Date Your Spouse!

Laura and I on our annual marriage retreat.

I love the book, The Meaning of Marriage, by Tim Keller.  Everyone should read this book whether you've been married for 25 years, or you're just thinking about getting married some day!  Keller says, "Only if you have learned to serve others by the power of the Holy Spirit will you have the power to face the challenges of marriage." He then goes on to say that,  "Whether you are a husband or a wife, we are not to live for ourselves but for the other. And that is the hardest yet single most important function of being a husband or a wife in marriage."

You see marriage is God's way of of remaking our heart from the inside out.  It's through marriage that we learn to become more like Jesus, setting aside our own self-centeredness and looking to the interest of others, more specifically our spouse.  

If we are to become the Spiritual Parents of our home, it begins with loving and serving our spouse!  Kurt Brunner, in his book It Starts at Home says, “I can learn about Jesus when I read the Bible and feel close to Jesus when I pray.  But, I become like Jesus when I give my life to my spouse, a child, a grandchild, and others whom God places in my home.”  These are the specific people for whom I am called to turn the Word into flesh amid the day-in and day-out reality of life.”

“It is much easier to sit in church listening to a sermon than to bite my tongue during an argument with my wife. The first nourished my spirit, the second humbles my pride.”  “I love listening to worship music and reading inspirational books, I hate apologizing to my children after losing my temper. The first reminds me who God is, the second reminds me who I am, a sinner in need of repentance.

“Spiritual formation occurs most effectively in those moments when I obediently submit to the sculptors’s chisel and follow the apostle Paul’s admonishment to become like the One who,” “made himself nothing, taking on the very nature of a servant...He humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:7-8).

If you are serious about your marriage and you want it to grow, date your spouse!  Get time alone with no children...just the two of you.  Don't just talk about business or the weather or even your children. Dig deeper into their soul and their heart, and listen and learn about the one who is helping make you more like Jesus.  

It Starts with Us

The 1st Key to being a Spiritual Parent is taking care of your own spiritual development.  We can't give what we don't have. 

We’ve all heard the stories of champions throughout time who seem to have something special that others in their prospective fields do not.  Michael Jordan had prodigious physical gifts. But as his long time coach Phil Jackson writes, it was hard work that made him a legend. When Jordan first entered the league, his jump shot wasn't good enough. He spent his off season taking hundreds of jumpers a day until it was perfect.  Jackson said that Jordan's defining characteristic wasn't his talent, but having the humility to know he had to work constantly to be the best.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book, Outliers: The Story of Success, says, “Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds.”

In other words,  you don’t become a Christian one day and become a spiritual giant the next.  If you are serious about being the spiritual leader of your home, it starts with your character, your personal development. You must take a look at your life and determine whether or not your life and your faith are worth modeling.  I understand that you may feel that you have not “arrived” spiritually. Or that you are not quite ready to model your faith.  Remember, spiritual formation is a slow climb uphill to become the person you were created to be.  Many parents use the fact that they are not “spiritual” enough or “deep” enough to lead their children.  But, it’s important to understand that their are no perfect people and certainly no perfect families!  We all are a picture of redemption.  We are all broken people striving everyday to allow God to redeem and restore us into His original design.   

Maybe you've heard this saying before, "God is much more concerned about where we’re going than where we've been."  Thank you Lord for that!  The truth is, God will lead us and promises to walk with us as we allow Him to speak to us and guide us.  It is not required that we look, think, or act perfectly.  It is required that we allow the Holy Spirit to teach us and shape us into becoming more like Jesus. We can't wait until we feel "spiritual" enough to jump in and start leading our families.  We need to start now, begin spending time with the Lord daily, and see what God does!

I have two questions for you to think about that will be on the monthly evaluation; 

1. Who have you invited to be on your Spiritual Development Team?  Do they know they are on it? Are you meeting regularly? Are you honest with them? Are you doing what they are asking you to do? Is this a priority on your schedule?

2. Are you practicing the Disciplines? Are you spending time in the Word? Are you creating space for worship and solitude? Are you creating a spirit of submission and service? Read Richard Foster's book, The Celebration of Disciplines. Better yet, Read it with someone from your Spiritual Development Team! 

Virtues Poster!

Parents,

If you remember from my message several weeks ago, the 3rd Key to being a Spiritual Parent is Learning, Modeling, and Training the 12 Virtues.  

I have designed a poster for you to hang around your house so that you can be reminded daily of what you are looking to learn, model and train with your children.  Remember, we are modeling and training in real time!

As one of these virtues comes up during your day, use that situation to model for your children how you handled it correctly....or maybe incorrectly, and what the result was.

Also, you are looking for situations in your kids lives where you can use one of these virtues to teach them and help them make decisions in their lives.

There are more posters to come designed for different ages, but until then, use this one!

These posters will be available in the children's area at Skyline on Sunday mornings.

Have a fantastic day!  Be Intentional, Be Involved!

Todd

Well, again I want to thank each of you for joining the Family Challenge.  I am praying that, together, we will become more like Jesus in His character and lead our families to look more like Him as well.

As we do that, I believe we can and will change our families for many generations to come.  Remember,  we're all starting fresh!  No looking back to what we've missed out on, just looking ahead to what God is going to do today, and in the future of our lives and our families lives.

So, with that said, a new tool that we will be using is called the Family Challenge Evaluation.  Each month, I will send you an evaluation with 10 questions for you to answer.  These questions will ask you about yourself, your marriage, and your family.  They will not always have the same 10 questions. There will be a space on each question for you to write notes to me or explanations, as well as stories to share.  Please be honest, I can't see who the responses are from!  :)

The purpose of these evaluations are not to beat ourselves up, or remind us how bad we are.  They are a way we can encourage each other and have some good accountability in our lives.  Obviously, the best kind of accountability is personal accountability with another human, face to face.  I highly encourage that!  And, you can even use this tool in those relationships.

Before I send your first evaluation though, I thought it would be good to describe some of the things you will be asked in the survey and explain what each might look like.  I will be posting several times over the next few weeks leading up to the evaluation (at the end of this month) in order to explain each question.

As you read each post, remember, we're not looking for perfection, but progress!  I am looking forward to this Family Challenge... together!

Blessings,

Todd