FamilyLife Today®

Jon Aragon: I’m often thinking about the privilege I have to participate in the parts of Quina’s story that God’s redeeming. Okay God, what role are you calling me to play today? It’s not just about did I take out the trash, right? It’s old, but it’s true in that I’m able to do something practical that shows that I love and care for my lovely bride. And I’m being entrusted with one of God’s daughters.

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

Ann Wilson: And I’m Ann Wilson. You can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Dave Wilson: As we’ve shared before, we’re out this week, but our good friend Cheryl is currently sitting in and bringing great conversations that inspire you to act.

Ann Wilson: She sure is. Check out this discussion with Jon and Quina Aragon. I’m sure it’s going to be good.

Guest (Female): I want to talk about your understanding of God’s love. Can you tell us about your favorite meditation from your book?

Jon Aragon: The more familiar we get with the scripture’s overarching story from Genesis to Revelation, which my book covers, the more we can see it as a biblical theology of love. It’s to get you familiar with the story of scripture and to get you to start asking questions about your life story.

There’s this marriage of story work that is seeing your life as a story, particularly the places of great brokenness and woundedness as the areas where God’s glory wants to particularly shine. Be willing to engage those chapters that you don’t want to engage: the ones that are embarrassing, the ones that are filled with shame, sorrow, and great pain.

Trust that because I’m getting more familiar with the scripture’s story, my story is in some way going to become an echo of that great story. The story of scripture is embedded into mine. You’re looking for clues of redemption. My favorite meditation is at the part in the scripture’s story where Jerusalem has been destroyed by Babylon.

The prophet Jeremiah has been prophesying way ahead of time, letting them know that the other prophets are lying and they need to repent. He has the displeasure of having to see the destruction of all of these places of God’s presence. The temple is destroyed and so on. When you’re reading the Book of Lamentations, that’s the meditation. It’s this prophet Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, circling around the city of Jerusalem and sounding almost like a broken record.

He is saying everything he’s seeing and lamenting over it. The children are starving, and the women have gone through so much. He’s repeating himself. I think in real life, when we’re doing community with each other, sometimes we get really uncomfortable with someone who feels the need to repeat how much it hurt when a husband left or when parents did something. You think, shouldn't you be over that? Shouldn't you get over that?

Yet we see in scripture Jeremiah circling around this destroyed Jerusalem and repeating himself like a broken record. In the middle is the famous verse that we all know: the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his faithfulness is new every morning. It’s this belief that there are subplots in our lives or mini-novellas within our grand epic that sometimes remain unresolved even to the point when we die.

There are prayers that we don’t see answered. There are conversations that we’re going to wish we still had and then we pass away. Relationships dissolve and remain unresolved. But because we know what the big plot is—that God is redeeming the world to himself through his son Jesus Christ and that all will be made new again—that resurrection is coming. Because I trust in that greater story and the character of God, which is that his love never ceases, that means if God’s love hasn’t ended, then neither has my story.

Quina Aragon: I love that. I always say if God isn’t finished, then I’m not done. He says he’s perfecting us until the day of Jesus Christ, so we are always in the process. Part of my story is that I have an affiliation with crushed roses because that is what God said he was going to do with my life. He said, "I am going to make you a rose before my throne, but roses smell best when they’re crushed."

Jon Aragon: It’s often through the crushing and the dark night of the soul where God is deeply interested in bringing redemption and glory. It is the very place where the kingdom of darkness and all those who participate with that try to stifle the glory which he intends to reveal in all of us. That’s well said.

Guest (Female): How does that work to reveal his love?

Jon Aragon: Our daughter’s in karate. She’s quite good, but we’re obviously biased. She doesn’t love the sparring aspect. She loves the forms and things she thrives in, but the sparring, having to fight these girls that are taller than her and bigger, is not fun. She was willing to fight this past weekend and she got a pretty bad knock on one of the fights. She came running to me crying, and I just held her.

In that, I see this image of how we experience the love of God. You might ask, "Why did you make me go through this fight? Why are you making me spar? Why are you encouraging me to have to do hard things or have to endure blows?" You might think, "I'd rather stay at home and watch cartoons. I’ll show up on game day and win, but I want to do the things I’m good at. Why are you making me do things that I’m not the best at?"

We have our reasons as parents that we understand. We may explain to her in bits and pieces, but there’s a degree to which she’s just not going to understand that until she’s older and perhaps has her own kids. Then she will see the benefit of the suffering and the training that she’s enduring right now. Where she’s experiencing the love is in various ways, but for sure in that when she got that bad knock, it was just the with-ness. Being held by Mom or Papi and being told, "I’m so proud of you. Way to get in there. It’s okay. Let’s breathe. I’m with you. It’s all right. Let it out."

That type of thing is what God does for me. For me, it was having a disease and going through various surgeries. But one of the more painful things has been the loss of friendship. You mentioned earlier what you do when you lose your community. We’ve experienced degrees of that. Where I can struggle with that sense of abandonment and thinking there is something wrong with me, I remember my friend Ruth.

I called her one day when I was grieving the loss of a friendship that had happened years before. For whatever reason, that morning I just really felt it. I called her and just asked if she could pray for me. She prayed for me and then she just gave space for silence. She asked, "Lord, is there anything you’re saying to Quina in this moment?" Almost as clear as day in my heart, I just heard, "But I will never leave you or forsake you."

How many times have we read that verse? But it was this tonality of God saying, "But I, though. I would never do that to you." That’s when it’s so important to be in God’s word every single day as much as you possibly can. To abide in his word and his word in you, because when things get rough like that and when you’re just desperate and feel like you’re at the end of yourself, it’s those scriptures that become living and active. It becomes so specifically applied to you in your story that you think, "Now I’ll never forget that promise."

Guest (Female): But how does that work in a relationship with your spouse, especially when you are struggling? How have you found your story being anchored in God’s story helping you love this person, especially when you might be having a difficult challenge with them?

Jon Aragon: Jon’s better at answering this one because I look up to him in this.

Jon Aragon: I think you mentioned it before when you mentioned Ephesians. You see this throughout Paul’s letters, but he lays out the indicatives and then the imperatives. I think it’s the incredible responsibility and privilege that those of us who are married have to participate in the story that God is writing for our spouses. Reframing it in that way allows me to be invited as a conduit of God’s grace in my spouse’s life.

That sounds nice and pretty, but when we start getting into the day-to-day real life in the moment, it’s so crucial to ask for the Spirit’s help. When the emotions are high and our nervous systems feel what they’re feeling, we must be reminded of the call that we have to love one another.

In practice, I’m often thinking about the privilege I have to participate in the parts of Quina’s story that God’s redeeming. "Okay, God, what role are you calling me to play today in that?" It’s very practical. It’s true in that I’m able to do something practical that shows that I love and care for my lovely bride. And I’m being entrusted with one of God’s daughters. Oh my goodness.

As parents, we get this too. God help the man who will marry our daughter one day because she’s in karate! But I think about if I have this holy protection over my daughter, how much more does God have for my bride? To be entrusted to participate in how God is weaving the stories together as life happens and the many crucibles of life that we’ve gone through. The many contours of our hearts that have been impacted and affected by circumstance and trial. Okay, Lord, I get to participate in something that you’ve called me to redeem. That will have generational impact for our daughter and the generations to come.

I think practically, asking for the Spirit’s help and spending time in God’s word is key. Be like the ant, and be able to pull from passages and beautiful truths because there will be seasons that will be hard and difficult. Storing up God’s word in our hearts is so crucial.

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Guest (Female): How do we grow to the point where we can embody the love of God—not just embrace, but embody it?

Jon Aragon: I think of it as just these brick-by-brick, day-to-day interactions. Sometimes we think if I go to this big conference, then my marriage will be changed. God can work in the big, for sure. If we just get this vacation, then we’ll be good. But I think it’s just the little by little, day by day, interactions that you have with each other.

What is a way that I can show kindness to my spouse right now? First Peter 3 says husbands dwell with your wives in an understanding way so that your prayers aren’t hindered. God very much cares about our horizontal relationships and how we’re treating each other because that impacts our vertical relationship with him.

If you’re living in a way that you’re hoping that this big mountaintop experience is going to be the thing that causes lasting transformation, then you’re missing out on the beauty and the glory of the mundane. The changing of diapers, the taking out of the trash, and showing kindness in those moments. When that is the regular flow of the relationship, when conflict and wounding happens, you are able to take a step back. You can say, "Wait, we’re on the same team. You love me and I love you, and let’s just remind ourselves of that for a moment. Let’s agree on that first and move on from there." Every marriage is different, but I really do think it’s just those little by little interactions.

Jon Aragon: I was thinking there are two practical things that come to mind for those who are listening. Things we’ve done in our marriage where there’s been moments of disagreement or heightened emotions: we’ll often think, "Who will die first in the conversation?" It’s this dying to self, dying to preference, dying to winning the argument for the sake of the other.

As we’ve gotten an incredible amount of guidance and wisdom from older couples, we’ve developed language around when there has been great injury or harm. We will and have harmed each other. We use language like, "I’m inviting you to see me in this moment." Especially in moments of great contention, that’s a reminder for us to say, "Whoa, there’s incredible vulnerability happening right here."

So in speaking to husbands, when our brides come to us and raise a concern that can often feel like an attack on our manhood or whatever it may be, I would invite us to be reminded that the incredible courage that’s being exercised in that moment and the vulnerability. The image I often use is as if our brides have their heart out. It’s shaky and it needs repair, and they’re just saying, "I’m inviting you to see me." Often our overcorrection or our language can cause more injury than good.

Quina Aragon: All of this language is couch in God’s love, but there are people out there who don’t know God’s love. God’s love is available to all, but it’s only accessible through the blood of Jesus Christ. Can you talk to the person who’s like, "I want to know his love first for me, and then maybe I can extend it to someone else, but I don’t know that."

Jon Aragon: Part of my story is the woman at the well in John 4. It’s this experience of, "Come see a man who told me all about myself," who knew everything about me. She’s able to do it not from this place of shame, but from this place of excitement and healing. So for me, I would say, "Come see for yourself. Come read the scriptures."

For me, I thought the Bible was all in King James English when I was a teenager, so I thought I wasn't going to understand it anyway. I was like, "I'm out." There are wonderful translations available that are English that we can understand, and it’s much more relevant than we think. I remember for me as a teenager, all I knew was that I now have reference to the book of Ecclesiastes, that everything is meaningless. It doesn’t matter if you live or you die, if you’re rich or poor, you die anyway.

I was wrestling with that thought as a teenager and I didn’t know anything about Old Testament or New Testament chapter and verse. I couldn't tell you anything about that. All I knew is that my aunt and uncle would send me a Bible all the time. I opened one of my dusty Bibles in the middle and it was Psalm 69. Again, I didn't know the context, who wrote it, or how it pointed to Jesus. I didn't know any of that. All I knew is that the language, I can relate to that. "Save me, I’m drowning. There’s more enemies than hair on my head. Answer me with your sure salvation."

That’s how I feel. I didn’t know that one, we could talk to God like that, that there’s language like that, that there’s words for this, and that this is a point of access for me to go, "I’m curious now. I want to know more. Tell me more about this God who apparently allows us to be messy with him and welcomes us." That was just the beginning. So start wherever you’re at. Call out to God, call out to Jesus, ask him to reveal himself, and then crack open the nearest Bible you have and begin reading.

Guest (Female): Thank you for saying the part about how we can be messy with him. We’re afraid of our messes, but God isn’t. He steps right in the middle of them and he makes beauty from ashes. So invite him into those places. Jon, would you pray for the person who’s like, "Okay, I am listening to you. I want to take a leap of faith and trust my life over to this love that you’re talking to me about." Would you pray for them just a prayer of salvation and then also pray for the person who may be struggling as well?

Jon Aragon: Lord, we just lift up to you the son or daughter right now who has been searching for so long in all the wrong places for their value, their identity, and their worth. Lord, wherever they may find themselves and however they have been wounded by others in this world, Father, I pray that your Spirit would just cover them even now. Lord, we just pray for their salvation, that they would be reminded that in you they can experience the fullness of life.

Remind them that through your Son and through his sacrifice on the cross, we now have communion with you. Would you remind that person who is without hope or living in despair that you specialize in resurrections? The hope that we have that we will be resurrected with you when you come back. So would you bring salvation and would you bring comfort and hope for those who need it? In Jesus' name, amen.

Guest (Female): Amen. Thank you, Jon and Quina. I am going to be buying a few of your books and giving them away to at least our children who are married and getting married. At the very least, I think if they can be anchored in the love of God, then they will find themselves being able to love their spouses and their children in such a revolutionary way as to set their family free in ways they can only imagine. Thank you so very much.

Jon Aragon: I don’t know about you, but I really enjoyed listening to Jon and Quina, and I’m super grateful for the encouragement that was shared today.

Dave Wilson: Hey, for those listening, if you’re interested in getting their book, "Love Has a Story", head over to familylifetoday.com, click on the link in the show notes and it takes you right to that resource.

Ann Wilson: FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife, a Crew ministry. Fifty years of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.