Ken Boa Reflections Ministries

Dr. Ken Boa: Let's begin in a prayer. Father, we thank You that You have loved us and pursued us and wooed us. We are Yours, and we want to be responsive to Your initiatives and Your overtures so that we respond and have a reciprocity in that interconnected relationship that You have offered for us to have as Your beloved one. In Christ's name, amen.

Now, speaking of relationships, the husband-wife relationship. We talked a little bit about this a couple of weeks ago, and I'll just summarize some of that. I just wanted to talk about ten tips for each of these things: ten tips for husband and wife, ten for children, ten for friendships. I think that's a nice way to go about that.

To walk you through these very briefly, I see marriage as a lifetime covenant of mutual commitment. The idea of covenant and commitment are critical. The idea of the spirit oneness is what is the basis for the soulish oneness and the physical oneness, which is an outward expression of the interior relationship. It is an earthly analogy indeed of spiritual truth, and that's why the body of Christ, or Christ, is compared to being the bride of Christ. The Church is the bride of Christ, and so there's marital imagery that is very much involved.

In Revelation 19, you have the wedding feast of the Lamb, and so He marries His bride, and that's us. It's an earthly analogy of spiritual truth. The whole concept is celebrating the difference between masculinity and femininity. Just as there is in the divine Trinity, so also in the relationship between the man and the woman, there is equality and yet authority. The divine Trinity is the foundation and the ultimate basis for both equality on the one hand and authority on the other.

The three persons of the divine Trinity are each fully God. They're co-equal and co-eternal. They are fully God, but they are not each other. There's a deep mystery going on there. What you have is a unity in that diversity. It's also so that the Spirit's role has always been to point beyond Himself. Where does the Spirit point? To the Son. Then the Son points to the Father. It has always been so.

This idea of that submission, yet perfect equality, and that authority and the equality mesh together in the divine Trinity. That's the basis for what we see in the marriage relationship as well. There's a failure to leave, cleave, or become one flesh because this is a great mystery. A man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

It's often been observed that the basic problems in marriage are failure either to leave—for example, a lot of men have not broken the psychological umbilical cord, they're still comparing their wife's cooking to their mother's—or the failure to leave psychologically, to cleave to have a connection, a cement, a unity of something that bonds them together, and to have a one-flesh relationship so that the physical union is there as well. Generally, there are problems in those three areas.

Growing marriages never just happen accidentally; they're cultivated by years of discipline and dependence. When you see a couple who have a richness of communication, and they've been together for decades and decades, yet they may not look as good as they did when they were younger, they may not be all over each other physically as they were, but there's a deeper depth that they have now that couldn't have been expressed in newlyweds. I see that with my wife, Karen, that there is a deeper interior connection that years of relationship, communication, and other-centered service produce.

When you think about the idea of a marriage, you're thinking about three persons. It's the husband, it's the wife, and the third person is the relationship between them. Just as you have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds from them, so you also have a third person. That third person you might call the "us" or the "we." It's always best not to say, "What about me?" but "What about us?"

That's important because you're looking beyond yourself because this third person is maturing and growing, and over the years becomes more and more reified. It becomes more real and more authentic. That third person continues to grow; it's a powerful dynamic, but it's cultivated by years of discipline and dependence.

Guest (Male): I think newer editions have corrected the book because when I first read it, it was as if you only had this language or that language. Quality time was one language, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. Each is a different love language. If one person is trying to communicate to another person in their own love language—suppose his love language is physical touch or it might be gifts—he gives to his wife and so forth, but her love language might be time or words of affirmation. You see how it's not going to communicate very well.

Dr. Ken Boa: I think it's Gary Chapman who did *The 5 Love Languages*. Then he did *The 5 Love Languages for Children* as well. It's a matter of seeing that we all have different proportions. You have to be a student of your spouse in the sense that you want to see what is his or her love language and then act accordingly so that you adapt to the thing that they will receive. I know what that looks like with Karen, and so I present that more than things that would not be as receptive to her.

Another one is this idea that the greatest enemy of any relationship is a selfish attitude where you're concerned with the other person's character and your own needs. You always think "What about me?" but you want to be more concerned with your own character and the other person's needs. That's the sacrifice. It's a laboratory of love and is always going to be a sacrificial thing to learn to be other-centered, and that's going to be even more evident when raising children.

Other-centered love then focuses on our character and their needs, not the other way around. These are obvious things, but they're things that are learned by experience over the years. The best gift for my spouse, though, is for me to love Jesus more. As I've said before, if you love Jesus more than another person, you will in fact love that person more than if you love them more than Jesus. He says this is why He will brook no rival, and He says effectively that you need to have a greater love for Me. Your love compared to Me would be like hatred to others.

Actually, it's not a zero-sum game because the more you love Jesus, the greater your capacity to love others because you're also loving them in Him, and Him in you and through you. Another principle is that my spouse should be my best friend. What is a friendship based upon? Common interests. You're interested in that, so you have common ground.

Here's what will happen in any marriage. As time goes by, what got them together was some matter of common ground when they were dating. They must have some kind of common ground. What will often happen is it will erode after they're married. It's interesting, especially when the focus is on the children; then there can be two strangers under the same roof.

The common ground is the things that you love to do together that you share in common. There are going to be interests that Karen will have that I don't have, and there are going to be interests I have that she doesn't have, and that's perfectly legitimate. But there better well be some overlap of things that we both love and share. That must be curated and cultivated, or it will naturally decline and erode until there are again two strangers under the same roof.

With Karen and me, among other things, it's our love for beauty in the arts and in the natural world. That's a lot of categories that that covers. In the arts, it could be film, and we happen to have the same taste pretty much in film, music, literature, poetry, and architecture. Ours is pretty much the same taste in all these things, which is nice. We therefore use that as languages of communication where we cultivate the relationship by sharing things.

I was with David Whyte yesterday, and we had an "aesthetic fest." When he comes over, he stays for about three hours. Among other things, we were playing some Bruckner and Mahler. We were playing Bruckner's Eighth and that wonderful finale, then Mahler's Eighth as well, and the Resurrection Symphony number two, which is astonishing. I now plan to play that with Karen and show beautiful images while we're doing that—celestial images.

You share a thing you love with another person, and guess what happens then? You both see it and love it in slightly different ways. There's a stereoscopy. God has given us two eyes for a good reason. You're not just a cyclops. Cyclops have no depth of field. If you only have one eye, you have no depth of field. You have to have the parallax of the two eyes. Even as close as the insects are, you need them because it then produces depth of field.

I say that that's a kind of an analogy of a relational depth of field. Her eye will see that film that we were just looking at—I was showing her a film by Akira Kurosawa, one of my favorite directors. *The Lower Depths* is based upon Maxim Gorky's play. It's pretty crazy stuff in that film. I showed her this one scene because it was very unique and amusing to me. The idea of seeing a thing, but she sees it in a different way than I see it, means I have a depth of field because of my perspective on the thing we're looking at or hearing and her perspective. When they're put together, they give a third dimension—a cognitive third dimension.

I haven't read much about that process, but I know it's true. It was *The Lower Depths*, a 1956 film. It's about people in the lower depths of society and how they're surviving and trying to thrive, but they believe their lies and they fail to grasp the truth of their true situation. It's brilliant, as all his films are amazing, but my point is only that she saw it differently than I saw it. It'll always be so. Give it a go with that. Understand that if it's a friendship or it's a marriage, they're going to see it in a slightly different way than you will. If you welcome that, that will actually enhance your vision, not diminish it, because you're adding the other person and it becomes a collective good.

Now I go to the parent-child relationships. The home is a training ground; I've always seen it as such. It's a laboratory for imparting values. The attacks of our culture on the family and on marriage have been profound and intentional. The enemy would do that because this is the vehicle by which God has ordained there would always be this mutual relationship that the father would bring something, the mother would bring something, and each does something that's a stereoscopic thing once again.

The child needs that nurturing, safe relationship so that they can cultivate values, discipline, wisdom, and learn how to give and receive love. It becomes a model, a laboratory of love. As you know, children catch truth more than they are taught it. I still remember the memory I still have from when my father said this sentence to me: "Act like I say, not as I do."

That didn't provide a lot of security because my father was saying he was a hypocrite. He was saying, in effect, "Don't imitate me, but follow what I tell you to do, even though I'm not doing it myself." That's not a security for a child. That's why I remembered the moment; it was so bizarre and out of this world. It was at 133 Eagle Drive in Emerson, New Jersey, and I was right by the driveway and by this little bush that we had. I so vividly remembered it.

The home is a laboratory for developing relationships as well. Children are to be seen as a gift or on loan from God. They're not your children; they are His. The danger is that a lot of parents will live their lives in a surrogate manner through their children, and that's a mistake that they make. That's why there's more fighting by parents at Little League games than there are by the children because the parents are living their lives by proxy through their kids. It's not a healthy way to do it.

Building your life and marriage around your children is a mistake. Instead, the children are there on loan for a few years until they're brought from a state of total dependence to independent. At least, that's what you're supposed to do. The relationship of the marriage will continue. Accept your children the same way God accepts you. They're not going to be always what you want them to be. Your true source of identity is in Christ, not in their performance or their appearance.

There's a gift that's involved in parent-child relationships, and we have to recognize as well that this is one of the best ways that God uses to make us less selfish. It forces us to become more other-centered. Parents, not outside institutions, are primarily responsible for shaping their children's character and for guiding their spiritual, psychological, intellectual, emotional, and physical growth.

What will happen in our culture then is after a while, by the time they become an adolescent, you lose your authority in many ways, and it becomes a peer authority and all the other things. But you have a window of opportunity to be a model, an exemplar, an authority that's by basis of integrity where your words and your works intersect. That's what gives a child the security: when they're raised in a context of integrity, when what you claim and how you live are the same thing.

They're always going to test the boundaries. Are they going to be consistent? Nobody wants to have walls that move like Jello. They want to have firm boundaries. Even though they don't want to hear a "no," there are times when they need to, and it gives them actually a clear security that they wouldn't otherwise have. There should be a five-to-one ratio of positive-to-negative comments. It would be very interesting if you could hear a transcription of the eighteen years in which you were raising a child and compare immediately how many positive comments there were relative to negative comments. That would be an instructive exercise. We're often trying to correct rather than commend and encourage.

You cannot impart what you don't possess. It's something that's a gift that is based upon what you are. It needs to be in your heart. This is the Deuteronomy 6 principle: it's supposed to be in your heart, then in your head, and then in your hand. It's an inside-out spiritual, intellectual, emotional vitality. It's got to be there; otherwise, it's going to be inauthentic, and it'll be evident that it's an imitation but not the real thing.

In addition, we must respond not only to God's love but to God's word. The whole idea of following the authority of Scripture and the way in which I relate to other people, my children, more will be caught than taught because of what you are. That will communicate a lot more than what you say. It's easy to see that what you're doing is your true authority.

Finally, young children's view of God is profoundly shaped by their view of their fathers. There's a lot of people who have a hard time believing in God or trusting God because of the betrayals they've had, or the performance-based acceptance and the conditional love that they've received. They then project that on God and suppose He's like that as well. That is a terrible mistake, and that's why I say many times we had to be re-parented.

We have to come to realize that that was not the real Father heart of God, but here it is. I always use Luke 15, the prodigal son. When the father sees the son in a distance, meaning he was looking for his return every day, it must have taken him a long time to fritter away all that wealth. He went off among the Gentiles. He not only saw him at a distance, but he felt compassion for him. Third, he ran. That's the most astonishing of them all because that would never be done in the Ancient Near East. To gird up your loins and to run would never be done.

The son would come to the father, and the father would have his arms akimbo. He would say, "Okay, now you're back, huh? Now you're out of money, now you come back?" Instead, he embraced him. He ran to him, and he kissed him and embraced him. That's the view. He cut him short in his speech. "Make me as one of your hired sons." He didn't even let him finish that speech about sinning against heaven and earth. He wanted to show a celebration: "This son of mine who was dead is alive; he was lost and now he's found."

That is the vision. You want to know what God's like? Read this and meditate on that Luke 15:20. Meditate on it because you'll see we all in some way have really had a bit of distortion because no one is a perfect parent in this earth. Our parents raised us as Hebrews 12 says: they disciplined as seemed best to them, but our heavenly Father disciplines us for our good that we may afterward learn the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

It's a very important thing because many people are angry with God because they're angry with their father and they never got the blessing. Children need a certain quantity of time; you can't trick them that easily and say, "I don't have much time, but it's quality." That's not the way the child will see it. These five love languages children have them also. It's just nice to be students because no two children are alike. Each one will have to be raised according to their own way, according to their needs.

I round this out with friendships. There's a spectrum of friendship from acquaintance to companion to an untested friendship. A friendship is going to reach the final level, the highest level, only when it is tested by fire, by trials shared together. That's a tested friendship. The highest is a covenant relationship where you enter into a covenant for life with another person.

Most American males do not have friends, or very few indeed. They have acquaintances, they have colleagues, they have associates, but often they do not have a real friend. A true covenant friend is somebody I know who may be in another part of the United States, but if I called him, he'd take the next flight without asking questions. I would do the same with him. It transcends geography. There are certain things that God will meld or bind some hearts together, and that's a very rich experience indeed.

The idea of moving in friendships from the level of facts to a deeper level to "What are my opinions?" but without being dogmatic, and at least understanding a person's ideas. Then really the heart is going to be the hardest. This is something that most men won't go to. There's the angry drunk, the happy drunk, and so forth, but they're not pretty.

The idea is to move to feelings where you're willing to share your emotions with another person. I like this expression from the author of *The Little Prince*: "Friends share the treasure of common memories," which I like very much. I sometimes go back and think about friends. If I think about a person that I summon in my mind, I could just for a moment meditate and think about all the times, if I've known them for decades, that we've shared.

Guest (Male): Going back to you, when you were on the board of Reflections Ministries and going to your house and going for places and so forth, we have a history, don't we?

Dr. Ken Boa: And in Jeff the same way, we have a history. So I could immediately summon up many, many times of pleasures and things we've done and enjoyed together. That's a very healthy thing to do. There's often going to be some challenges too because of common memories of trials endured together. If it's a real friendship, a deep one, there's going to be trials endured together, of quarrels and reconciliations and generous emotions. There's a healing so that they become stronger, not weaker, in that respect because they're tested and tempered like steel by fire. They become stronger for having gone through a painful process together and the healing that takes place.

C.S. Lewis said friendship is the least natural of the human loves because it is not driven by instinct, necessity, or survival value. I think that's right. Friendship is different from the others in that respect and something that can be shared with others. When I have a good friend, I will often want to be a connection. I will often want to connect this person; I think this person and this person would be good to get together. Instead of being diminished, you're amplified because it's not a zero-sum game, but you're sharing others together.

Some of my best memories are little enclaves of friends. I'm thinking of one under a Louisiana sky at an Episcopal retreat center north of Baton Rouge. I used to go to these men's conferences, and six of us happened one of those nights when I was teaching at this group about a hundred guys to get together by a little fire we were around. One was an "oenophile"—a lover of wine. This man had some fabulous stuff; he'd been collecting for decades. He decided, "If I don't start sharing this with others, what am I waiting for?" He brought six of his best bottles. One was from 1940 and one was 1972 Chateau Lafite.

I had a card that listed the wines because it was so memorable that night. I lost the card. I know where I put it; I called it "Generosity." I'm hoping I find it because it listed those specific wines. It was a great evening, and we just had that time under the stars for hours and just shared stories and ideas and so forth. We were smoking Cuban cigars together. It's a guy's thing, and I never smoke cigars unless I'm with some men; then it's a social thing. I never am drawn to do it myself. I have all this Cuban contraband because people have given me all this stuff. I never smoke it on my own.

The idea is I have a rich memory of collective good under that starry night, and it was magical. I'd love to go back to it. It's one of those things I might choose to go back to. A good exercise I tell people to do is to choose ten days that you'd want to relive. Friendship is essentially free from the need to be needed. It requires intentional investments of time and energy.

To spend those three hours yesterday with my friend David Whyte was an investment of a lot of time. We both profited from it on lots of levels, but it's a big investment of time that's necessary. Learn to love others without being controlled or consumed by them. Trust, openness, mutual respect, honesty, and self-disclosure are necessary because there's a measure of self-disclosure you can only go so far until you've revealed things that not everyone knows. It's a measure of trust and openness where you're able to do that with somebody you can trust with that truth. You don't have to prove or position yourself. There's no pretense, no posturing, but rather it's a safe person for you to be yourself.

It's revealed in times of crisis. This is my sister's, I think it must be her eighth birthday, in Dumont, New Jersey, and I'm a little tyke in the back of that picture. A friendship will be tested in times of crisis to see if it can withstand that. Friends rebuke when necessary, and they're candid and truthful. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy. A person who gives you the gift of truth is somebody you can trust in that respect. They'll rebuke when necessary and be candid and truthful. They're going to keep confidences, listen attentively and empathetically.

The highest level is covenant, what I call that like a David-Jonathan relationship where they agree to walk together for life in trust and loyalty. It's not a question of having to be near one another, but a commitment for that relationship. Finally, they faithfully build into one another's lives; they believe in each other. They sharpen and encourage each other to grow in their relationship with God.

We all need people who watch over our souls and who look after us. The best way to do this is to be a friend yourself by cultivating an interest in others. Remember, there's three things we can do with anybody, no matter how weak or infirm or devitalized we ever become. You can still love people, you can pray for them, and you can serve them. You can do that even if you only have one friend left and you're about to die. As long as you have life and breath, you can do those three things: love people, pray for them, serve them.

"Why am I still alive?" some people have asked when they reach the extra years, and they're superannuated. There must be a reason; what's your mission? As long as you're alive and have opportunity, then you can pray for people, serve them, and love them. It may be that your prayers, your intercessory prayers, become a growing ministry in your life as I think often happens as we get older.

Next week, I want you by way of preparation, if you want to accept my assignment, to study Philippians Chapter 1. It's a short little chapter; you can read it in three minutes. Wouldn't it be fun if you were to read it each night or every day? Maybe make it the last thing you read tonight. Read Philippians Chapter 1, and then ask yourself, when you read it, "What verse spoke most to me?"

You read it tonight, and it might be something along the line of, "To me to live is Christ and to die is gain." That's certainly going to be a keeper. That wouldn't be a bad verse to think about as you go to sleep, would it? Tomorrow you might choose a different one: "Conduct yourself in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ," or "It's been granted not only to believe but to suffer." That's a hard thing to think about, but it's going to give you perspective because we all have to go through adversity as part of our spiritual journey.

That's my little assignment for you: read Philippians each night. As you read it, ask what verse spoke to you that night. It'll probably be a different one each night, and that's an invitation of the Spirit for you to go into this. Don't try to do the whole verse; it's too much to chew on, but maybe just take the essence of it. "To live is Christ, to die is gain" isn't bad.

Lord, we give You thanks and praise that You have loved us, pursued us, and wooed us and drawn us to Yourself. We pray in Christ's name, amen.