Month: February 2012

Yesterday I continued my week of marriage posts, resuming the concept of “Flove,” and I introduced PART 1 of  “3 Expressions of Flove That Will Change Your Marriage.”

In that post I shared the first two simple expressions of flove:

1. Hallmark Cards and Panties

2. Spy

Now…let’s resume with Expression #3…

3.    Let It Slide

If there’s one thing two decades of marriage has taught me, it’s don’t sweat the small stuff. When two people have the goal of growing old together, they learn to let things go! No one is perfect. Everyone has their own little idiosyncrasies. These are some of the elements that make relationships interesting.

Lori has one of these unique little quirks, and I love it. Lori is a workhorse. She can’t stand disorder so she’s constantly cleaning and organizing. Can this get irritating? Big time! When we’re leaving somewhere and on the way to the car, she makes 13 stops on the way out the door!

Yes, I’ve spent many a “5 minutes” waiting in the car.

Has this causes some fights? Yes. But then I realized… What’s the alternative? Would I rather live with a slob? Would I rather have dishes stacked everywhere and dirty laundry in piles? No way. And come to think of it… I love that Lori is a “do-er.” I really love that idiosyncrasy. So when I’m in the car waiting… I let it slide.

Besides, chances are that our spouse is letting things slide just the same. Many of the times I’m waiting for Lori in the car, she’s doing tasks that I neglected. (Take out the dog, lock the front door, set the alarm… are these her job?) Pretty silly to get made at that.

Does this mean never talk about conflict? Not even close. It just means, pick your battles. Sometimes we just need to let things slide, even when our spouse messes up or says something mean.

Today I was running with Lori and I started calculating the distance we were going, figuring out where each mile marker was, where we’d stop, etc. I’m really intrigued by all this. She’s not. I kept gabbing about it. “Let’s see, if we round the corner up there at Oak Avenue, we’ll still need to go another quarter mile. Hmmmm, minus the distance from here to….” (Those that know me well are probably laughing because they know I can be a chatterbox.)

Lori, exhausted, finally said, “Man! You won’t shutup!”

I could have been hurt by the comment. I was a little. But the funny thing was, I did the exact same thing to her two days ago. She was saying something and I responded with absolutely no sugar on it. I was tired. When Lori and I run, we get tired and we say things with no sugar added.

Funny, five minutes after each of our offenses, we each apologized. “Wow, that came out a little blunt. I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean it like that.”

Case closed.

Yet, for some people, those are the arguments that cause divorce. It sounds crazy, but it’s a fact. When you don’t have flove flowing through your marriage, the small stuff irks you like a small pebble in your shoe.

Try letting some of that small stuff slide. Put yourself in their shoes. Maybe you’re even the cause of some of it. Now, if your spouse continues to do the small stuff without any realization that it bothers you, eventually you’ll need to confront it… but that’s an entirely different article. The point here is, flove isn’t quick to get angry. Flove let’s the small stuff slide. (James 1:19 in action)

* * *

There you have it, 3 expressions of flove.

Scared of Divorce:
In a recent poll, 67% of unmarried young adults admitted that they were scared to marry, fearing that it would only end up in divorce.

Isn’t that sad? Marriage has almost become a stigma that is pretty close to what Kid Rock expressed (see Expression #1). That’s because those people haven’t experienced flove. When you have flove, you’ll want to live it out and express it in ways like these three expressions.

What about you?
How do you let God’s love flow through you to your spouse?

How can you implement the principles above in your marriage?

This week we’ve been talking about marriage. It started with a glimpse at my date plans for my 21^st anniversary, then I shared the results of those plans (and how part of the night almost backfired), then I shared the secret to surviving 21 years of marriage… something I called “flove.”

Now that we know flove isn’t something we can accomplish by trying really hard, we don’t want to misinterpret that as an excuse to just sit on our butts! Flove doesn’t mean “don’t try.” Flove is the motivation behind “try.”

Without flove, love can become a mere list of tasks we should do but don’t want to. Flove produces a bunch of tasks, not because we should do them, but because we want to do them!

Sometimes people feel the flove but don’t know how to express it. We understand the principle of surrendering to God and letting his love flow through us, but we struggle with real life day to day application.

I hear you! I’m right there with you. So here’s 3 simple expressions of flove that I’ve learned along the way, practices that can literally change your marriage!  (I’ll post 1 and 2 today, and the third tomorrow)

1.    Hallmark Cards and Panties

Remember when you first dated your spouse and you would surprise him/her with a note, a gift or a creative date?

Then you got married.

Why is it that so often the fun romantic stuff ends at marriage? Years ago pop music star Kid Rock told Rolling Stone, “Getting married is f**king fun. Being married sucks.” (Rolling Stone, August 9, 2007, p. 24) TV shows and movies regularly joke about this marriage stigma. “Once you get married, it all goes downhill.”

Don’t let this happen in your marriage. If you are surrendering to God and allowing his Spirit to flow His love through you (flove), then you’ll want to express that through spontaneous acts of love.

Most men would astonish their wives by buying her a card (and actually writing something in it!) for no reason other than to say “I love you.” Similarly, wives can give their husbands a pleasant surprise by putting on a really sexy pair of underwear in the morning when she’s getting dressed, waiting until they’re in public, then whispering in his ear that she’s wearing them! (Or better yet… just skip the underwear totally… and tell him that!)

Discover your spouse’s biggest needs (I’ve probably nailed some of the big ones in my examples above) and spontaneously meet that need.

One of the best way to discover your spouse’s need is to…

2.    Spy

Spy on your spouse! I know, it sounds kinda creepy. But I’m not talking about you standing outside the bedroom window in an overcoat. What I’m saying is, notice your spouse when you typically don’t notice them.

Whenever I got to the mall with my wife Lori and she covets a pair of earrings, I take notice. Sometimes I even throw them on a different hook when she’s not looking so I can come back later and buy them.

I also try to practice the art of “noticing” when Lori is telling me about her day. It’s amazing what you can pick up from daily conversation. “Oh man! I’m loathing that huge load of laundry I have to do this weekend!”

Bingo.

Yes… if you notice these things, they often will require some action on your part. But these actions will yield amazing rewards. When you buy your spouse that gift they wanted, or when you do a task that they mentioned that they hated… you’ve done more than just doing something for them… you “listened!” (Men, if you can do this, this is huge! It might even lead them to doing Step 1 above!)

Often, we’re too tired to notice. “Me” gets in the way of noticing our spouse.

Don’t fall into this trap. As you surrender to God and feel his love flowing through you, notice your spouse for who they are. That might even require you to…

(Tune in to my post tomorrow when I’ll share with you the 3rd Expression of flove)

What about you?
How do you let God’s love flow through you to your spouse?

How can you implement the principles above in your marriage?

Many of you already know, Lori and I are celebrating 21 years of marriage this week. It’s funny, because whenever this younger generation hears me say that, they are always really surprised. “Whoa! 21 years! Seriously? How did you do it?”

I guess that’s the big question. What’s the secret?

I call it “flove.” (No, that’s not a misspelling.)

Simply put, if a husband and wife just try really hard to love each other… then that’s exactly what it’s gonna be: really hard.

The key isn’t trying really hard. The key is giving up.

The one thing that Lori and I did right from the beginning (probably one of the only things we did right that first year) was admitting that this thing was way beyond us, so we gave up trying to do it by ourselves, and we brought God into the relationship. This opened the door to “flove.”

Imperfect Love
Here’s how it works. When I try really hard to love, it’s an imperfect love. Selfishness gets mixed in. Jealousy gets mixed in. All the drama you see in reality shows—that stuff creeps in.

Doesn’t it happen in your house? Sometimes even when you’re trying to do something nice?

“Hey baby, come here for a minute and help me make the bed. I don’t want you to have to do it by yourself later.”

“Why would I have to do it later? Because I’m the woman?”

“I didn’t mean that… it’s just that you do make it by yourself a lot, and I wanted to help.”

“But why can’t you make it by yourself sometime. Is that so unfair?”

“No, it’s not unfair, but you know how busy I am. Can’t you just be happy that I’m helping you!”

“What? Like I’m not busy?”

I digress.

I’m sure you’ve never had any arguments like this one.

That’s why we need “flove,” not this imperfect version of love we try to produce on our own. Flove seeks to please, not to be pleased. Flove isn’t defensive. Flove isn’t looking out for “me.”

“Flove” Defined
This wisdom isn’t mine… I stole it! It’s straight from the book of Ephesians in the Bible, but surprisingly, not from the part of the book that most people point to when talking about marriage. Whenever someone writes or preaches on marriage, you can almost bet that they’re going to open up the book of Ephesians to Chapter 5, the famous part of scripture where Paul encourages husbands to lay down their lives for their wives and wives to serve their husbands. Yes, there’s a lot of debate over some of the strong words in this passage, words like “submit” or “head.” But anyone who gives this passage a fair reading can’t deny that the marriage relationship is presented as a two way street, with each party (and I quote) “submitting to one another out of reverence to Christ.” (vs. 21).

But to simply read this “submitting” passage from Chapter 5 is like starting the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding after Toula’s makeover. You don’t know how she got there. These verses don’t tell us what happened to us, giving us the strength to submit to each other.

Let’s be honest. This “submitting” to one another is easier said than done. What about when the husband is being selfish or insensitive. Do wives have to submit to him then? What about when the wife is nagging or backbiting? Do husbands have to love them “as they love their own bodies” then?

That’s really hard!

So what’s the secret? Again, please, no one tell me, “You just need to try harder!” If that’s the case, Lori and I would have given up long ago. Because neither of us, no matter how hard we try, can serve, submit and love each other enough by our own efforts.

And that’s the key. We can’t do it on our own. We need “flove.”

The Source of “Flove”
So where do we get this strength or power to love and serve each other when our partner is acting like a turd?

We need to turn back and read a little bit earlier in Paul’s letter… a verse that might surprise you

Ephesians 5:18 (NIV)
¹⁸ Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.

People often use this verse to talk about drinking, and they neglect the most important parts of the verse: be filled with the Spirit! Paul is saying, stop filling yourself with these temporary pleasures that lead to mistakes we’ll regret—instead, let God fill us with his Spirit which will guide us and give us a new perspective.

This verse provides the source of the strength. If we want the power to submit to one another, we need to spend time with God so his Spirit fills us. As his Spirit fills us, we’ll have the strength to submit.

That’s “flove.” Think of Ben Kenobi telling Luke, “A Jedi can feel the force flowing through him.” When we stop trying to do it on our own, and allow the Spirit (not the force) to flow through us, that produces a pure love that isn’t thinking from a selfish, earthly perspective. It produces a love flowing from the Spirit—flove.

This concept is way bigger than just one verse—it’s all throughout scripture. If you flip back to Ephesians 4:22 and 23, you’ll hear Paul encouraging us to get rid of our old ways (the old sinful nature, vs. 22), and instead, let the Spirit renew our thoughts and attitudes (vs. 23). He uses the same wording when he talks about God transforming us through the “renewing of our minds” in Romans 12:2.

This is foundational belief in Christ. It’s Gospel. It’s “I can’t do it on my own. I put my trust in you.” That’s when the Spirit takes over and produces “flove.”

Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing magical about the word flove. I just made the word up because it was a catchy nomenclature for this Biblical concept. The key is where it comes from and what it can do for you.

Flove can change your marriage. It changed mine. But flove is also bigger than marriage. Flove can change all our relationships. When we go back to this “filled with the spirit verse” we also see a slightly bigger picture than just the context of marriage. Marriage is just one area of our life where we allow God to fill us so we can submit to one another. That’s why this marriage passage is followed by instructions about kids submitting to parents, and even slaves submitting to masters. Paul is helping us understand that when we allow God’s spirit to transform us, “flove” can transform our relationships.

It’s a simple concept. Give up. Let His love flow through us.

Then why is it so hard? Maybe it’s because it’s against our nature, against our culture, to just “give up.”

Lori and I gave up 21 years ago… and our marriage gets better and better each day.