I (Rene) just spent two hours in a chat session with a Google customer service rep trying to get a Google Home Mini device to work. The type of device you talk to and it does your bidding. We received the Mini as a gift so I thought we would use it to bring our home technology up a notch. It came with a “smart light bulb”. Gloria and I are debating where to put the “smart” light bulb. I’m not convinced it’s going to be easier to tell Google to turn on the light or to just turn on the light the old-fashioned way with our fingers pressing the switch.

The Shortcut

We’re under the impression that technology provides a shortcut to an easier life and sometimes it does – writing our books on a computer is easier than writing them on a typewriter! Coincidentally, the subject of our books, marital intimacy, has no shortcut. There’s no app that will help build intimacy in marriage like a microwave oven. Marital intimacy takes a lifetime of effort, patience, love, and prayer.

We’ve Come a Long Way

We’ve come a long way as they say. Our fathers would get up early in the morning and consume a hearty breakfast before they milked the cows. They would work the rest of the day tending sheep, cultivating fields, repairing equipment and a myriad of other chores. The wives would work hard in the barns, fields, gardens, and kitchens keeping the family clothed and fed. The family would clean up before dinner, eat dinner around a dining room table, then sit around the wood stove reading their Bibles often by kerosene lamps after dinner. They would converse about the next day and perhaps future dreams. The would read a story to the children, probably from the Bible, and send them off to bed before the parents retired for the night. More often than not, for the parents, the primary comfort of the day would be in the marriage bed entangled in each other’s arms before drifting off into a satisfying sleep.

The Rhythm of Life

They would get up the next day and repeat. There were no days off except Sunday when they would gather the children together into the old pickup and head off to church to sing praise to Jesus their Savior who provided them with eternal life forever and an abundant life now. The rhythm of life gave them a purpose and sustained them in times of trouble. They pondered the birth-death-birth cycle of life and they hoped in a rebirth of their own one day in heaven where there would be no more toil, tears, pain, or sadness.

Romanticized? Perhaps but not too long ago I experienced this farming rhythm each summer as us city folk would go the Northern Vermont and help with the haying on my uncle’s farm. Reggie and Germain Beliveau lived this life and I don’t think I ever saw a happier couple. They knew the value of hard work, strong faith, and patient love. Their 11 children received the benefits of life on the farm.

We have come a long way. We do not romanticize the hard scrabble life on a Northern Vermont farm in the 1950’s – think a very short growing season – but on the other hand there’s something to be said for a life with hands in the dirt and hearts toward heaven.

Now if we can just get this Google Home Mini to turn on our light bulb!

Blessings – Rene and Gloria

There’s an ad on a local TV station that promotes “Mr Generous”. A man is standing in front of an elevator letting everyone go before him into the elevator. A grateful woman recognizes the man and exclaims, “Mr Generous!” The man just smiles. The ad ends with a web address, you guessed it, mrgenerous.com. Okay, we were curious. It turns out the man, Mr Generous, is a used car dealer who apparently gives “generous” allowances for your trade-in and a “generous” discount on used vehicles.

It got us to thinking about generosity in the Bible. God is the most generous of all. He gave his Son, his only Son, to die on the Cross for our salvation. God’s generosity knows no bounds, where sin abounded, grace much more abounded. “God is generous with his grace“ is the biggest understatement ever!

God So Loved the World

“God so loved the world that he gave …” God wants us to give love also but with a cheerful heart, not feeling coerced or begrudgingly. We are sometimes reluctant to give love to our spouse thinking we should be loved first and then we might, if the conditions are right and we’re in the mood, be generous.

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:6-8 NIV)

Paul of course is talking of giving our money to those in the Body who need our help. The principle is universal though; that is, if we are stingy, tightfisted givers, or generous, cheerful givers we will receive in kind.

The principle applies to our generosity with our spouse. In 1 Corinthians 7:5a, Paul says, “Don’t deprive one another” or the positive way to say this, “Be generous in your love for one another”. If you sow your love sparingly with your spouse then don’t be surprised if you also reap sparingly.

Christmas is a season of generosity. We spend fretful hours finding the perfect gift for our spouses trying hard to please them. This is a good thing but don’t forget to be generous with your love too. Paradoxically, this is a season many of us put aside our love for our spouse because we are so busy showing love to everyone else.

Christmas is a season to give but don’t forget the best gifts are free!

Blessings, René & Gloria