Money in Marriage

This installment of Closing the Gaps is brought to you by my friend, Thanou Thammavongsa-w/ some editing from your's truly. He and his wife Alison are great examples of a couple who have handled their finances in a way that most of us don't. Enjoy

Money is possibly the touchiest subject a couple will eventually discuss during their first few years of marriage. The way each of us had been raised affects our view of money and how to use it. If your household had money for things like vacations, private school tuition, your first car at 16, or luxury items like quads or even boats, it will impact your view on money. In the reverse situation, if you qualified for free lunch, riding the school bus until graduation, your mom gave you bad haircuts, or no year books at the end of the year- you have been impacted in a slightly different way in regards to your view on money.
Coming into a marriage, those things need to be shared, exposed and discussed. While the back story of one’s financial environment growing up could be both good and bad memories, they are important items to discuss and learn about each other through. You may find yourself in a marriage where there is plenty of money or one in which financial stability is a distant dream. Regardless of your take home pay, money still needs to be allocated, to bills, food, mortgage and that car that you wished you never bought brand new.
We must come to realize that the only way handling money as a couple can work is by literally bringing everything to the ante pile. Hold out your hands palms out in front of you and slowly shove your possessions, anxieties, current bills, students loans…etc, forward in one clean push to the center of the table. Declaring that you are willing to go “all in” with your partner, regardless of the jobs you hold, the checks you bring home. I’ve worked four jobs once, while my wife worked two. We were in an uncomfortable situation, but I knew that if we didn’t act NOW, we’d stay uncomfortable for the rest of our marriage. After a mere 8-9 months of hard work and sacrifice, we turned the intensity down, watched our past mistakes dwindle down in the distance as we walked together forward and never looked back at them.
Handling money in a marriage is a partnership; everything is per se, a business decision. It seems that every marriage has a natural saver, and a natural spender. Both of these can be honored and respected, each can have what they want if the necessary expenses are first attended to, and by that I mean, lights, food, transportation and shelter. Once those are done, plan the rest together, like vacations and nights out and the ever so important savings account. Keep a written budget sheet. That way there are no surprises as to where the money has gone to. You both know the expenses and you know the cost of your “life” together. This brings us back to that ante pile, everything is in the open, on the table, ready to share with your partner, there are no others players here, and you are the recipients of that pot. Do it together, because this is the last thing you want to gamble with in your marriage. Partner up, as “money” is one of the leading causes of divorces nowadays; this can be the cause that draws you closer to your spouse. Don’t just work for your money, learn how to have your money work for you, teach it how to behave and don’t let it tell you what to do. You can do it.
Thanou

Lead Your Heart

Jeremiah 17:9 says, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?"

Well that doesn't sound too exciting or happy. I'm sure Pastor Osteen won't be preaching on this passage anytime soon. So what does that verse and many others tell us about our hearts?

First of all scripture generally uses the word "heart" to talk about our emotions, not our actual physical blood pumping heart. The actual blood pumping heart is actually very trustworthy and reliable, our emotions- not so much.

Because our emotions are un-reliable we must learn how to lead our them instead of following them. Too many people base their decisions and actions upon their emotions not their will. How many times have you heard someone say, "I'm just not in love anymore." What they are saying is that their heart just isn't in the relationship. Why do our emotions lead us down paths we would never chose to go down. I think it comes down to the simple principle of investment.

What is the principle of investment? Jesus said, where your treasure is that is where your heart is. Your heart will follow your investments. If you spend your time and energy all on your kids, you will love them more than your spouse, at work, on a hobby, at the mall, and with that co-worker who just gets you better than your spouse does. Maybe if you talked to your spouse and invested time and energy into him or her, they would "get" you like the co-worker does.


The main point here is that your heart follows your investment (got that from the Love Dare book). If we don't love our spouse it’s because we have invested our heart elsewhere. Start investing again, go for a walk together. Lot's of people have date nights- husbands you should be planning those nights not your wife. Date night is sorta like holding the door open, men are suppose to do those things. Your heart will follow your lead, where are you leading your heart?

Kristi and I have lunch together every Thursday. We have date nights on a random basis. We spend 3-4 evenings alone doing something together once our kids are in bed. What are some ways you are investing in your marriage? How does this principle apply to singles?

I really do love my kids

I think the hardest obstacle to a dynamic marriage is children. We all realize that our children are an incredible blessing and responsibility. Our marriage is however, our first priority. We often forget that someday our kids will leave home (hopefully) and you are stuck with your wife or husband for life.
The best thing you can do for your children is to show them a great marriage. Our kids know they are loved and valued, but they also know we place great priority on our marriage than on them. We cannot let our children run our families and at the same time build a dynamic marriage.

Too many families are run by their children today. It is easy to see how it happens. Kids are busy today, they are in dance classes, art classes, sports, martial arts, tutoring, and church activities. None of these things look very harmful at the surface, but collectively they add up to kids that are being shuttle from lessons and practices with no real grasp of what childhood looks like. If your family, is so busy keeping up all the activities your kids are under taking, that you don’t have time to invest in your marriage then you need to slow down the pace of your entire family. For the sake of your marriage are you willing to tell your son or daughter that they can’t be on the travel team?

The principal here is about the priority structure of our families. The first priority is our relationship with God, both individually and as a family. The second priority is our relationship with our spouse. Our relationship with our children comes in third place. Most people feel like prioritizing one relationship over another means you have to love one person less than the others. Not true.

Look at this way, have you ever heard a woman say, “my husband loves God so much and has no love left-over for me?” I’ve never heard anyone say that before. Your children will never say, “my mom and dad love each other so much that they don’t have any love leftover for us kids.” Won’t happen, no child ever sits in a counselors chair and says, “my parents were so in love and that’s what ruined my life.”

What I have heard time and time again is this: “I am so busy taking my kids to stuff that I don’t have time for a date night w/ my wife.” I’ve said those very words myself. We can all justify our current behavior and schedules but if you don’t prioritize the relationship with your spouse with some very real and tangible actions then you will some day look across a dinner table and see a stranger whom you don’t love any longer. Life and marriage is too complicated to run on auto-pilot.

Don’t let your kids ruin a perfectly good marriage.

Not to be happy?

The purpose of my marriage is not to make me happy.
I believe that by following God's description of love you will have the most reliable way to build a dynamic marriage. I Corinthians 13 is the most exhaustive description of Love in the Bible, so it's a good place to start.

I Corinthians 13:5 says, that love is not self-seeking. If love is not self-seeking then what is it? It is looking to another person as someone you have the opportunity to serve rather than someone who serves you. Too often we look at marriage as something that is supposed to bring me continual joy and happiness. Don't believe me? How often have you heard someone on the brink of divorce say, "I'm just not in love anymore" or "I don't feel anything for my spouse?"

I’m not trying to say you won’t find happiness or joy in your marriage; it should provide companionship, pleasure, and other positive emotions and experiences.
We just have to remember that those things are side effects of a marriage that honors God, not the point of a marriage. Did you pick up on that one? Joy, happiness, companionship, intimacy, and pleasure are the side effects of a marriage that is self-less. If you find yourself in any significant relationship that is not meeting your needs, then you need to evaluate the purpose of that relationship.

If we realize that our marriage is about brining God glory and not bringing ourselves bliss, then we have taken the first step toward a dynamic marriage.

Dynamic Marriages

This weekend at Christ's Church of Flagstaff, my wife and I tag-teamed the sermon. Our title was Dynamic Marriage. We hit on four lessons we have learned along the way. This week my plan is to expand on these four topics here at Closing the Gaps, and add a topic or two that we cut from the message.

Here are the four lessons:
Understand that the purpose of your marriage is NOT to make you happy.
Learn how to communicate and receive Love in the Language of your spouse.
Never let your kids ruin a perfectly good marriage.
Learn how to lead your heart instead of following it.

What are some other relationship topics you'd like to explore?
If you find yourself in a marriage or other important relationship that seems to be struggling remember this- everyone goes through tough times. If you bail during the tough times you'll never know the joy and intimacy that comes from working through the those tough times. Sometimes spouses end up like soldiers in a fox hole- bonded together for life because they survived the darkest of nights.

Send some questions or issues and we would love to share our insights. Our marriage is not perfect, but we have learned some incredible lessons along the way.

Here is the audio of Kristi's debut in Flagstaff:
http://www.ccof.net/index.php?%2Fpodcasts%2FSingleEpisode%2F2145

People with Questions

Today I'm meeting with two different men with two very different sets of questions about Christianity. The first is a recent church attender who is considering baptism. The main obstacles are that he doesn't believe in any miracles, that Jesus was sinless, and that the Bible is full of exaggeration. Other than those three things his views are very orthodox.

The second meeting is with an NAU student who is interviewing me for a class assignment. He sent me a list of questions that include things like, "why did you chose to become a non-denominational Christian as opposed to Baptist, Methodist, etc?" Another one was, "What purpose do songs provide during the service?"

This thought has consumed my thinking this past week- We have millions of people coming to an Easter Service sometime this weekend all over the world, and we are going to give them answers to questions they aren't asking. What are you and I doing to make sure we hear the right questions and are providing honest answers? If you preach or teach at a local church somewhere stop and ask yourself, "what questions does this audience have?" If you don't know then spend some time with folks who are honest (honest people are usually hard to find at church- most church people are too polite to be honest about church and God stuff- just saying) and once you've found your honest person ask them questions. Hard questions. Have a non-Christian friend listen to one of your sermons or lessons and tell you all the things you said they didn't understand.

What are some other ways we can listen and learn the real questions of people?

Legacy

I am in Kansas to celebrate the life of my wife's grandfather. Donald "Jiggs" Wilson went home on February 28th. His legacy will last much longer than his 95 years of time on earth. When I first met grandpa Jiggs I was in college and dating his youngest grandchild. He used to all ask me if she was giving me "good lovin and squeezin", nothing makes a young guy more uncomfortable than his girlfriend's grandfather talking about making out, but that was grandpa Jiggs.


His legacy will last much longer than his 95 years. Jiggs was one of the most unique people I've ever met. It is an incredible privilege to be a part of his family and to have had so much time with him and Frances. It strikes me how Jiggs and Frances were able to make everyone feel important. I was not a part of the family until I was married to Kristi, I was grafted into an incredible family. It reminds me of what scripture says when it speaks of God grafting us into His family (Romans 11). Jiggs never treated me like an outsider or waited to see if I was going to make it long-term, he accepted me for who I was and treated me like a grandson.


When I was in college at MCC, I preached for 6 months at the Christian Church in Wilsey. When church was over Kristi and I would drive over to the farm and have Sunday dinner (lunch) with her Grandparents. They were great times- just the four of us. He would always give me a summary of how their preacher did that morning, who just happened to be my good friend Devin Wendt. Week after week Jiggs would go on and on about the fact that Devin did not give a proper invitation. I would on occasion mention that only 17 people were in church and that Devin could clearly see that they were all life-long Christians and an invitation wasn't necessary. His comeback was always, "They might want to re-dedicate their life" or "You never know who needs Jesus and who doesn't". When I filled the pulpit at Pleasant Ridge while Devin was gone, I spent a great deal of time crafting an incredible invitation, Billy Graham would have been proud! That afternoon over the roast, potatoes, and Jell-O, Jiggs told me I preached the best sermon they'd heard at Pleasant Ridge. You and I both know that 22 year old Bible College students don't preach good sermons, but those 3 weeks I filled in I rocked the invitation so that Grandpa Jiggs would approve.

The legacy of Jiggs will last much longer than his 95 years. His children all are following Jesus and impacting their communities and churches. His grandchildren are making an incredible impact as well. No one yet knows what his great-grandchildren will do, but they are building their lives on an incredible foundation of faith. They are carrying on a legacy which will end up literally bringing 10's of thousands of people to heaven to march in the parade with Grandpa Jiggs.

At the Celebration Service someone pointed out that Grandpa Jiggs attended a tiny church and never lived outside of Morris County, KS. Understand when I say a tiny church I mean tiny. We all think the size of our church or our education correlate to our potential impact. The impact we can have in life has nothing to do with our education, the size of our church, or even our own abilities. It has to do with Passion, Consistency, Character, and Encouragement. Those were the words used over and over again to describe Grandpa Jiggs.

If you and I will leave even half the legacy he did, then the Great Commission will be complete in this generation. The last 2 days we've been sharing all the stories of Grandpa and trust me they have been entertaining. Jiggs was an incredible man with an even bigger personality.

You always knew what he thought, and you always knew he wanted you to get better. Everyone who had the privilege to spend time with Jiggs had the opportunity to be a better person. I hope they took advantage. His legacy will last much longer than his 95 years. What will our legacy look like?

For those of you, who knew him, share a story or two here: