If you’re keeping up with the video thing each week, you know that I’ve started a series on the pastor’s family. And if you’re like me and saw that, you winced.

There is no place where pastors feel more guilt than they do about their families. And, not only that, I’m not sure that the family problems we face as pastors are even “fixable.” Maybe they can be better and maybe we can “get Home before the dark,” but the nature of our calling and the attendant pressures of that calling require that we change what can be changed, accept what can’t be changed, have enough wisdom to know the difference…

…and fake the rest.

As I go through the video stuff on the pastor’s family, I’m going to tell you everything I know. There is something to be said about an old guy’s wisdom. I’ve been where most of you are, have tried most of what you’ve tried, and have a pile of bloody T-shirts in my closet.

I’ve screwed it up so many times that I’ve lost count, I’ve had to ask forgiveness so many times that it’s grown easy to ask, and I’ve thought we weren’t going to make it so many times that divorce lawyers were salivating. I’ve done some things right and some things wrong.

But I’m still here. After all, we do worship a gracious and kind God.

I’m still married to and deeply in love with the same woman. I have children and grandchildren who are walking with Christ and, so far, haven’t screwed it up so badly that it was irreparable. So listen to the “old white guy.” I pray that what I say on these videos will prove helpful.

But I feel constrained to say something else here that is so very important.

Your marriage and family are never going to be as good as you want them to be, as your congregation thinks they ought to be, or as good as some of the books tell you they can be. The faster you and I face that fact, the more we can deal with fallen world issues in general and family issues in particular.

I will never write a book on marriage. I will certainly never do one on “The Pastor’s Family.” There are two reasons. First, as I mentioned on the video, Anna could (I don’t think it’s going to happen) finally have it with me and say, “enough is enough,” leave me, and find a nicer and better looking guy. My children could (and I don’t think this is going to happen either) become Buddhists.

The older I get, the less is the chance of that happening. However, one never knows and, frankly, I don’t want a book in print that would provide fodder for the “they’re all hypocrites” bunch.

The far more likely and important reason I’m not doing a book on marriage is because every time there is one by some Christian “expert,” a thousand Christian marriages go down the tube. Things were okay until they read the book and then they realized how bad their marriages were and tried to fix them. In a fallen world, if you get 51%, you file it under “success.” And if you try to get 90%, you’re going to get killed.

But that sounds so bleak. I don’t mean it to be bleak. Marriage is an incredible gift and a soft place, and it can be a microcosm for the macrocosm of what God intends for his people. My family is the most important gift God has given and I’m convinced that I would not have made it this far without them…or them without me. I have a lot of lines in my face, but a great number of them are laugh lines reflecting the joy and pleasure of God’s gift of my family.

Just don’t be unrealistic about it, okay?

Just so you know, I’m going to start a thread in the forums on the subject of “unrealistic expectations”…yours, theirs and mine. If you have anything to add, to correct or to teach, why not join me there?

 Email This Post This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 at 2:35 pm and is filed under Read, Steve Brown. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.