25 Years and Still in Love (Part 1 of 2)

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To begin the journey of finding health, go to HopeRestored.com today. You know, I'm convinced that in most of our marriages, if we could really guard our tongues, we could solve about 90% of our problems. Well, those are words of wisdom from Pastor Bob Kraning, and you'll discover why his advice is worth heeding on today's episode of Focus on the Family. Welcome to our broadcast.

Your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly, and I'm John Fuller. John, when it comes to marriage, Bob and his wife Carol have the experience that counts. They were married for 62 years until Bob's death last year at the age of 86.

And certainly our hearts go out to the Kraning family. Bob was in ministry for over 50 years, and he and Carol have two sons, nine grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. And wow, 62 years of marriage.

I wonder how they did that. That's the perfect question, John. And today and next time, Pastor Bob will provide those answers with a message that was recorded when he and Carol had been married for 25 years, and they had taken some time to sit down and think through what they'd learned.

This is a classic presentation from Pastor Bob Kraning, recorded back when he was the executive director of Forest Home Christian Camps in Southern California on Today's episode of Focus on the Family. I thought maybe a good way for us to begin this particular week together. Carol and I have just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary in May, the last weekend of May.

24th was our anniversary, and we have put in 25 years. And our kids did a very special thing for us on that weekend, and we went away for a couple of days. And when we came home on Sunday afternoon, they had asked us to get home at a certain hour to go to dinner with them and their girlfriends and fiancé and so forth. And when we got home, we had about 110 or 120 people in our backyard. And our backyard isn't big enough for that many people, but they were all there dressed in costumes of the 50s. Everybody had their hair greased down and had bobby socks. And we just totally were shocked.

We had no idea they were doing anything. And we thought if we got to go to dinner with them, we'd be fortunate. And they just put on a very, very special day for us. Had a lot of people out of our past and out of our present and all dressed strange. And so anyway, we had gone through 25 years, but prior to the celebration on Sunday, Carol and I had gone to Yosemite for a couple of days.

We've lived in California for 25 years, and my wife had never seen Yosemite. So I thought maybe it was time, and we went up and spent a couple of days up there. And one of the evenings we had dinner together, and we sat and I asked Carol a question that night. And we sat and talked about it for a long time. I said, babe, I said, tell me, why do you think we're still together after 25 years?

And why is it that we still have fun? And why is it that we still love each other and that we still enjoy being together and we enjoy praying together? And we had, this year I had a sabbatical and we spent five weeks together, 24 hours a day, literally for five weeks.

And kind of went into that with some apprehension. I travel a lot and I'm gone a lot and suddenly be put together for five weeks, 24 hours a day, every day, and probably was one of the best experiences of our whole lives. We just had an absolutely super five weeks together, and it was very, very exciting. So we tried to just put together some things about 25 years, and why are we together? What's made it good?

And I thought maybe this morning that would be a good way to begin. What has made our 25 years? And I don't really know. I mean, I can't give you great answers and say if you do these four things, it'll be super.

It'll be super, but I did write down five things why I don't think those are the issues. And I think sometimes from the exterior we look at a marriage or we look at somebody else. I know I get around certain marriages where I kind of look at the two people and I spend some time with them and I kind of in my mind tend to feel, gee, you know, it's just those people. I mean, they got to make it. They got to get along well together.

And yet I've counseled some people in my office who are in terrible trouble, who talking to them individually or seeing them together, you just look at them and say, how could they ever have a problem? I mean, they're so good looking. They're so classy. They're just such neat people.

You can't believe people like that can get in trouble in a marriage. So the five things I wrote down that are not the reasons. One, I put down number one, it's just because, you know, we're neat people and we have it all together. And it's very simple. It's just because of the kind of people we are, it works.

We found that's not true. Carol would tell you quickly that I don't have it all together. And sometimes things aren't all that good. The second thing I wrote down is when we had marvelous counseling before we got married. Our premarital counseling, I think, lasted about 10 or 12 minutes. In total, I can only remember one thing he said, and that was in jest.

And I don't think I'll tell it this morning. But that's the only thing I remember out of what was said to us in about 10 or 12 minutes. That was the extent of the premarital counseling that we had. I will say this. We have parents, my mom and dad had their 50th wedding anniversary two years ago.

And three weeks before my folks had their 50th, Carol's folks had their 50th. So we do have good examples behind us that I think have been very helpful. But it is not because we had good counseling. Third thing I wrote down, it is not because we are in the ministry at Forest Home. I think people sometimes say to me, you know, I'll bet you it just helps everything, including your marriage, because you're at Forest Home. Forest Home can be a real drag on a marriage.

I just want you to know that. It's not all, you know, really neat to be at Forest Home. The hours you spend in the summer, the kind of time you put in. I'm normally up here by quarter to eight in the morning, and I usually don't go home before 11 at night. And those can be very hard things on a marriage if you don't have a good feel about where you're trying to go in your marriage.

So it is not that. The fourth thing I wrote down is because we have two neat kids. You know, I'm prejudiced. I feel we do have two neat kids. And I'm very grateful to God for our 23 and our 17 year olds. They're good guys and they're great to have around. But they also at points in our lives have been a drag on our marriage. Fifth thing I wrote down is that it's just because we have good personalities and we're always up.

I have people, my wife has many people ask Carol, is Bob really like what we see on the platform? And my wife, it really only takes her a very brief amount of time to say no. Because, you know, what I am when I'm hosting a conference is not what I am all the time in my life. I am not that kind of a person every day. I have days when I'm down. I have days when I get up and I don't want to come here and do my thing.

My wife prays for me every now and then. Well, Lord, get him up. You know, he is flat and I am like that. And that happens to me.

So it isn't that. It isn't that just, you know, we're kind of neat and laid back and it just works. And I tend to be up a lot, you know, and I am. But I tend to crash when I walk out of here.

So Carol has to put up with the downs that come out of walking off of this platform. I put down at the bottom, if we have had conflicts in our marriage, we have had times of grief in our marriage, we have had some major arguments in our marriage, we have had illness, I have had two major surgeries, we have had debts. I look at all the things we've had in our marriage and I think it's pretty normal. I think it's the things that other people have in their marriages. And somehow within the thrust of that, we've been able to put together 25 years and we're still excited about another 25 if God should give it to us.

And I think it's important that somewhere in there, maybe some things have fallen together. And I am sure there are a number of people sitting in here. Let me just ask for fun as we start this morning. How many of you have been married less than five years? Anybody? Okay, we've got several less than five years. How many less than 10? Lots of hands less than 10, okay. How many less than 15?

Not including the fives and the tens, okay. Less than 15, okay. How about less than 20?

Okay. How about over 30? One, two, three, four, five, six. How about over 40? We've got one, two, three, three couples over 40. Anybody hit 50? No 50s yet.

If you make it till Thursday, a little shaky. Thirty-six? Thirty-nine? How about how long have you been married? Forty-six.

You know, isn't it interesting? I mean, how about the other couple back here? How long have you been married? Forty-six. Oh, we've got two 46s.

You folks need to have lunch together. You know, it's intriguing to me that in recent months, over the past, well, like two years, two or three places where I've been doing couples conferences, I've asked this question. And you know the thing that intrigues me is somebody's been married 25 years or longer gets standing ovations. It's like it's so rare that when people hear that somebody's been married a long time, it's like, all right, you know, and they start cheering.

I mean, there's a giant thing where I am convinced in my own mind 20 years ago that was not true. I mean, it was much more normal to have long-term marriage. It was the short-term marriage that people kind of went, oh, wow, you know, where now we've got so many short-term marriages that when people hear somebody's been married 46 years, that's eternity. I mean, people are going, 46 years? You know, it's like nobody does that anymore. And yet it's true.

There are people like that who have been married that long. So my 25 seems a little insignificant at this point. But I'm excited that we have 25. And I want to try to share a couple of things with you, something that was pointed out to me about a year ago that really turned my head and got me thinking. And if you have a Bible this morning, turn to a passage that I have preached on, on at least seven occasions that I can think of, but never in the context that came to my attention, which really started me thinking. And I took this passage of Scripture and tried to tie some things to it. And we're going to chew this passage up just with one word this morning, just a little bit. But I don't think it at all changes the meaning of the Bible. Meaning of the passage.

We're just going to pull it down from kind of an expanded passage into a little title. In Ephesians chapter 4, beginning at verse 25. Now, not Ephesians 5.

People hear Ephesians and they go, Oh, not again. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 25. I want to begin at verse 23. And this really talks about our neighbors and our relationship with other Christians. And I want to more pull it down into our marriages this morning. And try to take four or five things out of here and just talk about them for the time that we have in front of us. Verse 23, that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Then in verse 25, we'll begin here and we're going to work through 25 to 32. Therefore, laying aside falsehoods, speak truth, each one of you with his neighbor.

Let's just take the word neighbor this morning and insert the word spouse or husband or wife. Laying aside falsehoods, speak truth, each one of you with his or her spouse. For we are members of one another. Be angry and yet do not sin. Do not let the sun go down upon your anger and do not give the devil an opportunity.

Let him who steals steal no longer, but rather let him labor performing with his own hands what is good in order that he may have something to share with him who has need. Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment that it may give grace to those who hear and do not grieve the holy spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted forgiving each other just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Let's just take a moment and pray together and then I'll just try to give you five little things to kind of get us thinking this morning. Father, thank you for just this time and we thank you especially for your word.

Thank you for yourself and the fact that you love us, that you allow us the privilege of knowing you and in the process of knowing you, get some central focus for each one of our lives that helps tie us together as husbands and wives and helps us to try to work together and in some way with our lives and our homes really serve you and really be your children. And God, so often we're interested in our lives counting in these areas that you shared in Ephesians with other members of the church and yet we're not that interested in making them count with our own spouses and families who mean more to us than anyone else. And God, I just pray that this week we might be challenged anew and maybe refreshed and encouraged in some areas to just really be your children, particularly in our own homes where we need so much help and where we really need to be an example to a world that is hurting. We thank you for this in the name of Christ, amen. Now, I just took this and worked with it and a friend of mine gave me the idea and got me really turning necessary and Carol and I spent a lot of time talking about this last week and I just wanna kind of put these out in front of you and talk a little bit about where we are in this and we don't have these things all together. I wish we did.

If we had them all together, we'd have the perfect marriage and it'd be a marvelous thing, but we don't. But we're working on them and I think we've learned some things. First of all, in verse 25, therefore laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his spouse.

This says with neighbors and we're just tightening it up a little bit for we are members one of another. And I just wrote down, I put lay aside falsehood and speak the truth. Probably one of the things that Carol and I have done reasonably well. I said to Carol this morning, we were sitting at the table at the house this morning and I said, honey, and I was going over the outline and I said, do we really tell each other the truth? And Carol kind of looked up with a little smile and she said, well, almost.

I said, what does that mean? And you know, I thought she's gonna tell me something. Well, she said, you know, sometimes it's like we tell about 90% of it, but the other 10% might hurt more than we wish so we hold that for a day or two. And she gave me a couple of little examples, but I said, are we, do you feel we are really truthful with one another? When I come home in the afternoon and you ask me where I've been, do you feel I tell you where I've been?

And she said, there's no question in my mind that you tell me where you've been. You know, there's an essence of truth within the structure of a marriage that is absolutely critical to survival. I am intrigued with people that I counsel and I don't do lots of marital counseling, but I do some very consistently. I am intrigued with people who just get habitual lying patterns within a marriage. They just simply don't tell each other the truth.

They don't tell horrible things, but they keep an air of falsehood in the center of their marriage constantly. There are little things that are never told. There are little things that are not quite right. There are things you find out secondhand that are not quite like it was said. And I think if there's anything we've done in 25 years, it's try to speak the truth honestly and lay aside falsehood to be honest people with one another.

Let me read you just a little bit equipped. Incidentally, I just read this book. I had read this book a long, long time ago and I just reread this book. You know, it's kind of funny with all the marriage manuals out now that give us all the juicy things. People have tended to walk away from some of the better things that have ever been written. And I think this little book, I don't care whether you've been married a month or whether you've been married 40 years, this little book has some marvelous things to say. And it's a little book, The Art of Understanding Your Mate by Cecil Osborne. And it just has some great, great things in it. And it's all to deal with relationships. And it's just a lovely book.

Listen to this little bitty clip in here that so well says this. And in this, he's talking about couples that he worked with and he was having a group session with some couples that were in trouble in their marriages. And this one woman had really vented her anger about her husband. And finally one night, this had come out two or three times, but she had never really spelled it out in the group. And finally one night she just blurted it out. And he says, until one night when she revealed to our very small intimate group that she had discovered her husband Tom had been supporting and living with another woman on and off for several years. Suddenly her anger knew no bounds. She vented it in yelling and tears for several minutes.

Tom sat and listened in total shock and suddenly for the first time, probably in many years became personal. All right, he blurted out, I'll get down to brass tacks. I have lived most of our marriage as a pack of lies. And I have done it so long that I am just glad to unload it off of my chest. I started by telling one lie to cover one other lie. Then I told five lies to cover those two lies. And then I told 10 to cover the five.

And now I've told thousands to cover the whole sorry mess. And he began to cry. And then he goes on and talks about a man in the group who walked over and put his arms around him. And he said honesty could salvage your problem.

And then he goes on for three pages and tells about what's happened to the marriage of a couple that looked hopeless, that have really put it back together. But isn't it interesting? Have you ever discovered in your life when you tell a lie? If you just don't quite tell it all the way true, you've always got to remember what you said. Because somewhere you're going to have to say something else to cover up what was not right. And a man told me many years ago, he said craning just for fun, he told me many years ago, he said craning just remember this, if you told the truth, you never have to think about what you said. Because if you ever ask again, you're going to tell it exactly the same.

And I guess if there's anything we've done in our marriage, it's been try to speak the truth and have a real honesty in our relationship. There's a little saying that I picked up out of college that I have taped in my desk drawer. And I've kept this around for years. It's had a great influence on my thinking.

It's this and maybe some of you've heard me give it. Never sacrifice the permanent on the altar of the immediate. There are so many things happen in our lives where we do something in the immediate realm that really messes up the permanent experience. I cannot believe people that I've counseled over the last year, guys who have gotten involved, Christian men who've gotten involved in some little way with some woman that's gotten them in all kinds of trouble because they did a little sudden immediate thing that absolutely blasted the whole permanent experience.

20 years invested and they go out and in a few minutes do something awful that some of them never recover from. And all out of kind of sacrificing the permanent on the altar of the immediate, giving up a momentary pleasure for the truth and for the permanent seems critical to a good marriage. That we really look at our marriages long-term, that we really look at it down the road. And I think sometimes we look and we say, well, I've been married five years or I've been married 10 years and that seems long. I look at 25 and golly, 25 seems short. I look back and it seems like in one way we've always been married and another way it seems like it's been so short.

It's been such a brief amount of time that we've had together to put in 25 years. So the first thing that I put down was just speak the truth. Chuck Swindoll made this statement and boy, it's a great statement. Lying and true intimacy in a marriage can never coexist.

That is a great statement. Lying and true intimacy in a marriage can never coexist. See, if things are not true within the structure of your relationship, you cannot have true intimacy.

Now you may have intimate moments, but you can never have true intimacy if there are untruths that are weaving in and out and around that marriage. So speak the truth, lay aside falsehood. Then the second thing he says in here is be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down upon your anger and do not give the devil an opportunity. But you know what he says here? He says be angry and do not sin. He does not say don't get angry. I think it's probably very difficult for us to live in kind of close living situation that we live in in a marriage, that intimate relationship of two imperfect people coming into an impossible situation. There are just going to be times when we're going to get a little hostile. Things are not going to hit us exactly right. But he's saying there's a difference between getting angry and sinning and carrying that out to some major extent, letting it affect actions and all of the things that we do.

Be angry and sin not. Here's a little thing that comes out of this book that I wrote down that I just thought was so good. Cecil Osborn is talking about, remember this, wives are seeking a mature, strong, understanding, passionate, gentle husband. And he says there are no such people. He said it's very difficult to find a person that has all of those characteristics and can put them together. He was talking about a husband being strong and gentle. Those are two very difficult things for a man. If a man is strong, he tends not to be terribly gentle. It's very hard for him to get those things into perspective. And yet that's what a wife is looking for.

While a husband wants an all-forgiving, ever-loving, totally understanding wife, mother, mistress, combination of mother, forgiving unconditionally, an unconditional love, a movie star housekeeper, a sounding board, an ego builder, and one who thinks his utterances are either profound or at least very witty. See, and he's basically saying, folks, there are not people like that. There are people that fulfill some areas of that or at least attempt to, but we've come into a situation that basically does not exist. I watch young couples trying to get adjusted and the big adjustment is going from that idealistic expectation into reality. And many of them today don't even attempt it.

When the idealistic expectation doesn't come alive, they just hang it up. And somewhere in there we get frustrated with one another and sometimes we even get angry with one another. The question is, how do we handle our anger? How do you handle your anger?

I'm sure if we went around the room this morning, everybody was honest. There are lots of ways that anger is handled in here. There are noisy people in here. When you're angry, you say loud things. You do loud things. You slam a door.

You do something to let your spouse know that you're not happy. Other people in here are probably incredibly quiet, so quiet it's scary. I tend to be that way. See, now you would think, knowing me, some of you were here last summer when I had no voice and you all laughed. You thought it was very funny.

I did not think it was funny. In your mind, you're going craning without a voice. What a marvelous experience, you know? And yet I tend to be, when Carol and I get into a hassle, I tend to be very quiet. I tend to just kind of go in a shell and I just kind of want her to know that I'm bugged. And so I do that by just not saying anything. And I kind of walk around and I don't do anything loud.

I just don't do anything. You know, and it doesn't take... And the boys can walk in the house. You know, our boys will walk in the house and if dad is not noisy, they know something's wrong because dad's basically a noisy person. And when dad's not noisy, something bad is wrong.

See, it's interesting. We handle our anger in all different ways, but let me tell you something. If we don't, within our marriages, handle our anger basically with communication, we are in trouble. If we cannot communicate through anger, if we cannot communicate in the midst of an angry frustration and be able to talk it through... Some of you guys who've been in my seminar that I've done in the afternoons know that one of the things that I've hit it and hit and hit and hit hard on and I still believe it is a fact.

You need to set a talk time in your marriage. And with that insight, we're going to come to the end of part one of our presentation from marriage mentor, Pastor Bob Kraning. And Jim, there was so much great advice there. All of us can put that to work in our relationships.

That's great stuff, John. And as Pastor Bob said toward the end there, we need to remember that there are no perfect people. During the dating process, we tend to put our best foot forward.

I certainly did that. And so in marriage, there can be some surprises once the honeymoon is over. Or I think it's pretty common that even during the honeymoon, some things become apparent.

Right. Even during the honeymoon, you might be surprised by what you find out about your new spouse. But if you want to go the distance, as Bob's talking about, and celebrate 25 or even 60 years of marriage together, you need to have that willingness to be honest, talk about your problems, and ask for help when you need it. And Focus on the Family is here to help. Our own Dr. Greg and Erin Smalley have developed a free marriage assessment that can help you evaluate your relationship in several essential areas like communication and commitment. Come check it out. It's free at our website today.

It is. It's just a short quiz to help you see where your marriage is strong and also some areas that might need some work. And you'll find that when you follow the link in the episode notes. And let me remind you, Focus on the Family needs your help as we continue to create materials like the marriage assessment tool to help marriages thrive. And for marriages that need serious help, we also offer our Hope Restored four-day intensives with an over 80% success rate two years later. So please donate generously if you can. The best way to help us is with a monthly pledge. And when you make a donation of any amount today, either a monthly pledge or a one-time gift, we'll send you the complete message from Pastor Bob Kraning on CD so that you can listen to it again or give it to a friend. Join our marriage saving efforts when you call 800, the letter A in the word family, 800-232-6459 or donate online and request your CD. The link is in the episode notes. And if you enjoyed today's program, please make sure to tell a friend to listen in and join us next time as Pastor Bob shares more wisdom from a long-time marriage.

You know, I'm convinced that in most of our marriages, if we could really guard our tongues, we could solve about 90% of our problems. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us for this Focus on the Family podcast. Take a moment, if you will, please, tell a friend about these shows and give us a good rating, if you would, that helps others find us and discover this family-strengthening content. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we continue the presentation and once again, help you and your family thrive in Christ. season of Aftershock. Learn more about Aftershock at focusonthefamily.com slash store.