Little Green Mile Markers

I am driving up the interstate highway. I am in the fast-lane and I am counting the mile markers. They are these little green signs on the side of the road that mark the miles. I don’t know what purpose they serve other than a way to pass the time while driving. I have just crossed over the state line, mile marker 1. I have about 92 more mile markers before I turn off of this road. And I am thinking about how much I hate traveling. I have lived in the same small town my entire life and know it like the back of my hand. I know every short cut and backroad. I even know the history of all the landmarks. I have lived there so long that everyone looks familiar to me because I am sure I have seen them before.

But now I am on a road that is taking me away. As I pass another mile marker, its mile marker 3 now, I am trying to decide what to say. I have this stuffed dog next to me I would find out later that barked, but for now it was just sitting there listening. Beside it was a bouquet and card I had doted over for an hour or more. I had painstakingly written out a note in it.

I feel stupid and exposed. I am taking a risk, leaving what I know for something I don’t. I don’t even know if she will like me, or if she will keep liking me once she really knows me! Now I am getting nervous, so I look at the next marker, it’s number 4.

I think the worst part of all this is not knowing. Not knowing how this whole thing will end. And I am thinking that it may not end well for me. She is all the things I am not, outgoing, loving, kind, and pretty. She is the kind of pretty that is inside and out. Everybody likes her. I am definitely not pretty and sometimes I wonder if anybody likes me. There’s another mile marker I am at number 5 now.

So I start practicing on the dog again. It just seems better than talking to myself. This time I look in the review mirror which doesn’t help anything. So I do what all good Christians do when they are desperate, I pray. I ask God to somehow make this beautiful young lady love me. Which seems like a miracle to me!

A couple of years later, I am driving the opposite way, passing the same mile markers (they go backwards the other way and I have no idea why). But this time, I am holding her hand, and we are passing them together. We are driving back to my hometown to spend the rest of our lives together. But I am not counting them this time; we are just driving past them.

I don’t know how many “mile markers” we have driven past in our love together. But it doesn’t matter what they look like or what number is on them because we are together. And being together is the only “marker” that counts.

“We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.”
Sam Keen, To Love and Be Loved

Love is this beautiful, fantastic power that changes everything it touches. Love is like a slow atomic bomb. It blows up your life but replaces it with something much more meaningful. People will spend a lifetime looking for love. And those who lose it will spend the rest of their life looking to get it back. Once you have fallen in love, you never really get back up. There is no cure for love, once you have it you just can’t live without it

Introduction to Prayer Mapping

I got this idea from helping my daughter with a school assignment. It’s called concept mapping, but I have adapted it as a prayer guide. This is how it works; while you are praying for your spouse, you map out the things that you need to pray for in their life, and by mapping those things out, you discover some things about your spouse that you may not have realized before. It may help you to understand those things that you need to pray for in your spouse, yourself, and your marriage.

For example, my wife is a SAHM (stay at home mom) By mapping out some of the challenges of being a SAHM I can understand how frustrating of job that can be at times. It helps you to more effectively pray for your spouse and to see things a little differently.

Six Prayers that Could End Your Marriage Problems for Good

Submission

(I Peter 3:1-6)

What is Submission?

People have really got this wrong on both sides of the argument. Some people act like the Bible is wrong or antiqued about this so they try to explain it away or avoid it altogether. Other people think it means that the husband just gets to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants and the wife just has to deal with it!

Submission is an attitude in your heart. 1Pe 3:3-4, Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. It’s in the way that you respond to your husband. Even if you think he is wrong, you offer your thoughts calmly and express your willingness to accept his decision. It’s all about your attitude. If you approach him the right way, I don’t know of a man who would not listen if He is loving you as he should.

Submission is a choice. No one can make you submit, if they did it would not be Bible submission. So a man cannot force his wife to submit and expect that to fit what God wants. You choose to submit to the authority that God has given to your husband. It doesn’t mean you are less of a person. In fact, I think it takes more grace and strength to follow than to lead.

How Do You Submit?

Submission is a return. Marriage is a “give and take” relationship and sometimes it means giving more than you are taking. So you give by submitting to your husband in authority and respect. If your husband is not leading, talk to him about it and let him know that you want him to lead your home. You are both equal, but the Spirit-filled wife agrees to follow the lead of her husband as you both follow Christ.

Submission is two-way. You can find this principle in Ephesians 5:21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. So even the husband submits to the needs and wants of his wife. If the husband loves his wife as he should, he has her best interests in mind. This is the Bible model for marriage. For the husband to lovingly lead and for the wife to follow. If you are not there right now, it’s OK, you can get there with God’s help. I’m just being honest, but I don’t always lead as I should and my wife doesn’t always submit as she should but we are working on it.

There is this song that was popular when I was little but it’s still true it’s called He’s Still Working on Me:

In the mirror of His word
Reflections that I see
Makes me wonder why He never gave up on me
But He loves me as I am and helps me when I pray
Remember He's the potter, I'm the clay
He's still working on me
To make me what I need to be
It took him just a week to make the moon and stars
The sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars
How loving and patient He must be
'Cause He's still workin' on me