What’s the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything? (2)42 of course. Join Jordan today as he goes solo and continues the discussion of cosmic themes.
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Now I kinda wanna find this on Spotify and comment there.
Excellent episode. ATBM’s wife recommended it to me and I think it was great. You said you hoped for comments so I’ll add my 2cents on the ultimate role of men and women being that of father and mother and point out that the role of mother/father–our parenthood–can only be as good as our marriage, because our marriage is the foundation that our parenthood rests upon.
Can a man or woman be a good father and mother, yes. But they can only be a better/Godly father and mother when that role rests upon a solid foundation of the marriage. If the marriage is a sandy foundation, then the whole structure (family) is at risk. If the marriage is a solid foundation then it can hold the structure. And of course, the marriage itself can only be a solid foundation when it is a man and a woman resting upon the sure foundation in their individual and then combined relationship with the Lord.
So I guess I’m saying if we must choose between putting our greatest efforts into our marriage or our parenthood, I think that the marriage relationship should be the higher priority. Because our parenthood rests directly upon our marriage.
There is a hierarchy of importance: Our individual relationship with God, our relationship with our spouse, our relationship with our children, our relationship with our extended families, our relationship with our community and lastly our relationship with all of humanity.
The difficulty is that we are usually simultaneously in a relationship with all of these elements at the same time and so it is easy to get our priorities mixed up and think we should be putting more effort into one area, when the foundational relationship before that is being neglected—usually because it requires more “subduing of our natural man” than jumping over it and into a relationship that is “further out”.
Our first priority is always our relationship with God. The next priority is our marriage relationship. We cannot fool ourselves and think we are justified skipping over that and instead prioritizing our parenthood, or community or whatever. Our effectiveness in each relationship moving outward will always only be as good as the foundational relationship that comes before it. Because that is what each relationship rests upon–the one immediately before it.
Anyway, great podcast. I enjoyed listening to it.