CONTENTS

• JUST VISITING
• FEATURE ARTICLE: PRESCRIPTION FOR A HEALTHY MARRIAGE # 3
  CHALLENGES TO COMMITMENT
  
• CHILDREN'S CORNER
  "NANNY" by Grandy

Since we visited last, those of us who live in the United States have become keenly aware of the moral crisis involving the behavior of our President. All About Families is not a political newsletter. In our purpose statement, we say that we are short on issues and long on practical help. To say that we are "short on issues" does not mean that we never consider an issue or that we are spineless. We just don't want All About Families to become a forum for acrimonious debate. Some issues are too massive to overlook, however. We think our present moral crisis is such an issue. When we started the series on "Prescription for a Healthy Marriage," we had no idea that our installment on "Challenges to Commitment" would coincide with the release of the results of the investigation of the Independent Counsel. We don't think it wise to duck the issue, so among other things, we'll talk about the environment of sexual permissiveness in today's society. We'll mention the President's behavior and its implications for the culture in which we live.

As we promised, we are starting a "Children's Corner." In view of the "heavy" nature of today's feature article, you might want to consider cutting and pasting the children's corner before letting your children read it. If your children are too young to read, why don't you print it out and read the story to them? They need some quality time with you and we guarantee you won't suffer from computer withdrawl. We're not sure how often we'll feature the "Children's Corner." It probably depends on how often we can get Grandy out of his recliner long enough to write.

Norman

Prescription for a Healthy Marriage # 3

CHALLENGES TO COMMITMENT

By Norman snd Ann Bales

(Previous articles in this series are archived at http://www.allaboutfamilies.org

As we noted in the two previous installments, the Bible makes a strong case for commitment in marriage. Unfortunately, the devil is still around, he's still messing up marriages and one of his most effective tools is that of undermining commitment. Quite often I hear people use a certain vocabulary to describe our position as Christians in the world. One of the buzz words being thrown around these days is marginalized. To say that Christianity is marginalized is to imply that the culture is moving in a direction in which Christian virtues, Christian principles and Christian morality is increasingly viewed with contempt. Whereas the majority of society once upheld the morality of the family and the Biblical ideals regarding the home, those mores have been challenged, ridiculed, held in contempt and ignored. With respect to marriage commitment, we see an erosion of respect for the principle of one man staying married to one woman for life in a relationship of fidelity. We can identifiy four distinct areas in which marginalization is taking place.

1. The emphasis on self fulfillment. The Christian faith operates on the principle of servanthood. Jesus said, "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10;45). In those words, Jesus set the standard we aspire to in all human relationships including marriage. We live in a cultural environment that is largely driven by preoccupation with self. The emphasis is on "finding yourself." Our energy is most often directed toward fulfilling our own ego driven agenda, and gratifying the desires of the flesh. When we commit ourselves to Christ, we draw a line in the sand between that approach to life and the life of self denial. Jesus said in Matthew 16:24, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."

2. Sexual permissiveness. I have been asked, "How prevalent is extramarital sex." In the wake of the Clinton scandal, some have suggested, "everybody does it." We agree with William Bennett, author of the recently published book, The Loss of Outrage. Bennett contends that everybody is not doing it. But just how much actual adultery is taking place? That's a very hard question to answer and estimates vary widely - from 3 per cent to 70 per cent. One reason it's so hard to find out is the fact that a person, who will lie to his wife or a wife who will lie to her husband will also lie to a researcher. The most recent study that we've seen is the one done by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago in 1992. It suggests that 37 per cent of the married men and 20 per cent of the married women have been unfaithful. One thing is certain, we have an enormous number of people in our society who are not confining sexual intimacy to marriage, yet it would grossly exaggerate the truth to say that "everybody is doing it." We are even more troubled by public reaction to the President's problem. When William Bennett appeared on James Dobson's radio program on September 14, 1998, he quoted a minister as saying adultery has to be "contextualized." What on earth does that mean? We take the position that adultery is wrong - period. It is never right. Recently, one of the elders at Southern Hills shared a story from the pulpit that charactertizes some disturbing trends in our society. He serves as an assistant principal in one of our area high schools. In the course of his work, he found it necessary to confront a situation in which two teenagers in his school, a brother and sister, were in trouble with the law. The investigation revealed the fact that their mother had a 17 year old live-in boy friend. Is that what "contextualized" adultery means? When things like this take place in a sedate, middle class, Bible-belt community, you have to wonder if some of us have lost our moral compass?

   The President has asked us to forgive him. It's not our place to judge whether his statements concerning his repentance are genuine or not. We are quite willing to grant forgiveness. God will have to judge his heart, but forgiveness does not mean exemption from consequences. The President will have to live with the consequences of his behavior, which will be determined by the Congress of the United States. It is, on the other hand, quite disturbing to hear the rationalization from the public that what the President does behind closed doors in the Oval Office is nobody else's business. It is even more disturbing to hear the rationalization that what happened doesn't make any difference if the economy is strong. Somehow a message is being sent to the public that character doesn't count among our national leaders. How do we explain that to our grandchildren? We don't see how you can call it anything other than an erosion of our moral fiber. Fish tend to stink from the head down and if we think overlooking the indiscretions of our nation's leader will have no effect on the moral fiber of society in general, we are kidding ourselves.

3. The romanticized view of life. I was in the car when I heard a report on National Public Radio, so I couldn't write down the actual figures, but the report said that the money spent every year on Harlequin Romances runs into the billions of dollars. That says something about the appetite of the American public for romance. This thing we call "romance" is a short lived emotional phenomenon that cannot last for very long. Dr. Gary Chapman (The Five Love Languages) thinks that two years is about the outer limit of its endurance and yet people are bailing out on marriage responsibilities, because they have been led to believe that they have the right to romantic feelings. The most common reason given for cheating on one's spouse is, "I don't love him/her anymore." And love, in that context, doesn't mean what the Bible calls love. It means romantic feelings, which are temporary, fluctuating, emotional reactions. Unfortunately many of our people think they are entitled to such peak emotional experiences over the duration of a lifetime and feel cheated if they don't have it. It's time to forget about the version of love that's so often popularized in romance novels, movies and soap operas. A more adequate definition of love can be discovered in God's word. For starters you might try looking at 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

   Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

4. Unrealistic expectations. Most of us enter marriage with the awareness that we are in some way incomplete on our own. We expect our prospective spouses to fill in the gaps between where we are and where we think we'll be when all our needs are met. We never stop to think that our partners are expecting the very same thing from us. Thus we enter marriage expecting someone else to fill up that which we lack, but they don't do that, because they are expecting exactly the same thing from us. Thus we enter marriage with unrealistic expectations. After a few years, we begin to realize the other person isn't going to meet all our expectations and so we become disillusioned about the marriage.

We need to recognize all these challenges for what they are - tools of the devil to undermine our marriages and destroy our faith. I'm reminded of something Paul wrote to the Ephesians that might just as well have been written today. "Be very careful, then, how you live -- not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is." (Ephesians 5:15-17).

That establishes the Biblical and philosophical base that we're going to work with this week. Vic Phares, our faithful and trusted tech guru, frequently uses a reality based expression to answer our computer questions. Sometimes we say to him, "Vic is it possible to . . ." In place of three dots we usually come up with some hair brained idea that would make any knowledgable computer person roll his eyes toward the back of his head. Vic has a stock answer. It's very polite and tactful, but he makes his point. He says, "Theoretically, you can do what you want to do, but in the real world, it's not practical." I always know that I'm going to have to settle for the real world answer. If we approached marriage according to the teachings of God's Word, we would always honor fidelity. We would always maintain mutual commitment. But we live in the real world, where those commitments aren't always kept. We're real world people and you're entitled to know how marriage soured for us in the real world. Next week, we'll tell you our story.

CHILDREN'S CORNER

by Grandy

This is the first time we've had a chance to get together. My name is Grandy. That's the name my grandchildren gave me, so you know that I am o-o-old. Today I ask you to always tell the truth. There's a lot of grown ups out there who don't tell the truth, but Grandy wants you to tell the truth, your parents want you to tell the truth and God wants you to tell the truth.

I'm really glad I've got a chance to write down some things on this machine that I don't understand. To me it's a lot of fun saying some things to you "young-uns." Maybe you don't like being called "young-uns." You probably would like to be called something else, but that's what my grandparents called me back when I was no more than knee high to my pet billy goat.

Now there I go. I said I was going to talk to you about telling the truth and the first thing I did was to tell you something that isn't true. Now this much is true. I did have a pet goat. We went everywhere together. I grew up on a farm without brothers and sisters. You get pretty lonely sometimes, when you're the only "young-un" on the farm, but I had my pet goat. We had all kinds of adventures together in the barnyard, in the fields and in the pastures. Sometimes, I liked to pretend that my goat was a horse, but you can't ever make a horse out of goat.

Oh, but I plumb forgot. I was going to admit that I didn't tell you the truth. My goat was a nanny goat, not a billy goat. I guess it sounded more man-like to call my goat a billy goat. People who tell goat stories never talk about nanny goats, but the truth is that I had a nanny goat (in case you live in the city somewhere, a nanny goat is a girl goat). But I knew she wasn't a billy goat. In fact, her name was Nanny. And it really didn't matter that Nanny was a girl. We had fun anyway.

I also didn't tell the truth when I said I wasn't knee high to my goat. As I remember, I was just a little taller than Nanny was when she raised her neck real high. You see, I told two things that weren't true. I said I had a billy goat when I really had a nanny goat and I said I just came up to her knees when I was really taller than that.

Why did I tell those things that weren't true? Well I guess I thought it made a better story. But guess what? If you start telling little things that aren't true, the first thing you know, you'll be telling some big things that aren't true. Maybe you'll be out in your dad's garage some day. Your dad warned you never to open that big red box over in one corner. But when he said that, you just had to know what was in there. You opened it up and found all kinds of tools, big shiny wrenches, screw drivers, pliers, hammers. No wonder Dad didn't want you to get into that box. He wanted to keep all those neat things to have fun for himself. You knew that you really shouldn't, but you pulled out one of those screwdrivers. But what were you going to do with it? Well, you noticed some screws on the side of the lawnmower. You tried to take them off, but they were too hard to turn. Anyway, about that time your friend next door yelled for you to come and see his new bicycle, so you dropped the screwdriver and went to look at the bicycle.

What fun you had riding the bicycle, but then you heard your dad calling. You could tell by the sound of his voice that he was not happy. He held the screwdriver in his hand and said, "Have you been in the red box?"

You said, "No, sir."

"Then why is this screwdriver on the garage floor?' he asked

Then you shook your head and said, "I don't know, Daddy."

You knew that wasn't the truth, didn't you? It kinda made you feel bad too, sorta like I did when I talked about being "knee high to a billy goat."

Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." Everything about Jesus was true. He never told a lie even when telling the truth meant he would have to suffer for it. In the end Jesus was blessed by his Father because he was truthful and God will bless us when we tell the truth.

Sometimes I think we tell things that aren't true because we think it makes a better story. Well, let me tell you one more thing about Nanny. I don't know how much you know about goats, but goats will eat just about anything they can bite off and chew.

My father had a Model T Ford. You've probably never seen one, but it is a very old car. You can see pictures of them in encyclopedias. This old car had a cloth top. Nanny ate the top right off our car and we had a covertible with the top down from then on. And that is the honest truth. That's a better story than the one I tried to make up about Nanny, don't you think.

Well, young-uns... There I go again. Old habits are hard to break. I sure enjoyed visiting with you. Maybe your parents will let you look at their computer again sometime soon and Grandy will tell you some other stories.

If you have questions about marriage and family relationships, you can "ASK THE COUNSELOR." Address your questions to Mikal Frazier. Her address is mikalfraz@aol.com

Norman's e-mail address: nlbales@allaboutfamilies.org