FamilyLife Today®

Kevin A. Thompson: Whenever you are constantly reaching into a lane that is not yours, you're going to fail. And so it's going to feel like you can't do anything to change what's going on. It's because you're operating in the wrong lane.

Because there is one thing you have total control of, and you can change right now. It's you. And so the more you control what actually belongs to you, the more power-filled you will actually become.

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.

How do you feel about Kevin Thompson being back with us with his book *Stay in Your Lane*?

Ann Wilson: As long as he stays in his lane.

Dave Wilson: He always does. No, he's a great thinker, a great writer, and this is so practical for people, for parents, for families, for marriage. You’re going to love today. You’re going to love Kevin. So let's jump in.

Ann Wilson: I'm thinking of a woman driving right now or working out, and her husband, they are not good. You can't control him. That's not in your lane. But you can find joy, peace, happiness, the fruit of the Spirit through your relationship with God.

Dave Wilson: You can worry less, love more, and get things done.

Ann Wilson: That’s true. And that is your greatest opportunity to influence your husband. Your greatest opportunity to influence your husband is for you, yourself, to possess and to own what actually belongs to you. To stop trying to own what belongs to him, and to the best of your ability, grow, mature, have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Live that out and bring that to the table. It doesn't guarantee the marriage is going to work out. It doesn't guarantee that he's going to change. It doesn't guarantee any of it. It does guarantee that that is his best opportunity to change. He's seeing it modeled in you. And then that's the best climate in which he's being invited and also challenged.

Here's what happens sometimes whenever we don't stay in our own lane: it actually takes the opportunity of the other person for them to change away. We don't give them the chance. Why? Because we're controlling it. And so in many relationships, you’ve all seen this a lot as well, in which the wife is going to say, "If I don't do it, the whole family's going to fall apart because he's not doing his job."

Dave Wilson: Oh yeah, we've heard this a million times.

Kevin A. Thompson: And okay, maybe you're going to have to let it fall apart. This is when you get your napkin. You do the lanes and you say, "Okay." In the back of the book, we actually put a couple of blank charts in there that you can begin to fill in. Because if you can just learn to work in this framework, there comes a point you don't even have to write it down. You can just now see it.

It's so funny. I'll come up to a stoplight sometimes, and I'm in the turn lane. I'm going to turn left, and all the traffic's coming so quickly. I think so often, "All right, if I don't trust that other people are going to do what they're supposed to do, I would be stuck here forever." I'm trusting when that light changes, you're going to stop. I'm trusting that you're going to stay exactly where you're supposed to be.

So whenever we first moved to California, last time I was with you, we were both in Arkansas. So soon after that, I went out to an interview in California. I'll never forget. We landed at the Sacramento airport, got a rental car, we got out on the five, the five turns in the 80.

Dave Wilson: I’ve been on the five, wow.

Kevin A. Thompson: We’re now going six lanes of traffic one direction, six lanes of traffic come the other direction. Remember, I learned how to drive in Fort Smith, Arkansas, on a two-lane road with Pawpaw just saying, "Keep it between the yellow lines and the ditch." Like that's all, right? And I remember distinctly thinking to myself, "There is no way I'm moving my family here."

So, two weeks later I had accepted the job. And so six months after that, my mom comes out. So I go out and pick her up, get on the five, the five turns in the 80. Now I'm going 90 miles an hour up six lanes of traffic. My mom turns to me and goes, "Who have you become?"

But you know what amazes me about the interstate system in California? It's not the gridlock. It's not the picture that you tend to get on Thanksgiving weekend of the five in downtown L.A. and nothing but red lights. What amazes me is when it works well. How many cars, how much activity, how many people can move with a proximity that is literally "reach out and touch your neighbor."

And do you know the technology that allows that to work? It's paint on concrete. It is literally just simple yellow lines and white dashes on concrete. And me trusting that you're going to stay there and I'm going to stay here. And as long as we do that, we can actually move as quickly as we want to move, as closely as we want to move, and with tremendous speed and success. But the moment one of us gets to a place that we're not supposed to be, it all falls apart.

I think that's true about life. That as long as I'm owning what I'm supposed to own, trying to influence what other people are doing, and accepting what is God's, we can move with tremendous speed, unbelievable proximity, and a great respect and cohesion with one another. But the moment one of us swerves out of our lanes, it all falls apart.

Dave Wilson: Think about that too. I mean, in terms of when somebody swerves into my lane on a freeway, I'm irritated. Unless you put your blinker on and you had clear distance, if you don't let me know and you come in, that's exactly what happens in a family. Same thing. We call it road rage, but there's a simmering rage underneath that son or daughter. They may not say it or not, but they're mad. "This is my lane. I thought I was an adult." You are literally saying, "You're not an adult," and "I'm going to take over control." And like you said earlier, that could sever the relationship for a long time, if not forever.

Kevin A. Thompson: No question. Dan Siegel down at UCLA, he's a psychiatrist and psychologist. He talks about how there are three basic human needs. There's more than this, but there are three basic human needs that I would say God created within us. He would say evolution or whatever, but he talks about how we need to have agency, bonding, and certainty.

Agency is "I have a sense of myself." Bonding is "I'm in the relationship with somebody else." And certainty is "there's just some predictability about life." So anytime you and I swerve into a lane where we are not supposed to be, we are robbing the other person of their agency. We're actually taking away something God has created within them.

You and I actually want our kids to have control over their own lives and their own decisions. If nothing else, we're too tired; we don't want that responsibility. But we want to hope that they're going to do it in a God-honoring and successful kind of way. Well, that can't happen if you and I do not allow them to actually have the space to make decisions.

I would say the reason many of us struggle as parents of adult children with this is because we never got in the habit whenever they were little of empowering them to have control over their own lives. And so, whether it's helicopter parenting or just anything like that, instead of going, "All right, what is it that my child can actually control right now and how can I hand that over to them and allow them to experience the negative consequences of this if they make a poor decision?"

So what's a bad grade on a test in second grade? What is it that they miss out on playing time? What does that matter? And yet, I'm the parent that, if we're 20 minutes before practice is supposed to start and my son doesn't have his cleats yet, I go find them because I don't want him to be late. Maybe he needs to be late. Maybe he needs to run laps. Maybe he needs to not play in the next game so that he learns, "I've got to take care of myself," so that when he's 38, he's then learned how to take control of his own relationship.

Every second I spend fixated on you is a second I'm not taking care of what I'm actually responsible for, and the list of what I'm responsible for is pretty long. Whenever you are constantly reaching into a lane that is not yours, you're going to fail. And so it's going to feel like you can't do anything to change what's going on. It's because you're operating in the wrong lane. Because there is one thing you have total control of and you can change right now. It's you. And so the more you control what actually belongs to you, the more power-filled you will actually become.

Luke Middendorf: Hi friends, we're Luke and Christina Middendorf. I have the joy of serving as president of FamilyLife.

Christina Middendorf: And together, we're so thankful for you. Your generosity is transforming lives and families around the world. Couples are finding hope again. Parents are discovering God's wisdom and families are being renewed in Christ.

Luke Middendorf: From all of us at FamilyLife, thank you for helping families pursue the relationships that matter most. We're grateful for you.

Dave Wilson: Let me ask this. Is there a sense of all this control, influence, and even acceptance of God's lane in my life? Is any of this in your mind as a pastor, Bible student, theologian, related to Genesis 3 and the curse, especially as we even get into the marriage about "the wife, your desire will be for your husband, but he will rule over you" in 3:16? Is that underneath this? Is it the foundation? Is that in play here?

Kevin A. Thompson: Absolutely. Let's go back to the very original sin, the failure of our first parents was an inability to stay in their own lane. "I trust God in His creative order and I'm going to do what He has said to do. I'm going to accept with open hands the guidelines that He has given me of how to live within the very thing that He created." And Adam and Eve don't do that.

We can see in Genesis 3 that very concept. And then we get into Genesis 4, where Cain and Abel are not appreciating it's God's right to judge, not our right to judge. And so then they try to take matters in their own hands, and you know all the consequences that come from that. And then the rest of the Bible, especially the Old Testament. Genesis really is just about dysfunctional families. That's what sin has actually done to us.

You now see this total confusion. And so some families get too enmeshed to where they are so much in each other's business there's no identity between who they actually are. Some become so disconnected they lose all sense of influence in what's going on and the role of support and encouragement that they're actually supposed to play.

So I would say from a theological standpoint, all "stay in your lane" is, is the simplest, most Arkansas-intelligent kind of way of interpreting the practical realities of what happened when sin entered the world, why it entered the world, and what happened from it. And we are still experiencing this anxiety, this lack of love, this sense of stuckness because we don't truly trust God to do what God is supposed to do, and then we don't take responsibility for what we're supposed to do, and then we don't respect the agency of other people.

Dave Wilson: It's interesting, when we're talking about marriage, our story fits that. In fact, Ann's last book is based on the idea that she was reaching out in attachment to me to make her feel loved. "If you do this, this, and this, and tell me what to do." So there's the control part that I felt. And so I avoided by running to my job, ministry, where everybody's going, "Oh yeah, you're amazing." I come home and it's like, "You're not amazing." "Okay, I'll see you later." And so there was this avoidance thing. It was, in a sense, the "stay in your lane."

Ann Wilson: Well, and I think that takes us to God's lane. That's the thing that has transformed me the most, is when you discover who God is, what He says is true, what He says about me, what He says about us. And when I'm in His word continually, that begins to shape everything. Because when I'm not focused on Him, when I'm not surrendered, when I'm not talking to Him, I automatically—it's like my car, now my steering is not right and I veer into Dave's lane or my kids' lane or somebody else that I try to control. It's just what I do. That's my natural tendency if I don't have my eyes on Jesus.

Kevin A. Thompson: Two things on that. One, let's go back to your book of *How to Speak Life*. Think about who controls that? You do. You always had control of it. You didn't recognize it.

Ann Wilson: Right. And I didn't know the power of it.

Kevin A. Thompson: Yes. And the very thing you wanted came the moment you stopped trying to get it the way you were trying to get it and started doing what you could actually control and do.

It's such a tragic thing. We've seen it as pastors all the time of the very outcome we desire our activity often prevents. And so you begin to speak life. You control that, your choice. Well, the next thing you know, you've created a climate where it's safe for Dave to come into.

Ann Wilson: Like a greenhouse.

Kevin A. Thompson: Yes. And now you're getting this connection that you've always desired. That's what was actually happening before. When you were shouting out, you were shouting out your pain. "Want connection, see me, look, connect." That's what happens to us is our pain is so great we don't know how to communicate it, so we actually unintentionally inflict it upon others in hopes that they will say, "Oh, this is what you feel like."

But obviously they don't feel that. Now they feel their own pain and they want to run from it to protect themselves. And so first and foremost in your comments, which I thought were so beautiful, is you took control of what you controlled. And that made a huge difference.

Now, let's get into the idea of God's lane. Think about how difficult this word is: accept. That's the sticking point. How can I accept things I don't like, outcomes I don't desire, choices that I didn't make? How can I accept that? There's only one way: there is such a tremendous trust in who we're accepting does actually control that.

And so the more we are in God's word, the more we understand who He is and what He's doing, the more we recognize, "God, You are trustworthy." And so I can accept.

I tell the story in the book about this. So I have a 20-year-old with Down Syndrome and it came she was born at a time just right before the technology could pick it up prenatally. Matter of fact, I remember when the test came back, we were a rare false negative. When the doctor came in and said, "Hey, we did all these tests, she does not have this, this, doesn't have Down Syndrome, doesn't have this," all those kind of things.

Ella is born, our first child. So excited, all these things are happening. The doctors don't immediately tell us; they want us to enjoy and celebrate the child that we now have. And family comes in. I'll never forget my mom holding my daughter in her arms. My mom is weeping. I'm thinking she's just moved by the fact that her son has a child. Maybe she was crying thinking, "I never thought my son would have a wife," right? Just excited, whatever it was.

Come to find out my mom taught school for 40 years. She knew Ella had Down Syndrome. She knew. I didn't. So late Friday night, my pediatrician comes in at 9:30 at night. And I say my pediatrician, meaning literally he was my pediatrician growing up as a kid. He was also my next-door neighbor. It's a small town. He was my mechanic. He'd do all sorts of things.

And I honestly thought he was just there because he wanted to play golf early the next morning because many times he and I would play golf early on Saturday morning. But he picked up Ella and started talking, and then I got a sense. I'm a pastor, I've sat in rooms like this too many times. I knew something was wrong.

He beautifully communicated Ella's condition. I've heard so many horror stories of how poorly it was done. He did, Dr. Cheshire did a tremendous job. And then he just began to say, "But hey, there are a few things I do see. I see how her pinky is turned inward, her ears are set lower, her eyes are more oval, her nose is smaller, this crease that's in her hand, notice the space between her big toe and her small toe." And he just pointed out, and finally he said, "These are all classic characteristics of Down Syndrome. I am confident Ella has Down Syndrome."

He sat there and answered every question we had to ask. He just was masterful in everything that he did. And finally, he concluded the visit. He took Ella back to the nursery. I walked him out. He said, "Man, I'll be back by tomorrow. If I can do anything, please let me know." And I walked back in the room and now I walk over to Jenny, who had been in labor for 24 hours, who had was not able to get an epidural because Ella had such a low heart rate. First pregnancy, had no idea that it was an option that she wouldn't get an epidural, and just exhausted, tired at the most depleted of who Jenny actually is. And she says to me, "Kevin, this is a road we never would have chosen to go down, but I bet that we never would regret going down it."

With empty, open, trembling, weak, feeble, tired hands, she accepted the choice that God had given her with a hope and an expectation. And now notice, in that, actually begin to take possession of. So here's now what we control: God has chosen the song that was in my mind that night that led from the very beginning of the birth. That was back in a time where 2005 where musicians were rewriting old hymns.

And I remember that night as we were headed to the hospital. I was all nervous about, "Am I going to throw up? Am I going to—like, I don't want to say something foolish," right? And I remember the song, the old hymn coming to my mind of, "So shall this night soon end in joy." And just thinking through the whole time that, "All right, I don't know what's between now and then, but this night's going to end in joy. We're going to have a child," right?

Even her name, Ella is my grandmother's name, but Ella Catherine Thompson, I thought would look beautiful on a book. That was my idea. I thought, "Man, so I had all these expectations," right? Ella Catherine Thompson, that's going to look beautiful on a book.

So we go the hospital. "So shall this night soon end in joy." Jenny's in so much pain. They can't get the epidural. Things are not going longer than we expected. "So shall this night soon end in joy." And at one point during the delivery, I made the mistake during delivery in that I became too fascinated with the delivery process. It was like the Discovery Channel without pixelation and I was kind of having fun. Matter of fact, Jenny would later say, "Kevin, you did a tremendous job pastoring the doctor through that delivery." Because I'm down there in the action.

I remember the doctor at one point said, "All right, here's what has to happen now. Ella's actually going to push underneath this bone and she's going to lift up her head." Which was in that old hymn that "God will lift up your head." And I thought, "Oh my goodness, it's so beautiful," right? All these things.

So now after the night is finally done, Jenny and I have our moment. I now go to sleep on this couch that's, you know, I'm 6’3’’, it's made for somebody who's 5’2’’. And obviously I wouldn't have slept anyway, first child. But I'm sitting there, laying there on the couch, and then the rest of the hymn hit me. "Leave to His sovereign sway to choose and to command, and then shall you wandering on His way know how high and how great is His name."

You think about that. That in the end it is the plan of God over our lives that is far greater than any of us could ever even begin to imagine. And life is found in acceptance. But as soon as we accept His sovereign control over our lives, now we grasp hold of the life that He has given us and said, "Okay, God, I now want to make everything I can from this life." And to that extent that we can accept what He has chosen and yet control what belongs to us, then we can have a far different experience in this world.

But it's so hard when life does not go the way you want, especially as a family and a mom and a dad and your son or your daughter is making bad choices. And some of them are in the lane of "God's in control," you step over there and you basically mess it all up.

Ann Wilson: Well, and we blame God. This was you on you, God. Like you went into that birth with high expectations and hope and excitement, and there's a part of you that could have—like Jenny's response is incredibly beautiful and miraculous. And some people don't have that same response. I know a dad who left the hospital when he found out his son had Downs, and his wife was left alone in it. It took him a day to come back. And so I think there's a part of him that was like, "Really God, this was Your lane and You did this to me?" And yet now he would still say, "As I have accepted and yielded and surrendered, oh now I see."

But I think there's a lot of us that we haven't done the acceptance part. How do you think we do that?

Kevin A. Thompson: I want to clearly recognize immediately that Down Syndrome is such a different diagnosis and different situation than so many other people. And this is something much easier to accept and celebrate. Ella's just full of so much light and energy. And so many of your listeners are going through situations that they're desperate and the pain and the sorrow that is there. Especially when it's health of a loved one or maybe a death, and we have no control of that. We look at that as "that's God's."

No, absolutely. And it is. Ultimately He does control those things. And there just has to become this trust. But again, it comes back to this concept that we have a Savior who has suffered with us, who weeps for us. And because of that bigger picture, even when we don't understand how He is going to work everything out for our good and for His glory, in the end we trust that "God, You're going to make this happen. I don't get it right now."

I was preaching yesterday at Bayside and we were talking about there in Ephesians 1 of how the mystery is that God was going to bring all things in unity under Christ. And I use the old preacher illustration, you've probably used it too, Dave, of it's our lives are like a jigsaw puzzle that's just been tossed out and there's a thousand pieces everywhere and it doesn't—none of it makes any sense.

But literally what do you do is you prop the picture up of the box and you begin to set the big pieces in place and you do the edges. Because the picture is there, you compare each piece to the picture. And some pieces it doesn't look like they compare. But if you kind of begin to attach the ones that do, there comes this magical moment. Before every piece is in place, there comes this magical moment where "I don't know where this piece fits, but I know I'm going to know. Because enough of it's been filled in."

And what's interesting to me is the moment that comes, you actually have what we would consider peace. I'm no longer in chaos. Doesn't mean I know how this fits; it means that I know I'm going to know how it is, because I have such trust in the process of how it's worked otherwise.

And I think Ephesians shows us now that Jesus is the picture. And the longer you follow after Jesus and begin to set the big cornerstones of your life and the edges, it frames everything in. And then you begin to put things in their place and they make sense and they fit together. I think even at my death, I'm going to have some pieces in my life that still I don't know where they go.

And then I think whenever I see Jesus face-to-face, He's not even going to have to tell me. I'm going to be like, "Oh, they go right here." And the next thing you know, every single piece of my life, I think God is going to knit together to begin to show His image. Whereas I tend to think, "No, this piece doesn't work. I need to change out this piece. I need to hide this piece under the table." No, no, no. God wants to redeem every aspect of our lives.

And some questions we're going to have until we see Him face-to-face. But the bigger things in life, we can actually find right now in submission to Him. "Here's what my task is. I trust Him to take care of it." And life will be found down this road far more than any road of my own choosing.

Ann Wilson: I don't know about you, but I feel super convicted.

Dave Wilson: I hope you do.

Ann Wilson: Do you not?

Dave Wilson: Yes, of course I do. I'm being facetious.

Ann Wilson: No, you don't struggle with being in somebody else's lane.

Dave Wilson: Yes, I do. Especially when we're driving. I push people over all the time. Yes, I do. I have a problem on the road. Not as much in our family. That is something that I think a lot of moms—maybe it's some dads—but because we love our kids so much, you want to step in there.

This is great wisdom. And I'm telling you what, if you missed yesterday, listen to it. Listen today. And we've got Kevin back again tomorrow. But the book again is called *Stay in Your Lane*. You can get it at familylifetoday.com, just click on the link in the show notes. We've got one more day with Kevin. Come back for next time.

Ann Wilson: We would love to pray for you. I would personally love to pray for you. And we even have a team at FamilyLife that can pray for you. Just go to familylife.com/prayforme.

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