FamilyLife Today®

Kevin Thompson: From a theological standpoint, wouldn't we all agree that God knows best for us? And yet He's chosen to give us the power to make decisions and He so respects our ability to choose that He does not force His will upon us.

If that's true of Jesus to me, how much more should that be true of me to other people? Because I don't know if they're making wise decisions or not.

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.

Ann Wilson: We have Kevin Thompson with us for our final day and he's talking about staying in your lane.

Dave Wilson: This is going to be really good. Stay with us because this is going to be a unique day. We're going to have some Q&A with Kevin and maybe we're going to ask a question that you've been wanting to ask him.

Ann Wilson: We're not even going to ask it. Our producer, our sound engineer—they're going to ask the question. So there are going to be questions that you have on your heart. We're going to go there with Kevin and he answers them very, very well. So here we go.

Do you think people that have their eyes on Jesus, they're focused on Him, but they're staying in their lane and they're not controlling, are they more content?

Kevin Thompson: No question. I know I am. But let's face it: how often do I fail this? One of Jenny's favorite comments is to look at me and go, "Didn't you write *Stay in Your Lane*?" as I'm helicopter parenting my 17-year-old.

But what happens is there are consequences that come from that. What the book does for me is remind myself that, "Oh yeah, you know better than this." Of course, this is going to be the outcome of what is going on. So, absolutely. I don't want to overly sell this, but you want the fruit of the Spirit? Stay in your lane.

The challenge is we think we know what will give them love, joy, and peace. We're seeing it; they're not having it. We know why. So we step into their lane and say, "I know you want love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. I've got it. Make this decision." And it's out of our lane and it doesn't work for them anyway.

Ann Wilson: If I gave this book to my children, they would have it with them at all times when they came to my house. They would just put it in front of me and say, "Mom, Mom, look at this. Stay in your lane."

Kevin Thompson: I'm doing a women's Bible study and there are 600 women in the room. We always do Q&A at the end because I love a good Q&A, and I'm quick to say I don't know if I don't know. A lady asked the question, "My adult daughter really needs to read *Stay in Your Lane*. How do I get her to read it?"

Of course, everybody in the room begins to laugh because they're all thinking the same thing. I said, "That's the easiest thing ever. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to go home and buy two copies. I want you to keep one, and next time you see her, give her one and say, 'I read this book and it's so important to me. I want you to hold me accountable to treating you this way.'"

I guarantee she'll read it. There's no question she'll read it. But what are you doing? You're controlling what you control. Because if it's, "Hey, you need to read this so you'll be better," you're swerving out of your lane. But if you want accountability for yourself that you live this out, what's most likely to happen as she reads it is she'll actually be changed by it for herself. But if you just go and say, "Read that," she's going to get bitter even if she does read it.

Think about this issue of control. They did a study one time in Vegas. If you're playing a dice game and you wanted to roll ones, and then in the next roll you wanted to roll sixes—and they put a sensor on your arm and your hand. Do you know that most people will attempt to roll ones softer and the attempt to roll sixes harder?

Why? Because we think we can control outcomes we can't control. It's sheer foolishness. We all know it's the luck of the dice; it's the roll of the dice. A one and a six come up the exact same way. There's a reason we desire control and I think one of the reasons we desire it is because God placed it within us.

He wants us to experience control, but sin mars what we want to control. So the very energy that God has placed within us to manage ourselves and to oversee His creation, we have now outsourced or misdirected into attempting to control other people at the expense of ourselves.

I'm not asking people to be less control freaks. I'm actually asking you to be more of a control freak. Be more of a control freak about yourself so that you can let go of trying to control others.

Dave Wilson: And we even try to control God. Think about that. Part of it is: if I'm righteous, if I go to church, if I don't do all the bad things, I'm controlling Him. He's going to give me a better life. And it doesn't work that way.

Kevin Thompson: When things don't go my way, generally I will either before God pout, like, "God, I thought we had a deal. I was doing my part, where are you?" Sometimes I plot. I'm like, "Oh, life didn't go my way, then I'm going to take it out on them."

But a lot of times, I passively disobey. "Alright, God, I'm here. Whenever you want to do your part, I'll step back in, but until then..." Instead, what we see so often in the Psalms is this imprecatory prayer. They pray; they take it to God. We control that. We control what we do with this emotion, with this feeling.

Do we hide it? Do we live in denial of it? Or are we able to run to God and say, "God, I can't believe this is happening. Where are you? What's going on?" But in the end, I trust You. Now I'm going to leave this with You, and now I'm going to go back and do my part until You come through and do what it is that You're going to make all things right. Even prayer is something that I control even as it's a form of how I get that acceptance of what He's doing.

Luke Middendorf: Hi friends, we're Luke and Christina Middendorf. I have the joy of serving as President of FamilyLife and together we're so thankful for you.

Christina Middendorf: 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: Here's a thought because you like Q&A. I'm going to throw it to our control room and see what they have to ask. Let's go.

Jim: I'm thinking of some questions that listeners might be thinking of, Kevin. What about a wife who thinks something is in her husband's lane, but he doesn't see it that way? Or vice versa: the husband says, "No, that's clearly your lane," and they just can't agree on that lane differentiation.

Could you give a practical example of what that might look like? Maybe a family of origin like, "Hey, when I grew up, my dad always did all the repairs at the house," or, "When I grew up, Mom was always the soothing presence that would calm the kids at night." That's just what they are comfortable with, what they perceive of. Maybe they're not even wired that way now. Their marriage is different, but it's just an expectation and they can't agree on what those lanes are.

Kevin Thompson: That kind of rigidity is actually there. In that scenario, I would sit down—oftentimes you are going to have to include somebody else because if we're not very careful, I think what we can do is we have a way that we think life works and we just assume everybody else sees it that way and that's the way it's supposed to go.

Our spouse rarely can be the one to convince us otherwise, at least when a marriage is unhealthy. When it's healthy, that's the beauty of what happens. Jenny can show me, "Hey, this is another way to look at it." "Oh, I thought it was only this way. Now we have this." But when there's contention, you can't.

So I think to have somebody else begin to step in and to say, "Look, what you're actually experiencing here is not a design by God of how it's supposed to be to where this has to be the role that you play." Actually, the rigidity you're experiencing is a lack of health. What Jim's talking about here is a rigidity of roles. The woman has to do this, the man has to do this. I don't know of any other way. That's actually a symptom of dysfunction.

Instead of having an openness of how could we go about this, I would think in that scenario a communication of: "Look, this rigidity is—you're trying to force something on me that God has never explicitly said here is how I have to do it. Matter of fact, I can show you 10 different examples of how other families function in a way that's different. Now, if we can't work this out together, then I'm going to go get some counseling to help me understand how I can love you in a great way. I would love for you to come with me."

Ann Wilson: What if then the wife says, "But it's your role in your lane to lead, especially spiritually, and you're not doing it, which makes me pull into your lane?"

Kevin Thompson: I just think it's unfair, in my opinion, to say, "You're supposed to lead, go do it." I think it really is this idea of: man, you're praying for that to happen. You're taking responsibility for what you can take responsibility for. You're staying in your lane.

Here's what scares me: this idea of, "You're not doing it, so I have to." For me to force you to do it is not going to get the outcome that I desire. So to recognize, I think, that the desire for the outcome is godly, but how you think that's going to be achieved chances are won't come the way that you're going to go about it.

So how will it be achieved? I remember a dad came to me one time. He sat down in my office and I said, "What's going on?" He said, "I'm about to go to my child's high school and remouth this coach." The story he laid out was a very legitimate sense of injustice and I thought he was right. I said, "What outcome do you want?" "Well, I want my child to have a place."

I said, "Okay, if you do what you want to do, will that lead to the outcome you desire?" And he goes, "No." I said, "Okay, so which is more important to you? Is it going to make you feel better in the moment, or to do the long play of the desired outcome of where you actually want to go?"

Jim: So, on behalf of the listeners—I am a listener right now and a viewer—and this is really irritating me. I'm really good at her lane. I can see it more clearly than my lane. So what about that where either I'm veering into hers or she's veering into mine? How does a spouse communicate "stay in your lane" that's not offensive or not defensive?

Kevin Thompson: If somebody's merging into your lane, then I do think a firm and yet compassionate kind of concept of: "Look, I know that you love me, I know you want what's best for me, and I know we disagree on this issue. I'm grateful for your love for me to such an extent that you'll even speak up here. However, I do think that this is my decision in this and I wonder could we find a way for me to hear you, but then for you to respect the choice that I'm going to make as we begin to move forward?"

Because ultimately, from a theological standpoint, wouldn't we all agree that God knows best for us? And yet He's chosen to give us the power to make decisions and He so respects our ability to choose that He does not force His will upon us. Well, if that's true of Jesus to me, how much more should that be true of me to other people? Because I don't know if they're making wise decisions or not.

Now, a common question that I ask couples is if they say, "Well, I just know, it's so easy, I know." Okay, let's look at your life because you're completely running your life. Is it 100% successful in every way? Is everything going great? No. Well, why not? Because, first of all—I wouldn't say it this way—but first of all, you're not as good as you think you are because you have a track record of your own life of ways you're screwing up. The truth of the matter is, the reason you want to run her life is because you're not very good at running your own, and you're distracting yourself by choosing to run her life because you're screwing up your own life and you want to live in denial of it.

Jim: This is getting a little too personal. Okay, we got it. Good answer. Let me do one follow-up because I think there's—I don't know how rare it is for a marriage where both spouses are in a lane that they love and that they're satisfied with.

So assuming hypothetically that maybe that's not common, there's one spouse that doesn't like their lane, but it's the lane that God's given them right now. Or we're just in a season where, "I just don't like this lane." How do you endure that? Do you just kind of lower your head and stick in it? What pastoral counsel would you give a couple where one spouse loves their lane, the other just doesn't?

Dave: Maybe the spouse isn't getting any sleep in her lane. Is that a stage of life or a lane?

Jim: To mix up the analogy: "I can't sleep in my lane." A practical parenting season or a career season where I don't like my job, I don't like a component that this is clearly my lane, but I hate it.

Kevin Thompson: I do think there is an acceptance of the season of life in which we're in. Now, again, you come back to what do you control? Because ultimately I get to choose where I work and if I can find another job, I can leave. It's the choice that I get. So I have to own and control what's going on.

But then I do see God's sovereign control over what is taking place and there are seasons of life that I just appreciate. Look, God is allowing me to endure this season. I'm going to trust Him in the midst of it. Now, He has also given me choices where I get to choose kind of what I go about, but I think the bigger question in the end is the outcome that we desire is most likely to come as we stop trying to control others and actually begin to influence them.

So if you do not like the dynamic that you and your spouse are in, okay, great. How do we change that? You do not change it by control. It can be changed by influence, which means you grasp hold of what actually you control in your life. You begin to experience that transformation in you. You begin to recognize, "I own the words that I speak. Let me control that."

Anytime a part of a system changes, the whole system has to reorganize. It doesn't guarantee the outcome is going to be what you want, but it's the most likely way to get the outcome. So you have a parent that has a child mixed up in addiction. So sad, so tragic. What do parents do? They try to control it. In so doing, they actually enable the very behavior.

But the moment they recognize, "I'm going to allow my adult child to experience the negative consequences of the foolish choices that they are making," that is the chance that the child actually has to change. It doesn't mean that they will, but they can. What I can guarantee you is if you keep on trying to control what belongs to them, they will not change. They will only get worse. That's a guarantee.

Ann Wilson: What's interesting, I can remember a phase of our lives when I felt like Dave wasn't being—he was too busy in ministry. I'm analyzing his lane for him, feeling like he's too busy and like he's not intimate with our sons, going deep with them.

I can remember a day thinking, "It's not working. Whatever I'm trying to say and make him guilty and whatever I'm doing, it's not working." I remember feeling this—it's a sense of acceptance and surrender. "God, I obviously can't do anything about this." I had to work through my head: well, the kids may have consequences of that, of him working so much, and maybe Dave will have the consequences of a relationship that could be strained.

But that's not on me. I can't change him. I've tried for years. But there was a sense of incredible peace. "Oh well, we'll see how that turns out." And the consequences weren't so great because he's so good and great in so many other areas, but that's one I just gave up and it was freedom. And I will say you have had some hard discussions with our boys about that.

Kevin Thompson: And notice one thought within that is these relationships are—they are what they are. But your choice is almost this: he can either experience those and a strained relationship with me, or he can experience those with a connected relationship with me, which will actually influence those.

Ann Wilson: You're so right and that did happen, definitely did. And our relationship was great. When I stopped putting all those expectations and I kept getting in a lane—when I'm in my lane like, "Well, you're in your lane, and I don't have to worry about that."

Kevin Thompson: And notice now what you're modeling for your kids, for other people—that we're not stuck in these relationship dynamics. So even as you all reconnected, now there is some kind of disconnect between one of the boys, then they can see, "Mom and Dad reconnected, we can reconnect."

You've modeled for them how to make that happen. You've shown them the possibility of how it's there and you've created a climate of love in which it's more likely to take place. Maybe it's a great way to say this: if what you're doing isn't working, try that. Maybe it will.

Ann Wilson: And also, the kids went and said stuff to Dave. The fact that they feel safe enough to say something to him says so much about his character, and they've said a lot to me too because I'm not perfect.

Dave Wilson: And now I have an answer when they come to me: "Stay in your lane." I got a book for you.

Jim: Staff member listening just sent me a question. What about—this is very specific, Kevin—elderly parents? You're looking over at their lane and you just don't think they're making good decisions. Does that at some point become your lane?

Kevin Thompson: Let's go back to the illustration of when the kids are little: there's a solid yellow line and a dashed yellow line. I get to swerve into their lane; they don't get to swerve into mine. They become adults; it's a double yellow line. Now as I begin to age, my son's lane begins to be dashed where he actually gets to begin to ask me to swerve into my lane.

My parents are late 70s and we're just now starting to introduce a little bit of these topics where I'm becoming a little bit more engaged with some doctor's appointments, understanding the finances of what are taking place. It really begins with a true being a voice of reason and wisdom for my mom, as well as my sister being there as well.

But as we begin to see maybe an incapability—we're not there yet—but as we begin to see an incapability of her to properly manage and to take care of certain things, then we do start to take responsibility. But I think the important thing within this is we want to give that person as much agency as they can possibly have for as long as they can have it.

But we don't want to endanger them. That's why I've got a friend right now who's going through this with his mom where they're at a sweet moment right now where she can begin to see that she needs some help. I've encouraged him: make everything happen now to put it in place to where that's going to take place because as you get further down the road, she might—as she loses a sense of her own control—might see that in a different light.

So I think it's important, especially as parents are aging early on, let's set out some parameters of how we're going to go about this so that whenever we get further down the road, we kind of have some understanding of how you expect me to respond, how I'm going to respond. There even comes legal ramifications of: "Look, you want the double yellow line. I can't in good conscience allow that to happen, in the same way that I couldn't when my children were little let them risk their lives. So I'm going to step in now. How you like it or not isn't up to me. I'm going to do what I think is the most loving thing in this moment for you, to help you, to protect you, all while still respecting as much agency as possible."

Ann Wilson: Or to speak unkindly or not to be respectful. I think that's a big deal—the way we approach it. I remember because we went through this with my parents, to think like, "I've just lost my home on the golf course. I'm living in a one-bedroom assisted living. My health isn't good, my wife's health isn't good, and everyone's choosing things for me." I remember saying like, "How does that feel?" and just letting him verbalize it. I remember one time he says, "Do you know who I used to be?" and I'm like, "Yeah, I can't imagine how hard it is to lose it."

Kevin Thompson: Notice even your question, the brilliance of your question, Ann: "How does that make you feel?" What you're allowing him to do is he's still allowed to own his emotions. Because if we're not very careful, we can begin to force onto other people: "Oh, get over it, oh you're fine, oh you're taken care of."

We're now actually stripping from them even the ownership of their own emotions and we're dictating to them how you're supposed to feel. "You're getting old, what do you think's going to happen? Calm down." Don't say that stuff. Calm down. As if I now have the right to control how you feel in this exact moment. Anytime a husband tells a wife to calm down, you know who is actually not able to handle it emotionally? It's the husband.

Ann Wilson: And you know what I'm really bad at? When my son says that to his wife and I'm standing there, I go into his lane and I'm like, "You're not allowed to say that to your wife."

Kevin Thompson: Just don't approach it as a mom there. Just approach it as an author. Just say, "Hey, I've written the book on marriage." So when Jenny and I are debating, I will jokingly say on occasion, "Well, you know, I did write the book on marriage," and she will say, "No, you wrote *a* book on marriage that not many people read."

Here's what I love about this book. It's so stupid. The next time you're driving down the road, you're going to recognize, "Oh my goodness, if that car swerved over right now, they'd kill me." It just gives us constant feedback and illustration of what we're doing in people's lives. It's true; it's such a good visual because even if you went out to the interstate—think about this—let's go into a five-lane road that's divided by a double yellow line. To stand in the middle of that road is so dangerous. You're still not safe, but you're so much safer if you're on the right side of the yellow line than the wrong side of the yellow line. That just kind of to me illustrates how it's such a fine line on some of these things.

Jim: Everything we've been talking about the last three days with Kevin in some ways is summed up in a verse in Psalm 131. Where David writes, "I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me, but I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with his mother." It's like he's not stepping out of his lane. It's like, "I'm not going to occupy my mind or my life with things outside of my lane." And the subtitle to Kevin's book is *Less Worry, Less Anxiety*, and that's where it comes from. Keep your eyes on Jesus, stay in your lane, you will have a fruitful life.

Ann Wilson: I'm going to be praying for all of our listeners. If you'll pray for me in this, I've just gotten in such a habit of going into everyone else's lane that it's hard to break that. This has to be an act of God and the Holy Spirit.

Dave Wilson: I'm praying for the same thing. You can get Kevin's book, *Stay in Your Lane* by Kevin Thompson. Just go to our show notes and click the link to get his book. And that's at familylifetoday.com because she forgot to say that and I'm stepping into her lane to let you know that's where it is.

Hey, and if you need more help, you can go to familylifetoday.com/marriagehelp. We've put together some of our best material on marriage. It's free and you can go to that website and get it. FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported ministry of FamilyLife, a Cru ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.