Wanna Be Better Together?

Dave: Hey, before we get started, I’ve got to tell you something exciting happening right now at FamilyLife^®.

Ann: Yes, this is good news you want to hear.

Dave: Our FamilyLife Weekend to Remember^® marriage getaways are half-off.

Ann: Whoo-hoo! The registration fee.

Dave: Yes, you can sign up right now [at] FamilyLifeToday.com; you can go to a Weekend to Remember. It’s literally going to change your marriage, and it’s half off.

Dave: So, what’s the most important thing you keep in our shower?

Ann: Um, my particular shampoo and conditioner.

Dave: Yes, that wouldn’t be it for me. [Laughter]

Ann: It wouldn’t, would it?

Dave: You’re not going to ask me what mine is?

Ann: Okay, what’s yours?

Dave: What do you think it is?

Ann: Your razor.

Dave: Ahh, you’re exactly right!

Ann: Of course.

Dave: I’ve got to shave my bald head!

Shelby: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Ann: This is FamilyLife Today!

Dave: Well, you know what’s really interesting? I’ve never heard of a couple putting a Ziploc^® bag in a shower with their mission and values, so they can look at it. Have you ever heard of that?

Ann: I want to meet this couple. This is pretty remarkable. 

Dave: We’ve got them sitting in the studio right in front of us. David and Meg Robbins, welcome to FamilyLife Today!

Meg: It’s a treat to be with y’all.

David: Indeed.

Ann: I’m sure people are leaning in and intrigued by: “What’s this Ziploc bag thing?”

David: It’s a values process that is simple. We had some mentors give it to us, and we’ve used it several times. We’re actually in a process, now, of doing it again.

It’s so simple. All you do is: you get away, individually. You list out: okay, as you think about this next season of life—which at that time, our next season of life was two to three years; our most recent one was more like seven to ten years. You know, we’ve got high school to consider and our kids going to college. This chapter we’re in—we’re thinking more in decade chunks; more than the next two- to three-year chunk. 

You take that next season, and you list out any value that you have, and passions, giftings, burdens. You know, you get away, and after about an hour, you’re just frustrated, I feel like; and you’re like, “Oh, I could have done this in a Starbucks^® at home! Why are we away?” You know? Then you just ask the Holy Spirit: “Lord, help me. You know the future. You know what You wired in me. Help me surface values that You’ve engrained on our heart for who You uniquely have made us.”  

And so, you keep listing out values, and the Holy Spirit keeps meeting you in those places. Then you rank them individually: what would be most important for this next season in your life? What needs to be delayed for a season, even though it’s a part of you and you’re passionate about it? 

Then you come together, and the most powerful thing happens when you come together. And if you’re not married, you could do this with a close friend—a friend that knows you and can speak life into you—but you come together. And we’ve always had those great moments of: “Why is this one so low? This is who you are! Why don’t you believe this about yourself?” or “Why is this one so high?” 

For me, I remember I was 29 when we were first doing this value process. I just felt like I was getting behind my peers in buying a home. I had owning a home really high up there in the spirit of: “You know, we’re creative, and we like making home. We do hospitality out of our home for missional purposes. We need a home.” 

I remember Meg challenging me, going, “Okay, why is that one so high?” When I got underneath it, it was because I felt like I was falling behind my peers. It’s still probably ranked high for missionaries who said, “We’ll go wherever we need to go and do whatever God commands to do,” but it was put in its right place as we came and meshed our values together and ranked them together.

Then you [Meg] share what we do with them.

Meg: Yes, and then, for us—I mean, everyone can choose your own method, but for us—we kind of see: “Okay, where’s the cutoff line of about the top three to five that we really feel like the Lord. . . ” I mean a lot of prayer goes into this too, you know? We’re just asking the Lord to shine a flashlight on the ones that He is writing on our life.

When we kind of have the top three to five—or sometimes, you know, maybe there’s seven, but three that you really want to be true about you, we print them out and put them in a Ziploc bag, and tape them up in the shower and just pray over them every day. 

If we’re trying to make a decision, then we pray through the decision. For us, it has been so much more powerful than a pro-con list, because you can kind of pro-con anything, you know?

Ann: Give us an example of your top three.

Meg: Okay, that’s a good one. When we were—I’m thinking about when we were moving to New York City. We had been living—

David: —we did not know that we were moving to New York City.

Meg: Right, we didn’t know what God had for us, but we knew God was stirring up change and just challenging us to something different. One of the top ones was “to live in a more lost and diverse context,” just a place where not everybody—we were kind of living in a suburban, very churched area, and we felt like God was calling us to step outside of that and into more diversity. 

David: Another one was us “leading together in more tangible ways” as part of our job descriptions. I was a Regional Director, visiting campuses. I was traveling a lot, away from my family.

Meg: We had small children, so, it made sense at that time; but they were getting a little older, and we were starting to think through: “Okay, what does it look like for us to partner in ministry again?”

David: Yes.

Ann: So, you tape those up in your shower, and you pray over those whenever you’re in the shower?

David: Yes. Then, we would do that for a season, like three months. During those three months, we knew—I remember driving home from that hotel where we did those values in that landed us eventually in New York City, [thinking], “I don’t know what’s about to happen, but I bet we’re going to adopt a Cystic Fibrosis kid, because we already have one. So, we’ll do that, and we’ll move to midtown Atlanta.” Like, that was my first— “Okay, I’m driving home. That’s what I bet is going to happen.”

Ann: Yes.

David: I didn’t think a job change was coming. I didn’t think moving [from] Atlanta was coming; just moving within Atlanta is what I thought. And then, as we prayed, we just felt the Lord continue to open our hands.

We actually went down to Miami three times, because I was convinced it was Miami. And the Lord kept using the value process to—and for me to listen to my wife and the pace she was really discerning also, to go, “I don’t know if this is it. Let’s…”

We checked out New York and a few other ones, and as God led us to New York, I’m sitting here today—we’re sitting here—and I just go, “Man, in sovereignty, who knows what God would have done? He would have worked His will out, but I don’t know that we would be serving in this role together and getting to be the team that we are in this role if it weren’t for those values that God met us in, and that, as we prayed over them, led us to New York, and ministered to the next generation in a secular context.

We discovered the power of the home, and how the family can be such a powerful conduit for evangelism and discipleship in a very secular place.

Dave: And we can put your worksheet—you have a worksheet, right?

David: That’s right.

Dave: We can put that on FamilyLife.com.

David: Yes, we’ll do it.

Dave: You [listener] can use that. Because I’m, right now, foreseeing that a Ziploc bag is going into my shower. [Laughter] Because my wife is over there—I can tell Ann’s all excited about that—like, “Yes, what would that look like, even at our stage in life?”  

Well, I mean, coming out of those values as well—I’ve heard both of you say, many times; in fact, one of the first times I was around you, I heard this phrase come out—and now I’ve heard it often that I know this is part of how you work: “If dependence is the goal, weakness is an advantage.”

David: Yes.

Dave: Again, I get it as soon as I hear it, but I’ve never really heard that stated like that. So, talk about that.

David: Yes, well, ultimately, if dependence on the Lord is how we live our lives; if abiding in Him is the requirement for fruit to be produced—I don’t know what it is in me, but I believe that with all my heart, yet, functionally, I get it backwards all the time.

I have to remind myself, over and over and over again: “I am not sufficiently good, wise, or gifted enough to make this thing work”—whether it’s my kids, whether it’s our relationship as a husband and wife, whether it is leading a ministry, I’m not good enough! I have to depend upon the Lord, even if I feel like all the boxes are checked, and everything is perfect. Dependence is the key to living out an abiding life that bears fruit; fruit that will remain. It comes from fully experiencing our weakness.

That is the thing that gets hard for me, that I feel like He started teaching me when I was around 30: “You’ve really got to be okay with your weakness.” Almost inviting diving into your weakness; because, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians, “It is in our weakness that God’s power is made perfect.” 

Ann: It is so funny! As you say that, I’m recalling the first year of speaking at the Weekend to Remember getaway. I was 29 and 30 years old. I was petrified! I’m thinking, “What do I have to say? These women have been married longer than I have. I’m nobody. I have nothing to say.”

Right before I would get up to speak, I’m in the shower that morning, lying—like I am on the bathtub, lying prostrate, begging God, “I can’t do it! I cannot do it! I have nothing in me that would help me to do this except for You. I depend totally and completely on You, God. I need You to do this in and through me.” 

It sounds like you guys have done that many times: “I can’t do this apart from You, Lord.” 

David: Yes. 

Meg: Yes, I feel like we find ourselves there a lot. You’re very right, and I think the dependence on the Lord is actually the part that is not exhausting. It’s the sitting in the weakness, and continually finding ourselves there, just: “Okay, we don’t have everything it takes.” That’s why we desperately need the Lord and what He can do in His power. 

Ann: It sounds like Moses; sounds like Gideon, you know? 

Meg: It’s everybody, all through the Bible. 

David: It’s all through Scripture, yes.

Meg: In fact, when we were asked to consider taking this role, we were praying about it for a few months and, certainly, seeking the Lord.

David was out of town one week. We were living in New York City in our small apartment, and he had been out of town for three or four days. It was a Sunday morning, and I was thinking, “I’ve got to get everybody to church,”—if for no other reason, certainly, we all need Jesus, but I might just need a minute,” you know? [Laughter]

We’re on our way to church—and at this time, we had four children (they were all ten and under). So, walking down the street in New York City—if you’re not familiar with walking with a family, you really can’t walk just in a big old line, spread out. And then kids, you know, kind of want to run around everywhere, but you really—I mean, we lived there for almost five years. Our kids knew: “You really need to walk two by two, making space for other people who might pass you.”

Well, everyone was kind of everywhere, and somebody almost tripped an elderly lady, and I just lost it. I just lost my temper and snapped at somebody: “Get back in line!” Who knows what I said?

David: Yes; in New York City, people often say, “You proudly have your public cries,” where you get, you know, you’re like, “Yes, it’s just normal to public cry.”

Ann: Yes.

David: There’s also public parent disciplining [Laughter]—

Meg: —yes!

David: —and it’s really on display. Yes.

Meg: And your sin comes out in front of everybody, and it’s kind of humiliating. So, we get to church, and I get everybody checked into their class and sit down. 

Ann: Which is an accomplishment, Meg. I’m just going to say, “Way to go!” 

David: True. 

Meg: Thank you! Thank you—on my own, it felt like it. [Laughter] I texted David, though, and I said, “I really don’t think we can take this role.” 

David: No, no! That’s not what you said. You texted me and said, “Hey, we’re not doing it. We’ll talk after church.” [Laughter] 

Dave: That was it? That was the text? 

Meg: That is actually much more accurate. 

David: I go, “Oh, no! What has happened?” 

Meg: “It is over.” 

Dave: You sent that text? Why? 

Meg: Because I was feeling the reality of how, “I’m a terrible mom.” All of the inadequacies that I was feeling, and taking this role to lead a family ministry, and I can’t even keep my cool on the way to church? You know? I mean, it just felt like, “This is not for me.” 

When they first asked us to consider the role, my first comment was, “Um, I think if you had been with us at Disney^® today, you would not be asking us.” [Laughter] Because we were in Orlando for a conference. I just felt like, “Maybe, you need to come live with us for a week before you ask us to do that.” But the Lord just kept having to bring me back to this place of: “What does dependency look like?” because I am weak. 

And that morning in church—we were going to Redeemer at the time, and Tim Keller was preaching that day on John, Chapter 21; after He has died; He has risen again; He is coming back to the disciples, and He is talking to Peter. He says three times, “Do you love Me?” He’s like, “Yes, Lord,” almost to the point of: “Why are You asking me the third time?”

But Tim Keller talked about how He (Jesus) was doing that on purpose, three times, just like he [Peter] had denied Jesus three times, to let him experience: “Yes, you messed up, but I still love you.” And because “you are right here with Me, plunging the reality of your sin into My grace.” Because Peter was bringing that to Jesus and experiencing that fellowship again, Jesus tells him: “If you love Me, feed My sheep.” 

He says it three times. Every time, He says, “Do you love Me?” He [Peter] says, “Yes.” “Then, feed My sheep.” He [Tim] talks about [how]: “We don’t have it all together! Jesus doesn’t call the equipped. He equips those that He calls.” 

The Lord just used it that morning. After—by the time—church was over, and we did have a conversation, it was really like the Lord said, “Do you trust Me to be the gaps in your life—to fill in? I’m not asking you to be perfect in order to step into this. I’m asking you to trust Me in a radical way.” 

David: Every follower of Jesus gets invited by the Holy Spirit, [who] is embedded in their lives. The Spirit is the One [who] equips them with the gifts and empowers them to be able to live out mission—every person, whether it’s in your neighborhood, and God’s lifting your eyes to your neighbors; whether you are in a school, and He’s lifting your eyes to people around you; whether it is your grandkids—the list goes on and on. God invites us to build His kingdom by impacting others. 

We experience transformation with Jesus and Him meeting us in our weakness, and then, He uses us as agents of transformation, right, for others to experience, because we can guarantee others are experiencing their weakness also. But, when it comes to living it out, God delights, I believe, in putting His people in positions where they are desperate on Him—

Meg: Yes.

David: —because that’s when His glory comes through with power, because we get to the end of ourselves, and we say, “God, I need You to show up or else.” Just like Second Avenue and going to church, He does. He meets us in the places we need Him most. 

Dave: It’s interesting, because I think it’s so against how we try to live. Even the culture is like: “Be strong!” “You are strong.”

Meg: “You’ve got this.” 

Dave: Yes. I mean, I’m thinking of all the years I spent in the NFL, in those locker rooms. It’s the opposite! Nobody is talking about weakness there, even though they’re feeling it: “I’m not adequate. If I drop this punt, I’m getting cut.” Nobody says that. They’re like, “I’m the man. I can do this!”

And I think we do that in the Church. I think we sort of try to believe that we’ve got everything that we need; which we do in a sense in Christ,—

David: —sure.

Dave: —but we often don’t want to reveal weakness; we don’t want to show weakness. We read Paul’s words, and we’re like, “What [does] he mean, ‘In my weakness, I am strong?’”

So, the church has become a place where you fake it; you hide. Yet, you’re saying—I mean, that such a statement: “If dependence is the goal, weakness is an advantage.”[It’s] like, “No, no, no! I don’t ever want weakness.” And yet, that’s what brought you here. And I think it’s so amazing how on—what was it? Second Ave?

David: Second Avenue, yes.

Meg: Second Ave.

David: Second Ave, probably around 72^nd Street.

Dave: I mean, I think it’s amazing how that’s happening to you; you [Dave] get this text, and then God brings this moment in church. That’s not just happenstance. It’s like God has called you. He needs to remind you of something, and here you are!

David: Yes.

Dave: What about the couple, though, that just will not embrace it? Because you are saying, “Embrace weakness.” 

Ann: Well, I’m thinking of the listeners that are in it right now. They are just struggling! They are at the end of themselves, they feel desperate and alone, and they see no hope. How would you encourage them? 

David: I would just say, first of all: don’t just be a believer of grace in getting what you don’t deserve; be a lover of grace.”

The fact that we have a God who comes to us in grace and truth, and gives us what we don’t deserve, and sent Jesus to meet the criteria of truth for us to have a relationship with Him—

Be a lover of grace, and relate to God; just start pouring your heart out to Him. Dave, you said it—because we’re in Christ; Colossians says, “Christ in us, the hope of glory.” 

Dave: Yes. 

David: Because we are in Christ, it’s not our performance and others’ opinions that become our identity—but that is how we operate, even as followers of Jesus. Believers of grace can believe all the right things, but yet, deep down, when they are functioning, it’s my performance and others’ opinions, and that’s my identity; instead of Christ’s performance, His opinion, and that being our identity. That may feel a little trite and a spiritual platitude, but just that honest, gut-level of: “God, I don’t have it, and I don’t even know where to turn.” 

I mean, Meg invites me into humility, being able to have a space to be humble and [say], “I’ve been trying to hold it all together, and I don’t have it. I’m so sorry I’ve created distance between me and you.” I often create distance, because I try to hold it all together too long. Then, I can be a lover of grace to the Lord, and then move toward her and [say]: “I’m going to stop performing so wholeheartedly here; I’m going to trust in Christ’s performance.” 

Meg: Yes, I think a really practical thing that we’ve tried to live out (and it’s hard to do!); but I think of Nancy Leigh DeMoss Wolgemuth talking about taking the roof off before the Lord, and the walls down before others. I think that, when we are feeling that way—inadequate or just weak, ultimately, we’re feeling our weakness,— 

Ann: —yes. 

Meg: —our tendency is to kind of hole-up and cover that up. 

Ann: We hide in shame. 

Meg: We do; we hide in shame, and I’m totally guilty of that. But I think the times that we’ve experienced God’s power the most is when we confess that before the Lord and come to Him and say, “Lord, I don’t have it. I don’t have what it takes. I desperately need You!” And coming before one another, or close friends, and taking those walls down and saying, “This is where I am feeling so weak, where I’m really struggling.” That almost makes room for God’s power to come alive even more. 

Dave: Now, I’m guessing—I don’t know for sure—you’ve had some moments in the last couple of years, because you’ve had to lead a major ministry [FamilyLife] through one of the hardest seasons—

Ann: —a pandemic!

Dave: —in the world.

Meg: Yes. 

Dave: Take us into your family room or, maybe, your kitchen, when you’re trying to lead this ministry through this valley, as a couple. What were those nights like? Were they nights where you had to say to Meg, “Man, I’m scared to death,” or “I don’t think…” 

David: Part of it was really depending upon the Lord out of the gate; but then as it lengthened, it began—and we’ve been honest; it began—to kind of drive a wedge in between us. I started worrying so much about keeping FamilyLife afloat, and the functioning of our family moving during the pandemic, which was a part of what we had to do.

I really got so overly busy in that, that, really, if you’d come in the family room, 12 months into the pandemic, we had to look at each other in the eye and [say], “Okay, we’re functioning well, but how are we really when it comes to our oneness?” 

The pandemic has caused a current and a drift in our own lives that has drifted us apart. We really had to get out of the current. And just like [when] we go to the beach and the currents are strong, we have to wave our kids back to get lined up with us and our umbrella; and the current is strong. We tell them: “Get on the sand, and walk back to us. That’s the only way you are going to be able to make it back.” 

We’ve actually started rhythms of getting “on the sand” and not letting life, and the currents, sweep us away too much. 

Meg: Yes, for me, I had to recognize that there were times when I felt like I didn’t want to put more on David. 

Ann: Yes. 

Meg: He had so much on him, and so I was being really careful and not sharing. He would ask me, “How are you?” I was thinking, as you were talking, that, for me, I had to take a step of faith and trust in him and risk: “Yes, you know what? This might put one more thing on him for me to say, ‘I’m struggling, too,’ but I know that he cares about me. He loves me, and he wants to know that.” I had to be intentional just not to be too careful, and to take that step into intimacy of, “Yes, this is hard for me too.” 

David: We started having a little mantra of, “Let’s be a little less careful,” which is an interesting time; but it was good for us. 

Dave: I just know, when hard times hit our home, it’s very easy for the marriage—you drift into isolation. That’s what Meg just said: “I don’t want to take the roof off with God, because I don’t know where He is, and I don’t want to take the walls down.”

So, we close in, and your marriage can really suffer. The opposite is a gift. When you open up to your spouse and open up to God, God says, “That’s why I put you together. You two are better together, and you two need each other.” 

I’ve heard your story enough to know you had to get there. It wasn’t easy! You got there. I’m thinking there are couples listening right now [who] are still isolated, through the pandemic or whatever. I hope, as they are listening today, they say: “Today is the day,” or “Tonight is the night. We have to hit the pause button. We have to say, ‘We need to talk’.” 

Ann: I think Meg would agree with this: when Dave has come to me in weakness, saying, “I’m at the end of myself. I can’t even do this,” I feel so much love, and I want to encourage him; versus when he shuts down. I don’t know what to do with that. I think, as a spouse, when we can go to each other, and be vulnerable, and say, “I need your help. I have nothing left. I am so fearful,” that’s Level 5 communication, we talk about at the Weekend to Remember getaways, where you are going deep. You are exposing the vulnerability of your soul. That is when we come together, and we become one. 

Dave: It’s a scary place to go. 

Ann: Yes. 

Dave: You are full of fear, but I’m just going to tell you: do it today. it will change everything.

Shelby: Take that step and be intentional about purposeful vulnerability with your spouse. And, as Dave just said, ‘It'll change everything in your marriage, for the good and for the glory of God.”

I'm Shelby Abbott, and you've been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with David and Meg Robbins on FamilyLife Today. What a great conversation!

As we've been talking about marriages today, have you ever wondered how strong your marriage could be? Maybe that's a question you haven't asked, or maybe it's something that you're kind of asking yourself right now, because I just mentioned it. Well, I would encourage you to join us at a Weekend to Remember marriage getaway and see the difference this weekend could make in your marriage. As one attendee shared, “I realized marriage is a covenant, not just a contract.”

So, don't miss out on this opportunity right now, because you can save 50% off of registrations until September 16th. You can head over to FamilyLifeToday.com and click on the Weekend to Remember marriage getaway banner; and when you do, you'll take the first step toward a stronger marriage. Again, you can head over to FamilyLifeToday.com.

Now, coming up tomorrow, have you ever felt disillusioned and disappointed in your marriage? Well, Brad and Marilyn Rhoads are here tomorrow to talk about that. And my guess is, you're probably going to be able to relate in some form or fashion. That's tomorrow. We hope you'll join us.

On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I’m Shelby Abbott. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

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