Sometimes you have to throw things
February 19, 2023
We all want to have healthy relationships with our friends and family! If we’re married, we want to be a happy couple. We’re in a message series learning what happy couples know. We learned that when we get married, each partner brings their hopes, desires, and dreams! What I want seems so great; to me it just makes sense that anybody would want what I want! And we hand our box of hopes, dreams, and desires to our partner, with high hopes! But to them, over time, it feels like expectations, like a burden. And the same happens when they hand theirs to us. So, we learned it’s not healthy to hold expectations over our spouse: it’s best to decide that they don’t owe us.
Then we learned couples are happy when they defer to each other. It’s a submission competition. If you go last, and you put your spouse first, it makes you a happier couple. Soon your spouse will defer to you as well. Today we’re going to talk about what to do with our box of hopes, dreams, and desires.
These are things like: how we’ll raise our kids, if we have kids, and how we’ll resolve conflict: “the way I want to resolve conflict,” “No, the way I want to resolve conflict!” And we can have a conflict over conflict! What we’ll spend our money on and not spend our money on. I’ll get the car of my dreams, and you’ll get the bill! Where we’ll live and who will mow the lawn. I’m excited about how things will be, but my partner, who has some different hopes, dreams, and desires, isn’t so thrilled.
What do you do with all the stuff in your box? The stuff you thought your spouse would agree to and love? They feel like expectations and stand between you and your spouse. In all our relationships in life, it doesn’t work to just be quiet and ignore your feelings when you’re unhappy. Your disappointment will eat you up inside. It doesn’t work to get busy and say, I’ll spend more time at work, or I’ll spend more time with the kids, or out in the garage, or I’ll go shopping. If you avoid or ignore your feelings, it doesn’t feel good. If you are not honest about what’s important to you, you won’t be happy, and your relationship won’t be healthy.
Sometimes a person in a relationship hits this wall and realizes that their hopes, dreams, and desires aren’t going to be taken care of by their spouse, and they decide to go seek someone else. They think there is someone out there I am meant for, who gets me. Someone who will take seriously making me happy. But the new someone else you meet? They are just on their best behavior! And the hormones are working, and they think you are the greatest person in the world! But once you get to know each other and the newness wears off, he or she also does not want to get busy fulfilling all your expectations!
What can you do? It’s depressing to ignore what you want for a relationship. And trying to find a new someone else? You run into the same difficulty again. After a while, they also start to experience your hopes, dreams, and desire as a burden. So, what do we do with our box?
In the Scripture we get some help on difficulty in relationships. We’ll look at two Scriptures about throwing things! 1 Peter is a letter written to Christians in Asia Minor. It’s written to encourage these Christians because they will soon face persecution.
Verse 6 says “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.” This is encouragement when things get difficult, to turn to God. Don’t try to fix things on your own. Go to God for help. And God will lift you up in due time.
Verse 7 says, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” Cast means to throw, hurl, or fling! Take your burden, your anxiety and worry, and throw it! Throw things! But not at your spouse. Not at the person you are upset with. You can throw things over to God. You have to do something with the stuff in your box. Your disappointment has to go somewhere. Throw your frustration, hurl it over to God. Because God cares for you. He is not fragile; God can take it! Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Your disappointment has to go somewhere; God can take what you throw at him.
In Psalm 55, the psalmist says he is disappointed with a former best friend of his. In verses 12-14 he says, “If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were rising against me, I could hide. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend, with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship at the house of God, as we walked about among the worshipers.”
That’s rough when a close friend is now against you. In marriage, there is a closeness you have, and then when you feel disappointment; when you realize that this person isn’t going to make all your dreams come true, things can get rough between you.
But in this Psalm, like in many places in the Old Testament, followers of God don’t act nice when they feel upset! They express exactly how they feel! In verse 15 the Psalm writer says, “Let death take my enemies by surprise; let them go down alive to the realm of the dead, for evil finds lodging among them.” That’s honesty! He is so angry!
The Psalm writer does more than vent his anger. Verses 16 and 17 say: “As for me, I call to God, and the Lord saves me.
Evening, morning, and noon I cry out in distress, and he hears my voice.” The writer of the Psalm turns to God. The usual times of prayer were morning, noon, and evening. He shows up very faithfully and prays to God. He doesn’t skip prayer; he gets on his knees before the Lord over and over. And God saves him. He cries in distress, and the Lord hears his voice.
Verse 22 is the throwing part:” Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.” Don’t hold your feelings in, don’t ignore them. Instead, throw your worries over to the Lord, and he will help you keep on keeping on. He will save you. Your disappointment has to go somewhere; God can take what you throw at him. i
There are people here today who have done this: taken anxiety, distress, anger, fears, and tears to God. They cast their cares on the Lord, and He helps them, He saves them.
How does God save us? He humbles us. When you take your cares to God, the first remarkable thing God does isn’t with your spouse. It’s with you. You learn that marriage isn’t about you getting all that you wish for. Your spouse is not a genie in a bottle. Marriage is about love, compassion, caring for your partner as much as yourself. God humbles us. We may realize we have been trying to get something out of our spouse that they were never made to give.
As we take all our feelings to God and pray, pray, pray, we might discover we can let go of some of the things in our box. I told you how disappointed I was in our first year of marriage with my birthday. My mom threw big birthday parties when I was kid, and I expected something like that. I have since learned I can let go of that dream. It’s ok. Or if I do want a party, I can talk with Kevin about what I want.
My challenge for you this week is to ask yourself: Do you need to unload your feelings about this box and your relationship? Start with your Father in heaven. Don’t be polite. Be honest. Throw all your feelings over to God. Cast your cares on him because he cares for you.
One of the hardest things when someone yells at you, or insults you is to reply: “Thank you for sharing with me what’s inside of you.” That’s hard. Some people can do it, but I can’t. It’s hard for a spouse if you throw every feeling you have at them. But it’s easy for God to take your anger or any feelings you have. You can bring anything to God. If it’s important to you, it’s important to your Father in heaven. Your disappointment has to go somewhere; God can take what you throw at him. Cast all your anxiety on the Lord, because he cares for you. And over time, you and your spouse may find that what you both REALLY want is the same thing: to be happy together. Amen.
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