Paul Tripp: “Too many of us are trying to have hundred dollar conversations in dime moments”

Paul Tripp’s, What Did You Expect? (Redesign): Redeeming the Realities of Marriage,is one of the best books I have ever read on marriage.

If you’re married or a pastor (or perhaps if you simply know someone who is married), then I recommend it.

There is no doubt about it: too many of us are trying to have hundred dollar conversations in dime moments.  Too many of us have left little time in our schedules for meaningful conversations, tender connection, and focused problem solving.  Too many of us have little time for relational reflection and introspection in our marriages.  Too many of us are doing marriage on the fly.  Marriage, too often, is what we do in between all the other things we are doing that really determine the content and pace of our schedules.  But marriage doesn’t function very well as an in-between thing, and marriages surely don’t tend to thrive when we leave them alone and ask them to grow on their own.  A marriage that is going to grow, change, and become increasingly healthy needs cultivation.  Like a garden, it doesn’t do well when it is being neglected.

See also this quote found in the same book.