Building a Son-in-Law

Bob:  You don’t see that when you’re in the dating stage because it seems like, “We have so much in common;” but you don’t see the struggle that is ten years down the road for you. 

Dennis:  I want to rewind this tape; and I’m not going to ask you to go through what the Gospel is, again, Voddie

Bob:  Although it would be sweet to hear it.  It was great!

Dennis:  I was back in seminary class. [Laughter]

Bob:  I was just saying, “Hallelujah, hallelujah!”

Dennis:    I really was.  He was going through it—Genesis to Revelation—it was right there!

There is, undoubtedly, a dad who is listening right now; and he is going, “Now, wait a second, Voddie.  First of all, I’m kind of making a hard-sell with my daughter because I didn’t do it like you did.  I didn’t start out when she was a little girl, talking about this whole concept.  She’s 16, 17, 18, maybe 20 years old.  Now, I’m going to intercept her life around this issue and the young man she brings to me?  He’s not going to be able to articulate the Gospel, as you just did. In fact, as I talk to him—the more I talk to him, I don’t find that he is a follower of Christ.  I don’t find that he knows God whatsoever.”

At that point, you may need to do what I did because this is a real story with me.  One of the young men that came around—I ended up taking him out on the porch and went through the Gospel with him and led him through “The Four Spiritual Laws”.  He indicated a decision to become a follower of Christ, at that point.  

Voddie:  Yes.

Dennis:  Okay?  So dads need to be armed, at this point, to be able to pick up young men where they are.  Just because a young man doesn’t believe—it may be a great opportunity to lead a young man to Christ.

Voddie:  Absolutely; absolutely.  If you can’t find one, build one.  If you can’t find one, build one. Here’s the other thing—even if you’re not building one for your daughter, —

Dennis:  There you go; sure.

Voddie:  —don’t be so selfish—that this guy comes, and he’s not the guy for your daughter—that you just throw him away, but you have an opportunity in that young man’s life.  The other thing, of course, is we need to make sure that we are building our sons. 

You want to talk about hypocrisy?  Hypocrisy is, “Here’s the standard, way up here, for the guy who would marry my daughter; but here’s the standard, way down here, for the way that I’m raising my sons.”  That’s hypocrisy.

Dennis:  Yes.

Bob:  As you shared that story, Dennis, I’m thinking of a dad who says, “Okay, then if I take him out on the back porch, and share the Gospel with him, and he indicates that he trusts Christ, then everything is—[Laughter]

Dennis:  Oh, no.  No, no—no, no.  He’s not in, at that point.  He may be inside the gate, in terms of a conversation—

Bob:  And you may need to see that borne out in his life.

Dennis:  Oh my goodness, yes!  Here’s the problem with marriage today—and, Voddie, you’re a pastor.  I want you to comment on this.  People are getting married today with a God-consciousness that is everywhere from a thimbleful—

Bob:  It’s squishy.

Dennis:  —they don’t know who God is!  If you don’t know who God is, then you don’t know who you are. How can you build a marriage without God being the builder of that home, and without you knowing Him and teaching you how to love another imperfect person?  I mean, this is all about building marriages that go the distance; right?

Voddie:  Listen, when I was a young man—and I’ve said this before—[I was] raised by a single teenage Buddhist mother in drug-infested, gang-infested south central Los Angeles, California.  When I got old enough to get into what Winnie the Pooh would call a small "smackerel" of trouble, she shipped me out.  [Laughter]  I went and lived for a year and a half in Buford, South Carolina, with my uncle, who was a retired drill instructor in the Marine Corps.  [Laughter]  So, I got out of trouble. 

Bob:   He wasn’t fully retired.  I bet, when Voddie came to live with him, he kind of got re-enlisted; right?

Voddie:  Oh, baby!  Here’s the thing—I remember so many things that my uncle told me.  Here’s one that I will never forget, “If you don’t know the purpose of a thing, you will eventually abuse it.”  Now, he was talking about a weapon, or a tool, or whatever—probably teaching me how to hunt, and all this stuff. 

“If you don’t know the purpose of a thing, you will eventually abuse it.”  The problem with people who have, as you say, that thimbleful of God- consciousness—they come into marriage and don’t know the purpose of the thing.  Therefore, they will eventually abuse it.  They will turn it into something to satisfy their own needs, as opposed to something that will bring glory to God and satisfy the needs of their partner.  

Dennis:  Right.

Voddie:  They will turn it into something for their status.  They will turn it into something for whatever—but they will abuse it.  A man who doesn’t know the purpose of a wife will abuse his wife.  A woman who doesn’t know the purpose of a husband will abuse her husband.   It is extremely important that we have this biblical understanding of what a man is, what a woman is, what marriage is, what a husband’s role is, what a wife’s role is.  Again, this goes back—and I know we’ve said it again, and again, and again; but we can’t say it enough—this is not just about the issue of courtship.  This is much bigger than that. 

Dennis:  Yes, and you haven’t been to the Weekend to Remember® marriage getaway. We were laughing about that, before we came in here to the studio; but you don’t know this—we spend an hour, at the conference, talking about the three purposes of God for marriage—why He created it—that there is something bigger taking place in a marriage relationship than getting your own needs met.  

Voddie:  Yes.

Dennis:  Then, we take an hour for the husbands—actually, two hours—

Bob:  An hour and a half; yes.

Dennis:  —with the husbands and an hour and a half for the wives—giving them their job description—their biblical purpose as a husband and a wife, and then helping them know how to make that relationship work—two imperfect people, for a lifetime. 

Voddie:  Yes.

Dennis:  You know what, Voddie?  It works. 

Voddie:  Amen!

Dennis:  People’s lives are changed at these conferences.  You’re exactly right.  If you don’t know the purpose of something, you are not going to experience God’s best, either.  

Bob:  Well, we see this at the Weekend to Remember.  We spend time talking about the purpose for marriage.  For a lot of couples, it’s like the lights come on, as they begin to understand that there’s more to this than what they thought when they got married.  Most of us, when we got married—we thought, “This is going to make me happy.”  That was our primary motivation.  When you start to see there’s a divine purpose—a divine design—it does make a big difference. 

There’s information available on our website about the Weekend to Remember marriage getaways that we host, all around the country.  We’re right in the middle of our fall season for Weekend to Remember getaways, right now.  Go to FamilyLifeToday.com for more information on how you can attend one of these getaways.

While we’re talking about events, let me also mention an event that Voddie is actually going to be a part of with us that’s taking place in February of 2013.  We’re calling it the Stepping Up^™ Super Saturday event.  This is a day-long event for men—a video event—that can be hosted in churches or in other locations in communities, all across the country, on 2-2-13, February 2^nd, 2013.  That’s Super Saturday, the day before the Super Bowl.   We’re encouraging you to get guys together and rally them to step up and be the men that God is calling them to be.

Along with Voddie, guys are going to hear from Matt Chandler, and Robert Lewis, Tony Dungy, Mark Driscoll, Bill Bennett, Crawford Loritts, Dennis Rainey.  It’s a great, one-day event for men, available on DVD.  In fact, right now, if listeners will contact us this month—you contact us and say, “I’ll host one of these” —and anybody can host it—if you will sign up and let us know the location of where your event is going to be, we’ll ship you the DVD kit, at no cost.  Now, you can’t sign up online.  In order to do this, we have to talk to you.  Call 1-800-FL-TODAY; or you can go online if you’d like more information.  Go to FamilyLifeToday.com and click on the “Super Saturday” link you find there.  It will take you to an area of the web where you can get more information so that you can look this over and decide if it’s something that you’d like to do.

Let me just tell you, the content is powerful—the workbook for guys.  It’s a great event.  Again, go to FamilyLifeToday.com for more information about the Stepping Up Super Saturday event on 2-2-13—February 2^nd, 2013.  Call if you’d like to receive the kit.  Call 1-800-FL-TODAY; 1-800-358-6329. 

By the way, I should mention that Voddie is going to be with us on the Love Like You Mean It^™ marriage cruise in February of 2013, as well.  We still have a handful of cabins available for the cruise.  If you’d like more information about that, go to FamilyLifeToday.com, as well.

Finally, a quick word of thanks to those of you who help support the ministry of FamilyLife Today with your donations.  You help cover the cost for producing and syndicating this program, which is considerable.  We appreciate those of you who help defray that by making occasional contributions to help with this ministry.  This month, if you’re able to make a donation to help support us, we’d like to send you your choice of either The Remarriage Check-up book by Ron Deal, or a couple of audio CDs where we talk with Ron about what smart stepmoms do and what smart stepdads do.

Those resources are our thank-you gift this month when you help support the ministry of FamilyLife Today.  We appreciate your support.  Go to FamilyLifeToday.com and click the button that says, “I CARE”.   After you have made your donation, you can select the resource you’d like to receive; or call 1-800-FL-TODAY.  Make your donation over the phone, and be sure to ask about the step- or blended family resources.  We’ll let you know what’s available and how you can receive the one that’s best for you or the one that you might want to pass on to someone you know.  Again, let me just say, “Thanks for your support of the ministry.  We appreciate your partnership with us.”

And we want to encourage you to be back with us again tomorrow.  Voddie Baucham is going to be here again.  We’re going to talk about those times when dads have to make some unpopular decisions.  They have to keep their daughter on their team, even when they’re saying, “No, you’re not going to date that guy.”  We’ll talk about that tomorrow.  Hope you can be with us.

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

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

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