25 Years and Still in Love (Part 1 of 2)

Man I knew my marriage was falling apart. I just didn't know how to fix it. I felt like I would always be alone even if I stayed married at Focus on the Family's hope restored marriage intensive. We offer hope to couples in crisis so they can have the marriage they always dreamed for the first time I felt like my husband truly heard me. I received some great tools from the counselors of change my life and my marriage to begin the journey of finding health go to hope restored.com today and you know I'm convinced most of our marriages if we could really guard art. We could sell about 90% of our problems. Those are words of wisdom from Pastor Bob Crane, you'll discover why this advice is worth keeping on today's episode of Focus on the Family welcomed your broadcaster host is focused president and author Jim Daly and I'm John Fuller John when it comes to marriage. Bob and his wife Carol have the experience that counts. They were married for 62 years until Bob's death last year at the age of 86 and certainly our hearts go out to the craning family. Bob was in ministry for over 50 years and he and Carol have two sons, nine grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren and well 62 years of marriage. I wonder how they did that.

That's the perfect question John.

Then today, and next time. Pastor Bob will provide those answers with the message that was recorded when he and Carol had been married for 25 years and they had taken some time to sit down and think through what they'd learned.

This is a classic presentation from Pastor Bob craning recorded back when he was the executive director of forest home Christian camps in Southern California on today's episode of Focus on the Family. I thought maybe a good way for us to begin this particular week together, Carol and I have just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary in May.

The last weekend of May 24 was our anniversary and we have put in 25 years, and our kids did a very special thing for us on that weekend and I we went away for a couple of days and when we came home on Sunday afternoon.

They had to ask us to get home at a certain hour to go to dinner with them and their girlfriends and and fiancé, and so forth.

And when we got home we had about 110 or hundred and 20 people in our backyard in our backyard is big enough that many people, but they were all there dressed in costumes of the 50s. Everybody had their hair grease down and had bobby socks in the and we we just totally were shocked.

We had no idea they were doing anything and we thought if we got to go to dinner with them would be fortunate and they just put on a very very special day for us that a lot of people out of our past and out are present in the and all dressed strange and I so anyway we got 25 years, but prior to the celebration on Sunday Carol and I gone to Yosemite for a couple of days my we lived together as my wife and never see Yosemite so I love it was time and we went up and spent a couple days of their and one of the evenings. We had dinner together and we sat and I asked you a question that night and talk about for long time. I said I said tell me what you think were still together after 25 years and why is it that we still have fun and why is it that we still love each other and that we still enjoyed being together and we enjoyed praying together and we had this year I had a sabbatical and we spent five weeks together 24 hours a day literally for five weeks and kinda went into that with some apprehension.

I travel a lot, and I've got a lot to suddenly be put together for five weeks 24 hours a day every day.

I am probably was one of the best experiences, our whole lives.

We just had an absolutely super five weeks together and it was very exciting. We try to just put together some things about 25 years and why are we together what's made good and I thought maybe this morning it be a good way to begin what what is made on 25 years and I don't really know. I can't give you great answers, and safety.

Do these four things you will be super but I did write down five things why I don't think you know those of the issues.

I think sometimes the exterior we look at marriage to somebody else. I know I get around certain marriages were. I kind of look at the two people and I spent some time with them in my mind tend to feel you know it's just those people. Anything to make a guy get along well together and yet I counseled some people in my office who are in terrible trouble talking to them individually or seen them together you just look at him and say how could they ever have a problem.

I mean they they're so good-looking they're they're so classy they're just such neat people.

You can't believe people like that can get in trouble in the marriage.

So the five things I wrote down that are not the reasons one I put on number one. Just because you know we need people we have altogether and it's very simple just because the kind we artworks we found. That's not true Carol would tell you quickly that I don't have it all together and sometimes things aren't all that good thing I wrote down is when we had marvelous counseling before we got married.

Our premarital counseling I think lasted about 10 or 12 minutes in total. I can only read one thing he said and that was ingested. I don't think until this morning, but I I that's the only thing I remember out of what was said to us in about 10 or 12 minutes. That was the extent of the premarital counseling that we had. I will say this, we have appearance. My mom and dad had their 50th wedding anniversary two years ago and three weeks before my folks had their 50th Carol spokes had their 50th. So we do have a good example is behind us, that I think I've been very helpful and but it is not because we have good counselors are thing I wrote down is not because we are in the ministry at home. I people sometimes say to me you know how much it just helps everything including your marriage because you're forced whole forced him to be a real drag on the marriage nicely. You know that it's not all you know really need to be a force home the hours you spend in the summer the kind of time you put in. I normally appear by coordinating the morning I usually don't home before 11 at night and those can be very hard things on the marriage if you don't have a good feel about what you trying to go in your marriage.

So it is not that poor thing. I wrote down is because we have unique gifts like prejudice.

I feel we do after the kids and I'm very grateful to God for our 20 3R 17-year-olds, they're good guys and they're great to have around, but they also points in our lives have been a drag on our marriage for thing I wrote down is that it's just because we have good personalities and were always up. I have people I my wife has many people ask Carol is really like what we see on the platform in my white. It really only takes a very brief amount of time to say no because you know what I am when I'm hosting a conference is not what I am time in my life.

I am not that kind of person every day. I have days when I'm down. I have days when I get up and I don't want to come here and do my thing. My wife praise from the Lord, you know what he is and I like that and that happens to me, so it isn't that is just you know where kinda need laid-back and it just works in and I tend to be up a lot and I am but I tend to crash when I walk out of here, so Carol has to put up with the downs that come out of walking off this platform. I put down at the bottom. If we have had conflicts in our marriage. We have had times of grief in our marriage. We have had some major arguments in our marriage.

We have had illness. I have had two major surgeries.

We have had debts all the things we had in our marriage.

I think it's pretty normal to get the things that other people have in their marriages and somehow within the thrust of that we been able to put together 25 years and were still excited about another 25 got you give it to us. I think it's important that somewhere in there. Some things have fallen together.

I am sure there are number of people sitting in here just ask for fun, as we start this point have you been married less than five years.

Anybody okay. We got several lesson fighters only less than 10 lots of hands less than 10 okay only less than 15, not including the fives and the tenants okay lesson 15 okay about less than 20 okay about over 30 123456 about over 40 got 1233 couples over 40. Anybody get 50 no 50s yet. If you make until Thursday 3639, I want to be married. 46. Isn't it interesting, I'm back here. 46 to 46.

As you folks need and want to get you know it's intriguing to me that in recent months over the past like two years to three places where I've been doing couples conferences. I've asked this question thing it intrigues me is that he's been married 25 years or longer get standing ovation. It's like it's so rare that when people hear that something's been very long time. It's like they start sharing.

I mean, there's a giant thing where I am convinced in my own mind. 20 years ago that was not true. It was much more normal to have a long-term marriage was a short-term marriage that people kinda went all out. You know how we got so many short-term marriages that when people hear something that made 46 years eternity me. People are going for six years. You know it's like nobody does that anymore and I and yet it's true there are people like that who have been married that long so I 25, seems a little insignificant at this point, but I'm excited that we have 25 and I will try to share things with you something that was pointed out to me about a year ago that really turned my head and got me thinking and I if you have a Bible this morning turned to a passage that I have preached on on at least seven occasions that I can think of but never in the context that came to my attention, which really started me thinking and I took this passage of Scripture and try to tie some things to work on it you this passage up just with one word this morning. Just a little bit but I don't think it all changes the meaning of the passage were just going to pull it down from kind of expanded passage into a little title Ephesians chapter 4 beginning at verse 25. Not Ephesians 5.

People hear fees as they go again. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 25 I would get in verse 23 and this really talks about our neighbors in our relationship with other Christians. I want more public down into our marriages this morning and try to take four or five things out here and just talk about them for the time that we have in front of us. Verse 23 that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God's been created in righteousness and holiness of the true then in verse 25 will begin here and were going to work through 25 to 32 therefore lay aside falsehood, speak truth, each one of you with his neighbor must take the word neighbor this morning and insert the word spouse or husband or wife laying aside falsehood, speak truth, each one of you with his or her spouse, for we are members of one another.

Be angry, and yet do not sin. Do not let the sun go down upon your anger and do not give the devil an opportunity.

Let him loose steel steel no longer, but rather let him labor performing with his own hands, what is good in order that he may have something to share with him who has need. Let me know. Wholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification. According to the need of the moment that it may give grace to those who hear and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Just take a moment to pray together and then I'll just try to give you five little things to kinda get us thinking this morning. Father, thank you for just this time and we thank you especially for your word. Thank you for yourself and the fact that you love us that you allow us the privilege of knowing you and in the process of knowing you get some central focus for each one of our lives that helps highest together as husbands and wives and sister try to work together in some way with our lives and our homes really serve you and really your children and got so often were interested in our lives, counting in these areas that you shared in Ephesians with other members of the church and yet were not that interested in making them count with our own spouses and families who mean more to us than anyone else and got I just pray that this week we might be challenged anew and maybe refreshed and encouraged in some areas just really be your children, particularly in our own homes where we need so much help and where we really need to be an example to a world that is pretty.

We thank you for this in the name of Christ. Amen. Now I just took this and worked with it in the friend of mine gave me the idea got me really turn in this area and Carolyn, I spent a lot of time talking about this last week and I just want to kind of put these out in front of you and talk a little bit about where we are in this and we don't have these things all together. I wish we did it we have altogether we have the perfect marriage of your marvelous thing but we don't but were working on them and I think we've learned some things. First of all, in verse 25 therefore laid aside falsehood, speak truth, each one of you with his spouse.

This is with neighbors and were just typing it up a little bit for we are members one of another.

I just wrote down. I put lay aside falsehood and speak the truth.

Probably one of the things that Carol and I have done reasonably well.

I said to Carol this morning. We're sitting at the table at the house this morning. I said honey I was going over the outline.

I said really tell each other the truth and care to look a little smile and she said well almost sent me to tell me something, but she said you know sometimes it's like we tell about 90% of it but the other 10% might hurt more than we wish that we hold that for a day or two and she gave me a couple of little examples, but I said are we you feel we are really truthful with one another. When I come home in the afternoon and you asked me where I've been, you feel like tell you where I've been and she said there's no question in my mind that you tell me where you've been. There is an essence of truth within the structure of a marriage that is absolutely critical to survival. I am intrigued with people that I counsel I don't do lots of marital counseling. But I do some very consistently. I am intrigued with people who just get habitual line patterns within a marriage, they just simply don't tell each other the truth. They don't tell horrible things, but they keep an air of falsehood in the center of their marriage. Constantly there are little things that are never told there are little things that are not quite like there are things you find out secondhand that are not quite like it was said. I think if there's anything we've done in 25 years.

It's try to speak the truth honestly and lay aside falsehood. To be honest people with one another read you just a little bitty quit. Incidentally, I just read this book I have read this book a long long time ago and I just reread this book, you know, it's kind of funny with all the marriage manuals out now that give us all the juicy things people tended to walk away from some of the better things of ever been written, and I think this little book. I don't care what you been married a month or what you been married 40 years, this little book has some marvelous things to say this little book, the art of understanding your mate by Cecil Osborne and it just has some great great things in it and it's all to deal with relationships and it's just a lovely book. This little bitty clipping here that's all well says this and in this he's talking about couples that he worked with and he was having a group session with some couples that were in trouble in their marriages and this one woman had really vented her anger about her husband and finally one night this and come up to three times, but she had never really spelled it out in the group and finally one night she just blurted it out and she said any says, until one night when she read yield to the art of very small intimate group that she had discovered her husband Tom had been supporting and living with another woman on and off for several years. Suddenly her anger knew no bounds. She vented in yelling and tears for several minutes Tom sat and listened in total shock and suddenly for the first time, probably in many years became personal. All right, blurted out, I'll get down to brass tacks. I have lived most of our marriage as a pack of lies and I have done it so long that I am just glad to unload it off my chest. I started by telling one lie to cover one other lie. Then I told five lies to cover those two lies and then I told him to cover the five and now I've told thousands to cover the whole sorry mess, and he began to cry and then he goes on and talks about a man in the group walked over and put his arms around and he said honesty could salvage her problem many because of three pages and tells about what's happened to the marriage of a couple that looked hopeless really put it back together is an interesting of you were discovered in your life when you tell a lie. You just don't quite tell it all the way true. You've always got to remember what you said because somewhere you're going to have to say something else to cover up what was not right and I am a man told me many years ago. He said training. Just remember this if you told the truth, you never have to think about what you said because if you ever ask again. You're going to tell exactly the same and I guess if there's anything we've done in our marriage. It's been tried to speak the truth and have a real honesty in our relationship is a little saying that I picked up out of college that I have taken my desk or and I kept us around for years it's had a great influence on my thinking. It's this and maybe some of you were to give it. Never sacrifice the permanent on the altar of the immediate. There are so many things happen in our lives where we do something in the immediate realm that really messes up the permanent experience. I cannot believe people that I've counseled over the last year guys who've gotten involved. Christian men got involved in some little way with some woman that's gotten them in all kinds of trouble because they did a little sudden, immediate thing that absolutely lasted the whole permanent experience.

20 years invested and they go out and in a few minutes.

Do something awful that some of them never recover from and all kind of sacrificing the permanent on the altar of the immediate momentary pleasure for the truth and for the permanent seems pretty good marriage that we really look at our marriage is long term that we really look at it. Down the road.

I think sometimes we look at we say why been married five years I've been married 10 years. That seems low. I look at $25.25 seem short. I look back and it seems like in one way we've always been married. Another way seems like it's been so short it's been such a brief amount of time that we've had together to put in 25 years. So the first thing I put down was just speak the truth Chuck Swindoll made this statement appoints a great statement lying and true intimacy in the marriage can never coexist. That is a great statement lying and true intimacy in a marriage can never coexist see if things are not true within the structure of your relationship you cannot have true intimacy. Now you have may have intimate moments, but you can never have true intimacy. If there are untruths that are weaving in and out and around that marriage.

So speak the truth lay aside falsehood, then the second thing he says in here is be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down upon your anger and do not give the devil an opportunity.

Says here is be angry and do not sin. He does not say don't get angry. I think it's probably very difficult for us to live in kind of close living situation that we live in a marriage that the relationship of two imperfect people coming into an impossible situation or just going to be times when were going to get a little hostile things are not exactly right, but he's saying there's a difference between getting angry and sending and carrying that out to some major extent lighting effect actions in all of the things that we do be angry and sin that is a little thing that comes out of this book that I wrote down that I just thought was so good. Cecil Osborne is talking about.

Remember this wives are seeking a mature, strong understanding, passionate, gentle husband, and he says there are no such people to find a person that has all of those characteristics end up with the husband being strong in general.

Those are two very difficult things for me. The minestrone tends not to be terribly it's very hard for him to get those things into perspective.

And yet that's what a wife is looking for while a husband once and all forgiving, ever loving holy understanding wife, mother, mistress, combination of mother forgiving unconditionally and unconditional love a movie star housekeeper, a sounding board and Eagle builder and one who thinks he is. The rinses are either profound or at least very witty and he's basically saying that there are people that fulfill some areas of that are at least attempt to come into a situation that is basically does not exist. I watch young couples trying to get adjusted in the big adjustment is going from that idealistic expectation and reality, and many of them today don't even attempt when the idealistic spec expectation doesn't come alive, and somewhere in there we get frustrated with one another and sometimes we even get angry with one another. The question is how we handle our anger. How do you handle your anger.

Everyone around the room is when everybody was honest.

There are lots of ways and angers handling here. There are noisy people in here when you're angry you say loud things you do loud things you slam a door you you you do something to let your spouse know that you're not happy other people you're probably incredibly quiet so quite scary. I tend to be that way. See, now you would think knowing me some of you were here last summer when I have no voice and you all laughed. He thought was very funny. I did not think was funny in your mind you're going without a voice. What a marvelous experience. You know and yet I went to like it in a hassle. I tend to be very quiet. I tend to just kinda going to shell and I just kinda want her to know that about and so I do that by just not saying anything, let kinda walk around and I don't do anything loud I just don't do anything, you know, it doesn't take and the boys can walk in the house you are boys a walk in the house and if dad is not noisy. They know sums wrong but that basically noisy person in it and when does not noisy, something bad is Christine. We had our anger in all different ways but let me tell you something.

If we know within our marriages handle our anger, basically with communication. We are in trouble if we cannot communicate through anger. If we cannot communicate in the midst of an angry frustration and be able to talk it through you guys have been in my seminar that I done in the afternoons know that one of the things I've hit and hit and hit and hit hard on and I still believe it is you need to set a time in your marriage and with that insight were to come to the end of part one of her prison for a marriage mentor, Pastor Bob careening into the gym. There was so much great advice. There all of us can put that work in a relationship that's great stuff John and his Pastor Bob said toward the end there. We need to remember that there are no perfect people during the dating process, we tend to put our best foot forward. I certainly did that and so and marriage.

There can be some surprises once the honeymoon is over or I think it's pretty common that even during the honeymoon.

Some things become apparent to write even during the honeymoon.

You might be surprised by what you find out about your new spouse.

But if you want to go the distance is Bob talking about and celebrate 25 or even 60 years of marriage together.

You need to have that willingness to be honest, talk about your problems and ask for help when you need it.

And Focus on the Family is here to help our own Dr. Greg and Aaron Smalley have developed a free marriage assessment that can help you evaluate your relationship in several essential areas like communication and commitment come check it out. It's free at our website today. It is is just a short quiz to help you see where your marriage is strong and also some areas that might need some work. You'll find that when you follow the link in the episode note and let me remind you Focus on the Family need your help as we continue to create materials like the marriage assessment tool to help marriages thrive and for marriages that need serious help. We also offer our hope restored four day intensive's with an over 80% success rate. Two years later, so please donate generously if you can.

The best way to help us. As with the monthly pledge and when you make a donation of any amount today either a monthly pledge or a one-time gift will send you the complete message from Pastor Bob careening on CD so that you can listen to it again or give it to a friend at you in our marriage saving efforts when you call 800 K in the word family 800-232-6459 or donate online and request your CD.

The link is in the episode notes and if you enjoyed today's program. Please make sure you tell a friend listen in and join us next time.

His Pastor Bob shares more wisdom from a long time. You know I'm convinced most of our marriages if we could really guide our tongues sell about 90% of our problems have Jim Daly and the entire team. Thanks for joining us for this Focus on the Family podcast think a moment if you will please tell a friend about these shows and give us a good rating that helps others find this in discover this family strengthening content. I'm John Fuller and finally back containing the presentation and once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.

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