Transcript
I have an admission I want to make, that when I asked my dear wife, Luella, to marry me, I didn't have a clue as to what made for a healthy, godly, loving relationship. Poor Luella. I wish I had known those things. As I look back, we could have avoided much of the struggle of those early years and I am deeply persuaded that there are many Christian families who don't know that answer either. They don't actually know what makes for a family that's unified and loving, where understanding can be found, where problems can be solved, where a culture of grace and love lives.
Five Essential Words
And so, I want to give you five words. Five essential words, five words that God's grace makes possible for you, five words that begin to move you toward the family that I think all of us want. Surrender, purpose, discipline, patience, and mercy.
Let me start with "surrender". I think that if you want to have the family that God has planned for you, if you want to know that love, if you want to know that unity, if you want to know that joy, if you want to know that forgiveness, if you want to know that commitment, then there's a prayer that you must pray.
This is a radical, dangerous prayer because if this prayer is really the prayer of your heart and not just the words of your lips, it will change you. It will change the way you think about your life and think about your family, think about your marriage, think about parenting. Here are the words.
"Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." You see that prayer is about one single commitment. It's surrender. Surrender to the existence and rule of somebody other than yourself. Surrender to the kingdom of somebody other than yourself. Surrender to the glory of somebody other than yourself. Surrender to the pleasure of somebody other than yourself. Surrender to the joy of somebody other than yourself. It's surrender.
Your Kingdom Come in My Marriage
Imagine praying, "Your kingdom come, Lord. Your will be done right here, right now in my marriage." Not "How do I get my wife to make me happy? Or what kind of husband do I need today," or not, "What kind of noble children am I trying to form?" It's surrendering to the will and the way of another. It's surrendering to the purpose of another.
How about, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done," in every single conversation and encounter, every moment of correction, every moment of discipline, every moment of love, every activity that I have with my children?
You see, here's the biblical principle. If God is not in His rightful place, guess who I will stick in that place? Myself. I'll make it all about me. I'll make it about my schedule and my happiness and my control and me being right and what gives me pleasure. And all of a sudden, if you have everybody in the family trying to construct their own little kingdom, you'll have endless conflict, endless criticism, endless dissatisfaction, familial chaos.
I will confess this and it's sad to confess, but my problem has never been, first, that I don't love Luella enough or I don't love my children enough. My problem is I don't love God enough. And when I fail to love God as I should, then I don't love the people in my life in the way that He calls me to. You see, it's only when God is in His rightful place that the people in my family will be in the appropriate place.
Surrender Is a Process, Not an Event
Now, let me say this final thing to you. Surrender is not an event. It's a process. It's every day surrendering again because as long as sin is inside of me, there's going to be that desire to stick myself in the center of my family, in the center of my marriage, in the center of my parenting and make it all about me, and there's grace for that process.
God meets you in your weakness. He meets you in your need. He loves to respond to people who, in brokenness, seek Him for help. Run to Him and say, "I'm not very good at surrendering, but I'd like to surrender to Your will so I can experience in my family the blessings that only You can give."
