had to go out to be together (not only am I old fashioned, but I am Biblical when it comes to not living together before marriage).  What changes from dating to marriage is simply that we stop working at the relationship.

Take the time, make the time, do the time—to date each other.  Because my wife and I both have time demands on our work we schedule time together on our calendars.  You could do the same.  Set aside time for one another by putting yourselves on the calendar.  Then when something comes up you can say, “Sorry I’d like to but I have a previous commitment that I just can’t reschedule.”  Not only does it work, but it lets your spouse know that you consider them and your marriage to them important.  That earns good husband or wife points. 

Men, the Scriptures have given us the greater responsibility in marriage—that is why the husband is the head—so to get out more help out more!  Let’s face it; we are willing to let our wives do all the work.  But then, when they don’t have time for us or are too tired from shouldering all of the responsibility we grouse and complain.  So it’s time for us to help out more around the castle.  The more we help out the more time our wives will have to spend time with us; the more time our wives have the less likely they are going to be too tired (get my drift?).  Helping out signals your wife that you love and care about her; helping out says you see her and her needs as important.  When she sees that she will be more likely to want to respond to your desire to spend time together.  Plus, you’ll end up earning more husband points.

Men, here is another tip.  How much time have you wasted asking each other over and over again, “what would you like to do?  Where would you like to go?”  As a woman once told me:  “A woman likes a man with a plan”.  Again, don’t leave all the work to your wife when it comes to spending time together.  You made plans when you were dating, so do it when you are married as well.  Be sure to listen to conversation with your wife about movies she would like to see and places she would like to go; ask if there is anything particular she would like to do, and if there is, plan to do it.  Always have a back-up plan in case there isn’t something that your wife wants to do.  If money is a concern, then do things that are free or pretty cheap.  Remember the object is to spend quality time together.  The time spent together will be what you remember and appreciate the most.  That will be the thing that keeps you closer together and keeps the garden of your marriage weeded, trimmed, pruned, and beautiful.

(For many couples kids will be the big stumbling block.  I will address that issue in the next blog.)     

Husbands and Wives FIRST

I recently watched a movie on the Hallmark channel in which a married couple went on the honeymoon they never had.  They left their three kids with the wife’s sister, a very free spirited person.  They went to Europe, but not all was as romantic and wonderful as the husband had hoped.  In one scene, that took place in London, the husband is trying to convince his wife to forget going to the show that they had tickets for that night and spending the night in the room.  The wife would have nothing of that.  She was bound and determined go to the show, after all, they may never get back to London again.

In another scene, the couple is in Paris.  There is a problem at home and the wife wants to fly home immediately because she doesn’t trust her sister to handle the situation.  The husband objects to going home and finally tells the wife that she can go home if she wants, but he is staying.  He goes ahead and checks into their hotel room while the wife goes and reserves a flight home the next day.  She comes into their room while the husband is getting ready to go out to dinner for the evening.  The following conversation takes place between the husband and the wife (the wife’s words are in italics):   

“You want to go home.”

“I don’t want to go. I have to go.”

“No you don’t.”

“You might not care about our kids.”

“Our kids are fine, it’s us you should be worried about.” 

“What’s wrong with us?” 

“I don’t know.  You tell me. We are supposed to be on our honeymoon and all you can think about is the kids.” 

“I am not a blushing bride.” 

“You are to me.” 

“But. . .” 

“But what?”

“I, I don’t know how to be romantic.” 

“We’re in Paris, the epicenter of romance.”

“I just don’t. . . not anymore.” 

“Then we’re in big trouble aren’t we?  For fifteen years it’s been all about the kids, which is great because I’m crazy about them, but I’m crazy about you, too, and we have to remember how to be together, just the two of us.  I know the kids are what you do, and I honor you for that, because it’s the most beautiful thing to me, but the kids are going to grow up, and faster than we can imagine.  And if we have done our job right they’ll leave.”

Now I realize that this dialogue is from a fictional movie and not real life, but consider how familiar this fictional dialogue sounds to a real letter a woman recently wrote to a nationally syndicated advice columnist—“I adore my husband and our two young children, but I am at a loss as to how to see my husband’s love and affection as anything other than yet another demand for my time and energy. He is loving, affectionate, kind, passionate but when he comes to give me a hug or anything along those lines (whether it’s JUST a hug, or a hopeful lead-in to something else), I think, ‘Go the hell away and take care of yourself.’ What is wrong with me? My head knows he is fabulous in every way.”

So maybe this dialogue in this made for TV movie isn’t so fictional after all!  Which begs the question of how married couples, particularly those with children, get into this kind of trouble in the first place?  Let me offer some thoughts based on Scripture.  Too often the purpose and goal of marriage is misplaced.  For some people the marriage, in and of itself, becomes the goal.  Once the “I do’s” are said and the couple is pronounced man and wife, the goal has been achieved.  Husband and wife tend to go off and do their own thing, having checked off their list the next thing to accomplish in their life.  For some couples the goal of marriage is to have children.  Once the children come they take center stage—everything that husband and wife do is for the sake of the children.  But marriage, in and of itself is not the goal.  And neither is having children the goal of marriage. 

The goal according to Genesis 2:18-25 is companionship—a companionship that is so unique because husband and wife are joined in a relationship where they become one flesh.   There is no other relationship like it.  A man will leave his father and mother (relationship of child to parent) and be joined to his wife and the two will become one flesh.  A husband may still honor his father and mother, but his loyalties and his priorities evolve around his wife.  The same becomes true for the wife—her loyalties and priorities evolve around her husband.  Their relationship, their marriage to one another trumps all other relationships by virtue of their union.

Adam grasped the importance and the priority of his relationship with Eve when God brought Eve to him.  God had fashioned Eve out of one of Adam’s ribs, not so she could be a pain in his side, but so the two of them would always be together—side by side, yet  one.  Adam comments about their relationship:  “This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.  She shall be called woman for she was taken out of man.”  While wives today are not made out of one of the ribs of their husband’s, by virtue of our one flesh union husbands and wives can still say the same thing that Adam said.  Husbands and wives are bone of each other’s bone and flesh of each other’s flesh; they are no longer two but one.

Now the Scriptures also say that a house divided against its self cannot stand.  If husband and wife are not clinging to each other, not sticking to each other like glue, but going off in their own directions, because of the one flesh union they are dividing themselves.  Rather than being drawn closer together they are growing apart from each other.  Now Genesis also says that what God has joined together, man should not put asunder.  This relationship of marriage is the will of God, his blueprint for a great marriage experience.  No man or woman, husband and wife included, should be tampering with God’s design of marriage.  To do so is to put the marriage at risk.  To not put your marriage relationship first, but put it on the back burner to elevate the relationship of children or career or any other relationship is to risk putting your own marriage asunder.

(So much for the theology behind the institution of marriage.  In my next blog we will look at some practical ways to implement this theology so that marriages are not rent asunder by children, careers, and other people.  From there we will tackle some other marital issues.) 

Seedtime and Harvest/ Death and Resurrection

I knew Shirley for almost 9 years.  I was her pastor and she was a home-bound member of my congregation.  I visited her on a somewhat regular basis.  We would talk about goings on at church so Shirley would be up on the latest news of her church home and the people there that she knew and loved.  With each passing visit she would reveal more and more of herself and her family.  We would always end our visits on a worshipful note as I would have a devotion with her and we would pray for her and whatever her needs were.  I would then give her Communion.  Shirley would always have an envelope containing all of the CD’s of the worship services that had been mailed to her since my last visit.  She wanted to make sure they were recycled.  She loved to have those.  The CD’s and my visits helped keep her connected to our congregation; they helped immensely in making her feel a part of the church, the communion of saints.

I say I knew Shirley for almost 9 years because she was recently called home to glory by our heavenly Father.  I went to the visitation at the funeral home early to meet and visit with the family before the crowds would gather later in the day.  Shirley’s daughter and I gathered by the casket to talk about Shirley, her late husband, and the service at the church the next day.  I didn’t say anything at the time, but if it hadn’t been for the sign directing me to the room in which Shirley’s body was located, and if it hadn’t been for her family being in the room at the same time, I would never have recognized the body in the casket as Shirley!

All of my visits with Shirley over the years were the same—she always had on a plain house dress and would be sitting in her chair in the living room, right by the front door.  Shirley’s hair was always just brushed to the side and she never had her dentures in her mouth.  But when I saw her in the casket, her hair had been cut at the funeral home and very nicely styled.  She was dressed in a very pretty pink laced outfit.  And most important of all, her dentures were in!  Her face looked nice and full—she looked great!

As I thought about the stunning difference between seeing her at home and now at visitation I knew I needed to change my sermon text and direction immediately.  I had to preach on I Corinthians 15:35-44:

³⁵But someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" ³⁶You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. ³⁷And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. ³⁸But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. ³⁹For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. ⁴⁰There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. ⁴¹There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.

 ⁴² So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. ⁴³It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. ⁴⁴It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

To me these words of the apostle, Paul are a beautiful way to explain the resurrection and to encourage and comfort those of us left behind when our beloved family members and friends are taken to be with our Lord in glory. 

Death and burial is just like planting a garden, whether of flowers or vegetables.  I grew up in Iowa and for 8 years pastored a congregation in the middle of corn and bean fields.  A tiny little dried seed about the size of my nail on my pinkie finger, along with millions of other seeds just like it, would be planted in the fields in the spring—all in nice neat, evenly spaced little rows.  Bare fields would slowly turn green as the corn would germinate and begin pushing the shoots of their stalks above the ground.  As the corn would push higher and higher toward the sky, leaves would begin to branch out.  Fields which once were bare and brown were now lush green.  The corn would dance back and forth as the wind would blow over this ocean of corn.  The corn would grow to six feet as tassels topped off the plant and ears of corn began to grow between the leaves. 

It was quite the transformation.  But what was planted wasn’t what was harvested.  From a small seed to a giant plant.  That was what I noticed with Shirley at her visitation.  From plain dress and appearance to one of being beautifully styled and coiffed.  We affectionately call it, “cleaning up good”.  But as I said in her funeral sermon, that transformation pales in comparison to the transformation that will take place at the resurrection of all flesh on that great and glorious day when Jesus comes to take us to be with him forever and ever.  We were gathering to lay her body to rest in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection; to “plant” it in the hope that what we sow will not be what is harvested.  As Paul said to the Corinthians, our bodies came into this world perishable (mortal), weak (sinful), and dishonored (bearing and enduring the consequences of sin).  But he also wrote that our bodies would be raised imperishable (immortal, never to taste death again), and in power and glory (utterly devoid of sin and its effects).  He went on to conclude that we were “sown”, “planted”, buried a natural body (of the world) but we would be raised a spiritual body (of heaven, fully and completely in the image of God—holy, righteous, and perfect as our heavenly Father).  All because Jesus died on the cross to make payment for our sin and win for us the victory over sin, death, and the devil.

Once we plant, we wait with eager expectation for flowers to bloom so their beauty can grace our yards and tables; just the same we wait with great anticipation of the taste of fresh vegetables on our table.  The difference between what we plant and what we harvest is like night and day.  The difference makes the wait worth waiting for.  And so it is with death and resurrection.  What our loved ones will one day be lessens the sting of death that we feel and encourages and empowers us to continue living on with the expectation and anticipation of our great reunion in heaven.