Monday Manna #16

Your body, your marriage and your home are one assignment, and God already gave you everything you need for all three. We walk it out here every week, straight from Scripture.

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Hey y’all, and welcome to Monday Manna!

We went out for tacos on Friday night and came home with a sermon.

It wasn’t planned. We were on a date, just the two of us, at a place downtown with an upstairs patio that looks out over our little town. We got there around 8:30 for a late dinner. By 10:00 the music was up, the drinks were flowing, and we were the last two people in the building still eating actual food.

Two strangers changed the whole night…

Two Men, Thirty Feet Apart

Right before we went out to eat, we were enjoying a concert celebrating Mama Z’s 48th birthday. Bryce Leatherwood, the guy who won the Voice a few years back, one of Mama Z’s favorite country singers…

Dr. Z here…

Here’s something we’ve learned over twenty years of marriage. A happy couple with a big family preaches whether they mean to or not.

“Wow, seven kids?”

“How do you even do that?”

Mama Z tells everybody. It’s her badge of honor, it’s the cutest thing in the world, and it opens doors we never would have knocked on.

Friday night it opened two.

We were seated at a long community table, first come and first served, and a guy ended up standing right next to us with a beer in his hand. We got to talking. He has two kids. His wife wants a third. He’s afraid to say yes, and the reason is money.

So there we were over fajitas and a salad, telling a total stranger the truth: don’t let fear talk you out of a blessing. He took it. He told us he was going to look at a bigger family differently.

Then something else hit me while he stood there.

Why is this man out on a Friday night? His buddy was working the room looking for girls. The two of them weren’t even talking to each other. He was just standing there holding a beer by himself next to our table, killing time he will never get back. He could be home. He could be on the couch with his wife. He could be making the very baby he says he’s scared of! 😉

An hour later we met the second one.

We were waiting for the restroom and so was he, and he’d had plenty. Mama Z had already told him about the seven kids, because of course she had, and then she stepped into the lady’s room.

He started pouring his heart out to a man he had known for ninety seconds.

“How do you do it, man? How do you do it?”

He has already been divorced once. He is thinking about doing it again. He has twin toddlers, two years old. And he wanted to know the secret.

So I gave it to him. “Cherish your wife, I told him. She is God’s gift.”

He stared at me like I was looking into his soul…

So I told him about the season nobody sees on a highlight reel, the one where the word divorce actually got said out loud under our own roof. What turned it was not a technique or a book. It was what my mentor Enoch showed me in about four seconds of his time.

We told that whole story right here, and it is not the story most people expect.

Enoch told me to point at him. So I did. Index finger out, thumb up, like a kid playing cowboys.

Then he said it. “Look at your hand. One finger on me. Three pointing back at you. You can aim at your wife all day long. There are still three coming back at you.

“Every time you keep on accusing Sabrina with that one finger, you’ve got three fingers pointing back at you, buddy.”

That was it. That was the whole thing.

I had spent months quietly building a case against her, and God used a hand gesture to hand the case back to me.

“It’s me. It’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.”

The old childhood, he kept on playing in the back of my mind.

I had to work on me first. Then I had to start drawing the best out of her.

Because here is the part most of us miss:

Men, if you want to be married to a thoroughbred, you cannot treat her like a broken down old mare.

We have the power to pull the best out of the people we live with, or the worst, and we are using that power either way, every single day, whether we are paying attention or not.

So that is what I told the man in the hallway. Cherish her. Forgive her. Love her.

Then Mama Z came out, and we drove home to our children.

Here is what we came home with.

Men, go home to your wives.

Wives, give your husbands something to come home to.

And no, this is not only about sex, although let’s be honest, that is a real part of it and the church has been strange about it for far too long. It is about honor. It is about forgiveness. It is about being the kind of person your family is glad to see walk through the door.

Marriage, business, parenting, friendship, it is the same law in every room. You are pulling the best or the worst out of everyone around you.

So pull the best. Fight for the thing that actually matters. If you are married with children, there is nothing on this planet more important than what happens in your house tonight. That is not a distraction from your ministry. That is your ministry, handed to you by God on purpose.

Can you relate?

Here’s a word for your Monday before we get into everything we’ve published since Manna #15…

YOUR DAILY MANNA

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her… In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.” — Ephesians 5:25, 28-29

Paul had a hundred words available to him and he reached for that one. Cherishes.

It does not mean tolerate. It does not mean provide for. The word carries the picture of warming something, the way a bird settles down over a nest until what is underneath it comes to life.

Nobody warms anything by accident. You cannot do it from the patio of a taco place at ten o’clock at night. Warmth takes presence, and presence means you have to actually be there.

That is what stopped us about both of those men. Neither one was a monster. Neither one was cruel or unfaithful. They were simply gone, one afraid of the future and one already halfway out the door, and both of them somewhere other than home on a night their families were home without them.

Most marriages do not end in a fight. They end in a slow leak.

And notice what Paul does not say. He never tells a husband to love his wife as much as she loves him. He hands him Christ as the standard instead, a man who gave Himself up before anybody had earned it. That is not fair, and it was never meant to be fair. It is a picture of the Gospel.

So here is your one thing this week. Go home early one night. Put the phone face down on the counter, sit down with the person God gave you, and be warm.

Not seven nights. One. Then let God do what He does with a heart that finally showed up.

What We Are Loving

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Featured Posts

Everything we’ve published since Manna #15, all four pieces, right here.

We closed the affirmation series with Spiritual Health, and this week we are living in the follow through, because dryness, apathy, resilience and discipline all get decided at home before they ever get decided anywhere else.

From Natural Living Family

Bible Health is where we teach the why. Over on Natural Living Family this week we taught the how: digestion after 40, cleaner skin, gentler cleaning, and Mama Z finally opening up her garden to y’all. Four favorites worth your five minutes.

• DIY Heavy Duty Wipes + Essential Oil Detox Water + Bioactive Foods
  Spotlight: The 3-part secret to better digestion, especially past 40.

• DIY Dish Soap + Gluten-Free Soft Pretzels + Natural Remedies
  Spotlight: The 10-second pre-meal ritual for digestion problems.

• DIY Dermatitis Salve + Oils for Blemishes + Serum Toxins + Vegan Parmesan
  Spotlight: Smoother, firmer looking skin without harsh chemicals.

• Welcome to Mama Z’s Organic Gardening Space
  Spotlight: You asked for years. Mama Z finally opened the garden gate.

Your Voice Matters

Two questions this week, one for each side of the bed.

• Husbands: what does your wife do that makes you want to come home?

• Wives: what does he do that makes you glad he walked through the door?

Answer one. Somebody reading this needs the idea more than you know.

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As always, our hope and prayer is that you experience the abundant life.

~ Dr. Z & Mama Z

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