It has been said that suffering is having what you do not want (singleness), and wanting what you do not have (a husband)

Longing for what you do not have is a universal condition. It is not limited to singles. It is true that the longing for a husband can be satisfied on your wedding day, but that longing is soon replaced by desires and expectations about the marriage relationship that may not be satisfied in a thousand lifetimes. If you are presently discontent as a single woman, you can count on being dissatisfied as a married woman in the future.

If you are discontent as a single woman, you will be dissatisfied as a married woman.
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The mystery of contentment often seems to escape the understanding of the single woman. She assumes that her circumstances justify her condition and give her permission to remain dissatisfied with her life assignment. Not having learned how to lay down the terrible burden of always wanting life to be on her terms, she continues to struggle with the torture of her desires. The restlessness caused by her desire for what she does not have makes waiting seem an impossible task. In fact, to the discontented woman, the word wait probably compares to a cuss word in her mind. A Lady in Waiting finds her capacity to wait for God’s best to be rooted in contentment.

A Lady in Waiting finds her capacity to wait for God’s best to be rooted in contentment.
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If you would like more information on this topic you can read a free preview of my new book The New Lady in Waiting here: Free Preview or get it here Buy The New Lady in Waiting.

Have a question or comment? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.

Think of it this way.

Mr. Right comes over one day and begins to speak of his devotion to you. He says what you have been waiting to hear: “I love you. I give you my heart completely. For 364 days of every year, I will devote myself to you and you only.” But then he adds, “However, one day each year I want to date others and see what I have missed. Don’t worry; you can have all the rest. Will you marry me?”

What would your response be? Would you want this kind of devotion? Would it be selfish of you to deny him his heart just one day a year to give to others? No! Absolutely not. You would want his total love and devotion.

You would want his heart all 365 days a year.
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Similarly, giving Christ your heart means you are not free to give it away to other things or people that come into your life (in idolatry). You can’t give a part to relationships that delight you in this world and still seek God with a whole heart.

You cannot keep part of your heart for something that may seem better if it comes along. Devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ is giving everything or nothing at all. Your devotion to Christ must be a serious commitment to His Lordship.

You can’t give part of your heart to this world & still seek God with a whole heart.
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Christ loves you and is completely committed to you. Wholeheartedly devote yourself to loving and enjoying Him in return, 365 days a year.

If you would like more information on this topic you can read a free preview of my new book The New Lady in Waiting here: Free Preview or get it here Buy The New Lady in Waiting.

Have a question or comment? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.

If you are one of the few people who reads labels when you go grocery shopping, then congratulations!

Sadly, a quick trip to the store usually reveals that most people are mindlessly throwing items quickly into their carts without a second thought. However, if you’re interested in improving your health, one of the best things you can do is get acquainted with where your food comes from, how long it’s traveled to get to your market, and whether it’s conventionally grown or truly organic!

It might surprise you to learn that the “fresh produce” you think is locally grown is really arriving here from somewhere around the world. When asked, many people will guess the oranges in their cart came straight from Florida, but during the winter months, oranges are shipped in from South Africa and Australia.

It’s the same with tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, squash, apricots, avocados, grapes, limes and all sorts of fruits and vegetables that are flown and trucked in from around the globe. There are many reasons to be concerned about this, and the most obvious is that the “fresh” produce you thought was picked locally off the vine is really weeks old by the time it arrives at your store. The biggest issue, however, is food safety, as it’s literally impossible for inspectors to test every single food shipment that makes its way into our country. That means your food items could have been sprayed with pesticides, toxic chemicals, or injected with growth hormones – all that you and your family will be absorbing when you eat it!

One way you can be a savvy shopper is to educate yourself about organic labeling. Some people, for instance, think a jar of “all natural” peanut butter or jam is safe and the same thing as organic, but it’s not. When I was young, I used to tell people all the time that I ate only “natural foods,” but later on I learned that “natural” can mean just about anything and is not a good indicator that the food is unprocessed or organic. For this reason, the Food and Drug Administration has discouraged food giants and smaller companies from labeling their foods “natural” or “all natural.” When you see these products, move on to something organic!

But what does organic really mean? As it turns out, products labeled “organic” can be almost as confusing as the ones labeled “natural.” However, the USDA has established some guidelines that can help you determine the best organic choices at stores. Look for these three product descriptions at your store:

1. Made With Organic Ingredients: This means the food must contain at least 70 percent organic ingredients. The remaining 30 percent cannot include any genetically modified ingredients – GMOs.
2. Organic: The food must be at least 95 percent organic before it can receive a blue seal.
3. 100 percent Organic: Look for foods with a USDA Certified Organic green seal, as this means the food must be all organic or contain only organically produced ingredients.

Of course, there are still a lot of questions looming as to whether the foods you are purchasing are really the best for you and your family. People are always asking me if they should buy farm-raised, corn-fed, or pasture-fed beef and if raw dairy is safe to consume. Many people are curious about GMOs and how to avoid them, while others are so outraged that they are organizing marches in their communities to protest Monsanto’s grip on the food supply.

The good news is that I address all of these questions, concerns and more in my upcoming book, The Maker’s Diet Revolution. Pre-order your copy of The Maker’s Diet Revolution now at Amazon and ChristianBook.com or look for it at your favorite online retailer on December 17th.

If you haven’t checked out Part 1, Part 2 or Part 3 you should start there.

The Third D: The State of Discontentment

Some of the men who met David at the cave were in debt and some were distressed. But probably all of them were discontented. The Hebrew word for discontent is mar, which means “to make bitter”; it also describes “the heart-crushing experience of family turmoil, impending death, or an unfulfilled death wish.” This kind of discontentment reaches right into the very soul of a man and wrenches him in his guts.

Interestingly, this meaning paints quite a picture of the person experiencing discontentment. David’s guys fit every aspect of this definition. They really had no future within their culture. They were bitter. They owed vast amounts of money to people who sought to collect their payment in property or in flesh. With a growing list of failures, these guys might have left behind families who were frustrated and actually thankful for their absence. Some might have left out of disdain for the evil monarch who was chasing David, and they wanted to go down fighting on the side of the giant killer in hiding.

Just Hanging On

These men were hanging on by their fingernails. They ran to hide, to collect their thoughts, to write their wills, and to do whatever desperate men do before life as they know it comes to an end. All in all, these guys had decided that if they were going to go down, they were going to go down swinging with David, their leader and “commander”:

All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their commander. About four hundred men were with him (1 Samuel 22:2).

The word for commander in 1 Samuel is an interesting term because it carries with it a sense of royalty or nobility. The word means much more than they took a vote and made him their leader. It means that they saw something in him. They sensed something on him.

I’m sure many had heard about Samuel anointing David years before. Others had seen him kill Goliath and knew that he had an uncanny and supernatural presence about him. And some might have just sensed that David was different. But these men realized they were at a crossroads in their lives. In the midst of all of their Ds—because of all their Ds—they had to be with this guy.

Real King. Real God.

David was their king. They were in the right cave, no doubt about it. He had followed the leading of his God, in spite of his brokenness, to a place of hiding and darkness.

At this point in history, the worship of Yahweh had grown cold, and David’s relationship with Him was unique. David knew God. David walked with God in a place of powerful fire, passionate tears, and relentless love. This must have been something that at the very least incited a deep curiosity in the 400. When they came to a place of despondency, they were drawn to the real king who had the real fire given to him by God.

Perhaps the real king would hear from God and save them from the assaults being waged upon them. The feeling that they got in their despondent and wrenched guts was that this was the right commander and the right cave. As David followed his Commander to the cave, these men followed theirs.

Real God. Real cave. Safe cave. It had to be, or they were dead men—401 dead men.

Editor’s Note: Read a FREE Preview of CAVETIME by Jeff Voth here: Cavetime Free Preview

If you haven’t checked out Part 1 or Part 2, you should start there.

This week we are looking at the Second D that describes those who have run to the wrong cave: The State of Debt.

The Second D: The State of Debt

The average debt in most American homes accumulates with interest rates so exorbitant that the sum will never be repaid. This ugly financial heap looms like a mountain on the horizon. And it is so imposing that bankruptcies occur at an alarming rate. This is exemplified by the following report, which cites rising bankruptcy filings from 2006-2010. With the current economic straits, there seems to be no end in sight:

Personal bankruptcy filings rose to their highest levels on record, with estimates in excess of 2 million filings. According to Lundquist Consulting, a research company based in California, there were 115,000 bankruptcy filings in November 2010. Year-to-date, there were 9 percent more bankruptcy filings by November 2010 compared to that same timeframe a year earlier. Nationally, there were roughly 6,000 bankruptcy filings per million individuals, or 1 in every 160 people.

This is staggering. Not only does this type of debt leave people’s bank accounts in poor health, it can adversely affect both physical and mental health as well. Depression, anxiety, digestive tract issues, migraine headaches, and ulcers are just some of the confirmed effects of adverse stress-related issues caused as a result of debt. Piling on, nearly one-third of states now allow creditors to sue individuals for defaulting on their debts, sending them to prison if they can’t pay. While debtor’s prison was officially outlawed in 1833, this is certainly a modern-day form of it and can bring a huge amount of stress to bear on any man who is trying to provide for and be a wall to his family.

Currently many men in our society can’t pay their debts and don’t know what to do. They might run to the wrong caves or maybe they just try to run aimlessly and not pay. They constantly look over their shoulder for the repo man and dodge phone calls because of the debt collectors’ repeated calls.

Assaulted and chased. I’m sure that these men could commiserate with David’s 400 as they escaped the debt collectors’ henchmen and hid deep in the cave at Adullam.

Sean, Linda, and the absence of a Fairy Tale

Sean was a guy who came to me and was living out the story of the men who showed up at the cave, running from their debts. He was a recovering addict who had met his wife, Linda, while they were both in the same recovery program. Both of them had found the Lord while they were in treatment, and the structure, transparency, and accountability offered in recovery was ideal for them.

They married soon after their graduation ceremony and started what they hoped would be a happy and peaceful life together. In addition to being a talented computer programmer, Sean was very entrepreneurial. Linda got pregnant with their first son soon after the wedding, and Sean got busy starting his first company. As the Internet continued to explode, Sean dreamed about and developed new products, and the money began to flow. Within another year, Linda was pregnant with their second son. Sean began to feel the pressures of a rapidly growing business, family, and the need to perform to keep up with the demands coming at him from every direction.

Knowing Where to Escape

Sean had the same root addiction that I had, the need to perform. But as a recovering addict, he also had some other addictions as well. Addictions to cocaine and prostitution had plagued him in the past, and with the demands in his life, he found himself beginning to wrestle with them again. As the pressure began to assault and chase him, Sean had no frame of reference for how or where to escape and hide so that he might hear from God. He didn’t know that God was with him, ready at any instant to pounce on him and smother him with grace.

When I met Sean, I had no idea all of this was going on in his life. He and Linda had recently come to our church and were referred to me for counseling by another pastor on staff. I invited Sean to come to a CaveTime that I was having at my house. He began to show up and just “be” with a band of men who would be his brothers, sharing his story of addiction with them and not being judged.

There’s no judgment in the cave—only accountability, grace, and more grace. Our motto is:

“What’s said in the cave stays in the cave.”

Sean certainly needed transparency with the security of confidentiality. He began to listen to the Scriptures we read together, with men worshipping quietly and then praying for each other’s stuff. He also began to hear those same men pray for their wives and their children, and his wife and his children, and whatever else needed to be given to God there in the cave.

I wish that I could say that everything got better and that we all lived happily ever after. But that’s not what happened. The guys in the cave were unaware, but in addition to his being assaulted by addiction, Sean had incurred some debts that were almost insurmountable. He was being chased by debt collectors, clients he wasn’t servicing, and some unsavory characters who wanted to do him some great bodily harm. He began running to the wrong caves, ones that were familiar to him. He ran to other women to try and ease the pain. He ran to cocaine to try and get a quick buzz that might help him forget. And he began to drink pretty heavily, too.

While Sean was running and trying to hide, Linda was at home with two sons and pregnant with a third. She had no food, no diapers, and no money to pay the bills. Sean would leave for days at a time and not tell anyone.

On one occasion, when he did come home, he was rightfully questioned rather passionately by Linda. Her questions angered Sean, he got physical with her, and the police were called. Because Sean had been in trouble before and was a convicted felon, he was taken to jail. He and I had CaveTime there, except this time he was wearing an orange jumpsuit and there was a glass window in between us. Yet God was there with us.

The Power of Fear and Debt

I read Sean Scripture over the telephone receiver, prayed for him— and then I got in his face. I told him that he wasn’t being a wall for his wife and his sons, and he was in jeopardy of losing them and everything that he loved. I asked him why he allowed himself to get to this point and he said, “I just didn’t know what to do as the debts mounted. I didn’t want to upset the guys in the cave, and I was being chased by all kinds of folks who wanted their money and the services that they had paid for. I wasn’t able to pay them, so I ran to what I had known in the past.”

When Lori and I moved away from that city, Sean was still running to the wrong caves, and Linda was in the process of trying to start a new life without him.

I know this isn’t a success story. But it does show the power of fear and debt, the relentless pursuit of a nasty enemy, and the danger of hiding in the wrong caves.

The guys hiding with David in the cave must have had some pretty significant debts to cause them to flee as they did. In David’s day, many people incurred debts, just as people do today. But the Hebrew word describing these men referred to a bad debt—one that was very late and was in serious default. This was the kind of debt that prompted someone to try to collect their money, or goods, or something—and it was going to happen today!

During David’s era, those who owed debt were also likely to receive all kinds of punishment from their creditors. A creditor could take property, family members, or even inflict severe bodily harm. Some of us know the pressure of collection calls, but thankfully we don’t live in a culture where one of our offspring could be taken as payment on a debt.

No One is Immune

Maybe you’re a young man and think you are immune to incurring such a deep level of indebtedness. Think again. The debt load carried by many college students is staggering. Currently, two-thirds of all college students carry some type of debt to finance their education, with the total amount borrowed in 2008-2009 being $75.1 billion. This was a dramatic 25 percent increase over the amount in the previous year. These types of debt loads make it almost impossible for many young men to finish their education and make ends meet. It has become such a problem that an increasing number of students are leaving the country and/or just not paying back their loans. As if student loan debt isn’t bad enough, in addition to these mounting debts, the average college-aged undergraduate is also amassing a sizable credit card balance that has increased 41 percent in the last seven years to $3,200.

Student loan and credit card debt plague and assault many young men with a pressure that is sizable and stressful. The pressure can drive them to the wrong caves. Young men, middle-aged men, and older men all have their own types of financial struggles and assaults that weigh on them and cause stress. Stress can make men of any age want to run! It can make us want to hide and feel as if we must escape to someplace.

Escape to the Right Cave

Broken and fearful. Ragged and torn. God is calling all men, in all conditions, to escape. Escape to the right cave, where He will be with you.

Last week, I gave you an introduction on Running to the Wrong Cave, if you missed it you can check it out here: Stop Running to the Wrong Cave – Part 1. This week we are looking at the first of what I call the Three D’s.

The First D: The State of Distress

The English dictionary defines distress as “a feeling of great pain, anxiety, or sorrow. Acute physical or mental suffering. Affliction. Trouble.” However, many Bible commentators agree that the Hebrew term used in 1 Samuel 22 carries an even more acute sense of dire straits, particularly as a result of poverty. This sense of distress would have wide-ranging effects, such as the selling of family members into slavery, the taking of goods and property, and in some extreme cases the taking of a life.

The narrative describes the first portion of David’s renegade horde as those who were in distress. Author Cliff Graham describes them as

“disgruntled outcasts, emerging from an era in Hebrew history where the worship of Yahweh was almost non-existent.”

Graham gives us a bit of insight about why these men might have been expe- riencing extreme distress. They might have been disgruntled warriors who sensed something in David that they respected, believed in, and wanted to follow.

Perhaps they were disgruntled at the fact that the state of their nation was in doubt and God didn’t seem to be with them. The mili- tary was likely in some sort of disarray as David, one of the most popular commanders ever, had left under a dark cloud.

Saul and David

Many of these men saw Saul as a coward; he had hidden from Goliath. The Spirit of the Lord had left Saul. He possessed no anointing from God, and he wasn’t able to lead them bravely in his flesh. Saul’s confidence and passion were gone, and his only weapons were fear and intimidation. If a man was disloyal to Saul, he faced certain death. This madman had tried to kill his most trusted bodyguard, David, at least three times; he even tried to take out his own loyal son, Jonathan, once. He certainly wouldn’t hesitate to skewer someone else.

Saul was most certainly a demon-possessed coward—a spiritually depraved man. This depraved state made him someone to be feared and fled from. Of course this situation was distressing to these men.

I’m sure many warriors in Saul’s kingdom wanted to follow a passionate leader and a giant killer—not someone who had skulked away from a giant. David had shown passion and fearlessness and possessed a magnetism that was otherworldly.

Saul was no real leader at all, but David was. Without a doubt, David was God’s man in their eyes.

But now he was gone, and he had left under a cloud of suspicion. Panic, anxiety, and the effects of distress set in for some of these warriors as they realized that there was no leader for them to follow. And the one they would follow had either been chased out of town or had fled—they didn’t know for sure.

Just as I experienced in my time of distress, the sweating and nausea would come in waves during the daytime, and their minds would be hounded by visions of impending death at night. This meant little or no sleep.

They needed a leader to show them the way out of this anguish. Their panic assaulted them in their minds so vividly that their bodies felt as if it were real. They needed a real leader, and the man for the job was David. But he had escaped and was now in hiding.

The answer? These men decided to escape and hide with him. He would know how to lead them.

Reed, Sarah, and the Wrong Cave

Reed was a good man. He’d been faithful to his wife, Sarah, and was a committed father to his three sons.

Reed had worked quietly at the same job for twenty-five years, but his company was going bankrupt. He was in jeopardy of losing his retire- ment and everything he’d worked for. He was also becoming distant and short-tempered with Sarah and the boys. During this time, Sarah called me and said,

“Pastor Jeff, Reed is drawing away from me and I feel as if I am losing him. He won’t talk to me. He won’t open up anymore and he’s distant. I even think that there might be someone else.”

When I asked why she thought Reed was interested in another woman, she said that she’d caught him on the computer on a social networking site. He was reading a personal message he’d received from a former girlfriend. The letter was about a project taking place to benefit their old high school, sponsored by alumni who used to be student council members with Reed. The woman said because they had been student council members together, she thought he might want to get involved in the project. The words that alarmed Sarah were: “It could be like old times.”

Whether or not Reed was really thinking of cheating on Sarah, I’m glad she caught him. At the very least, Reed was contemplating going to the wrong cave.

What’s the wrong cave?

The wrong cave is a place where we try to escape everything that is actually happening in our lives.

We just hide. In the wrong cave, there’s no focus on being with God and getting the hole inside us filled by Him. In the wrong cave, we just try to hide and we attempt to fill the hole with something or someone else other than God.

When David escaped to the cave, he wanted to get out of Saul’s target range and hear from his close and personal God about what he should do. However, Reed was contemplating helping his old girl- friend, and he had even responded back to her a couple of times to inquire in more detail about the project. Reed was running to the wrong cave because he was hiding something questionable. This kind of hiding has nothing to do with God. Wrong cave. Wrong motive.

In fact, Reed later admitted to me that when he did interact with this old girlfriend, he felt a slight sense of excitement whenever he clicked the send button on the computer screen. They’d had a great relationship in high school, and by the look of her picture on her profile, she’d aged quite well.

He also felt strangely excited that Sarah didn’t know what he was doing. For that matter, he technically wasn’t doing anything wrong. It was all innocent and platonic, he thought. But Reed was at least approaching the entrance of the wrong cave. He was thinking about hiding in the wrong cave of an old relationship that made him feel young again. But any cave that would lead to spending time alone with a woman other than his wife was definitely the wrong cave.

As Reed and I talked about this situation, I learned that he was distressed about his job being terminated. He also hadn’t been feeling very fulfilled in his life lately. He was feeling old, worn out, and not passionate about much in his life. While he might not have used this language, he had a hole inside of him that he was trying to fill with another person and a fantasy of what once was. The old flame contacting him was an invitation, he thought, to feel some passion again and be pursued.

This cave seemed to offer the allure of the old feelings of youth, and it was a welcome distraction from the reality of what seemed like a dull and monotonous life. However, in reality, this cave offered to Reed the potential of an emotional affair and possibly a full-blown adulterous rendezvous. I thank God that Reed got caught heading toward the wrong cave.

A Bright Future

I’m happy to report that Reed and Sarah had a deep talk, shed a few tears together, and their hearts began to be pointed back toward each other.

Instead of running to the wrong cave, Reed stepped into his masculine roles. In Role 1, he went to God alone, asking for help and affirmation that he could only get from His Creator. He allowed God to fill the hole inside. He then stepped into Role 2 as he exercised his masculine presence and took the website off of his computer and took measures to make sure that it would not happen in his home again. He then stepped into Role 3 and entered into community with his wife by being transparent and vulnerable. He also got recommitted to a group of guys who met weekly for CaveTime, telling them of his temptation toward the other cave, asking them to help him stay away from ever going there again.

These men would be a wall for him, and he would once again be a wall for Sarah and his sons.

Are you running to the wrong cave? Have you ever escaped and tried to hide in the wrong cave? I have. In fact, it was the one that landed me in the ER and the ensuing Holy War that I had imagined at the closing table.

For me, the wrong cave was performance. I was addicted to performing and being competitive in most of the areas of my life, and eventually I lost control. I competed for God’s love and acceptance by doing as many religious things as I could—and doing them well, I might add. I was intent on having the most obedient children (and I am sad to say, my motivation was because their behavior was a reflection on whether I was a good parent or not).

Performance

It was all about me. I was also intent on having a great marriage, and if my wife Lori would just fit in and do what a good pastor’s wife was supposed to, people would think well of me—I mean us. Performance, yet again.

Who knows why I ended up this way! But it was all about me, including me heading to the wrong cave. I performed to feel significant and to fill the hole inside with deeds and accomplishments that pointed to me. I was Super Jeff. Well, Super Jeff was in an ER and needed some counseling. But there God was, whispering to me. In my distress, God was calling me to the cave.

When a man wants to know God—and I really did—God won’t let him go on forever in the wrong way, ending up in the wrong cave. Through the darkness and pain, God will draw us to the cave, so that we might hide together with Him.

And yes, assaults will come again and we’ll make mistakes. We will temporarily take other paths again. But once the temporarily misguided man glances back toward the grace-worn path to the cave, even hinting that he wants to come home, God is there.

God reads much into the pained and longing-for-grace-again glances of men. These are glances that motivate Him, faster than the speed of sound, to bum-rush and bowl us over like a grace-filled tsunami—one that’s like Tigger pouncing on Pooh. Like a faithful canine waiting at the front window for his long-gone master to return—kissing him, pouncing on him, and dancing a dance of hope and joy. That giant- killing dance that fills the hole of distress with the hope-giving life of God within a man.

Next week, we’ll look at the Second D: The State of Debt

In the meantime if you need help because you feel you are running to the wrong cave, reach out to me at www.Cavetime.org

EDITOR’S NOTE: Want to learn more about the Three D’s? You can start reading Jeff Voth’s book Cavetime for FREE right here: Cavetime Free Preview or you can pre-order the new book title at:  Amazon • Barnes and Noble • Books-A-Million • ChristianBook.com and other fine bookstores!

The Gift of Family

Our families help to make us what we are just as we help to define and shape our families.  They can create the backdrop of our lives and define what we believe to be normal, and then sometimes, they can create a turning point to help us move in new and better directions.

When the best medical minds we could consult collectively determined and shared the diagnosis that I was going to lose my sight, I remember the feeling of loss and disconnection from all my hopes and dreams.  Then, there was the day that my grandmother came to me and explained that she had made a decision that once her spring flowers had bloomed again and she had a chance to look at them for the last time, she and I would go to one of the specialists at one of the hospitals, and she would have them take out her eyes and give them to me.

My grandmother had no way of knowing that, medically, that was impossible; but even if it had been feasible, it would have not meant as much to me to have her eyes as it meant at that moment to know that I had someone in my life that cared that much about me.

Joye Kanelakos shares a view of her two granddaughters climbing in the redbud trees in her back yard in the following poem.

Looking out my kitchen window

What do you suppose I see?

If I think hard, I can remember

Roses climbing in my red-bud tree.

 

One is a rose in sunshine bloom

With two dew drops of sparkling blue,

Lips pink-tipped like the talisman

That smiles and lets the sunshine through.

 

The other rose is a velvet flame

And glows in smiles as warm as light

That twinkles on in her evening hair

Like dazzling sparklers in the night.

What is Normal?

Our families are the measuring stick by which we judge the rest of the world.  The concept of a “normal” family does not exist.

I have always been committed to making as many of my books as possible available as audio books.  I’m a huge fan of audio books as they have changed my life.  The esteemed actor, Tom Bosley, of Happy Days and Father Dowling fame honored me when he agreed to be the voice on the audio book of my novel The Ultimate Gift.

The year after he recorded that amazing rendition of my book, he was touring the country in the Broadway play On Golden Pond costarring with Michael Learned who generations will know as Olivia Walton, the mother on the classic television series.

When the show came to my hometown, Tom Bosley and Michael Learned came to meet with me in my office, and I also spent some time with them backstage after the performance.  We had many discussions of their lives and careers, but then I laughingly told them, “You two have probably done more to confuse generations of people who are in search of the elusive normal family.”

They both agreed with me and admitted neither of their own families looked anything like the Cunninghams or the Waltons.  Families are precious and beautiful, but they are never perfect.  They create the routine and heartbeat of our lives.

What about you?

What “imperfections” make your family precious and beautiful? Let me know in the comments below.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Want to learn more about Discovery Family? Start reading a preview of Jim Stovall’s inspirational new book, Discovering Joye here: Discovering Joye Free Preview

“It is fun to be in the same decade with you.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Winston Churchill

They had just spent three weeks together at the White House, in strategic war planning and personal friendship building. Upon his return to England, Churchill found the note that Roosevelt had wired ahead. Two men, leaders of nations, allied together against the Axis powers – they were commanders in chief, in the midst of warfare, who also found delight in a deep friendship.

My Beautiful Friend

When I read this note penned by FDR, I couldn’t help but reflect upon the last three decades of my life, the highlight being the pleasure of partnering with one beautiful woman. Together, we have walked through history, aware of the evil axis of this age, the plotting of the “god of this world”, expressed through evil nations but also in the daily, domestic life of married couples and families.

Since the garden, God has sought to express a prophetic witness on the earth of bridal, covenant love. Humankind has been vested with authority and stewardship to represent God’s kingdom on planet Earth. The greatest strength in a Christian marriage is when husbands and wives wear their robes as kings and priests. Attacks come unannounced, devised to catch us, unprepared. Every married couple since the garden has experienced this onslaught.

The Fun of Relationship

I like the fact that the President used the word “fun.” Deep friendship, joy in the journey, fighting side by side – a comrade in arms is my spouse to me. This creates a perimeter of protection around our relationship. Every marriage that is fighting for excellence needs to find the mirth in the midst of madness—the kindness to combat the cruelty of the war that’s raging.

They stood in front of war maps; they played card games. They solemnly reviewed the casualties of the war at sea, Germany holding dominion over the shipping lanes; they enjoyed good food and conversations. They battled with Congress over appropriation measures; Churchill found time for his daily afternoon nap (a man after my own heart).

There will be times in your marriage to tighten up; there will be times to lighten up. Find the fight and you’ll find the fun.

How About You?

What ways have you and your spouse found to “lighten up” your marriage and have fun together? Let me know in the comments below.