FamilyLife Today®

David Robbins: Back years ago when we were 29 to 32, having our first kids and learning some really valuable lessons of right-sizing idolatry in my heart, of living mission as my purpose when intimacy with God is my purpose. Though I covenant relationships of my family, no one else can live out those relationships. Everything else, someone's going to be the president of Campus Crusade for Christ International someday. I want to be faithful and steward that currently, but I had to learn some hard lessons early on.

Ann Wilson: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Ann Wilson.

Dave Wilson: And I’m Dave Wilson, and you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Dave Wilson: We've got the president of Cru, David Robbins, and Meg Robbins in the studio. You guys, it's good to be back. This is amazing.

Meg Robbins: It's been too long.

David Robbins: It feels like home. It’s amazing. Thank you, guys.

Dave Wilson: You guys look younger. Wow, you're just saying things that aren't true in order to butter us up. That's what you do as a host, right? Make people feel good about themselves. You might have heard this last weekend, I did something that I found out less than one percent of people that ever exist on the planet get to do.

Dave Wilson: I did the Olympic bobsled in Lake Placid, New York. We did it in 46 seconds. If you watch Cool Runnings, the Jamaicans qualified if they got under a minute, so we beat them. It was the most exhilarating, out-of-control, scary, off-the-ice-at-points ride of my life. You're shaking. It was literally the Thailand bobsled. They thought they're going to give us this guest bobsled where it's all comfy and soft. They just got the Thailand one. It was the ride of my life.

Dave Wilson: You guys have just taken the ride of your life. You've been on a bobsled ride. Stepping into this new phase has felt probably like getting into the bobsled. What are we doing? New phase meaning, for our audience that doesn't know, I think most of them do, but what are you doing now?

David Robbins: It was a treat of a lifetime for seven years to get to lead FamilyLife and to get to be around this table with you guys frequently and to team up with the team. We're here because of you guys. You chose us. Thank you for saying yes. You were a provision. I reflect back to that decision when Dennis Rainey and I and Bob Lepine were discussing what's next.

David Robbins: We took a year to really pray about it and we were praying, Lord, would you lead toward a couple where a perspective of a husband and a wife and a mother and a father could be guiding listeners through all sorts of conversations? I'm so grateful for the provision you guys have been to FamilyLife and continue to be. I'm also so grateful for Luke and Christina Mittendorf as they continue to lead well.

David Robbins: Luke is president now because it was about a year and a half ago that we got installed as the president of Cru, which is what the ministry is known in the US. It's Campus Crusade for Christ International. In the US, that's known as Cru. FamilyLife is one of the ministries underneath Cru. It's been a blast of a year getting to know staff and volunteers all around the world. That first year really was about getting to every region of the world as many staff conferences as we could, meeting staff and volunteers, getting to hear their stories around meals.

David Robbins: These are people just like you and me, but also raised up in corners of the world that they're facing persecution from their families. They're seeing God show up in phenomenal ways. Jesus shows up in someone's dream and then the next day meets one of the missionaries or volunteers and disciples that's there and leads them to Jesus. That is happening around the world and it's been a gift to be a part of it. It's also been a gift to downshift a little in this last six months from the bobsled ride of year one.

David Robbins: We have a senior in high school, so her senior year has allowed us to not only wake up to how we get more into a routine, but also prioritize her and the time we have remaining.

Dave Wilson: Everything I see when I follow you on social media is it looks like a bobsled ride. The wind, your hair's blowing back, you're flying. You're around the world because a lot of your job is you have to know what's happening in this new to you Cru world.

Meg Robbins: The learning curve of that first year, you had a goal of trying to get to every region around the world, which you did, almost to all of them. I actually got to join you for most of those, which was amazing. Just trying to balance that with the stage of life we're in. We have three kids still at home, only one in college.

Meg Robbins: Our family, we don't get these days and weeks and years back with our kids, obviously. We're the only ones who can be their mom and dad. Trying to keep that right in front of our face all the time, I feel like, is challenging, but crucial.

Ann Wilson: Well, that's the perfect segue because maybe not everybody's the president of some gigantic ministry or organization, but we all feel the pressure of our jobs, ministry, family, that balancing act. It can be hard to balance that.

David Robbins: Learn as we go and learn from our mistakes. But let's keep learning. The way you said that, Ann, I go, yes, we've said yes because God said it would be disobedience if we didn't to this current role. I think back to the lessons learned from 29 to 32 for me in particular of right-sizing work and ministry. No matter what your current yes is vocationally and the things that you love to fill your time with in purpose, that temptation's always there.

David Robbins: Whether you're leading a large organization or at 29 we were leading a team of 10 people on a local campus having a blast, I feel like I had more idolatry controlling my time in that season. Things that shape me now were forged in that season and we keep growing and learning. Certainly, we have missteps in year one. We did not live it out perfectly. But it was really formed back years ago when we were 29 to 32, having our first kids and learning some really valuable lessons of right-sizing idolatry in my heart, of living mission as my purpose when intimacy with God is my purpose.

David Robbins: Though I covenant relationships of my family, no one else can live out those relationships. Everything else, someone's going to be the president of Campus Crusade for Christ International someday. I want to be faithful and steward that currently, but I had to learn some hard lessons early on.

Dave Wilson: Meg, as you watched your husband do that, how'd he do? Was there a time where you're like, "Hey, I'm over here, we're over here"? You're not talking necessarily now, but those early 29 years and those years then and now? You've gone through it as a wife. I know what Ann would say. I want to know what you think.

Meg Robbins: I think the way that kind of came to a head for us, actually, is we had someone that he was coaching in ministry was really struggling in their marriage. We were just praying for them, talking about them. He was trying to update me because I was talking with the wife as well. He said, "Talking about their marriage so much, does that make you kind of wonder about our marriage?"

David Robbins: We get to roleplay here, I get to be you. So we're in the car on the way to a Wednesday night church. You know Wednesday night church, just when you're survival mode and you're like, "Just get the kids into something." We had three kids, three and under. I asked the question.

Meg Robbins: He asked, "So talking about their marriage so much, does that kind of make you wonder about how our marriage is?" And I said, "Ha!" And David said, "Oh, I guess we need to talk about this."

David Robbins: I was not laughing.

Meg Robbins: It wasn't funny at the time because I was feeling like he was driving ahead in so many ways in ministry and what he was giving out to other people and pouring into this couple's marriage, and yet feeling like I'm really struggling over here. We had these three kids, three and under, and our youngest was 10 months old at the time. I was still feeling like I was in survival mode.

Meg Robbins: With the first one, you're in survival mode for six to eight weeks. Then the next one, a little longer, maybe four months because you've got two, you're trying to adjust. But when the third one came along, I was hanging by a thread at the 10-month mark. I felt like he had no idea. He didn't see me is what I was feeling.

David Robbins: I think you had tried to communicate, but I was just doing things to try to keep the home together, keep it going at work. I was so proud that I was going in at seven and coming back at three to avoid Atlanta traffic. I was like, "Aren't I a great husband?" But I'm coming home exhausted, no rhythms of sleep, and really just functioning well together, but really not thriving at all spiritually, emotionally connected.

David Robbins: I think it took me giving so much energy to another marriage, trying to help them set up. It wasn't a bitterness, it was a realization of, "Wait, we're not okay." All these little things, Song of Solomon says, "Catch the little foxes that hinder and destroy the garden." Foxes come in and out and you don't know the first few nights. As they keep adding up and time keeps going, your garden's destroyed. You have no grapes on the vine. We were at a pretty empty place.

David Robbins: What I chuckle at, though, is did I know? I think I knew something enough to ask, but then was I ready for what was really coming? This month, we go to bed. "Are you okay?" Well, what am I really saying? That's a really lazy question for, "I know something's not quite right and I'm going to put responsibility upon you to help declare it or not." I'm learning, slowly.

Meg Robbins: The other thing that I feel like we are learning and have to remind ourselves is if I've shared something that I'm struggling with or I'm feeling, "Hey, I'm really feeling like we're just going from trip to trip, visiting people all over, and we're not getting the time that we normally do just for the two of us." That's probably not a very good example, but we're still kind of in that place.

Meg Robbins: He hasn't come back to say, "Hey, how are you feeling? Are we feeling connected better than we were a month ago?" It's like revisiting the thing that I have shared about or we've talked about. It's a check-in rather than being like, "Are you okay?" because that sets me up to have to go into the whole thing all over again rather than it just could be that same thing.

David Robbins: I think back to this time of 29 to 32 and that moment. The simplest step we did, this was overly simple, but it's what we had time for and space for, is we said, "You know what? That church on Wednesday nights, we usually drop the kids off and hang out with friends in the common area after the Wednesday night dinner." We don't have these anymore at our current church, but "How about we go to that marriage class they're offering?"

David Robbins: It was that simple. It was Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage, Gungor. It was an old videotape. There was something to laughing together. That's why Art of Marriage is such a great video series. It makes you laugh some, but then it sets up some conversation where you end up looking each other in the eye and it's this micro check-in. I look back and I go, that was overly simple, but it just took somebody setting up something for us then to go talk about and to have something fresh in our marriage to get realigned. We've had to realign a lot over years. Other times there's been much more feeling much more apart. In that moment, I feel like it was a quick realignment in those coming weeks when we said yes to go into that marriage small group because we talked about it honestly.

Dave Wilson: How would you coach up a wife? I guess it can go either way too. Let me just say that too because my schedule may not be quite what yours was back in the day. Now it is. She just said now my schedule's as crazy as yours, basically. I watch her.

Ann Wilson: I find myself so preoccupied in my mind with not only work and all of that, but also have I spent time with the kids and the grandkids and am I touching base, that it can pull me away from Dave because we haven't been with them. I can feel distracted in my mind and not as focused on him because he's fine. That's what I can think as a wife especially. I think it can go both ways. Now go to Meg.

Meg Robbins: We can feel like he's there. He's in the bobsled. These other things, this is like a timeline, has to happen or whatever, I'll get back to that or I'll get to that later. When it's actually a huge, important lifeline that we know these things, that if we're not doing well, all the trickle-down effect that has. It's easy to focus on the other things.

Dave Wilson: Well, we've been speakers at the Weekend to Remember® marriage getaway for 36 years, and every single conference we're a part of, lives are changed.

Ann Wilson: The stories are incredible where God meets couples. Great things happen. You know what? There's a sale going on that you are not going to want to miss.

Dave Wilson: The sale is right now between March 20th and 30th. It's 40% off. Who doesn't want a deal like that?

Ann Wilson: That’s a good deal. Not only will your marriage be changed, but your kids' marriages and your legacy. I'm telling you, it's transformational for your legacy.

Dave Wilson: You can go to WeekendToRemember.com and sign up there. You don't need a promo code, just sign up. You'll get 40% off between March 20th and 30th. Again, that's WeekendToRemember.com.

Dave Wilson: If you're a wife, let's start there, that's feeling resentful because your man is driving hard in a high-pressure job. What you're leading is a high-capacity, needy, pressure-filled role. There's a lot of things that you're carrying, and a lot of guys carry a lot of things, and women do too. There's jobs that they're carrying same thing. But it feels like, "That's outside my home and I've got my wife at home who's really feeling neglected." How would you coach up a wife? Dave and I could say, "I'll tell you how to do it," but how does she say to her husband, "I'm really feeling neglected"? It isn't just you're not getting home 5:15, you haven't been here all week. Even when you do get home, you're not here. I've got three kids or teenagers or whatever stage. I know Ann felt abandoned in many ways. I think a lot of wives feel the same way. How would you coach up a wife to say, "Don't say this, say this"?

Meg Robbins: The number one thing that comes to my mind is actually the first couple of years in the role at FamilyLife leading FamilyLife. I was really struggling and David was carrying so much. We were both carrying a lot because we did a lot of things together in that space. I feel like there came a point where I realized I'm keeping that from him. I'm not telling him how I feel and I'm not sharing about this resentment because I'm being too careful. I didn't want to put one more thing on him because I saw how much he was dealing with and carrying and I felt like that's just going to be one more thing.

Meg Robbins: Some of the things I was feeling, they weren't necessarily new. We often go back to the same struggles, the same things that he's always going to be someone who is very gifted at doing a lot of things and leading ahead in a lot of things at once. That means there's going to be a temptation always to take on more. The good giftedness of that, well, there's always a flip side of, "Okay, then how does that play out in our marriage and family? Choosing to have healthy boundaries."

Meg Robbins: Those same things come back for us a lot. You had someone share, "Hey, you, Meg, need to stop being so careful." Meaning, it's not my place to decide if he has too much on his plate. I know in my head that our marriage is more important than all of those other things. It was just easy for me to think, "Oh, it's not a good time," or, "I know he has so much and this is just going to be one more boulder for him to carry."

Meg Robbins: The reality was, no, I was actually keeping him from knowing me. I wasn't letting him into what I was really feeling and experiencing. Whether part of that was resentment or part of that was just the challenge of trying to find my place and where do my giftings fit and what God's called me to at that time in FamilyLife. For me, if I'm telling a younger wife or another person how do you do that, how do you let your husband in?

Meg Robbins: First I realize I have to process this with the Lord. I need to take some time and probably journal and pray about it. I love to journal, I don't always make time for it. It always gives me clarity of what I'm actually feeling rather than just this fuming anger. It helps me realize what are the things that I need to own in this and what are the things that I can say, "Hey, I'm feeling like this and I'm wondering if maybe it's because when you come home, we're not really talking about how we're doing. We're always talking about the kids or we're talking about the kids or the job or whatever it is."

Dave Wilson: I think what Ann did, you can talk to this, maybe you stopped saying it to me because you thought I wasn't listening. We got to the point on our 10th anniversary, she says, "I lost my feelings for you." Whenever we tell that story, which is in the Art of Marriage, it's this journey of, "I was angry, I was resentful," this is what you say, "then I realized I'd become numb and now I just don't have feelings." She probably said it and I didn't hear it.

Ann Wilson: But the way I said it wasn't great. Like, "You're never home anymore." I wish, and here's a thing I think when you're resentful, what I found myself doing is the more you store bitterness in your heart, the more distant I become from God. When I would go to God, which it's so funny, when I take my eyes off of Jesus, I automatically, I still do this, I look at Dave to fill me up. I see what he's doing wrong and he becomes the idol.

Ann Wilson: I think that's really natural to happen, but I do think, Meg, I wish I would have said it in a way, I wish I would have taken it to Jesus. How can I say this? But what happens is once you say it and nothing changes, that's when it gets really hard. I can also get into like, "Okay, we're in a hard season. For you guys, this is going to be a year of grind." Maybe you took or your husband's taken a new job or you're in a new location. I think what we can do as a spouse is we gear up. "All right."

Ann Wilson: But then when it goes on and on and it doesn't change, we get desperate. That's when we don't know what to do. I was going to say and agree with you, Meg, I tend to say way too much. I wasn't protecting Dave, I am just pounding him with my words.

Meg Robbins: I probably retreat away.

Ann Wilson: Dave seldom says anything negative to me. To be truthful and honest, I think you're scared of me and I need you to be. I want him to tell me the truth because how am I going to change if I don't know what the truth is of what you're feeling?

Dave Wilson: I think what happened to me, and I wonder how many guys feel this, I don't even admit this, this is so childish and selfish. It was like God was blessing the ministry. If you're not in ministry, God's blessing your job and good things are happening. The more you give to it, the better it seems like it got. For us, we're starting a church, so we're church planters and it just starts growing.

Dave Wilson: That's a dream. I felt every time she would bring something up about me being home or even the kids needing me, and they were babies at the time, I found inside I was resentful. I just wanted to go, "Don't you see what's happening over here? Leave me alone." Which is terrible. But I sort of felt it. I didn't ever say it, but underneath I sort of gave the vibe like, "Just you're good, right? Please be good. Because you don't want to mess up this. This is what we're on the planet to do and God's doing it."

Meg Robbins: Anyone could justify that in any job or any vocation, but I will say in ministry it's probably even more of something that we're tempted to do. "Look what God's doing over here." As a spouse, you can think, "Well, now I'm competing with God. I shouldn't say anything because God is blessing it." It's terrible to think back about those days. We were on the FamilyLife Weekend to Remember speaker team, so we were talking about how important marriage is.

Ann Wilson: That’s okay, we were leading FamilyLife. Good thing God uses us in our weakness. But he grows us in that spot.

Dave Wilson: I forgot how much I love the Robbins. We could talk with them forever. But don't worry, we're not going to talk with them forever, just another day tomorrow. They'll be back with us and you don't want to miss it.

Dave Wilson: A lot of people don't know this, but we're on YouTube. You're a lot prettier than you sound.

Ann Wilson: I don't even watch it because it's scary, but you can watch it. I love watching YouTube clips. You get a lot more out of it, I think, when you're watching people.

Dave Wilson: The next generation's probably going to watch it rather than just listen to us. You can do either or, but if you want to watch and enjoy, YouTube.com/FamilyLife. Just go to YouTube.com/FamilyLife or if you're a big YouTube person, just go to YouTube and type in "FamilyLife" one word.

Ann Wilson: I put three words on there and it still worked. FamilyLife Today.

Dave Wilson: FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife, a Cru ministry. 50 years of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.