by Paul David Tripp

Expecting the Expected

Jim got sick and had to forsake his climb up the corporate ladder. This brought stress into his marriage to Jen that he would never have anticipated. Brad and Savannah got busier and busier and quit communicating as they should, and their relationship paid the price. Brent struggled with a secret sin for years, and when Liz discovered it, it almost ended their marriage. India and Frank always seemed to be in a battle for control. It was an exhausting marriage to be a part of. Alfie and Sue never seemed to be in the same place spiritually. Jared and Sally had an infectious affection for one another, but their financial woes brought much stress to their marriage. Jung's mother pulled her into loyalty battles again and again. It caused lots of conflict between her and Kim.

There are two observations to make about all these marriages. First, none was a bad marriage. No one was about to walk out. No one had been unfaithful as yet. There had been no abuse or violence. But none was experiencing what God had in mind when he created their union in the first place. And all of them were surprised at what they had to face as a couple.

Second, everything that each couple faced is predicted by command, principle, proposition, or perspective in the Bible. These couples should have expected the expected. If they had approached the Bible as a wonderful window onto their marriage, they would have known what to expect and not been surprised at what came their way.

So what are the essential wisdom perspectives that Scripture gives us that enable us to have realistic expectations for our marriage?

1. You Are Conducting Your Marriage in a Fallen World

We all face the same thing. Our marriages live in the middle of a world that does not function as God intended. Somehow, someway, your marriage is touched every day by the brokenness of our world. Maybe it simply has to do with the necessity of living with the low-grade hassles of a broken world, or maybe you are facing major issues that have altered the course of your life and your marriage. But there is one thing for sure: you will not escape the environment in which God has chosen you to live. It is not an accident that you are conducting your marriage in this broken world. It is not an accident that you have to deal with the things you do.

God decided to leave you in this fallen world to live, love, and work, because he intended to use the difficulties you face to do something in you that couldn't be done any other way. You see, most of us have a personal happiness paradigm. Now, it is not wrong to want to be happy, and it is not wrong to work toward marital happiness. God has given you the capacity for enjoyment and placed wonderful things around you to enjoy. The problem is not that this is a wrong goal, but that it is way too small a goal. God is working on something deep, necessary, and eternal. If he was not working on this, he would not be faithful to his promises to you. God has a personal holiness paradigm. Don't be put off by the language here. The words mean that God is working through your daily circumstances to change you.

So, somehow, someway, this fallen world and what it contains will enter your door, but you do not have to be afraid. God is with you, and he is working so that these grieving things will result in good things in and through you.

2. You Are a Sinner Married to a Sinner

You and I just don't get to be married to someone perfect. It seems true when you read it, but even though this seems obvious, many people get married with unrealistic expectations about who they are marrying. Here is the point: you both bring something into your marriage that is destructive to what a marriage needs and must do. That thing is called sin.

Most of the troubles we face in marriage are not intentional or personal. In most marriage situations, you do not face difficulty because your spouse intentionally did something to make your life difficult. Yes, in moments of anger that may happen. But most often, what is really happening is that your life is being affected by the sin, weakness, and failure of the person you are living with. So, if your wife is having a bad day, that bad day will splash up on you in some way. If your husband is angry with his job, there is a good possibility that he will bring that anger home with him.

At some point you will be selfish. In some situation you will speak unkindly. There will be moments of jealousy, bitterness, and conflict. You will not avoid this, because you are a sinner and you are married to a sinner. If you minimize the heart struggle that both of you have carried into your marriage, here's what will happen: you will tend to turn moments of ministry into moments of anger. When your ears hear and your eyes see the sin, weakness, or failure of your husband or wife, it is never an accident; it is always grace. God loves your spouse, and he is committed to transforming him or her by his grace, and he has chosen you to be one of his regular tools of change. So, he will cause you to see, hear, and experience your spouse's need for change so that you can be an agent of his rescue.

3. God Is Faithful, Powerful, and Willing

There is one more reality that you have to include as you are trying to look at your marriage as realistically as possible. Not only must you consider the fallenness of the world you live in and the fact that both of you are less than perfect, but you must also remember that you are not alone in your struggle. The Bible says that God is near, so near that in your moment of need you can reach out and touch him because he is not far from each one of us (Acts 17:27). Yes, you live in a bad neighborhood (fallen world), and the two of you are less than perfect (sin), but in all this you are not left to your own resources. The God who determined your address lives there with you and is committed to giving you everything you need.

Consider for a moment what the empty tomb of the Lord Jesus Christ teaches us. First, it teaches us that God is faithful. Centuries earlier, after Adam and Eve had disobeyed God, God promised that he would crush wrong once and for all. So he sent his Son to defeat sin and death by his crucifixion and resurrection. He made a promise, and he controlled the events of history (large and small) so that at just the right moment Jesus Christ would come and fulfill what had been promised.

But the open tomb also reminds us that God is powerful. He is powerful in authority and powerful in strength. Could there be a more pointed demonstration of power than to have power over death? By God's awesome power, Jesus took off his grave clothes and walked out of that tomb.

The empty tomb points us to one more amazing thing. It teaches us that God is willing. Why would he go to such an extent to help us? Why would he care to notice us, let alone rescue us? Why would he ever sacrifice his own Son? Because he is willing. You and I need to recognize that his willingness was motivated not by what he saw in us but by what is inside of him. He is willing because he is the definition of mercy.

Not Alone

So, when you are sinned against or when the fallen world breaks your door down, don't lash out or run away. Stand in your weakness and confusion and say, "I am not alone. God is with me, and he is faithful, powerful, and willing." You can be realistic and hopeful at the very same time. Realistic expectations are not about hope without honesty, and they are not about honesty without hope. Realism is found at the intersection of unabashed honesty and uncompromising hope. God's Word and God's grace make both possible in your marriage.

Are your expectations for your marriage realistic?

Adapted from 'What Did You Expect? Redeeming the Realities of Marriage' by Paul David Tripp. From Crossway.org; used with permission.

About The Author:

by Caroline Flohr

Bereaved Mother Offers Tips on Her Most Important Life Lesson

Perhaps the worst thing that can happen to a parent is experiencing the loss of a child. However, as one mother shares, it's possible to turn one's devastation into spiritual enlightenment and to weave the tragedy into the fabric of your life and your family.

"I don't think any parent ever gets over the loss of a child," says Caroline Flohr, whose memoir "Heaven's Child," (www.heavenschild.com), recounts the transformative death of her 16-year-old twin daughter, Sarah.

"Through the web of pain, I have been amazed by the power of family, love and faith in healing. I have learned that death defines not the end of the journey, but a beginning."

Flohr reviews some of the milestones in her journey to inner peace:

• Deeper meaning:

Through the death of someone so important, you will be changed. The question is how you will be changed. Will you grow, or become diminished? Flohr grew with the realization that death – so often viewed as an end – is just the beginning of another phase of existence. "One of my favorite quotes is from poet Rabindranath Tagore: "Death is not extinguishing the light. It is putting out the lamp because dawn has come."

• Celebrate life:

When the bereaved are able to look at the life of a person who has passed and see more beauty than pain, they should rejoice. The reality of a person's absence will always have an element of sadness, but the joy of wonderful memories is even more powerful. When loved ones leave this Earth, graces are given to those relationships left behind. These are gifts. When we can acknowledge them, our lives can expand in the present.

• Ready for anything:

Once you've experienced the worst and pulled through, you know you will be able to weather just about any adversity. Maya Angelou wrote, ‘"You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it." Have faith in that inner strength we all harbor, Flohr says.

• Appreciate what you have:

Life as we know it will come to an end. This includes everyone we know, love and care about; it's a fact that we often forget, and it's as startling to remember as it is true. Come good or bad, we do not know what the future will bring, which means we should take every opportunity to fully embrace the present, and our loved ones.

About Caroline Flohr

by Wes Hopper

"The ordinary individual, sitting down to give an update to his life, unconsciously does just the thing that he should have avoided, and then wonders why he did not get the desired result. Most people simple sit and wish for, or long for, something. This is good, but does not go far enough. What we must do is provide that already-having-received attitude!"
- Ernest Holmes

I was first introduced to visualization many years ago through a set of consciousness raising workshops, and I learned many interesting things from the experience. One thing in particular stood out - most people who visualized what they wanted didn't get what they wanted.

I noticed, in my own life and the lives of others in the program, that it was very difficult to hold the image of what I wanted, confidently expecting it to show up, without having a bucket of contradictory thoughts flooding my mind. It's one thing to desire something, it's another to be able to see it as real and complete.

I've wondered for many years why that's so difficult, and I've come to the conclusion that it's the process of being disappointed over and over again as a child that makes it hard for us as adults. Our experience has been that things often don't work out for us, and as a result we believe that only the "easy ones" will happen.

However, as Holmes declares in our quote, the problem is in our mind. We've been trained to believe that we often don't get what we want, and so that's what we expect. What we need is that "already having received" attitude!

by Bob Proctor

A number of years ago I had a two-hour layover in the Los Angeles airport. I still had 14 or 15 hours of flying time ahead of me so I decided to pick up a good book. Fortunately, I selected a classic. It is a release published in hard cover by Pocket Books written by Shad Helmstetter, titled 'Choices'.

Helmstetter writes about choosing not complaining. I quote:

"Imagine the incredibly powerful, productive moments, minutes and hours of the days and weeks of our lives that we could complain or not - simply by our own choices. I doubt that we could accurately calculate the amount of additional productive time each of us would have in one year if, for that year, we turned every moment of complaint into a moment of choice to do something better instead.

Imagine what we could do in our homes, with our families and in our personal lives if we made the choice to replace complaining with positive belief. Imagine what you could do with those extra moments and hours of your life if you made the choice, right now, to never complain - and at every opportunity from here on out to replace even the most minor complaint with the positive energy of your own potential.

Imagine never again complaining. Could you still be a strong person, a person of conviction and opinion? Would you still do everything you need to do to make change in your life, or to deal in a clear and effective way with the obstacles and problems that come along? The answer is that you would be more effective, as you would be concentrating on positive actions to improve situations".