I spent the weekend at a retreat thinking about the failures and deficiencies of my intimacy with my God and with my wife. It was a very convicting and uplifting experience (all at the same time). I walked away with a bunch of great ideas and practices. Try this on for size in both relationships.
Every day:
1. Spend time in prayer together
2. Express two feelings to one another – both what you felt today and why, and when else you felt that way and why.
3. Express one thing you appreciate about the other.
These sort of practical disciplines are the meat and potatoes of both relationships. Yet they are futile if attempted outside a reality of repentance, of a heart dependent on God, of the same work of grace through faith that I found in salvation. This has been the Sonship message for us, this is the only way for the work of this weekend to be effective, to be transformational.
Much of my failure is because my heart has always been stuck in a box. Ever since I can remember, emotional depth and intimate honesty have been completely foreign concepts. I could manage so much, but no further. I could open so much, but no further. You can imagine the box Marialice has been trying to unlock, you can imagine how impossible it has been to know repentance, brokenness and renewal from my God.
I have always expected that some sort of insight or experience would fix everything. I was hoping for the key to the “AHA” moment, for some explosive energy to blast the box wide open in a moment's notice. Now I see that it won’t happen that way. God is asking me today: “If it takes a year of tapping around the edges, an hour at a time, with the hammer and chisel of repetitive disciplines? … will you do that to break that lid off?”
So today I confess and pray – in the way I know how: fairly intellectual and perfunctory. Today I work on the disciplines that are in front of me. This will become the regular focused work, the disciplines of drawing out the heart, opening the box. I commit to this in the trust and hope that God will work over time. I hope that confession and repentance will grow deeper, grow “all encompassing” – especially including the depth of my emotions. I trust that the resolution toward renewal – toward intimacy with God and with my wife - toward being what God wants me to be – would become all of me.
rob, thank you for your personal transperancy and willingness to be a light--probing the rest of us who find it too damning to admit that we too struggle with major barriers in our lives. I am encouraged and spurred on. gracias.