

### A Perfect '10'

Masterful Marriages in Messy Contexts

By: Chris Jackson

Copyright © 2015 Chris Jackson

All rights reserved.

01-2015

1742 Oakview Way

Upland, CA 91784

909-575-7179

chris@gracechurchlaverne.org

www.chrisjacksononline.net

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### DEDICATION

For Jessica, the perfect '10'

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. The Shrinking Canvas Crisis

2. When Pain Is the Context

3. Promise

4. Rescued

5. A Road Map to Your '10'

6. How Happenings Happen

7. 'Til Death Do Us Part

8. Communication Ninjas

9. Sex

10. Twin Battles: Spirituality and Money

11. Legacy

12. Handfuls of Purpose

Appendix: When Your Spouse Isn't as Committed as You Are

Notes

# 1

### THE SHRINKING CANVAS CRISIS

"Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places."

— Camille Pissarro

"For better for worse...for richer for poorer...in sickness and in health..."

—The 1928 Book of Common Prayer

The Mona Lisa is very small. Most visitors to the Louvre Museum are shocked to discover that Da Vinci's famous lady is on a canvas only twice the size of a box of cold cereal. She doesn't adorn the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, she doesn't have her own wall-sized mural; in fact she is officially listed as only a "half-length" portrait. Her context is understated at best. Apparently, Leonardo Da Vinci didn't need a lot of space to create a masterpiece.

Nor do the artists who paint pictures on grains of rice. Have you ever seen one of those paintings? It's called Micro Art and it's a unique art form wherein the artist draws or paints detailed portraits or landscapes on rice canvases measuring less than a half-centimeter in length. Often while strolling along a boardwalk or pier, I will pass by vendors displaying this Micro Art and I am always amazed. Some modern-day Da Vinci realized that the size of the canvas didn't have to determine the quality of the art.

What sort of canvas is your _marriage_ being painted on? It's probably not the canvas you dreamed of in your younger years when you first envisioned a life of matrimony. You probably envisioned a life-long canvas of romance, friendship, passion, and trust. You probably thought you would always be intensely in love. You likely expected to reach a point in life when money matters wouldn't stress you out, and you could travel the world with your sweetheart like a pair of lovesick teenagers who never outgrew their initial infatuation. You didn't think you would be painting on only a half-sized canvas.

Oh, you weren't totally naïve. You knew marriage would be hard work—at least that's what all of your older, married friends told you. It's just that the intensity of your new love convinced you that, for you, things would be different. Easier. Crafting a marital masterpiece would come naturally for you.

I'm not preparing to burst your bubble. Life has no doubt done that already. Nor am I a pessimist—I emphatically believe that your marriage is indeed a masterpiece-in-the-making. It's just that after twenty years of painting my own marriage and pastoring people who were painting theirs, I've come to realize that most married couples are bound to a context that is a little more limiting than what they expected it to be.

Their career didn't blossom as quickly or as prosperously as they had planned.

Family planning didn't happen the way they scheduled or dreamed.

Their health slipped away before they were ready to start slowing down.

Sex wasn't quite as perfect as every movie or television program promised them it would be.

Charming, witty banter eventually devolved to boring, routine interactions.

No one told them how painful it would be when their spouse looked at pornography...or started flirting with someone outside of the marriage.

They didn't expect their spouse to change so much—or so little—in their personality, interests, and ambitions.

They agreed to the "worst, sickness, and poorer" part of their vows—they just didn't think there would be so many of those times. They thought the "better, health, and richer" parts would be more frequent and prolonged.

No one reminded them that they were each marrying a sinner, and that sinners sin, and that sin brings death. Every time.

Unfortunately, some of the couples that came upon these deadly seasons didn't make it. Either the hurt went too deep or they weren't equipped for the work of rebuilding, and they saw no option but to call it quits. Some of them moved onto second or third marriages and found either varying levels of repeating patterns or gracious new beginnings in healthier contexts. Others are still quietly healing and hoping that the Lord will bring them a second chance. Still others, have a been-there-done-that attitude, and _never_ plan on marrying again.

There are other couples though who found the help they needed. Fortunately both spouses took their requisite ownership and committed to learning, changing, and rebuilding. They paid a price to grow back together, and they were able to survive the "shrinking canvas" crisis, learning like Da Vinci and the rice artists, to paint masterpieces in messy contexts.

New paintings

That's what this little book will help you do. It will offer pencils, brushes, and color palettes for creating something brilliant on even the most diminished of canvases. And that is undoubtedly possible! Indeed, the most extraordinary marriage relationship in the Bible was painted on such a canvas. The Old Testament relationship between Boaz and Ruth was painted against an unruly canvas of moral relativism, sickness, death, famine, and despair. A review of their story, along with some practical application suggestions, will help you set fresh, realistic goals for this season of your marriage. It will help you identify what a '10' might look like in your specific context, and it will help you find and extract the Mona Lisa from your cereal box background.

You're not doomed to a disappointing marriage. You don't need to accept a shrunken canvas as your forever lot in life. It's true, you can't control how much your spouse will or won't change, and you can't press rewind and make different life choices. However, you _can_ learn new ways of relating, living, and drawing on the power of the Holy Spirit. You can change your outlook and ask the Lord what _He_ would like to see painted on the canvas of your marriage. You can take the time and pay the price to master the art of drawing on rice.

And when you do, the most amazing thing will happen. Your marriage will start transforming.

The canvas might not change, but what it reflects to the world inevitably will. Where there once was defeat, people will see hope. Where discouragement ruled, laughter will sound. Where financial stress, intimacy issues, and communication gaps used to hold sway, an entirely new scene will emerge. People will see beauty. They will see love. They will see what God originally intended for them to see when they looked at you—a dim reflection of His extravagant love for _them_.

You see that's _God's_ canvas for human marriage.

Marriage done well presents the world with a transcendent glimpse of an undying, selfless love, a love that vivifies the soul of both the lover and the loved. The Apostle Paul said it this way, "This is a profound mystery (the mystery of marriage)—but I am talking about Christ and the church."[1]

Marriage is sacred, life giving, adventurous, and fun. It will require the best you have to offer, and it will stretch you to become more than you ever dreamed you could be. It will provide a context, stability, and a legacy for future generations, and you will never, ever regret your decision to pursue it with all your might.

So let's begin. Ruth and Boaz are about to fall in love. However, before that day arrives, there's a storm cloud of pain brewing over Ruth, and watching her survive her cyclone will help you and me survive ours too.

Questions for reflection, discussion, and action:

1. What canvas did you dream of painting on in the early days of your marriage?

2. What canvas are you painting on instead?

# 2

### WHEN PAIN IS THE CONTEXT

"It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things."

—Theodore Roosevelt

"In the days when the Judges ruled."

—Ruth 1:1

That's how the book of Ruth begins, with a seemingly innocuous description that informs the reader of the story's historical context. It's similar to the beginning of lots of other stories.

"Once upon a time in a faraway land..."

"There once was a kindly old king..."

"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."

"In a hole in a ground there lived a hobbit..."

Story introductions set a context for what is about to follow, but if we don't understand that context, we will inevitably miss out on some significant elements of the tale. Such is the case with the book of Ruth. If we don't know what "the days when the Judges ruled" were like, we won't understand the violent, volatile backdrop to Ruth and Boaz' love story, and we won't appreciate how courageous and extraordinary their relationship really was.

However, if we back up just one verse in the Bible to the final words of the book of Judges we find a telling description of the era of the Judges. It says: "In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes."[2] There was no king—which means there was no law or protection—and everyone was following his or her own subjective compass for what was right and wrong. Those are the social elements that breed oppressive fear and anarchy, and that was the backdrop for Ruth's and Boaz' story. They weren't living inside an era of peace and tranquility. Their moment in history was not a time of security and ease. It was scary and shaky and overwhelming, not unlike our own global landscape today. It certainly wasn't a fairy tale.

Then again, perhaps it was. After all, when did we start thinking that fairy tales were synonymous with easy, romance-filled tales? Fairy tales are _never_ easy—at least not until the final, happily-ever-after scene. And that scene never arrives until a witch or wizard is revealed and a great battle is waged and won. The happily-ever-after never happens until tremendous struggle has been endured and hope has been captured after being completely lost along the way.

The problem with many of our marriages is that we _rightly_ think they're supposed to be fairy tales, but we _forget_ what fairy tales are really like. Love gives us amnesia and when we fall in love we only remember the "once upon a time" and the "happily ever after" parts of the story. We completely forget the dungeons, dragons, betrayals, and tears from the middle parts of the story.

If you're living in the dungeons, dragons, betrayals, and tears part of your story, you're in good company. That's exactly where Ruth was when she was written into the canon of Scripture. She not only lived in the era when the Judges ruled in Israel, but the first verse of her story also tells us that, "there was a famine in the land." So not only was her story set in an unruly time of confusion and unrest but there was also hunger and economic ruin in the air. Before the very opening verse of Ruth's story is finished, it's apparent that the canvas she'll be painting on is extraordinarily bleak.

Famine, sickness, and death

Then it gets worse. The first time Ruth's name is specifically mentioned in the Bible we're told that she was married to a Hebrew man named Mahlon, who died shortly after their wedding.[3] It's not surprising that he died so suddenly because the Hebrew definition of his name meant "sick."[4] His brother, Chilion, was possessed of similar health problems—Chilion's name meant "destruction or failing" and referred to a weakening or blurring of one's eyes. He, too, died in the opening verses of Ruth's story, leaving Ruth's sister-in-law, Orpah, an unsuspecting widow too.[5]

That's the canvas. That's how the greatest love story in the Bible starts out. Ruth is a Moabite woman, and thus excluded from the covenantal blessings of Israel, and she marries into a Hebrew family who immediately falls into tragedy. All three of the men in the family—Ruth's husband, her brother-in-law, and her father-in-law (Naomi's husband)—die at the worst possible time as the country is careening socially and floundering economically.

Things get so bad that her mother-in-law, Naomi (whose name means "pleasant"), will soon change her name to Mara, a Hebrew name that means, "bitter."[6] Naomi/Mara will end the first chapter with the acidic statement, "I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi (pleasant), when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?"[7] Ruth is a foreigner in a foreign land, hungry from famine, a widow at a young age, and stuck with her bitter, old mother-in-law. Surely this was _not_ the canvas that she envisioned painting her life story on.

Now, let's do a quick spoiler alert and pause for a moment of hope. By the time Ruth's story ends, she is married to Boaz, financially preserved, highly esteemed by an entire city, the great-grandmother of King David, and en route to inclusion in the genealogies of Jesus Christ. That's quite a reversal! That's quite a masterpiece for such a shabby canvas at the beginning.

Your canvas may have hit some rough times too. The painting that's emerged throughout your marriage might not resemble the Mona Lisa that you thought you and your spouse were painting. Its image might be shadowed or dull. Don't get me wrong though—I'm not suggesting that you're no longer in love. You might still be _deeply_ in love. In fact, the reason your heart likely aches so much is because you _are_ in love. I just want to encourage you that regardless of how your canvas seems to measure up to your initial marital and life expectations, there is hope for a better day.

If your marriage is a '2' it doesn't have to stay there.

If your marriage is a '9' it can go all the way and become a '10' in context.

In fact, that's the very next part of Ruth's story. _Promise_. After Naomi's rueful words about God treating her so abysmally, the very last verse of Ruth's opening chapter says this, "And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest."[8] That doesn't sound like much if we stop reading right there, but as the story progresses we will discover that the barley harvest in Bethlehem was about to change everything. It was preparing a new color palette for the second act of Ruth and Naomi's masterpiece. Very soon, they would begin painting again.

Questions for reflection, discussion, and action:

1. How has pain, loss, time, or tragedy re-shaped your canvas?

2. Can you still see potential for a masterpiece there?

# 3

### PROMISE

"God never made a promise that was too good to be true."

—D.L. Moody

"She heard in the land of Moab that the Lord had visited His people by giving them bread."

—Ruth 1:6

In times of famine nothing sounds better than bread. Isn't that true? When you've been fasting, or haven't eaten all day, or when you're trying to stick to a low-carb diet and you fall off the wagon, what do you crave? _Bread_. Soft, warm, nourishing bread. There's nothing like it. So when Naomi and Ruth heard a whisper of hope that someone indeed had the bread for their hunger, it propelled them to carry on. While they were languishing in Moab, the scene of their marital heartache, someone gave them a promise: "God hasn't forgotten His people. Even though famine seems to be ruling the land, God is providing bread for His people in Bethlehem." So off they went to try and find this bread.

Although unknown to them at the time, this early narrative of Ruth was pregnant with promise and prophetic anticipation. When Naomi and Ruth heard about bread in Bethlehem, they had no idea that their destiny was waiting for them there. They weren't expecting to find a canvas on which to paint a newly replenished hope. They were just hungry; they were just trying to survive.

Fortunately, God saw them coming, and when Ruth and Naomi entered Bethlehem (literally: "House of Bread") it was the barley harvest, the time of year when bread's essential elements were in full bloom.

A potential harvest looms above _your_ future as well. You might not see it yet. It might seem unlikely, and the air around you might feel stale and recycled versus pregnant with newfound possibility. Nevertheless, the word is still true.

Certainly, there is risk. There always is. Indeed, one of the dominant sub-themes of the story of Ruth is the theme of "no guarantees."

Naomi had no guarantees that she would be provided for in Bethlehem.

Ruth had no guarantees that Boaz would reach out to her.

Boaz had no guarantees that Ruth would say, "yes" to his proposal.

Risk always abounds in this life of faith, especially when we're discussing the marriage relationship of two free-willed individuals who must each decide how thoroughly they will or won't submit to the Lord's prescriptions for life and marriage. It can be nerve-wracking to wonder how your spouse will choose. Will they respond to the Lord's promise? Will they change if I change? Will they be as committed as I am to painting a new portrait on the canvas of our life?

Despite the risk and the lack of guarantees, the story of Ruth and Boaz radiates faith. God's providential care provided an even larger backdrop for the story than the backdrop of famine and pain. God sees—that's what another woman, named Hagar, discovered centuries earlier when she fled from Sarah and wept in the wilderness; and God acts—that's what Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz were about to discover.[9]

This might be a good place to remember that one of Jesus' self-descriptions was "Bread from Heaven."[10] He _named_ Himself the answer to our hunger, and this has huge ramifications for our marriages. Whether your relationship seems fruitful or dead, life giving or withered, Jesus has not lost hope in you. He _is_ your provider and sustainer, your true Bread from Heaven, and the air around you is no less prophetic than Ruth's was.

However, let's adjust our thinking a bit before we start envisioning what that prophetic fulfillment might look like. The title of this book, _A Perfect '10': Masterful Marriages in Messy Contexts_ holds an important reality. Level '10' marriages have to fit their context.

Context as canvas

We've already established the truth that even the smallest of contexts can display a work of art; however, before that art can be created the artist has to accept the parameters of the canvas. The Micro artist doesn't dream of painting a chapel ceiling in the Vatican—they dream about the beauty that can be displayed on a simple grain of rice. So it is for you and me as we prayerfully and hopefully dream about the future of our marriages. Our '10' must match our context.

If your _context_ is a '4' what would a '10' look like _there_?

If your life's context makes it difficult to enjoy the usually expected trappings of a healthy marriage, how can it still become a work of art?

This is a huge question to answer. If you and your spouse must both work full-time jobs to make ends meet, and you have very little discretionary time leftover at the end of a busy week, it will re-define your '10'. Your '10' won't be marked by long, uncluttered evenings under the stars; it will have to fit inside your busier context.

A '10' in the parental taxi season of life, where you are constantly shuttling kids to and from sports and school functions, will necessarily look different from the newlywed years.

A limited budget might preclude certain "dates" and indulgences, but it doesn't have to preclude a masterful marriage. A marriage can still be a '10' without a lot of discretionary money to burn.

Sometimes health issues take a toll on a couple's sexual intimacy and require them to re-paint a '10' for their physical closeness. What might a perfect '10' be if you are in an elderly or a physically diminished state? How would a masterful marriage manifest in that specific context?

Not settling

By the way, I am _not_ suggesting that you "settle." This is not about settling for a second-class dream, and it's not about losing hope for the love you've dreamed of. It is about identifying a realistic, attainable '10' _for your season_. A Christ-honoring, realistic, attainable '10' is vastly superior to chasing a Hollywood myth or a childhood fantasy. We want neither the myth nor the despondent "settling." We want to maximize our marital canvas for the glory of God, the benefit of our marriage partner, and the welfare of our own soul.

Yes, things likely need to change. No, your canvas probably isn't sufficient as it is today, but as you pursue those changes (more on that in upcoming chapters), a true masterpiece can emerge from within any season of life. From exhausted parenting to career-crushing schedules to the approach of old age, you can identify your '10' and begin living it.

These are the first steps to creating a marriage masterpiece:

1. Clearly understand your context.

2. Identify what a '10' looks like there.

3. And then trust that God still gives bread to those who seek Him.

Every love story takes some detours along the way, and the Lord is ready to meet you in yours and then write a new pathway toward your destination. Ruth's story took some detours along the way. She hadn't set out to marry Boaz—she expected to live and die with Mahlon—but the Lord was still at work, and the second half of her story vastly eclipsed its beginning. If something has died within _your_ marriage something even better can still be resurrected.

Also, as you start articulating the parameters of your '10' make sure that you're sketching it after _God's_ blueprint. It's not enough to say, "I want this much romance and that much fun, and this many date nights and that much sex." No, it's much deeper than that. Those details will help add the coloring of the portrait but they aren't the foundation. Questions like, "How can I serve my spouse in a way that pleases God? How can I love them unconditionally? How can I protect their heart and help their potential fully bloom?" are the questions that provide the foundation stones of masterful marriages even amid messy contexts.

Questions for reflection, discussion, and action:

1. Have you clearly identified the season, shape, and context of your canvas?

**2. What do you think** _God_ **would like to see painted there?**

# 4

### RESCUED

"Men make history and not the other way around."

—Harry S. Truman

"Now Naomi had a kinsman..."

—Ruth 2:1

"Now Naomi had a kinsman."

If we don't understand the Old Testament concept of a kinsman-redeemer those five little words won't blow us away as much as they should, so let me give you a little backstory to the term.

The kinsman-redeemer in Old Testament times was a near relative who was authorized to act on behalf of a loved one to help them in times of danger, distress, or need. They could buy back property that had been lost, and they could marry a widow after her bereavement, thus providing her with renewed protection, security, and love.[11] If someone underwent tragedy in the Ancient Near East, the kinsman-redeemer could provide a pathway to a better life.

When Naomi and Ruth entered Bethlehem at the start of the barley harvest, they were destitute and alone, and their ambitions didn't reach much higher than trying to find some bread. They weren't looking for a rescuer; they were looking for something to eat. However, the Lord had so much more in store for them and they were about to discover that Naomi wasn't quite as empty as she believed she was. She had a kinsman in the city of Bethlehem, and this particular kinsman was remarkable. His name was Boaz (literally, strength is in him), and his story was the stuff of legends.[12]

His mother's name was Rahab, and if you've ever been to Sunday school you've undoubtedly heard her tale. She was the prostitute from Jericho that helped the Israelite spies safely escape the city after they were discovered snooping around. Her home was built into the protective wall of Jericho, and after hiding the spies on the roof of her house she said to them, "Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them—and that you will save us from death" (Joshua 2:12-13, NIV). The men swore they would protect her and then they did the most peculiar thing. They told Rahab to tie a scarlet colored rope to a window in her house and let it dangle down the side of the wall. Upon seeing the scarlet rope, the Israelite army would know to bypass her home, thus sparing all who were inside.[13]

Rahab complied, securely affixing a scarlet rope to her window and then helping the spies escape the city. Upon their return to Joshua and the Israelite army, the famous story of the march around Jericho ensued. After seven days of marching, followed by shouting, clapping, and the sounding of trumpets, the wall around the city of Jericho fell down flat.

Except for one portion of it.

The part of the wall that held Rahab's house—the part that was adorned with the scarlet rope—stood upright, as a monument to God's favor. Since Rahab's house was spared, the section of wall that supported her house couldn't have fallen down. As the city collapsed into rubble, God left a solitary monument standing in honor of the brave, young woman who had risked her life to protect and serve God's army.[14]

It's quite a story.

And it gets even better, because one of the Israelite warriors fell in love with Rahab. He saw her valor and virtue and decided he had to spend the rest of his life with her, even though she was a foreigner, a veritable enemy of the nation of Israel. His name was Salmon and after wooing and marrying Rahab, they had a son.[15]

The son's name was Boaz, the same Boaz that owned the barley fields in Bethlehem when Naomi and Ruth staggered into town.

Boaz—the strong son of redemption—was Naomi's kinsman-redeemer, and within his hand was the power to rescue Ruth.

Your Kinsman-Redeemer

You have one too. Before we apply this kinsman-redeemer concept to the area of marriage, please pause to consider whom Salmon and Boaz were foreshadowing. When Salmon married the foreigner whose house bore the scarlet cord, he was pre-figuring the work and ministry of Jesus Christ who embraced us when we were far from Him and brought us into His family.

When Salmon and Rahab's son, Boaz, took responsibility to marry Ruth and adopt Naomi as his mother-in-law, he was foreshadowing the work of the ultimate Kinsman-Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ.

_Your_ Kinsman-Redeemer.

Your rescuer.

Your hero.

You are loved by Deity and valued so highly that He was willing to give His very life to save you.

You are not alone.

It's not up to you to figure out how to make sense of your life or heal your marriage. There is someone who will help you.

"And Naomi had a kinsman of her husband's, a mighty man of wealth, of the family of Elimelech, named Boaz" (Ruth 2:1, KJV).

Every story changes with the arrival of its hero, and in both Ruth's story and _your_ story that hero is Jesus. He is the one who will help you create art on your cereal box or your grain of rice. He is the one who will sustain you during the perilous pathway to healing. His is the comfort that will hold you until your spouse learns to take over.

He is your Kinsman-Redeemer, and the foundation of any lasting marriage must be set on _Him_.

This point cannot be over-stated. You won't be able to forge a masterpiece and live your happily-ever-after through the strength of your efforts alone. Yes, Boaz' name meant "strength is in him" but remember who he was foreshadowing. The "Him" who possesses the strength is Jesus Christ, and His strength gets shared with you and me as we make our home under the shadow of His care.[16]

So as you now begin a process of evaluating the contextual canvas of your life and marriage, don't leave Him out of the equation. Become even more committed to prayer, Scripture reading, and reliance on the Holy Spirit. You will need all of those as you begin forging the future of your dreams.

Questions for reflection, discussion, and action:

1. What did Rahab's scarlet cord foreshadow?

2. Where has the scarlet cord shown up in your life and marital history?

# 5

### A ROAD MAP TO YOUR '10'

"You have to dream before your dreams can come true."

—A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

"Then Joseph said, 'Tell me your dreams.'"

—Genesis 40:8

Okay, so you've identified and accepted your canvas, and you're committed to faithfully working within its parameters. You're jettisoning your unrealistic expectations (no, you're not going to have a 20-year old body forever) and your eyes are open to the realities of your life situation. If you're a schoolteacher, you will—surprise!—get paid a schoolteacher's salary, and that will affect the edges of your canvas. If you were never able to have children—or if you conceived a child on your honeymoon night—that too has affected your world. If you're a soldier in a season of deployment, your marriage canvas will be different than during your stateside assignments. Busier seasons of life require different marital rhythms and priorities than slower ones. Then of course there are also the issues of your spouse's personality and motivations.

Your spouse's basic temperament isn't likely to change very much, and although your introverted spouse can learn to survive a party, they will never be as extroverted as you might prefer. Their introverted tendencies aren't going to magically turn outward, and their core nature won't be shifting any time soon. They are who they are and you are living with them inside some very specific parameters.

Those parameters include your life decisions and experiences, your spouse's personality and priorities, your familial and economic statuses, and both the high and low points of your past. They've formed a canvas on which you'll be painting the story of your future, and quite often, accepting and rebuilding on this re-shaped canvas can be tough.

See, for most couples the shrinkage of their canvas came at a price. They didn't happily adjust their expectations to fit the varying seasons of life, but rather they expected to cram the Sistine Chapel onto a single grain of rice. Those efforts invariably hurt.

It isn't easy to move toward a re-prioritized '10' because there is often debris of misunderstanding, disappointment, hurt, resentment, or fatigue strewn along the way. The passage of time clutters the path and it requires some skill to pioneer a new trail. However, it can most definitely be done!

Hope does float!

Throughout my years of pastoring married couples, I have seen some really incredible works of art displayed on some really miserable canvases.

I've seen couples survive betrayal and affairs and then fall deeply in both love and trust again.

I've seen shattered couples, whose early years were so dysfunctional that their marriage never should have survived, become coaches and speakers for marriage seminars.

I've seen relationships that were dying slow deaths of oblivion and neglect get revived and become models of tenderness and romance again.

I've seen determined couples learn to master communication, become agreed in their finances, experience healing in their sexual relationship, and create genuine masterpieces despite some very unlikely contexts.

Some of the couples had to work harder at it than others. Sometimes things were nearly hopeless and they almost gave up along the way. Sometimes only one spouse was committed and it seemed to take forever before the other spouse finally re-engaged.

Some of the issues involved money. Others involved sex. All of them involved communication. And yet _none_ of them were beyond the reach of God's prescription for healing and rebuilding. Sometimes the couples formally renewed their wedding vows in vow renewal ceremonies, but all of them began _living_ their vows in new and passionate ways.

Regardless of their respective contexts and journeys, however, each of these couples eventually made the same four commitments:

1. They accepted their canvas.

2. They identified what a '10' could look like on that canvas.

3. They secured a road map to their '10'.

4. They committed to herculean efforts at working the strategy.

Identifying the road map

Here's how the process plays out in marriage counseling sessions. We begin by identifying the true, authentic, present state of the relationship. As quickly as possible, we try to move past denial or naïve optimism. If the marriage is hemorrhaging to death, we need to talk about it. If, conversely, it's dying through attrition, neglect, or a thousand little wounds we need to know that too. A thousand paper cuts can sometimes be just as deadly as a decapitation.

I always try to facilitate this part of the discussion _without_ inflicting anymore hurt. To frankly assess the decline of a marriage is always painful, and if the spouses aren't careful, they can inflict even further damage through their raw critiques. So whether this conversation happens with me in my office or privately between the husband and wife, I appeal to them to be brutally honest without being unnecessarily wounding.

_Do_ say how hurt you feel, but don't negatively label your spouse's _character_.

_Do_ express your loneliness, disappointment, resentment, or hurt, but _don't_ make them feel like they've failed beyond repair.

Remember—even in a fractured relational state—no one has as much power as you to either build up or cut down your spouse. Your past words have contributed to the current ethos in your home, and the words you use as you identify the existing state of your marriage will do so as well. So be honest, be descriptive, and make sure it is crystal clear how you view the canvas of your life, but do it with speech that doesn't tear your spouse further down. In Colossians 4:6 the Apostle Paul said, "Let your conversation always be full of grace." This is tough to do when you're desperate and hurting, but the "always" from Paul's words includes those broken times too.

After answering, "What is the honest state of your marriage today?" we then move onto the next question: "In contrast to this present reality, what would a '10' look like in its place?" Sometimes this is a tough question to answer because it either seems unrealistic or there is too much disappointment or anger to see past. If things are bad enough, a spouse might say to me, "If he would just be kind to me, it would be a '10'." Or, "If she just stopped nagging so much, I think that would be a '10'." When I hear those types of answers I always call a time out and urge them to dream a little bit bigger. "Seriously? A little more kindness and a little less nagging? _That's_ how you would define a 10?"

No, of course not. No one grows up thinking that a marriage where their spouse doesn't criticize or nag them is a perfect '10'. Those changes alone wouldn't even bring a relationship up to the level of mediocre; however, sometimes the canvas has shrunk so much that a little more kindness and a little less criticism sounds like "cold water to a weary soul" (Proverbs 25:25).

So dream a little more. What would a '10' _really_ look like? If God truly empowered you and your spouse to recover, and you built your relationship into the marriage of your dreams, what would it look like? What sort of '10' would emerge in your context?

How do you want to be treated?

How much conversation do you crave? How much detail?

How often would you want to pray together?

Would you have sex monthly or multiple times each week?

What would your dates be like?

How often would you invest in friendships with other individuals and couples?

Would your parenting style look any different? Would you always project a unified front when coaching or disciplining your kids?

What needs to be healed between you?

What needs to be rediscovered?

What needs to be forgiven and sealed up in a vault?

What would a biblical, Christ-like standard for your marriage look like today?

Dream! What would it look like for your marriage to become a living masterpiece?

Once there is a more clearly defined '10', we then identify 2 areas of goals:

1. What are the top 3 _big_ action steps that would most rapidly move your marriage toward this '10' (in other words, what _big_ areas need to heal, change, or resolve)?

2. What are the top 3 _little_ action steps that would immediately release some grace into the atmosphere so the bigger areas could be pursued?

The smaller goals are just as important as the bigger ones, because if some small changes are made—in communication frequency, attention to details, tenderness in speech, etc.—it can provide a more gracious atmosphere from which to engage in the deeper efforts of healing and repair.

Every couple I've ever counseled has been able to readily identify a few key areas that, if consistently implemented by their spouse, would soften their heart and elevate their hope. Seldom do these spouses ask for too much. They usually just want to be heard, appreciated, and approached with respect and tenderness. They want to feel valued and important, like they are on the top of their spouse's priority lists rather than a dangling afterthought.

Now...imagine

Once these smaller goals are clearly identified (and they will vary for each spouse based on temperament and priority), I then ask this question: "If your spouse were to diligently work on this list for a solid month, doing everything in their power to greet you tenderly each day, touch you gently while speaking with you, follow through with the household tasks that you request (or whatever the items are on the smaller list might be), what would it do to your heart? If, out of a place of tender devotion, they fiercely worked toward changing these few little things, what effect would it have on your heart?"

After a moment's reflection, the spouse will inevitably say something like, "It would make me feel loved. I would feel important. I would feel pursued. I would feel like there might indeed be hope for our future together."

Now keep in mind, we're still talking about the _smaller_ goals—I haven't yet asked the spouse how they would feel if their deepest wound was repaired. After letting their expression hang in the air for a second, I will then turn to the other spouse and say, "Wow, that's a lot of reward for such a small list of expectations. If helping with more housework, communicating about when you'll be home, refusing to ever raise your voice again, and occasionally bringing home a flower or a latte after work, would cause your mate to feel loved, valued, and pursued, why in the world wouldn't you do this every day of your life?"

This isn't a belittling or condescending exercise; it's an eye-opening one that shows how simple it can be to humble oneself and start reinserting grace into a relationship. Grace always follows humility—both Peter and James affirmed that truth in their letters—and whenever grace is present things can change. Little acts of humility (like working on the set of smaller goals) can reestablish grace, and whenever grace is present God's power is present too.

If you work the little list, you'll gain enough grace to eventually tackle the bigger list.

So, again, what's your '10'? In comparison to where you are today, what is the biblical, Christ-honoring standard for the marriage of your dreams, and what would most quickly restore grace to you and your spouse's soul?

That's all that marriage counseling is. It's an exegesis of both Scripture and your heart that helps you identify the state of your marriage, the shortest path to its recovery, and a strategy for how to reach it. Does there need to be confession and forgiveness? Does there need to be an adoption of new ways of relating? Do deeper levels of agreement need to be mutually apprehended? What needs to change?

Do you have what it takes?

Once the road map is identified, we then try to determine if each spouse has the skills and requisite tools for getting there. In other words, do they know _how_ to forgive and heal? Do they know _how_ to speak one another's language, or do they need some coaching on how to better connect? Do they _truly_ understand what will make their spouse's heart come alive, or are they still shooting in the dark?

Sometimes all a marriage needs to heal or improve is a firm decision, enacted through the force of one's will. At other times though, the couple needs external help to navigate times of trauma or neglect. Sometimes a spouse needs additional equipping so they can confidently begin laying a new track record, and at still other times they need professional help to repair a personal area of internal brokenness. Although our marriages are never one-sided affairs, our personal levels of wholeness or brokenness directly affect the balance that we add or detract in our marriages.

Then there are other times when we need more than human efforts or professional help; we need a supernatural intervention.

Questions for reflection, discussion, and action:

1. What would a '10' look like in your current context?

2. Do you have a road map for moving towards that '10'?

# 6

### HOW HAPPENINGS HAPPEN

"Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous."

—Albert Einstein

"You are HERE."

—The shopping mall directory map

I get lost the second I set foot in a shopping mall. I'm not sure why it happens, and I don't understand how the navigational skills I gained while hiking, camping, and canoeing throughout my childhood in the Pacific Northwest fail me so miserably in shopping mall settings. Yet it happens every time. If it weren't for the gigantic store directories with the big, "You are here" signs, I could never find my way out. It's not unlike our attempts to navigate our way through life.

Did I make the right decision back there?

Should I have turned left or right at that last crossroad?

Am I in the right job?

Should I have stepped out in faith when I did or was I a little bit presumptuous?

Do I have the right friends?

Sometimes we humans need a little help from above to find our way. So it is in shopping malls, so it is in marriage, and so it was for Ruth during the barley harvest in Bethlehem.

Immediately upon arriving, Naomi urged Ruth to find a good field and begin gleaning barley stalks so they could make some bread. Fortunately, the Law of Moses commanded field owners to leave the edges of their fields unharvested so that poor and destitute people could find something to eat.[17] In Ruth 2:2 Ruth took advantage of that command and said to Naomi, "Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor." Despite that provision from the Old Testament; however, it was a risky decision for Ruth to start gleaning in someone else's field. A young, single woman could get in trouble if she started picking grain from the wrong field. That's what makes the next sequence of events so powerful.

When Ruth did her best, God supernaturally did the rest.

Ruth 2:3 says, "And as it happened, she found herself working in a field that belonged to Boaz" (NLT). She just _happened_ to come to Boaz' field.

Thank God she did. In Ruth's first interaction with Boaz, he said to her, "Do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you?"[18] The Hebrew word that gets translated _touch_ in this passage literally means to smite, beat, strike, or punch.[19]

Later on when Ruth returned to Naomi and informed her of her chance _happening_ upon Boaz' field, Naomi confirmed her good fortune, saying, "It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, lest in another field you be assaulted" (Ruth 2:22).

The safest place in the world for us to live, work, and love is inside the field where the Lord wants us to reap. And we can be assured that when we are doing our best to follow His leading in our lives and relationships, He will get us to that field. Ruth just _happened_ to come to Boaz' field. Was that coincidence or divine leading? Psalm 37:23 says, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord." Were Ruth's steps being "ordered" by the Lord when she wandered into Boaz' field, or did she just _happen_ to find it?

Sometimes we never get a crystal clear word from heaven. We don't get a thunderbolt painted across the sky pointing the direction for us to follow. We just "happen" into God's will. According to _The Complete Word Study Dictionary of the Old Testament_ , the word "happen" refers to a chance event, a happening, or a fate. It speaks of something that occurs without human planning or intervention.[20]

There are times in our marriages when we desperately need this type of intervention. We need for something good to _happen_.

We need good news.

We need a door to our future to open.

We need the Lord to soften our spouse's heart.

We need a breakthrough or a miracle.

We need wisdom for a problem we're facing.

We need for a _happening_ to happen.

We can't control when our _happenings_ happen; however, we _can_ position ourselves to receive one. We can't conjure up a divine act of God, but Ruth's story seems to indicate that we can get positioned to attract one. Ruth did several things that made her a candidate for a supernatural _happening_.

She embraced sovereignty

When her world fell apart in Moab, Ruth said some words to Naomi that have since become the pinnacle of human vows. She said, "Where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death separates me from you" (Ruth 1:16-17). Those were powerful words from a Moabite woman who had no inheritance or place in the nation of Israel, and yet still chose to say in essence, "Naomi, I don't know any of the details of my future, but I know that my future is now in the hands of your God—and wherever He leads us, _I'm all in_."

Ruth had no idea how significant those words were. She had no idea that she was destined to enter the genealogies of Jesus Christ and that God _wanted_ her to meet and marry Boaz and have a son named Obed who would have a son named Jesse who would become the father of David the king. Ruth was on a collision course with her destiny, and her first step toward meeting it was to simply embrace God's sovereign work in her life.

She didn't stress out when she got slightly off course

When Ruth set out to find a safe place to glean, the Scripture says that she "came" to a field that belonged to Boaz. In other words, she didn't necessarily find it initially. She eventually "came" to it. And that was okay.

It's easy for us to get uptight and anxious about the will of God and fret that perhaps we've missed Him along the way. However, if we've embraced His sovereignty we can trust that He will bring a course correction if we need one. Sure, you and your spouse might have made some life decisions that have taken you on a few detours—every couple has—but our detours never take us out of God's sight. He still knows where we are, and He can still send our happening to find us.

She took responsibility for her five percent

Wayne Cordeiro, author and pastor from New Hope Fellowship in Oahu, Hawaii, says that about ninety-five percent of what we do in our daily lives can be done by others. He intimates that eighty-five percent of what we do can be done by nearly anyone (sending emails, running errands, etc.), and ten percent of what we do can be done by people with some training (leading, making decisions, etc.). However, there's about five percent of what we do in our daily lives that can only be done by us.[21]

No one can be a father to my daughters but me.

No one can be a husband to Jessica but me.

No one can take responsibility for my spiritual life or physical health but me.

When we take responsibility of our five percent—the five percent that we alone can do—we position ourselves for a supernatural happening. Naomi had become part of Ruth's five percent, and the primary reason that Ruth set out to find Boaz in the first place was to take care of her mother-in-law. Naomi was too old for the hard, backbreaking work of gleaning in the fields, so Ruth determined to do it for her, and when Ruth expressed her loving devotion in this way, she positioned herself to move a little deeper into God's story for her life.

She was willing to work hard

When Boaz saw Ruth harvesting in his field, he inquired of his foreman about her, and the foreman replied, "She is the young Moabite women, who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. She has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest."[22]

A little later when Boaz interacted with Ruth, he commended her work ethic and character saying, "All the people of my town know that you are a woman of noble character."[23]

Can the same be said of us? Are we bringing that level of excellent work into the cultivation of our marriages?

Sometimes couples confide to me that they know what they _should_ be doing to strengthen their relationship, but they just never seem to consistently _do_ it. I can't help those people. Masterful marriages emerge in messy contexts when the marriage partners each take personal responsibility for the state of their marriage and are willing to work exceptionally hard at restoring it.

Some marriage partners consistently spend the best of their energy, personality, and kindness throughout the day at work and then bring home leftovers to their spouses at night. I understand how exhausting our jobs can be, but a true Ruth or Boaz won't do that (or at least they quickly _stop_ doing it once they recognize that it's happening). Our spouses deserve the best we can give. They certainly deserve as much or more than what we give to co-workers, employers, customers, or complete strangers throughout our day.

Ruth was known as a woman of noble character because of how hard she was willing to work for her mother-in-law. As the story progresses it becomes apparent that Boaz shared her work ethic. In fact, the most scandalous and character-revealing scene in the story occurred at night on the threshing floor after Boaz had spent long hours working on the harvest.[24]

Let's be Boaz.

Let's be Ruth.

Let's trust God's sovereignty, let's take responsibility, and let's work as hard as we possibly can in pursuit of a marital '10'. Happenings happen more frequently for those who are so positioned.

Questions for reflection, discussion, and action:

1. Where do you see God's sovereign work in your life and marriage?

2. How hard are you willing to work at taking responsibility for your five percent?

# 7

### 'TIL DEATH DO US PART

"I've been dancing with you for thirty years."

—Richard Gere to Susan Sarandon in _Shall We Dance_

"It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience."

—Julius Caesar

If your spouse needed you to do something quite herculean and heroic for them, would you do it? If a situation required you to take a bullet or step in front of a speeding train to rescue your sweetheart, would you stop to consider the consequences or would you fly into furious action? Would you do whatever you needed to do to protect them or would you hesitate before coming to their aid?

I don't think you would hesitate. I think you would reflexively do whatever you had to do to rescue them. You love them. You pledged your life to them, and you would most definitely risk your own life to save theirs.

That's not what I'm worried about. I'm worried about the smaller challenges, the ones that don't require something quite as heroic or dramatic as that. I'm worried about the "little foxes." Do you remember the verse from Song of Songs 2:15 wherein the Lover says to the Beloved, "Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom"?

It's a profound verse that highlights a very important relational truth. _Sometimes little enemies are just as deadly as big ones._ Unfortunately, since the little enemies don't demand quite as much heroism on our part, we often let them live, or we procrastinate their extinction.

We might take a bullet for our spouse, but we don't do the little, daily things that would make their life easier. We might rush to their rescue in a moment of danger, but we keep refusing to let them know what time we'll be returning home from work. We neglect helping around the house, or we spend money and schedule our activities before checking in with them. Sometimes we procrastinate on the things that matter to them the most.

Why do we do this? Why do we let little foxes run free in our marriages when they can ultimately be just as deadly as giants?

I think I have an answer. I think it's because facing a giant requires heroism and courage, whereas helping around the house only requires humility, character, and patience. It's much easier to occasionally rise to a heroic level than to consistently live a committed, selfless life.

The key to a brilliant marriage isn't found in a few heroic efforts; it's found in a lifetime of little selfless ones. Remembering to communicate...following through with requested tasks...expressing love in ways that really matter...keeping our relationships central...picking up our clothes...getting in agreement with our spouse before making big purchases...praying together...these are the things that will forge a sustainable, stormproof marriage. These are also the things that require the most work.

If more couples embraced a lifetime of selfless service, we could reverse some of the alarming marriage trends in our country today.

Some numbers and statistics

1. Fewer people today are getting married than at any other time in our history. Since 1970 the marriage rate has declined by nearly fifty percent. Only about half of adult Americans are married today.[25]

2. People are getting married later, and the average marriage age is close to thirty years old.[26]

3. Despite the decline in marriage rates, Gallup Polls indicate that eighty-eight percent of Americans between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine still believe that there is a soul mate out there for them somewhere.[27]

4. The divorce rate is indeed around fifty percent; however, it's actually difficult to accurately quote a divorce percentage because there are so many factors that go into it.[28] In saying that today's divorce rate is fifty percent, it does _not_ mean that your marriage has only a fifty-fifty chance of making it. There are significant percentage swings in the demographics based on the age of the couple when they married, whether or not they were married before or after college, the state of their socio-economic situation, etc. You might be in a demographic where the divorce rate is only around twenty percent, or conversely you might indeed be in a demographic with a much higher risk.

5. The odds of a divorce go _up_ significantly if the couple cohabits prior to marriage, and currently more than fifty percent of all altar-bound couples _do_ live together prior to marriage.[29] Consequently it is likely that future divorce rates will be increasing. However, let me drop a word of hope here. If you and your spouse lived together before you were married it doesn't mean that your marriage is doomed. It might explain some of the challenges that you've faced—challenges that you didn't even know were attributed to getting the timing of your relationship out of sync with _God's_ timing and order—but you're certainly not doomed. The more you lean into Jesus and build on His foundation the more you can defy the statistics.

In light of these statistics, someone might say that marriage is a hopeless or a sinking institution. They might suggest that we remove the pressure of marriage altogether and merely cohabit without marrying, or enjoy multiple partners. Others view the troubling statistics and conclude that it just isn't realistic anymore to say, "til death do us part." Recently, a woman remarked to me, "It made more sense to say, 'til death do us part' when the average mortality age was forty years old. I could handle living with my husband until I turn forty, but now we're often living into our eighties, and that's a really long time to live with the same person."

Certainly this sentiment stirs up strong reactions in other quarters, and devout advocates of marriage would respond by citing how beneficial a healthy, God-honoring marriage can be for the individuals in the marriage, their children, and even for the physical health and safety of society as a whole. From a spiritual perspective, they would point to Paul's words of how the marriage relationship is supposed to be a living metaphor of Christ's love for His people, the church.[30] Biblically, they would point to the priority of creation and how God created human beings to live in such an intimate state of relationship that a husband and a wife would literally be described as "one flesh."[31] A one-flesh relationship refers to way more than the sexual act that connects two bodies—it refers to a "whole life" oneness and union.

Additionally, the defendants of marriage would say, "Marriage is under attack by Satan and the supernatural realm that are constantly looking to _destroy_ the creation and the priorities that God made. Marriage needs to be valued and fought for." Indeed it does.

Better odds than a coin toss

For several years I coached Maddie's AYSO soccer teams and refereed her matches, and at the start of each match, I would flip my heavy AYSO coin in the air to see which team would start with the ball and which would kickoff. The coin-flipping metaphor is _not_ a picture of the future of your marriage. If we allow the statistics to discourage us until we begin thinking, "My odds of success are only as good as a coin toss?" it will sap the heart and the courage out of us. Statistics describe the overall state of a thing, but they aren't ironclad indicators of the future of the thing. Today's marriage statistics aren't telling us that marriage is hopeless; they are telling us that marriage is more difficult than what most people anticipate.

Nobody tells us that on the front end though. Or, more likely, they do tell us but we're just not able to hear it on the front end. Our premarital counselors (if we had any) probably told us that marriage is hard work, and I'm sure some of our well-meaning friends or relatives did too, but we didn't give much weight to their words because _they weren't us_.

When we are in the early stages of newly awakened love it feels unquenchable. Song of Songs 8:7 says, "Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away" and that's exactly how young love feels.

Love is fierce! That's its nature, and it gets reinforced by every fairy tale, chick flick, epic, or love story we read about or watch in the movies. Think about the story lines of our favorite movies. They almost always _end_ at the _beginning_ of the relationship. The couple meets, falls in love, overcomes obstacles to finally be together, and then the credits begin to roll. Although it's a winning story line in both the box office and the human heart, it's incomplete.

I don't need stories about how to fall in love—that comes naturally. I need stories about how to _stay_ in love ten, twenty, or thirty years later. Yes, Snow White and Prince Charming are the cutest couple in all the land, but I'd like to see Prince Charming twenty years later with a receding hairline and an expanding waistline. Snow White is adorable in her movie—all young princesses are—but I want to see her still being swept off her feet by Prince Charming when she's forty. Sometimes we need fewer movies about falling in love and more about staying in love. One such movie, 2004's _Shall We Dance_ with Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon, tells a great story about fighting to _stay_ in love. Here are a few essential elements for how to stay in love until death do you part.

You need a spouse who wants it too

In Ephesians 5 Paul exhorts wives to respect their husbands and submit to them. Ladies, if you want a love that lasts you need to build your man _up_. You need to respect him and honor him. No one has as much power as _you_ to build up or destroy your husband. I am powerless before Jessica (red hair must be my kryptonite). She can heal me and she can hurt me more than anyone else on the planet. I care more about _her_ opinion of me than all other opinions combined. That's the power that a wife exerts. "Wives, submit to your husbands...and respect them."

However, Paul's words don't stop there. He goes on to say, "Husbands _love_ your wives." And then, since husbands often need a clearer set of instructions, he describes what that love should look like. He says, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church _and gave Himself for her_ " (Ephesians 5:25, italics added). The mandate to husbands is to love after the pattern of Jesus who loved to the point of giving His very life away on the cross.

Husbands, do we love our wives that way? Wives, are you your husband's biggest cheerleader?

Perhaps you would respond, "Well, I would like to be but quite honestly I don't see a lot in him to cheer for right now." I understand that. However, I've watched numerous couples begin honoring and loving one another by faith. They didn't _feel_ a lot of positive emotion but they were convinced that through their efforts and God's help their hearts would eventually catch up with their actions. They honored and loved until they _felt_ like honoring and loving.

Both spouses must assume this posture. It can't just be one of us—to make it for the long haul both spouses eventually need to get on board. Now, don't despair if you have a spouse who doesn't seem to want it as badly as you do. It doesn't mean you won't make it. There are intriguing verses in 1 Corinthians 7 about how God honors and uses the devotion of one spouse to bless and impact the less devoted spouse. Just because your spouse might not be as committed as you are today it doesn't mean they won't come around. Don't lose heart.

We must remain committed. From a biblical perspective, whether you are in your first or a subsequent marriage, you don't have the option to not fight for your relationship. You surrendered that right when you said, "I do."

Granted, some might ask, "Well, what if a spouse is abusive or chronically unfaithful? Must a spouse continually submit to a toxic, damaging relationship?" The answer is no. The Bible contains tremendous mercy and kindness from the Lord for the instances where a spouse walks away from their marriage vows; however, we are often far too quick to assume that things can't heal. Sometimes couples declare "failure" long before the Lord has finished working. For those of us who are somewhere in between our "I do" and "death do us part" our portion is to remain loyal and steadfast.

Having said that, you might need to allow yourself some liberation on this point. You and I can't control our spouses, or force them into certain responses. All we can ever control are our own thoughts and actions. Once we're doing our part toward building a perfect '10' marriage, the rest will have to be up to the Lord's work in our spouse's heart.

Divorced but still a great spouse

In light of this, it doesn't mean that every divorced person was a failure at marriage. It is absolutely possible that a person can divorce having been a _wonderful_ spouse. Certainly it takes two to build a great marriage, but _each_ of the two must build its greatness. The greatest spouse in the world can't force their partner to respond well. If you are divorced and you've carried an ongoing stigma of shame, let it go. It's possible to be the world's greatest wife or husband and yet still have a spouse that walks away.

Don't assume, "If I was prettier or more engaging or better in bed he wouldn't have left me." Don't think, "If only I had fought a little harder in our marriage, things could have changed." Perhaps it's true that you could have fought harder, but perhaps the converse is also true. Perhaps you did a great job fighting for your marriage, and yet your spouse still walked away. The entire human story has been one of mankind routinely walking away from love. Divorce is not always a synonym for "failure." Sometimes it's simply a crushing reality of our human fallenness and free will.

You _both_ need to be filled with the Holy Spirit

If your marriage is going to make it for the long haul, you not only need a spouse who wants it too, but you will _both_ need to be continuously filled with the Holy Spirit. It is profoundly significant that in the passage directly before Paul starts instructing husbands and wives, he writes about being "filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18). Before exhorting couples to mutual submission, love, respect, and self-denial, Paul says we need to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.

This is a crucial exhortation because _you married a broken person_. As beautiful as your wife was when you married her, she had issues. As charming and funny as your husband was in the earlier days he was still a fallen human, in need of God's grace. The overpowering emotions of new love can tend to minimize those realities. Then once we're married the sexual relationship can sometimes minimize that as well.

Biblically, one of the purposes of sex is a healing and a re-affirmation of the marriage relationship. However, sometimes the bonding, healing aspects of the physical relationship can _mask_ the latent issues that spring from our brokenness. This can be especially true early on when it's easier to run on the strength of our initial passions and attractions. Eventually though the issues surface and they can't be masked.

If we want to navigate the more mature seasons of love and marriage we must be connected to an outside power source. We must be carrying the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

We need Him when we disagree and we aren't sure who's right and who's wrong.

We need Him when it isn't easy to lay our lives down.

We need Him when our spouse needs something that we're not able to provide and we feel like a failure as a result (sometimes we can't meet our spouse's every need—all we can do is pray for them and hold them up to the Lord).

Jessica has been the greatest source of human love and healing in my life, and yet I was created with a Holy Spirit-shaped hole in my heart that even the perfect wife can't fully fill. Some of the spaces in our hearts can only be filled by God.

When the spaces of our heart are filled by God's presence, it releases a powerful Spirit-filled element into our relationship. Jessica has done that for me in several specific ways.

She seldom confronts me unless she's prayed for me first. I've gone to her on numerous occasions and said, "Wow, the Lord just showed me something about my heart that wasn't right" and she smiled and said, "Finally! I've been praying all month that you would see that." When she does confront me she is full of grace and mercy and the appropriate amount of intensity. She speaks life-giving words to me that are more than "sweet nothings"—they have the substance of a Word from the Lord in them. She isn't perfect, but she is striving to bring a Spirit-filled ministry into our marriage. If we want our marriage to last _'til death do us part_ , we need to do the same.

We need to submit _to each other_

"The husband is the head of the home...and the wife is the neck that turns the head." When pastors tell those cheesy kinds of jokes, they always get a good-natured chuckle from the audience; however, those silly jokes always miss the deeper point. The husband is the head of the home in the sense that God has mandated husbands to go first in protecting and serving and laying our lives down for our families. We will stand before God and give an account of how well we served and loved and protected His daughter that He entrusted to us. However, husbands are not the heads of their homes in a dictatorial sense. Paul said we are to, "Submit to one another." I'm just as submitted to Jessica as she is to me.

If she disagrees with a major purchase I want to make, I can't pull the "submit to me" card. We have to get in agreement first. If she isn't comfortable with some of my relationships or my use of time, I can't say, "Back off, I'm the head of this home!" I'm submitted to her, and yes, she's submitted to me as well, and she will have to give an account to the Lord for how well she walked with me and supported me in our life together.

Top down hierarchical structures weren't God's intention for marriage. There are areas where I'm stronger and smarter than Jessica, and there are areas where she's stronger and smarter than me; we need our complementary strengths to function fully and freely for our marriage to truly thrive.

Who gets to make the final decision on things?

Sometimes people ask, "I agree that we should be mutually submitted to each other, but what if we don't agree on something? Who gets to make the final decision?" In those instances I would counsel you to defer to whichever spouse believes they're hearing from the Lord. Jessica and I might not fully agree on something, but if she says, "Babe, I really think God is leading me to do this" I will defer...unless I think God is leading _me_ differently. If one is unsure and the other is convinced that God is leading them, go with the "leading." However, if both spouses are convinced that they are hearing different words from God, you need to push pause and wait for greater clarity. Those aren't instances where one or other of the spouses should make an autocratic decision; those are times where greater prayer and wisdom is needed.

Finally, if both spouses put their heart and soul into fulfilling Paul's counsel, most of the submission questions will go away. If a couple practices mutual submission, and if they are loving and honoring one another while maximizing their calling as a Christian man or woman, ninety-nine percent of all submission questions will become irrelevant and obsolete.

Trading your mallet for a trowel

Have any of you ever been a part of a demolition crew? Have you ever torn out a bathroom or ripped down a wall or smashed apart an old playhouse that needed to be thrown away? It's a lot of fun. In fact, a youth pastor I once worked with did a fundraiser at a church picnic where people could pay a dollar to swing a sledgehammer into a junked car. People lined up to take their most impressive swings (I think it gave them a chance to off load some pent up stress or frustration).

Have you noticed that it's a lot easier to tear something _down_ than it is to build something _up_? Anyone can knock down a wall if you give them a hammer, but it takes skill and effort and patience and _artistry_ to build a house. Husbands and wives, if you want your marriage to last _'til death do you part_ you're going to have to _forever_ trade in your mallet for a trowel; you'll have to become a _gardener_ who cultivates, nurtures and protects.

Song of Songs 4:12 says, "A garden enclosed is my sister my spouse."

In Jn.15:1 Jesus said, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener." If you've read this verse in the old King James Version of the Bible, you've seen that the word gardener gets translated "husbandman."

An early usage of the word "husband" referred to one who cultivated, tilled, or cared for land.[32] A husbandman was a gardener, and in carrying the name "husbands" it implies that we men must also possess a cultivating, nurturing, and caring skill in our relationships with our wives. According to Paul, when we do it well, the results are enormous. "Husbands love your wives, 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..." (Ephesians 5:25-27, NIV).

Paul assumed that with intentional, selfless, loving attention our spouses would blossom and bloom under our care, flourishing in every way that God intends.

Fluent in "gentle"

As we set out to "husband" our spouses, there is one other thing we need to master. We have to become fluent in the language of "gentle." Marriages are so intimate and vulnerable that they require vast amounts of gentleness to thrive. Marriage removes our shields. Marriage makes us raw, vulnerable, and exposed before our spouse. When the relationship is safe, we touch what Adam and Eve experienced when they were described as _naked and unashamed,_ but when it isn't safe, or when there's not a lot of gentleness, our nakedness makes us vulnerable.

My dad and I often play the "would you rather" game when we're together, each of us attempting to pose clever hypothetical challenges, and inevitably one of us brings up the subject of nudity. When you're thinking about awkward or painful challenges, nudity has to be considered. "Would you rather climb a palm tree naked, or slide down a glacier naked?"

The internal vulnerability of marriage is no less delicate than physical nudity, and if we would create a masterful marriage in our context, we must make gentle, loving care our ethos.

Questions for reflection, discussion, and action:

1. What little thing will you commit to doing for the next two weeks for your spouse?

2. How much of the Holy Spirit's life and power is present in your relationship?

3. Are you "husbanding" your spouse?

# 8

### COMMUNICATION NINJAS

"Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it."

—Robert Frost

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."

-George Bernard Shaw

"You always say that."

"No, I do not _always_ say that."

"Well, you say it a lot."

"I don't say it nearly as often as you think I say it."

"Well, that's because you say it so often that you don't even realize when you're saying it."

"See, _that's_ the tone I can't stand. You're so condescending!"

"How is that condescending? I'm simply stating the observation that you say these things more frequently than you realize."

"No, you're not simply 'stating an observation' you're talking down to me."

"Talking _down_ to you? I'm trying to talk _to_ you. It's what I'm always trying to do but we can never seem to get it to go anywhere."

"It's the _way_ you said it. You had your _tone_ again."

"What do you mean my _tone_? I'm frustrated, yes. You can't expect me to always be perfectly neutral and calm when I'm expressing these kinds of hurts and frustrations."

"I _don't_ expect you to be perfectly neutral and calm, but, yeah, it might be nice to not constantly communicate with so much irrational emotion."

"Irrational emotion? You think the way I feel is irrational in light of everything you've done?"

"Everything _I've_ done? What about...?"

*

I should probably stop the fictional dialogue right there before we get too stressed out. Simply _reading_ this kind of aggravating, circular communication is overwhelming, let alone _living_ it. And unfortunately that's what far too many married couples do—they consistently live within dysfunctional, ever wounding patterns of communication.

Words are staggeringly powerful. Indeed, humanity's most god-like quality is our ability to speak power-laden _words_ out of our mouths. Think about it. Out of all the possible means for kick-starting creation, God chose to work with _words_. Hebrews 11:3 says, "By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God." God's power is intrinsically attached to His word, and when He created male and female image-bearers like you and me, He attached some of that power to _our_ words too.

It's not only God who creates with His spoken word. We do too. We've already used our words to create our own universes, and our loved ones live inside them every day. Our words have created atmospheres in our homes, our jobs, our neighborhoods, our churches, and our communities. Sometimes those words have been awesome—they've created worlds of life, hope, healing, and love. At other times though, they've created insecure, dysfunctional, and painful places instead.

The Bible is replete with admonitions to use our words carefully. It says:

• "Death and life are in the power of the tongue." (Proverbs 18:21, ESV)

• "The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing." (Proverbs 12:18, NIV)

• "The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary." (Isaiah 50:4, NIV)

• "Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so you know how to answer everyone." (Colossians 4:6, NIV)

Communication is so essential—it is the lifeblood of a relationship—and yet many, many people, including good-hearted, well-intentioned, God-fearing people, never master its implementation. They say what they don't really mean or they say what they mean but in such ineffective ways that it undermines their message. Sometimes they say it harshly or with too much attitude or "edge." At other times when they do say it well, their partner's heart is too raw from all of the previous times that they _didn't_ say it well, and the words just aren't able to be received.

Learning to communicate is a non-negotiable. It is a foundation stone that will make or break your marriage. With positive communication skills and styles you can navigate every delicate minefield from money matters to spirituality to family dynamics to parenting differences to sexual sensitivities. However, without life-giving communication skill any one of those dicey subjects can sink you. Here are four suggestions to help you.

Master the ten-minute walk

How much time do you need to cool down when you're ticked off? Are you an instant processor that needs to talk ASAP, or do you need time to think, evaluate, and reflect before re-engaging in conversation?

Neither temperament is wrong; both approaches contain inherent strengths and weaknesses. The instant processor avoids the simmering and build-up of negative emotions, but they also risk the premature expression of raw emotions. On the other hand, while the slower processor might avoid saying the _wrong_ things, sometimes they take too long to say the _right_ things. To minimize the downside of these approaches, I suggest that each temperament should practice a specific technique called "the ten-minute walk."

The ten-minute walk is a quick trip to the altar of God where we cry, vent, express our emotion, and then wait for His comfort, conviction, and quiet guidance. It is a brief time of intentionally seeking God's counsel and perspective before re-engaging in conversation.

It's sort of like the break in between the rounds of a prizefight. Boxers or ultimate fighters retreat to their corner to catch their breath and gain a wiser perspective. Their trainers critique their performance, telling them things like, "Quit dropping your head" or "Keep working off the jab." Before Evander Holyfield knocked out Mike Tyson in their epic brawl in 1996, his trainer exhorted him during such a break, "Go to the well, baby. Go to the well." Apparently Evander understood the counsel because he came out of the break and scored a historic victory over the heavily favored Mike Tyson. The ten-minute walk gives you and me a chance to receive similar coaching and perspective.

Some helpful prayers during this time include: "Lord, heal my heart where it's beat up and bruised...forgive me of my own ugliness...give me Your perspective on this situation...crush every scheme of Satan/the enemy that might be at play...and help me to please you with all of my responses."

We don't need to instantly blurt out our every emotion to our spouse, and nor do we need an entire evening of silent treatment and withdrawal. Sometimes a ten-minute walk is sufficient. Learning to de-escalate verbal conflict via a short, ten-minute walk can help us do a better job at the healthier elements of communication.

Learn to hear what _isn't_ being said

Leadership guru, Peter Drucker, has said, "The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said."[33] Unfortunately most of us tend to react to the specifics of what gets said rather than the heart or essence behind the words. We fixate on words like "always" or "never" and we rightly assert that, no, it isn't true that we "never" or "always" do a certain thing. While that clarification might win a point in an argument, those back-and-forth exchanges _never_ help bring resolution. Additionally, there are times when our spouse just isn't adept at putting their feelings into adequate words and their attempts to do so hurt us. In those times we have to choose to camp out on the high road and overlook the communication errors.

One of my close friends was raised by a mother who spoke very little English, and when, as a small boy, he would do something mildly annoying or displeasing, she didn't know how to accurately communicate her disappointment. Instead of saying, "Sweetie, that's not acceptable," or "Son, you can't keep doing that," she would say things like, "You are very bad. I hate you." She was inept at putting the right words to her feelings, and sometimes our spouses are too.

Certainly, it's human nature to react to untrue or exaggerated accusations; however, if we aren't able to get past the _packaging_ of the message, we might not be able to process the _essence_ of the message. And it's always the essence—never the packaging—that is the true issue. If this is an area where you and your spouse tend to tie up, take time (in a gentle, non-combative setting) to truly hear how your verbal packaging is perceived. Sometimes by changing a tone or a word choice we can make enormous process in getting our much-needed points across.

Start learning to preen

You'll never survive in marriage unless you know how to preen.

Do you remember what preening is? Ducks have oil glands under their wings and when they preen they peck themselves under their wings and run their bills all along their feathers, thus covering themselves in oil. This oil does two things: it provides buoyancy, and it allows water to literally roll off the duck's back.

Marital longevity demands that we too learn to preen and draw from the anointing oil of God's Holy Spirit in our life—because despite how much they love us, our spouses will inevitably fail us at times. They will say things that hurt or confuse us, and our reflexive response will be to believe the words at face value and draw them into our soul. Before we even have time to judge the validity of the words, we will be tempted to embrace them and allow their power to start seeping into us, altering our world. However, the preening process (sometimes conducted on the ten-minute walk) allows us to gain a nobler perspective.

King David was a master at preening. He modeled it for us all throughout the psalms when he worshipped, sang, spoke truth to his soul, and vented his emotions in God's presence. He would linger in that place until he felt reconnected to God and could view his situation from God's perspective. It's interesting that even in his most despairing psalms, David was usually able to conclude on a hopeful note. He was able to work through the preening process until his hope, courage, and confidence were renewed, and the oil was flowing again.

Learning to preen—to reconnect to God's flow of life on the inside of us—will vastly increase our ability to communicate with our spouse in healthy, non-offensive, and effective ways.

Speak your spouse's language

Entire books have been written on the subject of learning to speak your spouse's language, and since these books are readily available and adeptly process such pertinent topics as temperament, gender, cultural, and familial differences, let me boil it all down to this: _You and I must become students of our spouse's communication style_.

To be successful in marriage each spouse must become the student of the other's preferred means of communicating. They must have a comprehensive knowledge of how their partner thinks, processes, resolves conflict, and gives and receives love. They need to know if their partner is a linear, conceptual thinker or if they do better processing pictures and examples.

This knowledge doesn't magically come to us after our wedding day; we have to work at it. We have to study our spouse and truly _learn_ them.

If our spouse needs real-life examples, we shouldn't give them Scriptures.

If they communicate feelings better than facts we need to give them the space to be less factual.

If they jump all over the place when they talk, we can't be too stern when we need to pin them down to the issue at hand. It will take the wind out of their sails and they won't respond to us as well.

I once counseled a couple with horrendous communication habits. Polar opposites in temperament, preference, and processing styles, they fought over nearly every word that the other uttered. Fortunately, before too much damage was done, they vowed to learn one another's language. They worked diligently at it, making notes in little notebooks and asking clarifying questions.

"Is this what you're trying to say?"

"This is what I'm hearing—is it what you're actually trying to communicate?"

"What emotion are my words igniting in your heart?"

"Do you feel argued with or truly heard?"

"Do you feel valued by how I'm speaking to you?"

Eventually they got it. They mastered one another's communication styles and they gradually began to heal.

At the end of the day, effective communication really does comes down to Dr. Steven Covey's sage advice: "Seek first to understand, then to be understood." If we understand our spouse and then communicate with them in the most honoring, winsome way possible, we can express the deep, honest things that need to get conveyed. If this happens consistently over time, healing and renewal will eventually commence.

Questions for reflection, discussion, and action:

1. Do you know your spouse's language?

2. How similar or different is it from yours?

3. How determined are you to learn to speak it?

# 9

### SEX

"They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered."

—F. Scott Fitzgerald

"With my body I thee worship."

—The 1549 Book of Common Prayer

How much sex is enough? How often do you need to have it? Do you even need to have it at all? How content and/or satisfied are you with your sex life? How would your spouse answer the question? How much did your premarital sexual experiences affect the early years of your married sexual expressions? Are they still affecting you? Do you ever talk about these things?

There is nothing more vulnerable, beautiful, intimate, or frightening than sex. It is a pinnacle expression of human love and affection, so closely akin to worship that human civilizations have often integrated sex into their worship practices. Former generations understood this and included in their wedding vows the words, "With my body I thee worship." Sex can be exhilarating and ecstasy inducing; however, it can also be disappointing and frustrating. It can bond a couple more deeply in love, or it can drive a bitter wedge between otherwise loving spouses.

If we learned about sex from our childhood peers, we received one perspective on it.

If we learned about it in awkward church settings, we got another one.

If we were victimized through sex, we've been damaged by it.

If we explored it as much as we could, we've been confused in other ways.

If we've watched many movies or television shows we've been presented with a model that says sex is always easy, always good, and always mutually satisfying.

But that's in the movies. In the real world sex is sometimes rushed, sometimes mal-functioning, sometimes frustrating, and yes, sometimes amazing. If one's only sex perspective is the media's sexual mythology, married couples can feel inadequate, embarrassed, or dissatisfied in their sexual relationships.

Here's the bottom line on sexuality (both within and without marriage). Sex is glue. That's how God designed it. Sex is an attaching, bonding experience that "glues" you to your partner. Casual sex is a myth. The popular "friends with benefits" term is as well. Although the sex _act_ may indeed be casual, the sexual glue that accompanies it never is. When bodies intertwine that intimately there is a merger of the soul as well.

It's really marvelous to consider that God established the context of covenant (life-long, fiercely committed) relationships, and then said that sex should be relegated _there_. Sex, with all of its adhesive properties, was consigned to the context of faithful, life-long relationships. God wants to glue you to a relationship where you will be forever safe, protected, and loved.

Unfortunately, since it's nearly impossible to grow up in our world today without our sexuality coming under assault, most married couples bring baggage into that area of their relationship. Former sexual experiences (either with your spouse or other people), the impact of Hollywood's sexual mythology, or other experiences in life coalesce to make marital sexuality a little tricky. It's beyond the scope of this book to discuss how to fully heal one's sexuality, so let me simply suggest four questions that you and your spouse can process together to help strengthen and preserve this important area of your marriage:

1. How much is enough?

2. What types of expressions are okay?

3. Are we honoring God in our sexuality?

4. Does our marital intimacy extend beyond sex?

How much is enough?

It's a great question. Are you satisfied and content to have sex just once a month, or even less often than that? Some couples are. It doesn't mean there is something wrong with them or that they're necessarily neglecting one another. Some couples have lower sex drives than others.

Conversely, do you wish you and your spouse could be intimate more often, even daily perhaps? And if so, how does your spouse feel about it? What if you are happy to have sex at different times throughout the day, but your spouse is only comfortable with it at night? Are you always the initiator, or does your spouse sometimes make the first move (or does it even matter to you)?

I don't want to drain any seeming magic or spontaneity out of your sex life, but some couples find it helpful and liberating to agree in advance how often they will or won't engage in sex. Some marriage counselors go so far as to suggest that couples agree as to who gets to initiate sex during certain portions of the week. This empowers a spouse to initiate if they so desire, or abstain if they're not in the mood on a given night.

I realize that for some couples an arrangement like that would sound too structured or boring, and that's fine. I'm not suggesting you do it. I'm suggesting you talk about it. I'm encouraging you to have forthright, safe conversations with your spouse about what a '10' would look like in respect to the _frequency_ of your sexual encounters. Then beyond frequency, there are also questions about specific _expressions_.

What types of expressions are okay?

Is oral sex okay? What about other types of stimulation? You might think it's a ridiculous question, but you might also be very glad that I'm raising it. What sorts of sexual expressions are okay in the context of a Christian marriage? And even if you are convinced of the appropriateness of certain activities, what do you do if your spouse _isn't_? What if you want oral sex, but your spouse isn't comfortable with that? What if your spouse loves lingerie, but you feel embarrassed by it? Who yields in those situations? Who gets their way?

First of all, even a casual reading of the Song of Songs lets us know that God never intended for marital sexuality to be boring, predictable, or passionless. In Song of Songs 7:7-8 the bridegroom describes his bride's breasts like clusters of fruit on a palm tree and then he says, "I will climb the palm tree and take hold of its fruit." In another passage he begins lovingly describing her features starting with her head and face, and then begins working his way _down_.[34]

Proverbs 5:19 urges husbands toward sexual fidelity and then says, "May her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love." _Captivated by love_. That's God's intention for sexuality within marriage.

The Bible doesn't give clear guidelines for all specific sexual activity within marriage, but it _does_ give principles of honor, respect, and mutual edification; and those values must be _heightened_ —never diminished—in the bedroom. So if your spouse is uncomfortable with an activity, then that activity is off limits. If they change their feelings through discussion or over time, fine, but if not, your spouse must be ever honored, never pressured, manipulated, or belittled.

Are we honoring God with our sexuality?

Hebrews 13:4 says, "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral." Although this verse is used to, rightly, condemn sexual sins outside of marriage, it also reminds that our "marriage beds" need to stay pure once we get married. We need to be careful about what we bring into our marriage bed and we need to be careful about what we do when we're there. Both activities from within and inclusions from without need to be guarded carefully. Dalliances with pornography or flirtations with people outside of your marriage will be anathema to your marriage in general and to your sexual relationship specifically. Those things don't stimulate a marriage; they damage it.

Marriage isn't the chance to act out dishonoring sexual fantasies. It isn't a legitimate version of a pornography flick. It is a means of serving, loving, and yes absolutely enjoying and pleasing the marriage partner that the Lord entrusted to you. It's worth being kept pure.

Does our marital intimacy extend beyond sex?

Sexual issues, such as impotence or diminished sex drives, can be lovingly processed and discussed with a safe counselor, and healthy, mutually satisfying sexual expressions _can_ be found. However, even when a couple has identified their contextual sexual '10' there is still a need to ensure that their intimacy extends _beyond_ the sexual. Romantic intimacy—from sweet conversations, acts of service, and non-sexual types of closeness and touch—not only enhances the sexual parts of intimacy, but also is essential for an overall healthy marriage. Besides, if a couple ever undergoes a health crisis or periods of prolonged separation due to job deployments, etc. they need to have a bond that extends beyond what happens between the sheets.

Sex can be a maddening study in contrasts—ecstasy, bonding, disappointment, or frustration—but if the overall marriage is increasingly moving towards a '10' these issues can be processed and overcome. Past sexual sins and failures can be confessed, forgiven, and graciously set aside. Remember to be kind to your spouse, patient, self-sacrificing, and serving. Never forget that the Lord trusted you with your spouse and that He _never_ intended for them to be belittled or harmed while in your care. He decreed that the bonding nature of sex would occur within a context of covenantal safety, and then He urged married couples to be wary of prolonged times of sexual separation from one another. He said, "Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent, and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you..." (1 Corinthians 7:5).

Just as with every other subject raised in this book, our sex lives are affected by our canvas and our context. Sex will look different as we move from being newlyweds to new parents, and from the career years to the retired years. Each of these canvases affects what gets painted on them, and yet each canvas still has the potential to display a '10'.

Questions for reflection, discussion, and action:

1. Does your sex life reflect the positive elements defined in this chapter?

2. If not, are you and your spouse gently and patiently discussing these things?

# 10

### TWIN BATTLES: SPIRITUALITY AND MONEY

"Contentment is the only real wealth."

—Alfred Nobel

"Husbands...be considerate as you live with your wives...so that nothing will hinder your prayers."

—1 Peter 3:7

"I wish the spiritual side of our relationship was deeper."

"I wish we talked more often about the Lord."

"We don't do any kind of family devotions."

"We attend church as a family but that's about it."

"I would feel more secure if I felt like spirituality was more important to him."

"I really can't connect with her on a spiritual level."

These are significant concerns for many married people, possibly for you. When someone loves God and truly believes that He is the cornerstone of their life, they will naturally want to share their spirituality with their significant other. Unfortunately, a large number of couples never develop a meaningful spiritual rhythm to their relationship. Even when they work at increasing their communication skills or the frequency of their date nights, somehow the spiritual stuff of prayer and seeking God gets left out.

Are you in that boat? Can you relate to a longing for a deeper spiritual life with your spouse? Do you hunger to experience God not merely as an individual but as a married couple? It is certainly possible to do so, and here are a few suggestions about how to pursue it.

Agree on a '10'

Just as you've done with the other areas of your marriage, come into agreement together about what a '10' would look like for the spiritual side of your marriage. The Bible doesn't give a clear prescription for how couples should walk out the specifics of their faith, so it will be up to you and your spouse to craft your vision together.

How often to do you want to pray together?

How important is it that you read the Bible together?

Should you each read and study the same topics in the Bible, or is it okay to follow your own preferences and then periodically share your findings?

Some couples pursue their spiritual disciplines individually, and then occasionally come together for times of prayer and Bible reading, while other couples make those disciplines a central part of how they seek the Lord _together_. The goal is not to advocate or practice a specific approach, but rather to keep Christ as the centerpiece of your marriage.

Sometimes, as in Jessica's and my situation, one spouse will be a night owl while the other is a morning person. In those instances it makes more sense for Bible reading and prayer times to occur individually, with occasional times of coming together. Again, there isn't a right or wrong approach. What is important is that Jesus is being pursued and that each spouse feels fulfilled in this part of the marriage.

As with other decision-making marital endeavors the spouse with the greatest conviction wins the day. If one spouse desperately wants to pray and read together on a routine basis—if that is an important way for them to feel spiritually and emotionally close to their spouse and the Lord—then it needs to be done. There is always room for compromise and creativity, but in this precious area of spiritual growth and discipline it's important for each spouse to feel satisfied and secure.

Some people are happy if their spouse has a solid, consistent, private devotional life plus some accountability with friends outside the marriage, whereas others want to be more directly involved in the spiritual formation process. Just talk about it and move toward a mutually compatible spiritual rhythm.

When your spouse isn't on the same page

Sometimes one spouse won't share the same convictions about spiritual disciplines as the other does, and in these instances the best option is to be patient and wait. We can't nag and pressure our way into healthy spiritual experiences with our spouse. If our spouse isn't on the same page as us, let's give them space to get there. Let's be sure to cultivate our own dynamic spiritual life, and let's be quick to invite our spouse to join us when the time is right. If, as we've discussed in earlier chapters, we're approaching our marriages through the life and power of the Holy Spirit, He will guide us with perfect timing.

Money, money, money

Just for fun, what do these phrases do to your soul:

"Babe, we can't afford that right now."

"Things are going to be a little tight until the end of the month."

"Why did you make that purchase? You know we don't have the money right now!"

If you are like most people, those phrases brought an all-too-familiar knot into the pit of your stomach. Financial stress and anxiety are commonplace in marriages today, and are some of the leading factors in the demise of broken relationships. To adequately overcome their realities and save your marriage from their damaging repercussions, here are five reminders.

1. You are a team—so manage your money accordingly.

2. Agreement in your finances—how you prioritize, save, and spend money—is a non-negotiable for a healthy marriage.

3. Often spouses have conflicting philosophies regarding the management of money—some are savers and some are spenders—so wise compromises must be made along the way.

4. You already know how financial counselors would coach you, so are you following their advice? Are you living within your means, saving for the future, giving charitably to God and the needy, and renouncing the cultural pressure to keep up with the Joneses? We will never escape financial pressure and grief until we make the hard decisions to do the things that we already know we should be doing.

5. Invest in financial training. You and your spouse will manage money together every day of your natural lives so it is worth investing in some coaching and training to help you. Indeed, it would be unthinkable not to. Financial coaching resources abound today, so we really have no excuse to not avail ourselves of the wisdom and help that they can offer us.

Questions for reflection, discussion, and action:

1. What simple steps could be taken for you and your spouse to increase the joy and potency of your joint-spiritual life?

**2.** **What steps need to be taken immediately to relieve your financial stress and increase the peace within your marriage?**

# 11

### LEGACY

"I felt as if I were walking with destiny."

—Sir Winston Churchill

"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary..."

—Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven

Edgar Allan Poe, author of the famous poem, _The Raven_ , once remarked that a book isn't worth reading if it doesn't grip you from the opening sentence. Most authors and readers would agree with him and thus books are routinely crafted with catchy, clever introductions. Look at a few of these more well known ones.

"Call me Ishmael." Herman Melville, _Moby Dick_ (1851)

"It was a bright, cold day in April and the clocks were all striking thirteen." George Orwell, _1984_ (1948)

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way." Charles Dickens, _A Tale of Two Cities_ (1859)

"Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu." Ha Jin, _Waiting_ (1999)

"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb and he almost deserved it." C.S. Lewis, _The Voyage of the Dawn Treader_ (1952)

"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my head ever since." F. Scott Fitzgerald, _The Great Gatsby_ (1925)

"Mr. and Mrs. Dursely of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much." J.K. Rowling, _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone_ (1997)

If catchy, intriguing opening sentences are so important for great literature, then why is the opening of the New Testament so boring? Why would God choose to introduce the most important document ever written with these words: "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac was the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon." (Matthew 1:1-4 ESV)

The genealogy continues exactly like this for an additional thirteen verses, hardly the most compelling way to open the greatest story ever told. If God really wanted the citizens of the world to be gripped by the story of His Son, why didn't He opt for the greatest opening in literary history?

Actually, He did.

You just need to be Hebrew to understand it. The genealogies of the Old and New Testaments are _not_ boring, stale records of dead people from the Ancient Near East. They are a countdown timer, an hourglass predicting the coming of a king. Whenever a Hebrew boy or girl would read the records of the genealogies they were reminded that _a king was on his way_. A rescuer was coming to save them.

The genealogies serve as reminders that the day of redemption is drawing closer. This was true for the people of the Old and New Testaments as they anticipated and experienced the arrival of their Messiah, and it's true for us as well as we await the fullness of God's plan to redeem our world. However, the genealogies also tell us something very personal about this rescuer. They tell us that this Savior is not ashamed to identify with a hurting humanity. He's not ashamed to identify with _you_ (despite everything you know about yourself). He didn't opt to delegate our redemption to an angel or moderate things from a safe distance in heaven.

He came to us.

His name is "God with us" and tucked neatly inside the genealogy of His coming are the words, "and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth..." (Matthew 1:5) Out of all the people in human history, Boaz and Ruth were two that were memorialized in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. God's work in _their_ lives became a strand of the larger story that God was telling to the rest of the world.

His work in _your_ life is a strand of the story that He is telling still.

Look what comes next. Verse 5 goes on to say, "...and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king."

When Ruth's canvas shrunk in Moab and she started over in Bethlehem, she had no idea that she would not only find new life and love, but that she would also become the great-grandmother of King David, the giant killer and the sweet psalmist of Israel. She had no idea that she would be a direct progenitor of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

Your legacy

I wonder what will come of your legacy as you fight to build your marriage into a perfect '10'? I wonder what stories will get told as a result of the efforts you make today? I wonder who will benefit from the price that you pay along the way? Certainly your family will, and possibly many others will as well.

Our stories are never lived in isolation; they always affect someone else.

After Boaz and Ruth's happily ever after commenced, Naomi's did too. Ruth 4:13-15 says, "So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And he went in to her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, 'blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel. He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age.'" When the Lord restored Ruth, Naomi came to life as well.

Our story always impacts those around us.

Naomi never remarried. She was an elderly widow by this time and remarriage wasn't on her bucket list, but she did find true love again. Verses 16-17 say, "Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse. And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name saying, 'A son has been born to Naomi.'"

New life will come to _you_ as well as you continue to lean into God's plan and prescription for your marriage. When it does, be sure to respond like Naomi did. She did three things when new life came to her:

1. She took the child.

2. She laid him on her lap.

3. She became his nurse.

Let's commit to doing the same. Let's take the child, the new season that's in front of us, and hold it close to us. We can try to keep our season at arms length, holding out for a different kind of day, or we can draw it near, like Naomi cuddling Obed in her arms. We can become its nurse. We can carefully cultivate our current context and allow the Lord to help us create something wonderful there.

We can work past our bitterness and learn to love again. We can choose to see the Ruth or Boaz inside our spouse and craft a new and improved legacy with them.

Building a marriage into a perfect '10' isn't easy. The concepts of this book are easy to read but harder to do. Often it takes time, patience, and great reliance on the Holy Spirit to find your Mona Lisa, but she's in there. She can be extracted, and when she is, she introduces you to a purpose and romance that eclipses anything the world of fairy tales can offer.

So don't lose heart. Don't give up hope. Believe that the One who has seen you this far in your story will escort you to its final page. If you need more detailed help for strengthening your marriage, please avail yourself of the boundless resources that are all around you. Work hard like Boaz and Ruth did, and lean deeply on the Holy Spirit.

Then expect your happening to happen.

You are loved by Deity, and your greatest days are still before you.

Questions for reflection, discussion, and action:

1. What legacy did you receive from those who went before you?

2. What legacy do you hope to leave to those who follow you?

3. What are you doing to live into that legacy now?

# 12

### HANDFULS OF PURPOSE

"We were together. I forget the rest."

—Walt Whitman

"And let fall also some handfuls of purpose."

—Ruth 2:16 KJV

I've officiated many dozens of weddings over the years and each one is special and unique in its own way. However, some of the most incredible ceremonies I've ever conducted have been the vow renewal services for couples that fought heroically to stay in love. Their ceremonies didn't have the giddy excitement of a newlywed ceremony, but there was a richness and depth that a newlywed can't yet imagine. They pushed through the hard times and they paid a price to stay together. Throughout their lives they found a way to cling to their purpose.

The King James Version of the Bible speaks to this sense of purpose in its translation of Ruth 2:16. When Boaz was instructing his workers to treat Ruth well he said them, "Let fall also some handfuls of purpose."

Isn't that a beautiful translation?

_Handfuls of purpose_.

That's what I want for my life and marriage. I don't just want to touch fleeting moments of purpose and destiny—I want handfuls of the stuff! I want a sense of purpose to permeate everything I am and do. Here's what our reading of Ruth and Boaz' love story has taught us about handfuls of purpose.

1. Purpose is found in the field where God tells us to reap.

2. Purpose isn't always found immediately.

3. Purpose is always opposed.

4. The presence of the Lord is part of our purpose.

5. Purpose accelerates when we clarify Whose we are.

6. Purpose should be pursued with the right people.

7. Purpose must be watched over carefully.

8. Purpose is always tied to serving others.

9. Purpose comforts us.

10. Purpose speaks to our hearts.

11. Purpose serves us in return.

12. Purpose satisfies.

This book has been an attempt to help us touch a deeper sense of purpose in our marriages. If you were in marriage counseling with me (whether your marriage needed a mere tune-up or an overhaul), and we were strategizing how to best secure God's purpose for your marriage, I would ask you and your spouse to honestly but gently answer these questions.

1. Based on the Word of God and the desire of your heart, what would your marriage look like if it were a '10'?

2. Without unnecessarily deflating one another with your words, how does your marriage compare to that '10'?

3. Where have you wounded each other?

4. Where have you stopped _husbanding_ each other?

5. Where do you need to ask and receive forgiveness?

6. What little changes would most quickly move you toward that '10' goal?

7. What tools do you need to receive to begin those steps?

8. How can you work this process while speaking nothing but _gentle_?

9. Is your life currently filled with the presence and power of the Holy Spirit (and if it isn't do you know how to access it)?

10. Will you truly make your marriage a priority?

If couples consistently worked these questions and answers, their marriages would become masterpieces. They would overflow with a vibrant sense of God's purpose, they would get better with age, and, as in the case of Ruth, Boaz, and Naomi, future communities and generations would rejoice with them.

The two essential elements

For Ruth's redemption to fully come to pass, it required two distinct, but equally important elements. It required Ruth's best efforts and then God's gracious involvement. Ruth did everything in her power to improve her situation, and then she had to trust God with the results. Although she and Boaz won each other's hearts and fell in love, God still had to come through for them to be together.

You see, although Boaz was indeed Naomi's relative, the story tells us that there was actually _another_ relative who was _closer_ to Naomi's family than Boaz was. Since this other man was a nearer relative than Boaz was, he had the first right of refusal. Boaz was second in line to serve as Naomi and Ruth's kinsman-redeemer, so he had to defer to the nearer kinsman.

In Ruth 3:12 Boaz explained to Ruth, "And now it is true that I am a redeemer. Yet there is a redeemer nearer than I. Remain tonight, and in the morning, if he will redeem you, good; let him do it. But if he is not willing to redeem you, then, as the Lord lives, I will redeem you. Lie down until the morning."

Although Boaz _wanted_ to rescue Ruth, he was at the mercy of the "nearer" redeemer, and would have to wait and see how events would unfold. When morning dawned and Ruth informed Naomi of the turn of events, Naomi replied, "Wait, my daughter, until you learn how the matter turns out, for the man will not rest but will settle the matter today" (Ruth 3:18).

When a kinsman-redeemer exercised their redemption rights in the Ancient Near East they couldn't merely buy back the property of their deceased male relative. They also had to marry and care for his widow. The arrangement was wonderful for those redeemers who _wanted_ to marry the widow; however, some of them didn't want that particular responsibility, so they would forfeit their redemption rights to the next closest relative.

At the end of the book of Ruth, Boaz hailed the nearer kinsman, informed him of Ruth and Naomi's plight, and then left the matter in the hands of God.

God came through for Boaz and Ruth.

When the nearer kinsman learned that he must also marry Ruth if he wanted to buy back Mahlon's property, he replied to Boaz, "I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I impair my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption yourself, for I cannot redeem it" (Ruth 4:8). Those words were music to Boaz' soul.

Boaz replied to the kinsman and the witnesses who were also present, "You are witnesses this day that I have bought from the hand of Naomi all that belonged to Elimelech and all that belonged to Chilion and to Mahlon. Also Ruth the Moabite, the widow of Mahlon, I have bought to be my wife..." (Ruth 4:9-10).

The witnesses agreed, and in verse 13 it says, "So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And he went in to her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son."

When Boaz and Ruth did their parts, humbly submitting to God's sovereign work in their lives, and working as faithfully as they possibly could, God blessed them.

_Happenings_ began to happen, and handfuls of purpose started springing up everywhere.

This can be your story too.

Questions for reflection, discussion, and action:

1. Where are you in the process of creating your masterpiece?

2. What are your next steps?

# APPENDIX

### WHEN YOUR SPOUSE ISN'T AS COMMITTED AS YOU ARE

She was repentant; he was angry and unmoved.

He was passionate to improve their marriage; she was indifferent at best.

She took notes throughout all of our sessions; he barely tolerated them.

He was devoutly committed; she was crafting her exit strategy.

What do you do when your spouse isn't as committed as you are to strengthening or rebuilding your marriage?

Over the years, I've spent time with many couples in these and similar situations, and I have seen numerous instances where the less committed spouse eventually softened and re-engaged with the marriage.

They finally got it.

Their heart began to heal, melt, and then feel again.

They started communicating in ways that actually helped.

They stopped blaming, and took some ownership for their own part in the marital decay.

They exchanged their anger and unforgiveness for kindness and understanding.

They gradually came up to their spouse's level of commitment and determination.

They fell in love again.

It is absolutely possible for a marriage to heal even when one of the spouses is initially less committed than the other. However, in those instances, the more committed spouse needs some very specific encouragement. They need to know that it might be a slow process before their spouse comes around. They need to accept that it might be a while before their spouse appreciates or even acknowledges all of the extra effort that they are contributing. If they were the cause of their spouse's anger or indifference, they need to commit to repentance and a radical change of action and living. They need to be willing to love and serve without a lot of initial positive feedback. They need to love their spouse the way Jesus loved us when our hearts were cold and distant from His. Finally, they need to be constantly reminded that sustained efforts of kindness, humility, and unconditional love can melt hearts and re-ignite passionate first loves.

If you are in this place today, please don't despair. Don't assume that your spouse will never come around. It's true that love is risky, and none of us can control the decisions of the person we love; however, if you can hold steady, the triumphant words of 1 Corinthians 13:8 can be yours: "Love never fails."

Find a friend who will pray for you and encourage you.

Learn to draw your deepest comfort from the Holy Spirit.

Use the time to let God shape and strengthen your character.

Then expect miraculous _happenings_ to happen.

# NOTES

Unless otherwise indicated all Scripture references are from the ESV translation

[1] Ephesians 5:32 NIV

[2] Judges 21:25

[3] Ruth 1:5

[4] Warren Baker, D.R.E. and Eugene Carpenter, Ph.D, The Complete Word Study Dictionary Old Testament (Chattanooga: AMG Publishers, 2003), 595.

[5] Ibid., 509.

[6] Ruth 1:20

[7] Ruth 1:21

[8] Ruth 1:22

[9] Genesis 16:13

[10] John 6:51

[11] Leviticus 25:25; Ruth 4:3-5

[12] Word Study Dictionary, 150.

[13] Joshua 2:18-19

[14] Joshua 6:15-23

[15] Matthew 1:5

[16] Psalm 91:1

[17] Leviticus 19:10

[18] Ruth 2:8-9

[19] Word Study Dictionary, 706.

[20] Ibid., 662.

[21] Cordeiro, Wayne. "Ready, Fire...Aim! Identifying that which is most important." Enewhope.org. www.enewhope.org/news/000355/ (accessed January 12, 2015).

[22] Ruth 2:6-7

[23] Ruth 3:11 NIV

[24] Ruth 3:1-18

[25] Hallett, Stephanie. "Marriage Rate in America Drops Drastically." Huffingtonpost.com.  www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/14/marriage-rates-in-america_n_1147290.html (accessed January 12, 2015).

[26] Shim, Eileen. "The Median Age of Marriage in Every State in the U.S. in Two Maps." Mic.com.  http://mic.com/articles/92361/the-median-age-of-marriage-in-every-state-in-the-u-s-in-two-maps (accessed January 12, 2015).

[27] Whitehead, Barbara and Popenoe, David. "Singles Seek Soul Mates for Marriage." Gallup.com.  www.gallup.com/poll/4552/singles-seek-soul-mates-marriage.aspx (accessed January 12, 2015).

[28] "Marriage and Divorce." www.apa.org/topics/divorce/Apa.org. (accessed January 12, 2015).

[29] Jay, Meg. "The Downside of Cohabiting Before Marriage." Nytimes.com.  www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/opinion/sunday/the-downside-of-cohabiting-before-marriage.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 (accessed January 12, 2015).

[30] Ephesians 5:32

[31] Genesis 2:25

[32] Spiros Zodhiates, Th.D. The Complete Word Study Dictionary New Testament (Chattanooga: AMG Publishers, 1992), 366.

[33] "Peter F. Drucker." Goodreads.com www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/12008.Peter_F_Drucker (accessed January 12, 2015).

[34] Song of Songs 4:1-7

