About

Waking Up to Your Mates World June 27, 2021 MVC I. Our Relationship A. Let me start by saying that Kim and I have had a very good marriage relationship but we definitely hit a wall about 20 years into our marriage where things were not too pretty! 1. Today we want to share with you that story and some lessons we have learned along the way hoping that you will be able to find something that connects with and helps you! B. Kim and I had become what I call “professional husband and wife” and “professional parents.” 1. By that I do not mean that we have become so great in those areas that we are in a higher category than others but rather that we have learned the routine well, we know what we need to do and we were doing it well. a. We have learned well how to juggle all of the different responsibilities and schedules and we are doing what we need to do. 2. But also by professional I mean that we have learned to do it in a way that all the external things were done (kids to school and events, bills paid, house taken care of, meals were made), but internally our hearts were getting more and more dry and distant from each other. 3. Somehow, with all the busyness and responsibilities of life we were not intentional nor gave the time needed to keep the internal fire going in our relationship. a. By internal fire, I am referring to that thing that the Scripture calls “cherishing.” b. That is the heart disposition that holds the other person as dear. It is those tender affectionate feelings that cause you to treasure the other person, to hold them as a special prize, to esteem and admire. 4. We found ourselves set into some patterns in our relationship that over the long run were deadly. 5. Some years ago, the Saturday Evening Post ran a humorous article that traced the tendency for marriage partners to drift from a height of bliss into the humdrum of routine attitudes. That article perfectly described the drift in our relationship! The article was called the “seven ages of a married cold.” The article likens the state of the marriage to the reaction of a husband to his wife’s colds. Year 1- “baby girl, I’m worried about you. You have a bad sniffle and there is no telling about these things with all this strep around. I am putting you in the hospital this afternoon for a general checkup and a good rest. I know the food is lousy, but I’ll bring your meals in from Rossini’s. I’ve already got it arranged with the floor superintendent.” Year 2- “listen darling, I don’t like the sound of that cough and I’ve called Doc Miller to rush over here. Now you go to bed like a good girl, please. Just for papa.” Year 3-, “maybe you’d better lie down, honey; nothing like a little rest when you feel punk. I’ll bring you something to eat. Have we got any soup?” Year 4- “look, dear, be sensible. After you feed the kids and get the dishes washed, you’d better hit the sack.” Year 5-, “why don’t you get yourself a couple of aspirin?” Year 6- “if you’d just gargle or something, instead of sitting around barking like a seal!” Year 7- “for Pete’s sake, stop sneezing! Whatcha trying to do, gimme pneumonia?” 6. Back then Pat and I found our marriage to be somewhere between year 6 & 7. It became a wakeup call for us. C. We were beginning to be very short with one another and I was getting to the place where I was not that excited about coming home at night and she was pretty happy to see me leave in the morning. 1. To me it felt like our relationship was on two different tracks. We were like two trains heading the same direction but each on a separate track next to each other! 2. For a few years, I had been struggling with my health to the point that I was close to bedridden for many months. My doctors could not determine what was going on so we went to Mayo Clinic. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder called fibromyalgia. It is a muscle/neurological disorder, which causes chronic pain & fatigue. a. There is no cure for this, but rather you learn to live with it by managing it through various lifestyle changes. There are medications to help ease the pain but the side effects are not worth it to me. b. I was always a very active & athletic person with a high energy level. I found myself restricted with many limitations in what I could do. In the beginning this situation left me very incapacitated, discouraged and grieving the loss of the person I had become. I was wrestling with embracing and accepting these limitations and struggling with figuring out how to live my life in light of them. 3. Pat found himself picking up much of the load of what I had to let go of. At first he picked it up with joy because we finally had a clear diagnosis, but as time went on it became a huge burden and Pat found himself resentful and angry with me for the person I had become. 4. How do you tell your wife that you are not sure that you even like your wife any more, especially when you are the senior pastor of a church and you have been preaching a series on becoming lovers of God and people? 5. We went to bed one Saturday evening after another hard day with one another. We had a rough exchange of words a couple of hours before and had spoken little to each other. I finally turned to Pat and said, “Pat, I want to apologize for the person that I have become. I know I am not the person you married 20 years ago and I don’t like the person I’ve become either. In fact, I’m grieving the person I once was, full of energy and life.” a. You do not know how that freed up my heart. What I was feeling was true, she has changed and even she knows it. I had the best night of sleep that I had had in months 6. The next morning I was able to share with Kim how I was feeling and that I had been deeply disappointed in the person she had become and the changes that had taken place in our life. E. My sharing with Kim the disappointments that I was feeling allowed her to come in touch and freed up to communicate to me the disappointments that she had with our relationship and me. 1. Her primary disappointment was that a. I had not provided for her a very exciting life, b. The church had become the “other woman” in my life and she and the girls were pushed to the side. c. She was dying on the inside and now battling her physical health 2. I did not defend myself because instantly I knew that she was right. You see an exciting date in the Peglow household is going to a small group meeting, or assisting me in a counseling session, or going to some ministry activity or to a child’s sporting event or school activity. Other than that, there is not much going. 3. I put no intentionality or creative energy into our marriage relationship. F. We knew we were in trouble and God in His grace put in our path a marriage retreat that was just for couples in ministry with the unique struggles they go through. We got three major take aways from that conference that put us back on track and relaunched our marriage. II. Lessons Pat Learned 1. Start all over – get remarried … – to the same person! 1. We heard Ray and Ann Ortland at a conference speak about this very thing of us not being the person we married! 2. They said we need to renew our marriage vows with the people we have become today. 3. And we need to remarry the person they have become over and over again throughout the years. 4. Kim and I received that as God’s word for us and we did and have done that repeatedly since then! B. Secondly, while walking with Jesus is essential to a healthy relationship, marital skills are very important too! 1. I felt if you just meet with Jesus regularly and walk with Him that is all you need and that everything else in the marriage will fall in place supernaturally! 2. Yes, it is true that Jesus is essential to give you the heart you need for marriage but the skills are very important to make you that much more effective and less combative and stressful in your relationship. C. Enter into, appreciate, and value your mate’s world! Kim had entered into my world (my interests, my activities, my loves, etc.,) but I never entered into hers! Remember I am serving God – I am a pastor I need to focus on the more important things! 1. Read 5:25. Emphasize, "Gave himself up for her…" a. That phrase "gave himself up for her" explains how a husband loves his wife. He sacrifices himself in order to do what is best for her. 2. What God was challenging me to do was to "lay down or leave my world in order to enter into her world." One of the things that Ephesians 5:25 is calling husbands to do is to lay down their world, the things that come natural to them, the things they are comfortable and familiar with and enter into their wife’s world that is just as important and valuable as yours!" 3. All I had ever done was invite Kim to enter into my world of ministry and my interests rather than entering into her world of responsibilities and her interests. 4. Therefore, my new mission from God was clear. Meet my wife’s practical needs that I had neglected for years and the only way that I was going to meet it was by stepping outside of my world and entering into hers. 5. Not only is her world important but she is actually my number one ministry even above the church and my number one relationship priority outside of Jesus! ¨ A few other lessons God has taught us! III. Lessons learned - Kim A. It is important for a married couple to work as a team as a practical outworking of what it means to be one. Ecclesiastes 4: 9-12 “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. Furthermore, if two lie down together they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone? In addition, if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.” 1. Responsibilities: we work as a team and share in household duties and raising & parenting our children according to our time schedules & commitments. 2. Decision making – we’ve learned to listen and hear each other out when making major decisions and not act on a decision until we have both prayed about it and are unified in it. 3. One area that I hear now and then with couples is the “mine and yours” mentality regarding finances. You have become one and your names both need to be on the bank accounts, credit cards, mortgage and car titles. B. Take time to study your mate 1. Do you realize that God made males and females different? In fact, in Psalm 139, it says he made each one of us unique and different in our mother’s womb, whether male or female. 2. Listen to this quote from Gary Thomas from his book “Cherish”… “Your spouse has a unique history, so cherish your spouse by treating them according to their reality. They are living a life that has never been lived before. They have a personality that has never existed before. They have a unique blend of strengths and weaknesses, temptations and gifts, as well as a once-in-a-universe calling. Your role is to help them complete their one-of-akind story.” 3. Take time to discover one another. Men, is she a verbal processor? Does he need down time when he comes home from work? What are your spouse’s hobbies, favorite flower, candy, food, types of movies, books, activities, places they love to go? What energizes or depletes your mate? What are their love languages (physical touch, receiving gifts, acts of kindness, words of affirmation, quality time? What language(s) fill their love tank up? 4. What are their inner quality traits & characteristics? What areas are their strengths & weaknesses? 5. Study your mates so you can begin to practically cultivate a relationship where you both can express and cherish your love to each other according to your knowledge of one another. Some ways to do this are: a. Begin to and practice praising and affirming their inner character and personality traits and strengths. i.e... smart, kind, funny, great sense of humor, parent well, loyal friend, athletic, good listener, uses their time wisely, great cook/griller/baker, creative, good provider, heart for God and His Word, good listener, wise, teachable, or good teachers, live within their means. b. Pray often and regularly with them. c. Lovingly exhort them to work on their areas of weakness and to excel still the more physically, spiritually, emotionally and intellectually. d. Pat with sils; love notes/candy bar under pillow/ in restaurant Pat said I was kind and beautiful 6. Simply - come along side each other, support one another in becoming the personal story that God has written for them, and created them to be. 7. Why this is important: your attentiveness and interest in one another will deeply convey and communicate your undying, unwavering love for each other. It will demonstrate that your spouse is the most important person in your life other than Jesus. It will warm their heart toward you in such a way that they will begin to naturally respond back to you in like manner. 8. It doesn’t take being a rocket scientist to study your mate and get to know them. IV. Final take aways A. Of the things we heard today, which area needs the most attention for you to improve your marriage? a. Maybe you need to be remarried to the same person. Either publicly or privately renew my vows with the person who my mate is today! b. Study your mate and appreciate their uniqueness and unique needs! c. Maybe it is another area we mentioned today C. Conversation starter – You know what baby, ________________ is the area I believe I need to give attention to in order for our marriage to excel still the more. Is there an area God has spoken to you about? D. You may have hit walls that are way more serious or bigger than mine and Kim’s – remember as I said “skills are very important but turning to and trusting Jesus is essential 1. We have people here to pray with you. 2 Corinthians 1:10b-11a 2. The song we are going to close with today is “there’s nothing that our God can’t do” and that is true with your marriage and mine. One word, one touch from Jesus and the power of heaven will be in your marriage– there is no power like the power of Jesus! Jeremiah 32:17 E. As we sing this song this morning, sing it out in faith and your prayer to the Lord regarding your life and marriage. F. Pray for marriages!