Beyond Ordinary: When a Good Marriage Just Isn't Good Enough (14 page)

Trisha came to me one evening and said, “I’m not doing well. I don’t think you’re doing well. I don’t think our marriage is doing
well. I really think we need counseling. We’ve both been hurt by this move, and I think we need help processing it and healing from it.”

In my mind she was asking me to admit that we didn’t have it all together. But I was a pastor, and pastors should have it all together. Pastors don’t go to counseling; pastors
do
counseling.

“I know you’re hurt,” I said. “We’ll get through this. I don’t think we need counseling. What is counseling going to do?
I
know what the problem is.
You
know what the problem is. And besides, we don’t have the money for counseling.” I ended the conversation.

My greatest fear was that counseling wouldn’t help me; it would expose me. We would go to counseling for what Trisha perceived to be wrong with us, but the counselor would see right through me and bring to light things that I didn’t want to admit, didn’t want to deal with, didn’t want Trisha to know about. So in one of the darkest times of my life and one of the loneliest times in our marriage, I said no to something that could have brought healing out of a fear that it would bring more pain. The potential of that moment was lost.

TRISHA:

Six months into our time in Nashville, it was obvious that Justin would need to look for another job. This time my heart was numb and callous to what lay ahead. Although Nashville hadn’t turned out to be the dream job Justin had hoped for, I tried to believe that God was still in control and that with every dark cloud, there had to be a silver lining.

During our brief time in Nashville, Pete and Brandi became dear friends. Pete was Justin’s boss, and they spent a lot of time reassuring and encouraging each other as the ministry grew harder day by day. Brandi had just given birth to their first baby boy, and she and I found solace in each other that we would survive this whole mom thing! God used our friendship to encourage each other and to remind us that God was not finished with us.

I don’t think any of us realized the crossroads God was about to
put in our path. The question was, would we choose the potential of the moment or allow it to pass us by?

The next few months brought Justin and me back together as a team, even though we didn’t go to counseling. Beyond Pete and Brandi, we thankfully had our loving and supportive small group. As staff member after staff member turned in resignation letters, the church was no longer a place of community but rather a place of tension and heartache. Our small group was studying
Experiencing God
, by Henry Blackaby and Claude King. God used this book in a way that forever changed my life. Desperate to know what in the world God wanted from us, I read the author’s words as God’s speaking directly to my heart.

This book sparked renewed passion and desire in me to change the world through the local church. It also rekindled a passion for Justin and me to work together as a team. We started to dream again as we had when we were in college.

From the time we were dating, Justin and I had talked about starting a church. And after our time in Nashville, we were so disillusioned with corporate church that the idea of starting from scratch was appealing. God could use us to do church differently. And more than this, we didn’t feel like Nashville was home. While we had built great friendships with Pete and Brandi, we missed Indiana.

We began to pray about planting a church somewhere in Indiana. Justin went to Indianapolis on Fridays, just driving around the city. He stayed with some friends in the Noblesville area, which was ten miles north of Indianapolis. He would call me and tell me about the growth in the area and the potential for what God could do there.

Within four short months, we put together a business plan and a timeline. Micah was finishing kindergarten, and as soon as school was out, we would move to Noblesville to start a church for people who didn’t go to church. God had realigned our hearts with each other and with himself, and our boys were excited to be near family again. At the same time, Pete and Brandi decided to stay
and plant a church in Nashville. This was the crossroads we had all prayed for. But for me, it meant leaving another set of friends I had grown to know and love.

JUSTIN:

When Trisha and I decided to start the church in Noblesville, I had this belief that things would get better because we were trusting God. We were being faithful. We were stepping out and living our faith in front of others. The potential we had to impact this world for Christ was huge. As we made plans to move, our marriage problems seemed to diminish. Focusing on the mission of the church we were starting and the challenges we would face allowed us to take our eyes off the problems we had with one another. We were a team again. Our issues and problems weren’t resolved; they just became secondary to the task in front of us.

God’s blessing isn’t dependent on our spiritual, emotional, financial, or marital health. That was true in the life of Samson: God’s presence and blessing, at least for most of his life, were with Samson despite his blatant sin and impulsive decisions. And it was definitely true for us as we prepared to plant Genesis Church in Noblesville. In many ways, this was the healthiest we had ever been as a couple. We were on the same page in our desire to plant the church; we had to trust in God in ways we never had before; we were finally living out our potential together. There was a sense that all we had was each other. We were in this together.

There is no doubt in my mind that planting the church was from God. There is also no doubt that planting the church medicated my discontentment. Being in charge, starting something from scratch, and beginning to realize my potential allowed my
see, want, get
mind-set to take over. What had been a liability in years past now felt like an asset and enabled this character flaw that plagued my heart to grow and blind me to the healing I desperately needed.

See. Want. Get.

TRISHA:

Our younger son, Elijah, had some major health issues that we were trying to figure out. At two and a half, he said only two words consistently:
ah ah
, which meant “momma,” and
red
, which actually meant “red.” He screamed the rest of the time. He screamed when he was happy and when he was mad. Since his birth, he had been hospitalized four times due to asthma. Just one week after Justin officially resigned from the Nashville church, we sold most of our possessions to prepare to move into a small, two-bedroom apartment in Indiana. We had only five thousand dollars to our name, and our medical insurance would be cut off in a matter of days. You can imagine the panic that went through my mind thinking we would be without coverage. The Saturday before we moved, Elijah had a major asthma attack, and I was just minutes from taking him to the hospital when his doctor called and said to meet him at his office. The doctor gave him a breathing treatment that he responded well to and sent us on our way with multiple prescriptions.

While waiting for his prescriptions at Walgreens, I felt an urge to purchase a pregnancy test. We were not trying to get pregnant, and the thought of being pregnant with no foreseen insurance in our future made me panic. But I bought the test anyway. Twenty minutes later, a positive sign appeared on the test, indicating that baby number three was on the way.

I remember calling Brandi in complete hysteria that we were pregnant, soon to be uninsured, and with two little boys, one of whom required expensive medication. Her response in the sweetest southern accent you can imagine was, “Can I be happy for you?”

As much as I appreciated her words, I longed to hear them from Justin. But I knew he would be just as panicked as I was. Obviously, I was grateful that God had blessed us with another baby, but I feared this news would jeopardize the team dynamic Justin and I had finally returned to. Three days later, with baby number three on the way, we moved to Noblesville, Indiana, to plant Genesis Church.

JUSTIN & TRISHA:

CHOICES DETERMINE DESTINATION

In his book
The Principle of the Path
, Andy Stanley says, “Our direction, not our intention, determines our destination.”
⁴

We think we can overcome the direction we choose with the strength of our intentions. If we just intend to be better, we can ignore the force of the choices we’ve made in the past. But our consistent choices in a single direction determine our destination, not our intentions. That is why we’ve talked about spiritual warfare and oneness and truth telling and choosing a covenant relationship. Good intentions may be the enemy of realizing our potential in life and in our marriages because they can obscure the choices we’ve already made.

Samson probably didn’t intend to break his Nazirite vow. But when he came to the crossroads of see, want, get, his intentions couldn’t overcome the cumulative power of his direction, which had been set by the many smaller choices he’d made before.

We are, in many ways, a collection of our choices. The marriages we have today aren’t reflections of the intentions we have; they are collections of the choices we have made. The choices that separate an ordinary marriage from an extraordinary marriage aren’t usually earth shattering or huge. It is the small, mundane choices we make every day that cause the biggest difference.

POTENTIAL AT THE CROSSROADS

When you are trying to overcome an ordinary marriage by pursuing extraordinary, you will inevitably come to crossroads. You will have decisions to make that will determine the trajectory of your relationship with your spouse. Should you go to counseling or not? Should you quit your job because the environment is detrimental to your relationship with God, or should you stay because the money is good? Should you take a promotion that will require you to travel three days a week, or should you stay in your current
position and eat dinner at home each night? Should you say yes to a full-time job when you feel called to be a stay-at-home mom?

The difference between ordinary and extraordinary isn’t always as simple as what is wrong and right on the surface. The crossroads may be a decision between two “right” possibilities. But the difference between ordinary and extraordinary is found at the crossroads of selfishness and selflessness.

One of the most powerful Scriptures in all of the Bible is Philippians 2:3-8 (
NIV
):

     
Who, being in very nature God,

          
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

     
rather, he made himself nothing

          
by taking the very nature of a servant,

          
being made in human likeness.

     
And being found in appearance as a man,

          
he humbled himself

     
by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!

Paul says, “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.” Jesus didn’t just
intend
to be a servant, he
chose
to be a servant. He chose to put others (us) ahead of himself, even when this choice was painful for him (see Luke 22:41-44).

It doesn’t take long for us as we read or watch the news to find a story of a gifted person with great influence taking the wrong fork at the crossroads, sacrificing his or her potential. Most of these stories
involve that person choosing what was in their own best interest rather than what was in the best interest of others. It’s easy for us to think,
What a stupid move! I would never do that
. The Bible is filled with stories that make us think similarly. If you take the time to read the story of Samson in Judges 13–16, you’ll walk away with the same conclusion.

Samson was clearly gifted to do great things for God. He was chosen to rescue the Israelites from the Philistines. And even though Samson still did some amazing things and “the Spirit of the L
ORD
came powerfully upon him” time after time—even in the midst of his bad choices—Samson is the poster boy for unrealized potential. Whereas many of the other heroes in the book of Judges ruled in Israel after their epic battles, keeping the Israelites on track with the Lord at least while they remained alive, Samson died prematurely, in one final burst of God’s strength. Samson’s failure to reach his potential didn’t come about as a result of one big mistake that cost him everything. Samson continually came to smaller crossroads where he had to choose between what he wanted and what God wanted for him.

It was Samson’s small, incremental choices to pursue his selfish desires that led to his eventually sacrificing his potential. We typically think of Samson’s downfall being the cutting of his hair, but Samson had long before chosen to forsake his Nazirite vow. He had already intentionally touched something that was dead (Judges 14:8-9), and he had likely had alcoholic drinks as well (Judges 14:10). Samson’s hair was probably the last thread connecting Samson to his Nazirite vow and God’s intention for his life. Samson was not crushed in an instant by circumstances beyond his control but under the building weight of a lifetime of poor decisions.

The same thing is true for marriage. Most days, you won’t be faced with large decisions that will incite your spouse to file for divorce. The crossroads that all of us stand at every day is do I choose ordinary again today, or do I choose extraordinary? Do I choose what I want,
what I deserve, what my spouse owes me, what I’ve paid the price for—or do I choose what is best for my spouse and my marriage?

One thing I know is that you can’t be selfish and have an extraordinary marriage. Marriage isn’t designed for selfish people. Maybe you are reading this book right now and you are thinking,
I’ve been telling my husband that for years
. Another thing I know is that you can’t be simultaneously selfless
and
resentful about your selflessness. Just as love is self-sacrificing, love also “keeps no record of being wronged” (1 Corinthians 13:5).