If She's/He's Not Getting It at Home...

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)

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    Too many preachers and other politicians make a good living by saying nothing eloquently.

    You know.

    Three irrelevant points followed by a syrupy, sentimental, and meaningless poem.

    Of course, that's the best way to be liked.

    44 comes to mind.

    Anyway, we're not called to be liked; or as I used to tell my homiletics classes and anyone else who wasn't really listening, "If everybody likes you, that includes the demonically oppressed and possessed.  Way to go, concubine!"

    We're called to love; and that often means saying what people need not want to hear.

    Still, I wish Jim wouldn't have sent this cartoon to me.

    It reminds me of...

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    Well, this cartoon (below) won't be on our next bulletin cover pero, uh, well, uh, gulp, sigh, geez...

    Providentially or otherwise, it was forwarded to me just two hours after an emergency care session with a couple sent to me by...

    The woman was wondering why her husband has been cheating on her.

    After admitting she isn't interested in you know what anymore, he said, "I don't know why she even cares.  I mean she treats me like ___ all of the time.  She doesn't like to ___.  So I just figured..."

    I've often spoken to divorce and singles groups and said with tribute to Harley's His Needs Her Needs, "If your wife's/husband's emotional, intellectual, spiritual, or sexual needs are not being met at home, those needs will be meet sooner or later with or without you.  Adultery is sometimes enabled by a spouse who has lost emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and sexual interest in her/his mate.  That's a fact, Jill/Jack.  If your wife/husband is getting it on with someone else, take a look in the mirror.  There are three sides to every story: her side, his side, and the truth; and the truth is adultery is often enabled by a spouse unfaithful to marital privileges and responsibilities.  In other words, deal with it before someone does it for you.  Just because you've lost interest in her/him doesn't mean somebody else won't..."

    If you have a problem with your watch, don't look at the hands.

    Look deeper!

    If your spouse is running around on you...

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Scratching the Surface

of

Marriage

(A Brief and Incomplete Guide to Happy/Healthy/Holy Marriage)

Everybody wants to live happily ever after.

Certainly, that’s the expectation at weddings.

But as a buddy observes, “Marriage is like flies on a screen.  50% want in.  50% want out.”

Truth is every marriage has challenges; as the bliss, mist, dog-eyed stares, and couch-cuddling to the tune of Elton John’s Your Song are often contradicted by days when wives think husbands come from Mars and husbands think wives come from Venus.

Think about the challenges – gender distinctives/obsessions, socioeconomics, inlaws, outlaws, and the many temptations threatening to tear apart marriages.

While this is a brief, incomplete, and indicative not exhaustive guide to happy, healthy, and holy marriages, I’ve discovered at least three essential ingredients in a recipe enabling romance after the honeymoon:

1. Take Jesus Seriously – You invited Him to the wedding!  That’s not enough!  He must be invited/welcomed/included/loved into the rest of your life together!  Jesus was clear, concise, and conclusive about personal/marital survival: “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.”

2. Have Fun – Some favorite verses come to mind: “I meant to do my work today; but a brown bird sang in the apple tree and all the leaves were calling me.  So what could I do but laugh and go?”  Even those dusty old Westminster clergy got it/Him: “Our chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.”

3. Don’t Take Yourself So Seriously – Here are 12 words that keep marriages together: “I was wrong.  I am sorry.  Please forgive me.  I love you.”  

If you’re really serious about taking Jesus seriously in your marriage, having fun in your marriage, and not taking yourself so seriously in your marriage, take a look at Mark Gungor’s Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage.

Caution.

If you’re not working on your marriage, someone else will be working on it for worse not better sooner or later.

Willard F. Harley, Jr.’s His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-Proof Marriage is an excellent how-to on keeping romance in marriage and preventing someone from stealing who God intended for you in marriage.

Dr. Harley’s book identifies the emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and sexual needs that must be met in marriage; admitting unmet needs destroy marriages.

A man’s basic needs in marriage are identified as sexual fulfillment, recreational companionship, an attractive spouse, domestic support, and admiration.

A woman’s basic needs in marriage are identified as affection, conversation, honesty and openness, financial support, and family commitment.

Dr. Harley: “In marriages that fail to meet those needs, I have seen, strikingly and alarmingly, how consistently married people choose the same pattern to satisfy their unmet needs: the extramarital affair.  People wander into affairs with astonishing regularity, in spite of whatever strong moral or religious convictions they may hold.  Why?  Once a spouse lacks fulfillment of any of the five needs, it creates a thirst that must be quenched.  If changes do not take place within the marriage to care for that need, the individual will face the powerful temptation to fill it outside of marriage.”

Or as I’ve had to say to wives and husbands to emphasize this caution, “Your spouse’s needs will be met with or without you.  If your spouse ain’t getting it at home, they’re gonna get it from someone else.”

Marriages can be improved, renewed, or saved.

Go back to the essential ingredients in a recipe enabling romance after the honeymoon; and consider Revelation 2:1-7 as a model for improving, renewing, or saving marriages as well as one’s personal relationship with God: “Remember then from what you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first.”

Remember everything that made you so passionately in love with each other.

Repent or do them all over again.

Take Jesus seriously!

Have fun!

Don’t take yourself so seriously!

Gary R. Collins: “The most obvious way to prevent divorce is to build stronger marriages.”

Putting it another way, “The grass is greener where it’s watered.”

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Blessings and Love!

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Shatter the sound of silence!

Wake up!  Look up!  Stand up!  Speak up!  Act up for Jesus!

Salt!  Shine!  Leavenate!

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