Mike Rizzo introduces Longing for Eden
Over the last thirty plus years of pastoral ministry, I can’t remember a single instance of a husband and wife being in severe conflict (talking divorce) while at the same time being spiritually vibrant. The disconnect between husband and wife is always a manifestation of a “God disconnect.” In other words, every marriage problem is ultimately a God problem.
Naturally, we will have minor differences to iron out, stemming from personality differences, cultural backgrounds, and personal preferences, etc… But if we have agreement on in our core values and vision, and consistent renewal in the Spirit, then our one flesh covenant union should never be broken.
My wife and I pray that “Longing for Eden” will renew a fresh vision in both singles, engaged, and married couples. The fourteen chapters are roughly divided into three parts: having a vision in marriage, the importance of healing the heart, and the eternal vision that should be in the crosshairs of every Christian. Please enjoy the excerpt below: Chapter Thirteen.
“Partners in Longing”
Marriage is the most affirming relationship on the planet. Just to think that someone loves me to the extent that they want to spend the rest of their earthly life with me, is overwhelming. This is a glorious shadow, cast by the greatest affirmation of all. Jesus has chosen me to do the same, not only in this age but for all eternity.
The longing to be enjoyed by God is a chip implanted in every human soul. He already enjoys me; I need to learn how to live with this reality. It must go from head to heart in understanding. This is the longing that the devil exploits every which way he can to divert attention away from the Son of God. Even within Christian marriage we must be vigilant to keep Jesus as our primary passion. Like Joseph’s dream, all the sheaves must bow.
Married life is good when we’re both sitting at the King’s table. Connecting with God’s enjoyment of us releases a joy into our friendship. Another foundational desire that we have is the longing to be fascinated.
“One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple.” Psalms 27:4
My wife and I have prayed that our partnership would be a marriage of “one thing.” The beauty of the Lord is absolutely transforming. Even “seeing through a glass darkly” has made us different people. (1Cor.13:12) Over the course of his life King David studied the personality and emotions of God. This great warrior and worship leader was caught up with the beauty of God. He also knew the diabolical power of being caught up with the forbidden beauty of another man’s wife. Like Adam he ate of a forbidden fruit. Like that which they sought at Babel, David had already made a name for himself and he wielded that kingly power to meet his dark longings. That’s why the “one thing” must be the one thing. Dark fascination has the same bulls’ eye as godly fascination – the center of our hearts. Its power is derived from spiritual stagnation, boredom, and unbridled lust. A fascinated man does not need pornography; a fascinated woman doesn’t need to escape into romance novels.
If fascination came easy to the average believer, our churches could not contain the masses wanting to get in, as they recognized the abiding joy we manifested. As I look back over the landscape of battles I’ve fought in, one that comes to mind is depression. I’m not speaking of major depression (requiring medication) but of what is called “low grade depression.” Because the symptoms are considered mild, most people don’t seek help; they just plod on through it. That was me over a period of years. I remember looking forward to the end of the day so that I could escape into sleep.
I fought against hopelessness and low motivation. By God’s grace I was able to continue in my duties as husband, father, and pastor. But it was wearing me down. A major factor in the breakthrough I experienced was the revelation of two things: the beauty of God, and the promise of the age to come. Beyond some ethereal world, life after death became revealed to me as a continuation of partnering in ministry with Jesus. My hope-less became hope-full. These concepts made the trek from my head to the center of my heart. The enemy’s attack was fierce, trying to convince me that I would still be sad even in heaven! He’s quite brash isn’t he? Praise God, truth prevailed and the dark clouds parted. In the meantime, I “borrowed” from my wife’s joy.
God unveils his beauty to the hungry heart. His hiding of the deep things is for our protection and humility. The process of unveiling creates ownership on our part and rehabs our damaged emotions in the process. I focused more and more on the personality of God and meditated on portions of scripture that spoke of His attributes and revealed His glory. (E.G. Revelation, chapters 4 & 5, Ezekiel ch.1) The divine treasure chest is unlocked as we seek and search. When I’m filled to overflowing my marriage gets the spillover. The more beautiful God looks to me, the more beautiful my wife looks to me.
God’s beauty is a powerful force that empowers the heart of a husband and wife to love one another. A spouse that strays into adultery has ceased to be fascinated not only with their marriage partner, but also with God. Think back to what originally attracted you to your spouse. You may or may not have known that it was the beauty of God reflected like light through a prism that fascinated your heart to want that “one” for life. The beauty you saw, the force that fascinated, was a longing being fulfilled. I encourage you to sign up again to be “partners in longing.”
“Longing for Eden: Embracing God’s vision in your marriage” by Mike Rizzo with Anne Rizzo, is a newly released inspirational book that will challenge couples and inspire singles, to more clearly see God’s intent for marriage. The authors write from thirty years of pastoral experience, much of which has been in the realm of marital and pre-marital counseling. Their passion is to see husbands and wives dwell together as “married disciples.” Small Group Study Guide (covers all 14 chapters) is included in the book. Over 170 questions, designed for individual couples or small groups to study together. Author info: http://mikerizzo.wordpress.com/ )
Mike Rizzo
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| Mike and Anne Rizzo |
Mike and Anne say
Our current ministry assignment is two-fold: 1) To dedicate our lives to the prayer movement (at the International House of Prayer, Kansas City); to see kings and priests take their rightful place before the Throne in intercession. 2) To work with married and pre-marital couples; to see the prophetic picture of Christ and the church reflected in every marriage.
Read my new memoir: Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India (US) or UK.
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My book of essays: Wandering Between Two Worlds (US) or UK
Have Women Brought About The Extinction of The Sacrament of Marriage Upon Themselves!
Divorce is a Rampant Epidemic especially when the government & the military (NATO) is behind it!
I went to a father’s group in Texas (just north of Fort Hood)
where some ex-military west pointer gave some real eye-opening
comments. He basically said that the current Divorce process,
legislation, court system and military is all one scheme that was put
into play around the early 1960‘s. It was put in place for the Vietnam
War, that’s when the divorces started to sky-rocket across the country
(search statistics). He stated that this was one of country’s greatest
guarded secrets and any previous attempts to expose it have resulted in
“extreme” unAmerican covert actions to remove the source. That in
addition, it was also designed to be one huge cash-cow to lure greedy
lawyers to facilitate and destroy more families on the civilian side to
get enough statistics to make it comparable to the military statistics.
However the military numbers are still much higher. That is why they
then modified the scheme to use on police nationwide to raise the
civilian stats as most are ex-military and won’t suspect anything wrong.
It is designed to send “single” male soldiers without family
responsibilities to war and deny ex-wives any long-term financial
support that was initially and may still be coming from the military/
pentagon’s money pockets. This is why laws traditionally have been
favoring women.
Women are lured to divorce partners with both positive
and negatives reinforcements. The positive is they get the kids, the
house, money in many forms-child support etc thus they benefit in the
short term. To the military, the soldiers wives are expendable as are
the soldiers and even their children! Simply the less money the military
spends on wives, kids, ex-soldiers, the medical bills etc, the more
they have for their drones, guns, or bullets. The scheme is very very
complicated but based on very slow very subtle psy-ops brainwashing tactics followed by Machiavellian
divide and conquer restraining orders. He said that any Freedom of
Information request will gradually reveal key pieces of data that when
analyzed together with confirm all this. Talking about this among other
soldiers would also reveal stuff, so they came up with “leave your
family problems at home” and the “zero tolerance” to divorce and get the
spouses or soldiers out of the service quickly before they talk and
expose the scheme. Many times this leads to actual suicides or apparent
“suicides” to silence those that know too much. This is also the reason
why the Pentagon does not want to release documents related to divorce.
Part of the even bigger Military-Industrial complex. Similar schemes used throughout the world pushed through United Nation’s facades.
Residual memories and super-stitching
non-credible issues from subliminal mass-media propaganda especially
around month of October makes wives fear and want to leave the husband.
Fear works faster on a women’s emotional minds. They fight because she
initially learns to fear him and starts rejecting him; any type of
further advances make things worst. She starts to separate and acts
different and because he has seen or heard about his fellow soldier go
through this, he too now fears loosing his kids, house, everything.
Mistrust ensues and fighting then just escalates. They are subliminally
induced to fear and hate each other. The scheme then basically exploits
women’s emotional traits to spread itself to other victims. It is a
modern version- a reverse male witch hunt using crowd-sourcing (actually gender-sourcing). The media contributes to the fear mongering and makes things worst.
The longest held myth orchestrated and pushed out by the military is
that any family issues, hardships, etc are mostly due to prolonged
physical separation between spouses; however most divorces (hidden
stats) are initiated by the wife and due to fear from abuse
by a mentally unstable “trained assassin” i.e. a soldier suffering from
some kind of PTSD or similar. This is the main reason that the military
has been pushing another lie, PTSD – the truth source is shame and
guilt from killing innocents during a foreign invasion for oil and
imperialism under the excuse of WMD. Any type of fear (PTSD etc) makes
women worry about their safety and some just play the helpless damsel
in distress thus they then go pleading to the oh-so-willing authorities
who provide them with military issued cookie cutter divorce packets
which she has to take to a civilian lawyer. They do this to hide where
the process initially starts.
The divorce is initially financed through tax payer’s money plus civilian lawyers outside military bases (jag-ex military lawyers)
take them by the truck loads as most of the paperwork has already been
done for them by JAG. Easy money! Everybody in on the scheme wins except
the military family-children suffer the most! Older teenagers then run
away, low self esteem, some get pregnant, prostitution, premature
marriages, alcohol, drugs, problems are endless. Government controls
economy, no jobs, many (if have low enough IQ) can to join the military
or police to pay bills. Police State grows etc thus the Destructive
American Cycle Continues Forever!
Most of the subtle subliminal propaganda is out throughout the 365
days of year but it is bombarded more during the month of October
knowing that during November, December and part of January, is the time
when most Americans spend considerable amount of time together. When
better to have them constantly bickering or fighting with each other.
Right after this time period is when most marriage end in divorce! Chaos brings uncontrollable emotions and thus more chaos,
and biofeedback psychological scheme. Through constant chaos at the
family level, those in power achieve and retain their control and order.
Order out of Chaos.
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Peace
Nicely put, Mike. Thank you for your hearts for married couples (pre & post)!
And I agree that we must keep that Holy Fascination with God first, and also our spouse!
I pray protection for your marriage and ministry! And that you always be fascinated – especially in the little things.
Sincerely for Souls,
Kathleen Wichterman
Trees of Righteousness Ministries
An Isaiah 61 Outreach
http://www.puzzlepieces.info
(Kansas City IHOP Community)