Robert Wolgemuth: Last Lap, Best Lap

The older you get, this is going to sound crazy, but the more important your tenderness toward your wife is easy because you know each other so well. Welcome to family life today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most and will Dave Wilson and you can find us if we live today.com or on our family life, family life, you get the chance to go to church on Sunday here in Orlando with her son Austin Kendall and her four grandkids all sit in front of you ever remember now as it was sort of fun to look at them in front of us to remember when we said church.

Actually, I was always up on the stage and yours and I was glad I was sitting by my health lawyers. The question what you remember about the service. I remember watching our grandkids thinking there anything yeah and then they went to kids after worship and so us again. Looking back, here's what I remember seeing a couple that I'm guessing has been married for decades, maybes three or four, five decades, who knows still in love. At least it appeared there still and because there holding hands and what you think about that. I thought you know couple on their wedding day is a beautiful thing. A couple married 4050 years, still in love is more beautiful.

They don't look as good. We don't look as good as we did on our wedding day because you well more beautiful you know that they had to endure a lot yeah and reason I bring this up as we got. Robert will move back with us here at family life today and he wrote about the Serta talks about finishing well and that sort was an image of that's a Robert welcome back to family life today. Thank you Dave, thank you and I love the story, talk about, I'm sure, but I've been married to Nancy now for six years and we hold hands all the time and the truth is I look back on my life. My first marriage.

After six years I don't think I hold hands like I do now. I've learned stuff. In fact, that's the chapter on marriage and I'll tell you more about that but why would you every chance you get to hold your wife's hand okay well have to get into that at yeah yeah even Robert when you sent me the book.

I love the image of the track on their gun lab staying in the race with purpose. Here's a funny thing, Robert. I've asked several people you know what they know about a gun lab and they didn't even know what Dunlap was mean that everybody knows that on the final lap of a raise in a track meet. The gun shot blank. Of course, but it signifies your on the final lap obviously use that image in the track image on the front of the book to say how you finish really matters in the things that matter knew you list several different things in the book I just highlighted one of them but talk about that little bit. I mean you you really do still hold hands or it's actually some you what I want to know why are you doing more now but then before it really enters rather all she really wants to know is can you get my husband in the Lord's side were I thought she was going yeah well here's the deal. I have as you have talked already about I have the experience of having been married almost 45 years and then saying goodbye to Bobby and then falling in love all over again and really realizing that I'm not going to have 44 years. This time it's going to be compressed and so actually when Nancy and I were first dating, I said so okay so let's say we get married and she was 57 and never married to just let that sink him. She was 57 had never married and actually when I asked her to marry me. I said I'd love for you to have the wedding of your dreams and she looked at me and she said I never dreamed about a wedding because she felt called as a single woman to be a single woman in ministry.

Her whole life. So I said all right, so will our first argument, I thought I may have said fight and she looked at me and she said we have to fight and I said well I don't know. I guess every couple does she said you know what maybe we don't have to fight what, here's the deal. When I got married the first time I was 22. Bobby was 20. We were kids we said again we were kids and so we kind of grew up together we fight, we argue you were our voices raised at plaster cracking. DB yes yes so now I'm 67 Nancy's 57 and we're grown-ups. We've done a lot of life we've had failures we've done life separately. Of course, so I'm to tell you that after six years of being married to Nancy. We've not agreed on everything.

She's a very strong woman say that she would say that I'm a very strong man. So we don't agree, but we that we haven't thought, why raise my voice. Why do that I don't have another child. I'm a grown up so and then the other part and this is important in this book. So one of the things I did was interview men that I know and trust, including my three brothers some talking to my oldest brother Sam who was born in 43 and he's a precious friend. I love this man, but I called Sam because I wanted the story that I knew a little bit about he was on the Board of Directors for a business and organization and he got fired from the board and I want to know the back story mean the new CEO didn't know how old he was at one date said Sam how old are you and he told the CEO and the next day he got his papers. He was gone because he was too old to be on the board some other bylaws and I had if you turn 70 or 75, whatever you can't continue to serve. I asked about how that felt to be fired just because of his age, not because he wasn't contributing anything so I got the story got it down in the book but then he said are you going to talk about marriage.

I said well I look at the outline that I was working on. I said no I really am not. I really had planned to be said. Robert you got a talk about marriage because in these later years. It's easy to get sloppy in your relationship with your wife don't love her less than you did the first you were married, don't be more tender and affectionate and physical in your 50th year than you were your first year.

You both need that as much as you did early on and the chances are really good. She's going to bury you, she will be standing by your casket and so these years need to be precious years listen to me. He said take really good care of your caregiver because the chances are really good again actuarial tables you're going first man so pour it on be more attentive to her than you've ever been in your life that was so good for me to hear. And again, because I'm relatively a newlywed right now even at 73 I've been really conscious. If you talk to Nancy. I wish I could just invited to this conversation because Nancy's the left brain person in this relationship. In fact, I just heard of telling somebody this morning. I'm German and she's Greek you think of Greek people like being way over the top way affectionate, you know, hugging, kissing and Germans which I am more strategic, more intentional, more bullet pointed well that's the opposite of who we are. She's she's very bullet pointed and I'm very very relational that we wrote a book together and I wrote all the stories and she wrote all the bullet points. So the point is the older you get, this is going to sound crazy, but the more important your tenderness toward your wife is and it's easy because that you know each other so well, and you may even have a backlog skeletons in the closet and it's hard to get rid of those bad guys, but this is a wonderful time. The story you just told, I love this.

I can't wait to tell Nancy that your kids, your son and daughter-in-law sat and watched an older couple hold hands during church not assistant bragging, it's true, but if they had been sitting close to us in church. That's exactly what they would've seen. I never pass up an opportunity. Why would I told Nancy's hand and into just the tenderness and I talked very candidly, as you know in the book about things that your body used to be able to do when you were in your 20s doesn't do now when you're in Dunlap or in my case in your 70s. So what are you going to do with that when you going to do with the body that isn't as virile as it used to be.

So what are you going to do so. This is transparency right I cannot believe how many ads there are on TV for this or online for what I'm talking about right now for a man who loses his virility and doesn't know what to do with himself that mean that's a spiritual problem right would you say amen to that. That's us that's a spiritual problem but this is a very sweet time. I mean in terms of the affection that you're pouring on your wife.

She's a responder. She was built to be a responder, so you list the man in the room in the relationship. You go first mean I tell young men a lot in marriage relationships. You be the initiator you go first. If it's making love or if it's picking stuff up off the floor take the initiative be the initiator. Your wife will be so thrilled when she sees that in you, the Scripture calls that leadership in your home right. That isn't just like sound of music with a low whistle and having your kids line up. It's serving it's going first is the towel in the basin. That's an incredible thing to understand in your relationship with your wife during these later years.

One of the stories you tell in the chapter you wrote about marriage is I if I remember right it was a friend that was at a marriage retreat with his wife and the speaker said they turn your spouse and say I love you. He says that to his wife and his wife turned to him and says I don't love you, and as I read that I thought, oh boy, this can end badly and yet talk about that because he responded in a way that basically said it's not over, you can do better starting right here right he was acting like a grown-up. Yeah it's back to the illustration I just gave this is one of my closest friends.

We text every day this man were talking about right now and this was exactly as you described it was a marriage retreat leader said, you know, turn to your may take her by the hand and say I love you and so Dave did this and his wife looked back at him and I mean it was I that I know messing around. I don't love you, and you know for a man to hear that the man being competitive a man wanting to win. You say I'm not here I'll go find somebody else who will love me and I said to him when he told me the story. I said all right, so you went to that retreat was at a surprise.

I guess it was. I said I like on a scale of 1 to 10.

What would you say of your marriage was. He said seven or eight while his wife would've said one or two that Gary Smalley member Gary Smalley, Mayor Gary Smalley.

He actually counseled thousands that sounds incredible, but 1000 You Guys Probably Way up there like that. And one of the things he says to each person to the man he says on a scale of 1 to 10 to the woman he says on a scale of 1 to 10, and as I remember him telling me the story. He said, in every single case, the man gives it a higher number than the woman does so in this case.

Dave's wife looked at him and said I don't love you and Dave tells me this story and says I resolved to fix that problem instead of running from it.

I decided I'm going to fix it in the first thing he did. He didn't go to a seminar. What he did was he found an older married man and he said to this man.

Here's what just happened to me and I need some help with my marriage. This is both the mentoring chapter and the marriage chapter.

This is pouring into a younger man or more inexperienced man so he found a man who I also know who was younger than he was and that man poured his life into this younger man, Dave, in this case and I tell you what I see Dave and his wife a lot and their tenderness toward each other is astonishing. But they've got to the place where he realized either. I do this or I lose her either. Really, I loser.

She walks out the door or our relationship just become so stale. It's just humdrum. There's no joy in it. So he did the right thing. He sucked it up and he said you know what I can do better than this. Found an older man, a married man who helped him fix his marriage is an amazing story, but it's a gun left story of an older man who who has experienced more experienced failure victory from those failures. Whatever poured his life into a younger married man and said this is how you do this yeah and I thought as I read it. That's exactly how it hit me it was inspiring coming and I have shared in our in our vertical marriage book the very same story in terms I thought we were done she said were a .5, 95, not even one hand, yet I couldn't ended their but it was like oh my goodness, I've got to change this and I did. I realize it had to go vertical first my relation of what Christ has been the foundation. I can preach it but I had to live it and then I had to work on the marriage but you think about doing that in your 20s or 30s but you don't think about doing it in your 50s and 60s you just coast in your own another story in there and it also tells me about just how Bobby was set your first wife was such a woman of the word, and you realize that you are just spiritually lazy in the marriage exactly again your your vulnerability. There challenge me as I read it on Mike. I can do the same thing that I can blame it on why you know we've been married 40 years were good rather than we've been married 40 years. Let's make the next 10 to 1520 that are asked new preacher preach it brother go yeah that what the story tell Bobby love the word. She didn't love the word so she could write a book. She loved the word because she love the word and the Lord spoke to her early early every morning and so I walked by her chair and acted that Chernow is in my daughter's home and she uses it for the same purpose, but I walk by that your early, early in the morning I go upstairs study for a Sunday school class. Write a couple chapters for a book there when Bobby stepped into heaven, I set on that share the morning after we buried her body and I heard the Lord say to me, Robert, you're a lazy man.

You have been letting your wife spend an hour every day or more in the word in my presence, knots, time get that baton and pick it up and start running the track indent.

This isn't boasting in fact in many ways it's confessing, but maybe in my seven years since that day I probably have missed 10 mornings may be even less than that.

And this is a gift I'm giving myself the here's another thing that I think is very cool and I just made this up so course I was wooing this lady who hadn't prayed for a husband and had dreamed about a wedding and I'm wooing her right I'm breaking all the rules in her spirit as you know I'm not going to get married I you know done. I'm not going to get married, something I'm fairly competitive like you are 20 early in our relationship. After that experience on Bobby's chair.

I thought you know what, as I'm reading the word I'm going to just look for stuff to jump out at me and I'm going to text it to Nancy and so I started doing that and again maybe 10 mornings since we've been married and I mean some really early mornings like I fly out of an airport. That's 100 miles my home and I've had 5:00 AM flights and I still done this before I leave the house so every morning including this morning Nancy when she wakes up as she stays up late. I get up early. She probably has three or four Bible verses on her phone that the first thing she sees when she wakes up that has been such a gift to me knowing that my wife gets to look over my shoulder see where I have underlined something in my Bible and have sent it to her just to inspire her just to bring her joy and that stuff you can do you know sometimes you read a book and the guy says you do this you do that you got me. I don't know if I'm capable of that. This is something you're capable of doing and it would bless your wife and may even say amen to that.

If you would if you would, and I'm not telling you Madeleine oh I don't know what you do, Dave. But that kind of thing reminds my wife that I'm not in charge. The Lord is in charge of my life and I'm submitting to him.

I'm taking precious hours early in the morning.

Dark oh 30 and I'm asking him what is it that you want to say to me than what is it that I could bless my wife with and so I texted her I love technology. For that reason sometimes technology.

It's a wonderful thing and so see, I learned that from Bobby. I would not have done that probably hadn't seen it. If I'd seen it every single day and now my daughter gets to sit in that chair so sometimes early morning.

I'll text her and still be texting me Bible verses that inspired her that day sitting in her mommy year to really sweet. I was intrigued to do as I'm thinking about man getting older and you talking about about talking to your dad as he was getting older and you asked and how he was doing and he said just find and then you laid your hand on his hand on the top of his hand coming. He said you dissuaded and then he said I feel useless and I was struck by that and it made me wonder because I've talked to other men. They have a sense of loss and feel useless, so you talk about that a little bet anything, talk about in the middle of the night having those ponderings now, and I thought some interesting because you think that only happens to younger people that are asking those questions like you and my worthwhile is their significance to my life still hung about that a little bit rather than listening to David and Wilson with Robert welcome of family life today to hear Robert's response in just a moment the first did you know that family life today is listener supported. That means we rely on generous gifts from listeners just like you and this week when you give any amount to family life today as I think working to send you a copy of Sam Oliveri's book what God has to say about our bodies, you can give securely online@familylifetoday.com or you can give us a call with your donation at one 800-3583 29. They can be a one time gift or you can give a recurring monthly again the number is one 800 F peasant family L as in life and in the word today. Right now it's hung back into Dave Anne's conversation with Robert welcome back to my daddy. I'll never forget it and it happened just exactly as you described, and I remember him looking at me and saying that word useless on never, ever, ever forget it and I knew what he meant. In fact, the previous night. We had had a like a little family reunion will there's no such thing as little family reunion with my family and it was noisy and there were little kids running around and the older kids were comparing notes on technology and you know what it really is easy to feel lost in that setting. I remember my dad sitting quietly and there was no way he was going to engage about the latest movie or the latest musicians or the latest technology the latest software he just sat quietly so was the next morning that I had this conversation with him and that's why he was feeling useless. He felt like out of that and so II had I said you know you can pray for your kids and your grandkids and your great grandkids. I said that you can pray for them and he looked at me and he said I do I can see him smile that I do every day. I said that that's the most important. I don't care how old you are or how useless you feel that's the most important gift you could possibly give your children or your grandchildren or your great-grandchildren and I can see him smile. The realize you know what, I'm not useless.

I can bring these kids as tired and feeble as I might feel to the throne of grace. Every single day.

So that was that.

Not to the late-night conversations that you have in fact that chapter is called self conversation and I think that's an older man's nemesis. In fact, this was one of the inspirations to write this book. I'm lying in bed and Dave you'll know that no man our age goes, the hallways of the night without getting up at least once, Robert.

I'm yes and lying to me write this I am so you go back and you crawl back in bed and you're trying to go right back to sleep and you can't and so these things begin to pop up in your brain. Yet I found myself being very critical of myself, and looking back over the previous day with regret. Maybe something foolish that I've said to a friend or maybe something I didn't follow-up that I should've whatever whatever and so I'm listening to myself and that's not good stuff and so I bumped into a great quote Martin Lloyd Jones, the great Welsh preacher of the previous century, wrote this very thing and he said don't listen to yourself talk to yourself. I realized in the Psalms. The Psalms are filled with David King David, the psalmist, David imploring the Lord to speak to him and not just listen to these voices.

They may be good they may be demons but speak back to yourself. You say you know what I can do better than that, I'm not gonna listen to that voice. I'm going to hear myself say the joy of the Lord is my strength and I'm not going to be subject to the voices that I hear in fact, one of the most graphic conversations I've had since writing this book was with a colleague of former college and this man was brilliant, trained and smart me.

I had clients who are very smart writing really deep heavy books and this guy kept up with them and I said I haven't talked to you for a how are you he took a deep breath, just like I just did and he said I woke up this morning and my first thought was, there's no reason for me to live. I can tell you guys how shocked I was to hear that, but that's exactly what I'm talking about when you get to the place where you can't do and mentored doers right you can't do what you used to do those demons come in and say what my dad said you useless used to be productive like what have you done lately. You're useless and that's exactly what my friend was saying to me and I'll tell you the days I prayed for them by sending texts. I try to encourage them but that's not uncharacteristic of men Rh you know you finish doing your productive stuff you retire you got to go watch you got the party and now you're looking at life and saying what's next what I gonna do affect the actuarial tables has men dying after they retire like crazy because they look at their lives and say I used to get my self-esteem.

From what I did not can't do anything.

Why should I live Robert let me say for Ananias, we wrap up way to finish well you not done, but as you wrote in Dunlap you're on the final lap. It could be a long one could be shorter one.

We don't know, but there's so many you know this as well as anybody who started well who may have run well in the middle of the race in and I'm thinking of Christian leaders of authors of influencers as you and I know who did not finish well and you are finishing well and it's a model for all of us.

We need role models that don't quit.

They don't even get mediocre you know any. If you're going to finish a 2 mile race that last lab matters. You got a repair and be trained so that you can run is strong and at last laugh as you did in the first in your modeling that for all of us from just one man to another. Thank you.

Way to go.

Thank you. Thanks Robert. We really appreciate you and always thank you you been listening to Damon and Wilson with Robert welcome on family life. You can get a copy of Robert's book, Dunlap finishing your race with grace@familylifetoa.com.

If you know of anyone who could benefit from today's conversation with Damon and Wilson as they spoke with Robert welcome with tell them about the station or you can share today's episode from where ever you get your podcasts while you're there.

It really help us out if you'd rate and review us on My favorite president of family life with me to take David Robbins and I wondering as you hear about finishing well.

Does anyone come to mind for you there two people that come to my mind that I go I'm so grateful to have these two men in my life, running their gun lap well one is my dad is so great to see how he's purposefully living and passing on wisdom he has to people in his community and the others. Dennis Rainey, the founder of family life to pass the baton to me as president.

I'm so grateful for his continued men touring in my life and the way he has cheered me on as he continues to have his own impact with writing and speaking. He has this unique balance of continuing to run the race God has set before him why he is also looking at his legacy and passing it on so well insane David, this is yours.

Take the mantle and run and that's why at family life. I'm emboldened to continue to trust God for the mission of family life that mission of effectively developing godly families who change the world one home at a time I think about the mission that God gave to Dennis to Steward that now was given to me to stored I think about people like you people who hear the truth, and will keep growing closer to God, but will also think about how I pass it on to the people around me and my own community. Yet it's so important passing on what we've received from others.

If one of the things God has used in your life is family life to a we love you to consider passing it on. You do that when you share this podcasts you tell others about the station and when you give at family life to a again you could do that@familylifetoa.com or you can call one 800 FL today. How would you respond if a surgeon instead of removing your child's defective kidney removed his only healthy kidney Eric Reed will join Dave and Ann Wilson next week to talk about trusting God when life doesn't make sense that's coming up next on behalf of David and Wilson. I'm shall be added. See back next time for another edition of family life today family like today is a production of Emily crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most