MMA: Find One Thing This Week

I’m in Roseville, CA beginning my training for my new job, and am staying with my good friend Rick Sisson and his family for a few days.  Today is his daughter’s birthday (Elsa) – she turns 9!  I remember when I was applying for the youth pastor job at Providence Bible Church (where Rick is the pastor) in February of ’06 and Elsa was 2… man, I’m starting to feel old as all these kids grow up around me.  So this morning I got to spend a little time with Elsa and the gang before they went off to school.  Anyways, that’s just a little context.

 

This morning’s MMA is real short, because my time is short and Monday snuck up on me… by the way, here is

MMA: Satan Hates Your Marriage

Do you ever spend time considering the fact that you have an Enemy?  Someone who desires the violent, agonizing, and embarrassing end to your marriage?  The Enemy goes by several names in Scripture, most popularly the Devil and Satan.  This is not popular to talk about for at least two reasons.  Firstly, people would like to think and believe that it’s hogwash – “an Enemy of MY marriage?  Why would he care?”  Also, even if we give casual ascent to the fact that he exists, we would just rather not consider him as desiring such painful things in our lives.

But you do have an Enemy.  He is the “great deceiver” – great in that he’s very good at what he does, and in that he’s very powerful and influential.  He succeeds in tricking us of the two extremes – that he either does not exist at all or that every single negative thing in your life is a result of his attacks and lies, as if he’s always paying personal attention to you.  First of all, he’s not always paying personal attention to you, and second of all

MMA: You Can’t Do It Alone

If you needed help in your marriage, and decided you needed help from someone who has been married at least twice as long as you, who would you contact?  Now if you’ve been married 5 months, like some of my friends, the answer may not be hard because there’s all kinds of people married twice as long as you.  But if you’ve been married over five years (like us), do you have a couple that comes to mind who has been married over 10 years?  If you’ve been married 15 years, is there a couple in your life that you really respect who has been at it over 30 years?  If you’ve been married 40 years, do you know a couple married over 80 years?  Of course you don’t… clearly this scenario has its limits.

 

Marriage is the tightest human union ever made.  And, it was made – thought up by God himself, given as a great gift of his grace.  Marriage is under the rubric we refer to as

MMA: Do You Know Your Spouse’s Strengths?

“What?  You’re W.O.O. too?!” 

“Ya!  Sweet!  No wonder I like you so much!” 

 

This was the interaction between me and my good friend Rick Sisson last night as we discussed the recent findings of his Strengths Finder test.  In case you don’t know, W.O.O. stands for “Winning Others Over” and is one of over 30 different strengths that the test could show you have.  Noelle and Rick’s wife, Elisabeth, were with us last night and we were all suddenly taken up in a lively discussion about knowing your spouse’s strengths.  Sometimes M.M.A. material just falls into my lap.

 

What are your spouse’s greatest strengths?  If I asked you to think for no more than 2 minutes about it and then give me 3-5 of their strongest attributes or abilities, what would you say?  If you aren’t sure you could answer such a question, then perhaps you need to go out and take a test.  Or maybe you just need to get to know your spouse a little better… but I don’t want to jump to too drastic a conclusion about you and your marriage.

 

Today’s advice is straightforward:

MMA: Should You Play Games With Your Spouse?

Remember when remotes actually had cords?

What?  You and your spouse don’t look like this while playing video games together?  Oh, you don’t play video games at all?  Well, Noelle and I don’t either… in fact there is little that bothers Noelle more than the idea of grown men playing video games.  But this MMA (Monday’s Marital Advice) isn’t about the evils of video games.  Instead, I’m talking about the classics – games like Scrabble or Gin Rummy or Pinochle (does anyone still play that?) or Cribbage or Acquire.

 

I grew up in a pretty game-friendly atmosphere – we didn’t exactly do weekly game nights but we liked playing them, and played games of all varieties on road trips.  My favorite word game was always Boggle, which is now Scramble with Friends on the iPhone thanks to Zynga. Noelle, on the other hand, grew up in a super-duper game friendly atmosphere – the kind of stuff legends are made of.  We got married in February 2007 and, well, we play games.  But there’s been a slight problem.

 

I am competitive.  Too competitive at times. Noelle, for the most part

MMA: Identifying and Developing Beauty in Your Spouse

Ladies, do you view your husband as beautiful?  Fellas, do you see your wife as your standard of beauty – that by marrying her, you are committed to the fact that who she is, how she looks, and who she will be in the future will be your very definition of beauty?  Beauty is quite the subjective word, yet we all find certain things and people beautiful.  Some people are widely thought of as beautiful, others perhaps only by their mothers.  But the eye-of-the-beholder discussion regarding skin-deep beauty is not my emphasis today. 

 

I believe a distinguishing mark of most strong marriages is this:  each person is committed to a) making their spouse their standard of physical beauty, b) identifying what is beautiful about the person internally, and c) developing what is presently and potentially beautiful within their spouse.

 

Let’s first narrow in on this idea of “beauty” a bit.  Here is my attempt at a working definition:

MMA: Are You Crazy?

It’s always interesting to me when I hear an unmarried person comment on marriage.  Sometimes, I’m shocked at just how ridiculous their perception of marriage is – seeing it as far too easy and fun or seeing it in far too negative a light.  Sometimes, I’m shocked at how dead-on an unmarried person can be about marriage.  Aren’t we married people supposed to be the experts at marriage?

 

Or maybe, at times, we married folks actually stop paying attention to what’s really happening in marriage and it takes someone with fresh eyes – eyes that have not been affected either by fantastic beginnings or unexpected hardships – to see marriage clearly.  Yes, once in a while it takes a person “outside the ranks” of the marriage establishment to be able to point out something which we need to pay attention to.

 

As I write this, my brother in law (Grant) is sleeping on our living room sofa and

MMA: The Why and How of Taking Little Trips

This past weekend, Noelle and I were able to escape for two nights with some friends to the coast of Oregon.  The little town of Seaside is a wonderful respite – peaceful, slow paced, with a great beach-town vibe.  Even though we planned the trip with our friends about five weeks in advance, I think we underestimated just how much we needed a little trip like this.  What about you – do you need a little trip?  Unless you just got home from one as well, you do.  I’m going to give you two reasons you need a trip and two ways to get one.

 

You need a little trip because little trips pack great restorative power.  Less than 48 hours of legitimate time away can do just as much as five days in some cases.  Plus, they require far less planning and cost far less money.  Be sure to avoid setting the alarm.  Be sure to let yourself take a nap.  If you’re a bit calendar-obsessed like Noelle and I are, try to fill your time with so few plans that it almost makes you uncomfortable.  It will help restore mind, body, and soul.

 

You need a little trip because rest is

MMA: Are You Holy-Spiriting Your Spouse?

You’ve heard me say (or you’ve read me write… whatever) just about a bazillion times that you need to pray for your spouse.  Well, I want to develop that a little bit more and couple it with something you may be doing without knowing it:  Holy-Spiriting your spouse.  You might be familiar with Jesus’ promises concerning the Holy Spirit – that he will guide us into all truth, and will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment (John 16:8-15), and much more.  Here’s my problem, and probably yours as well:  I think I’m my spouse’s Holy Spirit.

 

Granted, I don’t literally go around thinking I’m my spouse’s Holy Spirit, but I will often times think of something I need to help her realize or how I may want to help her change in a certain area.  And when I think of those areas, you know what I usually do?  I set about planning how to bring that thing up, in what manner and at what time I should say it, and maybe even try to imagine what the push-back may be if indeed there will be any.  You know what’s happening in those moments of scheming (even with good intentions)?  You are Holy-Spiriting your spouse.

 

Holy-Spiriting your spouse is

MMA: Space and Grace

When your spouse is being a bit of “downer”, or has a sour mood for some reason, what are you supposed to do?  How should you react?  Whether it has something to do with natural monthly rhythms (how’s that for saying it without saying it?) or not, everyone experiences these downers.  Some people would say the most important thing is to make your spouse talk about it – talk it through, dig around in the reasons why they don’t feel so great or why they are irritated.  Others would say leave them to themselves so you don’t catch the downer/sour mood and then both of you are miserable. 

 

So, which is it?  I’d like to adopt a phrase which my mother-in-law gave me (as an idea for this MMA):  space and grace.  We all need a little S & G sometimes, right?  Sadly, it is easy in marriage to forget that your spouse needs these two essential ingredients, and that they are an easy answer to some common marriage woes.  Let’s dive in.

 

What comes to mind when you think of giving your spouse “space”?  Probably the simplest answer is