Sorry, I just seem so far away from
you up here, but that's the way it
is, this smaller session.
There's just about half an hour here, and
what I want to do with this session
is to have some talk about what you
want to talk about, come back.
But first, I just did a brief application
worksheet for you.
And I want you, just for ten minutes,
to just find someone to talk to, two
or three of you is fine, don't leave
anyone out.
And if you wouldn't mind giving those worksheets
out, if you could rush up and down
furiously and get them out, I should have
thought of this ahead of time.
And I just want you to find someone
to talk with, and start through this worksheet.
I don't want you to bother with praying
for people, you can take this home and
do it again full time, but I just
want to take ten minutes.
And I'd like you to do the first
one, discuss if marriage matters to anyone anymore,
and read Malachi 2, 15, that little passage
I gave you, together.
And then, I want you to do number
A, apart from the praying part, and probably
that's as far as we'll get.
You can take the worksheet home and go
over it again as couples, maybe you want
to share it with your husband, he won't
have this in there.
And it's really just revisiting, reapplying, rethinking about
what we've been talking about.
So, just find someone to talk to now,
introduce yourself, make sure you know each other,
not too big groups, three is fine.
And make sure everyone's involved.
Put your hand up if you don't have
one, still.
Over this side, sorry.
Okay, I'm going to stop you, very irritating,
I know.
But it does occur to me that we
can continue this, those of you that belong
to this church, because I think we're going
to have split...
I'm going to do Sunday School tomorrow, because
Stuart's preaching here.
But we can continue on that, they want
to be more of a question and answer
time.
But I think I'd like to just come
off where you're up to.
Some of you I was hearing are right
down to how can we keep the well
clean.
Some of you are still on number one,
discuss if marriage matters anymore.
And everything else in between, which is fine.
Maybe you'd like to take this sheet though,
home, and do it as a couple, just
to revisit what we've talked about.
And it's always good, if you're in school
or college or anywhere else, to revise and
to go over it.
Did we get it, and what else did
we think about, and they should have brought
this up, and what do you think about
that.
So I would encourage you to take those
sheets home.
And what I'd like you to do is
to just open up and let's talk.
If you'd like to ask questions, or investigate
a little bit, or have something clarified, then
this is the time to do that now.
And if there aren't any questions, then I'll
put you back into the worksheet.
And you can just continue it.
So do any of you have any questions?
Yes.
Oh, wonderful question.
Any advice that you could give to a
newlywed?
Right.
I think I would, instead of just giving
you a text, a proof text, is to
say establish habits if you haven't already.
It's never too late to start.
Where you keep your individual time with God
as well as a combined time with God.
I think one of the biggest things that
is going to help you is not swapping
your devotional disciplines for a combined one.
Now that you are one, and there's so
much fun in putting all that together in
a new context.
But you need to nourish your own relationship
with God.
That has not stopped because you happen to
suddenly get married.
Your husband is not your Holy Spirit.
And I think the thing that you can
do best for your marriage and husband is
to keep on growing individually yourself.
And so the best advice I could give
you is, what are you doing to plan
and to stretch the sides of your soul
individually for yourself.
Because the better you can know God, the
better your husband is going to love you,
and you're going to be able to love
him.
And the better you can grow spiritually, individually,
then the better the combined effect will be.
And I think it's hard to put that
devotional time together.
A lot of people struggle with it.
I edit a magazine called Just Between Us
for pastor's wives and ministry wives serving women.
And I don't know the percentage, it's too
high, of women, pastor's wives, missionary wives, that
tell me I never have a personal devotional
time.
And actually they never have a very good
devotional time with their husband either.
And their husband many times finds it very
difficult to pray with his wife.
That's an endemic problem.
A Christian husband finds it very, very hard
to pray with his wife.
And so you're going to struggle in your
combined devotional time.
The stronger you are as you continue to
grow in your personal time with God, the
better it will be to sort out those
growing problems.
So that would be my immediate reaction.
Yes.
Right.
I think if possible, and this I think
is not too unrealistic a goal, pray with
each other every day.
I don't care when, where, how, but make
sure, even for a minute, that you are
together in the throne room.
There's nothing that will strengthen your marriage better
than to start and develop together that interaction
with God.
I mean, how could it not enhance and
bless your relationship?
Reading together can happen over breakfast.
Just start and get something that's in your
schedule.
I always remember years ago being privileged to
be in Ruth Bell Graham's house, Billy Graham's
wife's house.
And on the traffic, you know, everybody has
a traffic pattern where everybody dumps things when
you come in.
And she had a little black book and
a Bible open and a pencil.
And this was years, this must be nearly
40 years ago I saw this.
And I said, what's this?
And she said, well, as I'm a busy
mother, I whiz through the kitchen with my
arms full of laundry and I've been listening
to something or thinking of something or meditating
on something or I see an illustration.
I jot it down in this little book
here.
Just catch it with half a sentence or
a word.
Then at night, I've got nearly a little
page full, just a little black book.
And as I go to bed, I look
through those captured moments and find one and
either chase it down in scripture or pray
about it or pray it for someone else
or take my pencil and make it a
paragraph.
And then just put a little heading, faithfulness,
prayer, family, mission, you know, just something to
capture it.
And in Ruth Graham's house, they've got a
long, long corridor, beautiful home up in the
mountains, made out of wood collected from the
mountains, old logs and beams, beautiful.
She has these little shelves with hundreds of
these little black books.
And that's the heritage she's going to be
able to take and give to her children.
But also, it's where she goes to write
her books, to capture her memory because we
forget so easily.
And so I was fortunate to see that
modeled for me all those years ago and
I began that practice myself.
So get a little book and get a
Bible because you're so busy but by the
end of the day you would be surprised
what's in that little book and then share
it with your husband at the end of
the day.
So you're capturing scriptural thoughts, applications and maybe
before you go to bed at night, read
a devotional something, piece of scripture, put your
head on the promise of a pillow, a
pillow of scripture before you go to bed.
I think it's harder sometimes, it depends who
you are, we combine personalities.
For some it's harder to read together and
talk about it and for some it's harder
to pray together and talk about it.
But you have to try and start and
do both.
The family that prays together stays together.
It's not just a cliche.
And so I would suggest that.
The other thing that Stuart and I do,
we read a classic something every month.
And he'll read one and I'll read it
after him or we'll read bites of it
if we happen to be together over a
meal.
But within the month we finish a classic
devotional book.
For example, S.D. Gordon's Quiet Talks on
Prayer or The Pursuit of God by A
.W. Towser or something from Spurgeon or something
from the Anglican Prayer Book, I don't know.
But something that is devotional in nature and
we both read it, we might not read
it together because we are not together very
much.
So I'll read it on a plane and
he'll read it here.
But by the end of the month we've
both read it and then we share.
I scribble all over it.
I mark all my books I read, not
just my Bible.
And I've got one of those with me
today and Stuart just picked it up last
night and began to read it and said,
Oh, this is terrific.
This is marvelous.
How rich.
Well, I've nearly finished it and by the
end of the month both of us will
finish it and then we'll share that.
So there's lots of things that you can
do.
You don't need to be together physically in
one place to be thinking and growing and
reading and everything.
But at some point you need to come
together and share that or do it together.
So read a classic book every month.
Certainly be systematically in the Scriptures individually and
together.
We do Scripture Union notes, they're Bible reading
notes.
And that's what we do together, when we're
together.
And usually sitting down for a meal before
we eat or after we've eaten.
And you can capture, snatch little moments.
It doesn't have to be at 7 o
'clock in the morning or at night.
So those sort of things you can help
yourself with.
Yes.
Ha!
What time do we have?
Would you please define, the question is, the
wife's role in a godly marriage.
Well, a wife actually is a disciple disguised
as a wife.
And so a disciple who happens to be
a wife or happens to be a husband,
lives out their discipleship as a wife or
as a husband.
So everything that goes into being a Jesus
lover and a glory giver, that's what I
am, as a woman and as a wife
and as a mother and as a grandmother.
And for those instructions, I need to go
to my discipleship manual.
And as I obey what God says, as
a good disciple in here, that is, I
am being a good woman disguised as a
wife or whatever my role is at that
particular time and my function.
So it will be, it will look different
for everybody in this room, because everybody in
this room is different.
We're all at different stages and ages.
Some have empty nests.
Some have no nest.
I have a moving nest.
Some have children.
Some have children who have come home again.
Some are beginning on the second generation raising
our grandchildren, because there's been a broken marriage
and one has come home and the grandparents
begin all over again.
So we're so different in so many ways.
Being a godly wife will look different in
every single household represented here.
But it's just basically getting up each morning
and saying, what is first today?
For me, this is, I'm defining it for
myself.
What is first today might not be what
was first yesterday or what's going to be
first tomorrow.
For example, he might say, look after your
own children today.
That's what is first today.
Priority.
First the kingdom, first the king.
What does the king say is first today?
Look after your own children.
Tomorrow he might say, you know what is
first on my agenda for you today as
my disciple, as a wife and mother and
whatever, and as a good neighbor, is to
look after your neighbor's children today.
She's a single parent, she's sick, take her
kids off her hands and get somebody to
look after your children while you do it.
That might be what he says is first
tomorrow.
And the whole secret of priorities is asking,
what is first today?
And that releases you from other people's hierarchy
of priorities.
God first, church, family, family, God.
You know what I mean?
You really can't do that for other people.
And so what I do, or try to
do every day of my life is say,
if Jesus is first, I'll know what's next.
Jesus, you are first in my life today.
What do you wish me to do?
Who do you wish me to serve?
That's my morning question.
Who do I serve today?
Do I serve my children, my husband, my
world, my whoever?
Who is it, Lord?
And as I'm in prayer, I try to
organize those priorities as I try to figure
that out according to my responsibilities and what's
happening in my life.
And then I just try to be obedient
to the priorities he dictates.
And sometimes it's fuzzy, and sometimes I don't
know.
And sometimes I'm sure I do it wrong.
And sometimes I do it right.
But he knows my heart.
I want to do what he wants me
to do first and foremost today.
And so your question is really the role
of a godly woman is what is a
priority as a disciple who happens to be
a wife and mother today, today?
Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it isn't.
And it's very, very hard because people criticize
or have expectations on what your role should
be as a wife and as a mother.
And the most important expectations are God.
His expectations.
What does he want you to do today
in your particular context?
And then be brave enough to take the
criticism and say I really believe this is
what we should be doing.
And together with your husband you work those
things out.
But you don't need to work it out
every day with your husband.
It's just a given.
We will both individually do what God wants
us to do today.
And as that is an honest desire it
sort of happens and there's no friction and
things go along and it just works.
So that would be my best shot.
It's a very hard and good question.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
The woman who is married to a beloved
unbeliever, as I call them, well, she might
be the only Christian in her family.
In fact I've had many people, many people,
most places I go say I'm the only
one.
Don't have a Christian husband, my kids are
Christians, etc.
etc.
And I always start and say, don't say
I'm the only one, say I'm the first
one.
Okay?
You're the first one.
Now, how are you going to win your
family?
That's the big thing.
Because that's one of your privileges as the
only Christian in this family, whether you were
converted after your marriage or before, sort of
irrelevant, that's what you are now.
How are we going to win that man
of yours?
How are we going to win those kids
and those mothers and relatives?
Right?
And try and help people to figure that
out.
The woman married to an unbeliever, you can't
really just take one piece of three and
transport it into 2,000 in the USA
because there's so much, where Peter says, win
him without the word.
You know, if you're married to an unbeliever,
shut up and live it, basically.
We can try and apply some of those
principles now, but you see, in Peter's day,
when he said that to a woman in
that situation, she could die for saying to
her husband, I've become a Christian because the
husband chose the religion of the household.
The woman had no right.
She was his property.
And along with that, the children, slaves, and
women took the religion of the father.
Now, people were getting saved in that situation.
And Peter said, let him see it.
Let him be glad he's married to you.
I counseled a woman the other day and
she said, my husband said to me, I
don't know you.
She'd been saved since her marriage.
And if I had known you as this
woman that is here now, I wouldn't have
married you.
And I find myself married to a woman
I didn't marry.
Don't you understand my dilemma?
So that woman's job is not for him
to say, I'm finding myself married to a
woman I didn't marry and I don't like
her and I wouldn't have chosen her, but
I am finding myself married to a woman
I didn't marry and have I fallen on
my feet?
Wow, I like her.
And I like her a lot better than
the woman I married.
That's her job.
However she does that, God will give her
ideas and help to do it.
So she might win him without argument.
But what Peter was addressing was the thing
that a husband had the right to put
his wife to death, his child to death
or his slave to death if they displeased
him in that culture at that point.
And so you can't say, well Peter says
this is what we're to do because our
situation is not the same.
However the principles are the same.
You're the only Bible he's going to read.
What's he read today?
And that's the challenge for unbelieving spouse.
But we have so much freedom in this
country and things are different.
We can open our mouths to and at
the appropriate time seek to explain the difference
in our life and what we'd wish and
hope for.
I come from an unbelieving family and the
same principles pertain I think of winning my
family back home in England.
And every one of them are beloved unbelievers
to me.
Godly, ungodly people.
Godly, ungodly.
You know what I mean?
Nicer than a whole lot of believers to
tell you the truth.
Live more morally than a lot of believers.
I mean they are wonderful, great people.
And it's been extremely difficult to win, it's
hard to win a good person to Christ.
Just, you know, as good as you can
get.
Jesus said to a man one day, he
looked at him and loved him and said
you are just about perfect.
I love that about you.
And I look at my beloved unbelievers and
I could honestly say that.
You are the greatest people.
Then sometimes if a woman is married to
a man like that, it's very, very hard.
Very, very hard to win him to the
Lord.
If he's an absolute scoundrel and rascal, then
I think it's sometimes easier.
Because you can just show him the difference
and make him glad that he's married to
you.
But I do not have that experience of
being married to an unbeliever and I think
it's hard.
We have a group in our women's ministry
called Beloved Unbelievers.
And that is a group that meets and
prays for the husbands and the unbelievers in
their family.
They've seen incredible answers to prayer.
And they all go after two or three
at a time.
They choose this woman's husband and everybody, yes,
they go on praying for their own.
But everybody concentrates.
And you see them coming into this room
the next week.
Anything happened?
No, we've been praying.
And you just see them being affected.
It's a wonderful thing.
So make sure you support those people married
to unbelievers.
There's a book.
It's called Beloved Unbeliever by Joe Berry.
Wrote the best book I've ever read on
winning a spouse or a family member to
Christ.
Yes, yes.
Well I think we need to take responsibility
for the way we look at the opposite
sex.
And we know.
We're women.
We know how.
You know, it interests me because we do
so much work where women are covered except
their eyes.
Boy, eyes can talk.
And men in those societies always say that
the eyes are the sexiest part of a
woman.
And they have had to learn to use
their eyes in ways we would never have
to use our eyes.
We have the rest of our body language.
But I think we need to ask God
to guard us against our body language and
specifically, we know how to do it.
We know how to relay something to a
member of the opposite sex.
So often the eyes are the culprit.
And the eyes are also the window of
the soul.
And so I think how we dress, our
body language, whether we choose to put ourselves
in situations that make it hard for people.
I know on our staff, our church staff,
Stuart's rules for the men and the women
who are counseling opposite members of the sex.
You always counsel with your door wide open.
There's windows put into every single pastoral door
which is a safeguard for the staff.
Because we did have a terrible situation of
a woman coming out of a young pastor's
room and started to scream and say, oh
he made a pass at me, which he
didn't.
And it was awful.
How can he prove?
And so unfortunately, even in the church, we
have to help each other and help ourselves
and always counsel in a group or where
there are people and that sort of thing.
So I think we can just be sensible
and not put yourself into a compromising position
if possible.
Watch the way you dress.
Watch the way you look.
Guard your heart.
And be honest.
And I think that's what we need to
do.
We need to teach our kids how all
those things affect other people too.
I think we should be able to look
men, in our culture, we should be able
to look men right in the eye and
ask God to give us that so that
they know, Lord help them to know, there
is nothing here except purity and holiness and
interest, common courtesy and interest in my eye
contact.
And you know, reading your Bible on a
plane or a train if you want to
really isolate yourself is a great idea.
And that's absolutely true.
I was on a plane not too long
ago and I was in the middle of
two guys going on a 17 hour trip
on this plane.
And you know, this isn't anything to do
with eye contact or sexuality at all, but
I just got my Bible out to do
some work and immediately one went to sleep.
I mean, he wasn't tired, I assure you,
he just got on the plane.
And the other one got out his newspaper.
And it is quite amazing what that sort
of thing, if you really want a little
bit of space and isolation.
Try it.
Anything else?
Yes.
Well, we have two families, you know, we've
got the church family and we've got our
own family.
And both families should be doing everything families
do to help the young people to be
godly and live godly and look godly and
be godly.
And so, I think the church has a
huge role, especially with the breakdown of parental
help in these dimensions in the home.
And we give our youth pastors every single
support.
If they want to do as much sex
education, Christians, we're delighted.
It doesn't mean that the families stop doing
it, it means you've got some reinforcement.
With models, the pastors, the youth pastors are
people that the kids look up to have
a huge, probably more say than you do
in the teenage years.
And we were always affirming our youth pastors
in anything they wanted to do in that
regard.
And reinforce it at home.
I think the church has a huge part
to play in this.
One of our Junior High retreats is just
on sexuality.
It's a whole weekend.
We can never get all the kids in
that want to come.
But they take a whole weekend together away
with their pastoral team and their adult youth
leaders and just address it from the scriptures
and get them in small groups and hear
them out and have forums and try and
show them a way through the wilderness of
the mess that they're in, you know, in
the middle.
And five of our grandchildren have been on
that week, that youth weekend and it's been
hugely, hugely helpful.
And they've come home and said, Boy, that
gave us some real good ideas.
Like one of our youth pastors gave us,
our kids one.
He had a rule and it was just
between him and his kids.
And so now, I've been in youth work
and so it began to irritate me to
death that my kids didn't tell me what
this rule was.
And so they've come home from having their
sex talk by Bob.
And I say, Well, what did he say
to you about, you know, sexuality?
We don't have to tell you, Mom.
It's just between our pastor and us.
And it was very helpful and we don't
have to tell you.
So, of course, I go on this journey
to find out.
And my eldest, I never got a wink
out of Dave.
And Judy, not a thing.
No, I wasn't going to hear.
But Pete was more vulnerable.
He was 13.
He'd grown his six foot six inches at
that, so he was a great big, tall,
lanky boy in a man's body, you know,
and he had this session in our youth
group.
And so he came home and I sang
goodnight and I tried to get hold of
him and kiss him.
It was a thing we had at that
moment.
No, Mom.
Moms don't kiss 13 year old boys.
And so we began to fun and wrestle.
He said, No, you're not going to kiss
me goodnight.
So we were literally, but he was so
big.
And I just sort of tried to get
a kiss and missed him and hit his
neck.
And he said, Oh, you broke Bob's rule.
And I said, Oh, what's that?
And without, poor thing, realizing he was being
led along, he said, Don't lie down.
Nothing below the neck and don't take anything
off.
That was it.
I said, Is that all?
He said, That's it.
So, my kids grew up and got married
and on Pete's wedding day we got a
telegram from Bob.
He's moved on.
Forget the rule.
And I said, Judy told me not long
ago, our daughter, you know it saved me
many a time mom.
Very simple, very specific.
Don't lie down, never take anything off, and
nothing below the neck.
And you know maybe that's not enough for
some of us and maybe it's too much
for others.
Whatever.
They do need some specific spelt out.
So that you don't just say be good.
What does that mean?
It means give the boy what he wants
because you need to be good to him,
he's been good to you.
That's what they would say.
So that's not enough.
We need to sit down, have heart to
heart, we need to have good communication with
our teenagers so that they're going to allow
us in to those discussions and want to
talk about it.
And try and give them some help for
when and if they find themselves in those
situations.
Yes.
Well you do what you can do.
And if he's not doing it, what on
earth is the sense of you not doing
it?
I think you have to go to Proverbs
where again and again the writer of Proverbs,
a man, is saying, son, he's talking to
his son, listen to your father's precepts and
your mother's teaching.
And he never says listen to your father's
precepts.
It's never without and your mother's teaching.
And in the Old Testament it was the
woman who taught the family at home.
The feasts which were absolutely scripture, everything had
a meaning, and as the kids and the
mother were getting the feast things ready, she'd
say this is unleavened bread, this is what
it means.
And the whole of the teaching of the
godly everything was the mother's job, while the
father as the priest of the home was
doing his precepts and his law and all
those ordinances and everything that Proverbs talks about,
of the philosophy of the whole of the
Israelite people and their covenant with God.
And so both parents were absolutely full bore
teaching and instructing, listen to your father's instruction
and your mother's teaching, listen to your father's
ordinances and your mother's teaching, listen.
And so, please God, he will be coming
one day soon to be able to be
putting his weight in and doing what he
should be doing, but you should be doing
what you should be doing.
And there is absolutely no sense in my
mind at all to say well if he's
not doing it you have to be quiet
and wait until he gets around.
What I mean, just think about that.
And so I have no compunction at all
to helping Christian women in those situations of
saying how can you do your job twice
as hard without him doing his, but do
everything you can to help your children know
and love the Lord in that particular situation.
Yes.
Well the best thing you can do is
don't stop growing yourself.
You know, I've had people say to me,
well if the women would just wait till
their husband catches up to them.
No, no, no, no.
Again, the logic of this, the holier you
can be and the more like Jesus you
can be and the more you can grow,
the better you will know how to help
your husband come to the point that we
long to see the husband come to.
And so the first thing I would just
encourage you, just use the time, the hard
time when you long to see him come
and share with you in this partnership and
lead you and all of this and lead
the family.
Use the time to be faithful to what
you're supposed to be doing as a parent
and as a mother in that situation.
I think, sorry what was the second part
of that question?
What can we do?
Well, I think your biggest tool is prayer.
You get down on your knees and you
say, I'm not going to let you go
God until you bless him.
And we learn effective prayer.
That is the biggest tool you have.
I don't think it often works leaving appropriate
books in the bathroom around the house where
he'll trip over.
Sometimes it does.
I just heard a testimony of the manager
of the Brewers baseball team.
Incredible.
I heard it through my husband.
He was speaking at a men's breakfast and
this fellow had given his testimony.
And for years his godly, believing wife tried
to win him to Christ.
And she put a book on Christian marriage
in his backpack as he traveled all over
with the team.
And he would get it out and lie
it with his clothes and sometimes put clothes
over it.
And he got to the point where he
was actually gingerly taking, never read it, taking
it out and putting it there.
He didn't have the heart to leave it
anywhere.
He put it back.
And this went on literally for years.
And their marriage began to come apart.
And in the end, I don't know where
he was, on tour, he looked at this
book on the bed and he opened the
front cover and there was a letter from
his wife in it, written seven years previously.
And it was 13 pages of how she
absolutely loved him, longed for spiritual intimacy with
him, longed that they should share the most
important thing.
It was just on.
But how she loved him, how she wanted
to be his friend.
And she said, we're not even friends anymore.
And that was seven years previously, so the
marriage was just about gone.
And he started to cry and he opened
the book, he didn't go to sleep all
night, and he read this book on Christian
marriage and he came to faith.
Now that is a wonderful story.
I just heard it last week through Stuart
at the men's breakfast.
And so, yes, anything we can do, would
you like to come to the men's, whatever
it is, please.
Or get somebody, you know, do whatever you
can.
Get a buddy, somebody who respects you.
What about inviting him to something?
So you do everything that you can, but
in the end only God can do it.
And so where does that work get done?
On your knees.
That's where it gets done.
And so I would, it's not the last
resort, it's the first resort.
I think the whole problem in all sorts
of areas is we don't know how to
pray effectively.
I think that's the bottom line.
Expectantly, hopefully, triumphantly, we don't know what binding
and loosing is all about.
What is all that?
That God will bind in heaven and bind
on earth what we want bound from somebody
we love's mind, for example.
And that God will loosen heaven and loosen
their mind, loose on earth what we desire
for them.
What is all that about?
And so we have to do our homework
and say, I don't know what else I'm
going to do, but I'm going this year
to learn to pray to move the hand
of God and change my husband or change
my church or change whatever it is.
And I know that sounds a pious get
-out answer, but I'm coming more and more
to the conclusion it's where it's at.
The better I know how to pray, the
better I will be a blessing to the
people around me.
Yes.
Right.
Well, how do we treat ourselves physically?
Is it something we don't need to do
if we're Christian women?
How important is it to keep ourselves nice
for our husbands?
I think of the Proverbs 31 woman, who
fortunately didn't exist.
I was saving the imagination of the guy
that wrote about her.
But she was the perfect bionic Christian lady.
And it never says anything about her appearance,
actually.
So we don't know if she had a
face like the back of a bus, do
we?
I mean, we have no idea.
Maybe the beauty was of a quiet spirit
and it was all inward, I don't know.
But I do think that if God has
given us a temple, we keep it.
We don't let the temple get overgrown with
ruins and whatnot.
We keep our temple as nicely as we
can keep it.
For me, personally, I would draw the line,
for example, at going to extensive surgery to
keep myself young.
I'm finding that my wrinkles are a huge
advantage in what I'm doing at the moment.
I'm serious, especially out of the country, especially
in Asia.
In Vietnam, they greet you, not with your
name, they greet you, they bow, and you
bow, and they say, how old are you?
That's the first question.
And so you answer them.
And with that information, they bow again, and
they call you mother, daughter, grandmother, great-grandmother.
And that's your name.
There's no names used.
And if you are mother, or grandmother, or
great-grandmother, there is huge respect, for apparently
they believe your wisdom, and they will listen
to you.
So come on wrinkles, as far as I'm
concerned.
I am hugely enjoying the open heart and
ear I have for Christ, simply because of
my age.
And so I want to be the best
69-year-old I can be for Jesus.
And I certainly would like to keep myself
the best 69-year-old I can be
for my husband as well, because I love
him.
But I need to forget myself.
I need to do the best I can
with myself, and then forget myself.
My mother used to teach me that.
She said, Jill, make the best of what
you've got, and then just forget yourself.
Because a woman that's so conscious of herself
and her looks, it's not a very pretty
thing.
And it's not something that men like.
So you need to be self-conscious.
Do the best you can with what God
has given you, and then just forget it,
forget yourself, and invest yourself in other people.
I think there was a lady, just last
question.
Oh, sorry, after me.
Did you have a question?
Yes.
Well, I had to get it sorted out
in my head first, before it got down
to here, when I was struggling with it.
I figured like this.
You can only be happy in the will
of God, number one.
I believed with all my heart he was
in the will of God, and I was
in the will of God, in that mission
situation, which was very unusual.
It's only a model of the unusual, very
unusual, where he was on the road for
eight, nine months of the year, for ten
years.
Very unusual.
And God does not ask but few people
to do that.
But he does ask a few people to
do that, if the ends of the earth
are going to be reached.
So, that's the situation.
So I argued like this.
You can only be happy in the will
of God.
He's in the will of God.
I'm in the will of God.
We're separated at the moment.
That's the will of God.
I mustn't step out of the will of
God.
Therefore, if he was home, I wouldn't be
happy.
If I brought him home, or if I
said, you're going to be home to help
me put the kids to bed, you're going
to be home for two months of this
year, or you're going to be home here,
there, etc., etc., I'm not going to interfere
with the call of God on my husband's
life, or anybody else's life.
And I knew I would be miserable if
I brought him home.
So I had to work it out here,
logically.
And then I had to yield and surrender
to the will of God.
And you're only happy in the will of
God.
You're only safe in the will of God.
He's only safe in the will of God.
We're all only safe.
The children are only safe.
You know, you have to think about this.
And once I got it theologically sorted out,
the God was saying, that's the cross.
Do it for me, Jill.
And it was easy.
Then you surrender to that and you just
do it.
Put your head down.
You do it lonely.
Sometimes you do it in tears.
And sometimes you do it sick.
Sometimes you do it old.
But you do it.
And incredibly, there is this joy and closeness
that comes across the miles.
Stuart would often ring me from Australia and
say, I'm with you, honey.
Well, he wasn't.
He was literally from Britain, the other side
of the world.
But he was.
We were together, though apart.
Together in focus, together in mission, together in
Jesus.
And I know couples that have never been
physically apart one minute of their lives, but
they're not together.
So it's a question of God bringing you
together, though it might mean physically apart to
do the hard job he's asked you to
do, and realizing this is where you need
to live in the will of God for
you as a person.
Very seldom does he ask people to do
this sort of thing.
He asks missionaries.
He asks evangelist wives.
He asks traveling salesmen sometimes.
I mean, it happens in the world.
I know a lot of men that go
away on Monday and come back on Friday.
And that's not even for Jesus.
I'm just so glad he was doing it
for Jesus and not for the bank, you
know, anymore.
Okay, I see them pressing their noses on
the outside glass.
So I need to stop.
Okay.