At our last youth event on of my 8th graders broke his nose while we were playing in a youth touch football tournament away from home. After a few minutes the bleeding stopped and he seemed a bit confused so we called the parimedics just in case there was a concussion and to make sure his nose wasn’t broken to badly. We’ll the ambulance arrived and I hopped in (leaving the rest of our football team in the care of our great volunteers) and was asked to sit up front. I got in the driver asked if I wanted to put on the head set so we could talk and he asked the usual questions. What happened? What were you guys doing? Who are you with? As I explained who we are, what we were doing and what happened he told me his youth group never did anything like that but just went to summer camp. Now just a few days before I had sat in on a workshop about conversational evangelism and I decided to ask the question, “so do you attend church now?” and he said yes then said that we were on the main channel and everyone could hear our conversation. So thinking it was over and not wanted to push it I dropped the conversation and waited for a minute to see what we could talk about next when he brought it back up again. He began to tell me about the way the church he grew up in treated his mom after she divorced his father and how they continued to attend on and off
for a while. Eventually his mom started attending a big church in the area and he and his wife started to go but but for awhile they were sporadic in attendance. And right after that he said the most profound statement a non committed Christian can say about God and marriage. He told me that for a while his marriage had been on the rocks and how since they have been attending regularly his marriage has been getting better and I could tell that meant a lot to him.
All of us want better marriages and stronger marriages but most people have a hard time figuring out what it takes to get there. Craig Groechels’s book brings the answer back into focus by realigning our number 1 and our number 2 and then pieces begin to fall into place behind them. With the business of life we allow all kinds of things to become our number 1, sometimes its our spouse, or our jobs, a lot of people put that focus on the children and a good number of us put it in places it totally doesn’t belong (ie. hobbies, friends, affairs) never realizing that for the relationship of marriage to work our number 1 has to be God, completely focused on Him and making sure that our relationship with Him is strong (by daily connecting with Him prayer and listening to Him through His word, commitment to His church and living our life every minute relying on Him to direct us) and then rightfully place our spouse as number 2 and make sure that we are strong in that relationship as well (taking time to talk, dating your spouse, praying together) and these practices build a strong marriage and it cannot happen any other way.
Going All The Way is great book that is easy to read, full of life stories that make it real, and Craig is funny and honest never ducking from tell us how he has messed up and how he has worked to make his marriage strong. I’ve already given a copy as a wedding gift (to my sister) and know of at least two more friends that I want to send it to as well. As a guy who has made mistakes in his marriage and at times placed the focus of my number 1 on other things than God and my wife I have been really encouraged and after reading this book we are working to realign our focus as a couple on God first and then each other.
As I we kept driving to the hospital that afternoon and the Fireman/ EMT told me that I responded by saying that I wish more couple realized that God is the answer to our marriage problems. Focusing on God is the only way to have and maintain a health marriage the way He intended it to be.
Available on [Amazon.com][1] and at your local bookstore.
[1]: a href=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590529383?ie=UTF8&tag=fusio07-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1590529383
DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/2
