CONTENTS

• JUST VISITING
• WHAT YOU CAN LEARN ABOUT YOUR WIFE WHILE YOU'RE FISHING
• FROM THE E-MAIL BAG
  RANDOM THOUGHTS ON TELEVISION AND CHILDREN
• IF I WERE FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT, I WOULD...
  --THE CHRIST-CENTERED WIFE
  God Said So - The First Great Principle
  by Mikal Frazier

Mikal has favored us with another episode on the Spirit filled wife. I urge you to seriously consider the insights she offers. Mikal insists that workable marriages must begin with an unshakeable commitment to God. I urge to give serious consideration to her thoughts.

A student doing a research paper asked me to comment on television and children. My answer to this question appears in "From the E-Mail Bag."

Norman

A fishing journal can teach you a great deal about your marriage. Those who excel at the craft of angling have come a long way since Isaak Walton wrote The Compleat Angler. Today's fishermen invest a small fortune in state of the art equipment ranging from ultralight tackle to smart sonar devices, which can almost print out a message that reads, "An eight pound bass lurking twenty yards starboard awaits the presentation of your Carolina rig."

Fishing pros reveal detailed information concerning the habitat, food preferences, defensive strategies and gullibility of creatures that lurk beneath the waters. They know what the fish will and will not accept.

But this is not meant to be an outdoors column. I'm writing about husbands and wives. Occasionally, a frustrated husband will say, "I really work hard at nurturing our relationship. I call to express my love when I'm out of town. I never forget a birthday or an anniversary. We go out for dinner every Friday night. I send flowers, cards and jewelry and yet she remains distant."

Let me go back to the world of fishing for just a moment. I once caught a five pound bass. I remembered the exact location, the bait I used - everything. Repeated attempts to fish the same spot yielded nothing. A good fisherman would have changed his bait and changed his location.

Are you still with me? Remember, I'm talking about marriage. According to the Bible, "the husband is the head of the wife (Ephesians 5:23). With the privilege of headship, he takes the initiative in promoting love. "Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Ephesians 5:15). Most husbands want love to be returned. If it's a husbands responsibility to take the initiative, doesn't it make sense for him to study what his wife responds to? Many a husband tries to love his wife the same way I fished for bass. He knows what she responded to once upon a time and assumes that she will react in an identical way if he will only "throw the same bait" out there. When she doesn't, he thinks there's something wrong with her.

If you want a close, fulfilling relationship with your wife, you've got to be as smart as the guy who attacks the study of angling as if he were writing a doctoral dissertation. You've got to study your wife's preferences, aversions, moods, feelings and attitudes. The next time you pick up a fishing magazine, ask yourself this question. "Do the writers of this magazine know more about a slimly, scaly creature with fins than I know about my wife?"

ANSWER:

1. It's not a completely negative picture. When my children were growing up, "Sesame Street" and "Mr. Rogers" were helpful tools. Today's parents have even more options. There's something on the tube better than "Beavis and Butthead."
2. Television tends to promote passiveness. Youngsters need to be doers not just watchers.
3. Some evidence suggests that television alters the way children process information. Neil Postman, professor of communication arts and sciences at New York University, argues that television shortens the attention span of children. Some observers believe that long term exposure to television programming reduces the ability of children to think logically, sequentially and analytically.
4. Television tends to blur the distinction between right and wrong. Sexual involvement outside of marriage is frequently portrayed as either a neutral or approved activity. Some programming even suggests that drug dealing may not be all that bad.

   A recent ABC special, with Peter Jennings, portrayed drug pushers as normal, every day business entrepreneurs, whose work just happens to be illegal. Little was said about what their product is doing to children.

5. Religion is often presented negatively. Rarely does a television drama present a religious figure, especially a conservative religious figure, in a favorable light.
6. Television has a negative impact on violent tendencies in children. According to Dr. Robert Abramovitz at Yale, "there is a direct causal connection between . . . massive violence on television and increased aggressive behavior in children."

Norman

Nietzsche, a German philosopher and outspoken critic of Christianity said, "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how." And what do the words of an enemy of Jesus have to do with the Christ-centered wife? Just this. The fact that God said to stay in your marriage provides the first great principle for the Spirit-filled wife. God has given her a "why" to remain with the husband of her youth and to make her marriage the very best it can be. If the Spirit-filled wife can be patient, allow God to direct her life, then as she follows His directive, "why," He will enable her to find a glorious "how."

I can still remember the blackboard in my second-grade classroom with 1955 printed in block form. I remember the floppy bobby socks I often wore, possibly with saddle oxfords. And I remember riding home in our very worn out 88 Olds, practically stripped to the chassis, and chosen only because my father believed it was the safest car on the road. And I remember my mom, having spent a full day corralling 30+ fifth grade children, standing there at our dated Chambers stove cooking our supper. Or possibly she was making brownies to put on that old thick green plate with the brown rim. (My sister and I each claimed one of those plates as we cleaned out their home last summer.) But more than any of these images I remember the sayings or proverbs etched indelibly on my mind which my mother would share as she browned that home-grown beef or stirred those brownies. I never knew if it was Matthew, Mark, or Mamma, but I knew it was gospel.

One frequently heard was, "It is not within man who walks to direct his own steps." I was an adult before I knew that was a passage from Jeremiah. But daily in my work I see lives absolutely ravaged because mortal men and women are attempting to "direct their own steps." The first great principle for the Christ-centered wife is to know that God demands that her marriage be a lifetime covenant. God hates anything less. Dear Christian woman, God has already decreed that your steps be directed toward sustaining the relationship you have with the husband of your youth. As long as you believe that breaking this covenant is an option, you will not be motivated to find God's "how" in your marriage. Simply put, your marriage is most likely doomed.

Jay Haley, a leader in family therapy, but one who claims no faith in Jesus Christ, proclaims that it has always taken a third party to keep a marriage together. He says at one time it was the church, and then it was the state, and now it is the marriage counselor who holds a couple in tact. Well, possibly these three influences have been somewhat effective in keeping marriages together, but choosing to obey God remains our highest calling.

Yet, as people of God - who have the highest calling in our marriages - we are in trouble. Several years ago it was reported that evangelical Christians have a 2% higher divorce rate than the rest of the population. George Barna in his recent book, The Future of the American Family, states, "Recent studies indicate that people who belong to denominations that tend to campaign most vigorously against divorce... actually are somewhat more likely than others to experience a marital split." Barna continues with his most surprising find that, "...evangelicals represent 12 percent of the adult population but 16 percent of the divorced population."

From this information it seems that those who are the quickest to require a "Thus saith the Lord," for their religious views and anyone else's, can easily discard God's will when it suits their fancy. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Nazi resistor, draws an apt description for the process that leads a Christian woman to turn from God's directive. He wrote in his book Temptation:

"In our members there is a slumbering inclination toward desire which is both sudden and fierce. With irresistible power desire seizes mastery over the flesh. All at once a secret smoldering fire is kindled and the flesh burns and is inflamed. It makes no difference whether it is sexual desire, or ambition, or vanity, or desire for revenge, or love of fame or power or greed for money. At this moment God is quite unreal to us." He goes on to say, "Satan does not fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God. Is what the flesh desires really sin in this case? Is it really not permitted me, yes expected of me now here in my particular situation to appease this desire?" Just as the Tempter tried to persuade Jesus because of his privileged position, women come to me, convinced by the Great Deceiver, that in their particular circumstance, it is okay to devastate a dozen and more other lives.

And you know that is what I see in my practice. I do not see women who are leaving a marriage because some chronic, heinous sin is occurring. As Frank Pittman says, "You can't pull the really sick marriages apart." But I see marriages being destroyed because a wife and mother has decided that the grass is greener on the other side. I hear such frail excuses for divorce as "He is purposely missing Wednesday night church." Or, "He never supported me by going with us to church." And the best of all, "Jesus wouldn't want me to be unhappy." (I will address this one later.) And a close second is, "I don't think I ever loved him," as if that explains anything. Christian women are opting out of their marriages in droves by rationalizing just as Bonhoeffer described. And I have found the real reason is often because the Christian wife has found someone else.

I want you to know that if God is about anything, He is about forgiveness. But He wants the destruction to stop. Even before forgiveness, God is about relationships. His forgiveness is for the preservation of relationships. His will is for you to find joy where you are.

And guess what. As usual, when we go about following our own wisdom, without fail we prove God's wisdom, over and over. Leaders in the secular world of family therapy are now saying things like:

"Stay in that marriage. That is where you grow up." -- David Schnarch, author and family therapist.

"I never advise people to divorce, even if maybe they should." -- Frank Pittman, author and therapist.

At a marriage and family conference, Judith Seifer, past President of AASECT, decries the dilemmas she sees as divorce occurs and blended families are attempted.

God said, "I hate divorce." For the Christ-centered wife, her only option is to be filled with the Spirit of God, obey Him, and let His love be sufficient for her. Then let Him lead her to the wonders He has promised. To do anything less is not to trust Him.

NEXT WEEK'S STUDY: "DOES THE FAMILY HAVE A FUTURE?"