RHETT SMITH

The Marital Tension of Come Close, Get Away

2013-06-05T16:48:46Z

Over the last few weeks I have found myself reading this passage out loud in premarital counseling to several different couples. This passage has always resonated with me as I think this struggle between dependence and independence is at the core of many marital difficulties…and is central to the possibility of major growth in the marriage as well.

“It seems to me that the conflict which marriage uncovers is always essentially this same one: it is always some version of this tension between the needs for dependence and for independence, between the urge toward loving cooperation and the opposite urge toward detachment, privacy, self-sufficiency. Even to people who have dreamed for years about getting married and who think of themselves as hating to be alone, marriage still cannot help but come as an invasion of privacy. No one has ever been married without being surprised, and usually alarmed, at the sheer intensity of this invasion.” (Mike Mason, The Mystery of Marriage: Reflections on the Miracle, pp. 20-21)

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The Journey of Forgiveness

2013-06-05T16:31:00Z

The issue of forgiveness is a huge issue in every marriage.

Whether the issue seems small (hurt feelings), or really large (an affair), forgiveness is something that is part of every marriage.

How does one seek forgiveness?

How does one grant forgiveness?

Though I know this journey does not follow simple steps, I do like the model that Prepare Enrich lays out for couples. (Thanks to Rodney Hunt for posting this over at his blog, Marriage Monday — Forgiveness prevents resentment in your marriage.)

Six Steps for Seeking Forgiveness:

1. Admit what you did was wrong or hurtful.
2. Try to understand/empathize with the pain you have caused.
3. Take responsibility for your actions and make restitution if necessary.
4. Assure your partner you will not do it again.
5. Apologize and ask for forgiveness.
6. Forgive yourself.

Six Steps for Granting Forgiveness:

1. Acknowledge your pain and anger. Allow yourself to feel disrespected.
2. Be specific about your future expectations and limits.
3. Give up your right to “get even,” but insist on being treated better in the future.
4. Let go of blame, resentment, and negativity toward your partner.
5. Communicate your act of forgiveness to your partner.
6. Work toward reconciliation (when safe).

Whether you are currently in the position of seeking or granting forgiveness, where do you find yourself stuck in the process?

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Fathers: How Much Time Do You Spend With Your Kids?

2013-06-05T16:18:45Z

Fathers…how much time to you spend with your kids?

I was intrigued by the article in the New York Times this last week, The Triumph of the Working Mother. Though there are parts of the article I would want to know more about and may dispute, what I found most intriguing was the following statement:

“What about the kids? As more wives took jobs between 1965 and 1985, the time mothers spent with children decreased. But since 1985, both mothers and fathers have increased their time with children. Employed moms spend fewer hours per week with their children than stay-at-home mothers, but they spend more time with their children than homemakers did in 1965!

And fathers nearly tripled their amount of time with children.”

My wife and I’s own marital roles have been in a state of constant flux since our marriage in 2005. My wife was the primary breadwinner working in corporate America, while I was working on staff of a church as the college director. Then I switched careers and in the in-between time of ending my ministry job and moving to Texas to start my therapy job, I was a full-time stay at home dad with our then 11 month old daughter. I stayed at home full-time for two and half months. (By the way, that is still the hardest and most demanding job I have ever had).

My wife continued to be the primary breadwinner while I built my new career. And just last year my wife quit her job to stay home full-time with our two kids.

Like I said, our roles have been in constant flux.

But one thing that is important is that we both work hard to share the parenting duties.

And as a therapist who works with many couples and men in therapy, one issue that is most prevalent in relationships is the man’s lack of involvement in the lives of his kids. Whether he is not helping out his spouse enough, or not being physically and emotionally present to be with the kids, it becomes a significant issue.

So as I asked at the top.

Fathers…how much time do you spend with your kids?

And is the role negotiating between you and your spouse in constant flux? Set in stone? Confusing?

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The Meaning of a Word is “Embedded in the Story”?

2013-06-05T16:04:17Z

“Dictionaries are wonderful tools and we would be the poorer without them, but in Gospel matters they are among the lesser helps. The reason is that everything in the Gospel is personal, relational, and embodied in particulars. There are no generalities. Every word is embedded in the Story and, in the most comprehensive sense, incarnate in Jesus, “the word made flesh.” Isolated in a dictionary a word has no context and therefore no relationship, no “flesh.” For those of us who are interested in living the truth and not just acquiring information, it is necessary to discover the meaning of a word by looking it up in the Story, not the dictionary.”

Eugene Peterson in Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places (pp.271)

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Video: “What it Means to be a Man” — Chapter 1: The Making of Men

2013-06-04T19:44:58Z

Several weeks ago I started a video series on my new book, What it Means to be a Man: God’s Design for Us in a World Full of Extremes. I began with an introduction to the book, and today I talk about Chapter 1: Archetypes — The Making of Men.

In this video I talk about the four male archetypes most often talked about in literature and seen in our culture. They are the:

King
Warrior
Sage
Lover

It didn’t matter if the source was Christian or secular, these four archetypes emerged time and time again.

Which male archetype do you most try and define your life by?

What if God wanted you to define your masculinity not by an archetype, but by your relationship with Him?

As I will write in the book, men are not defined by whether or not they fit into some culturally defined archetype, but rather by their relationship with Jesus Christ. But I begin the book talking about this subject because I think it helps men find a reference point for how they may currently be defining their masculinity, or what archetypes they feel the pressure to be most like.

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Freedom: Lessons from 2 Years of Being Debt Free

2013-05-31T02:27:29Z

Sunday, May 19, 2013 is a big day for my family.

It marks the two year anniversary of us being debt free.

Two years ago I wrote the post Today We Are Debt Free: $75,000+ Paid Off in 31 Months. In that post I chronicled our journey of wanting to become debt free. It was a journey because my wife and I started fostering a dream of one day becoming debt free so that we would have the money to purchase a house and so she could stay home full-time — a dream she had at the birth of our first child. But ultimately, we believed that not having debt allowed us to live with more freedom (and it has).

It has been quite the journey for us. As I wrote in that first post, in June of 2008 we found ourselves under water.

our Pasadena home had just sold for $40,000 less than we had bought it 3 years earlier
we had $55,000 in graduate student loans
and we racked up $20,000 in credit card debt months leading up to the move

Needless to say, $115,000 in debt was super overwhelming.

So for one of the first times in our lives, my wife and I decided that we were tired of being limited by our debt.

Debt means limited opportunities.

Debt means limited freedom.

Debt means limited choices.

Debt means stress, worry and fear.

So we became very intentional.

First, we used all the savings we had…$40,000 to be exact…and paid off what we owed on the house when we sold it. Now we owed $75,000.
Second, we moved to Dallas in August of 2008. We rented a house knowing that we didn’t need any more debt. Oh, and I had no full-time job since I resigned my ministry job in LA in June.
Third, in October of 2008 we sat down at our kitchen table and began working through Dave Ramsey’s workbook The Total Money Makeover as we simultaneously listen to the audio cd’s.

I had been listening to Ramsey on the local Dallas affiliate day in and day out…and I became inspired, especially on Fridays as couples called in to talk about their journey to become debt free and scream “freedom.” Because of their stories my wife and I started believing, “Why can’t we do this!”

How We Intentionally Became Debt Free

In chapter 6 of my book The Anxious Christian I share about some of the things my wife and I started becoming intentional about:

we stopped eating out (except for a cheap meal every 2-3 weeks)
we stopped buying clothes
we drastically cut entertainment (less than 10 movies in 31 months); stopped buying any music
we cut all magazine subscriptions
we cut cable
we didn’t buy any new electronic gadgets (no phones, computers, pads, etc.)
we stopped going to coffee shops and made our own coffee
i stopped eating lunch out and took my lunch to work everyday
we drew names at Christmas and Heather and I limited our gift amount for each other to $25
we took only one vacation (a free vacation–that unfortunately was paid for using points we racked up with credit card debt)
we kept driving our 9 and 12 year old cars because they were paid off — and they got us from point A to B

So between October 2008 and March 2010 we paid off $20,000 which we felt pretty good about. Especially since we were living only off Heather’s income since I was making very little money doing my practicum hours as a therapist and some part-time work at a church. Anything I made went to debt, but we were still not very strict with what Heather was making.

But in March of 2010 we saw Dave Ramsey live in Dallas and that was the kick in the pants we needed. We were lacking his “gazelle intensity” that he talks about.

So we came home more motivated, got on a tight budget and started using the cash envelope system that he talks about.

And from March of 2010 to May 19, 2011 we paid off the remaining $55,000.

I won’t lie. This was one of the hardest things we have ever done. But it is also one of the best things we have ever done in our life…and it has absolutely transformed many areas of our life.

It has transformed our marriage. (as you know, money issues are the biggest cause of conflict and divorce in a relationship)

It has transformed our ability to help others.

It has transformed how our kid’s view money.

It has transformed our ability to pursue our passions.

Two Years Later…

I would like to tell you that since we have become debt-free life has gotten easier. Well, it has in MANY ways. But it’s still hard because we have to everyday make intentional choices not to take on debt. I still drive that 12 year old car — now 14 years old. (We were able to buy a new/used car for cash though and replace the other — no auto-fleecing for us as Ramsey calls it).

Though our desire to have many things has incredibly waned, we still want things. We still get caught up in what our friends or neighbors have. That’s to be expected. But we have to keep reminding ourselves of our goals (short and long term) and what the freedom of debt free living brings us.

In May of 2012 we bought a home in McKinney, TX after renting for the first 4 years in Texas. That is the one debt we took on and felt good about since it fits into the parameters of the Ramsey program we were following.

And at the end of June 2012, my wife’s dream came true and she quit her job to stay home full-time. Losing her income (she had always been the “bread winner” in our relationship) had a huge impact on us, but we were ready to make the sacrifices to make it happen since we had no debt.

All of the ways that I listed above for how we got out of debt…we still do.

What keeps us focused I believe is that we continually remind ourselves that there is always a trade off in life. When you say YES to one thing, you automatically say NO to something else.

If we say YES to leasing a new car, bringing back cable, eating out more…then we say NO to my wife having the freedom to stay home.

So saying NO to many things has allowed us to say YES to the freedom of not feeling strapped down by debt; to not feeling stressed at night; to not having to overwork to make ends meet.

Ultimately, saying NO to debt has allowed us to say YES to our passions and freely follow God in the directions we believe he is calling us.

You Can Do It

If you are reading this and you have been on a similar journey as us to get debt free, then I know you know that feeling.

But if you are reading this and are struggling with debt, I want to encourage you. I want you to know that you can do it. You can pay it off and move into the freedom of not worrying about debt, and of constantly worrying about all the wants that incessantly have us chasing after them. If I can recommend two pieces of advice for you it would be this: a) Get on a plan. Something like Dave Ramsey. b) Surround yourself with others who are on the same journey and who have already accomplished it. They will keep you motivated.

If you are debt free, how did you go about doing it? And what does it feel like?

If you are in debt, what is keeping you from moving out of debt?

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Thoughts on the Connection Between Passion, Limits and Vocation….

2013-05-30T14:01:19Z

If you are like me, then your mind probably moves at time from one tangential thought to the next.

And when you come to your current thought you can look back at the preceding thoughts that got you to where you are currently at.

Does that above sentence even make sense?

Yes

Then good.

Because here we go.

Pursuing Our Passion

Yesterday while perusing 99U’s newsletter I came across their article Insights from Brene Brown, Cal Newport, Gretchen Rubin & More at the 2013 99 U Conference.

In the article, they highlight thoughts from the talk of author, computer scientist and professor, Cal Newport. One thought that had me thinking a lot was his comments on pursuing our passions:

Chasing a passion can lead to frustration and unhappiness. American culture is obsessed with the idea that the only way to end up happy is to follow your passion, but this assumes that you have a pre-existing passion to follow. The world is filled with passionate amateur photographers and passionate amateur bakers who end up unhappy and often unsuccessful.

How many times has someone asked you what you are passionate about?

How many times have you been told to pursue your passion?

Seems like a great idea, right?

As I thought about this idea more, I went to Newport’s blog, Study Hacks, where I read a post quoting the comic C.K. Lewis:

There’s people that say: “It’s not fair. You have all that stuff.” I wasn’t born with it. It was a horrible process to get to this. It took me my whole life. If you’re new at this — and by “new at it,” I mean 15 years in, or even 20 — you’re just starting to get traction. Young musicians believe they should be able to throw a band together and be famous, and anything that’s in their way is unfair and evil. What are you, in your 20s, you picked up a guitar? Give it a minute.

Newport in the post follows up Lewis’s quote with with this statement:

Notice his use of the phrase “horrible process” in describing his rise. This is exactly what is wrong with telling people: “If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life” — you’re providing them a flawed description of reality.

Careers you love require a lot of work. Sometimes even “horrible” work.

You can’t escape the necessity of career capital…

So all this talk on following your passions and career capital is an interesting one.

After all, how are we supposed to view our work?

How are we to think about our vocation?

Connecting Passion and Vocation

In the final chapter of my new book, What it Means to be a Man, I explore this idea of vocation:

God worked and cared for His creation as He created life out of darkness. He made man (Hebrew “adam” in His image, forming him from the ground (Hebrew “adamah”) and naming him Adam (an act of sovereign care). Then He commanded him to work and care for the land from which he’d been taken (Gen. 2:15) and to care for His creatures by naming them (Gen. 2:19). In the words used and the commands given, we see a deep connection between our identity as men and our responsibility to imitate God in working and caring….

….it’s worth noting the word “vocation” comes from the Latin word vocatio, meaning “summons.” In other words, our vocation is a summons calling out to us. That means listening to the same person who said to Jesus, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” (pp.89-91).

Passion and Limits

Two things then emerge for me when we talk about pursuing our passion and the vocations we enter into.

There is a deep connection between our identity and our work. When our identity connects to our work, we are in our vocation…we are pursuing our passion.
Acknowledging our limits helps us find our true vocation. Too many people pursue things that they are passionate about, but they don’t acknowledge their limits. Limits, rather than be limiting, can actually create freedom, forcing/moving us towards where our true passion…our true vocation is. I’ve written about this before and I like how Parker Palmer says it:

“Everything in the universe has a nature, which means limits as well as potentials, a truth well known by people who work daily with the things of the world. Making pottery, for example, involves more than telling the clay what to become. The clay presses back on the potter’s hands, telling her what it can and cannot do–and if she fails to listen, the outcome will be both frail and ungainly. Engineering involves more than telling materials what they must do. If the engineer does not honor the nature of the steel or the wood or the stone, his failure will go beyond aesthetics: the bridge or the building will collapse and put human life in peril.

The human self also has a nature, limits as well as potentials. If you seek vocation without understanding the material you are working with, what you build with your life will be ungainly and may well put lives in peril, your own and some of those around you. “Faking it” in the service of high values is no virtue and has nothing to do with vocation. It is an ignorant, sometimes arrogant, attempt to override one’s nature, and it will always fail.

Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic selfhood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks–we will also find our path of authentic service in the world. True vocation joins self and service, as Frederick Buechner asserts when he defines vocation as ‘the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.’” (Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by Parker Palmer, pp. 15-16)

Is what you are passionate connect your identity and vocation?

And in your pursuit of your passion, do you readily acknowledge your limits (as well as potentials), using them as a guiding factor in how and what you passionately pursue?

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Putting Down Our Masks: Living Authentically So Others Can See God in Our Lives

2013-05-31T02:27:42Z

This week I’ve been working on an article for Fuller Youth Institute on the topic of failure.

What do we do when our kid’s fail?

Or more importantly, do we allow our kids to fail, or are we constantly rescuing them from it?

It’s been a tough article to write, especially as I explore a theology of failure and encourage ways that parents can move towards their kids in the midst of failure.

So it was so encouraging this morning to come across this blog post by my friend Emily P. Freeman (aka the brave female who endorsed my new book for men–thank you Emily). In the post one thing your daughter doesn’t need you to say Freeman writes about an experience she recently had on a radio show when a Jr. High School girl called in sharing about the anxiety she experiences between living in the tension of being herself and trying to be a good example for her friends.

After not really knowing how to answer the girl live on the air, and after thinking on it more that day, Freeman writes:

Here’s what I came up with: She isn’t supposed to be an example. Her friends don’t need an example, they need a friend. A real one. An honest one. A touchable one. They need a friend who doesn’t think she’s better than everyone, but one who knows she isn’t. They need a friend who knows she needs Jesus.

So what about being a leader and setting the example? Isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t that what parents and youth leaders tell students all the time?

The more I think about it, the more I believe this well-meaning statement is not only a manipulative way to try to control our daughters’ behavior, but can also be dangerous to their spiritual health. When we tell her to be an example, we may as well just hand her a mask right there – Here. Hide behind this. Don’t let them see you struggle.

I love this.

Emily is right. When we are being our true authentic self…the one whom God created…that’s when our most natural strengths emerge and that is when we are actually being the example we need to be.

Our example is living out of the authentic self that God created.

In my book The Anxious Christian I write on this topic of masks:

The word for mask comes from the ancient Greek word prosopon, meaning “about the eyes,” or literally, “face.” The mask was a tool the actor used to play a part. By putting on the mask, the actor became another person by vanishing into the face of an acting role. We hide because we live in a culture, especially a Christian culture, that tells us something is wrong with us for experiencing anxiety. Therefore, in our shame, we retreat and hide behind masks and costumes that say, “Hey, look at me, I’m successful. I have everything under control. Life is good.” We project this image while underneath we are wrestling with fears, worries and inadequacies. (pp. 34-35)

Most people come into my office for therapy because in some part of their life they are hiding behind masks. Masks in their marriage. Masks at their work. Masks as a parent and friend.

Helping people put down their masks so they can be the person that God knit and knew in their mother’s womb (Psalm 139) is the life we are called to live.

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Is the Amount of Activities Your Kids Are Involved in Contributing To Your Marital Drift

2013-05-30T14:01:44Z

I know very little about construction, but there is tons of it going on around my house. And though I know very little about construction, I do know one thing — if you are putting up a wall for example, you usually want the wall to be in a straight line on the foundation from one end of the house to the other.

I’m sure there are many ways to do this, but I often see the construction crews out there with all kinds of chalk lines and paint, making sure that as they erect the wall it follows down a straight path. Without the chalk or paint to act as guides in the constructing of the wall, it’s quite possible to get to the end and realize that the wall has gradually drifted out of alignment.

In marriage this is often referred to as the marital drift.

Two people get married with all the best intentions in the world, but over time they drift apart. Sometimes it’s abrupt, but often it is subtle and gradual.

The story that is most often told is two people waking up one day after their kids have gone off to college and they look at each other and wonder, “Who are you?”

Marital drift is a very scary and painful thing. It’s heartbreaking to watch couples realize they have drifted apart over time.

And what makes it so heartbreaking is that there were hundreds of different things the couple could have done to keep the drift from happening. Very simple things like date nights, intentional time to connect, self-care, balanced schedules, prayer, etc.

There are several different topics I could get into right now, but I want to focus on one thing that I often see as a major contributing factor to a couple’s marital drift.

This major contributing factor is the amount of kid’s activities.

Kid’s activities are great.

They are great for the kids.

They are great for the couple.

They are great for the family.

It’s fun going to soccer games and piano recitals.

It’s great bonding time to coach a kid’s team or help them prepare for the school play.

But too many activities and events can disconnect a couple and perpetuate the drift.

There are two issues here really — what is a healthy number of activities for a kid.

I happen to be a big believer in the Meg Meeker rule of “one after-school activity per grading period.” I mentioned this at a parenting workshop where several parents were upset that I said this. “What do you know about this topic since your kids are so young…just wait till they get older and start doing everything.”It is true that my kids are younger and the demands on their schedule are less.

But what I also know is that when kids become overly involved in activities, not only is it detrimental to their mental health, but it is detrimental to the marriage.

Which brings me to my second issue, and what I really want couples to know.

When kids become involved in lots of activities a marriage eventually re-orients itself around the activities of the kids. The kids and their activities become the focus and a couple starts to drift.

Couples drift when they no longer have time together to connect. And when they do connect, they usually only talk about their kids, their kids activities, and basically anything kid related or that has to do with the business of running the house.

How many activities should my kids participate in?

I can’t answer that question for you since I am not the parent. But one way to answer that question is to ask yourself, “Do my spouse and I have adequate time each week to spend with one another?” “Is our marriage the focus of the family, or are our kids and their activities the focus?”

If you don’t have adequate time each week to connect with your spouse and your marriage is not the focus of the family, then it might be time to re-prioritize. And re-prioritizing might involve cutting back on kid’s activities.

For many couple’s the drift has happened without them knowing. And sometimes the drift allows a couple to avoid conflict, and the opportunity to really connect and be vulnerable with one another.

No matter where your marriage is, it is never to late to course correct and connect with your spouse. And when you do this, not only does your marriage benefit, but so do your kids. It’s a win for the entire family.

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Making Friends With Your Anxiety

2013-05-06T20:52:35Z

How do you befriend your anxiety?

This is a question that I have been wrestling with for a while.

Befriending my anxiety has been something that has changed my life and I see it change the lives of those I have the privilege of working with.

I even finished up a 10-part series on this topic recently.

So today I guest blogged over at author Ally Vesterfelt’s blog, talking about What if You And Your Anxiety Were… Friends?

Check it out.

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