Equally Yoked

Equally Yoked

Sometimes we \
just hang on.

This isn't an identical double...and it isn't a stick to beat the other over the head for if they don't take out the trash.  This is a complementary, God-intended design for marriage.  Our roles come from our strengths, and we should lean into those strengths and gifts to help ensure that we're living our best lives...and giving our best lives to our spouses.  When we talk equally yoked...there are parts of life that have to be equally yoked.  While I'm not sure about pineapple as a pizza topping, this might be one of the categories you have to agree on for a marriage to last and thrive; others are for sure.  

Balance is 
the key to
success.

The "big rocks" of life, starting with our faith, are the ones that we have to be on the same page on toward the beginning.  We also have to keep working to get closer throughout our marriage.  Are we going to church?  If so, what "kind" of church?  How often?  Are we going to get married in a church?  Do pre-marital counseling with clergy?  Are we going to raise our kids in church like things (MomCo, Awana, Trail Life, Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, etc)?  What does faith look like in our home?  Walking the walk and talking the talk?  When things are going great at home...what does faith look like?  How about when they're crashing and burning?  Are we going to do (or lead) small groups?  By getting a foundation of faith right (and it's a negotiation, a series of conversations), straight from the outset...the rest of our together life that we build is on bedrock.  

Just the right
balance to 
make it on fire.

When we look at the reasons that too many couples end up getting divorced, it's most often on the "big rocks" of life...not the pizza/pineapple debate sort of things...but if you've got that much conviction, "good on ya."  Part of the "leaving and cleaving" that the Bible talks about is about this phase of life as we leave the nest, find a mate, and start building a life together.  It's important to spend our dating time (and our engagement) becoming "the person I'm looking for is looking for" as Andy Stanley puts it.  In other words, if you want to live a "big rock" life involving the church, good with kids, physically fit/active, responsible adult, lifelong learner, and so forth...spend time cultivating those skills in yourself.  Also, when it comes time to look for a lover...look in the places those sorts of people tend to congregate.  In other words, you've got fish in the right place, with the right kind of bait to catch the fish you're hoping for.  

It's all about
balance and
teamwork.

Another of the "big rocks" in the foundation includes your finances.  Again, this doesn't mean we can't be an "opposites attract" spender/saver...most couples have someone who tends towards each end of the stick...that's okay.  The equally yoked/on the same page is on the big stuff.  Are we going to buy a house?  Pay off our house early?  Drive paid for cars?  Dress well...but not the brand new fashion every week?  Rack up debt and spend on credit?  Finance is a series of decisions, lifestyles, and tools.  Legendary finance figure, Dave Ramsey, talks about a series of baby steps that lead to "financial peace" as an end state...that's hard to argue against as a goal for your family.  Are you equally yoked on the "permission" to call each other out when it starts getting turbulent?  Second month you miss paying off the balance in full - timeout, huddle, new plan?  

Keep the different
parts in check.

Another space that tends to be potentially rocky is the division of labor/roles at home.  The traditional gender roles seem to work pretty well over time.  That said, any combination or recipe can work if you're on the same page about it.  We've got folks in our circles where he's the stay-at-home dad and she's the big shot attorney.  We've got other folks who both work and juggle kids around the edges.  We've got others where he's gone all the time, and she cashes the checks.  The friction comes when both partners are not on the same page in terms of roles, tempo, speed, duration, and perhaps most importantly, expectations.  The hubby (or wife) who is sprinting full tilt to set the family up financially will not be tickled when the other is shooting holes in the boat with unchecked spending.  On the other side, the spouse who got left behind while the other fell in love with their career may ask, "What's all this sacrifice for?"  The point here is to have the perfect combination...it's to have open dialogue and share a set of expectations.

It's all about
the expectations.  

Perhaps one of the other "big rocks" is the idea of lifestyle and "addictions."  Sure, we can all likely agree that we don't want to be tethered to someone smoking crack under the bridge in an ideal world.  We may not be so vocal, however, about the spouse who spends more time at the office than at home.  Our addictions can sink us.  While some are perhaps healthier than others...or at least we tell ourselves that - Packers Football, hitting the gym three times a day, an extra job that fills a financial gap.  Perhaps those are excusable...or even embraceable...to a point before "too much of a good thing" still becomes too much.  On the other side of the coin, marriage isn't the fix-it-all cure in a can for serious, more problematic addictions - substance abuse, pornography, social media, etc.  

You have to stop
and get the mud off
every so often.

For those of us who have been married for a while, it's important to keep working toward being equally yoked in the new seasons of life together.  As our children grow up, what does school look like?  Empty nester - what's the ideal day/week/month?  Retirement - go-go, slow-go, no-go lifestyle?  Taking care of aging parents?  As these new chapters of life come to pass, it's important that we stay on the same page through conversation and open dialogue.  When we model the spirit of discussion to our children, it reinforces how to have disagreements and come to a negotiated consensus.  As we work toward a continuous, equally yoked equilibrium, life goes pretty smoothly.  When we grow apart because we get out of balance...there's a whole newly emerging phenomenon, "gray divorce" occurring.  We don't just have to get it right at the beginning of our relationship journey...we have to keep getting it right all along the path.

Have a shared
vision on the
trail.

Perhaps, to sum this all up, or take a stab at summing it all up, equally yoked, largely in my mind, is shared expectations.  Are we going to spend our holidays here or there?  Will we take care of aging in-laws at the expense of our kids?  Will we vacation in a tent or a high-rise downtown?  Will we homeschool our kids?  For each family, there is a balance of right answers to all of life's questions.  The important part (besides Packers' Football and pineapples on pizza) is that we, as spouses, commit to honest, open, routine dialogue where we bring our hearts and opinions to the table... no strings attached...and make a shared vision/plan.  As you take off this week, consider where the turbulent air is on your cruising flight through marriage.  Instead of detouring around it, have a conversation that works towards a shared conclusion...and fly right on ahead...together...without the pineapples.  

With you in the arena, from ours to yours...Happy Trails!

Call to Action: 

• Pick out three things that have stressed you out where you feel the angst of being non-equally yoked.  Schedule a time this week to sit down and start the conversation.  
• 1 - ___________________ 
• 2 - ___________________
• 3 - ___________________
• Discussion: Consider what you/your family could/would/should (level of commitment) and start/stop/sustain (action) in terms of those items above.  Figure out how to make a plan...better yet, a system to tackle these issues from being issues in the future.  

Further Reading, Motivation, and References:

- Andy Stanley Right Person Myth

- Joe Sangl Oxen - pastoral-focused, personal finance guru using oxen and the yoke to explain personal finance.

You'll Be Dead...

You'll Be Dead...

The rocks will
still be there.

You'll be Dead Soon...that's how the world works.  In the Elite Motivate video below, the speaker points out the reality that 100 years from now, you'll be gone, someone else will be living in your home (or it'll be gone and replaced), your cars will be in a junk yard, your kids will be old or gone, and your great-great-grandchildren won't know much of anything about you.  Chances are, no one else will remember you.  And...that's okay.  That's how the world works.  Our place in the world is small and temporary.  That doesn't mean we shouldn't live our best life...to the contrary, because it's small and short, it's a calling to live our best life...to choose that every day.    

Sit on them...take it
all in when you can.

The point in the video is that because all of it is so fleeting, it should be freeing.  Think about all of the things that currently have you stressed out...not one of those things will matter in 100 years.  Most of the worries you have are trivial when you zoom out the timeline perspective.  Mark Twain summed it up, "I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened."  It's so easy to get wrapped up in the "small stuff," as the Don't Sweat It... series of books puts it.  I get it...today, when time is sitting on your shoulders, there are realities of paying the mortgage, getting that project done at work, and keeping up on the honey-do list.  But...I also get it...you'll be dead...soon...in the grand scheme of things.  

Climb on them.

There are not a ton of timeless things - God, nature, not much else comes to mind.  Even our human ancestors are mostly fleeting...the Egyptian Pyramids, maybe a few fossil-style footprints in New Mexico, a few finger paintings on a cave wall, not much else remains from the time before time.  Think about your work here on earth as an employee...how much would remain six months after you switched jobs?  There are file cabinets filling storage units of "stuff" that was generated, then the "new guy/gal" changed it when they came along.  It's been said our work lives are like a bucket of water...put your hand in there, when you pull it out, look for the hole that remains.  

Crawl up them. 

As a husband and father now, I've gotten (and try to embrace) the responsibilities of being an adequate protector and provider for our family.  I've stressed and fretted and chased the opportunities I thought that would best position our family for long-term success.  We've made decisions about jobs, homes, cars, lifestyles, and everything else that seemed monumental and critical in the moment.  In reality, when we zoom out to the 100-year marker...none of those really matter.  Which job we had, where we lived, which car we drove, and so forth...none of those really matter.  What might matter is how we raised our children, which values we passed on, and what habits and lifestyles our children embraced.  Perhaps, those things will get translated to their children, and their children's children.  

Look at them.

I remember a conversation with my dad several years back where he was reflecting on who he was at my age...and how my children and I would never know "that him."  He was no longer the flyfisherman, elk hunter, softball player, guy who could carry a backpack a long way to get just the right photo.  His youth was dead...sacrificed and killed off to become the provider for my mom and siblings.  We each make our own decisions, and we each have our own responsibilities that fall upon us in life.  My kids will never know "that man" who is now grandpa.  In thinking through it, I'd take off a lot of hats (line firefighter, parachuter, farm/ranch hand, military member, etc) by the time our children came around.  Those parts of me were long gone (dead) as a new me was born right alongside our children.  

Study them.

In thinking through this week's conversation, I think it's a reminder to put the right size and right direction, and focus our efforts on what will matter most.  It's easy to say in a vacuum here, without the "realities" of the situation.  I get that.  I also get that we can shut off the ball game and snuggle up to read with our children.  We can say "no" to guys' night and go do a campfire in the backyard.  We can forget that we'll be tired in the morning at work...and go camp out in the tree house.  We can say "no" to the new car upgrade and build the treehouse...so that we can learn skills together, bond...and have a place to go camping in the backyard.  Those things are very doable.  We can work in the little moments to not let our previous selves completely die off... Grandpa was a fisherman, Dad was a fisherman, so I should probably take our children fishing.  And...if you do it right...you can probably "see" those old men standing beside us while we drown a few worms in the creek...and that might be what it's all about.  

With you in the arena, from ours to yours...Happy Trails!

Call to Action: 

• Pick out a few changes you'll make today...that will change your family tree.
• 1 - ___________________ 
• 2 - ___________________
• 3 - ___________________
• Discussion: Consider what you/your family could/would/should (level of commitment) and start/stop/sustain (action) in terms of impacting the long lasting parts of life. 

Further Reading, Motivation, and References:

- Elite Motivate Video

Fail, Parents, Fail

Fail, Parents, Fail

Failure is a huge thing for kids...and for everyone, for that matter.  It sucks in the moment, but those lessons

In the moment...it sucks.

are the ones that help us build strength, resiliency, and capacity.  We, as modern parents, are tending to shelter and shield our children from failure, or perhaps from the consequences of failure, more now than ever before.  Our kids have a couple of "dangerous playgrounds" that they really like to go to in a couple of neighboring small towns...they're the ones we grew up with.  Now, all of the playgrounds everywhere are engineered to be almost "hurt-proof," and things like merry-go-rounds, metal slides, big-jump swings, and the like are gone and gone.  I'm not advocating with a "hurt the kids" banner here...but I am saying we, they, all of us, could use more failure in our lives.  

Team failures have 
lessons learned too.

Tom Brady, the winningest NFL quarterback, 7-time Super Bowl winner...and 199th overall pick when he was drafted recently, spoke with Fortune.  One quote that stood out was, "They have to show up every day with a good attitude, humble when things go well, curious to learn more when they don't go well."  When we normalize losing and stop coddling, we open a door of possibility and growth for our children.  Think about your life - have you learned more when everything went well...or when it crashed down?  In the disaster world, we talk about "successes and lessons learned."  Through the things that don't work out in our favor, the first time, or at all, we tend to create the motivation and action plan for improvement.  

Failure stacks up. 
And we get better.

Brady went on to say, "We've all faced different challenges in life; we've all faced our own adversities.  Look at the hardest things that have ever happened.  We look back at those and realize they're the best things that could've happened."  We recently stopped taekwondo and moved to wrestling for our kids.  In most sports, on most plays, you can "hide" on the coattails of "that kid" that carries the team.  With wrestling, you're it...all in...for better or worse.  As we've talked about in our home, that sounds like more of a proxy for real life and things like our marriage, jobs, and other roles.  Similarly, it has spurred conversations around the preparation - conditioning, learning moves/counters, and such.  In life, do the right prep, tweak the future based on past actions, and we're more likely to find success.

Get back up
after the little
failures.

Another thing with wrestling has tweaked our thoughts that victory may be defined in small ways...much like life.  The goal is to not get pinned in the first period.  Or make it to the third period.  Or, get a takedown this match.  In other sports, the proverbial "everyone gets a trophy and a snack" sort of thing, we're not doing many favors.  Iron sharpens iron.  As a new wrestler, our kids are going up against some kids who, by age 8, have literally been competing half their lives...they're good...they'll win.  We're accepting the defeat...and looking for small wins within the battle.  We can talk about how they lost the war (the match in this case), but how some of the small battles went well...and which ones didn't go well.  We can embrace defeat, learn the lessons, scar their hearts/egos a little bit, and come out stronger on the other side.  

Sometimes they're
better...sometimes
stronger.  Just don't
quit.

Brady also talked about "every time they mess up, we send them to an easier place to succeed."  In his example, he had to grind...hard...every year to move to a role, finally as a senior, as a starting quarterback in high school.  Now, that same kid likely would transfer to another school where he'd be a starter to start with when he landed in the new place.  In many ways, this is a mistake.  We move from a small fish in a big pond to a small fish in a small pond.  The problem is now (and only increasingly so) that the pond our kids will face as adults is not only global but science fiction.  You don't have to be the best computer programmer in your family, block, neighborhood, town, city, county...anymore, but compete with the hungry-for-success kid around the world...and now the AI robot.  

Talk about the 
lessons while 
they're fresh.

Overall, when were you competing hard enough, daring mighty enough, acting brave enough, or putting it all out there enough...to have a chance of losing?  For most of us as adults, we fall into our comfortable, complacent routines where failure is pretty far away.  When we strive to try new things, go big, try a new thing that is big enough, we can show our kids that failure is okay...and model our response to it.  It doesn't have to be the "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" sort of quit your job, change professions, move across the country, and hope to make it in the proverbial "Nashville" sort of thing.  It could be signing up to sing at church, joining the community softball league, or something similar.  It won't go well at first...but...if you stick with it, you'll get better...and it will be fun.  There will be small wins (new friends, new skills, new conversations) along the way...but you probably won't be the champion on your first day.

Winning only
comes from 
losing.

As we wrap up, hopefully this post serves as a reminder and call to action...to stop swimming in the ponds where you win every day...in other words...seek out losing.  It sounds counterintuitive, but the more we build our children's ability to fail and realize it's not fatal, the more we're equipping them for the real world.  When we taste defeat...it makes victory that much sweeter.  Also, take time to read about and study the failures of famous people that have come before us and those in our circles to see real-world examples of how resilience is built.  Most biographies that are worth being written are full...very full...of a life full of hardship and the overcoming...over and over...to get to success.  Talk about and learn those lessons.  Look for the places for you (and your children) can learn similar lessons firsthand.  

With you in the arena, from ours to yours...Happy Trails!

Call to Action: 

• Pick out three things that you or your children can fail at this week (game night, new activity, something out of the comfort zone).  
• 1 - ___________________ 
• 2 - ___________________
• 3 - ___________________
• Discussion: Consider what you/your family could/would/should (level of commitment) and start/stop/sustain (action) in terms of failing.  It's not fun...but it is worth it.  You have to commit to leaning in...for a little while.  Dropping out of "wrestling" the first night of practice doesn't help get you very far in terms of life lessons.  

Further Reading, Motivation, and References:

- The Power of Failure - Ted X or this Ted X or this one...maybe this topic isn't all that original. 

- “Good judgement is the result of experience and experience the result of bad judgement.” Mark Twain

Hand Me Down Genes

Hand Me Down Genes

Go see yesteryear.

Garret Hedlund, River, Again talks about the generations that come and go.  Think about your grandparents (if you were lucky), or great grandparents (if you were really lucky), and the time you had with them.  Garrett talks in his song about "if we were the same age, we'd be pretty good friends."  Now, fast forward to your role as a parent.  Our world these days is much less intergenerational than perhaps ever before in time.  It used to be that the village elders raised the kids while the able-bodied cohort was out providing (food, firewood, etc).  As we've "progressed," so to speak, we've outsourced so much of the village - daycares, grocery stores, HVAC, and utility companies.  We've "diminished" the need for...and consequently, in large part, the purpose of our elders.  In parts of the world, families still live in multi-generational living situations...in much of America, not so much.  As we put our elders increasingly into elder living camps - Margaritaville, the Villages, or your local retirement home/nursing home/etc, I think we're probably losing some special connection that our lives were intended to have.

Seeing struggle of
those before matters.  

Similarly, we're getting further from the days and geographies of all of us living near the "family farm" where you could have generations that all stayed in the proverbial valley.  I know quite a few folks in our circle that did not grow up here in our capital city...they're (including us..."from somewhere else").  I also know quite a few folks in our circle who have recently retired and moved out of state...almost the next day.  With modern technology, we're more able to do so, more easily and affordably than perhaps any time in human history.  Just because we can...doesn't necessarily mean we should.

See what others
were able to do.

When we move cross-country, or even cross-region, often, "to the big city," we're slipping further and further from our roots.  My ancestors, at least a few generations back, were farmers, connected to the land and working with their hands, toiling in the dirt to cut out a life for their family.  My parents' generation (aunts, uncles, etc) largely didn't end up doing much of anything with farming, except one uncle.  I had the chance, through junior high and high school, to work for a local farmer in our rural area.  My parents have since moved into another town out of state, and our family makes our home in the traditional "suburban" digs like much of modern American life.  

Walk where they walked.  

I wouldn't trade some of the lessons learned and skills developed growing up...but I'm not sure I can recreate it in any meaningful way for our children.  Even my experience "doing the same thing" as my grandparents would be hardly recognizable with the technology that has modernized the profession.  He wore literal goggles to keep the dirt out of his eyes.  I sat in an air-conditioned cab and pushed on a joystick.  Still, as we talk about lineage and connection to ancestors, we have to be very proactive and intentional to build connections to the "good old days" for our children.  

See what they
built.

When was the last time you figured out how to watch the old VHS recording from when you were small to show your children what Grandpa and Grandma looked like back then?  How about driving back past their old stomping grounds?  How about telling the stories that they'd told you?  By letting these "boring" things slip away and fade to black, we lose them altogether.  I get it, I really do, we're busy today, overcome by events.  We have a schedule that is constantly pushing us to do more with seemingly less time.  In falling into this siren song, we turn our ancestors' legacy into a set of DNA markers...not necessarily character markers.  

Learn how they lived.

Perhaps worse yet, we lose sight of their sacrifice, the hardness of their lives, the overcoming nature of your lineage, the heritage of adaptation that conspired to plant you on your cushy suburban couch.  I think losing this touch to the "old times" removes the perspective and right-sizing of our modern struggles.  In other words, when we stand our modern angst against itself or our peers, it seems monumental.  When we put it beside our great grandparents who struggled to put food on the table for their children while living in a 1-bedroom shack, uphill in the snow both ways, so to speak, our modern worries pale in comparison.  Seeing and appreciating their sacrifices and contributions, hopefully, helps us realize what truly matters in our modern world.  

Talk about them when 
you're doing life.

Growing up, we had a great aunt and uncle, John and Eva.  I'm not even sure what the real relationship was, but they were those "old people" when I was a kid.  In the stories that have been told about them, they didn't have two nickels to rub together, but in their shared lot in life, they found true joy in a shared ice cream cone from Dairy Queen.  Perhaps an embodiment of "contentment as wanting what we have."  Their peaceful spirit of...true contentment...is something lost on our modern world.  Now, we're racing between two jobs to get the biggest screen with the newest attachments...but so busy we never get to truly just snuggle up with our loved ones and be in the moment.  

Experience the time 
long ago.

We call modern technology a convenience.  It certainly is that.  I'm not certain, not even close to convinced, in fact, that it's truly progress.  Much like the old story of the American tycoon on vacation in Mexico who tells the humble fisherman that if he toils his adult life, he could scale his business and after twenty years could sit on the beach and fish all day.  The American, missing the point, that the Mexican fisherman...is sitting on the beach, fishing all day.  As we increasingly forget to appreciate the "hand me down genes" and all the life experience, lessons, and perspectives that go with that, I think we're, in many ways, like that American tycoon who sorely misses the forest for the trees.  

Cherish the
memories.

As we wrap up and go about our way this week, perhaps the call to action or the takeaway is to slow down where you can.  Go call your grandparents (if you're fortunate enough to still have them around), or better yet, go visit them to just sit and talk...with your kids.  If they're not still around, consider going to your local nursing home...trick-or-treat there, go caroling there...get an opening...then go back...to just talk.  I know it sounds awkward and "boring" (que the teenager eye roll here), but when those "genes" are gone...so too, gone are the stories and the lessons that help right-size our modern trials and tribulations.  That "Greatest Generation" that came and has largely gone can give us so much perspective to meet our modern challenges...but we just have to be patient and willing to listen.  

With you in the arena, from ours to yours...Happy Trails!

Call to Action: 

• Pick out a couple "old folks" to go spend time with this week.  Schedule a time and just go talk.
• 1 - ___________________ 
• 2 - ___________________
• 3 - ___________________
• Discussion: Consider what you/your family could/would/should (level of commitment) and start/stop/sustain (action) in terms of pouring into and learning from those who went before you (blood relatives or otherwise).  

Further Reading, Motivation, and References:

- Garrett Hedlund, River, Again

- Desert Drifter on Youtube - he has unfortunately passed due to a car accident, but many of his videos talk about generations that came before us...far before us.