Mutual R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Chad & Emily Van Dixhoorn

I'm a little suspicious of myself because so many other times when I thought I was entirely right, it turned out that I wasn't.

So I begin by saying, Lord, help me to see where I'm wrong. Welcome to Family Life 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. This is Family Life Today. So yesterday we opened up a topic you're just passionate about.

It's the S-word, submission. Oh, I thought you were going to talk about how the husband is called to love his wife as Christ loved the church. We'll get there. I love that. That was another thing we talked about yesterday, and I thought we covered that one pretty good. We've got Chad and Emily Van Dixhorn back with us in the studio talking about their book Gospel Shaped Marriage. And the subtitle is what really caught me, too, is Grace for Sinners to Love Like Saints. And we all need that.

We're all sinners, but we're called to love like saints, and that's impossible without the power of God living in us in the gospel. The reason I brought up submission, because you guys talked about it so well yesterday, but even as we went off there, you're like, submission can be hard, but it's sometimes too easy. And I'm like, wait, what? So we're going to throw that at you and say, what do you mean by that? Because I think we all want to know.

Well, there is a counterfeit submission, a fake submission, and that's what is too easy. I've heard some women say, oh, I'm just so happy I don't have to think about it. I'll just let my husband make that decision and I'll just submit to him. And I've even felt it because there's hard decisions to make. What school should our kids go to?

How much should we spend on a house? Is it time for us to move or is it not time for us to move? There are hard decisions to make. And we wives can say, well, one, we can be too pushy or we can be too passive. We can say, I'm just checking out.

This is your job. And then we may think we are being holy and say, oh, I'm just submitting to him. Let him make the decision. But we are failing to help him if we're not also rolling up our sleeves and doing the hard thinking that is involved in making a decision. When someone does that kind of quick default to the husband, not engaging in the decision process, you're also not learning to deal with disappointment, failure, and so on, learning to trust God yourself.

That's right. I've noticed sometimes when I'm facing a hard decision, I'll say, oh, well, you just make it for me. And he'll say, well, I could, but the truth is that I will atrophy in my decision-making abilities if I'm not making some decisions. So he's learned to not just step in and make a decision, but to support me in the decision that needs to be made. Often it's about the household. And sometimes there are areas where I have more information that he has, but I'm getting nervous that I'm going to make a bad decision.

And he will just help me make it. And sometimes I make mistakes and you have to trust the Lord in that. And she's chosen the last seven houses we've lived in and has often done the negotiating. So she's actually quite good at making decisions.

I recently went in to buy a Prius and I walked out with a Ford F-150. That's right. That was all Emily. You know, I'm thinking, you know, okay, social conscience here. I'm going to get the electric car. She's like, you live 10 minutes from work.

Do you really need that fuel efficiency? And then she said, you got a bad back. Go sit in that vehicle. And I said, okay, yeah, maybe a big vehicle would be better for my back. So maybe I'll get a Ford Expedition because, you know, that's a good family car.

She goes, no, you'll feel like a mom. So it was just great. So we got like a new for me, not very new truck. My buddy has the pickup that has the massage seat. Did you get that? No.

Ours is a little older than that. As you're driving, I'm like, that's the way to drive. I couldn't afford it, but he could. But Emily, I think it's good to hear that side of submission that we can just kind of hand it off to our husbands. I tend to be on that more controlling side.

No, not in. I like to have a say in everything. And so I think it's good to know that we, as women, go all along that line of sometimes we just want to check out and let our husbands do it or and let them be responsible for it. But sometimes we're over controlling the situation or even manipulating the situation and our husbands to get what we want.

And that's not what God wants either. When you guys talk about this area, it feels very mutual in that you need one another. And I think that's how God designed it. And I like that you're trying to outdo each other in terms of, I want to help you to be better.

I want it to be easier for you to love me and I want it to be easier for you to respect me. That feels very unworldly to me. You know, that's because it's a heavenly plan.

This is why it feels unworldly. But at the same time, we do have conflict. We do have arguments.

We forget this overarching gospel-oriented perspective and we offer each other sort of sin for sinners to love like, you know, sinners rather than grace for sinners to love like saints. And so, you know, we've had to do a lot of thinking about conflict as well. When you raise that issue and you have a chapter on it, what comes to your mind, first of all, to help couples like, well, we fight, we have conflict. How do we gospel shape our conflicts?

What would you say? What's the real battle that you're trying to win? The real battle is to know Christ better. And we are called as Christians to fellowship with Christ in his sufferings. So sometimes, yes, we will suffer. And knowing Christ better, showing his love to somebody else, that's a win.

That's the real battle. Can I show Christ's love? Can I believe the gospel? Can I believe that God can bless me no matter what this person in front of me is doing? That my blessing primarily is in knowing Christ. You can see why she's the prayer partner.

I'm the despair partner. So let me add to this sort of a common thought process on my part. And then, Emily, maybe you'd say something about how prayer fits into this as well. So when we're having a conflict, I'm usually right. And so I make that point to Emily.

She's usually not convinced of that. And so there comes a point where we're kind of getting into a different space physically, where we just have to say, let me walk away and think about that. Let me pray about that.

And usually what happens is a cluster of things. First of all, I want to say, Lord, help Emily to see how she needs to change. But where the Lord often helps me to start is to say, wow, I'm a little suspicious of myself. Because so many other times when I thought I was entirely right, it turned out that I wasn't. So I begin by saying, Lord, help me to see where I'm wrong, even if I think it's only 2% of the problem. Ooh, just that prayer, Lord, help me to see where I'm wrong. That is a very humble prayer. And man, we all need to pray that. Oh, it's a battle just to get there.

Just to get there. Just to say, Lord, I'm angry, I'm frustrated, I'm pretty confident I'm right. But there could be a tiny area where I'm wrong. Help me to see it. And then as soon as the Lord helps me to see it, which is often sooner than I expect, sometimes within an hour.

It didn't take him a long time to find it. It's right in front of you the whole time. Then my next step is, that's something. And I can go to Emily and try and confess. I don't say to her, by the way, I think I'm sort of 2% at fault.

I'll try and own 100% of that 2% that I'm seeing at the moment. And I want to do that out of humility, I'm begging the Lord to help me do this, have this conversation. And then often, Emily's heart gets nudged, moved, melted, and she can come back with something.

It's created space. Now, I'm not saying that at my best. I'm not saying that in order to get that response. I'm saying it because that's what God's called me to.

He's called me to confess what I do see. That's the beginning of a good conversation, where we begin to listen to each other and to know each other afresh. Are you careful with the words that you use as you go into that conflict? Most definitely. I choose my words very carefully, and I usually choose not to speak.

That's usually better, as Proverbs often says. And I remember one time when I had lost our passports and the car was outside and we needed to get to the airport. And we were flying back to England with all our children, and he is the really tidy one. Wait, and you lost all the passports? I didn't know where they were. They were somewhere in the house. You knew that. They were somewhere.

They were somewhere, but we needed them immediately. And he could have said things like, well, they could be in the freezer for all I knew. But he just looked at me and said, I'm on your side. Ooh. It was a rare moment, honestly.

She's remembering this moment from 10 years ago, because it probably hasn't happened since then. He could have said, this is how you keep your things orderly, Emily, or given me a little mini lecture on how he organizes his bags or where he always puts his passport whenever he travels. But he didn't. He just communicated, I'm on your side. What did you feel when he said that? Well, okay, frankly, I felt a little surprised. I was like, wow.

And I was impressed that he, when he was under pressure, when we're all under pressure, he didn't go into attack mode to sort of make himself feel better in some odd way. He just leaned in and said, I'm on your side. We were going to work together. And so we did. And we found the passports with the help of my brother. And we made the plane and everything worked out well.

And it stands out as a good memory. So I will encourage people that as you have conflicts, look to grow in God's grace. Look to trust God more. It's a growth opportunity. We're tempted to despair, think everything's being ruined right now, when really your Christian growth is potentially being created. Well, expand on that. You write a chapter about growing in your marriage. Is that sort of what you're talking about?

Yes, certainly one way is in conflict. But a particular way to grow is through serving. A lot of us are action-oriented people.

You can only read so many books, though they're helpful, but there comes a time to put the book down and get active, especially by serving together. Find a way that you can partner, that you can say, I'm with you. I'm on your side. We're doing this together.

I think we kind of stumbled into that, didn't we? I mean, at first year of marriage especially, I would sort of say, okay, we've got a conflict. Let's go sit on the couch and talk through it. And Emily would sometimes just be getting antsy, even exasperated at how, like, methodically and slowly, I'm trying to rehash everything. She's rolling her eyes right now.

Yeah. So what she often needs is just space. She just needs to go do something, and then she's able to process things. Once she left the house just to go grocery shopping, we had a door that slammed a little bit. So I thought, oh, no, she's left in anger. And then I realized the car's not there, and she decided to do a really epic grocery shop. And so I didn't see her for ages. I began, I thought, oh, no, I've been such a jerk. She's left me, and she just needed space. So that's one way in which we help each other grow is giving each other space. I'll just say, and I came home, and he was all sad and repentant towards me.

And I'm thinking, it really wasn't a big deal. Could you just put these Eggos away and put, you know, here's your favorite cheese. You could put that in the fridge. Some couples may benefit from just going out and serving together. Can you, like, serve the soccer team snacks together? Like, find something simple where you're just teaming up, and you're together, and you're looking not at yourselves, but you're looking outward. You're looking at the needs of others.

Look at how you can serve. Have people over. Be useful together. Be constructive, and that will take a weight off your shoulders. Right, so the first point is give each other space. Maybe it's not the point to talk through it all. The other point is, yeah, sometimes having a shared purpose is really what drew us together.

Not another hour of analysis, not an hour of self-entertainment. While the date nights have their place and counseling has its place, it's just not enough. You need some momentum, and serving together is where you can get that momentum. Is that what you would say is part of the mission of marriage from God's perspective?

It's outward? Multiplying your usefulness. The Apostle Paul thinks about the things that singles are able to do because they're single in 1 Corinthians 7. Which is wonderful. Singleness is a wonderful gift. And then there's other things that married couples can do. So there are singles who are amazing. They can be Mary and Martha at the same time when they're showing hospitality.

But for most of us mere mortals, that kind of teamwork helps us to multiply our usefulness. Chad, do you have a little story of hospitality for you when you were a single person? I don't want to bore people, but I was a train wreck. I mean, I once had people over. My parents did hospitality, so I thought I'd try and do this myself as a bachelor. And we had an apartment with some other guys. The air conditioning didn't work. And I only knew how to cook things in the oven, which heated up the kitchen even more. So we went to eat in my bedroom.

This couple, they were struggling in their marriage, and I was trying to be kind to them. There's two central chairs and a bed. Before I could get out of my mouth that you have to sit in the middle of the bed because the slats were only in the middle of the bed, not on either end. This lady generously said, oh, I'll sit here. So she sat at the foot of the bed.

It dropped. She jumped up in her fright, banged her head on the top bunk on the bar, spilled this hot food all over herself, and they were gone within two minutes. Emily and I do a better job together than I ever did by myself. But your heart was in the right place. As a single guy doing that, that's remarkable.

You needed Emily. So we made a good team together. But I do agree. I think in our culture and our society, it's easy to just as a couple veg out on a good movie, Netflix, whatever, which there's nothing wrong with that. Or we go on a date night, and as you said, we entertain ourselves. But there's something about when we serve together. It puts this meaning and this purpose in our lives and our hearts and our marriages. From our first year, we have led some Bible study together. For marriages. For marriage or other things. And I'm telling you, that has probably saved our marriage along with the gospel, but it has made us better.

I don't know if it's helped other people, but it has helped us a ton. And I can remember sitting at Bible studies as he's leading on thinking, you are so good at this. You are amazing at this.

And my respect for Dave, and there are times where maybe he's talked too much. I'm like, how do I say that in a way? But there's something about that. On the way home, that's how she said it. No, I didn't say it. I was careful.

You were very gracious. But both of us, we need each other. And I think when we get our eyes off of ourselves.

It's such a paradox. You know, the culture would tell you, if you want to fill yourself up, fill yourself up. Go do whatever it is that fills yourself up. And Jesus said, you want to find your life, lose it. It's like, what? Wait, wait, wait.

That doesn't make sense. How do you empty yourself when you're filled? That's what he was saying. When you empty and you give your life away and you help others with their marriage, even when you're struggling in yours, it's God's plan. It's like, I'm going to fill you up as you empty. That's how I designed it. It's so beautiful.

That's what you're saying. Even with our kids to watch them, like they now as adult parents, they'll go serve together in the children's department, watching them together. It just makes me so happy as they're giving away what God has already given them in whatever means that is.

And what a great example for our kids to see. We are talking to people our age that are empty nesters that feel so lost. Like, what's my purpose now?

My kids are gone. We're like, oh, God has so much more for you. And doing it together is this gift we give our marriages, I think, because we can go our separate ways because we might feel very different and gifted in different ways, but there's still something about coming together and doing something together. Amen. People make more friends at work than they do at movie theaters.

There's a reason behind that. You remind us as well, the empty nesters who are lost, just the orientation of your marriage. Is it a child-centered marriage? It could be a God-centered marriage with children who come next or a God-centered marriage with a spouse that comes next. And the more you're nurturing your marriage, your friendship, and your teamwork together now, the less disoriented. You'll still be disoriented, but the less disoriented you'll be when the last child gets on the school bus or the last one drives off to work or college. Well, let me ask you, in our last few minutes, you have a daughter that's getting married soon. What does that feel like? And you even address this in your book about in-laws.

What can this look like? Are you nervous about it? And how can we prepare for that? Many of our listeners are in-laws or they have in-laws, and that can be really tricky. Well, the key command to keep in mind is, said in the King James, to leave and cleave, that the married couple needs to leave their original family and they cleave to one another. They're starting a new household. So I will need to respect my son-in-law as being the head of their family and for them to make their decisions. There's an example of a mother-in-law that is a bit humorous in our history.

And this makes me have a lot of respect for my mother-in-law because she had a very challenging situation. My grandmother was a strong-willed Dutch woman and she did not like my father's porch on his first house. They bought it for a couple thousand bucks. It wasn't much of a porch to look at. That is, the house was a couple thousand bucks. The porch came free. And she told them they need to get rid of the porch and they didn't listen.

And eventually, my mother one day hears this sort of thumping out front and there was my grandma kind of trying to take it down with an axe. Really? What?

It wasn't even her axe. What? So premarital counseling hadn't taken into account. Actually, they didn't do premarital counseling back then. But one of the things that we want to think about is if it's our future son-in-law and our daughter's job to create a new family unit, how can we make that job easier for them? How can we sweeten that task?

Because they're going to be forming something new and at the same time, there's going to be some level of stress or tension as they feel that newness. And so how can we make that easier for them? If my daughter's asking me for advice, I'll say, well, have you asked Patrick? And point her to look to him first, and not just come to me like she's used to coming. So that's one practical point. And we'd love to see them, and we might even incentivize our time together by saying, hey, we've rented a house where we can all fit together.

Believe me, yes, do that. Yes, but we want to be careful that we're not manipulating them, that we're first saying, are you guys getting enough time together? Because if you are, boy, we'd love to have time with you also. Yes, we could volunteer to get them a place where they could go just for themselves. Yeah, that would be a lovely way to facilitate the leaving part and the cleaving to each other.

And so we're just trying to think of how as in-laws we could not act like out-laws. Are you guys grieving losing your daughter to get married? Are you excited? I'm excited. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if there's times of some form of grieving, but I'm generally excited.

Yeah, ditto. We think they're just a great match, a lovely pair, and we look forward to seeing how they will better serve. They're already beginning to better serve together than they could apart, so we're grateful. What a great perspective to have as new in-laws with your child and their new spouse.

You know, it's got to be so hard to let go in that way. My kids are only 13 and 10 right now, so that's, Lord willing, ahead in my distant future, but their perspective is really one that I want to adopt when that time comes for me. How can it apply to you today? I'm Shelby Abbott, and you've been listening to David Ann Wilson with Chad and Emily Van Dixhorn on Family Life Today. You know, they've written a book called Gospel Shaped Marriage, Grace for Sinners to Love Like Saints. You can get your copy of Chad and Emily Van Dixhorn's book by going online right now to familylifetoday.com. You'll also find it in the show notes, or feel free to give us a call.

Our number is 800-358-6329. Again, the number is 800 F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. You know, tomorrow, Chad and Emily Van Dixhorn are going to be back with the Wilsons to talk about practical ways for husbands to embody Christ-like love and responsibility. Am I studying my wife? Am I trying to understand her needs?

Do I know her as a person? The most important orientation, as you get to study your wife, asking how that informs my prayers. And so I pray for Emily based on that knowledge I have of her, that growing knowledge.

But then once I was at a conference, Emily explained how she prays for me, and I was just stunned. That's tomorrow. We hope you'll join us. On behalf of David and Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.