Daily Devotional

We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout! (Song: "Jackson").  Lynn and I did.  August 1969.  It’s still hot!  As a country we were fighting a war across the ocean we were not willing to win.  I was soon bound to Army boot camp at Fort Ord.  The debauchery, drugs and music of Woodstock was in the wings.

Lynn and I were yet seven years away from each of us coming to Christ.  But we were married in the church, before God.  And something profound happened!  We were no longer two!

Matthew 19:4–6 - "And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”

We have a very early photo of ourselves on a shelf, probably taken in a fair booth.  The sign near it says, “We Belong Together!”  We both grew up in Fresno, but across town from each other.  We did not meet until my junior year in college.  But we were meant for each other before the world began!

The week of September this devotional will run will be the same week in 1982 that we stepped into pastoral work together.  If there had been no Sister Lynn, there would have been no Pastor Greg.  We are a team.  We were one when we were called.

1 Corinthians 7:17, 20 - "Only, as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each, in this manner let him walk. And so I direct in all the churches. Each man must remain in that condition in which he was called."

God waited till we were married to call us to Himself.  Waited until I had a secure teaching career.  Till we had a house and a city.  Till we had a child ready to be born (August 1976).  That’s the condition in which we were called to Him.  It is the condition in which we still serve.  No longer two.  We are one.

Then in 1982, after six years of intensive training, Christ called us together to serve Him in occupational ministry.  Lynn perceived it before me.  Forty-one years later we are still behind the plow of pastoral ministry.  Early on the Lord taught us we had to be one.  No longer two.  The Spirit told me that half of what I needed would be given to Lynn.  Half of it would be given to me.  Did I want to hear fully?  Did I want to serve God’s way?  Since the answer was a “Yes,” we had to learn what it meant to be one.  No longer two.  We have learned, through fire and faith.

When God made Adam, He said it was not good for him to be alone (Genesis 2:18).  He took a rib from Adam and half of his stuff.  He put it together into Eve.  He made for Adam a suitable helper.  His counselor.  His partner.  They became one, again!  Lynn is the counselor-partner God has given me.  It is the way. Genesis 2:24 -  “A man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (KJV).
 
He leaves.  He cleaves.  They become one flesh.  One unit.  One pastoral team.  If there was no Sister Lynn, there would be no Pastor Greg.  Lynn is a Proverbs 31 woman.  Remember, the P31 woman was married.  Her husband was a city official, serving at the city gate.  She looked well after her household.  She did her husband good all her days.  She worked with her hands.

We launched into pastoral ministry on Sept. 6, 1982, holding hands.  Going into uncharted territory together.  I had no seminary training.  I quit my school job. The church had a mere two years of existence, and no property.  No denomination.  Sister Lynn was the critical other half of Pastor Greg.  She still is.  She helped see us through at least a dozen moves, six years of my return to college at 51 years old, while working full time, eight professional jobs in six different cities, coaching, ministry, military; producing four children, two of whom have died; enduring through marital issues, family issues, church issues, health issues and trials without number.  

We helped each other grow up and mature, and do ministry.  It took a lot.  It still does.  What we started together we shall finish together.  Fifty-four years of marriage, and counting.  Forty-one years of pastoral ministry, and counting.  “Remain in that condition in which you were called,” God said.  No longer two.  We keep hearing the word Paul sent to Archippus—Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it (Colossians 4:17).

So here we are.  Together.  No longer Two.  Still holding hands.

The Holy Bible. King James Version. Oxford UP, 1769.