TOUGH ENOUGH
Desperate Households—Part 1
Does one of the following describe your marriage?
You fell in love, the question was “popped”, the wedding was a wonderful success, and marriage is now a continual joyride for both of you.
You fell in love, the wedding was a mixture of stress and success, and marriage is a wagon-train trip across the plains and over the mountains of the old west.
You fell in love, the wedding was a series of problems to be solved, and marriage is a marathon run on a hot, summer day through hill country.
You fell in love, the wedding was an expensive headache, and marriage is a bloody gunfight at the OK Corral.
I am a big believer in marriage. I have never seen happier, more deeply satisfied people than men and women who have made their marriages work. But neither have I met many people in highly successful marriages who got there without an enormous expenditure of energy and determination.
TOUGHNESS IS THE ESSENCE OF MY COMMITMENT
Virtually every successful marriage requires toughness. Early in the marriage issues arise and the partners don’t have the necessary skills to manage them. They essentially have two choices: give up and run away, or get about the task of developing the required skills. Tough people always adopt the second alternative. They wouldn’t think of giving up.
When is the last time you considered the original promises you made to your spouse when you married? Those are some hard hitting, heavy duty vows!! Unfortunately they are often treated with incredible superficiality.
As a nation we have reached the edge of total family collapse.
I read a study of 100 couples in extremely healthy marriages—I was overwhelmed at the frequency with which they emphasized the critical importance of commitment. One man wrote, “Marriage demands toughness, and toughness proceeds out of commitment.”
Song: Tuff Enuff—(This will be included in the Fairmont DVD. Camera zooms in on singers and musicians and pans slowly. No lyrics will be displayed for this song)
Jeanette and Robert Lauer published the results of a powerful study a few years ago. They surveyed 351 couples married at least 15 years. 300 said they were happily married. They were asked to select from 39 statements the ones that best explained why their marriages had lasted. Two rated most important for both men and women were “marriage is a long-term commitment” and “marriage is sacred.”
They took an oath to the Lord with loud acclamation, with shouting and with trumpets and horns. [15] All Judah rejoiced about the oath because they had sworn it wholeheartedly. They sought God eagerly, and he was found by them. So the Lord gave them rest on every side. 2 Chronicles. 15:14-15 (NIV)
"It has been said, ’Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ [32] But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery. Matthew 5:31-32 (NIV)
You ask, "Why?" It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. [15] Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. …So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. Malachi 2:14-15 (NIV)
TOUGHNESS GIVES ME TIME TO DEVELOP SKILL
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Genesis 2:24 (NIV)
Making two whole people one demands skills that aren’t taught in school. Commitment must lead to skill development. I have never witnessed a great marriage in which I viewed the partners as anything less than profoundly skilled.
Roll “Toilet Cleaner” Video Here
Most of these skills are not learned and developed until after the marriage begins.
Roll “Log In Eye” Video Here
So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." Matthew 19:6 (NIV)
Hundreds of thousands of marriages fall apart before the necessary skills can be developed because there is inadequate toughness.
I MUST TRAIN TO BE TOUGH ENOUGH
Training Phase # 1—Getting Real About My Expectations
[21] Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
[22] Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. [23] For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. [24] Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
[25] Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her [26] to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, [27] and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. [28] In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. [29] After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church-- [30] for we are members of his body. [31] "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." Ephesians 5:21-31 (NIV)
I love what Emily Kingsley says about handling disappointment. She’s talking about the disappointment when your kids don’t turn out the way you thought they would – particularly a handicapped child. But this has far more implication than just for parents.
“I’m often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability. It’s like this: When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. You’re going to see the coliseum, the Cistene chapel, the gondolas. You may learn some handy phrases it Italian and it’s all very exciting. After several months of preparation and anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go to Italy. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.” “Holland?” you say. “I signed up for Italy. I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.” But there’s been a change in the flight plans and we’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing to remember is they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place filled with pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place. So you must go out and buy new guidebooks and you must learn a new language and you must meet a new group of people that you would never have met before. It’s just a different place. It’s slower paced than Italy and it’s less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you begin to look around and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills. And Holland has tulips. And Holland has Rembrandts. But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy and bragging about what a wonderful time they’ve had there. And for the rest of your life you’ll say, ‘Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. At least that’s what I had planned.’ And the pain of that experience will never, ever, ever go away. The loss of that dream is a very significant loss. But, if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy that very special, very lovely thing about Holland.”
That principle applies to a lot more than just being disappointed in a child. Some of you on your wedding day stood at the altar and you thought you were going to Italy. And today you think you went to Bangladesh!
Training Phase #2—Thoroughly Understanding My Vows
One of the chief determinants of marital toughness is the degree to which your promises to your spouse are current—that is, the degree to which you passionately affirm them today. Marriage counselors and psychologists observe that most married persons’ awareness of the promises they made on their wedding day declines over time.
Many “older-married people” in our society have little more than a superficial understanding of what they pledged to their spouse. Many of them have just taken a “stick it out” form of commitment. Of course of all the vows they took that’s the least important.
The sad fact is that most persons who enter marriage take their vows in a very haphazard and superficial way.
Roll Video “Vows”
For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. Romans 7:2 (NIV)
Training Phase # 3—Burning My Vows Into My Heart
Toughness requires an active approach to marriage. Staying in a marriage can be totally passive; you don’t leave, but you don’t do anything to make the marriage better.
The radical part of the vows is where you promise to love the other person through every kind of circumstance for as long as you both shall live. Moreover, you vow to honor and cherish you spouse. Not only that, but you also promise to perform every duty that a husband or wife owes to his or her partner for as long as you both shall live.
Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. Hebrews 13:4 (NIV)
TOUGHNESS EXPONENTIALLY STRENGTHENS MY MARRIAGE
Introduce Opportunity To Renew Vows Here—Mike plays softly in the background
The secret of a lasting marriage is summed up in one word. It’s the word “commitment.” Not romance. Commitment. It takes far more than romantic feelings to make a marriage last because you don’t always feel romantic, do you? But you have feelings that come and go. You didn’t always feel like staying together. Every marriage has had problems. But maturity, emotional maturity – is when you begin to live by your commitments not your feelings.
So today, those of you who are standing. I honor you that you’re still together. You’ve made it this far. Not because you always felt that way but because you made a commitment. That’s why the most important part of a wedding is the commitment time where you commit to each other.
What you’re about to do – this recommitment of your marriage vows – in many ways is far more important and significant than your wedding vows. Because now you know this person. You know their weaknesses – every one of them. And they know your weaknesses – every one of them. So you’re not making a commitment to a fantasy. This is reality. You know each other is not perfect. You’ve experienced many times together. Your marriage has been tested by time, by problems, by trials. You have a greater understanding of what commitment is all about. So in many ways what you’re about to do is now far more significant.
Men, I want you to look into your wife’s eyes. I challenge you now before God and before all of these witnesses that you’re to accept this woman that you’re looking at as a gift from God. She is God’s gift to you. You are to love her unconditionally. You are to accept every part of your wife, including those parts that irritate you. Although she h as ever few of those. Practically none. You are to love every part of her because the Bible says that once you are united in marriage in God’s eyes the two become one. So to reject any part of your wife would be in essence to reject yourself because God sees you as one. Men, you’re to love this woman as Christ loved the church – sacrificially. Putting her needs before your own. You’re to love her and let your love be an example of Christ’s love for us.
Likewise, ladies, as you look at this man, I challenge you and charge you before God to accept this man as God’s gift to you. He is God’s gift to you. You are to love him unconditionally. To reject any part of him would be in essence to reject yourself because you are one with him. Your love is to be an example of God’s love for each other.
Go To Wedding Manual Here
Prayer
