February 5, 2023
This week I got a call from a woman with the Schuylkill County Sheriff’s office. I felt a little bit of panic: am I in trouble? She said there is no problem, we’re asking for sponsorships for a calendar. When I got a call from the County sheriff, I expected there was something very wrong. But it’s not always bad when the sheriff calls!
We’re starting a new message series! Valentine’s day is coming, we think about love, so in the series we’ll talk about marriage. Because love is great! When it comes to marriage, you may think, we should only talk about marriage when something is very wrong. I feel like that woman on the phone: there is no big problem. Still, let’s talk about marriage.
Because if you’re married, do you want to have optimum happiness? Or if you aren’t married, wouldn’t you want to know what happy couples know, for the future or for a friend?
Today we’re going to talk about the tension in marriage. What makes for the push/pull, conflict? Next week we’ll hear about the solution to the tug of war. The following week we’ll talk about what to do with your frustrations.
When you’re in a marriage, a relationship, or moving towards marriage, you have Hopes, Dreams and Desires. If you’re married, it really helps to know what is in your Hopes, Dreams and Desires Box. Some of you know, some of you don’t know what’s in your box.
What are these hopes, dreams and desires? They could be things like:
I want us to have a budget we go by. Or, we’re not going to have a budget. A budget sounds like an allowance, and I don’t’ like that.
How chores will get done. Saturday you wash the vehicles and I’ll do the grocery shopping.
It could be, do we want to rent, or buy a home?
I want to keep driving my sports car, or I want you to trade it in for something more practical.
How many children should we have? I want two, but it they’re both girls I want to have a third. Or no, I just want one child.
How will we spend our free time? I don’t mind if you go on a hunting trip with the guys, I’ll go with my friends to a spa. Or, no, I want us to always vacation together!
What will we do about conflict? We’ll talk it out and be completely honest. No, the complete truth hurts people’s feelings. Let’s just be truthful. I like to yell and scream, but I still love you when I do. No, I don’t want any raised voices!
All of these Hope, Dreams and Desires are impacted by what we have experienced. You want your relationship to be like your parents’ relationship. Or you don’t want your relationship to be like your parents. You want it to be the opposite. So, you want to either repeat what you knew growing up or avoid it.
We have all these hopes, dreams and desires, and at some point, we take our box, and hand it to our special someone, with the idea, I want you to make all of my hopes, dreams and desires come true. When we hand it to them, to us it feels like a dream come true, we have found the person who is going to help us get what we have always wanted.
But to our special someone, when you hand them your box, it feels like expectations. A homework assignment. If feels like, if you don’t come through on this, I will be very disappointed!
To the person who gets this box, it feels like a burden. They think this is not what I signed up for.
Kevin and I will be married 35 years in May. A few months after our wedding I had my birthday. There were differences in how our families celebrated birthdays growing up. In Kevin’s family the children had no birthday parties where you invited other kids. Instead, the family gathered for cake, and you got presents. When I was a kid, my mom threw me birthday parties with other kids invited, often at the pool. I enjoyed my friends being there and my mom made a big deal about birthdays, it was really special. I thought that was the best! Although in Kevin’s family, they had this benefit: when one kid had a birthday, their four brothers and sisters each got a present, too!
Kevin was used to a family-only birthday. On my birthday, the first one since we were married, I was very disappointed, and I told him so.
But I had not thought about what was in my Hopes, Dreams and Desires box. I had not thought about what I wanted my birthday to be like. Then, I had not talked with Kevin and said, hey my birthday is coming, would it be alright if we invited a friend over?
You know, Kevin did not owe me the birthday of my dreams. Especially when he had no clue what I thought a birthday should be like!
Here’s what happy couples know: they know they owe each other nothing.
Marriage is not about one partner owing the other person, to give them their hopes, dreams and desires. There is another person in the relationship, besides you. And they matter too.
We have to get away from thinking our spouse owes us happiness; that we got married so someone would give us what we want.
The key to stop thinking our spouse owes us is gratitude! Here’s what that looks like:
–Wow! I didn’t expect you to make my lunch!
–What do you mean? I have made your lunch every morning for the last three years!
–I know! But every morning I don’t expect it. I am so grateful!
This is how you fuel a happy, healthy relationship. Gratitude is how you show that you have NOT filled up a box full of expectations for your spouse!
The happiest Christian couples take their cue from Jesus, when he said in John 13:34, “As I have loved you, you are to love one another.”
My homework for you is only for you: don’t talk to your spouse about today’s sermon. The homework this week is just for you. Ask yourself
- What’s in your box? Think about what expectations you have.
- Are you expecting someone to come through on your box? Is there somebody carrying around the weight of your expectations?
Is the purpose of marriage to get what you want? Christianity is not about getting what we want. It’s about getting what we don’t deserve, and doing for others what was done for us. Happy couples know marriage is a race to the back of the line. It sounds like this would make you unhappy. But Jesus gave up his life for us. Somehow, happiness comes when life is not about me getting what I want. Happiness comes when we expect nothing, when no one owes us anything, and we appreciate everything. In marriage, happiness comes when we are so grateful for our spouse. Amen.
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