Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents.
I think sometimes when it comes to people,
we can have a tendency to treat people like we treat our cars.
Here's what I mean.
When you find something's wrong with your car,
the good thing to do is try to fix it, right?
Yeah, but if you can't fix it, what do we do?
We say, "Well, I can't fix this car, so I'm gonna replace it.
I'll get a new one. I'll take the broken car and replace it for a new car that isn't broken."
If we can't replace it because whatever reason:
we don't have enough money, we don't have enough resources,
we will ignore the problem and
that's probably the right thing to do just, "I'm just gonna ignore this car."
The great thing is that works when it comes to cars.
The bad thing is, that's not a great idea when it comes to people.
I see this happen a lot in married relationships,
where here's one member of the couple
and they see something in the other person that they don't like
and so what they try to do is they just try to get in there
and they just, "Listen, just let me fix you. Just let me kind of...
...work my way in. I know exactly what you need.
I want to fix you. Let me fix you."
And I guess there's some part about that
that maybe is motivated by love in a certain sense
because you know love wills the good of the other
but a lot of times, it's not.
A lot of times, it's motivated by, "This annoys me and so I want you to stop doing that thing."
Now, what happens is this:
Over the course of time, if the person — if that thing, I mean,
in that person, that characteristic, that annoying trait, that kind of behavior,
if it doesn't get "fixed",
then the other two temptations are,
"Well, then I'll just replace you."
Now, sometimes it's actually replacement
where OK, we're going to get divorced and I'm going to find someone
who isn't broken in the same way that you're broken.
But a lot of times, it involves something more subtle.
It doesn't involve necessarily, "I'm going to exchange you for someONE else,"
it's a "I'm going to exchange you for someTHING else."
And so instead of my spouse as my one legitimate source of romance,
I'm going to trade them in for — whether it be, I don't know, some people turn to pornography,
some people turn to romance novels
some people turn to Nicholas Sparks type-kind of a relationship
or even like intimacy that doesn't have to be sexual intimacy with someone else
because now you're the source of romance in my life.
Because if I can't fix you, then I'm just gonna replace you
Or ignore.
I see this happen a ton.
The thing is if I can't fix you and I can't replace you, then I'm just going to ignore you.
You know what strikes me so so often is
how impatient couples who've been married for 25, 30, 35 years can be with each other.
Now, if you're in that situation, maybe you can tell me a thing or two about that
but here's the thing.
I would expect on some level, that newlyweds would be relatively impatient with each other
because they're getting used to like, "Oh, these are your idiosyncrasies,
these are your kind of bad habits, these are the things that I didn't necessarily know about you."
"After 25 years, I know that when he comes home, he's gonna drop his bag on the floor
and he's gonna throw his jacket over the back of the couch."
"I know that after 25 years, here is how she eats her food."
Like, I know all this, so why am I getting so worked up about it?
So here's the thing.
Rather than fix, replace, or ignore, here's three other options.
One is, I accept the person.
Yeah, I know that they lose their keys all the time.
I know that he kicks his shoes off, right yep, in the middle of there
and I don't want him to do this, but I know that for whatever reason
that the person I'm married to struggles with something I don't struggle with.
Like order or they struggle with being on time or they struggle with putting the toilet seat down,
whatever that is, I'm going to accept them.
And again, I'm gonna accept their good parts and accept the bad traits
because we realize this is what we do for ourselves.
That's not condoning the bad things, it's not saying the bad things aren't bad things.
What it is is saying, "Nope, this is the person I married,"
just like when we accept ourselves, we're not just saying,
"Well, everything I choose is great."
No, we're saying even the bad things, OK, that's just that's a part of what I'm doing,
it's part of what I'm wrestling with, it's part of me as I move forward,
trying to pursue Jesus.
The second thing after acceptance is delight.
To delight.
I would invite you to do this,
there's probably, with whomever you're living
whether that is a spouse or it's a child or your parents
or whoever it is, your roommate maybe,
to begin not only to accept but then take the next step
and delight in that difference.
To delight in the thing that annoys you.
So for example, I had a college roommate and he's the greatest guy,
such an incredible man
and he always would chew with his mouth open.
I think he had a nose thing or his nose was stuffed a lot, so you know.
Anyways, I don't mean to digress into that
but I would be so mad. I'd be so mad
and then finally I was like, "You know what?
That's him. He chews with his mouth open."
And so I can either not have breakfast with him and not have lunch with him
or I can just say, "Yeah, my buddy,
no one chews with their mouth open quite like him."
I can accept and delight because then that paves the way for love.
The third thing.
Unless I accept someone and learn how to delight in them,
I'm not going to be able to love them.
If I keep trying to fix them, I don't have any time to love them.
If I keep replacing them with something or someone else,
I don't have time to love them.
And if I'm ignoring them, how can I possibly, how could I possibly love them?
The way to move forward, wherever you're at in your relationships
is to see that person, to accept them —
that doesn't mean condoning everything they do,
to delight in them
and to love them. This is what God does for you.
God doesn't condone everything you and I choose
but he accepts the — "but this is my child" —
not everything that we do pleases him but he takes delight in us.
Isaiah 63 says this, "As a bridegroom marries his bride so will your God delight in you."
And rather than replacing us or ignoring us,
God, he loves us and it's that love that lifts us up.
So rather than trying to fix the people in your life or replace them or ignore them,
why not do what God does for us?
To accept them, to delight in them and to love them into wholeness.
From all of us here at Ascension Presents, my name's Father Mike.
God bless.