Pulling Weeds

This month we begin to look at Commitment 2: We will make growth and change our daily agenda. Marriage really is just a long-term exercise in gardening. If you’ve done any gardening you know there simply aren’t any shortcuts. Gardens begin with hard work. Clearing and tilling the land isn’t fun, but it’s essential. Digging holes for the seeds isn’t all that much fun, but it, too, is necessary. The task of regular watering and weeding is also an essential step. And if you want to keep your plants healthy, you need to work at pruning and getting rid of the dead leaves.

“Perhaps one of the fundamental sins that we all
commit in our marriages is the sin of inattention.”

We continue this month looking at Paul Tripp’s book “What Did You Expect?” These are primarily excerpts from his book. I strongly recommend reading his book to get the full benefit of his message. You can click on the book image to the right to purchase the book.

Welcome to my weed garden

Why is it that we don’t expect our gardens to just grow by themselves—you know, from weedy land to lush garden—yet expect our marriages to blossom beautifully without the daily work of pulling up weeds and planting seeds? I don’t know why we think that the most comprehensive and long-term of all human relationships can stay alive and thrive without the same commitment we make to our gardens. Weeds of thought, decision, desire, motivation, word, and action cannot be completely avoided this side of heaven, so pulling weeds is the necessary commitment of any good marriage.

Jeremiah and your marriage

God’s words of commission to Jeremiah have a powerful and practical application to your commitment to a daily lifestyle of marriage reconciliation. It is not God’s call to Jeremiah that is interesting and helpful; it is the content of the call. Embedded in God’s words is a model for how real and lasting change takes place. The words are brief but beautifully and accurately descriptive: ”See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” God is saying that change always has two sides to it: destruction and construction. I know this may sound funny, but for your marriage to be what it was designed to be, there are things that need to be destroyed. But, just like weeds that keep popping up after you’ve pulled them out, we need to be determined to keep destroying them. I am going to suggest some things that can get in the way of cultivating healthy marriages, but keep in mind that this is a general list. You need to expand and tailor this list to your own marriage.

1. Selfishness

It really is there in all of us—selfishness—because it is the DNA of sin. Perhaps nothing is more destructive in marriage than this. Perhaps it is the root of all the dumb and nasty little things we do to one another. Maybe it is the reason we make those big, disastrous choices that have the potential to end marriages. At the bottom of it all, what is wrong is that we want our own way, and, in wanting our own way, we want to be sovereign over our little worlds, making sure that what we want is exactly what we get.

All this is a horrible reversal of God’s design, so it will never work. We were constructed as social beings, made to live in vertical communion with God and horizontal communion with one another. The other-centeredness that we were designed for and that God uses to rescue us from us is the only way of living that makes us able to live with each other in respect, appreciation, and peace.

Selfishness is like liquid clay; it will shape itself to the contours of whatever vessel it is poured into. You and I aren’t necessarily less selfish than other couples around us; we are differently selfish. Since none of us is sin-free, we all need to look for evidence of the DNA of selfishness shaping the way we think, act, and respond in our marriages. This is a weed with a huge root system and the vitality to suck the life out of marriage.

But don’t be discouraged or overwhelmed. The cross was specifically designed to free us from our slavery to ourselves. Grace is a can opener. It alone has the power to free us from the vacuum-sealed can of our selfishness. Where are the weeds of selfishness in your marriage? How are you doing at finding them and pulling them?

2. Busyness

A marriage that is going to grow, change, and become increasingly healthy needs cultivation. Like a garden, it doesn’t do well when it is being neglected. So, why are we too busy? There may be many answers to that question, but let me suggest one that is particularly true of Western culture. The answer may surprise you: materialism. If you are a Christian, you would say that is wrong and that you do not believe it. But many of us live in houses way bigger than we actually need. Many of us have closets that are stuffed with clothing we seldom wear. Many of us are spending way too much money on restaurants, entertainment systems, big vacations, and luxurious cars. And if that does not describe you, perhaps this will: almost all of us are living beyond our means in some way.

Because it’s built on a lie (material things can make us happy and satisfy us), materialism can’t and doesn’t work. Could it be that we work too much because we want too much, and we keep working and keep wanting because what we are looking to for satisfaction simply does not have the capacity to satisfy us? What keeps you too busy or too exhausted to address the struggles of your marriage and to do the good things that make your marriage grow?

3. Inattention

True and lasting love is knowing; that is, it is a commitment to love one another in ways that are specific to who he or she is and what God has called him or her to do. But it is very telling that this positive attention to the other and to the health of the relationship tends to wane once the person is “won.” There are not many couples fifteen years into marriage who would say their relationship with one another is more understanding, more unified, more loving, giving, and serving than it was when they first got married. Remember, a healthy marriage is a healthy marriage because, by God’s grace, the people in that marriage never stop working on it! Have you become comfortable with taking one another for granted? Are you neglecting the work that is necessary to keep your relationship healthy?

4. Self-righteousness

Do you welcome those moments when your husband or wife approaches you with a criticism or concern about something you said or did? Do you embrace and act on the thought that you could be a better husband or a better wife? Do you ever blame your words or behavior on your husband or wife? Have you tended to think that all the weeds in your marriage were brought in by your spouse? Has self-righteousness kept you from weeding your marriage? Have you failed to keep the soil of your marriage clean, so that good things may grow, because you don’t think you have any weeds? What thoughts, desires, motives, goals, choices, words, or actions need to be uprooted if your marriage is ever going to experience what God’s grace makes possible to experience?

5. Fear

You and I are probably more motivated by fear than we think. Fear is most often not an experience of trembling dread. Fear is most often a way of looking at your world that shapes the thoughts of your heart and, because it does, structures the way you respond.

Perhaps your struggle is with the fear of failure. Perhaps you have spent so much time meditating on and preparing yourself for potential difficulties that you unwittingly fulfill your own prophecies. Maybe you are not actually responding to your spouse based on what he is doing, but on what you are afraid he might do.

Or maybe you struggle with the fear of man. Perhaps you’ve attached too of your inner sense of well-being, your security, and your hope to your husband or your wife. I am persuaded that fear of man is a huge issue in the struggles of many marriages. Many of us may be trying to get from our spouses what we will only ever receive from God—peace. Though the desire for acceptance and respect is not wrong, it must not rule our hearts. When these desires rule our hearts, they cause us to turn our spouse into our personal messiah, something that never results in good things in our marriages. Is fear a weed that needs to be pulled in your marriage?

6. Laziness

It’s hard to admit, but laziness is a big issue in our marriages. It’s a fact: laziness is rooted in self-love. It is the ability to take ourselves off the hook. It is the willingness to permit ourselves not to do things we know we should do. It is believing that good things should come our way without us having to work to get them. Laziness is always self-focused and self-excusing. Because you are not doing the hard work of following the command principles of God’s Word, the good desires that you have for your marriage remain unfulfilled.

Where does laziness in marriage lead? It leads to disappointment, discouragement, discontentmnet, and future trouble. In a fallen world, very few things are corrected by inaction.

So what about you? What about your marriage? When was the last time you looked for weeds? Or are they evident but you have just been ignoring them? Have your unity, love, and understanding been choked by the weeds of selfishness, busyness, inattention, self-righteousness, fear, laziness, or something else that has gotten in the way? You don’t have to be afraid to examine your marriage no matter how weedy it may be, because God meets you in your difficulty with his amazing grace. He blesses you with the grace of wisdom, patience, strength, and forgiveness. If you are God’s children, it is never just you and your spouse, somehow hoping that you can work your way through your problems. No, there is a third Person who inhabits every situation and location of your marriage. He is with you, he is willing, and he is able to come to your aid. In fact, in his grace, he has made you the place where he lives. Perhaps for too long you have let the weeds of sin choke the life out of your marriage. How about believing that, as you do, he will give you just the grace you need at just the moment you need it?

Next month we continue looking at Commitment 2: We will make growth and change our daily agenda.

[divider]

Paul David Tripp is the president of Paul Tripp Ministries, a nonprofit organization, whose mission statement is “Connecting the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life.” This mission leads Paul to weekly speaking engagements around the world. In addition to being a gifted communicator Paul is the Executive Director of the Center for Pastoral Life and Care in Fort Worth, Texas, and has taught at respected institutions worldwide. Paul has written twelve books on Christian Living that are read and distributed internationally, including Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands; War of Words; Broken Down House; and Crossway’s Whiter Than Snow. Get more information or purchase the book ”What Did You Expect?” He has been married for many years to Luella and they have four grown children. For more information and resources visit paultrippministries.org.