Question: To those who are married,
what are the strongest encouragements
or strongest points of exhortation
that you could give as you look back
on what you've learned in your 40 years of marriage?
Clint: Well, communication is a big one.
You can't exist in a happy marriage
apart from communication.
Sooner or later, the problems
are going to mount up
and they can be traced to that one fountain head:
you don't talk about things.
And so that's a big one.
We've got to talk, shouldn't we.
It's a necessity.
And then there's such things
as ministries to one another -
a ministry of comfort.
When one is bereaved,
when one is grieving,
one is going through a difficult time,
the other one has got to be there
as a comfort.
That's all part of the intimacy of marriage.
And so that's a big one.
Selfishness.
That will drive a nail in the coffin.
I mean, if you have two people that are selfish
or you have one person that's a selfish individual,
there's going to be a lot of grief and heartache
when it could have been a happy marriage
had one person been more selfless
rather than selfish.
Self-centeredness - it shows up all the time.
Not considering the other person
more important than yourself.
So that's a big one right there.
Question: What are some examples
of the ways you've seen selfishness
manifest itself that sometimes
people might be slow to recognize
that they're even being selfish?
Clint: Insistence oftentimes
has in parentheses selfishness.
I insist on this or that.
You know, that seems to come to mind immediately.
I guess I couldn't give a real example of it
that would be useful.
And it comes out all of the time.
I insist we celebrate this holiday with my family.
You know, that could just simply be selfish.
Those kinds of things.
Question: If someone came to you
and they said brother,
how can I fix the problems in my marriage?
What would you say to someone
whose mindset is maybe like a mechanic?
Who is like I've got to fix all these things in my marriage?
Is that a good mindset to have?
Or are there pitfalls there?
What would you say?
Clint: Well, we've got to pray for one another.
For sure.
And I don't fault someone
for wanting to improve their marriage.
I mean, a marriage is something you've got to work at.
It's a hands on endeavor.
It takes two people.
In fact, the problems mount up
when people don't work on their marriage.
They get lazy.
They don't spend the time together talking
that they need to.
They don't minister to one another.
Those problems begin to mount up.
They begin to live separate lives and so on.
So I don't fault someone for wanting
to fix their marriage.
It could be that what they need
is to prioritize the problems
and not try and fix all of them all at once.
Take the most dangerous ones
or the most affecting ones.
Work on them through prayer,
through godly counsel.
Not peer counsel.
I'm not a big fan of peer counsel.
But rather, godly counsel.
Go to your pastors.
You know, there's such a thing
as casting your pearls before swine
when you take intimate matters
and begin to talk to your best friend about them,
who three months down the road
is no longer your best friend, but your worst enemy.
And now he knows your intimate secrets and issues.
And you've cast your pearls before swine.
They turn and rend you
as it says there in the King James -
tear you.
So, we've got to be really cautious
who we seek counsel from.
So often, a word of counsel is very apt
because that pastor is
not emotionally tied up in the situation.
Emotions run high in marital problems.
And he can give an unbiased word
of counsel from the Bible or his experience.
A man who's been a pastor
and has been married for a number of years
has a real advantage that way.
There are some men that are pastors
who are single pastors.
They're not married.
And they have real difficulties, I would say,
counseling married couples.
They don't have those experiences to fall back on.
So as far as a hands on approach
of fix my marriage kind of a mentality,
it seems like prioritizing would be the first step.
This is the biggest issue right now
that we have to face,
so let's just work on that one.
Then we'll move on from there.
Marriage has got to be the most sanctifying institution
God has put on the planet
except for maybe kids, child rearing.
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