by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Dear Keith, last year at this time my marriage was beautiful. We could tell each other anything, were very much in love, and enjoyed being together and with the children. We realized how good things were and swore we’d always keep them that way.
But a year later everything seems to have fallen apart. My husband and I can’t even talk about it without getting mad. We both love God and go to church. Is it normal for a good Christian marriage to change when neither party wants it to? Why would our relationship change so drastically?
Good question. Of course I don’t know why your relationship with your husband has changed. But I can say with some conviction that I would be very much surprised if it hadn’t. Good marriages I know about do change.
If one (or both) of the parties in a close relationship changes as an individual, then the previous balance of the marriage relationship is automatically changed. And in periods of rapid development in a man’s or woman’s life, which may include a significant promotion at work, the birth of a child or one party gaining important insights or changes in self-concept, the existing relationship in the marriage may be in for quite a storm. For instance, a man may realize he’s been acting like a little boy and avoiding some decisions he should make as a husband and father. So he steps up and starts making these decisions, and his wife is hurt—thinking he no longer trusts her to make them.
The most helpful thing I can do in our changing marriage is to keep communicating with my wife about what I am discovering and try to keep listening to her. But if we start being too busy to visit with each other alone, changes and irritations can build up until they are too big to handle easily. When these periods happen we often avoid communicating about personal discoveries and pains at all. It sounds crazy because we both know we should talk things through, but neither of us wanted to face the anger, etc. that can be part of the process. One thing that has helped is that we have located a counselor who understands us both, and we call him when we need to.
A very good aspect of this business of a “beautiful” period being followed by a hard one is that when two people get some problems solved and feel very close, a feeling of new security often develops in the relationship. And one party or the other may feel safe enough at last to bring out (or act out) problems which were “too dangerous” before the beautiful period—and all hell seems to break loose right in the middle of the peace.
Sorry I can’t tell you why things have changed for you and your husband. Everything is going well in our house right now, but next week I may be wanting to write to you about what happened to us. Keeping the communication lines open is not easy for busy people.
Lord, I don’t understand why good relationships can become difficult, and why it is so hard to resolve the problems that cause the difficulty. So often I’m tempted to sweep these issues under the rug and pretend everything is as good as “it used to be.” Help me to realize that hard times are “normal” in most relationships and lead to growth. Help me to recognize when things seem difficult for me and be willing both to talk to and listen to my wife instead of sweeping problems under the rug and faking it. In Jesus’ name, amen.
But Jesus said, “Not everyone is mature enough to live a married life. It requires a certain aptitude and grace. Marriage isn’t for everyone. Some, from birth seemingly, never give marriage a thought. Others never get asked—or accepted. And some decide not to get married for kingdom reasons. But if you’re capable of growing into the largeness of marriage, do it.” Matthew 19:11, The Message
“One advantage of marriage is that, when you fall out of love with him or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until you fall in again.” Judith Viorst, American Poet and Author
“Compromise, if not the spice of life, is its solidity. It is what makes nations great and marriages happy.” Phyllis McGinley, American Poet and Author
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Keith, I seem to be constantly overwhelmed with stuff to do! I am busy all day getting things done, but the list of what DIDN’T get done seems always longer than what I did get done! I can hardly go to sleep at night because I worry about how I will ever get caught up. How can I get God involved in solving this? I seem to be pretty helpless about it myself.
Don’t be too hard on yourself. Lots of people (including me) have this experience. Here’s how it usually goes for me: Yesterday, I woke up with things to be done swarming around in my mind like bees looking for a place to sting me. I jumped up and made an “action plan” about these urgent tasks.
Once I’d completed it, the plan transformed some things I could “consider doing” to a list “carved in stone” and handed to me on a mountaintop by God. I felt that I had to accomplish the entire list that day to be a worthy human being!
However, as I prayed, asking what God would have me do that day, I realized that there were several problems with the list—and the ones like it that I have made up every day for years.
1. It was at least twice what any sane person would try to do.
2. It was a grandiose projection of my own unreal expectations of how much time it really takes to do each thing.
3. It was a reflection of the fact that I wasn’t trusting God with the everyday decisions about how to spend my time each day, since I realized that my primary job is to love God and the people I contact every day, and trust Him with the rest.
I thought about what my list would look like if I could somehow totally trust in God (which, I realize, is practically impossible, given my human tendency to take back control once I’ve surrendered.) But if I could, how would I prioritize this list? What would I remove altogether? What could I entrust to someone else? What really had to be done? Trying to answer these questions gave me a new perspective on how I fill up my time with what seems to be “urgent” without considering what God might think is really important.
Then I remembered a story I had heard a while back about a man who routinely brought work home from the office to do after dinner. His little boy wanted his daddy to play with him, but his father always told him that he was too busy. Finally, in tears, the little boy asked his mother, “Why can’t Daddy play with me after supper?”
His mother said, “Because he’s behind with his work at the office.”
The little boy asked through his tears, “Well, why don’t they put him in a slower group?”
I realized then that perhaps God wants me to get in a different group, too, the group of those who know that they are not God, and have seen that “sober judgment” includes seeing things as they really are, including how much they can realistically expect themselves to do in a day. And that’s when I began to listen more and care more specifically for the people in my schedule—and when I do that—I have been amazed at how much more peaceful and at home I feel in my own everyday life.
Lord, help me to be willing to live a sane life for You that includes taking time to love the people You’ve given me to love—even if I have to get in a slower group. in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. – Romans 12:3 (NIV)
Since Jesus went through everything you’re going through and more, learn to think like him. Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. Then you’ll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want. – 1 Peter 4:1, The Message
When we breathe, we do not stop inhaling because we have taken in all the oxygen we will ever need, but because we have all the oxygen we need for this breath. Then we exhale, release carbon dioxide, and make room for more oxygen. Sabbath, like the breath, allows us to imagine [realize] we have done enough work for this day. Do not be anxious about tomorrow, Jesus said again and again. Let the work of this day be sufficient…. – Wayne Muller, Sabbath
We have to fight them daily, like fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies. The things that have to be done must be done, and for the rest we must not allow ourselves to become infested with thousands of petty fears and worries, so many motions of no confidence in God. Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world. – Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Keith, If the church is going to make it in increasingly complex political, social, and economic worlds, don’t you think our first priority to be effective Christian communicators should be to keep up, to learn all we can about the latest advances in these fields? How else can we speak intelligently as ministers to the problems people face who are trying to live in these complex and changing environments? P.S. If you agree, have you got any ideas about how to get the time to ‘keep up’ in all these fields?
Wow, I can see what you’re talking about just from my own challenges with complex new developments. I just learned a few months ago how to text my grandkids! And the state of the economy, world events and politics here in the U.S.A. come through to us so much more fully because of all the communication technology that has evolved in the last fifty years.
I agree that it is important for those who would be Christian communicators to realize the fact that enormous changes are taking place in the social, economic and political scenes. But I don’t think it is necessary or possible for anyone to keep up with all the specific changes in all these areas. In fact, an attempt to be totally knowledgeable in all these fields could become a cop-out and a defense against specific action which might lead to actual improvement in any one area.
This is what I mean: I think that God, through the Gospel, deals with basic human conditions which include people’s responses to social, economic, and political activities and changes. And the basic human conditions and responses do not change all that much. They include our separation from God, from other people and from our authentic selves. Our responses include experiences of anxiety, fear, hunger, sickness, being dispossessed, persecuted, and loneliness.
If these things are true, then one Christian approach to helping people deal with social, economic, and political changes affecting the basic human problems would go something like this:
Get involved with real people in a specific place. Get to know them and their needs, hopes and dreams. Then as social, political, and economic changes affect those people adversely, we can examine those specific changes and try to speak out or take action, such as going to bat to help the specific people affected by the changes to live in the freedom and love God has for them.
That way the issues and changes we concentrate on are always relevant, and our passion to engage these issues as Christian communicators comes from love of God and His people rather than from a love of issues and of becoming a good Christian communicator. (This is much easier for me to say than do.)
Dear Lord, thank you that no matter what economic, political or social conditions we encounter, your basic message of love applies. Help us to learn more and more how to love you and other people in our lives by the way we respond to changes and how they affect us and those around us. Help us learn how to provide a loving, human touch in the midst of whatever changes we may confront. In Jesus’ name amen.
This is a large work I’ve called you into, but don’t be overwhelmed by it. It’s best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won’t lose out on a thing.” – Matthew 10:40
“Beware you are not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.” – John Wesley
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Recovery, Weekly Devotional
Keith, you have said that it’s better not to run from pain but to embrace it. But I don’t get it. What on earth can be good about pain?
You’re sure not alone with that question. Have you noticed how many commercials on television are about ways to quiet our pain? Yet I believe that pain plays an important—even essential—role in our spiritual growth process.
The first time I can remember hearing anything good about pain was one day when I was about eight years old. My mother and I were sitting at the breakfast table. I was not in school that day because my friend Jimmy had thrown a pampas grass spear at me during a mock battle and had struck me between my right eye and right eyebrow—miraculously missing putting out my eye, which was now almost swollen shut and hurting like crazy.
“Why would God invent something as awful as pain?” I asked, wishing mine would go away.
Mother raised her eyebrows and looked out the window behind me a few seconds. Then she said, “Well, feelings like pain are God’s way of sending helpful, even life-saving, messages to us about dangerous or harmful things we’re doing that we might not notice until it was too late.”
I scrunched up my face and asked, “What do you mean?”
She continued, “You might say that pain is like a fire alarm system God’s given us to help us pinpoint the exact place where our personal fires, our injuries or sicknesses, are. And if we don’t pay attention, the pain usually gets louder until we do. And God uses all kind of pain to show us where we need to change our live if we pay attention. So pain can be a life-saving friend.”
“How could pain actually save my life?”
“Well, imagine that early one morning you were running barefoot down the beach alone and you stepped on a jagged piece of glass bottle half buried in the sand, and it cut your foot, maybe nicked a large vein. If it weren’t for pain, you might bleed to death if you didn’t happen to look back and see that you were leaving a trail of blood in your footprints. Pain is one way you learn to take care of yourself.”
I thought about that for a few minutes, wondering if there was anything connected to the pain of my swollen eye that I could learn that would be a life-saver. Then I asked, “You mean like my deciding not to play spear-fighting chieftains anymore?”
Mother smiled and nodded her head. “That seems like a pretty smart change to me.”
Lord, thank you that so many kinds of pain contain a message to teach me about how to live my life. Help me not to numb it, or avoid it, but to examine it squarely and seek the life-meaning behind it. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
“Distress that drives us to God…turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets, end up on a deathbed of regrets.” Cor. 7:10, The Message
“How privileged we are to understand so well the divine paradox that strength rises from weakness, that humiliation goes before resurrection, that pain is not only the price but the very touchstone of spiritual rebirth.” Bill Wilson, Christmas Letter, 1944
