The Marriage Game

4 December 2011

Dear Phyllis,

It is a little bit embarrassing to be 75 and the second time around to find myself at the lower level trying to learn some of the basics of married life, but these past two weeks have been a major learning experience. Pammy is a very good girl. I give her high points, but for her to become my wife is no easy challenge. She is a fairly strong choleric woman who has been on her own doing her own thing in business and serving the Lord for the past twenty five years. To suddenly adopt a reversed role is a terrific change.

For my part I find myself struggling to learn the balance of complying with her and at the same time maintaining my role as headship. Doctrinally we are agreed. Pammy said she wanted someone to be her head, but she still has a strong independent spirit. I have found that direct confrontation is highly counter productive. And being genuinely considerate breeds good results.

The biggest struggle we have is cleanliness. Pammy is clean to an extreme. I believe it is not unkind to say she is excessive in that direction. I appreciate a clean house. I thank the Lord for such a neat wife, but I have been living like a pig for 21 years. Needless to say the adjustment for me is traumatic. I am trying my best, but our view of what is dirty and what is clean is at great variance.

The Lord gave us worlds greatest dog right at the beginning. We were out one day visiting with Pastor Kichikun when he picked up a puppy and put her in his car. I was a little concerned and asked, “Whose dog is that?” He replied, “Its mine. I am taking her home with me.” But then when he left us off, the dog got unloaded too. I asked again, “Whose dog is that?”This time he replied, “She is yours. Pammy wants her.” That was a hard one for me to swallow. But Black Canyon is the sweetest puppy I have ever had. Pammy and I started off at opposite poles about raising and keeping a dog. I believe in treating a dog like a child and she thinks dogs should be treated like a dog. But Black Canyon is wining the struggle and is living a great deal of the time in the house now. She is like a lot of things in life that the Lord gives us. At first we don't want it, but later see that this was from God and it turns out to be a big blessing.'

When I first woke up this morning a simple thought came to me, but one that is profoundly important. Anyone should know that the devils basic tactic is to attack the Word of God. The first thing that ever came out of the mouth of the devil was, “Hath God said?” – questioning the Word of God. The old serpent hasn't changed his play-book since that first moment in the Garden. Undoubtedly the devils greatest generals are seminary professors subtly attacking the veracity of the Word of God, and turning out an army of liberal pastors who have decimated Christianity.

But the devils second attack is by suggesting “God has said”, when He really hasn't. For this message the devil uses his false prophets. In Jeremiah and Ezekiel we see a great deal of this with the false prophets proclaiming, “God has said”; when He has said no such thing. These two tactics are not just something that rages in lecture halls, but are voices heard in the heart of Christians world wide, every day. The first attack is to produce unbelief in questioning what God has said. But the second one is designed to produce confusion in sending us off on wild misguided actions. All this false guidance causes a major communication breakdown in wondering what is of God and what is not. I have found this to be one of the most difficult challenges in my Christian life.

Pastor Peter asked me to speak at his Forgiveness Church again this morning. The last two times we were there were such bad experiences I swore I would never go back. But when he called, I thought perhaps I should be a little more forgiving and give it one more go. It was better today. I spoke from Ias. 30:18– Therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious to you”.

Along with the problem of communication, another huge problems in following the Lord is time. By nature humans are very impatient beings. We want what we want when we want it. Very often there is a huge time gap with God. God promised Adam in the Garden that the seed of the woman would crush the serpents head, but it was 4,000 years before Christ came in the fullness of time (Gal. 4:4). We don't know how old

Abraham was when God first promised him a son, but it is safe to say it was at least 50 to 70 years before Issac was born. What a long time to wait! This time gap is hard to deal with and we wonder why God is so long in getting around to doing what He has promised. Here in Isiah we see two answers. “Therefore will the Lord wait, that He might be gracious unto you.” The first answer is that He might be gracious unto us.

God knows that waiting is a valuable experience for us. James tell us that patience is associated with perfection. “Let patience have her perfect work that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing” (Jm. 1:4). A job is not done until it is done. If I am building a house it is not finished until I hang a door on it. Who wants a house with no door? Walls are pointless if there is no door. God wants us perfect and entire. He wants us complete. He wants us with all the parts in place. He doesn't want a car with no tires. God obviously is a very patient Being. Christ can wait 2,000 years for His Bride to get ready. We can't wait 15 minutes. Patience takes a lot of the frustration out of life. We are a lot more relaxed. A patient person can sit and calmly wait while an impatient person is going crazy. A patient person is in control while an impatient person is out of control. God has watched humanity go berserk for 6,000 years, but He is perfectly relaxed knowing that all this is working out for the honor of His Son. Christ will be exalted in a way that would never have happened if Adam had never sinned. A champion never shines so gloriously before a match than he does after a hard fought battle. The battle reveals what is in Him, and Christ's winning our salvation has revealed for eternity what is in Him. God is patient, and he wants us to be like Him. Therefore He waits for our sake – to perfect us.

Another reason for the conflict in waiting is that our agendas are different. We have our agenda that we want now. Very often God's agenda is different and He quietly waits until His agenda comes around. My goodness, when my world collapsed 21 years ago, when Rosemary left me, I nearly went crazy. For a couple of years I was desperate to find a new partner so I could get back in the race as a homo sapient. I had been demoted to a sub-human species. I sure didn't like it. I wanted a home and a partner to serve Christ. But I was homeless for many years. At first I was just flat desperate. Later I accepted the sub-human status the Lord made me, and that made me different. It enabled me to do a lot of things that normal people couldn't do. Of course, now I thank God for all He has done for me. His way is the best possible way. Over the years I thought the Lord was leading mer to marry half a dozen different sisters. Time and again I felt He had provided a partner only to see that relationship go south. It wasn't that I was desperate, but guidance was difficult. I didn't know why God waited 21 years, but now I see He was preparing a Thai sister to be my partner, and He kept me from all the wrong ones. Now I have an amazing wife. But had He given me this sister earlier, I don't believe I could have handled it. He was waiting that He might be gracious to me. How many a young person has this testimony – “I'm so glad the Lord waited. Had He given me what I wanted when I was young I would have ruined my life. The Lord was gracious to me”.

The time factor is difficult. Sometimes it looks like betrayal. When Jesus heard about Lazarus' sickness He waited two more days before moving. Then He said, “I am glad for your sake that I was not there” (Jn. 11:15). Mary and Martha weren't gald. Both of them felt they had been betrayed. Mary was melancholic. She was hurt the deepest. When Martha heard that Jesus had come, she immediately went to meet Him; “but Mary sat still in the house” (Jn. 11:20). Both of them said the same thing – “Lord, if You would have been here...” (vrs. 21, 32). The Lord's time table was hard on them; but He had a purpose in waiting.

We may not see it in this life. I had a very dear secretary, Lavinia McCart. Like any woman, she dreamed of being married. Her emotions ran very deeply. Yet Lavinia lived a very difficult single life on the mission field. She was in Cambodia for 11 years and suffered horribly when Cambodia went through that unimaginable genocide. Then she spent another 20 years serving the Lord in Japan. She finished her race as a lonely soul in a nursing home. Her sister wrote me that Lavinia was a very sullen person in the end, and never spoke much about her experience on the mission field. Lavinia lived a life of deep disappointment, but I am sure when she got to the City she thanked God for the privileged life she had. I am sure Lavinia has one of the most beautiful wedding dresses in heaven. I can't imagine her standing any other place than nearest the Throne dressed in beauty. I am sure she will say above many, “Oh, I am so glad the Lord waited. He has given me the highest place. Oh how gracious He was to me!”

But the second reason God waits is that He might be exalted. This was certainly true with Abraham. It would have been easy for God to fulfill His promise to Abraham to have a son when he was younger, but He waited until Sarah had gone through menopause before He would give her that son. Issac had to be a miracle child. He had to be totally of God. Many is the time when the Lord waits until all hope is gone before He steps forward to save us. That way He gets all the glory. This is better than letting nature take its course. If the miracle is totally of God He gets all the glory.

Obviously, this was the case with Lazarus. The Lord could have shown up when he still had a ways to go to death. He could have kept him perfectly healthy for that matter. There wouldn't be much glory to God just to have a healthy man. And the Lord wouldn't have received as much glory if Jesus had healed him when he first came down with a fever. Jesus waited until Lazarus was not only dead, but the body had decayed so badly it stunk. Jesus clearly said “This sickness is...for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.” (Jn. 11:4). That was the reason why the Lord had to wait so long.

No doubt there are other reasons for God's time table to be at variance with ours. We want it right now, but God has a very specific purpose in waiting. One is that He might be gracious unto us. This is both in what waiting does for us personally, but also in keeping us from dumb mistakes when we are pushing our own agenda. As much as we get impatient with the Lord and wonder why He isn't more cooperative in giving what we want now, we can rest assured that He has a very definite purpose in His waiting. One is that He is very gracious, and the other is that He might be exalted.

Our future here is still uncertain but we do know that we have one more year here. On the basis of that I am going ahead and making Pammy a first class American kitchen. I hope to get it done by Christmas. We have a long list of people we want to have here to share Christ with them,

and she has got to have good facilities if we are going to entertain.

The Lord is very good in providing for us, and best we share His goodness with others. See you next week.

bill