The New Eve - Lewis Robert [62]
According to Levinson's research, a lot of men consider a risky career move in their late twenties or early thirties. That was certainly true for me. In my first job after seminary, I co-pastored a church in Tucson, Arizona. I had a wonderful time there serving a great group of people. During my stay the church experienced significant growth; we hired a number of new staff and built a wonderful facility. It was all coming together.
But then I got a call from old college friends back in Little Rock. They had recently started a new church and were renting space in a small private school. Actually, they were conducting their services in the school's unair-conditioned gym. My buddies asked me to consider moving to Little Rock to be their pastor. There were no guarantees. The pay was minimal. But my leadership opportunities would be significantly broadened to allow me to try some of the new and unconventional things I had dreamed of doing as a church leader.
I discussed this opportunity with Sherard, who at the time was pregnant with our second child and had just finished decorating our new home. I explained to her that the salary they were offering me would not be enough for us to buy a home in Little Rock. We would have to rent instead. I also told her that this new church had no facilities; it was meeting in a sweatbox—literally. “It's a huge risk to go,” I said, “but this church has dreams like ours and offers greater opportunity for me to use my leadership gifts.”
I will never forget what happened next. After a brief pause, she smiled and said, “Robert, you can do it. Let's go.”
And we did. Together. Her support and encouragement gave me the boost I needed to take this flying leap that has now defined my life more than any other. As I write, I have had twenty-seven wonderful years at Fellowship Bible Church. Great things have happened. But it all started with a supportive wife.
There is one other area in which a man needs a woman's support. It's in the area of dreaming. Yes, dreaming. Men spend a tremendous amount of energy contemplating what else they could do with their lives. They constantly think, Where is the best place for me? A big asset to them is having a woman they can think out loud with about these things. You need to know this dream talk is often nothing more than merely that: talk. But it is still very important to a man. It helps him to process and coordinate his life, measure its value as well as its possibilities. The woman who lives with her husband in an understanding way knows this. She sees the value in being his sounding board. Some women, on the other hand, are confused and perplexed by a man's dreaming. It can scare them.
Listen to what one woman said in a newspaper article I read years ago:
My husband is a nut. He'll sit around after supper and talk about how we should pick up and move to Alaska. If we both work, we'll have a real stake in the future in five or six years. We will spend all night talking about it and figuring out how we will manage. Will he go up there first and look for a job and a place to live? Or should we both go and hope for the best?
A week later, he'll be sitting around talking about how he ought to be taking a couple of courses at the university towards his master's degree. It would make a big difference in his chances of getting ahead in his company.
What do you do with a man like that?
Does your man bounce around like that when he dreams out loud? Even now I do that with