Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz and
this is Ascension Presents. I think sometimes
when it comes to people, we can have a tendency to treat people
like we treat our cars. Here's what I mean. When you find something's
wrong with your car, the good thing to do
is try to fix it, right? Yeah, but if you can't fix it,
what do we do? We say, "Well, I can't fix this car,
so I'm gonna replace it. I'll get a new one. I'll take the broken car
and replace it for a new car that isn't broken." If we can't replace it
because whatever reason: we don't have enough money,
we don't have enough resources, we will ignore the problem and that's probably the right thing to do just,
"I'm just gonna ignore this car." The great thing is
that works when it comes to cars. The bad thing is, that's not a great idea
when it comes to people. I see this happen
a lot in married relationships, where here's one member of the couple and they see something in the other person
that they don't like and so what they try to do is
they just try to get in there and they just,
"Listen, just let me fix you. Just let me kind of... ...work my way in.
I know exactly what you need. I want to fix you.
Let me fix you." And I guess there's
some part about that that maybe is motivated by
love in a certain sense because you know
love wills the good of the other but a lot of times, it's not. A lot of times, it's motivated by, "This annoys me
and so I want you to stop doing that thing." Now, what happens is this: Over the course of time, if the
person — if that thing, I mean, in that person, that characteristic,
that annoying trait, that kind of behavior, if it doesn't get "fixed", then the other two temptations are, "Well, then I'll just replace you." Now, sometimes
it's actually replacement where OK, we're going to get divorced
and I'm going to find someone who isn't broken in the same
way that you're broken. But a lot of times,
it involves something more subtle. It doesn't involve necessarily,
"I'm going to exchange you for someONE else," it's a "I'm going to exchange you
for someTHING else." And so instead of my spouse as my
one legitimate source of romance, I'm going to trade them in for — whether it be,
I don't know, some people turn to pornography, some people turn to
romance novels some people turn to
Nicholas Sparks type-kind of a relationship or even like intimacy that doesn't have to be
sexual intimacy with someone else because now you're the
source of romance in my life. Because if I can't fix you,
then I'm just gonna replace you Or ignore. I see this happen a ton. The thing is if I can't fix you and I can't replace you,
then I'm just going to ignore you. You know what strikes me so so often is how impatient couples who've been
married for 25, 30, 35 years can be with each other. Now, if you're in that situation, maybe you
can tell me a thing or two about that but here's the thing. I would expect on some level, that newlyweds would be relatively impatient with each other because they're getting used to like,
"Oh, these are your idiosyncrasies, these are your kind of bad habits, these are the things that I didn't necessarily know about you." "After 25 years, I know that when he comes home,
he's gonna drop his bag on the floor and he's gonna throw his jacket
over the back of the couch." "I know that after 25 years,
here is how she eats her food." Like, I know all this, so why am I getting
so worked up about it? So here's the thing. Rather than fix, replace, or ignore,
here's three other options. One is, I accept the person. Yeah, I know that they
lose their keys all the time. I know that he kicks his shoes
off, right yep, in the middle of there and I don't want him to do this,
but I know that for whatever reason that the person I'm married to struggles with
something I don't struggle with. Like order or they struggle with being on time
or they struggle with putting the toilet seat down, whatever that is,
I'm going to accept them. And again, I'm gonna accept their good parts
and accept the bad traits because we realize
this is what we do for ourselves. That's not condoning the bad things,
it's not saying the bad things aren't bad things. What it is is saying,
"Nope, this is the person I married," just like when we accept ourselves,
we're not just saying, "Well, everything I choose is great." No, we're saying even the bad things, OK, that's
just that's a part of what I'm doing, it's part of what I'm wrestling with,
it's part of me as I move forward, trying to pursue Jesus. The second thing after
acceptance is delight. To delight. I would invite you to do this, there's probably,
with whomever you're living whether that is a spouse
or it's a child or your parents or whoever it is,
your roommate maybe, to begin not only to accept
but then take the next step and delight in that difference. To delight in
the thing that annoys you. So for example, I had a college roommate
and he's the greatest guy, such an incredible man and he always would
chew with his mouth open. I think he had a nose thing
or his nose was stuffed a lot, so you know. Anyways,
I don't mean to digress into that but I would be so mad.
I'd be so mad and then finally I was like,
"You know what? That's him.
He chews with his mouth open." And so I can either not have breakfast with him
and not have lunch with him or I can just say, "Yeah, my buddy, no one chews with their mouth open
quite like him." I can accept and delight
because then that paves the way for love. The third thing. Unless I accept someone
and learn how to delight in them, I'm not going to be able to love them. If I keep trying to fix them,
I don't have any time to love them. If I keep replacing them
with something or someone else, I don't have time to love them. And if I'm ignoring them,
how can I possibly, how could I possibly love them? The way to move forward,
wherever you're at in your relationships is to see that person,
to accept them — that doesn't mean
condoning everything they do, to delight in them and to love them.
This is what God does for you. God doesn't condone
everything you and I choose but he accepts the — "but this is my child" — not everything that we do pleases him
but he takes delight in us. Isaiah 63 says this, "As a bridegroom marries his bride so will your God delight in you." And rather than replacing us
or ignoring us, God, he loves us
and it's that love that lifts us up. So rather than trying to fix the people in your life
or replace them or ignore them, why not do what God does for us? To accept them,
to delight in them and to love them into wholeness. From all of us here at Ascension Presents,
my name's Father Mike. God bless.
