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Have you been hurt? Have you been disappointed?
By your spouse. By those you love. By God.
I think the answer has to be yes. Disappointment is part of the human experience.
Jesus was disappointed and hurt by those he loved. But he somehow put his disappointments in a category where it didn’t slow down his mission to do God’s will.
In this episode, I share how I felt disappointed by my husband and went about things the wrong way.
And I share what I should have done (let this be a lesson to you 🙂
Yes, I’ll share how to motivate your spouse to do what you want, but more importantly what to do if they don’t. It’s a perspective shift that’s required if you’re going to have a healthy and happy marriage.
But also I share how to have less disappointments and be less hurt by your spouse.
If you’ve been disappointed by God, I want to speak to that as well.
Especially as this pandemic is taking it’s toll on so many in so many different ways, we can easily get disappointed at God. How could he do this? How could He allow this?
How does He not stop this? I want to speak to this.
I aim to comfort you and help you process your disappointments and give you a road map of how to have a much better sense of control when you are seeking to heal things with your spouse.
Love & blessings,
Belah
transcript
0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. You’re joining me belah rose as I dive deep into the beauty, power and truth about intimacy, learn not only the practicals, but the heart behind what making love is all about. delight your marriage. Hi, there, welcome. This is belah rose. And I’m really grateful that you are joining me, it has been a little while since we have talked. And I want to just apologize that I have not been able to put out a podcast regularly over the last few weeks, I’ve been putting out a lot of content, but for my clients for my students. So anyway, I’m really aiming to get better at this. So this is, yeah, this is the plan to get back, get back on track to regularity. So thank you for for joining today. So here is what I want to talk about is disappointment, expectations, and boundaries. So what I think it is, is that a lot of people have expectations in their marriage that go unmet, and then they get disappointed. And they’re hurt. And the cycle continues and continues. And so what I want to do is give you a roadmap for how to deal with disappointments, with yourself, with God, with your spouse with other people. And the key to that is boundaries. So I’m going to start out with a silly story. Depending on where you are in the world, you may be in lockdown. For us in New York City, we have been locked down for four months and starting I guess, middle of March. So that means that just you know, no close physical contact with people, aside from you know, wearing our masks in the park. But we’re just not doing that a whole lot because we’re really focused on social distancing. So that’s where we are in all of this. But kind of hilariously, in our own apartment. We live in a one bedroom in New York, but we have two children. So what we did was we actually built a room inside the apartments for our boys, which is enough space for their bunk bed and you know, a few things here and there. But it comes out of the living room, and then the living room area is still you know, a good, good amount of space for them to play and all that stuff. So yeah, so hilariously, during COVID, we have had kind of a crisis situation in our apartment, which has allowed which has required the boys to sleep in the living room, they can’t sleep in their own bed. And so we have been working on this to to solve it. And, yeah, it’s taken four months. So I have gotten to a spot where I really like things to be clean. I like order I like organization. And I feel stressed when things are out of order and out of my preferred organization. So thankfully, I have a boundary that our boys are not allowed in our room. So our room is totally off limits, I think that’s a really wise choice for parents to do for their children is to not allow them to come in. So there’s never a concern that oh my gosh, my kids are going to interrupt me or they’re going to find something in my room that’s you know, some sexual paraphernalia and we’re all going to you know, have trauma. So, but a wonderful perk about that is my room is spotless, generally speaking, because I I know that’s what makes me live the best life is if I have a space that is just totally mine totally clean. And so and I guess the question is, you know, when I when I walk out of this room, the the rest of the apartment is generally pretty messy, pretty disheveled. And the question is, am I disappointed that, you know, the problems haven’t been solved already and we can’t get the boys back into their room. I mean, if I look and compare other people solve these problems within You know, a week, and it’s taken us four months?
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If I really think about it, yes, I think I am disappointed. I mean, my husband could be going into overdrive to fix this. But the truth of the matter is, I don’t want to fix this. Personally, I don’t want to at all, if I am expecting someone else to fix this, then how can I get angry that they’re not doing what I want to be done? I’m perfectly capable, I’ve got hands and legs and feet, and I can, I can get something done. If it is my, you know, goal and wish for it to be accomplished. So, with all that said, you know, why am I going to be disappointed at my husband? For something that I could do? Is it truly His responsibility? If I care to look, the truth is, he’s actually been doing an amazing job with everything that’s on his plate. And I’m so grateful that I have a room that I can be completely in control of, and at peace, and when I am here, you know, everything’s in order. So, I think the important thing I want to pull out of here is, if we feel disappointment with our spouse, it’ll seep out in in big and small ways. So a couple of weeks ago, I decided that I had had it, and that we needed to get the boys back in their room immediately, because I felt like I was camping. And just so you know, I hate camping. And the funny thing is, it’s because it’s so disorganized. I grew up in a place where we literally camped on the properly property while the house was being built. And then we moved into the house before there was electricity. And you know, we washed our dishes in the stream and things like that. For several years before we got electricity, we would do our homework by lantern light. So yeah, so I’m familiar with camping, and I don’t like it. I will say my sister responded to those warm fuzzy memories with she loves camping and she goes camping all the time. I do not, because I hate it. It’s so disorganized, there’s a ton of work you have to do before you leave. And there’s even more work you have to do when you get home. And for some reason, every time I have ever gone camping in my life, which I have gone a couple dozen times the temperatures are either freezing, which I’ve never actually checked the temperature. So it’s possible they weren’t but still very cold. Or it it rained and stormed. So, um, so yeah, so that is a bad feeling. When I feel like I’m going camping in my own apartment. Um, so anyway, I was in anger mode, when I was presenting this to my husband. I shared it in a not so respectful way with my husband, now, I’ve come to a place where I don’t generally accuse my husband, accusations of well, you’re not doing this or you’re not doing that. But because I I could, I had an attitude of he is the one at fault here. He’s the one that’s not doing enough. It’s it was gonna seep out. Like it’s just kind of a natural thing. And so he became demotivated to help. Because the truth is, when we force others to do things, they no longer want to do it out of self motivation, then they just do it from a place of resentment, because they’re being forced to. And that is not something you want your spouse to be in. You want your spouse to do things out of their own motivation, their own desire. And so, what should I have done instead? While I should have figured out my own boundary issue, because essentially, I should have realized that I can fix the problem. I am a fully capable adult that can fix this. It doesn’t have to be on my husband’s plate. And because I’m, you know, assuming that he’s the one that’s going to do this, I’m getting hurt and angry. You know, usually anger is just a cover over
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hurt. But it’s because I had an unreasonable expectation and expectation on someone else, that they didn’t agree too, it wasn’t conscience conscious. It wasn’t spoken. And it may have been realistic, but we hadn’t even gotten that far to agree on it. So that’s actually Pete’s caseros. He, I’ve talked about him a lot. He’s a pastor in Queens, and he runs a course called Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, and one of or emotionally healthy relationships, maybe he runs both of those. But anyway, one of the skills in that is recognizing that your expectations, they, they have to be four things for them to be appropriate, they have to be conscious, they have to be spoken. They have to be agreed to by the other person. And they have to be realistic. So the three of the four, those were not appropriate expectations for me to get angry at my spouse, because how was he supposed to know that I wanted it done in two weeks? And, and, you know, did he agreed to do it within two weeks? And are we even having that? You know, consciously presented? No, I’m just angry because I, I want things the way I want them when I want them. And that’s not. Yeah, that’s not the way to, I think, to live well. And at the same time it to recognize, you know, I’m getting frustrated, because I’ve been doing this camping deal in my own apartment for four months. So I’m really, I’m ready for things to be nice. So what what could if done, after doing the work of realizing, okay, this is my problem, this is not his problem, this is my problem. Well, the thing I needed to do is, is express the desire, so that that expectation is no longer unspoken, it’s spoken. And it’s conscious, and he has the opportunity to agree to it or not. Because then if I expressed the desire, and it’s clear, he’s not interested in doing it, then I am empowered now to fix it. So here’s the way I think wisely to an express and a desire to your spouse. So basically, you could say, Honey, I’d love us to get the boys back in their rooms, I feel stressed that things are so disheveled in our home. So one thing you’ll notice, is I said, I would love to get us back into the room. So it’s very much a expressing my own desire, rather than saying, let’s get the kids back in the room, I’m getting stressed. So that’s a covert command. When you say let’s, because that’s requiring their action, which means you’re telling them what to do. Let’s do this, we should do this, we need to do this. Those are covert commands. And that makes anyone go back and decide, oh, I don’t like the way that sounds. I don’t like the way that feels, especially your spouse. They’re very sensitive to that, especially men. They’re very sensitive that but women are too. So when you say I’d love to, it’s more vulnerable. But it’s also recognizing that you don’t have control over them, you only have control over you. And you can share that desire. And then the next piece is I could have just opened up with what are you thinking. And I have to say that in a curious way. Because if I say it in a passive aggressive way, or in a way that I have to be really conscious of my tone, but the tone comes from my attitude, it comes from my heart. So I really need to be aware of that. I can just say, What are you thinking? And that that gives him the opportunity to decide what he wants to do, and to even share how or what he has been thinking. Because let’s say he has had a plan this whole time. And you know, there’s more details to the story that I didn’t realize and X, Y and Z because, you know, you and your spouse see things differently and are given different strengths by God’s grace. So you’re not going to see everything your spouse does see things you don’t see and and giving them the space and opportunity to share. What they’re thinking is is very helpful. But you have to do it with a curious heart. You can’t do it with a Come on, man,
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get this together. You’ve got to have a curious heart. So if you take notes on my podcast, I hope this is something you’ll write down So honey, I’d love us to x. So I’d love us to get the boys back in their rooms. And then the next piece is I feel I feel stressed that things are so disheveled in our home, that I feel peace is very clear. It helps. It helps you identify, and it helps motivate the other person. Because the truth of the matter is your spouse does want you to be happy, that’s a big priority in their life, you are a big priority to them. So they want your feelings to be important. But be careful that you don’t go into I feel like XYZ because when you say I feel like or I feel that those are no longer feeling words, and they’re generally getting towards an accusation. So I feel you need to use an actual feeling word which is hurt, upset, angry, frustrated, lonely, disappointed, regret guilty. All of these, you know, we could go on and on. Those are feeling words. And that’s important to clarify. What am I feeling? What is this situation causing me to feel? Or how am I reacting in this situation and if feeling a certain way, doesn’t mean that your feelings going to be perfect, it just you can share how you are feeling. So honey, I’d love for us to get back in their in their rooms, get the boys back in their rooms, I feel stressed that things are so disheveled. I’m curious what you’re thinking. And that, again, gives him the opportunity to share what what’s on his on his agenda. What is he thinking? Or is this something that that he’s just as fed up as me and and maybe I have the the gumption and the passion, the ability to make a ton of phone calls and figure things out, so that this situation is resolved, which is fine, we just need to talk about it without accusing or demotivating the other person. So there have been times aside from the story that I have been really disappointed with my husband, and there are times that he has been really disappointed with me. And there are also times that I have been really disappointed with people. And there are also times that I have been disappointed with God. And I think the way we need to be thinking about this is things like disappointment and sadness and feelings of reject being rejected. And there’s lots of feelings that are negative. And it’s important for us as humans to guard our heart. That’s what Proverbs 423 says, Above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. So if you have felt disappointed by others, if you felt disappointed by your spouse, I think this is going to help you because when you guard your heart, you aren’t as exposed to hurt. And there’s lots of ways to guard your heart. But one of the big ones is to check your expectations. I think one of the reasons the word covet is in the 10 commandments as something we should not do. Do not cover your you know neighbor’s wife or I don’t know what all it says house or oxen I feel like that’s included. But like the point is their possessions what they live, who they are, who they’re married to, when you covet them. You now are comparing your life to theirs and you’re expecting that to be included in your life. Now you’re now you’re frustrated with your life because if they can do it, I should be able to do it. Or if they have that I should be able to have that and it and it makes your expectations probably raise and it sews discontentment in your heart. So, if we are guarding our heart, we are careful about what our expectations are.
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And I believe that it’s a very biblical notion to guard your heart and even from your spouse. So I use this example a lot, but I’m going to share it because I think we really will listen, we listen to people who have awesome marriages. And we forget that they had a process to get there. So, when I’m talking to my husband, we’re at a 10 out of 10 kind of marriage, like we’re at a nine out of 10. On the bad days, like by God’s grace, we’ve gotten to a place where our marriages amazing, like literally, like, amazing for so many reasons. But we didn’t, we didn’t get there. By doing what we do. Right now, we had to go through a process to get there. So when we were back at a, you know, four out of 10 marriage, on the bad days, a two out of 10, sometimes up to a five, maybe up to a six on the really good days, you know, just kind of a roller coaster really what, what I want to share with you is the process to get higher up on the on the scale wasn’t to employ the way we live. Now, it was to employ a process of system to get to where we are now. So you get to a place of, you know, let’s say you’re at a three out of 10. Okay, you start to be more careful with your words, you have lower expectations of your spouse, you guard your heart, you don’t expect them to you know your husband and bring you flowers and give you a foot rub and all the things that you’re honestly comparing you to your husband to another person’s husband, or as a husband, you’re comparing your wife to oh my gosh, she’s so sexually free, and she’s so sexually generous, etc. But instead, you guard your heart, you you have low expectations, because you guys are a three out of 10 You can’t you can’t expect to get 10 out of 10 treatment from your spouse when you guys emotionally. You know, maritally, healthily, I’m using too many words, your marital health is a three out of 10, you will not receive the treatment of a 10 out of 10. Spouse. That’s just, that’s impossible. So if you have expectations that are low based on where you guys are, then okay, now I’m a three out of 10. How do I get to a four out of 10? Well, let me guard my heart, but also act in a way that’s going to move the ball forward. So if you have low expectations of your spouse, but you decide you know what, I’m going to love my spouse, I’m going to do the things that are matter to them. I’m going to, I’m going to be active in changing this situation. But you can’t have the expectation that they’re going to respond as though you guys were 10 out of 10, you’re not, you’re out of three out of 10. But as you put in the work, to change things to shift things, then it’ll go to a four out of 10. And as you keep doing the work, you keep your head down, you keep doing the stuff, it’ll get to a five out of 10. And slowly, slowly, slowly, you’ll get there. But if you have high expectations, because you’re doing all this work, that is going to discourage you, it’s going to disappoint you. And it’s going to cause you to be resentful, rather than motivated to keep going. I love a phrase suffer the discipline of sorry, suffer the pain of discipline, or the pain of regret. And so if you are disappointed with your spouse, suffer the pain of discipline, be disciplined to change your marriage don’t suffer the pain of regret based on you know who your kids grew up to be or what what kind of relationship you have with your spouse when you’re empty nesters or divorce or just so many difficult things.
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But we’ve got to start somewhere. So we’ve got to start where we are. So again, guard your heart, have low expectations, but do the things that are going to move you up the scale. And if you want to know what those are. I’ve got a whole lot of episodes that tell you what they are. Or are you coming to a course with me, but that is what I want to encourage you. So how do you deal with some of these disappointments because they’re real and they’re hurtful, and it feels lonely? Like, why did I can’t share with my spouse my feelings? Well, here’s, here’s the way I see it. When God tells us to love him, with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind, and with all of our strength, that is the first and greatest commandment. Like, that’s it like, God does not tell us to love our spouse, with all our heart with all your soul, with all our mind and with all our strength. He doesn’t. And a lot of times we mix that up. We think that our spouse is elevated above God, and it’s so wrong. And it’s so destructive. Because when our spouse disappoints us, we blame it on God. And it’s just like, what? God didn’t disappoint you. That was your spouse, that was always a human that messed up. Um, and both of you did in different ways, right? No, no one’s no one’s perfect in a situation one of you can always be more effective. So what I want to encourage you is your disappointment, has a safe place with God, you can share your heart with God, you can trust him with your heart, with your feelings, with your worries with your cares with your desires. He is trustworthy. Now, here’s the question, though I think a lot of people struggle with and I have struggled with and I’m hoping this gives you some insight. The question is, has God disappointed you? So I am a very positive person. I have a lot of faith for God to perform miracles in my heart, in my life in other people’s hearts and lives. I prayed for physical healings. And my brother was raised from the dead. If you haven’t heard that episode, please, please go back and listen to it. It’s absolutely incredible. It’s something like last week, my brother was found without a pulse. I think that’s the title. Another one it was my son was healed of a blind eye. That wasn’t even that long ago. Another one was my sister’s surgery that should have resulted in a disfiguration or disfigurement. But I had a dream that you wouldn’t be able to see it and you can’t see it. It can’t You can’t see this disfigurement. But another just these are just random times that I’ve seen in my life prayer, change things. But my sister’s headache, completely went away after prayer. I remember a college friend that I prayed for his back was healed. I do have great faith. I don’t take credit for this. It’s actually I think, a natural proclivity. I think God has given me that. And I think God uses me to help inspire others to have faith in those in their own situations. Which I think is why I can do this work, because change cannot happen without faith. And I think secular people know this, people who don’t believe in Jesus, they know this, like, have you heard of the law of attraction, there was a very popular movie and book came out several years ago, called The Secret. And there’s just lots of thoughts like that around, like, if you feel it, if you believe it, if you visualize it, you’ll get it like whatever it is, and that’s faith. Right? Wealthy people know this, they get more wealth, because they believe in themselves. If you’ve ever heard of vision boards, that’s, that’s, that that’s a tool of faith. You know, all of these items, I think our tools have faith. And, and faith is God’s. But secular people use it for results because it works. Just like prayer and meditation is God’s, but secular people use it for results. The difference is who you are giving the credit to who you are giving the glory to.
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And I think another piece that’s really important, and this is a bit of a side, but I really think this is important. If we don’t believe that faith works outside of Christianity as well. We assume God is leading us based on our outside circumstances rather than based on the inner the inner introspection, inquiry connection relationship with God, we just assume if something happens outside of us, it must mean God is leading me in that direction. So for example, you get a job offer across the country. And the assumption is, Well, God must have given me favor he opened the door So I have got to walk through it. And I just don’t think that is true. There are lots of doors Jesus walked through, that we’re going to be painful and dangerous and bad. He was even warned that he was going to get killed if he went to that city. And he went, because that’s where the Holy Spirit was leading him. Even Paul, I think I can’t remember the full details. But I think he was ended up being shipwrecked after though he knew he was going to get persecuted in a certain place. And he went there anyway, like that was because of the inner leading of the Holy Spirit. But if we assume that God is the only one that works in, in the way of faith, like, I guess I want to say that faith works. But you have to be careful. If this is God’s way and God’s season, and God’s will. That’s, you have to be careful, you have to know God, you can’t just tell, you know, decide, oh, this happened. So it was a sign I must be, you know, I must have to do this, or I must not do that, or what have you sometimes. You know, it says in the world, we’re going to have trouble. But take heart, I have overcome the world, like, we’re not guaranteed a good, a good, happy, peaceful life here. That’s that’s not what the church founders experienced. If that’s what they were going to base their faith on, then they, you know, they were sadly, you know, they would, they would have lost it. But they base their faith on a relationship with Jesus, they base their faith on that, not their outward experience. So I think God has given me a gift of faith, to help others to encourage others. In Hebrews 11, six, it says, Without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists, and that He rewards those who seek Him. So the type of faith that pleases God is believing God exists, and believing that He rewards those who seek Him. And then, the writer of Hebrews gives examples of the people who, who walked by faith. And there were even experiences where it talks about how Abraham was promised something, but he didn’t actually see the fruition of the promise. And so my encouragement to you is that you have to have faith in Jesus to to please him, Have faith in God to please Him, and have faith that he’s gonna reward you if you seek Him. But it doesn’t mean reward you in this life, it may mean that you’re gonna have a really cool mansion, and some really amazing jewels on your crown when you get to heaven. So my encouragement to you is that if you have your, your expectations of God, in this way that, you know, if I’m a good Christian, then he is going to do X, Y, and Z. The truth of the matter is he never, he doesn’t promise it that way. That’s not That’s not a biblical kind of thing. Sometimes he’s gracious, sometimes he works in those ways. But it doesn’t even mean that you are in line with God’s will, that you have gotten, I don’t know a lot of money or a lot of fame, or a lot of that doesn’t mean those are not equal. Our society thinks they’re equal, but they’re just not.
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They’re just not. In fact, there’s so much in the Bible that runs completely counter to that notion, for example, it talks so many times I think it’s like 16 times, at least in Proverbs, where it says, wisdom is more valuable than Ruby, rubies and silver and gold. I mean, it’s so important that we are more more careful about our, our mindset and our wisdom and our thoughts and our heart than we are about, you know, worldly goals. So, the other piece that I think is helpful, too to know his, his his my disappointment with God was severe. You know, when I was married the first time I fasted and prayed for that mirror I stood on the word, I relied on God’s power, I had faith that things would turn around. And I was one of those people that like, prayed for people in restaurants that I didn’t know, like the waitress or whatever. Like, that was the mindset I was in. Not that that is a bad thing, guys, really, I’m not saying that’s bad. But I, I had significant faith. And I think the thing that I struggled with, and I think a lot of people struggle with is, I am believing for x. I have faith for x. But how do I, how do I handle it? If he doesn’t come through? How do I handle it? If God disappoints, but here’s what I have come to that, I think, allows me to love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength, and have faith for what he wants in my life. And trust him for miracles and have faith that that I’m not, I’m not dis dissuaded by by him not doing something that I was praying for. I have faith for x. But I will be okay. If x doesn’t come through, because I trust God more. So for example, I can lay hands on this person and ask God to heal, but I will be okay if he doesn’t, because I trust God more than I trust, whether or not he decides to act in this moment. My trust is in God. And I’m just, you know, if I can be, you know, his pawn, if you will, I have to be faithful for him to do the work he wants to do and get the actual glory for it. You know, it doesn’t mean that he’s always going to get the glory when when he does act and respond to our prayers. But I’ll tell you, it’s a it’s a lot easier. If you can pray, and even publicly, and God
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acts, and then he gets the glory for it, it changes people’s lives.
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But if you don’t have faith enough to to do that, then you know, you’re worried about being disappointed by God, it’s like, Well, you probably are going to be because you don’t, you’re not willing to trust God. Right? That’s what Hebrews 11 talks about, you have to have faith, you have to believe that God exists, you have to believe that he exists. So what am I trying to say here is, as I want you to have boundaries, around your expectations, around your expectations of God around your expectations of your spouse around your expectations of people. Boundaries, make your life easier, because what they are are decisions, you decide something, which means you put boundaries around your path, you know, you decided to get married. So there are boundaries around it, you can’t, you can’t go with other options. You’ve got, you’ve made a decision. Now there’s boundaries around things like you’re probably living together, hopefully, you’re living together, you’re you know, you’re faithful, you can’t go start hanging out with other other people of the opposite sex in a in a intimate setting. You know, decisions are boundaries, boundaries are decisions, you decide on something, which means you put a boundary around that path, you decided to meet someone for dinner at 6pm. That means that you can’t go to the grocery store, you can’t go to the movies, and you can’t clean your bathroom at that time. Every other option has been cut off because you decided on something. And so when you decide it means that you can settle it settles you, it helps you to feel less up in the air. It’s one of those like automatic when this happens. This happens when x happens when Y happens. It’s very easy. It’s very clear in your head you you have a place to rest. If this happens, God forbid we already have a plan. If the worst happens, here’s the plan. boundaries on your expectations of your spouse, of your kids of yourself. Have your god your God being our God, the One True God. It helps you not to die of broken heartedness, which I think is what happens Ben’s so frequently as we leave, we leave situations brokenhearted. And, and we, and we, you know, we end our relationship, whether it’s with God, a friend or spouse, because we’re brokenhearted, we’re so disappointed. So we can align our faith with God’s will, and heart here on Earth. But we can’t go away from God, when He chooses not to answer in the way we think he should, if we really believe like, the Bible teaches that his thoughts are higher than our thoughts that His ways are higher than our ways. You know, it even says, higher than the heavens are above the earth are my are his thoughts higher than our thoughts? Are his ways higher than our ways? Like, if you can imagine that, like, even just imagine being in an airplane and looking down, like, at some point, people are small as ants, and eventually you can’t even see them? They’re so tiny. Like, that’s how different and it’s even far more than that, because I don’t even know where the heavens are. So far more than that. But let’s say it’s the, you know, in the galaxy somewhere, you know, in space, but think about how far that is. If we think about like, how can our pea sized brain I mean, compared to God, it’s it’s not even a grain of sand, the dramatic difference of like, how can we expect to understand his perspective, and the choices he’s making and the decisions he’s making? Why, why is our expectation that we not only should understand it, but should he he should bow to our will? Like, that’s an expectation that is so far from reality. It’s, it’s so out there, it’s so wrong. But we assume that, you know, I don’t know, I don’t know what you assume about God that makes you think that expectation is appropriate. Because Have you read through, and I encourage you to read through Hebrews 11. But if you read through it, it’s very clear that these guys were aware that God was way bigger than them. And they did it by faith. They did it by faith.
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Now, it may be helpful to know that, that when we are going through difficult times, and a lot of people are going through difficult times right now, there are purposes to God’s choices that we will never know. Sometimes it is helpful for us to just recognize that there is purpose to our suffering, I think suffering can be a training ground. Jesus was in the desert for 40 days fasting, like, ah, not only are you in the desert, but you’re literally eating nothing. I don’t know if he was drinking water. But the point is, that was hard. But that gave him the fortitude to suffer for another three years, until ultimately he suffered on the cross. When in an instant, he could have come off that cross. A lot of times we think Jesus going to the cross was the ultimate sacrifice. But a lot of times I think that Jesus, I mean, he suffered throughout his whole life. I don’t know what he did during the years between 12 and 30. But I believe there was a lot of suffering in that because I just don’t think that you can get wisdom. If you don’t suffer. It doesn’t. Those things don’t. They don’t jive with each other. Somebody hasn’t gone through it. They don’t get insight. They don’t. It’s not deep. But when you’ve gone through the fire that I mean, it’s it’s pure it’s, it’s better. See, Jesus didn’t have high expectations for his friends. You know why? Because no one treated Jesus the way he deserved to be treated no one. And yet, Jesus gave his life for his friends. Friends who betrayed Him, who didn’t believe him, who denied they even knew him and he knew this in advance. He knew that he was doing this he knew he decided to die for them ahead of time. Yes, it hurt when they hurt him. But he made up his His mind ahead of time, he decided that my pain will not affect my decision to love God, to follow God’s will, he decided that my suffering will not affect my decision to love these people that God has given me. And that’s what I hope our heart becomes that our pain will not affect our decision to love God, our pain, our suffering will not affect our decision to love our spouse to love the people in our care. So I’m just going to give you some decisions ahead of time that helped me not get disappointed. And these are just some of them are random decisions, but some of them are just to illustrate the idea that when we make decisions, it helps us we don’t have to, when we have a flat out decision, if this then this, that’s a boundary that makes our life easier, then then in the hard moments, we don’t, we’re not brokenhearted, we’re not scared, we’re like, that’s, that’s the decision I’ve already made. You don’t have to figure it out. In the in the moment, you’ve already made the decision, it’s done. Okay, so about my kids, these some of these are silly, my kids will eat three meals a day. Another one, I will not call them names. Another one, I will not curse around them. Another one, I will say I’m sorry, when I make a mistake with them. Some decisions around ahead of time that I’ve made around my job, I will not lie, I will confront sin with my clients who have given me authority in their life to do so I will tie their income to our church and on top of that give at least 10% of the gross income of the business to the poor. So those are just again, just I don’t have to make those decisions, because they’re already made, they’re already done. That’s our policy, right? I didn’t even think about that until just now another word for boundary. Another word for
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decision is policy. That’s that’s flat out. That’s the way it is some decisions I’ve made for my marriage ahead of time, as a wife, I’m going to make love to my husband at least three times a week, I’m going to be engaged and enthusiastic, regardless of how I feel. Even if I’m physically not feeling well, I will be creative and make sure this happens. That’s my decision ahead of time. Another decision that really helps is if he cheats through porn or physically, eventually, I would forgive him, not because he would deserve it, but because the purpose of our marriage and our kids future is more important. Another one is I will be generous with my visuals and variety, even when I feel fat and not good enough about my body. So these are just a couple of examples of what I, as a wife have decided, in my heart, this is I’m going to have a good attitude about these things. These are on drudgery, right? These are exciting things about about the way I get to live, the opportunity I have. And so here’s another one around what I would I would like husbands, I would like my students and those of you that that trust my thoughts. I’d like you to have these as your decisions, dear husbands, I’m going to romance my wife regardless if she has sex with me. Another one, I’m going to listen to her and care about her feelings not because of what I will get back. But because she’s a daughter of God. Another one, I will not be sexually unfaithful in Act, or in thought, not because she deserves it. But because God is my God. And he cares about my fidelity and I answered to him. Another one that just came to mind that superduper important that I hadn’t prepared to share but this is just vital for me is I will endeavor not to disrespect my husband, in my words. And that’s just so important as a wife to be careful about that. So, I want to wrap with this idea of you know what, what is it that we went through today? We went through the nature of disappointments comes very often from our expectations. And depending on where you are right now in your marriage, you need to match Your expectation level with how healthy your marriages that level. So if it’s three out of 10, your expectations are a three out of 10 level, which will help you be more persistent in moving the ball forward. Because you know, there’s no way your spouse is going to respond to you and attend and attend level if you guys are to three out of 10 don’t have that expectation. And then the last piece that I really focused a lot of attention on is God’s, the way God’s set up the world is not based on he’s gonna give us a lot of good things in response to our good deeds. That’s just not it’s not biblical, if it didn’t happen to Jesus. So, so lowering your expectations not only guards your heart but allows you to be a better follower of God. So that’s my encouragement for you today. Let’s go ahead and pray. Lord, you know that I have struggled with disappointments, you know, I have struggled with disappointments in myself, disappointments, and you disappointments and my, my husband, my my friends, my clients, my people I love. I have felt disappointment. And I know Jesus that you felt disappointment in, in those who loved. And I ask God that the person listening, the disappointments they’re dealing with right now, around their spouse around people they love even around you, Father, that You would comfort them. You would help them to let those go, help them to forgive, help them to even forgive in advance, knowing that you know what they’re going to do something to love their spouse, and they’re going to in advance, forgive their spouse for not responding well.
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And that’s actually guarding their heart until things get better and better and better. And then they can have more appropriate expectations, because their marriage is healthier. So God I just asked that. As they write out some decisions that they have made about their marriage that is going to guard their heart, for the tough times they already have the decisions made they already have the boundaries set. Lord, I ask that you would give them the grace to to walk by those those are hard things to walk by but but but they are they’re going to make their life easier. Ultimately, the pain of discipline rather than the pain of regret. Father, thank you for your love. Thank you that you’re with this person listening you are with them even right now. And I pray God that you would heal their heart of the past disappointments and give them the grace to lower their expectations. So they do not have more of these hurts and pains that they they have boundaries around their heart in the way that you want them to. In Jesus name, Amen. All right, I love you and and thank you for spending the time with me. I look forward to talking to you next week is the aim. Alright, I’m going to work much harder to be on track here with you because I really value you and I really value the fact that you listen to me on a regular basis. I love you.
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Bye