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Hi everyone 
A few times over this past year I've received an email from a young person who has found themselves in a spiritually mismatched marriage. In each of those cases, they have expressed their fear about having children: "What do I do when it comes to teaching our kids? Should I even have children? I am fearful of whether I have the ability raise them in faith."
Yikes -- Those thoughts are so hard.
The first thing I say is: "YES, you should so have kids! God will sustain you and surround you as you raise them in faith,"
I tell them that Jesus in them is so strong that they have every ability to walk in victory in this area.
But second, there is the question of what are our rights and responsibilities when raising young children? Say I am a Christian, and my spouse is atheist, what should I fight for in terms of my desire to raise them in faith, and what should I allow my spouse to bring in? This is another area where it's helpful to figure out what some appropriate boundaries might look like.
I really liked Amanda's comment this week, where she said one boundary she and her hubby have agreed on is that neither of them disrespect each other's beliefs.
I think the same can be a good rule when raising children. Each spouse in a marriage may feel strongly that their own views are correct. They might even feel strongly that the other's views will damage the kids: Certainly being Christian, it would mortify us to think of our spouse expressing atheist views to our kids; but, to be fair, an atheist might feel the same way: It might mortify them to think of a Christian parent bringing faith to kids.
Aggh!!! Catch 22 -- What's to be done? How do you walk this one out honorably to your spouse, but faithfully to God?
Bryce and I have friends who are in a SUM with young kids. The Dad is the believer. He takes them to church, which he finds very difficult to do solo, but he does it. However, I was heartened when the mum told me once, "When I'm reading books to the kids about the world, I say to them "Your Dad believes God made this... Whereas other people believe xyz." She said it matter-of-factly. I guess they've fostered an atmosphere of respect.
So in terms of rights and responsibilities, here's a good way forward --
First of all, courageously bring faith to your children, even if your spouse reacts negatively. Be brave, be bold. We have to be! If this is currently challenging for you I pray boldness into your soul!
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6, KJV).
It may be that it causes unhappiness for your spouse; if so, express to them respectfully that you do have a right to share your views with your child and expose them to faith so that they can make an informed choice of their own. However, to be fair, if you ask for that from your spouse, you should really give them the same courtesy. In the spirit of walking out a respectful marriage, don't muzzle your spouse, just as you would hope they wouldn't muzzle you. Just explain to your children that you each see things differently but you respect and love each other.
Then, pray your heart out. Prayer is the most powerful thing you'll ever do for your children anyway. Pray for protection of your children's ears, eyes and hearts. And fear not, because what's in you is stronger than what's in the world --
But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world (1 John 4:4, NLT)
Our children will always come across other views, but as long as you have made sure they have plentiful access to the Gospel, you have done your bit.
Tough stuff! For those of you who've walked this out, how has all of this gone for you? Let's share our ups and downs in the comments.
Love,
Ann
My friends, 
We're writing about boundaries in marriage; and to catch up, here are the previous posts:
Boundaries in marriage: Part one
Boundaries in marriage: Part two
On Monday we talked about how important it is to guard our own oil -- that is, guard our own connection with God, our own flame for him, our own infilling of the Holy Spirit. In a spiritually mismatched marriage our spouse can pull us away from that -- even if they don't mean to -- so we do have to take steps to fight for it.
So, what are some healthy boundaries that we can put in place to protect our own oil?
For me, this has taken two forms:
(1) I fight to protect my personal time with God
(2) I fight to protect my connections with the church
Fight to protect time with God
Our spouses will often, quite rightly, want our time; and in honor of marriage we should give that to them generously -- IF they want it. But that can come at the expense of our quiet time with God. Remember COVID lockdown? I don't know about you, but I struggled to connect with God when Bryce and I were constantly in each other's space. Well, Bryce and I are once again together 24/7 now as he is not working, so I am currently having to think through what is reasonable for me to ring-fence, in terms of my own personal time.
A couple of weeks ago Bryce -- newly unemployed -- came into the bedroom where I was sat reading my Bible. He was ready to start the day -- And I was in my God space. "So, how's this going to go?" he said. "There's you, sitting in bed reading, and here's me, wanting to do stuff with you -- Can we chat about this?"
"Ok!" I said. "Look, in the mornings before I hang out with you I'm going to need a cup of tea, a cup of coffee, then another coffee and four chapters of the Bible. After that I'm all yours!"
"Mm."
"I need it."
"Mm. OK"
So that's how it goes. He's since been coming in and saying "Are you on your first, second or third cup so far? Just so I can plan..."
I have told him it's non-negotiable; that I won't be well and happy unless I have that time. And that is my boundary.
I know other SUMites have said they've been criticised by their spouses when in prayer or with a Bible. Perhaps a boundary there might be to swallow the fear of their views and press in: Keep the Bible open, and keep going. After all, what harm does it do them? Press in to know the Lord, against all the odds!
Oh, that we might know the LORD! Let us press on to know him (Hosea 6:3, NLT)
Fight to protect connections with the church
The second boundary is around church. I think many of us have had a season in our SUM walk when we've stayed away from church for weeks on end to please our spouse. Uggh, well I have.
But the longer this SUM walk continues, the more I become like tough old boots on this one, and my boots must be on the ground in church. Attending church -- in some form -- is so critical to our spiritual life, and to the Body of Christ, that it's perfectly OK to say to our spouse that our church attendance is non-negotiable.
In fact, if a spouse is saying to their significant other that they cannot attend church, I would argue that's the kind of control that we should be careful not to bow to. After all, God loves freedom and wants us to be free; not bound in chains to the whims of another human being.
Us SUMites need church more than most. Because we have unbelief at home we need to put ourselves into the oasis of church to keep ourselves spiritually alive. The same goes for Christian friendships and connections who pour spiritual influence into souls: Keep those relationships thriving -- As long as they don't take away anything from our precious marriage.
With all that said, then, we hold tight to those good things that help our faith life -- Because they are our oil.
My friends, have you had to put boundaries in place around church or your time with God? I'm looking forward to hearing about your experiences!
Love
Ann
Hi all 
Ok, let's dive into the topic of boundaries in spiritually mismatched marriage. Have you been thinking about what kind of boundaries are important in a SUM? I've been jotting down various ideas over the last few days.
(And in case you missed it, here's part one in this series)
To start off with, let's take a look at this parable from Jesus. Do you see boundaries in it?
The Kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.
At midnight the cry rang out: 'Here's the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!' Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.' 'No', they replied, 'there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.'
But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut. Later the others also came. 'Sir! Sir!' they said. 'Open the door for us!' But he replied, 'I tell you the truth, I don't know you.' Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour. (Matthew 25:25, NIV).
I know as we're a Bible-reading bunch, many of us will have read this parable several times over the years. However, a parable will often have more than one lesson to it, and sometimes you see something completely new in it -- Which is what happened to me a few days ago. I happened to read it as part of my daily reading and suddenly thought 'Oh, this is about boundaries!'
See, I had always thought of this parable in terms of keeping yourself filled with the Holy Spirit. And that is certainly what it's about. But what I had never noticed before was the fact that half the virgins were trying to take the oil from the other half. And the wise virgins had to put their foot down and say 'No, that crosses a line.' In other words, the wise virgins had to put a boundary in place to protect their most precious thing.
What was their most precious thing? It was their oil, which enabled their lamps to burn, without which they could not access their master. It was their Holy Spirit, their very source of life. 100% precious.
Yes, it would have been seemingly 'generous' of them to give up a little of their oil. But the outcome of that would actually have been disastrous. So they took a step, and protected their own access to Jesus at the risk of being unloving.
The moral might be for us that we need to put boundaries around holding tight our access to Holy Spirit, our infilling of the Holy Spirit, our time with God, our ability to worship him and keep him close, and our very source of LIFE, at the risk of being a little less 'generous' to our spouse.
This can involve a little bit of a fight, because our spouse doesn't yet see the value of the oil. They naturally might want to pull us away from the oil. 'Stop reading the Bible now, you've had enough of that!' 'Turn that worship music off!'
Practically, then, what kinds of things should we fight for in a marriage in order to keep our oil?
How do we stay considerate to our spouse without giving up our oil?
Have you had to fight to hold on to a particular thing in your faith life?
I might pause there and see what you have to say in the comments. And then we'll continue on Wednesday.
Love you all!
Ann
Hello friends, Ann here. 
I'm writing from Singapore airport, where Bryce and I are sipping coffee and waiting to fly to England. Once there, I have a week with my parents to look forward to, and much-anticipated time with my siblings.
Cannot wait -- I love, love, love being back in England.
Meanwhile, what to write next for SUM?
Well, over the next week or so, I'd like to reflect on a particular topic that's critical for us: Setting good boundaries in our marriages.
"Have you heard of boundaries?" I asked Bryce this week. "Nope," he said.
A boundary can be defined as a line in the sand, where you don't allow someone to take something precious from you or invade your life in a negative way. It works the other way too. Your spouse might need to set boundaries with you, not allowing you to negatively invade or take something from them.
Too few boundaries are not a good thing, but neither are too many boundaries. What's more, any healthy marriage - or relationship, for that matter -- has boundaries in it.
But of course, in a spiritually mismatched marriage, healthy boundaries have to address some specific areas, and are an essential part of staying alive faith-wise. I think of it as a two-pronged approach. We do two things:
(1) LOVE our spouse well
(2) Set appropriate boundaries.
LOVE involves us doing everything prescribed here:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres (1 Corinthians 13:4-7, NIV)
We need this prescription, and we need to make this our great mission as SUMites, because that's what God asks of us: To love others.
But love doesn't mean being a doormat, and it mustn't come at the expense of our own spiritual health. It is possible to be too kind, too patient, too honorable with a person whose behaviors are unhealthy for us.
So with that thought in mind, here's a question to start us off:
What kinds of boundaries need to be put in place in a spiritually mismatched marriage?
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Love to you all,
Ann
 Hello SUM Nation. Lynn Donovan here.
Next week I'll offer the SECOND of two LIVE video training sessions that expand on the teaching in Spiritual Enforcer. This will include an open Q&A at the end. April 24th at 11 am PACIFIC, I'll cover the concepts of closing open doors, the benefits we receive and the Spirit of Wisdom (my personal favorite).
It's not too late to read the book and join the fun. You can buy the eBook, paperback or audio book here.
If you gave during our annual giving in November, you have received an email with the Zoom invitation. If you want to attend purchase a pass; click here.
Write down your questions. Admittingly, I don't know everything, but I've gained an enormous amount of effective strategies that truly make a difference in our faith battles.
THIS is worth your time. THIS is worth every effort. THIS training is the real deal.
Jesus needs us, His Church, to discover our power and authority and to bring the Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. I can't wait to share as I've already gained more info since the writing of this book.
Love you all. Be expectant, filled with hope and walk in joy. Love and blessings, Lynn
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