Hey, before we get started, I got to tell you something exciting happening right now at Family Life. Yeah, this is good news.
You want to hear it? Our Family Life Weekend to Remember marriage getaways are half off. Woo!
The registration fee. Yeah, 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. So, what's the most important thing you keep in our shower? My particular shampoo and conditioner. Yeah, that wouldn't be for me.
You wouldn't, would it? You're not going to ask me what mine is? Okay, what's yours? What do you think it is? Your razor.
Oh, you're exactly right. I got to shave my bald head. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson. And I'm Dave Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. Well, you know, what's really interesting is I've never heard of a couple putting a Ziploc bag in a shower with their mission and values so they could look at it.
Have you ever heard of that? I want to meet this couple. Like this is pretty remarkable. We've got them sitting in the studio right in front of us. David and Meg Robbins, the president of Family Life, and they are sitting in our studio. Welcome to Family Life Today.
It's a treat to be with y'all. Indeed. I'm sure people are leaning in and intrigued by it. What's the Ziploc bag thing? So tell us the whole process about how the Robins set their mission, their values, what that looks like.
Wait, wait. You know, this is something a president of an organization called Family Life would do. Is this for the people that are like normal people?
Could we do this? All we have been is normal people until we have a title that makes us pose as maybe not mobile people, but we are still fully normal people, fully dependent and experiencing weakness all the time. So yeah, Ziploc bags. They've been a big thing for us. It's a values process that is simple and 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.
But it's so simple. All you do is you get away individually and you list out, OK, as you think about this next season of life, which at that time, our next season of life was like two to three years. Our most recent one was more like seven to 10 years.
You know, we've got high school to consider and our kids go into college and this chapter we're in, we're thinking more in decade chunks, more than the next two or three year chunk. But you take that next season and you list out any value that you have and passions, giftings, burdens, and you get away. And after about an hour, you just get 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, and then you just ask the Holy Spirit, Lord, help me. You know the future.
You know what you've wired in me. Help me surface values that you've ingrained 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 and then you rank them individually. And 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? And 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? And for me, I remember I was twenty nine when we were first doing this value process. And I just felt like I was getting behind my peers and buying a home. And so I had owning a home really high up there in in the spirit of, you know, we're creative and we like making home. And we do hospitality out of our home for missional purposes.
We know it and we need a home. And I remember Meg challenging me going, OK, why is that one so high? And when I got underneath it, it was because I felt like I was falling behind my peers. And 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 but it was it was put in its right place as we came and messed our values together and ranked them together. And then you shared what we do with them.
Yeah. And then for us, I mean, everyone can choose your own method. But for us, we kind of see, OK, 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, just asking the Lord to shine a flashlight on the ones that he is writing on our life. And so 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. And if we're trying to make a decision, then we pray through the decision. For us, it has been so much more powerful than like a pro con list because you can kind of pro con anything.
Give us an example of your top three. OK, that's a good one. So when we were I'm thinking about when we were moving to New York City and we had been we did not know that we would move to New York City, but I had for us, but we knew God was stirring up change and just challenging us to something different. And one of the top ones was to live in a more lost and diverse context, just a place where not everybody we had.
We're kind of living in a suburban, very churched area. And we felt like God was calling us to step outside of that and and more diversity. And another one was us leading together in more tangible ways as part of our job descriptions that I was a regional director visiting campuses. I was traveling a lot away from my family and we had small children. So, you know, it made sense at that time, but they were getting a little older and we were starting to think through, OK, what does it look like for us to partner in ministry again?
So you you tape those up in your shower and you pray over those whenever you're in the shower. And then we would do that for a season, like three months. During those three months, we knew I remember driving home from that hotel that we did those values in that landed us eventually in New York City going, 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. OK, I'm driving home. That's what I bet is going to happen. Yeah, I didn't think a job change was coming. I didn't think moving 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. And 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. And 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 family life president and serving in this role together and getting to be the team that we are in this role. If it wasn't for those values that God medicine and that as we prayed over them and led us to New York and minister to the next generation in a secular context. And 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. And we can put your worksheet, you have a worksheet, right?
We can put that on familylife.com and you can use that like you do. Because I'm right now foreseeing that a Ziploc bag is going into my shower because my wife over there, I can tell you, it's all excited about that. It's like, yeah, 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. Again, I get it as soon as I hear it, but I've never really heard that stated like that.
So talk about that. Yeah, well, ultimately, okay, 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. But yet, functionally, I get it backwards all the time. And 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's leading a ministry, I'm not good enough. And I have to depend upon the Lord, even if I feel like all the boxes are checked and everything's perfect. Dependence is the key to living out an abiding life that bears fruit, fruit that will remain. And then if you really start digging into what does it look like to feel dependent all the time? I remember Meg, when we took this role, it was about nine months in and she just goes, dependence is exhausting.
And I was like, oh, my goodness, you're right, because this was we were jumping into a deep end of leadership in this role that we have not led at this level before. And yet God keeps showing up provisions like you guys as hosts for Family Life Today and so many other provisions that he keeps favoring and blessing us with. Yet it comes out of fully experiencing our weakness. And that's the thing that gets hard for me, that I feel like he started teaching me when I was around 30 of you've really got to be OK with your weakness and almost inviting diving into your weakness.
Because as he you know, Paul says in Second Corinthians, because it is in our weakness that God's power is made perfect. It's so funny as you say that I'm recalling the first year of speaking at the weekend to remember getaway. I was twenty nine and 30 years old. I was petrified. And 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. And right before I would get up to speak, I'm in the shower that morning laying like I am on the bathtub prostrate, begging God, like, 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. And it sounds like you guys have done that many times.
I can't do this apart from you learn. Yeah, 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's not exhausting.
It's the the sitting in the weakness and continually finding ourselves there, you know, just, OK, we don't have everything it takes. That's why we desperately need the Lord and what he can do in his power. Sounds like Moses.
It sounds like Gideon. You know, everybody. Exactly.
Yeah. I mean, 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. And 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. And it was a Sunday morning. And I was thinking, I've got to get everybody to church for no other reason.
Certainly we all need Jesus, but I might just need a minute, you know, so we're on our way to church. And at this time we had four children and they were all like 10 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, they're kind of run around everywhere.
But you really we've lived there for almost five years. Our kids knew you really need to walk kind of two by two, making space for other people that might pass you. Well, everyone was kind of everywhere.
And somebody almost tripped an elderly lady and I just lost it. You know, I just lost my temper and snapped at somebody and, you know, get back in line. In New York City, people often say, you know, you you proudly have your public cries where you get, you know, you're like, yeah, it's just normal to public cry. There's also public parent discipline. And it's really on display. And your son comes out in front of everybody and it's, you know, kind of humiliating. So we get to church and I get everybody checked into their class and sit, which is an accomplishment, Meg.
I'm just going to say way to go on my own. It felt like it. David, though, and I said, I really don't think we can take this role. No, no, that's not what you said. You texted me and said, hey, we're not doing it. We'll talk after church.
That is actually what has happened. And you sent that text. Why? Because I was feeling the reality of how I'm a terrible mom. You know, just all 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. And I mean, when they first actually when Steve Sellers first asked us to consider the role, my first comment was, I think that if you had been with us at Disney today, you would not be asking us because we were in Orlando and for a conference. And, you know, I just felt like maybe you need to come live with us for a week before you ask us to do that. And he was so gracious and said, well, you know, we really that's why we want you to do this.
We want someone who's authentic and knows they don't have it all together, which was encouraging to hear. But the Lord just kept having bring me back to this place of what is 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's come. He's died. He's risen again.
He's coming back to the disciples and he's talking to Peter. And he says three times, do you love me? And he's like, yes, Lord. And he almost to the point of, you know, why are you asking me the third time? But Tim Keller talked about how he you know, Jesus was doing that on purpose three times, just like he had denied Jesus three times to let him experience that.
Yeah, you messed up, but I still love you. And because you're 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. And he says it three times every time. He says, do you love me? And he says, yes. And he says, then feed my sheep. And he talks about, you know, because we we don't have it all together. Jesus doesn't call the equipped.
He equips those that he calls. And the Lord just used that morning after by the time church was over and we did have a conversation. It was really like the Lord just said, do you trust me to be the gaps in your life? You know, 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. And every follower of Jesus gets invited by the Holy Spirit that's embedded in their lives. And the Spirit is the one that 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're in a school and he's lifting your eyes to people around you, whether it's your grandkids or, you know, the list goes on and on. God invites us to building 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. 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. And just like Second Avenue and going to church, he does.
He meets us in the places we need him most. And 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.
You got this. I mean, I'm thinking of all the years I spent in the NFL in those locker rooms, it's the opposite. Nobody's talking about weakness there, even though they're feeling it. I'm not adequate.
If I drop this pun, 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. 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's he mean? In my weakness, I am strong. So the church has become a place where you fake it.
You hide. And yet you're saying – I mean, that's such a statement. If dependence is the goal, weakness is an advantage.
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 – was it Second Avenue? Second Avenue, yeah.
Second Avenue, probably around 72nd Street. I mean, I think it's amazing how that's happening to you. You get this text and then God brings this moment in church. That's not just happenstance. It's like God's called you. He needs to remind you of something.
And here you are. So what about the couple, though, that just will not embrace? Because you're saying embrace weakness.
Well, I'm thinking of the listeners that are in it right now, that they're just struggling, that they are at the end of themselves, that they feel desperate and alone and they see no hope. How would you encourage them? Well, 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 that 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. Because, I mean, Dave, you said it, like, because we're in Christ, you know, Colossians says, Christ in us, the hope of glory. And because we're in Christ, it's not our performance and others' opinions.
That becomes our identity. But that's how we operate even as followers of Jesus. Believers of grace can believe all the right things, but yet deep down when they're 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. And that may feel a little trite in spiritual platitude, but just that honest gut level of, God, I don't have it and I don't even know where to turn. And, I mean, Meg invites me into humility, being able to have a space to be humble and go, I've been trying to hold it all together and I don't have it. And I'm so sorry that I've created distance between me and you. I often create distance because I try to hold it all together too long. And then I could be a lover of grace with the Lord and then move toward her and go, I'm going to stop performing so wholeheartedly here.
I'm going to trust in Christ's performance. Yeah, I think a really practical thing that we've tried to live out, and it's hard to do, but I think of Nancy Lee DeMoss' Wigglemouth talks about taking the roof off before the Lord and the walls down before others. And I think that when we're feeling that way, inadequate or, you know, like things just weak. Ultimately, we're feeling our weakness. Our tendency is to kind of hole up and cover that up. We hide in shame. 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'm feeling so weak or I'm really struggling. And that almost makes room for God's power to come alive even more. 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 family life, a major ministry through one of the hardest seasons in the world, let alone a ministry. I mean, we've had this shut down weekend remembers, the crews got shut down.
So, you know, again, a lot of our listeners don't even think, oh, those are income for us. But you walk through that. So take us into your family room or maybe your kitchen when you're trying to lead this ministry through this really valley. As a couple, what were those nights like? Were there nights where you had to say to Meg, or man, I am scared to death or I don't think? Well, first of all, I remember having a mentoring call with Dennis Rainey and going, okay, you were there in 08 and how did you handle it?
And he goes, but David, nothing shut down completely. And it was just kind of this moment of, oh, man. Like it's even worse for you.
If the founder that did it for 44 years, you know, saying this is unprecedented, here we go. And, you know, 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 because I started worrying so much about keeping family life afloat and functioning of our family moving during the pandemic, which was a part of what we had to do. And I really got so overly busy in that, that really if you come to the family room, 12 months into the pandemic, we had to look each other in the eye and go, 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. And we really had to get out of the current. And, you know, just like 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 color. You know, the current is strong. We tell them, get on the sand and walk back to us. That's the only way you're going to be able to make it back.
And so we've we've actually started rhythms of getting on the sand and not letting life in the currents take sweep us away too much. Yeah, for me, I had to recognize that there were times when I felt like I didn't want to put more on David. He had so much on him. And so I was being really careful and not sharing. And he would ask me, how are you? And I was thinking, as you were talking that for me, it was that I had to take a step of faith and trust in him and even risk that. Yeah, you know what? This might put one more thing on him for me to say I'm struggling to.
But I know that he cares about me and he loves me and he wants to know that. So I had to be intentional just not to be too careful and to take that step into intimacy of, yeah, this is hard for me, too. Yeah, 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. I just know when hard times hit our our home, it's very easy for the marriage. You drift into isolation.
It'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. And the opposite is a gift when 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 need each other. And I and I've heard your story enough to know you had to get there. It wasn't easy. You got there. I'm thinking there's couples listen right now.
They're still isolated through the pandemic, whatever. And I hope as they're listening today, they say, you know, today's the day or tonight's the night we have to hit the pause button. We have to say we need to talk. I think Meg would agree with this when Dave has come to me in weakness of 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 when, you know, versus when he shuts down. I don't know what to do with that. And I think as a spouse, when we can go to each other and be vulnerable and say, I need your help.
Like, I have nothing left. I'm so fearful. That's level five communication we talk about at the weekend to remember getaways where you're going deep and you're exposing the vulnerability of your soul. And that is when we come together and we become one. And it's a scary place to go. You're full of fear.
But I'm just going to tell you, do it today. It will change everything. I remember hearing someone describe intimacy in marriage by breaking the word down and saying intimacy means into me. See, it is that oneness that all of us have as a goal in marriage. We were designed for oneness. Marriage was built so that two would become one.
That's God's design. And at our weekend to remember marriage getaways that we host in cities all around the country. That's our focus. Helping couples move from isolation to intimacy because the natural drift in every relationship is toward isolation. We move away from one another rather than moving toward one another. And we need to be trained.
We need to be equipped to know how we can pursue oneness and pursue each other. If you have never attended one of our weekend to remember getaways, I want to challenge you to make this spring the spring where you finally do what you've talked about doing for a long time. I run into so many listeners and I say, have you ever been to one of our getaways? And they say, oh, we've always talked about doing that, but we've never been. Well, this is the spring to stop talking and start doing. All right. And if you sign up today, this weekend is the last opportunity for you to register for an upcoming weekend to remember marriage getaway and save 50 percent off the regular registration fee.
So we're doing everything we can to incentivize you to join us and to build a healthier, stronger marriage. You've talked about it. Now do it this spring. And maybe you've been to a weekend to remember, but it was 10 years ago. Time for a refresher.
Right. Again, go to our Web site, family life today dot com. Look through the list of about four dozen getaways that we're hosting in cities all across the country this spring. Find a getaway that's happening in a city near where you live or a city you'd like to visit. Get out your calendar, block out that weekend and then register right now so you can save 50 percent off the registration fee. Go to family life today dot com and register online for a getaway or call 1-800-FL today if you have any questions, if we can help you with anything.
The number again, 1-800-358-6329, 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Join us this spring at a family life weekend to remember marriage getaway. And with that, we have to wrap things up today. Hope you have a great weekend. Hope you and your family are able to worship together in your local church this weekend. And I hope you can join us back on Monday when we're going to talk about how all of us can do a better job with our screens.
And as parents, how can we help our kids manage their screens? Jonathan McKee will be here to help with that. Hope you can join us as well. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We will see you back Monday for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-06-20 03:12:04 / 2023-06-20 03:24:33 / 12