Jarrod Jones

Seven years ago I married Christie Joy Lutz of Ridgefield, CT (formerly Long Island, NY). While speaking in Connecticut, I saw her walk into the room as I was meeting leadership for a young adult gathering, and that was all she wrote. I stalked her. She hung in there. We were married 13 months later.

As I’ve rejoiced over her today, Proverbs 17:22 came to mind. He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the LORD. (Proverbs 17:22)

I was single until I was 31 years old.  And at about 24 years old, I didn’t want to be single anymore. So a 7 year haul was before me! And for 7 years, I prayed, and even fasted, and waited, for my future wife. But that’s not all. I “looked” for her too. During those years, I kept my eyes open. And frankly, to “find a wife” was like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

In my early twenties, I had mistaken a strand of hay for being the needle. That was rough. It happened while I wasn’t following Jesus. Beware of the enemy and sinful desires in you. A hay-strand can look like the needle.  Even more dangerous is that you can convince yourself that a hay-strand is the needle. Beware.  (Sorry. I’ve taken the whole hay and needle thing farther than originally planned :)).

If you’re single, and God has given you the desire to be married, start looking and keep looking. Not desperately… (it’s a needle in the haystack, not a kitten in the haystack. (Sorry again…)).

The Scripture says, “He who FINDS a wife…”, not “He who waits on a wife,” or “He to whom God brings a wife…”. It’s not spiritual to pray and wait upon the Lord to bring you your wife (or ladies, your husband). It’s spiritual to “find” them!

Although I didn’t meet Christie on a blind date, I was a fan of blind dates.  I had some catastrophic experiences on blind dates, sure. But hey, you never know what God is up to in those situations, and what He may have to teach all parties involved. And besides, they make for great blogs.

I suppose you can “find” something (and someone) without looking for it. There are testimonies out there where people were not thinking of marriage, only to meet someone, and… the rest is history.  But I’m thinking that is more the exception.  I don’t buy the whole “when you’re content you’ll meet ‘the one’” thing, as if that means we’re to be so content with being single that we no longer have the desire to be married. We’re to be content in Christ, yes. In that contentment though can be holy desires, such as the desire to married, and to be a parent. Those desires, surrendered and entrusted to Christ, are God’s way of keeping our eyes open to what He has for us… like a spouse.

For those of you who are unmarried, there’s the chance that you’re looking for what’s (or “who’s” rather) standing right beside you.  Kind of like searching for your sunglasses when their sitting on your head.   I hear stories all the time about someone who was friends with someone for years and then one day, the eyes are opened, and there he or she is, and has been all along. God does that type of thing too.I wondered often if that would be the case with me someday. It sure would have made things easier.

And then there are the times that what you’ve been looking for shows up in an unexpected place.  Kind of like when I was looking for a certain brand of toothpaste (even at Target and Wal-Mart) to no avail, and then one day buying gas at “Crump’s Gas and Grocery” and there it is!  I would never have believed I would meet my wife in Bethel, CT.

And to “find” a wife is to “find” a good thing…. That is the understatement of the year, it seems. Albeit, Jesus is the best thing. So I guess my wife would be the “good thing.”  Christie has been so good to me, and good for me. God has made His grace alive to me through Christie’s love and patience. He’s also made me holier b/c of her.  So true the cliche’ that marriage isn’t for happiness, but for holiness… and joyfulness.

I have indeed “obtained favor from the Lord.” When I gaze at my wife, I gaze at flesh & blood favor from the Lord to me. The thought that she’s “God’s favor to me” actually helps keep me accountable and empowered to treat His “favor,” His “gift,” with tenderness, care, love, appreciation, and gratitude. Indeed, when I married Christie I looked into her eyes before a crowd of people and repeated the words, “Christie, I vow to love Jesus more than you so that I will love you the way you deserve.”

So here’s some advice for those who want to be married:

1) Pray and Fast for your future spouse before the Lord

2) Surrender all your desires and affections to to the Lord

3) Love Jesus “more” now so that you will love Him (Jesus) more than your spouse in the future… and thereby loving him or her the way he or she deserves.

4) Go on blind dates

Happy April Fool’s day. I’ve learned the hard way that people actually take this day seriously. Below, is the intro section of a chapter I wrote in my 13 Ways book.  It is fitting for today. I left the bit of application at the end of it for context too.  Feel the pain…

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It happened on April Fool’s day my eighth grade year of Middle school.   Before school most of my friends would hang out by the outside doors of the gym.  As I was walking toward my posse they were all chuckling and looking at me. My first thought was “zip up.” But all was well there.  I walked up to them and said, “What’s up? What’s so funny?”  My best friend at the time, Lance, pulled out from behind his back an egg.  He slammed it onto my head.  I stood in shock.  I leaned my head over to catch the egg goop as it ran off my head.  But there was no goop.  Lance had pulled a glorious April Fool’s joke on me. The egg was boiled.

Once I shook off my instinct to pummel him I laughed and thought it was the funniest thing ever.  Then he took out another egg.  I was putty in his hands. I said, “Let me get somebody.” He gladly handed the egg over.

I was waiting for my other friends to come by. But none ever showed.  The first warning bell rang.  I didn’t want to miss out on the prank. I had to pull it on somebody pronto.  Most everyone had made their way to class except for me, Lance, and three or four of our friends.  The last kid to walk toward the door was a sixth grader hobbling on crutches and barely hanging on to his books under his arms.

I walked up to him and said, “Hey, would you like an egg?” Then I slammed the egg on top of his head just like Lance did me.  Problem:  This was a raw egg.

As the egg yoke ran down his face he looked at me in horror. I was speechless. I spun around and Lance was foaming at the mouth he was laughing so hard. My friends had taken off running trying to contain themselves.  I chased Lance around the building as the final bell rang.

Out of breath I decided to simply go surrender myself to the Principal and accept my fate. Consequences were inevitable. I walked into his office and confessed the whole thing.  As my story unfolded it was all my Principal could do to suppress his laughter.

Surprisingly the kid had yet to come to the office. I had a hunch he was in the hall bathroom by the office. Sure enough there he stood propped on his crutches swishing water over his face and head.  I felt so ashamed.  You should have seen me wetting paper towels and helping him clean egg off his face while he slapped at my hand as if it were a gnat.  I rambled on about how Lance had set me up, that he (the kid) was my last chance to pull the prank, and so forth. I told him I’d be his body guard the rest of the year.   He looked at me with fire in his eyes. You couldn’t blame him.

Unfortunately, I am still just as gullible.  Pranks pulled on me aren’t a difficult task. Actually I think fewer pranks are pulled on me now because it’s just plain boring. I’m too gullible, too easy a target.

It’s one thing to be an easy target for innocent pranks. It is an entirely different issue to be gullible in sexual temptation.  Upon further thought, gullible may be too soft a word.  Naïve is more like it.  To commend your emotions and issues to a woman outside of your marriage is a travesty. To entrust your heart and purity to just any woman before marriage can bring brokenness and regret.  It’s plain naïve.

Don’t be gullible.

The below article was written by Marriage Today’s Jimmy Evans. It’s a weekly e-mail “Marriage Builder.”  I couldn’t locate the article on the Marriage Today site. So, I copied and pasted it into my blog from the email.  I highly recommend visiting the site and subscribing to the weekly emails of Marriage Today.

Enjoy!

Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as our “helper” in John 14:16. In this passage, the Greek word translated “helper” is procolasit. It means “called alongside.” As our helper or companion, the Holy Spirit will walk alongside us as the most faithful friend we could have. And I believe that a great wife will exhibit many of the characteristics of the Holy Spirit in a marriage relationship. Once of these shared roles is as convictor. In John 16, Jesus says that when the Holy Spirit comes, he will convict the world “of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.” Convicting is not condemnation. Conviction is kindly telling a person, “Hey, you are wrong.” And let’s face it: women are pretty good at that. You might laugh, but I’m serious. A wife can say things to her husband—necessary things, things that he needs to change—that no one else can say. They are good at it, and as husbands we need to listen when they convict us about something. A second role of the Holy Spirit that a wife may also demonstrate is that of connector. He connects people relationally. The Holy Spirit is always connecting us with God. He reminds us of Jesus. Women are natural connectors because they connect men to their children. This is one of the natural things women do. They remind us to spend more time with the kids, or make sure we know when we’ve hurt our kids’ feelings or when we need to have a talk with one of our children. Our wives are intuitive about those things, while husbands often are not. We need their input to keep us tuned in. Women will also connect us to our own feelings. It’s their way of partnering with the Holy Spirit to heal us. They know how messed up a lot of us are emotionally—don’t try to deny it, guys—and God uses them to get inside us and fix us. Early in our marriage, Karen would always ask me how I felt about certain things. I would always respond the same way. “I do not feel,” I would tell her, “and I don’t want you to talk to me about my feelings.” Talking about feelings made me really nervous. But she knew. She knew that I’d been hurt about certain things that I wouldn’t talk about. I’d always deny it when she brought it up, but every time the Holy Spirit would eventually confirm it. Karen was right. She was always right, and God used her to heal a lot of the emotional scars I was carrying around—scars that had taken their toll on me and our marriage. Women have incredible intuition and relational wisdom. Just as I’ve learned to listen to the Holy Spirit’s promptings in my relationship with God, I have learned to listen to Karen’s voice in our marriage. As convictor and connector, she continues to impact our relationship and make me a better person. Every great wife can play that role in your marriage, too, if you’ll listen. Blessings!

This is an incredible video blog posted by Rick Warren responding to attack and slander from the media and the gay community about his stance for Biblical marriage between man and woman. The attacks began when President-Elect Obama invited him to to deliver the invocation at the presidential inauguration next month.

You will be enlightened, empowered, exhorted, and encouraged.

It’s a long video, but it is totally worth it.  Enjoy.