We are on vacation this week, so we are sharing some of our most read posts with you. We’ll be back with you live on Monday, March 22.

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I have to be honest and say that I have wrestled with this final post all week. Trisha and I have intentionally saved this final mistake for tonight. I am not a psychologist and I am not a counselor…heck…I am not even a pastor at this point in my life. But here is what I believe with ALL of my heart…every single mistake that we have talked about thus far are simply SYMPTOMS of this final mistake. So often in the church, in our relationships, and in our own personal walk with God it is much easier to treat the symptoms of our problem than to identify and treat the problem itself. This post is as honest and as vulnerable as I can be and I hope it inspires you to fight for this principle in your marriage.

When I graduated Bible College, I had such big dreams for my role in the Kingdom of God. I wanted to be used by God to change the world. I didn’t daydream about getting married, starting a family, moving to a suburb of Indianapolis to launch a church with 12 people that would grow to over 700 people, only to have an affair, and lose everything. When we were charting our future and our plans, that wasn’t something that I envisioned for our future. Who ever envisions their life, their marriage or their ministry going that way? Not recognizing this mistake paved the way for the previous seven mistakes and almost cost me my relationship with God and my relationship with my wife and kids.

#8- I bought into the lie that by withholding truth from my wife I was saving her and my marriage from needless pain.

When Trisha and I began counseling, we went to fix the brokenness caused by the affair. But what I began to see was a pattern of withholding truth from my wife. The affair was what got the attention…it got the headlines…but it was only the outcome of years and years of withholding truth from Trisha. I had so much brokenness in my heart and so much hurt in my past that I had never discussed with her. I experienced sexual abuse as a child, and never talked about it with her. I had an addiction to pornography that I struggled with for 10 years that not only did I not admit, I flat out told her that I didn’t struggle with sexual sins and lustful thoughts like other guys did. I struggled with pride and arrogance…but not those sexual sins.

Here is what I have learned about this principle of withholding truth. You and I were created to be ONE with our spouse. God says that we “will leave our father and our mother and we will become ‘one flesh’”. When you withhold truth from the one that God has ordained in your life for you to be ONE with, there is something that gets fractured in that relationship. I don’t care if the withholding of truth is small or if it is significant, that “oneness” is compromised. What happens is that we learn as married couples to live with the absence of God given “oneness”. We learn to live with the version of oneness that we can create. But for so many couples, distance in our relationship with our spouse becomes the norm and we just resign to the fact that this must be as good as it will ever get. What I want to tell you tonight is that you are buying into a lie that is straight from the pit of hell. We convince ourselves that if we share these dark parts of our heart that we will lose everything, but by not sharing it, we begin to lose everything. That is not how your Heavenly Father longs for your marriage to be…he longs for unity and holiness and oneness.

When we started on this journey 3 ½ years ago, this was a huge step for us. But we have both committed to not withholding anything from one another and for this to work for you it will take a commitment by both you and your spouse. Sometimes it will be painful. It isn’t easy to sit up until 2 AM talking about struggles, fears and past mistakes…it sucks! But we have found it is MUCH more painful to withhold those things from one another and would rather have pain in the short term and intimacy in the long term.

Maybe for you, like me you struggle with being a truth teller. Maybe you have denied your weakness or you haven’t come clean about your addiction or shameful habit. Maybe you haven’t even gone there with your spouse because you are afraid of their answer. Maybe you have withheld a truth from your spouse since the day you met…maybe you had sex with someone in college that you have never told your spouse about…maybe you have charged up the credit cards and you have kept your spouse in the dark about your finances…maybe you have lost your job and it is over at the end of this quarter and you are too ashamed to share that with your spouse…maybe you have feelings for someone in your office…and you think you can handle it.

When we withhold TRUTH from our spouse, as hurtful as we think that truth might be, we forfeit intimacy and oneness. As we come to the close of our blog series, I want to encourage you to trust in the power of God in this area and allow him to restore a level of oneness an intimacy to your relationship that you both crave. It will cost you something now, but what you will gain in the end will be more than you could ask or imagine.

We are on vacation this week, so we are sharing some of our most read posts with you. We’ll be back with you live on Monday, March 22.

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I have been praying about this post the past few days…praying that God allows me to communicate my heart in a way that makes sense and helps provoke a change of perspective.

Over the past five months there has been a trending topic that has lead hundreds of people to our blog. The #1 search topic this month on Google that has caused people to click on our blog is this search phrase: “Facebook destroyed my marriage.” While I am thankful that people who type in this phrase end up on our blog, the statement itself is so NOT true.

We have conditioned ourselves to, more often than not, treat the symptoms of our problem, rather than the problem itself. Can I just say as candidly and as lovingly as I can…Facebook doesn’t destroy anything. Facebook didn’t destroy your marriage. Facebook might be the most visible symptom of the sickness that took root in your marriage, but Facebook didn’t destroy it.

-Lack of commitment might have destroyed it
-Selfishness might have destroyed it
-Not letting go of the past might have destroyed it
-Unwillingness to forgive might have destroyed it
-Lack of sexual purity might have destroyed it
-Not committing to telling the truth at all costs might have destroyed it
-Being more in love with your job than your wife might have destroyed it
-Finding your identity in your career, your looks, your wealth, your status might have destroyed it
-Settling for co-existing rather than pursuing intimacy might have destroyed it

(You can read the list of the things that Destroyed My Marriage Here)

My guess is that your marriage was in trouble long before Facebook. Do I think that Facebook can be used as a means of escape, a way to live in a fantasy world, an opportunity to reconnect with former relationships that could get between you and your spouse? Absolutely.

But, if you are seeking to escape from your spouse rather than pursuing your spouse…Facebook isn’t your problem. If you are looking for a way to reconnect with the girl you took to prom your junior year instead of treating your wife like the prom queen, Facebook isn’t your problem. If you need to create an alternate personality, an online persona, and a profile that impresses some guy in Fargo, North Dakota more than the real you impresses your husband…Facebook isn’t your problem.

What would it look like for men and women to come clean and be honest and vulnerable and transparent with their wife or husband, no matter the cost? Could Facebook destroy that kind of commitment? How powerful would it be for husbands to love their wives with the sacrifice and unselfishness that Christ had for the Church…could Facebook simulate that? How unappealing would some girlfriend from 20 years ago be if wives were determined to honor and respect their husbands as unto the Lord?

I am not saying there aren’t some inherent dangers to online social networks. But, I am saying they aren’t the cause of your problems, they just accelerate the visual evidence of your problems.

I may have opened up a can here, but I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject? Can Facebook destroy your marriage?

When you’ve been a Christian most of your life, you learn to live with grace. By living with it, I mean you appreciate it, you acknowledge that you need it once in a while and you count on it when you’ve messed up, but you aren’t impressed with it. After your initial contact with Jesus, graces loses its juice, its shine fades away.

If you are like me, you actually begin to believe that God is getting a good deal with you. You are a good person. You have a good job. You lead a good life. You raise a good family. You attend a good church. You give a good amount of your time and money. You are a low maintenance Christian. Grace is one dimensional, like Jesus on the flannel graphs in Sunday School.

Jesus said it best when he said “He who has been forgiven of much, loves much. But he who has been forgiven of little loves little” Most of us who have been forgiven of much, live like we’ve been forgiven of little…so we love little…we appreciate little…we are amazed by little.

That all changed for me in October of 2005…grace went from assumed to amazing…and I’ll never be the same.

What I find so amazing about grace is that God not only gives it when I need it the most, He gives it when I deserve it the least. I can’t do anything to earn it. I can impress him enough with my good deeds or my Bible knowledge to get more of it. Grace is offered and poured out over me when I desperately need it and when I least deserve it.

There was a time that I thought I’d never be forgiven…grace. There was a time I thought my marriage was over…grace. There was a time I thought my kids would hate me and resent me…grace. There was a time that I thought I’d never be used by God again…grace. There was a time I thought my ministry life was over…grace.

That is where I am today…amazed by grace. I’m amazed by God’s faithfulness when I’m not faithful. I’m amazed by God’s love when I’m not lovable. I’m amazed by God’s goodness when I’m not good.

Grace…unmerited favor…it is amazing.

When is the last time you have stood in awe of grace?

As we come to this post, I am so thankful for my wife sharing her heart in Part 6. Forgiveness and reconciliation are a process, and this has been a 4 year journey to get to where we are today. There have been so many highs and lows, but through it all God has sustained us and hasn’t just improved our marriage, but has totally recreated our marriage. Hopefully, God has used the journey we have been on (and continue to be on) to encourage your heart and refine your marriage.

That brings us to this mistake that almost destroyed our marriage…

#7- We forgot to focus on all of the reasons why we loved each other.

The day after we separated, I went into a counseling appointment not knowing if I wanted to stay married. I will be very honest and say that I was in a dark place. I sat down in the chair and the counselor asked me “Why do you not want to be married to your wife?” With out even thinking I was able to rattle off all of the things that Trisha did that got on my nerves. I had thought and meditated on all of the ways that Trisha made me angry, all of the habits that she had that drove me crazy. After I got done, the counselor looked at me and said “Wow…she sounds awful. I can believe you would fall in love with someone like that. Why did you ever marry her in the first place.?”

When we were dating our spouse, we had an alternative perspective of our differences. We spent most of the time we weren’t with one another thinking about how their differences and their idiosyncrasies would improve our life or make us more complete. We thought about how cute their laugh was or how we loved their carefree attitude and their laid back style. We told them how much we loved how organized they were or how we admired their assertiveness. We loved how close they were to their mom, we admired that they had a desire to succeed in their job. When we were dating we laughed off the clothes that were all over the floor in their closet; we thought it was cute how they were always running 10 minutes late. So much of who they were complimented everything we were not…and that was what caused us to fall in love.

But at some point in our marriage, the very things we fell in love with became the very things that we couldn’t stand about our spouse. The things that we felt like completed us now drive us crazy and cause arguments and resentment. At some point in our marriages, it became much easier to focus on the faults of our spouse, rather than the things that we love about them.

A few days after my first counseling appointment, I went back and the counselor asked me spend some time over the weekend and think of at least fifty things that I love about my wife. I was nervous as I left her office that I wouldn’t be able to think of that many things. I went back to the house where I was staying and began to make a list of the all of the things that I loved about my wife. I realized a couple of things that afternoon:

1. Some things that I had allowed to get on my nerves were the very things that I loved about how God had created her.
   2. My depth of love for my wife grew deeper the more I meditated and thought about all of the attributes I loved.

I have talked to so many couples that are struggling in their relationship and they are so quick to list several things that their spouse does that drive them nuts. When I ask, “What do you absolutely adore about your spouse. I know what pisses you off…but what brings you joy?” The predominate response I hear is “Wow…I haven’t thought about that for a long time.”

I make it a point every week to tell my wife the things that I love about her. Sometimes I write them in a note and put that note by the coffee maker. Sometimes I send it in a text message. Sometimes I write it in erasable marker on our mirror. Last Valentine’s Day, I typed up 30 things that I love about Trisha and cut them into strips of paper and put them in a red box for her to read one per day for the next 30 days.

How could your relationship grow and change if you chose to focus on everything you love about your spouse. Maybe the things you dislike would be taken care of because your spouse would feel so loved and so valued that they would desire to value you in return by addressing the habits you have been griping about for years. So often we think that reminding one another how imperfect we are will bring about change. Change comes out of a loving relationship that shows mutual respect and admiration. So allow me to save you a trip to counseling and pass along a homework assignment: Before this weekend is over, sit down and list at least 20 things you love about your spouse. Even if you never share it, I guarantee you that YOU will be changed by doing so…and if you choose to share it, your spouse will be changed too.

When everything melted down with our marriage in 2005, I had a lot of time to reflect and evaluate all the small mistakes that I made that led to the affair. What we realized was the affair was just a symptom of much deeper issues in my life. A few months after we got back together a friend said something to me that I’ll never forget that has changed the way that I live to this day:

“When your giftedness outweighs your character, implosion is on the horizon.”

What I realized is that I had spent so much of my life focused on becoming a better leader, a better communicator, a more gifted vision caster…over and over and over again I had neglected to grow my character at the same rate I was developing my gifts.

When you and I are more committed to gifts and talents and personality and ability than we are to character, it isn’t a matter of IF your life will implode, it is a matter of WHEN your life will implode.

The problem is character isn’t usually what impresses people at first. People are more impressed with good leadership ability than they are character. People are more impressed with a dynamic personality than they are character. People notice a strong worth ethic more than they do strong ethics. People drool over a person’s speaking ability and ability to motivate others to action than they do his/her character.

You want to know the biggest reason we sacrifice character development for talent development? We can fake character. You can’t fake talent, you either have it or you don’t…but you can fake integrity. We can cover up our inner junk. We can pretend away moral compromise and we can use our giftedness to cast such a large shadow over our lack of character development, no one notices.

Maybe you have a relationship that’s in trouble because you haven’t grown your character. You’ve relied on your ability to talk your way out of things and persuade and those chances have run out. Maybe your marriage is in trouble because you have consistently compromised integrity and neglected character because you could get away with it. Maybe you have trouble holding down a job because you can impress them with your ability, until they discover your character.

This is a principle that you can’t get away from. It took it 10 years to catch up with me; and man how I wish I had stopped running from it 9 years earlier. It would have been much less painful.

When your gifts, talents, personality, ability outweigh your character, implosion is on the horizon.

Do you struggle like me to develop your character at the same rate you develop your gifts?