So while Grahams just doing the furniture rearranging, I will.
Just I will. Explain why I'm like this
briefly. Basically, 2 1/2 weeks ago I had
a disagreement with the pavement and the pavement 1 Yeah.
Which is why I can't stand, I can't walk.
But for now I'm just, yeah, going a bit carefully.
So I wanted to explain that 'cause I don't want you to think
that me sitting down here a few inches below where Graham is
standing, is any statement on our position of men and women in
the church. Yeah, normally I would be.
She asked JJ for a higher one. But this this is the best one.
They didn't have a higher one. It's so good to be here.
We love coming to Blackpool. We love being with you guys.
Can we first of all, just ascertain when we were here?
About a year ago. It was last April.
Doing a marriage course. Put your hands up if you were
here. Right.
I think it You were here. Oh, yeah, I was here.
OK. Hands down.
I know this sounds silly. Put your hands up if you weren't
here. So it's about 5050.
OK, So what we're going to do this morning, we're going to
have a lot of fun. I want you to know that there's
some serious stuff here. But don't pull her leg.
Don't pull my leg. He has, hasn't he?
It's his only joke. He's proud of it.
Let him have it. So yeah, we're going to have a
lot of fun. We're going to hear some
hopefully good meaty stuff as well.
There will be quite a bit of overlap with what was said last
time. It never does any harm to hear
some things for a second time, but there will be some new stuff
as well. So it's a bit of a blend of the
old and the new. What we're also going to do is
ask that if you have any questions at all, and we would
encourage that. Can you bring your questions to
Jen? Is it during the break, lunch
break, whatever. And then we will, Jen will sort
of feel those. And if there are 50,000
questions, she'll pick out 4000, you know, that she thinks are
appropriate or whatever, she will feel them and maybe even
combine some of them, whatever. And she will.
We will then hopefully address those.
Yeah. So the first thing I want to say
is that as you know, all of you who you're all married.
Marriage is the gift that keeps on disappointing.
And it is. That's not what the Bible says.
That's not. What the Bible says No.
But let's face it, we want to honour marriage today.
And I love what Scott was saying.
Yeah, Ditto to all that. We want to honour marriage.
But marriage is flipping hard, isn't it?
Marriage is a struggle. Marriage can be incredibly
disappointing at times and when you get married you think it's
all going to be rosy and wonderful and perfect and that
you will not fall into the same trap that your mum and dad fell
into. But then the years go by and you
think, oh, this isn't quite what I thought it was.
Well, we want to give you some tools this morning to help you
be able to move forward. It does not mean that everything
is going to be perfect. Nothing in this life, this side
of eternity is perfect. And I want to stress that the
fact that Graham and I do these marriage seminars, days,
whatever, does not mean that we have got all the answers, does
not mean that we have got the perfect marriage.
Far from it. Far, far from it.
Far, far, far, far from it. Julie is saying, yeah, we've
stayed in her house. She knows what we're like.
But it, it, it's true. We want to come today from a
position of saying, yeah, it's a struggle, there are battles.
But we also want to come from a place of saying, but there is
hope. There is hope.
There is a way forward. And that's what we're going to
look at today are. We OK, I so we will try to
answer lots of questions. Probably not 5000, but do do
come to Jen during the coffee break and she'll let us have
those questions. We've been married 35 years as
of this weekend, so we've got plenty of material.
Much of it is funny. If you had even recorded our
journey from Liverpool to here, you'd be like, I am not going to
this marriage because these people should not be teaching us
anything. I love the worship.
I thought you just set us up so brilliantly.
Thank you so much. Because I, God was giving me
pictures and I, I had to go to JJ and say JJI need the headset
because I had a hand illustration that wouldn't work
withholding the the mic that Charlotte's got that she won't
relinquish now. But yeah, in worship, I just saw
kind of just you as an individual, me as an individual
with the Lord. And the Lord takes us and I, I
just was reminded how screwed up we're, we all are.
He isn't, he's perfect, but he takes us.
And then he just starts to unfold your screwed up life.
He transformed you, so you are made new, but there's still so
much old because we still live in this body, This body, not
just because I'm old, but this body is not the body I'm going
to end up with. I'm going to get this body
remade, a new creation. It's.
Not the body. I'm married either.
No, but pretty much so. The amazing thing is Jesus takes
us and starts to unfold us, I would say, but then adding to my
relationship with God, my relationship with Charlotte,
which isn't as important by far, but I see her more, spend more
time with her than I do with the Lord.
And So what happens is this screwed up thing that was
getting unfolded as as Jesus is taking hold of me, he's also
taken hold of her. And then she comes into my life
and I start to realise that I'm getting screwed up again here
because I can't quite work. Just me and God.
I'm just about getting the hang of it because he's so different
from me. Jesus came from heaven.
We love the book and would recommend it.
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.
If you haven't read it, get a hold of it.
But it basically says we're so different as men and women and
we are. We'll give you some
illustrations in a minute about the car journey today.
So this is a 35 year old material.
But as Jesus is unfolding us and and we then get married, he
starts to learn, we start to knit together as well as
knitting together with him. So it should look like that
eventually perfectly. Me and Jesus and Charlotte,
we're one, but actually we're too.
We're Mars and Venus, we're very different.
We speak different languages, we come from different planets, and
we think very differently. And so I'm going to just teach a
little bit into how do we handle these differences?
So Jesus says it this way. Why do you look at the speck of
sawdust in your brother's eye or your husband's eye should say
here and pay no attention to the plank in your own.
How can you say to your husband, let me take that speck out of
your eye when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?
And the word plank there is interesting.
It's it's a reinforced wooden beam.
So before Rs JS, is it RSJ reinforced steel.
Before reinforced steel, they used to have wooden beams that
held up houses. And that's the word that's being
used here. So it's a big, it's not just a
little pank, it's huge. Jesus is making a hyperbole
statement. You've got this huge problem and
you're trying. This is in your eyes.
You won't be able to see very well.
And you're trying to get rid of a little speck in your wife's
eye. I'm going to apply it to
husbands and wives here. How can you say to your husband,
let me take the speck up and all the time the plank is in your
own, you hypocrite. First take the plank out of your
own eye. Then you will see clearly how to
remove the speck from your lovely husband's eye.
So anything. Yeah.
So what? What happens is when you you get
married and you start to see each other's faults that you
probably haven't really noticed or appreciated beforehand, and
you think, hmm, yeah, that needs changing.
Yeah, OK, we need to deal with that.
And you draw up an invisible list in your head at the things
that are beginning to annoy you, irritate you, infuriate you,
wind you up, whether they're tiny little things or whether
they're big issues. And I think that the point we're
trying to make in this session, as Graham has said, is that
actually as believers, what God requires us to do is to look
first at ourselves. We actually on the journey here,
we're talking about this. And we were asking each other
what our planks were. And I mean, you know, I, I could
have gone on forever about, you know, what Graham's faults are.
He could go on you. Did you did go on forever the
whole journey? An hour and a half.
He you know equally could say several things that you know
equally. That is what?
Sorry. Yeah.
Well, on one finger, really. Yeah.
So, but we have learned and are still learning.
Still after 35 years, we are learning that actually just
trying to change the things in your partner, your spouse that
you want to change, you are going to largely end up banging
your head against a brick wall. And the reason for this is that
if we have a wrong focus in our lives and we look to get all our
affirmation from our spouse, we are going to be disappointed.
Our identity comes first and foremost from our relationship
with Jesus. So the very, very first thing I
really want to emphasise and if there's one thing that I want
you to remember about today, your take home thing, it's this.
Who are you in Jesus and who did Jesus say you are?
Because until you get that in place, you will not be able to
move forward fully in marriage. Don't mishear me.
Don't think that what I'm saying is soon as you get your
relationship with God sorted out, your marriage will be
perfect. That is not what I'm saying at
all. We are still fleshly beings and
we still need to keep coming daily to God and saying you need
to help me, you need to help me. I'm struggling with this.
But when you know who you are in Christ, when you deep down
understand that you are adopted into his family and that you can
do nothing to take that away and that you are His, then it is
utterly, utterly releasing. It is so releasing because you
think I don't have to prove anything.
I don't have to prove anything to myself, to my spouse, or to
all the other friends and family I know and the rest of the
church. I don't have to be labelled as
the person who can do this, achieve this, manage this, is
capable of this. I am who I am in Jesus.
End of. When you come to that place,
then it actually changes your marriage because you think I
don't have to win every argument, although it helps if
you can win some. I don't have to win every
argument. I don't always have to prove
myself right. If he is or she is having an off
day and is being a right pain in the backside, so be it.
So be it. You can still be the person God
intended you to be. And if both of you are living
like that, if both of you are living knowing who you are in
Christ and knowing that you are secure in your relationship with
Him, then that is the best foundation for your marriage.
Graham alluded to men are from Mars, women are from Venus.
We were given that book when we first got married.
We were also given another book which I thought had a really
weird title and I thought was very stupid, a Christian
marriage book. And it was called Love is a
Decision. And I thought, what on earth is
this? It was Americans.
They have to excuse them. Love is a decision.
And I thought love isn't a decision.
Love is about feelings and romance and excitement and et
cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I had a completely wrong view of
it. And what they mean essentially
when they say love is a decision is that you may fall in love.
At first you fall in love and it's all wonderful and your
heart's beating and it's roses round the door and everything.
But when the rubber hits the road and you have those
disagreements, you have a decision to make.
You either say, well this isn't what I thought it was going to
be, goodbye and walk away, or you say, no, I, I have decided.
I have decided to choose to love this person.
I have chosen to be in this marriage.
I am deciding to put work and effort into this marriage, even
if there being an absolute pain in the backside.
It's a decision. So knowing that really helps us
to move forward so. Sometimes when it's tough in
marriage, I, I think it's quite like the whole Kingdom of God,
the Kingdom of God advances, but as you think, wow, that's trying
to, you get opposition as you take steps forward with the
Kingdom. That happens to every Christian.
We, we move forward with God, but we feel like wow, we're
getting opposition sometimes. We were with some people the
other day and they were saying we're a bit worried because it's
going so well at the moment, because they're, they're
expecting, just enjoy it. The opposition will come again
soon enough. Just enjoy the blessing of not
having opposition. But the married life's like
that. It started 35 years ago for us
with Charlotte coming down the aisle and she, she was saying
she knew she had three things to do, walk down the aisle.
So she's going, oh, and then she had to kneel at the altar and
then we were going to sing a hymn together.
And so she's walking down the aisle saying I'll alter him.
Oh, to him. And even today, 35 years later.
Not true my. Driving's excellent, by the way,
and I set the cruise control at 75.
My finger slipped 75 and I have this lovely person trying to
alter me and saying you try to go right up to the edge of what
you think you might get away with, whereas you used to preach
that you should be on the other side, not right at the edge of
the mountain. You should be near the mountain
so you don't go over the edge. So we had this thing this this
morning. Now I think we both do it
actually. So when Charlotte's driving, I
don't like it that she stops at the roundabout and looks and
she, she even gets out and washes the windscreen before she
I I'm like, you're meant to flow on, then flow off.
Oh no, stop, look both ways. It's unbelievable.
So we have a different way of thinking even about how we
should drive. And I don't like the way she
drives, she doesn't like the way I drive, and we both try to
alter each other. But that isn't ultimately what
God wants for us. He wants me to just chill, which
is the only way I found that works for me is I have to sleep
when she's driving. If I sleep, I'm OK.
I, I can I wake up, I'm there and I haven't moaned and said,
you know, go a bit quicker. So yeah, she won't even drive 70
on the motor. So I'm like, do we have to go
55? We're not, we're not in, we're
not in 80s America. So we are so different that even
little things of 35 years of us driving each other does
actually. Still make us go.
Let me get rid of the speck in your eye.
So we were talking about what are specks in our eyes?
What are planks in our eyes? We'll probably get to that.
But if life's going tough in your marriage, you could think,
I bet he's lovely. I wish I was married to him
because the grass is always greener.
I was listening to a marriage talk this week that said the
grass is greener where you water it.
So if you put time into your marriage, your marriage will be
greener. That's the idea of a day like
today and you're doing that. Just being here today, you're
putting time into your relationship and I think it's
very helpful. You can't talk non-stop about
all your differences because it's just annoying because we're
so different. But it is lovely to little by
little understand each other a bit better.
And no, actually, this really blesses Charlotte and this
route. But we still do things that
don't bless each other, like the way we drive.
I think probably till our dying day, I don't know.
I haven't got a conviction from the Lord that I need to change
my driving Charlotte. Two driving tickets in the last
few years. The the the police helped me a
little but it was on my Rd. I live on a a main road in
Liverpool. We live on a main road in
Liverpool and they changed and I think they should have warned
us. They changed a red light camera
that had a thingy on it so I always stopped if it if it goes
yellow usually I speed up but I don't have the red light camera.
And anyway they changed the red light camera to a red light
camera and a speed camera. No one told me.
So about two weeks later I get 2 tickets come through 2 tickets
and I think my my friends go it's OK you can get rid of one
of them. Do a speed awareness course.
So I ring up the police say can I do a speed awareness course?
They said we only allow a certain leeway.
You were over the leeway. You have to take your six
points. That was 100 years ago.
My points are off my licence. But Charlotte won't forget it
And we actually you probably already can get this.
We have a lot of fun together. Well, a lot of the fun is just
that we're so different and we think differently and but we
also do loads of things the same and have a lot of laughter in
our house. Yeah.
So we are different in most ways.
We agree on many things. We disagree on the number of
things. And also, there's a big
difference, broadly speaking, between the way men process and
think things through and the way women think and process things.
Men are motivated when they feel needed and respected.
That's what a man likes to feel to, to know that he is loved.
Women, however, are motivated when they feel cherished.
So over this last 2 1/2 weeks, while I've been, although I'm
mobile now, for the first couple of weeks I was basically
immobile and I would come down the stairs on my backside every
day, sit on the sofa with my foot up because there was
nothing I could do. And Graham is has been very,
very good at looking after me. He's had to do cooking, which he
hates doing. He's had to water my plant from
the garden, a number of things which he really, really doesn't
like doing, and I know that that is his love language.
I want to talk briefly about the love languages which we did
mention last time, but I feel this is something very key that
helps us get some tools and understanding about moving
forward. There are 5 love languages and
you will have one or possibly 2 which are your personal key
ones. These five love languages are
words of affirmation, quality time, I always forget one,
physical touch, acts of service and receiving gifts.
So broadly speaking, words of affirmation is about expressing
affection through spoken words, praise, encouragement, building
somebody up by what you say and how you say it as well.
You can feel very complimented, you can feel very honoured and
it cherishes you and it does you good when you hear words of
affirmation. Quality time I like.
The way you wear your glasses on your head.
That didn't work. OK, I, I I'll take it out the
notes. And quality time speaks for
itself when the other, you know, when you value somebody's
presence, I mean presence as in them being there with you, when
you know they have time for you, when they sit down and talk and
engage with you in meaningful interactive ways.
Physical touch, again, speaks for itself.
Some people, that's their key one and they really need to feel
physical touch from their spouse.
Acts of service, this is very much Graham's one, is doing
things that you know will serve and help and bless your partner.
Even the sort of grim things like taking out the bins and
unloading the dishwasher and watering the plants, all that
kind of stuff. And Graham is really good at
doing that. And we have a number of times in
the past come a cropper when I have said to Graham, but you're
not valuing me, you're not cherishing me, You're not being,
you know, attentive. He said, But look what I've
done. I've done this and this and this
and this and this. And I have to think, Oh yeah,
that's his language. It's not necessarily my
language. The chances are you will both
have different love languages. And if you can work through the
five love languages and look at them, they're all online,
they're fairly readily available, and work out which
your love language is, then this is what will happen.
You will know that if your love language is quality time and
your spouse's is acts of service.
You will know that he sorry if yours is quality time, you need
that from your partner. It doesn't necessarily mean that
your partner needs it from you and vice versa.
So you need to know not only your own love language, but it's
essential that you know your spouse's love language so that
you can honour and respect and love them in the way that they
feel is important to them, even if it wouldn't particularly mean
anything to you. I haven't mentioned receiving
gifts. That's another one that speaks
for itself. If we were to say what are our
love languages, Graham, what are yours, I would.
Well, I think I speak acts of service, but I think I want
physical touch, yeah. I want all 5 basically, but
yeah, my main one I would say is words of affirmation.
So one of the things you can do when you go away this evening is
look at these and work out which is yours and which is your
spouse's, and then talk about it and say, hey, you know, when you
do that, what does that make you feel?
You know, when I do that, how does that make you feel?
So ask each other questions about them.
And then even though one of you speaking Esperanto and one of
you speaking Chinese, you will start to be able to relate
better. Yeah, so.
You'll often meet people and they say, well, he never gets me
any gifts. She gives him lots of gifts
because her love language is giving presents, giving gifts
and he doesn't particularly love them because he doesn't need
that. So somehow you've got to learn
each other's strengths, weaknesses, each other's, the
way, the way you're blessed. So we we didn't do it today, but
most days we start the day together.
Our kids have left home. They're 28 and 31 now, and we
start the day with breakfast and four games of cards, and that is
joyful for us. Four different games of cards,
Monopoly deal. It's probably my strength.
Hers is called golf, rummy, blackjack, doesn't matter, It's
spending time together. We enjoy doing it.
We often can't even remember who won and who lost, although we
have a lot of banter about who won and who lost during the 20
minutes we're playing cards and eating breakfast.
We never did that when our kids were little.
It's a different season. We haven't got kids that running
around going Daddy, mummy, so don't think why don't you play
cards with me because I've got a little child hanging on my leg.
Look, I can't even move it. Different seasons make a huge
difference in your marriage, and it's just one thing that we can
do now. However, we don't tend to play
cards when our grandson comes over every Tuesday, which is a
joy. But we're both exhausted by the
end of the day because we're 30 years older than when we had
little kids and we why did we find it so easy?
Life moves on and changes and you've got to learn your
strengths, your weaknesses. This this week we did really
well. On Tuesday, Charlotte still
couldn't actually walk. She had a foot in a boot.
So I was doing everything for Charlotte.
Reuben hits 2 1/2 came round, did everything for Reuben, which
is a joy. But I woke up Wednesday
exhausted and I said to Charlotte, I just need to be on
my own. I I no.
You didn't, you said. Don't talk to me.
Don't talk to me alone. I said it nicely, I'm sure.
So I, I had run out of any energy left and I, I felt a
little bit depressed probably is the word I was, I felt like I
was on the edge. Now you need to know that about
yourself. Actually.
I just feel a bit weird. I feel exhausted or it's very
important to kind of not only know yourself but also share
with the wife. So Charlotte, she was brilliant,
left me pretty much on my own and I felt really recovered
after a Wednesday watching Channel 4 drama.
And I was sewing my tracksuit that I, I wanted to do for
probably a year. And I spent ages doing this
sewing. And I really, I don't normally
sew, it's not very manly. I realise that, I, I realise you
suddenly all look down at me now I'm emasculated, it's OK.
But because actually it was what I needed on Wednesday.
And then by Wednesday evening I was able to cook tea again and
Charlotte had done quite well, pushing herself to try and walk
on her. But she's been told by the
physios try and walk on it, so yeah.
Yeah, so one of the things that will set you up for a fail is if
you look at another couple in church or elsewhere and think we
need to be like them. I can also tell you that couples
that you see in church who seem to be wonderful and perfect,
they will have their shoes too. They just are good at masking
it, dealing with it. I'm not saying that there aren't
people out there with excellent marriages.
I'm sure there are and there are.
But don't set yourself up for a fail by finding somebody and
thinking that's what we need to be like.
Like Graham said, there are different seasons in life.
So it what's great about being in this room is we've got
everything by the looks of it, from people with little tiny
ones to those of us that are grandparents and you know, all
ranges in between. You need to find what works for
you. You need to find whether it's a
lunchtime together when the kids are at school or or nursery or
wherever and you, you know, have lunch together or go out for a
walk together. You need to find whether it's
when the kids are down at 8:00 at night and you decide, right,
let's have popcorn and film night.
Whatever it is, there is no perfect right answer.
And part of the joy of whatever it is comes from you discussing
it together because it unites you and it bonds you.
And you need to be able to make time in your marriages to
actually say, well, is there anything about me that's upset
you recently? Oh no, I tell you on the car
journey back, I've got. A long listen, is there anything
that's upset you and then that well, actually, and then listen
and respond and reflect back. Don't fight back.
Reflect back. That's different fighting back.
Is it me if you're going, no, that wasn't me, it was my fault,
that was your fault. That's fighting back.
Reflecting back is repeating it and say, oh, I see.
So you're saying that you felt upset because I didn't write.
OK, I I hear what you're saying. So learn the difference between
fighting back and reflecting back.
You also would find it beneficial in those times to
talk about your loved languages and how you're both doing in
those and seeing where you want to move forward.
Well, I'm going to try and be a bit more like this or I will try
and be a bit less like this. Whatever it is, talk to each
other, but also listen to each other.
It's an awful lot easier to talk than to listen, isn't it?
If you think about the number of people that you come across in
your daily life, at work, at school, in the home, place,
church events, wherever, if you think about it, we probably
mostly do talking and much less listening.
Listening is an incredibly hard skill, a very, very hard skill.
And it's not just looking at somebody blankly and waiting
till they've finished. All right, you've finished now.
OK, Right. Well, I want to tell you about
what happened to me. That's not listening, that is
just waiting. It's a real skill.
So learn the art of listening, learn the art of reflecting back
and make a bit of time for each other.
It may not be that you can do it every day, every week, or you've
got to work out well. It may be every second Tuesday.
Whatever it is, there's no right or wrong.
We'll go for a break. We'll pick it up in quarter of
an hour, but please see Jen, if you've got any questions you
want us. We're very flexible, very happy
to talk into what questions you'd like answered.
We'll pick up on the the five love languages.
I would say we all have a bit of all of them.
I don't particularly like gifts, but when I get a gift, I think,
oh, that's nice, but I was so bad at the gift thing that it
would be Christmas Eve And I think, Oh my word, I haven't got
Charlotte a Christmas present. And and I rushed to the shops
that there's no nothing on the shelves Christmas Eve.
Except for the one year when you even didn't do that.
You gave our daughter your credit card.
Well. That was wisdom.
She. She's good at finding.
You. Not that I'm bitter about it.
Not. Bitter at all.
She's forgiven me but but actually we all have a bit of
all these different things and we'll talk into things that have
been really good in different seasons of our life when we come
back. But any questions to Jim,
please. And we'll be back in quarter of
an hour, OK.