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SALT

Two Peas In a Pod

Alan Parker

Part 1: The Dating Trap

Father God, we want to thank you for this incredible thing called love.

Help us to know how to have your presence and how to embrace your purposes for our lives.

Well you know our theme of our conference is having your eyes on the prize and if you can't quite see the PowerPoint that's fine you'll follow along with the content.

So having your eyes on the prize, you know many of us have had our eyes on the prize when it comes to a certain picture of marriage.

We're gonna find this wonderful person, we're gonna get together, it's gonna be an incredible thing.

We have all these romanticized views of just what it will be like, Cinderella and Prince Charming, you know, we're gonna get together and have this beautiful, wonderful lives, and I thought, let me go back and see what I wrote to my wife while we were dating and what my views of marriage were.

I want to walk with you and talk with you and hold you in my arms at night.

I want to listen to music with you and watch a candle flicker together and read and pray together and watch the stars.

I want to warm myself in front of a roaring fire in the middle of winter, snuggled up to you and reading from our favorite book.

I noticed when I went back that through all of those letters, I never mentioned children.

For some reason, that just never came up.

I never mentioned that we would have arguments.

I never mentioned that we would have difficulties.

It was all just this warm, fuzzy, wonderful stuff.

Now, there were times when we asked hard questions, but in my picture of marriage, it was very rose-tinted.

And so, as we think about what marriage is, and as we begin to dialogue, we got people all the way from teenagers to people who are more mature as We think about marriage.

We're going to be examining the biblical way versus the worldly way and seen if this idealized picture of marriage can actually happen, or what are the dangers along the way?

Because it's easy for the Cinderella stories to become horror stories somewhere along the way.

Somewhere along the way, we drop out of where things should be.

And the statistics are pretty horrifying.

60% of all marriages between the ages of 20 and 25 end up in divorce.

So when you get married at that age, if you are 18 and under, that divorce will happen rapidly, normally within the first 10 years.

I just want to imagine if you were sitting on a plane right now, and I'm coming up to you as your host there, and I'm just, welcome to the plane.

We're so glad you're flying with us as you settle in we just want to let you know something there's a 6 out of 10 chance that this plane will crash I mean you still want to go on the flight this is terrible you know we're already afraid of planes right now and you know this would just make it worse.

But many people go headlong into marriage, headlong into relationships, even though the statistics are terrible.

So some people say, I'm not even going to get married.

Well, then it goes up to 80%, 81% chance that you'll have a breakup.

So cohabitation is far worse than marriage.

And so no wonder people are a little scared, some of them, and other people seem to be oblivious.

How could something so right, that feels so right, ever be wrong?

Have you ever heard that from your friends?

And so how are we going to relate to you know dating and to marriage when we just know there's this huge statistic that says that it's going to end a divorce and of the ones who are still married guess what A lot of their marriages are not great.

And so how can you not end up as part of these terrible statistics?

That's what we want to have a look at because it is a shocking truth.

And don't follow Hollywood because Hollywood marriages are no good.

It lasted a whole 72 days to Chris Humphreys.

72 days, but that's pretty long compared to the next person I'm going to show you.

You know, that was while I was actually in Tahoe at that time.

And there was, you could tell there was lots of people coming and going.

This was at Lake Tahoe and just a lot of media, what's going on here, well she had gotten married over the weekend and broke up before the weekend was done.

So we don't even have pictures of them together because it was so short.

So this is what Josh Harris says, and it's really profound.

He says, the world, that's Hollywood, takes us to a screen on which flickering images of romance and passion play.

And as we watch, the world says, this is love.

Look at how they're in love with each other.

But he says God takes us to the foot of a tree on which a naked and bloodied man hangs and says this is love.

You know a very different perception of what love is.

You know 1 is founded in the warm fuzzy feelings and the other is founded in this radical commitment that says, I'm going to do whatever it takes because of my covenant with this person.

And so, do you want a covenant or a contract?

Many people enter into dating and into marriage as if it's a contract.

A contract says this, a contract says, I'm going to do this for you as long as you do this for me.

I'm going to come home and bring the money, and I'm going to bring some fun and entertainment, and I'll give you massages at night.

And in return, you're going to make me feel wonderful and cook the meals, and you're going to dress up in a nice dress.

But after a while, people get selfish and they say, oh, I don't want to fulfill my part of the contract.

And then they fall out of love and the other person says, but look, you're not fulfilling your contract anymore.

You said you'd do all these things and you would make me feel happy and now you're no longer making me feel happy.

I want you got to fulfill your part of the contract.

But God has something called the covenant, which is based on a love that is sacrificial.

I'm going to help you even if you reject me and you abuse me and I have to go to the cross for you.

And so that kind of radical love is something that's missing in today's world because we believe that marriage will make us happy and that is actually false.

They traced they this is from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, they traced 24, 000 people over a 21 year period and they asked participants every year to rate their level of happiness.

And what they found was that the average boost from marriage was pretty small, like 1 10th of 1%.

Now, if you were unhappy, it was different.

Marriage was going to make you really unhappy.

But marriage doesn't add to your happiness.

People who have happy marriages were happy long before they got married.

You're not going to become happy when you get married.

Part 2: Steps To a Godly Marriage

Father God, we are so grateful to be here to talk about something that's important and yet it's also something that is fun and enjoyable and that's the process of love.

So be with us as I share my story, as we walk through the process of how to deal with dating and courtship, and may it be to your glory, for we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

I'm a professor at Southern Adventist University, director of the SALT program, and my wife and I give a lot of presentations on relationships and how people go through relationships.

So what we're talking about this afternoon is that process of crawling into love, how do you do dating, and I'm going to suggest a variety of things here.

And the first thing we're going to begin with, stage 1, is observation.

Before you start dating, you need to know some things.

1 is readiness, number 2 is knowledge, and number 3 is providence.

And we're going to briefly talk about each 1 of those areas.

So how do you know if you're ready to date?

In 1 seminar, 2 12 year olds sitting in the front row holding hands like what are you doing?

But you know How do you know if you're ready?

So number 1, what's your financial readiness?

If you're 12 and you're earning 10 or 15 bucks a week in pocket money, you're probably not ready financially for this commitment.

1 of the things you have to think about, if you're going to date, then you are interested in marriage at some point.

Now, I do think that there is a place for casual dating, particularly group dating, but it depends what I mean by dating.

You see, what a lot of people think of when they think of dating is an exclusive commitment, where I put my hand on your hand, and we stare into each other's eyes, and we whisper sweet nothings.

Now, if that's what you mean by dating, then you need to be ready for marriage, because that's what it's headed for.

But if by casual dating, I mean you guys go out and do a fun activity together, and it's a group of you, then that's fine.

It's okay to get to know members of the opposite sex in this more casual way, but when it becomes exclusive, when it becomes a serious commitment, then you need to start thinking about these questions.

And that already eliminates a huge number of this audience.

Number 2, are you surrendered to God or are you more interested in your own opinions?

And then number 3, what is your maturity?

Because you don't really understand yourself.

And this is something that as you grow in understanding, you do better in relationships.

That's why we find when people date before the age of 18, their relationships don't last very long.

That's why I'm always scared when I'm dealing with high school kids to ask about how their boyfriend or girlfriend is because I say, how's Jack?

Jack, I mean, that was 2 relationships ago.

So I've learned to be cautious, because that's the nature of relationships at that age.

They tend to, there tends to be more breakups because the maturity just isn't there.

You see, each 1 of us from our past have landmines.

And they're in your life and you end up triggering them and it's relationships that teach you where those landmines are.

But the better relationships to do this than dating relationships is relationships with your parents or with your friends.

So you don't know what kind of landmines are there.

And these landmines are waiting just to be triggered.

But when I got into a relationship with a girlfriend, strange things happened.

I'm in a serious relationship for the first time in my life.

And suddenly I start discovering I can get angry.

Before I was in a relationship, I didn't get angry, at least in my mind.

And so 1 day, my girlfriend and I are out washing the car, and she's not doing it right.

Because there's certain ways to wash a car.

And so I'm getting more and more irritated at how she's washed the car.

And the whole time I'm thinking, why am I getting so frustrated about something so small?

Does it really matter if you wash the car this way or that way?

Because it has nothing to do with karate, kid.

That was an ancient illustration for most of you.

So I'm trying to figure out Why am I getting so frustrated over how you wash the car?

And pretty soon, I'm so boiling mad, I get in the car, I say, get in, it's her car, a brand new car that her father has given her.

We're in this narrow place with 2 concrete walls on either side.

I'm so mad, I just accelerate out and I hear this scraping sound.

And there the car, her brand new car from her father is scraped up.

And I pull out, and now, First I'd be mad at her, now I'm mad at myself.

I'm trying to figure out why is it that such a nice guy can suddenly get so irritated.

See, I had landmines in my life that I didn't know were there.

And my immaturity meant that I was taking out on my girlfriend and her car instead of really figuring out what was going on.

And as a result, that relationship was a mess because I was constantly being immature.

And so what I needed was a place, a community, where I could learn maturity without being in a relationship.

Does that connect with any of you out there?

And what you've got to do is don't trust yourself.

And then be willing to listen to their answers.

Because they often will know you better than yourself and they can say, hey, you need to be careful here because I don't think you've reached that level of maturity yet.

Then you start looking at this member of the opposite sex and you go, I think there's potential here.

I just like the way she was so sweet at potluck when she brought me my haystacks and put it down there and smiled at me.

Of course, She brought it to everyone else in the room, but it felt special, you know, the way she put it down.

And I kind of, I've been watching her, so how do I know?

So before you date, we suggest observation.

Some of the things you can, questions you can ask is, you know, what can you learn from observation?

Part 3: Understanding Your Partner

Father God, we ask that you lead us as we think about relationships again, as we think about differences between the sexes, as we think about a biblical role for marriage and how we relate to each other.

And please guide us through this presentation for we ask it in your name, amen.

All right, we are entitled as Waffles and Spaghetti, and this will make more sense a little bit later, Bridging the Abyss Between the Sexes.

So this is our fourth section of 2 Peas in a Pod.

My little boy Skyler, he is the youngest and like all youngest he knows how to manipulate his parents.

Then we have Seth, he's our little musician and Anaya, She's our dramatic 1.

Things are wonderful or things are terrible because that's her personality.

We have a wonderful family and I wish they could be here with me.

As we were getting to know each other, we discovered that there were some differences between us.

We came across this little saying, and we thought it was kind of funny, which gender is a computer?

And a little discussion, well, how do you see a computer?

We figured out a computer is female because no 1 but the creator understands their internal logic.

The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to anyone else.

Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later review.

And as soon as you commit to 1, you find yourself spending half of your salary for accessories for it.

So my wife said, no, no, no, that's a computer is not female, it's actually male.

And so we took this off our website, this was not our original.

She says, in order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on.

They have a lot of data, but they still can't think for themselves.

They're supposed to solve problems, but half the time they are the problem and as soon as you commit to 1 you realize that if you'd waited a little longer you could have gotten a better model.

So of course she doesn't believe that about me.

So yeah so you know there are some differences but this is not it.

We happen to see a great set of videos, you've probably heard of them, Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage, and this has a reduced sound here so you'll just have to listen very carefully as we play this video and It's entitled the tale of 2 brains and it's by Mark Gungor and so just listen in very carefully There's no sound initially and then I'll kick in in just a minute.

Yeah Yeah, there are differences between men and women.

Man has an on off switch and woman has a whole set of dials.

But there are definitely some differences.

Now some of us men, you know There used to be a book called Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.

Some of us men have a little bit from Venus and some women have a little bit from Mars.

We laugh at them because they're often true, but each 1 of us are unique individuals and it's not always true for us, right?

And so we have to look at this carefully and recognize we have differences and how do we approach those differences?

So today I'm going to talk about some of those differences take a biblical perspective But also suggest to you that the real point of these differences is not to say, well, you're just like that, there's nothing I can do, but to say, what is God's plan for a relationship even when we know we're different?

And so that's what we want to take a look at.

Now, I entitled this Men are like Waffles and Women are like Spaghetti because kind of in harmony with the video by Mark Gungel, men tend to have boxes and that's what a waffle is like, right?

A waffle has certain boxes in it and in those boxes you think about the things that are in that box.

So for instance, for me, when I'm in my work box and my wife calls and says, hi, honey, I have to make a shift from the box I'm in to try and connect with her.

And I didn't always do a good job of that when we were first married.

So she would be, hi honey, and trying to flirt with me, did you think of me today?

But that was my work box and that's what I'm thinking of.

Now when I was having a discussion with her I found out that she was more like spaghetti.

Now have you ever tried to follow a piece of spaghetti on your plate?

No, because as you're following the piece of spaghetti it touches every other piece of spaghetti on the plate.

So I would be having a discussion with my wife trying to follow this piece of spaghetti.

You know, she'd be giving a conversation.

You know, I've noticed that Joan wasn't speaking up at the Bible study.

And I go, yeah, yeah, I wonder why that was.

She says, I wonder if it has to do with a home life because you know Jack Jack's been out of town a lot and you know the men in our congregation they sometimes do tend to move out of town a lot and that you know and Then the wives get together at their own Bible study.

When I was at the ladies Bible study last week, then I noticed that Jackie also hadn't been coming for a while.

She would keep following different things that touched each other that all had emotional connections.

And because, let's be honest, the woman's brain, the left and the right hemispheres tend to talk to each other more.

So what happens is things remind you of other things and they have these emotional connections and the 2 parts of the brain are communicating and there's this line of logic but I can't follow it because the piece of spaghetti is getting mixed up with every other piece of spaghetti.

I was like, wait a minute, we were talking about Joan, How did we end up with Jackie's husband?

And she says it all makes perfect sense to me Recognize we were different we were different I was more like waffles and she was more like spaghetti and She's learned how to talk waffle and I've learned how to follow spaghetti.

Alright, so have you seen those differences between people?

Another difference, somebody put it this way, a quiet man is a thinking man, A quiet woman is usually mad.

See, I'm a caver and my wife's a converser.

So the converser can't solve anything unless they talk about it.

And a caver can't solve anything if there's talk going on.

So I'm a caver, I'm like, let me go into my cave, I've got this problem, I'm going to sit in my cave, and all you have to do is bring a little bit of food to the door of the cave and leave me alone.

And then when I've figured out the problem, I can come out and I can talk to you.

But for my wife, she's a converser, so if I leave her alone when there's a problem, it just kind of runs over and over in her mind and there's no way out of it because the only way out of it is to talk it through.

We had a discussion and I have too much sensory information.

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Two Peas In a Pod

Part 1: The Dating Trap

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