joy

As I have sought to hone the skill (or should I say, grace) of listening to God I have been repeatedly arm twisted by God (i.e. humbled) to admit that, yes, He does speak through my wife too. Maybe what has made this realization a bit harder for me is the fact that I married someone who was raised in a more liberal church tradition - one that the tradition I was raised in would consider not as "in tune" with God (how arrogant is that!). But one of the chief attractions to me in regards to Becky was the integrity, the love for the truth, that I saw in her. She has a purity of heart that often allows her to hear God quicker than I will, especially in certain areas.

One such area where I have discovered she is much more in tune than I am, is in the area of personal dreams/heart's desires. It has always been difficult for me to identify what I REALLY want in life, what the deepest desires of my heart are. Maybe it's because of a certain pietism or spirituality that I took on early in life that felt that submitting to God's will meant squelching one's own personal desires. What mattered most, I came to believe, was knowing and doing God's will. My own desires were therefore invalid and thus ignored (and lost).

Well, I married someone who was very good at letting me know what HER desires and longings were! And it would irritate me at times because I thought of it as being unspiritual, as not submitting to God's will and desires - especially when her desires cost more money than I had!
Well, this struggle between us came to the fore this past summer right after we had looked at a property for sale in a geographical location that we felt pretty sure God was leading us to. To me, this property looked like it had "God's will" written all over it. There were just too many things about it that couldn't simply be coincidence, that had to be God. Except for one thing. Becky's desires. That property wasn't big enough - neither the land nor the house - to accomodate the dream that was in her heart. Needless to say, as we were driving away talking about all this, I felt righteous indignation rising up in me and an argument ensued.

Long story short, we got past that crisis OK, continued to seek God's leading about the property, and because nothing else was showing up on our "radar", felt like we just needed to submit to all these "obvious signs" of God's will.

January 25 was my birthday and something amazing happened that day. Becky and I listened to a sermon during which the story of Perez's birth was retold (end of Genesis 28). Perez means "breaking out". Perez literally pushed his twin brother aside, in the womb, in order to be born first. He was carrying on his grandfather Jacob's proclivity to do everything in his power to achieve his desired goal. God liked that trait in Jacob (not the unrighteous, selfish part, but the determined, not-to-be-put-off part), and he liked it so much in Perez that he looked past the fact that he was born of incest and included him in the line of Messiah! As Becky and I reflected on Perez's story we got to talking about "the property" again. Becky could not shake her disappointment in that property, and it finally dawned on me that she was being like Jacob and Perez. She knew what she wanted and didn't want to let go of it! And that stubborness (I finally realized) was a good thing, a God thing! When I was finally able to get past this false, religious spirit in me that kept putting down Becky's desires as being unspiritual, or unsubmissive, and affirm them as valid, God-given desires - desires worth fighting for - we both experienced a joy that I must say we'd never experienced before (well, I guess we felt that way when we got married - but where did it go?!). It was a feeling of lightness that comes when a cloud or weight has been lifted, when one knows that they are really doing the right thing (to acknowledge the deepest desire of our heart and go for it, regardless of seemingly impossible obstacles).
In the words of that pioneer of the modern-day missions movement, William Carey,

"Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God."

And joy will follow.