Thank you for this post. There are also many wonderful comments that confirm the nerve this topic touches.

I have heard character defined as “a long obedience in the same direction”. I think it’s a brilliant definition but I don’t think it’s entirely true to the Christian experience.

Think of the disciples. I’ve often felt that Peter’s life, portrayed in the gospels, exemplifies the kind of heroic zeal that simply isn’t listening to God. It’s zealously committed but it’s not not maluable… not wanting Jesus to wash his feet… attacking with a sword… not wanting Jesus to go to the cross. Peters commitment to what he _already knows_ is so strong that there is little room for Jesus voice. Like the money changers tables, Jesus comes sometimes to overturn what we already know only to find that the tables have been bolted down. Our creedal position will not be upset.

I joke with my wife that the Christian life requires careful aim, like bowling. Intense concentration is focused on a central pin–a few practice shots before friends show up. Just when we feel we are becoming quite expert, we recieve a call from our friends and discover we are in the wrong lane. Upon moving to the correct lane we find no one waiting for us. A second call confirms that we are not even in the right bowling alley. That`s Christianity.

Like the pharisees who tithed a tenth of their mint, dill and cumin, we have become experts at our religion too quickly, and too stoically–we are targetting what we ought to be doing with great precision but are inattentive to God`s attempts to revise our aim.

I haven’t really studied it, but I also wonder if Moses actions before his time in the desert were characteristic of this kind of heroic obedience done ‘in the flesh’. A way of fulfilling God’s purposes for his life _prematurely_ and in a way that was completely out of sync with God’s timetable and ways.

Another undercurrent of this post and a number of these comments is the theme of doing “great things” for God. To be blunt, there is an attraction to certain types of Christian work that are very gratifying to our ego. My name in Christian lights `for Jesus`. We dream of fulfilling God`s grand purposes for us, but none of us wants to go into carpentry.

This post challenges me to come down and live for my wife and kid. I love it.

[...] especially appreciated reading his post on mission work and marriage. I am struggling to work through exactly what he is talking about there. I initially took a word of [...]

A few things from a man who has been married for 20 years:

1. Luke: Brother, you are missing the point. The marriage is *numero uno*. It’s just like the oxygen mask on an airplane, you put it on *yourself* first, then the kid, because if you pass out you can’t help them. Same is true of missions, you have to keep the marriage alive first, or it dies and you can’t help the folks in the mission field.

Here is really what Priscilla meant, if God does not call your wife, it will not work. Period. It doesn’t matter if you think your wife is being “disobedient”, if she is against going, the mission will fail, your marriage will suffer and you’ll waste people’s time, money and effort. Bottom line, if she doesn’t want to go, even if she’s wrong, wrong, you *can’t* go. It’s that simple. This is basic, maturity info.

2. C Michael Patton: One thing I’ve learned about women…. they need to percolate. We men, in more ways than one, we’re a microwave – BOOM, we’re ready. Women, they’re a conventional oven, they have to pre-heat. You don’t startle women with snap decisions. They consider this (rightly) to be capricious, foolhardy and dangerous. Considering how quickly you became ready to make missions your mission in life (sorry, couldn’t help myself) I think you would agree you’re a man acquainted with spontaneity, and that can be good, but there isn’t much use for that as it pertains to the future and well-being of your family. Save that spontaneity for your love life, playtime with the kiddos and such. When I want to do something and I need my wife to support me, I start out *real* slow. I say something in passing conversation. Then I mention it to someone else where she can hear. I drop little hints and I wait for her to bring it up in conversation. I give her time to get used to the idea and I’m VERY careful, because once my wife makes a decision, she’s ironclad on it. I, like you, tend to be spontaneous and over the course of my marriage I’ve leaped headlong into a few things that she then became passionate about, only to find out too quickly that I lost interest and she was still all fired up. Be SURE you want what you want, before you start interesting your wife in it. You may be all fired up about missions today, but then you take your next class on apologetics and suddenly you want to be a professor and she’s looking for good hiking boots for the hills of North Korea. Oops, what now coach? Summing up:

a. Be SURE.
b. Go SLOW.
c. Hint SOFTLY

My wife has saved me from myself SO many times. I THANK GOD for her discipline, steadiness and discernment. Too many times I’ve been ready to do “THIS” and her wise whispers saved us from a WORLD of hurt. I now CHERISH the fact that she takes a good long time to cozy up to an idea, I can’t tell you how many times that my honey (and the extra time) has saved my bacon.

Let her percolate, and you percolate too, the brew will taste much better and you’ll get more outta the grinds, bubba.

[...] wants to go into missions, wife wants to stay Parchment and Pen How My Passion for Ministry Almost Ended My Marriage What are your thoughts on this article? I have encountered some young couples that are in this [...]

I can see both sides of the issue. I have known couples where the wife did not feel called and thankfully, the missions board did not allow the couple to proceed. They would have been very ineffective if they had actually been allowed to go out into the field.

However, I have seen the opposite, too. When I was in missionary training school, we had a woman who felt called to go to a country that was closed to the gospel. However, her family protested about how unsafe it was, and so this woman set aside God’s calling on her life and instead went to a “safe” country. I’m sure she did good work there, but how much more could God have used her if she had followed His calling instead of listening to her family’s fears?

This woman was not married, but if she had been, she undoubtedly would have protested if her husband had declared he felt called to go any country she deemed unsafe. So if a woman starts crying and automatically says she won’t go on the mission field because she’s not called, I think she needs to take a good hard look at her relationship with God. Is she really not called, or is she simply afraid and, as the poster above put it, doesn’t want to leave the comfort of Mommy and Daddy? Christ never called us to play it safe, but to be radical followers who left behind traditional relationships for the sake of His call.

On a side note, I’m not a complementarian, but I do wonder how this fits in with the submission thing. I mean, if a wife refuses to go, isn’t she disobeying her husband? I thought he was supposed to be the head of the household who interpreted God’s will for the family. If so, then shouldn’t the wife be dealing with her spiritual disobedience for not followng God (through her husband)? That’s how I always understood these things to work.

A family that worked with the Kurds after the first gulf war, did not even arrive until the husband was @ 40. A general commended him saying, finally, someone who is mature has been sent. We need more. That beach head was successful. There is now a church among the Kurds. My son has wanted to be a missionary since he was 13. He is 35 and is still here. God has been using this time to build a foundation in his marriage. He and his wife have taught Bible studies on marriage for the past 5 years. Now all of the children are also on board to go; they just need to raise support. A lot of their prayer and financial support may come from all the friends they have made over the years. They also have a vision to invite friends to visit and potentially add to the mission force.

[...] a man’s decision to marry negatively impact his service to God? I found this post while browsing on Parchment and Pen, by C. Michael Patton. In it he discusses how his wife Kristie [...]

[...] How My Passion For Ministry Almost Ended My Marriage [...]

Great post, Michael, and much needed council.
This works vice versa also. All complementarian or egalitarian issues aside, God would never call either spouse to something he’s not also calling the other. “What God has joined together, let man [or mission] not separate.’

Thanks so much for this. At this very point in time I (the wife) am struggling with my husband not being motivated to missions and me thinking I really want to go! The funny part is we have actually “gone” and are in transit, so to speak. This transit involves a university course and three years in another country being ordinary and comfortable and getting lazy towards the call. My husband is coming up with all sorts of things we can do after he finishes the course – and none of them are in response to what we thought was our “call” before leaving home. It’s a conundrum but your blog helps me rest a little. God will underline and reiterate that which he wants us to do and we will both hear it – when we need to.