Sep 24 2017 Priorities 5 - The Priority of Family and Relationships

Hi I am Henry Raupp and this is my wife, Suzanne.

We were married in 1980 and had dated for 5 years, 366 days and 23 hours before we were married.

Who is Henry: Henry is an individualist who is highly motivated to analyse systems, to plan strategies for performance improvement, to initiate action, and to solve problems.

He is highly motivated to “leave people in a different attitudinal state than when he found them”.

How would you like to be married to that?

When we married we moved from familiar places and kin and went to upstate N.Y. to establish our camp.

We were going to get our slice of the American Dream and consume it like cold watermelon on a hot day.

We hit the ground running, worked hard and argued much.

The plan was working, but not much fun.

It was the plan though and there was some belief that if we could stand the pace long enough, someday there would be time to talk, time to smile, perhaps time to laugh and eat some watermelon.

That time, however was not the time we were living in.

Then God showed up, grabbed me gently and firmly by the nape of the neck and helped me have a different understanding of who he was and who I was.

This, however, is a story for another day.

So: We got the Charismatic Christian view in our sights, and we hit the ground running. We did Christian stuff (lots and lots and lots of stuff). We were attacking every opposing doctrine, attending every meeting, every event, every extra Christian Credit program.

It was not so much fun.

But, we told ourselves that it WAS the work of the church, we were joining in the suffering of Christ.

We were so busy we almost never spoke about anything of substance.

The marriage was easier but not better.

There was some comfort in the company of the saints. We had a pair of great small group leaders (Martin and Constance Root).

They saw us, they knew how we were living and loved us anyway.

Things became so bad that my wife announced that she was packing her bags and leaving. Now!

Well, I thought, I did not expect this.

What do I do?

I call Marty!!!

Hi Marty. Hey I have a bit of a problem and I could use some advice. My wife is upstairs packing and she is leaving me.

Marty: Suzanne is leaving you. Today. Right Now?

Henry: Yep, that’s what she said.

Marty: Oh My.

Henry: What should I do Marty?

Marty: Marty Chuckles, pauses and says “Hide her car keys!”

I say: What?

Marty says: Yeah, hide her car keys, Connie and I will be over in just a few minutes.

Well, Connie and Marty (AKA Mom and Dad) talked us down, prayed for us, and told us to get some sleep.

We did this drill on 2 additional occasions. The third time (the third time is always the charm). I said: You know Marty, I think we should consider actual, real, marriage counselling. I don’t think we are going to make it over this hill by ourselves.

Marty adopted a serious and thoughtful pose and said I think that may be a good idea.

Connie said” well… finally,

I said you think we should? She said, Oh Henry! Yes, I think you should.

I said If this is what you thought why did you not tell us?

Connie said: There was no value in telling you until you were ready to do it yourself.

Suzanne: I titled this: “Marrying someone else who is also a sinner.”

I was married at age 20 – I was not a Christian when we got married. My personality survey says that she is competitive – and will leave a person in a different attitudinal state than when she finds them! What a coincidence!

I had no one to give me good advice as to what a strong Christian marriage looks like. The extent of our premarital counseling was what to do during the ceremony

We had doorframes that needed to be reset because one of us would slam them in anger. That was me. Dissatisfaction with myself and with Henry. We had children who would tread carefully around our adult tantrums. And we had our pride.

After what had occurred with what Henry was sharing - We had two-three years of marriage counseling after that – but also a group of people who loved and supported us – to listen and help us limp along the way.

I would like to say it went smoothly – but that would be a lie. We argued (in counseling sessions). It was uncomfortable at times and embarrassing at times. I would like to say that when we were done, we didn’t need any more outside help...that we had arrived…

That would also be a lie.

For the next 30 years we’ve had to work to maintain our relationship. Some days, ‘healthy relationship’ means that we haven’t tried to kill each other. We both still need to apologize for saying harsh things, being selfish, wanting to have our own ways. Marriage counseling is not about getting it right – or having a model relationship, It’s about caring deeply for another person and wanting to see that person prosper in Christ and to become the person God wants them to be. Learning to pray and accept weaknesses.

It’s about valuing your spouse for their strengths and learning to pray and have grace for their weaknesses, not to make them over in your image of a perfect spouse, but to let them be formed into the image of Christ in His timing.

We would be happy to talk to anyone that has any questions anytime.

Mike Marette: Today – we are talking about the priority of family and relationships. There will be some overlap here with Henry and Suzanne. I realize that not everyone is in the same situation or is married or has children – but everyone has some family of some kind – making it a priority – it may be husband wife, parent child, siblings, grandparent/grandchild – which is the most important priority - can I get an amen?

All of us would agree – family (whatever that is to each of us) must be a priority – so I won’t yell it and make you feel guilty. I would like to talk about 3 things in making family a priority. Some practical things to make family relationships a priority. There are some to-dos that will help.

We will look at and try to understand what the main roadblocks and obstacles are to prioritizing your family…

– and then third - to look at the key to making family a priority.

First – the practical. We must understand that God places a high priority on the family. That is practical step number one.

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth." (Gen 1:26 NET)

What we see first – He created us to be His image-bearers – and so God created the family structure to represent God and reflect Him to all of creation. It is through this context of family that humanity will do this most fully.

Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him." (Gen 2:18 NLT)

This goes into the marriage relationships - God has set up a balance of His image. The perfect balance of what God has called humanity to represent. For many – their experience of family is not so good – has not been so good. That is just a reality. There are plenty – where it is dysfunctional and messed up. Even if you came from the best of families. We all have marital difficulties – even if you have the best of marriages.

God putting a priority on family goes on – in the Ten Commandments:

Ex. 20:12 "Honor your father and mother. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

Family is so important to God, that in the middle of the Big Ten, there is this commandment on family – the first commandment with a promise, as Jesus said – family plays a critical role - how you relate within your family will have a significant impact on how you will experience life. When we learn to relate within the family well, there is this promise of our experience of life being good. We all have a ways to go.

I want to help us to relate well – as Henry and Suzanne have shared.

The Shema - The Jewish people still say this daily – it is like the epicenter of their faith. : Deuteronomy 6: 4 "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

This is like the Jewish Pledge of Allegiance

6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children,

At the center of faith - He brings the importance of family into the heart of our faith.

God’s will and desire is for us to make family a priority.

Proverbs 21:5The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage, But everyone who is hasty comes surely to poverty.

If you hope to make your family a priority – it requires planning and scheduling. It won’t happen by osmosis.

NLT Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.

The old cliché is true – if you fail to plan you plan to fail. If you don’t plan and schedule family stuff, other things will fill the void. They do it all the time.

It can be a formal schedule or informal. It could be informal, where you have a habit of having a family dinner or a movie night or game night. It does not matter that it is formal, but consistent.

Ecclesiastes 10:18 Laziness leads to a sagging roof; idleness leads to a leaky house.

It is about a house, but it is about everything else, isn’t it. If your house has ever needed attention and you put it off - Does it get better? No. Never. The same is true of family. With your car, you develop a routine with certain things – maintenance that makes the car last. We need to learn to develop good routines.

When we had little children, one of the things we did well – we had a good bedtime routine. It was nonnegotiable. It lasted from 30-45 minutes. It was about reconnecting. Every night for our children – ended the same. It was connective and brought the relationships together. We need to do something similar for whatever season we are in.

When our final kid left the nest, we had to develop different routines – it might be simple like having movie night. We would go to the Nat together. Except we wouldn’t actually work out together – we just drove there together… She would do power lifting and I would do goat yoga. There is such a thing!

We need routines.

4^th – Henry and Suzanne mentioned this – Prov. 15:22 Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.

Many. Don’t just get counsel from one. We have this idea of how things should be done – and so we find people who agree with that! Everyone does things differently. There is not a ‘this is God’s way’ to make children or family a priority. We need to learn to adopt and adapt what we hear from others – but don’t copy. The specific things that work for them might not work for you. You have to learn from those who have lived life differently.

Now, with counseling, I will say this – there is getting advice and learning – but because of dysfunction and problems, sometimes we need long-term counseling. We think of counseling as failure, but it is the opposite – by many counselors, we succeed! We don’t fail – we succeed.

If we fail to get advice, we fail.

Fifth – Learn to adapt to your changing family environment. What works for toddlers won’t work for teens. We learned to adapt – for instance – we have found that doing Christmas the weekend before works best for our adult children.

Six – We need to say no to ‘stuff’ – because without saying no, stuff will always try to get our attention and time and priority.

This leads us to the obstacles and roadblocks.

Song of Solomon 2:15 Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.

It is in the middle of this love story. There are these little foxes getting in there to destroy things – or interfere and do damage. They cause havoc. And in family and marriage, there are things that cause havoc. Stop those things. Discover the little foxes. Some of those little foxes feel more like giant grizzly bears.

Work and career – last week we talked about this. People are cutting staff and not replacing them and asking more of all of us – 50-60 hours per week or more. We get in these situations and there is nothing we can do about it – that is simply the reality for many – there is no change that can take place.

What can we do? We can learn to leave work behind when we enter the family door. That we can do – unless you work from home! If you think about it – if your work and commute is 60 hours per week, and you sleep, say, 8 hours/day – you have approximately 50 hours left. Half are probably spent on the necessities of life. It may be 12-25 hours left – and I would suggest – in that remaining time – be completely and fully engaged.

Learn to do necessities together. It might mean taking kids to the grocery store – it was just to have them with me – or cleaning up from the time they are two (Mike sings, Clean up, clean up, everybody every where… worth the price of watching the video!). Then it goes from doing housework to doing yardwork together. Making kids a priority in life means teaching them how to work.

For us at this stage of life, if we want to spend time with them – we may have to go down to their houses and work on a project together!

A second roadblock: Entertainment. Entertainment can be a good thing. Movie night and pizza – having a neighbor over – that was a blast! It was fun – you can do it as a family and enjoy it. The problem is when we do it to disengage. That is what happens a lot. I remember with the boys – watching OSU – could be a great family bonding time until Dad got out of the spirit, and then that is the end of the family bonding time – and that happened more than I am willing to admit.

Third – devices and connectivity. I remember when texting first started – why is that phone on – why are you doing this stuff! The devices that keep us connected can disconnect us from family relationships. And focus on the connecting.

Fourth - Expectations. False and unattainable expectations – we have an idealized and romanticized view of family and marriage. We compare ourselves with others – maybe a movie or someone we know. And when we don’t meet that ideal, we disengage. No one meets the ideal of Hollywood – do you know why? Television is not real. When we counsel engaged couples – we talk about false expectations. There is a song from Coldplay (I’m told Coldplay is for old people who want to listen to new stuff) – I want to quote the hook line – “I’m not looking for somebody with superhuman gifts, a superhero, a fairytale bliss.

Some enter marriage with this – and it is a real downer! This can be detrimental – so stick with me – it will get worse before it gets better. If you believe you have found fairytale bliss in marriage, you have probably missed it altogether. I have found - It is in the hard and difficult work of loving that marriages and families endure and flourish.

Finally – the most important thing – in making family a priority –

Colossians 3:12 Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

What is amazing about this verse? What follows this in Colossians are Paul’s instructions on family. He is saying - If you don’t have love, - especially that bears and forgives – you will fail, because that is what makes families works.

The old saying - Being in love means never saying you are sorry. Never saying you’re sorry means you have never been in love.