This episode is supported in part by the Christian Standard Bible, a translation designed to be faithful to the original text and clear for everyday readers. We're grateful for their partnership in helping bring gospel-centered content to families like yours. To learn more about the CSB, visit csbible.com. Hi. I literally got out my Bible.
I'm a new believer, and I'm like, okay, where has God shown himself to be faithful? And I see, oh, he had them cross the Red Sea.
Okay, that was impossible.
Okay, so God is faithful. I can trust him, you know, and then I began to recount the times he'd been faithful in my life.
So I'm pushing out that fear with the truth that God is faithful, that he can be relied on, that these times that he's been faithful tells me he will be faithful in this situation now. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson. And I'm Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com.
This is Family Life Today. We have Beth Runkel back with us today, and her book is called Another Move, God. She's a military wife, and it's a devotional book, but I'm telling you, this book is going to apply to every single person, and it's going to fire you up. Yeah, there's a lot we can learn from the military. Yes.
And we so appreciate all they do. But man, her applications and analogies will apply to your life, I guarantee you.
So you're going to love today. I learned to manage my expectations.
So, my husband's an optimist. And so, he would come and tell me sometimes, like, Hey, I know I've been working late. I know I haven't spent time with you and the kids. Like, I'm gonna be home every day this week.
So, what I started to realize is that's what he wants to do. Yeah, that's his heart. That's where his priority is. But he works for the military, duty calls. And sometimes your superior comes and says, Hey, this needs to be done and you gotta stay.
So, I began to adjust my expectations and to say, I know he wants to be home, but he might not be able to.
So when he came home and we had eaten dinner and his food had gotten cold, you know, I just made him a plate, I put it in the refrigerator. But I don't add to the disappointment of him not having been there by being angry with him because it's outside of his control.
Now, this didn't happen overnight, it didn't happen our first year of marriage, but I began. to lower my expectations by understanding. Unfortunately, duty comes first. And I think this can happen with any job. Yes, it's hard, you know, and I think we have to be honest, but we also, I had to just for myself say, He wants to be here, but he's likely not going to be there for.
I'm not going to expect him to walk through the water. What about the wife? I'm asking either one of you two. whose husband's not in the military. But has an important job and a high-demanding job.
And that wife feels like I come first. I know your job's important, but you made a vow. I should come first. And so, somewhere in there, I should be getting priority over your job, but often that doesn't happen. What do you say to her?
One of the things that my husband really did is that when he could give me priority, he did.
So for example, when he flew the F-117 stealth fighter, it was a night mission. He flew nights Monday through Friday.
So I did not see him Monday through Friday. What he would do for me is on Saturday mornings, he would give me Saturday morning to rest because I had an infant and an 18-month-old.
So I was just exhausted. Sundays was family day and we did spend some time on Saturday, but we also did things so I could get some help Monday through Friday. Once a week, I got a babysitter. And honestly, that was for adult conversation because I wasn't getting any. But also one thing that he would say to me very, very often when he would leave for a TDY or deployment or just working long hours, he would come to me face to face and he would say, hey, I have to do such and such.
I want you to know I would prefer to be with you. You are my priority, but this time I have to go do this. But you. Are so loved by me, and you mean so much to me. That went very, very far.
Some of the. Husbands I knew when they were on mission, they would completely disconnect with family and not call them. My husband didn't do that, and I'm thankful he didn't, even if it was a short conversation, especially when they're deployed and it's dangerous, just to say, Hey, I love you, I'm committed, and I sure do miss you. Did you ever get to a point sometimes where it's like, come on. You know, where it just got exhausting.
Or you were disrespectful. I thought maybe a window's coming and then, oh yeah, disrespectful. I saw a look. What's that mean? Yeah, that's definitely something as a strong woman I had to learn.
What's that look like? What happened?
So yeah, I remember we had just moved from one location to the other. I homeschooled our children so that we could be with him.
So we went with him to all of his trainings. I also prioritized him when he worked long hours. I would get up early to just have coffee with him.
So we would at least connect a little bit.
Well done. And I really tried to flex as I could to prioritize him. But yeah, back to the disrespect. And I remember I was trying to homeschool the kids while I'm packing boxes and it was algebra. My husband happened to be home and he kept button in.
He kept coming and helping. I was like. I literally thought, I didn't say, like, this is my turf. Like, get off. Yeah.
Um, And I, we had a, I don't remember exactly what was said, but there was a little disagreement about it and there was some tension. And he said to me that night, he said, You know, I've always been a good leader in my life. I led my senior class. I was the Cadet Corps commander of my ROTC detachment. Then my flights, I've been a commander.
He said, I've been a squadron commander of 500 officers. a couple hundred enlisted people. But I can't leave you. And I was like Ouch. But it was so true.
And I was the problem. And God really used that, you know, and He didn't raise His voice, He wasn't angry, but He was like letting me know. You're not letting me lead. I was like, okay, I really got some work to do, Lord. I have to repent.
You know, and I think. Originally, I thought that being a submissive wife and letting your husband be in the head of household, you know, meant that I had to be a doormat. And I'm not a doormat. I have opinions. You push back on that because you don't want to become that.
But what I came to realize, it's also not aggressively dominating your husband, shrieking, being fierce. I think it is balanced between the two.
So I think Brian and I have worked it out really well. He comes to me for everything. He really values my opinion. I give my opinion. But at the end of the day, he has so much more responsibility than me.
And I'm enjoying more and more resting in that and letting him take the lead. Was that a long process? I mean, when it's similar, you know, our story, but when I see Dan, I feel like the people out there sort of like me and think I'm good. And I feel like you think I'm bad and you don't like me. I'm booing you.
It was similar to what Brian said. Yes. I lead squadrons and they must think I'm pretty good because I do it. Yeah. Ann heard it too.
I said mine a lot worse. Brian was much better and gentler. He was pretty gracious. But did you switch in a day or month? How did that go?
Oh, no. No. I think this has been, I mean, I've been married 28 years now. It's been, and I came to Christ three years in, so it's been a 25-year journey. I still have a lot to learn, but I am Beginning to see these last 10 years, the blessing of letting him lead and trusting him.
And this is the realization that I came to. We were stationed in Montgomery, Alabama.
So this was. 2005, and I was studying Sarah, and we were looking at some of the decisions that Abraham made. You know, come on, Sarah, there's a famine. Let's go to Egypt.
Okay, while we're in Egypt, we're going to pretend that you're my sister. And we're because I really want to save my own neck. And then I'm going to go off and rescue my nephew Lot with my 318 house servants against four kings and all their armies. I could go on, but there were some decisions that Abraham made that I'm like, Yeah. I don't think that was a very good decision.
That doesn't seem very smart. And I thought as I was putting myself in Sarah's place, I'm like, What's she like? Have you lost some marbles, Abraham? Like, none of these are good decisions. But what I saw was from 1 Peter.
It says, Sarah did not give way to fear, but she called Abraham Lord. It wasn't an audible voice, but God very clearly spoke to me and said, There may be times where you don't trust the decision your husband is making. But you trust me. And I can work through even what may seem like a bad decision because I can be trusted. And he said, if you don't trust your husband, then you're really saying you don't trust me.
And Brian, if you're listening, I do trust you, but there are just certain situations. And think about it. Abraham does the same thing again with Sarah. She's so frustrating when he does that with the Bimalek. She's probably thinking, dude, are you kidding me?
We're going to do this again. And again, God protects her.
So I think that's a great point. We may not always agree with. Yes, that's a better word. Agree with what our husband's doing or saying. And I think if we don't, we need to talk about that.
It's not like you just suffer in silence. We talk about it, but our ultimate trust is in a father who loves us and sees us. Yeah. And I think too, like there's been situations where Brian's listened to my counsel. And You know, agreed with me and we went forward with it.
He felt it was the right decision. There's been times where he's like, Nope, we're going with what I thought. Hey friends, Ron Deal here, Director of Family Life Blended. Did you know Blended and Blessed? The only worldwide live stream designed for couples and blended families is free this year, Saturday, April 18th.
We're going to be live in Oklahoma City. If you show up there, we're going to charge you for lunch. But other than that, it is free. live stream. Churches can bring a group of couples together and enjoy the day.
Absolutely free. Gayla Grace is going to be with us. Davey and Christy Blackburn. Cheryl Shoemake is going to be with us. Kathy Lipp and Brian Goins, our MC.
It's going to be a wonderful day. I hope you can join us. Learn more and get the link in the show notes at familylifetoday.com.
Well, talk about I mean, one of the themes of your book is faith over fear. I mean, Abraham's making these really bad decisions because of fear.
So how does he or you as a wife navigate You know, 'cause there's fearful moments every day of our lives that we have to choose. Can we trust God or not? Yes. Well, in the book, I talk about that when Abraham went off to fight in that battle. There was fear, you know, and Sarah was at home in her tent, so she didn't have a house like I did.
But I just, if you look at the Talmud and the Mishnah, Sarah is mentioned as having been a woman of great prayer.
Now, those are not as authoritative as the Bible, but the Jews do really regard those. Because she's going from a woman, you don't even know what a Bible was. Bible says to going to the Mishnah and the Talmud, I'm like, whoa, most Christians don't even know those books exist. I'm secretly a Bible nerd. I like that.
Yeah, I love the word of God and I love studying.
So I imagined Sarah. May have been reeling with some of the fearful thoughts that I had. And what I learned was, for example, when Brian was in the Middle East, I remember watching the news and hearing that the surface-to-air missiles were, there were so many on this day that it was like there was fog. You couldn't see anything. And I'm watching the news and knowing that my husband is over there flying.
And I'm freaking out and saying, okay, I have to stop. I have to turn off this news. And for the younger person, social media, get off your phone, right? And I learned, I couldn't just tell myself, don't have these anxious thoughts. Because what ends up happening, I say, don't have these anxious thoughts.
What happens the next second? Anxious thoughts.
So I learned actually from physics. And the displacement principle tells us that we cannot be full of two things at the same time.
So you may have seen this if you've ever gotten to a hot tub or if you put your kids in the bath.
So, you know, when you put your little kid in the bath, you put it in and the water level goes up.
Well, that's the displacement. Principle. And so, what we have to do is, our mind works the same way. We have to push out these fearful thoughts, and we do it with replacing them with truth, with faith. And I think we get this from Philippians, right?
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer with thanksgiving, present your request to the Lord, and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guide your hearts and minds in the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord. I literally got out my Bible. I'm a new believer, and I'm like, okay, where has God shown himself to be faithful? And I see, oh, he had them cross the Red Sea.
Okay, that was impossible.
Okay, so God is faithful. I can trust him. You know, and then I began to recount the times he'd been faithful in my life.
So I'm pushing out that fear with the truth that God is faithful, that he can be relied on, that these times that he's been faithful tells me he will be faithful in this situation now. And you're able in those evenings, because I can't imagine. Me neither. You've displaced it and you've chosen faith over fear, but even as you're going to sleep, I can't imagine knowing there's bullets flying. And your husband's in the middle of that, it's hard.
Yeah, I'm not gonna lie, but I get out my Bible, I read my Bible, honestly. I fall asleep. Praying. You know, we have to take those thoughts captive to make them obedient to Christ. I think God can also handle, I'm really struggling with this, Lord.
Can you help me? But I couldn't just sit there and do nothing, I had to fill it. With the truth of God's faithfulness in my own life, right? I would recount one of the times that God has proven in the past where I just thought it was an impossible situation. Yeah, and I'm guessing, you know, there's people listening, watching right now, they're in.
Something like that. And it might be their son or daughter or their spouse. Or you just look at the whole world. Yeah. Well, and it's like, what are you focusing on?
Whatever we focus on grows. If you are focused on your difficult circumstance, it's going to grow. I have to focus on the Lord. And what he says to be true. I mean, and look up instead of looking down.
That's vertical. Yeah, it is vertical. And even, I love your, you've memorized scripture. And I love that scripture in Philippians, it says, and he'll guard our hearts and our minds. Yes, both in Christ Jesus.
And so it is learning that displacement of like, here's the scripture. I'm going to say it over and over. And I do have things memorized that I use during those times. You do. Oh, absolutely.
I mean, it's our sword. Yeah. It's our weapon. That's where we go to fight with. They might fight with big weapons, but we fight with the word.
I love it. All right, tent dweller. Yes. Sarah and Abraham were constantly on the move. And I really related to that because my life was a life of transition.
I actually calculated one time and I had spent 30% of my life unpacking from a move or preparing for the next move. One-third of your life. At that particular time, yes. But yeah, looking at Sarah and all, you know, the different moving that she was doing. And as I was studying this, you know, the account in scripture that is right before Sarah and Abraham is the Tower of Babel.
And at the Tower of Babel, the people there were seeking to build something permanent for themselves. For their own glory. To make their name great. Yes. And God comes and is like, no.
I'm not going to let you do that. And then the next story is Sarah and Abraham, who are tent dwellers who are constantly on the move. Only they're moving on the backs of camels and donkeys. Like I at least had moving trucks. It actually kind of made me feel not quite so sorry for myself.
And then when they get to Canaan, the first thing that Sarah and Abraham do. Is they build a permanent altar for the Lord. And I think. What may have been happening there is Abraham may have been saying. God is the permanent thing.
And he did not want them babble to make something permanent for themselves. But God is the permanent thing that we can depend on. And he is the stable thing. He is our rock. Nothing else is.
And if we think about it, even if you're not military, whatever you do, Everything in this world is temporary. This is not our home. God is the only permanent thing.
So that's what I really learned from them. When I think about that whole story, in fact, I'm going through year 20 of reading through the Bible in a year. It just started with year 20.
So I've read that story a lot, you know, and Genesis is an amazing book. But I also started this year, I started marking all the times when. Abraham built a memorial. And I've started doing that over the years, it's a reminder of God's faithfulness. And as you're talking, Beth, so often you're talking about God's word, you're talking about his faithfulness, and you can tell that you're in the word.
I can tell that that has changed you. Oh, it's absolutely your rock. And when I think when I read the Bible, and it's when God gives instruction for the kings of Israel, they're to be in the word every day to be reminded.
So, what does that look like for you, and how have you made that a habit?
Well, I am in ministry now.
So I disciple cadets at the Air Force Academy. I've been doing that for eight and a half years. And even though I opened the word with them every day, I learned my first year of ministry. That I have to also open it for myself. Because if I'm opening to feed them, it might not be feeding me.
Yeah, so daily quiet time, timing the word, but I also realized. I need a group of women to come together to study the Bible that are more peers and not people I'm pouring into. Although I do lead a study, I love to be in a study with other women because I think. You just get so much about interacting over the scriptures and encouraging each other. You know, some days you're just, you're having a bad day and you can go.
Sometimes you can just borrow faith from some of your sisters in Christ as you open the word together.
So that's essential for me. I love the word of God. I love teaching it to women and interacting with them. You know, anytime I'm having a discipleship moment, I mean, we're constantly, I'm like, they'll ask me a question. I'm like, well, let's go to James.
This is. life-giving. This changes your world. I'm a dramatically different person because I love God's word and I allow it to teach me. And this book is living, active, sharper than a double-edged sword.
There is no other book I believe that we can pick up and read time and time again and God continue to give us new things or exactly what we need for that exact day. It's miraculous. It absolutely is. I would never read another book every single year for 20 years. Yes.
But when I pick up the Bible, Dave knows this, like I'll be in the car reading it to him. I'm like, listen to this. Like I've never heard it before. I've even said to her, you've read this like 18 times. You act like you've never heard this before, but it's just alive.
It's alive. As you said. You know, it's interesting. As I listen to you, I hear you have peers beside you. You have disciples behind you.
Who's ahead of you? Who do you follow? Who do you? Mentoring you.
Well, when we were doing the military, it's the first time in my life today, of course. Of course. When we were in the military, it was constantly changing. I realized that I had to be. assertive to seek that out and ask women to pour into me and invest in me.
Usually it was a year or two at a time. But now since we are settled, I have an older group of women that I pray with from my church and meet with them. And they're just, they are prayer warriors. They are such a blessing to me. And yeah, I think we all need someone ahead of us and behind us and at our level that we allow to speak into our lives, the good and the bad and correct us at times.
And I think too, let me just address women that aren't in a group like that with other women. I just had dinner with Dave last week and I said, I feel like I'm just in a funky place. I don't know if it's sad, lost. And I was trying to figure out with him. Of course, I thought it was me.
No, and I'm like, it's not you. Husbands will own it. Yeah, no, it's not you. And I realized, like, oh, I'm not in a group right now. Because I'm the same, there's nothing that lights my fire than giving Jesus away or being in the word with other women and having peers that are encouraging me or somebody that's challenging me.
But man, That feeds my soul.
So, if you're a woman and you're not in a group, can I just tell you? Go after that. Find a group or start one. You did it and you were a baby. I did it lots of times.
Pretty much everywhere we moved, I started a group. You did. Yeah, because I knew I needed community. Yeah, maybe you get Beth's book. There's and there's a leader's guide to go with it that makes it a seven-week small group study.
It's free on my website. And I found too, often it just started with one woman, but word spread, and more people came, and more people came. The study that I'm leading right now, I have two women that are brand new Christians, don't know anything about the Bible. They were really anxious. And I'm like, hey, come, I want you to be there.
You're going to learn from others. And I'm like, no pressure if you're not able to do your homework. But I assure you, they get in there and they see the excitement of the other women and they do their homework. I've also gotten really interested in historical cultural contextualization. It is making the Bible come alive.
When we understand their original culture, it makes so much more of what's written just. have so much more depth to it and we understand. Have you jumped into Christian McClellan yet? Yes, I have. I've done all her studies.
And I also just went to Turkey and Greece with a cultural contextualization study group. It was amazing. Wow. I want to do that. Take me with you the next time.
I haven't met Brian, but I think you're as much a cadet as he is. You're a soldier, girl. Way to go. She's a general. Aren't we?
We are all in the Lord's army. We are. Yes, we are. It's all about building the kingdom. Yeah, but I love your fire and your impact.
You're taking care of it.
Well, the Lord has definitely done this in me. I mean, really, I was scary before I knew Jesus. Me too.
Now you're scary for Jesus. Yeah, well, thank you. This is awesome. It's been so good, Beth. Yeah, go to familylifeetoday.com and click on the link in the show notes and get another move, God.
Beth Runkel, thank you for being with us. Thanks so much. It was a pleasure to be here. Before we're done today, let me just say this. We meet a ton of couples who say family life helped them when they needed it the most.
And that's what being a family life partner is all about, helping others find that same encouragement and tools that you found right here. And we'd love for you to join us.
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