Editor’s note: Rebekah & Gabe Lyon's The Journal for Us provides a hopeful perspective, a clear plan, and the support you need to cultivate the joyful and thriving marriage you desire. In this journal (which correlates with their book The Fight for Us), Rebekah and Gabe share biblical insights and encouragement, along with practical advice on how to reflect on, process, and discuss your relationship with your spouse in ways that strengthen your bond. Read it together with your husband or wife and explore the thought-provoking questions in this excerpt as a team.
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Knowing the role that God has designed your spouse to fulfill means you can support and encourage them as they grow into that role. You get to be God’s voice to them as you affirm their divine calling in your marriage. ~ Timothy and Kathy Keller
Reflect
Your Unique Calling
Each human being has a divine assignment — often called a vocation — that goes beyond a nine-to-five job and transcends the limits of a job title. It’s not just about what we do, but also about who we are. While not everyone may have a paid job, everyone has a calling.
The Latin root of the word vocation — vocare — means “to call.” This implies there is One who calls, which means a calling begins with a caller. To be called by God is to be invited to participate in the work He is doing in the world, and this calling is based on your unique gifts, passions, and place in life.
Calling is where our talents and burdens collide. Our talents are our birthright gifts, the gifts that make our hearts sing, come alive. Our burdens are found in our stories, in what breaks our hearts. ~ Rebekah, You Are Free
Overall, how clear do you feel about your personal calling — the unique contribution God has called you to make in this season of life?
What do you need most from your spouse to help you get clarity on your calling or to begin pursuing your calling?
Conversation Skills Check-in
As your spouse talks through what their calling is and how they think they are meant to live in light of that, disarm them with active listening and ask questions to help them further unearth their calling and how you can support them in it.
Individuals Versus Partners
Our calling includes every area of life — home, church, relationships, and work. In addition to God’s personal call on your unique life, He has placed a corporate call on your life — to be a friend and follower of Jesus and to pursue unity in the church.
What does it look like to live out God’s corporate calling in marriage? Perhaps the best place to start is to look back to the beginning, when God paired Adam and Eve together in a unifying covenant — marriage — and called them to partner together. One was not subordinate to the other. Instead, they were to partner in the tasks of raising children, cultivating the earth, and glorifying God as they did so.
Gabe and I try to partner in marriage in many ways. From kid pickups and drop-offs to cooking, cleaning, and tending to the garden or chickens, our acts of cultivating the earth are shared. We also partner in leading our kids and each other into deeper relationship with God. We exercise mutual submission in taking on the daily assignments required to lead a family and live our lives together.
Reflect on your answer. Why did you choose that particular number?
Is Your Marriage Lopsided?
When a married couple navigates their life together and their work as individuals, there is always a danger that the relationship will become lopsided. In a lopsided marriage, the work or personal growth needs of one spouse start to dominate and have outsized influence on the couple’s decision-making and the trajectory of their life as a couple and a family.
- However, when a married couple navigates their life together as a partnership — where the union of two individuals creates something greater than the sum of two parts — they begin to experience what God intended.
Partners in marriage are intentional about valuing the needs and opinions of each other in significant (and insignificant) matters.
While supporting each person’s unique giftedness, calling, and contribution to the world, they also partner in a shared mission — one that not only brings new life to the couple but extends into their community as well.
In what ways, if any, have you experienced a lopsided dynamic in your marriage — in the distant past or more recently?
Was the lopsidedness an intentional decision you made for a season, or was it something you drifted into without really thinking about it?
If your marriage is lopsided now, what changes might you have to make to move toward a more equal partnership?
Don’t Lead Parallel Lives
Researcher Dr. John Gottman warns, “Some people leave a marriage literally, by divorcing. Others do so by leading parallel lives together.”1
In order to avoid leading parallel lives, we suggest applying these three characteristics of a partnered marriage to your relationship:
Partners consider each other’s gifts. They ask questions, help each other trace their origin story, and imagine possibilities beyond what their spouse might consider for themselves. Partnership requires reciprocity, which means each spouse is willing to sacrifice their own priorities to benefit their mate. Partnered couples deeply desire to cultivate each other’s gifts.
Partners activate and engage by spurring each other on. When self-¬doubt kicks in and we ask, “Do I have what it takes?” our spouse responds with love and affirmation and calls out the ways we make an impact. In conversations with friends, our spouse brags on our latest project or venture and celebrates our wins.
Partners live a shared vision of love and good deeds. Partners ask, “What love and good deeds has God set out for us to accomplish together? If we could do anything together to make the world a better place, what would it be?” They contemplate how God may want to use them as a couple —¬ even as a family —¬ to bring healing to the world.
Of the three characteristics above, which one is strongest in your marriage? Which one needs some attention?
Write down a few ideas on how to practice partnership better together.
Talk
You’ve spent some time reflecting on how you can partner in your work. Now let’s talk about it.
Getting Clear on Your Calling
If one of you is struggling with a clear sense of calling in this season, below are some of the questions Gabe asked me (Rebekah) when I needed clarity on who I was and what I had to offer.
Partner with your spouse by asking each question. Practice active listening by asking follow-up questions and saying “tell me more” about what makes you curious.
What did you dream about being one day when you were a young child?
What are your natural talents, the ones that come so easily you almost never have to exert effort?
What do others say you’re good at?
What’s wrong in the world that you wish were made right?
Discover
Take time to reflect on your conversation. If you’d like to, you can use the skill of active listening to take notes about what your spouse says while you talk.
During your conversation, what did you learn about yourself?
What did you learn about your spouse?
Prepared for Good Works
Ephesians 2:10 reads,
We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Reflect on how God has uniquely designed you. If you are his handiwork, what does that say about your value? And in what ways has He created you to contribute to the world?
Journal a prayer, asking God to expand your capacity and reveal the good works He has prepared for you.
1. Dr. John Gottman, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert (1999; repr., Harmony, 2015), 12.
Excerpted with permission from The Journal for Us by Rebekah Lyons & Gabe Lyons, copyright Rebekah Lyons and Gabe Lyons.
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Your Turn
How is your marriage? Is it the happy, healthy, Jesus-focused, and well-balanced marriage you long for? If not, lean in and work together to build the strong and resilient marriage God planned for you! ~ Devotionals Daily