Wednesday, April 16, 2008
A woman rubbed a lamp and out popped a genie. "Do I get 3 wishes?" she said.
'No, I'm a one-wish genie. What will it be?'
'See this map? I want these countries to stop fighting so we can have world peace.'
'They've been at war for thousands of years. I'm not THAT GOOD.' the genie replied. 'What else do you have?'
'Well, I'd love a good husband. One who's considerate, loves kids, likes to cook, wants to communicate, and doesn't watch sports all day."
"Okay" the genie said with a sigh "Let me see that map again!"
As we look into the world, the institution of Marriage gets almost as bad a rap as Lawyers do when it comes to jokes. Every magazine, Radio DJ, TV Show, movie, and conversation around the water cooler tells jokes about the challenges of being married … A couple of quick one liners I heard just in the last day or two include:
'They say marriages are made in heaven, but so are thunder and lightning."
"When a young man marries, he believes he has come to the end of his problems. The only thing is he doesn't know which end…
'And it can go on and on...
But we as a Stake Presidency wanted to look past the good-natured joking, and gather our Stake Family together to remember and to celebrate the wonder and greatness of marriage.
We know from the teachings of the gospel, from the ordinances made in the temple that Marriage is ordained to be glorious and beautiful, and that there is nothing more important to our eternal happiness than to develop a celestial lifestyle and character, and to learn how to become a celestial companion.
How wonderful it would be to have a celestial companion.
A companion with whom you've shared your entire life…
…who is has chosen to return to our Father in Heaven, and who lives worthy to receive the blessings of heaven
...who knows your weaknesses, and your problems and yet who loves you anyway.
…who is proud of you, not proud as in they think you are better than others, but rather pleased that you help and bless others.
…wants to protect you, and help you in hard times and who seeks to please you and serve you…
A companion who thinks as much of you as they do about themselves, and who does what they can to help you reach your goals or who at least tries to make your path easier and less painful.
A companion who will be a witness of your life - who will be with you and be an integral part of every part of your life - witnessing, supporting and giving your life meaning?
Contrast that with a perdition companion. Can there be anything more discouraging and more devastating than to have a disfunctional marriage or companion? To have a companion...
…who knows your weaknesses and uses them against you to get something they want
…or to make you look bad in front of his/her friends so they look stronger.
A companion who puts you down so that you lose all confidence and capacity.
A companion who is ashamed of you and who wants to distance him or herself between you and them so that they don't get dragged down by your weakness.
A companion who never thinks of you, but who thinks only of themselves, and how they can use you to get more of what they want.
A companion who doesn't want you to have a life for fear it will pull you away from their empty shell of a life, keeping you from feeling like you have any meaning at all.
Marriage relationships have the potential of leading us to either of two extremes: Bliss and joy or pain and misery. And while many of us are learning the ins and outs of celestial relationship-building, none of us are perfect. There is always something we can do to make our marriage sweeter. We are all somewhere in between.
What we hope you will come away from tonight with, is confidence and a renewed testimony that if you continue to strengthen your marriage (or prepare for a celestial marriage) that you will stay on the path which will ultimately lead to a relationship with your spouse which is destined to become celestial in every way.
Also, if any of you are struggling in marriage, we hope you will seek out the Bishop in order to identify resources which are available to help you build a companionship with your spouse which will be lasting.
To that end, we appreciate these speakers who have shared with us some of their experiences with marriage at different ages and times in life. And we hope like a marriage buffet, that you'll find principles among those presented, which will bless you and your spouse. Don't try and do everything. But find one or two critical things, and focus on making progress in those areas.
So in the spirit of a buffet, I want to share with you 4 principles which I believe will bless every marriage.
These principles are mathematical. But not math like I studied in college. But using the rules of the Lord's math.
Principle #1 is a statistics principle of percentages: We should give 100% to our marriage-
Some marriages are built on a principle of, ‘if we each give 50/50, then our marriage will be successful’. In the Math of good marriages, I would recommend that you give more than 50% to your marriage. If you feel like, “I will give 50% to my family and spouse and keep 50% for myself” then you will find bitterness, selfishness, and pride creeping into the marriage poisoning the joy you might otherwise find. If instead you assume that your marriage and family depends 100% on your effort, and if your spouse assumes that the marriage and family depends 100% on him/her, then you’ve got 200% working on this family – and it will be sweet. Partly this is true, because a typical spouse only sees and gives you credit for 50% of the good you accomplish…so if you do the math, 50% of 50% is only 25%. Whereas 50% of 100% is still 50% and you'll survive the tough times. Is this getting a little too mathematical? I guess the point is, just do the most you can for your marriage and not do the least you think you can get away with.
Principle #2 is a geometric principle: When 2 points of a triangle move TOWARDS the third point, they themselves move toward each other.
Or in other words, iF you want a good marriage, draw closer to the Savior.
When you were sealed to each other, you not only made a marriage covenant to each other, but you included as a third partner, the Savior. Each of you form the three points of a triangle. No matter how far apart you and your spouse may be, if you will draw closer to the savior, if your spouse is also drawing closer to him, then you will draw closer together. President Kimball said that any two righteous people can make a marriage work - because as they get closer to the savior, they will get closer to each other.
Principle #3. is an arithmetic principle: 1 + 1 > 2. Or in other words, if each of the 1's are giving their best, then the output will be better than what they would get if they were just coasting along. And if each 1 helps the other 1 give it's best, then they will continually grow.
Last year, as a Stake Presidency, we had the opportunity to camp-out in tents for a week in the greatest camp in the world - The Philmont Leadership Camp. While there I joined the Philmont Scout Choir. Now I need to set this up for you. This is a really good choir. You don't have to audition, but I felt like I was as close to being in a professional choir as I will ever get. When my Dad went to philmont years before, he joined the choir, but after the first couple of performances, the director asked him to sing very quietly - or better yet to mouth the words. So for the rest of his life, my dad had an excuse not to join my mom in choirs. So it was a very high class group of singers and performers. We grew to love our choir director - he was professional, fun, loveable, and knew his stuff
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Every morning I'd get up at 5:30am to go shower get ready for Choir practice. I'd walk to Choir with another brother I had gotten to know, and we'd visit. I remember one day as we walked to Choir practice, we somehow got onto the subject of divorce. We discussed how ugly it was. How our common culture was pushing people to think more and more of themselves, and less and less of their companions. About that time we entered the chapel where we were going to do our practice and we started our warm up for singing. After our warm up, our Choir director, stopped and said something that touched me profoundly.
He said, I want to just tell you all how much I love my wife. Right now she is back in our tent waking up our kids and getting them ready for another day. We have 4 little kids, and she gets em all up and going for breakfast. When we put in our papers to come to philmont, they originally asked us if I could lead the choir and if she would play the piano. We were both excited, as we both loved music and thought it would be a great project to do together. However, after we discussed it, we knew that one of us would have to take care of the kids. She volunteered to take the kids, SO THAT I COULD DO THIS. She knows how much I love music and how much I love leading choirs. So she volunteered to do the hard thing, so I could do something I love. I want ya'll to know that I KNOW, that I am who I am - ONLY BECAUSE She is who she is.
Suddenly wave after wave of emotion washed over me, how true that was of me and my wife. I am who I am ONLY BECAUSE she is who she is. Without her, I wouldn't be able to serve this stake, I wouldn't be able to do the work that I do, I wouldn't be able to raise the kids or enjoy the family events that we enjoy.
When we strive to help our spouse be the best they can be, then our marriage grows together and the joys are deeper.
Before Stake Conference last weekend, Elder Callister called a meeting where we invited all the Bishops and their wives. One thing I said to them applies to this concept of how important our spouses are in helping us be our best selves.
I told them that the way we select a Bishop in this stake is that we look at all the names of people in the ward, and we search diligently to find the most righteous person in the Ward. After we find them, we then call her husband to be the Bishop.
While this isn't literally the process, there is truth to this little story. The single most important predicting factor to success for a Bishop is not their wisdom, their leadership skills, nor their knowledge of the scriptures. It is the support they get at home from a loving wife. If there is no support at home, it won't matter how wonderful and wise he is, the calling will wear him down immediately. But if there is support at home, it won't matter how average he is, he will be resilient to all the challenges that come his way, and ready to respond to the spirit of the Lord.
And I believe its true of everyone here today. We can only be who we are because of the spouses we have. Likewise, we should become the kind of spouse that can support our spouse in all their greatest challenges.
Finally, Principle #4 is a principle of sums and differences. If we will celebration our differences we will recognize our sums are greater than the whole.
As a boy scout growing up in Houston, I had a lot of great experiences. I got my Eagle scout when I was 13 years old. I was Sr. Patrol Leader at a young age, and took my troop on some wonderful adventures that included catching snakes, raccoons, opposums, swimming in the bayou, and hiking. We all got the hiking merit badge together.
The hiking Merit Badge required taking numerous 5, 10 and 25 mile hikes. Of course Houston hasn't got a mountain within 250 miles. And so all our hikes were on flat forest trails, or in the case of very long hikes, it was along flat country roads. I can remember our 25 miler. It started at my house, we walked 10 miles down one busy road, 5 miles around some old country roads, back to the main road, and back 10 miles. As the leader of this ragtag group of hikers, my job was to keep them off the road (stay on the shoulder) and then when they started to complain because they were bored or tired, my job was to remind them that towards the end was an eating place called the 'Food-a-rama- we could stop at. It was a nightmare hike. After about 5 miles, all I heard for the next 15 was "Where's the Food-a-rama, Where's the Food-a-rama' I felt like I had really earned my way as a hiker.
A few years later, I met Wendy at College. Wendy had just gotten back from Glacier National Park where her Uncle Rich had introduced her to the challenges and joys that come from mountain hiking. She had completed a 25 mile hike in Glacier which had been one of her life's greatest challenges and joys. There were no 'Food-a-ramas' only uphills and steep downhills. When she heard I had loved to hike, and that I'd hiked a 25 miler she was so impressed and fell in love with me, married me, and started having my children, before she took me on my first hike up a real mountain.
Whoa! Hiking up a mountain in high altitudes was a very different kind of experience than flat road hikes at sea-level. When I realized that Wendy's definition of Hiking meant that you had to almost die before it was really considered a good hike, I confessed: 'I don't like hiking that much.'
She looked at me, and then claimed that I had "tricked" her. That she married me under false pretenses. She asked me about all my hikes I'd had as a boy. I then disclosed the very flat nature of those hikes. It didn't take me long before I found some things that I had believed about Wendy before we were married, that I realized were wrong…I thought she loved going to the movies. I thought she loved cooking. But I soon realized that Wendy doesn't love either of those things. She had been a "tricker" as well. Suddenly we were thinking rather hard about all the different things we 'thought' we knew about each other before we were married, that wasn't correct. We both realized that we had lots of differences. So what to do?
Of course none of this was mean spirited, and our marriage wasn't close to being on the rocks - we had had too many wonderful covenant-building experiences for our differences to rock us too badly. But it did cause me to think about differences and what do you do with differences in a marriage.
The answer came to me strongly. DON'T dwell on divisive differences - INSTEAD CELEBRATE the new and good things your spouse has added to you. This is where the math comes in: Her differences hasn't subtracted anything from me, but only added.
Instead of dwelling on my dislike for hiking, Wendy continues to take me on easier hikes, and invite friends but she invites family on the hard hikes that she knows I won't want to go on. Instead of being bitter that I'm not a hiker, she has named a rock in my honor. it's called 'nap rock' where I stopped on a long and challenging hike early in our marriage and where I slept for about 30 minutes to get enough strength to continue. On my part, I'm delighted that she loves taking on these kind of physical challenges. I honor her, and cheer for her when she runs her marathons. She's been able to find companions among our children who love to hike and run. We've learned that differences are not only okay - they can be great.
Isn't that why we get married, to learn, to change and become a better person. How will we learn and change if we marry our clone? We must have someone who is different from us to pull us out of our comfort zone, and grow. The key to celebrating differences is to respect the differences. To appreciate the reason our loved one loves the things they do.
What if the difference is something which is important, but which takes us away from our Heavenly Father? Do we celebrate those kind of differences? No, we work, patiently if need be, to become one with our spouse on these differences so that they become SAMES. Especially if it is essential that we do so.
Elder BH Roberts explained the principle in terms of dealing with differences and arguments. He said"In non-essentials let there be liberty, in essentials let there be unity, and in all things let there be charity."
I hope that one of these 4 mathematical principles will help in your path to become celestial.
Principle of percentages - give 100%
Principle of Triangles - Draw closer to each other, by drawing closer to the savior
Principle of 1+1>2 - bring out the most in your other one.
And fourth - Differences don't subtract - they add.
Brothers and Sisters. The Lord has ordained marriage to bless us, to give us companions who will lift and strengthen us throughout eternity. The wonderful marriages we develop here are only a glimpse of joy we can have, if we will stay faithful - because the Lord says to us
"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Cor 2:9
We love you, and hope that you'll continue the daily trek to head towards Zion by becoming the best spouse you can be.
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