What He Must Be

Bob: What kind of involvement should a mom or a dad have with a son or daughter who’s considering marriage? 

Dennis: A bunch. [Laughter] 

Bob: We’re going to hear, today, from Voddie Baucham.

Voddie: In the wedding ceremony, there is still the question, “Who gives this woman to be married?”  Implied in that question is: “There is someone in the room who—number one—has the responsibility and the duty to investigate this man and vet this man and—number two—they’ve done it.”  As a result of having vetted this man, they are willing to say, in front of everybody: “He has been tested, and he passed the test. I trust him with my daughter.” 

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, March 5^th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife^®, Dennis Rainey, and I’m Bob Lepine. How can you make sure, when you get to your part in the wedding ceremony, as a dad, you’ve done what you’ve needed to do?

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We’ll hear from Voddie Baucham today. Stay tuned.

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Thursday edition. We had the opportunity, just a few weeks back, to be with about a thousand couples for a week—it was a great week. We were onboard a cruise ship. We went to Key West, and we went to Cozumel. I’ll tell you two things, Dennis—first of all, to have the whole ship and it’s your group—

Dennis: I’ll tell you—once you’ve been on a cruise, like FamilyLife hosts, you’ll never want to be on a cruise where you don’t have the whole ship—where all are on the same mission / headed in the same direction, for the most part.

Bob: Right.

Dennis: And it just changes the whole flavor and tenor of the boat.

Bob: Well, and not only that—but, when you’ve got morning times and evening times, where you are being built into / where you are hearing from great speakers—then, you get done with that—and you’ve got concerts or you’ve got comedians.

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It really is a refreshing, relaxing, renewing week for married couples.

Dennis: It is, and you’re going to laugh a lot. You’re going to hear some great musicians / some great teaching. And Bob, as we’re going to hear today, on the broadcast—you can just imagine going on a vacation and being equipped, as a father, to truly prepare your daughter and the young man who marries her for marriage.

Bob: Yes, we are going to listen to Part Two of a conversation recorded onboard the Love Like You Mean It^® marriage cruise a couple of weeks ago. Voddie Baucham and his wife Bridget sat down with their son-in-law, Phillip Holmes, and their daughter, Jasmine, who is now Mrs. Holmes. They got married back in October. They shared the story of how Jasmine went from being single, to meeting Phillip, to the two of them beginning to cultivate a relationship that ultimately led to marriage. As you’ll hear today, it wasn’t just a simple operation where Phillip said, “May I have your daughter’s hand?” 

Dennis: No, no, no. [Laughter] 

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I mean, this young man had to be courageous. Here’s what I want listeners to hear, though—I think the culture is robbing dads of one of the greatest / most holy privileges—when asked the question, in the wedding ceremony, “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?” The father grabs the hand and gently places that hand in the hand of a young man, who is going to love her for the rest of his life.

What Voddie Baucham outlines here—this is golden. This is really good stuff because men aren’t learning this today, Bob. This is what FamilyLife Today is all about. I just want to give a shout-out, right now, to Legacy Partners who make this broadcast available. Thank you for your standing with us so we can present the truth about marriage and family, as the Bible presents it.

Bob: We had a number of Legacy Partners who joined us on the Love Like You Mean It marriage cruise this year. We’d love to have any of you, listening, join us next year. We’re going to be going out Valentine’s week again.

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This time headed to Jamaica and Grand Cayman. The cruise is one day longer in 2016. Again, it’s Valentine’s week; and the ship is about half-full right now. So, if you are interested in joining us, this is a good week to sign up. I’ve asked our team if we could arrange for a little special incentive. They told me that this week they are making the staterooms available at the lowest price that they’ll make available all year long.

So, if you’d like to find out how you can join us on the cruise, go to FamilyLifeToday.com. Click the link in the upper left-hand corner of the screen that says, “GO DEEPER.” You’ll see the icon for the Love Like You Mean It marriage cruise right there. You can get more information online or sign up for the cruise online. Again, it’s FamilyLifeToday.com.

Now, let’s listen in as we hear Voddie Baucham explain—

Dennis: —how a young man goes to marriage preparation boot camp—eight weeks. [Laughter]

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I’m telling you—Camp Pendleton doesn’t have anything on this.

[Recorded Message] 

Voddie: In order to be a husband, you have basically four jobs / four roles—that of priest, prophet, provider, and protector.

So, Phillip contacts me—tells me that he’s interested. For the next eight weeks, Phillip and I talked for a couple of times a week. We spent two weeks basically going through each of these four “P’s” to see where Phillip was in terms of his ability to stand in the gap in those roles because, as a father, here’s my understanding—it is my job to be priest, prophet, provider, and protector in Jasmine’s life. If I was going to hand that over to another man, and he wasn’t able to do those jobs, that meant I was failing in those jobs.

So, he had to be prepared, and willing, and ready to step into those roles.

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We spent eight weeks going through that. After a while—because of the way the relationship developed with me and with Phillip—Jasmine and Bridget started going: “Yes, I don’t think you are vetting this guy. I think you just want him for yourself. You just”—[Laughter] 

Bridget: It was a bro-mance.

Voddie: “You’ve got a bro-mance going”; you know? “Is Jasmine ever going to be able to…” / “What are we doing here?”  And it did—it was a mentoring / it was a discipleship. It was the building and deepening of a relationship. It was establishing trust; and all the while, coming back and having conversations—

Phillip: I was just thinking—piggy-backing off what you just said—I think that sheds light into the process in regards to our relationship. It wasn’t this big guy, sort of throwing his weight around and saying, “Hey, son, this is what you are going to do.” No; but this was—first of all, it was mutually-beneficial—definitely beneficial for me.

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I learned a lot; and it was sort of—like he said “a mentoring.”  I felt like I was getting another father, in a sense, because he was counseling me, as an older man, not really bullying me or throwing his weight around. I think that’s the picture that people assume—

Voddie: Yes.

Phillip: —when they think about our relationship.

Voddie: Yes. And that can’t work because if I have to dictate—I mean, eventually, he’s going to marry my daughter; and they are going to go off and establish their home. If he’s dependent on me dictating, he’s not going to be able to lead—so, it can’t be that kind of relationship.

I’m trying to figure out where he is. So, after that, the two of them were allowed to have access to one another—after that eight-week process and, then—Bridget, do you want to— 

Bridget: I just wanted to say, from a wife’s perspective, Voddie always came back—and we had so many conversations about the process and just kind of helped me understand some things that I wasn’t quite getting.

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There was immense security for me. I know, as women, we crave that security; and we need to know every detail. I mean, he would get off the phone with Phillip: “What did he say? Okay, what did you say? Okay…” and that kind of thing, but he was very patient with me. There were things that he told me: “Well, I don’t think…”

Voddie: Say that again, baby—say that again.

Bridget: You were very patient with me.

Voddie: I like that. [Laughter]  I like that. You all heard that; right?  [Laughter]  Recording?—alright.

Bridget: And I think—even for Jasmine, there was just that security that she was going to be protected the entire process. He, also, protected me—there were just things that I didn’t need to know. I mean, he just told me, “Baby, I don’t think you need to know that right now; and maybe, we’ll get to that later.” 

Voddie: See, my job, at that time, was a little bit difficult because, while this vetting process was going on, there is still a question. During that eight-week process, the answer to Phillip could have been, “No.”

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I don’t want these guys to become too invested in Phillip before I’m pretty sure that Phillip is going to get a “Yes,” because I don’t want broken hearts in my house because, then, I become the bad guy because Phillip wasn’t the guy. So, there had to be a kind of balance between enough information and not too much information.

There’s another story about the impatience, but I won’t tell that story. [Laughter]  I won’t—yes, I will. [Laughter] So, toward the end, it’s pretty obvious that Phillip is doing well in this. After a while, it’s like: “He’s going to get the green light. They’re going to have access to one another, and this courtship is going to begin.”  Jasmine became just a tad impatient; you know?  “How many more meetings do you have to have?  I mean, it’s been…” however long—“da, da, da.”  I mean—just a tad impatient. [Laughter] 

And so, I had my last meeting with Phillip.

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I told him: “We’re done here. You’ve won me. Now, it’s time for you to go win her.”  Phillip texts Jasmine or calls Jasmine.

Jasmine: It was a text message.

Voddie: Yes, he sent her a text message, “When can we talk?”  Jasmine runs downstairs—

Jasmine: No, no, I threw the phone—

Voddie: Yes.

Jasmine: a—across the room—

Voddie: Yes.

Jasmine: —and ran downstairs.

Voddie: She threw the phone across the room, ran downstairs, and she looks at me and goes, “What did you do?!”  [Laughter]  And I said: “We’re done. He’s calling you.”  “I’m not ready!”  [Laughter]  “Wait, you said”—“I don’t care what I said!  I’m just not even…” So, there was that. [Laughter]

Jasmine: You were like, “I’m done. [Laughter] We can’t have this conversation.” 

Another story that is great is about—it was after your second visit. Phillip and I got into an argument. I was just like—I was so mad.

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I walked up and said, “Dad, Phillip said this; and I said that.”  He was like: “First of all, you’re wrong. Phillip’s right.”  He was like: “Secondly, this was a really arduous process for me. I don’t know if I have another one in me. So, if this doesn’t work…” [Laughter] 

Voddie: Yes.

Bridget: True story.

Voddie: True story—true story. So, March 25^th, you guys start this courtship, officially. June 11^th, you’re engaged. October 4^th, you’re married. So, what happens between that March 25^th and June 11^th date—because, at that time, we’re still in this thing together—there is still supervision—there is still input/follow-up.

Phillip: We just began to get to know each other like normal human beings. I think a lot of people—yes, again, they have this vision of somebody following us with a shotgun and just making me—

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—he’s like, “Yes,”—just waiting for me to make the wrong move—but we were able to—we weren’t legalistic about that process. We were able to spend time with one another; but, for the most part, it was supervised.

If push came to shove—and there wasn’t an opportunity for someone to be with us and it was reasonable—like running an errand during the daytime or something like that—we were able to do stuff like that. We just continued to get to know each other over the next few months. I think it was like two-and-a-half months that we were in the courtship process from there. Can you think of anything, babe? 

Jasmine: Yes, I mean, like he said—we just talked every day.

Phillip: There was a lot that Jasmine had learned about me and I learned about Jasmine through Pops. From there, it was about me also getting to know her family / her getting to know my family and friends—us going around the church community, as well, and allowing them to have access to me and to get to know me—and then, just, basically, dialoguing, back and forth, about very practical things.

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Voddie: Yes.

Phillip: There was a foundation that we knew that was already laid. We did not necessarily not talk about those things, but we wanted to see those things fleshed out—what are those things and those things that we believed were foundational: “What does that look like on a day-to-day basis?” 

Jasmine: Yes, and I think because of the nature of the process with my dad, he was just really focused in the process. It wasn’t—he was very serious, from the beginning. So, our first conversation—he was like, “Okay, well, I’ll call you back tonight at six.” At 5:59, my phone rings: “Hi, how are you doing?  How can I pray for you?  Okay, then. I’ll call you tomorrow morning at seven.”  It was like, “Okay!”  [Laughter] 

Phillip: It didn’t stay that way!  [Laughter] 

Jasmine: That’s definitely how it started out. You were very mission-minded at first. Then, as we got more relaxed—

Voddie: The church was involved in this process as well. So, the two of them would spend time around people in our church and in Phillip’s church—

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—with a view toward those people having an opportunity to speak into their lives and into this process as well. They wanted as many voices as they could have helping them and guiding them in this process. They wanted to be submitted to as much godly wisdom and counsel as they could be during this process.

Phillip: Even in the process, I was reminded that I wasn’t in/in. I was definitely a step closer to marriage—I think that’s key, too—but we weren’t done yet. I remember one time, when that reality was put before me that I wasn’t in/in. I was like, “[Huffing and puffing] But I thought we had…” [Laughter] Yes; so, it was—it continued to be a process. There was continual oversight. I think that’s important too.

I remember back on a lot of the dates—I now mourn over the way that I dated before—

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—and just thinking, “Do whatever it takes to get the girl,”—we will fight whoever, whenever, however to get the girl. If it means fighting the parents—and I remember how this courtship process really showed me how vital and how important the parents are—not just in the courtship process——but also in marriage as well.

They’ve been a huge blessing to us. Now, we are still reaping the benefits of having them be a part of our courtship—even now in our marriage. The fact that they know us—they’re not aggressive / he respects my household—but at the same time, when I need help, I know I can go and talk to him and the same goes for her as well. They are able to give us wisdom and biblical counsel and counseling insight.

Voddie: Hope this was helpful for you; yes?  [Applause] 

Audience member: What involvement, if any, in vetting her—or is that biblical? 

Voddie: Yes, that was the part of her spending time with his family.

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She did. She went and spent time with his family and with his church and people in his church. He’s from Mississippi. So, Jasmine went down there. We went, as well, to meet Phillip’s family. Then, Jasmine stayed there with his family for a while with that purpose in mind—for them to get to know her and to be a part of that process as well.

Audience member: Did they have contact during the eight weeks? 

Voddie: Did they have contact during the eight weeks that Phillip and I were—no. No, there was no contact between them during that time.

Audience member: But before that, they knew they liked each other? 

Voddie: But before that, did they know they liked each other?  Yes. Yes, that’s why we started that process, at that point—good question. So, Phillip wasn’t the only guy to contact me. There were guys after my daughter; okay. And most times, they would contact me; and Jasmine would say, “No.”  [Laughter] 

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So, I would go back to them and say, “No.”  [Laughter]  Yes.

Bob: So, I came up to ask my question on mike here; alright? 

Voddie: Yes; yes.

Bob: I want to know the circumstances under which you first reached out and held her hand. [Laughter] 

Phillip: My wife has an amazing memory. So, I’m going to let her tell that story. [Laughter] 

Jasmine: Actually, the first time he visited, he tried to hold my hand. I was like: “I’m sorry. I’m just not ready.”  He was like, “What?!”  [Laughter]  He took it really well and, then, I think it was your second visit—yes. It was his second visit, and I think my parents were actually in the room and—because we had been talking for weeks, at this point. They kind of looked at each other; and they were like, “Aw,” but that’s it.

Voddie: Yes, that’s it.

Jasmine: Yes.  

Voddie: Yes, that’s it. The first time he kissed her was at the altar.

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Bob: And that was the next thing I was going to ask. Phillip, did you purpose that intentionally, that you would not kiss her until the wedding kiss? 

Phillip: No, that wasn’t intentional. [Laughter] 

Voddie: That one had to be worked for; huh?—that one had to be worked for.

Bob: Was that just because anytime you thought about kissing her, all you could see was Voddie?—or was that—[Laughter]—just going to leave it at that; huh? 

Phillip: Exactly. [Laughter]

Bob: Voddie, I know a lot of—there are probably some dads, who are thinking, “I wish I’d done this, and I’ve got regret.”  What do you say to them? 

Voddie: All we have is today.

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There are a lot of things that I wish I had done differently, or that I had known, or this, that, or the other; but all we have is today. No one’s life is without error / no one’s life is without failure. I think we need to be reminded of that because, sometimes, we act as though, “Well, I’m no longer in the club of the fathers who haven’t made mistakes; therefore….”  There is no club of fathers who haven’t made mistakes. There is only one Father who hasn’t made mistakes, and His Son died for yours. So, again, we—that’s the first thing we have to do.

Then, the second thing is—we just have to take what we have and move from this point on. Sometimes, that involves going back and really repenting. One of the things that Jasmine is very familiar with is—her mom and me coming to her and her siblings and saying, “We blew it, and we’re sorry.

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“We want to ask you to please forgive us.”  Sometimes, we have to do that; and that’s okay—it’s actually healthy / it’s a good thing. It’s necessary because we do sin against one another and against our children.

So, you can’t fix yesterday / all you have is today. Yesterday may require some repentance, but we have to move forward.

Bob: And if you have a daughter, who is 22, 23, 24 years old, and she’s not bought in to what dad is suggesting and she’s going, “You know,—

Voddie: Yes.

Bob: —“I’m not going to go along with that.” As a dad, what do you do? 

Voddie: Yes, there is not a whole lot you can do, at that point, because, again, I think, as Jasmine pointed out, this is predicated on some things that come before.

Bob: Right.

Voddie: Oftentimes, what we end up having to do is go back and just acknowledge what it is that we’ve done, or we haven’t done, and what it is that we’ve lost—

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—and grieve that loss with them. There are times when God, by His grace, will allow you to move forward, from that point; but again, you can’t redo yesterday. All we have is today.

It may be that we come and we acknowledge our failure in that regard; and then, they say to us: “Yes; that’s fine, but that’s on you. I’m going to go do my thing.”  Then, at that point, we can say: “Okay, but know this—I understand my responsibility now—and I am in this with you if nothing more than just praying for you in this process. I’m asking you—I’m asking you to please open the door, to the degree that you are able to, to allow me to be a part of this and know that I’m here to be a part of this.” 
 

[Studio] 

Bob: Well, again, we’ve been listening to what was shared during a morning devotion, just a few weeks ago, onboard the Love Like You Mean It marriage cruise—

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—Voddie Baucham, and his wife Bridget, and his son-in-law, Phillip Holmes, and his daughter, Jasmine—all talking about how a young couple goes from interested, to engaged, to husband and wife.

Dennis: And he’s the only other guy, Bob, that I think I’ve ever heard talk about walking through some really pointed conversations with a young man, who’s about to get your daughter’s hand in marriage, and really giving some instructions to fathers as to how to fulfill your role as being a protector / a provider—looking out for the best interest of your daughter.

It occurred on the Love Like You Mean It cruise, and I want our listeners to know that we’re over 50 percent booked on the Love Like You Mean It marriage cruise. I want to encourage you—if you want to go, you better book your stateroom fast because this will sell out.

Bob: Yes, all of our previous cruises have sold out. This year, we’re spending an extra day—

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—we’re going to Jamaica and Grand Cayman. I’ve asked the team if they could put together some kind of special offer for FamilyLife Today listeners. So, this week, we are making available staterooms at the lowest cost that will be available throughout the year. If you are interested in signing up today, you’ll get the lowest rate that’s going to be available for the Love Like You Mean It marriage cruise.

Go to FamilyLifeToday.com. Click the link in the upper left-hand corner of the screen that says, “GO DEEPER.” You’ll find the information about the Love Like You Mean It cruise there. Again, it’s FamilyLifeToday.com. If you have any questions, you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY—1-800-358-6329. That’s 1-800- “F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then, the word, “TODAY.”  Just say, “I’m interested in more information about the Love Like You Mean It marriage cruise.” We’ll answer any questions you have or make arrangements to get you signed up so you can join us, Valentine’s week, next year.

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Maybe, you’ve got a special event coming up—an anniversary that ends in a zero or a five that you want to celebrate in a special way. We’d love to have you join us. Again, more information is at FamilyLifeToday.com; or call 1-800-FL-TODAY.

Now, tomorrow, we’ll hear a special FamilyLife Today program that was recorded onboard the Love Like You Mean It marriage cruise with Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife Mary Beth. We’ll hear a brand-new song from Steven Curtis Chapman as well. So, hope you can tune in for that.

I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I’m Bob Lepine. We will see you back tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas.

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