There other day I was getting dressed and I reached for my black shirt that just as the word PUNK on it. As I wore it around town and to work that day, I realized the word drums up a couple of different thoughts when people see it or hear it.

PUNK for the most part is a style of music. It was bands like the SEX PISTOLS and the RAMONES that capitalized on music’s rebellion and teenage angst. The word as a result, or maybe it’s the other way around, also is a description of someone who has rebelled in their life. It’s usually toward authority; whether it’s against a parent, teacher, boss or whoever.

The word is even used as a verb these days to describe when someone has pulled a prank on you. The TV show sparked the term Punk’d. One or all of these categories have made me realize: We are ALL just a bunch of PUNKS.

I’ve come to wear this word like a badge of honor. I know I have failed in certain areas of my life. I can’t change them, don’t want to, seeing that the lessons learned have made me who I am, but I’m reminded that I can quickly make a PUNK like decision in a seconds notice. The repercussions of those decisions can make or break me. They can make or break others. My friend Ray calls that being caught up in someone else’s Dum Dum Dip.

However, PUNK can be a spiritual badge of honor in that first, we can be reminded of the way we are by nature and only with God’s help can He help us be better men and women spiritually. Secondly, we can be a PUNK against religion and keep things as real as they should be so that others see our flaws and how we deal with them; not that we put on a Jesus face to get through life. That can really help others see God if we just open up about things we do that PUNK our day and our life. It removes the vale that Christians don’t have it all together and are trying to figure it out with the rest of the world.

A PUNK moment is a snapshot of a choice we made, no matter how big, but it definitely does not have to define us. We can see each other as PUNKS and laugh away those times we’ve made bad choices but apply to our life to help others avoid the same consequences that we have been dealt.

The Marriage Playbook™
~where marriage is going~

As May turns into June, it’s no secret that wedding season is officially underway. I have a friend who recently married off his oldest daughter and while the child that’s been with him the longest prepared for her BIG DAY, all he had to do was come up with the toast for the rehearsal dinner.

Sounds pretty easy when that’s the only job you have and considering this guys job is to travel around the country speaking to large groups of people. Piece of cake? WRONG!

He went back and forth over what to say. Would he write it down or adlib? Nothing was coming to him. So two weeks before the wedding, he was checking into a hotel and as he gave the desk worker the last name of Frost as he checked in, the lady at the desk loved that his name was the same name as her favorite poet, Robert Frost. As the conversation continued, my friend found himself finding out about this ladies favorite poem by Frost which is one called “The Master’s Speed”. Now the poem is powerful even if you aren’t planning a wedding because it speaks about the fact that we should be more patient in life and follow our path at God’s pace, not our owe. The encouragement from Robert Frost goes like this:

No speed of wind or water rushing by
But you have speed far greater. You can climb
Back up a stream of radiance to the sky,
And back through history up the stream of time.
And you were given this swiftness, not for haste
Nor chiefly that you may go where you will,
But in the rush of everything to waste,
That you may have the power of standing still
Off any still or moving thing you say.
Two such as you with such a master speed
Cannot be parted nor be swept away
From one another once you are agreed
That life is only life forevermore
Together wing to wing and oar to oar.

Now, I don’t know if you feel challenged by these words like I was but what make these words more poetic as it speaks into our marriages is that these words were written by Frost for his daughter on the night of her wedding. It gave me chills to think about the fact that my friend had to be in the right hotel with the right desk clerk and the right city in order to find that poem in time for his daughter’s wedding. The Challenge I found not just in the poem but in my friends journey for the right words. That if we just wait, if we just listen, if we just pray, then our relationship with our spouse with workout at The Master’s Speed.

The Marriage Playbook
~where marriage is going~