Gary L. Thomas's Blog, page 2

You’re Not a Fool to Keep Hoping, Part 2

The second part of hope is reorienting our minds around what God has already done. The narrative of Scripture is powerful enough to instill hope in even the most seemingly hopeless situations. Think of it this way: God’s children rebelled, even though he had created a perfect world for them to enjoy. And they went from one rebellious decision to such debauched living that he almost wanted to wash his hands of them.

Instead, he preserved a family through Noah, and then set in motion thousands of years of reclaiming his children to himself. Thousands of years before it happened, he foretold his plan to offer a Messiah so that he and his people, his children, could be reunited and reconciled.

The way he did it was beyond human imagination: the spiritual God who runs the universe became a physical baby needing to be fed and changed. It made no sense, but it’s true: “For in Christ, all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9).

We lose so much wonder if we reduce Jesus to a wise teacher or prophet and deny that he was literally God in the flesh. Even the person most directly impacted by God’s entry into the world didn’t see how it could happen, but the angel assured Mary, “For nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). God gave a woman who had never lain with a man, a son.

What’s impossible with God?

Continue reading this blog on Substack HERE.

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Are You More Focused on Losing Weight Than Losing Sin? Gaining Muscle Than Gaining Grace? Looking Younger or Looking More Like Christ?

While vacationing in Colorado, my wife Lisa and I spent an early evening at the Iron Mountain Hot Springs. We heard a group of women in another pool discussing a surprising number of medical options to keep women looking young (even though none of them were past their mid-thirties). What they did to their faces, injected into their bodies, paid to undergo treatments, and the effort they spent investigating and researching new options (“This is what all the Kardashians are doing now,” one woman opined) astonished us.

As we climbed into another pool, Lisa asked me if I wished she were more into that stuff. “What were you thinking listening to them?”

“All I could think of was William Law’s admonition”—Law was an eighteenth-century Anglican writer. “Women and men should earnestly pursue humility, patience, generosity, faith, compassion, courage, kindness and forgiveness with the same intensity that those in the world pursue wealth, fame, worldly achievement, and physical beauty.”

The deception is that looking like you’re twenty-five when you’re fifty, or fifty when you’re seventy, is somehow worthy of more time and money and attention than growing in Christlikeness, whatever your age may be. But in all honesty, most of us as Christians can fall into seasons where we spend far more time and energy trying to look our best, lower our golf handicap, increase our social-media followers, lose weight, regrow hair, and increase the size of our financial investments far more than we think about growing in humility, surrender, discernment, and patience.

Continue reading this free blog on Substack HERE.

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You’re Not a Fool to Keep Hoping, Part 1

Parents who are heartbroken over their adult children’s choices need to learn how to hope. Biblical hope is a learned skill, based on the history, character, and promises of God. It’s vital for your soul to learn how to hope. You may not have an issue with any adult children, but hope as a learned skill can soothe the souls of those facing chronic illnesses, financial struggles, you name it. So we’re going to take three weeks to excerpt one of the longer chapters from my book in progress, “When Christian Parents Hurt.” As this is a work in progress, your comments are most welcome.

“Prayers are answered even after we’re gone.” Ruth Bell Graham

I’ve grown to love so much about Colorado since I moved here in 2022: the mountain views are spectacular; the sunrises and sunsets are consistently works of astronomical art; the trails and rivers offer miles of exploration and delight.

But it can get cold. Having lived in Texas for over a decade prior to moving here, our first winter was a wake-up call. Granted, statistics said it was the coldest winter in Denver in over thirty years, so I’m holding on to the fact that it wasn’t the norm. Late in the fall, I purchased a coat from a popular outdoor clothing company that promised to keep me warm up to five degrees below zero. I was skeptical when the coat arrived because it felt about as thick as two-ply toilet paper. Turns out, I was right to be skeptical—I was shivering in that coat when it was just forty degrees outside.

I went to the Castle Rock outlet mall and found a much heavier coat that was on sale. When I wrapped that coat around me, I didn’t just feel warm; I felt hugged. I went back outside and laughed at the cold and learned a very valuable lesson about life in Colorado: it’s not about the cold; it’s about the coat. If you’ve got the right coat, the cold can’t get in.

Parenting in a fallen world can sometimes feel like living in a perpetual winter. As a spiritual climate, this is a cold world that seems to be getting increasingly colder. Have you felt it? You’re not appreciated. Bad people often win, while the good people seem to lose. Just about every parent I know laments that they felt forced to talk about sensitive issues with their young children much sooner than they would have preferred, but knew it was no longer safe to delay the conversation. Evil is called good and good is called evil. People can be really mean, and even loved ones can be apathetic. We’re all just trying to survive the winter.

If we don’t find a spiritual antidote to living in a cold world, we will become spiritually cold ourselves. The symptoms of spiritual coldness:

o Negativity

o A lack of joy

o Becoming increasingly cynical

o Frequently feeling sorry for yourself

o Thinking the worst of others

o A lack of gratitude for what we do have

o A complaining spirit

It’s hard not to grumble when you’re cold. But when you put on God’s warm spiritual coat, the cold needn’t define you. On the contrary, you begin to exhibit the symptoms of spiritual warmth:

o You will have joy

o You will have peace

o You will be encouraging

o You will be thankful and worshipful

o You’ll enjoy your relationships more

o There will be a lightness in your steps

o You’ll feel refreshed at the start of the day

The “warm spiritual coat” that God offers is what the Bible calls hope. Unfortunately, hope may be the most misunderstood theological term of our day, in large part because popular culture defines it as “wishful thinking,” which is almost the exact opposite of what the Bible means when it uses the word hope. Hope is an essential skill to adopt when addressing your past parenting and your current relationship with adult children.

Continue reading this blog on Substack HERE.

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Preparing Couples for a Marriage, Not Just a Wedding

While I believe God can use a difficult marriage to help us grow, I’ve come across couples of whom I’ve thought, “They should never have gotten married. Where was their pastor?” Premarital work is one of the most protective and vital things that a pastor can do. It shouldn’t be rushed, and it needs to be about much more than preparing for a ceremony. This post chronicles what Lisa and I do with couples, what tools we use, and our philosophy behind spending so much time with each couple. I hope that those of you involved in premarital counseling will share some of your own tools and practices in the comments section.

As pastors, our call isn’t to put on a great prelude to a party (i.e., a wedding). It’s to prepare engaged couples for marriage, a lifelong relationship. Too often, time constraints lead many of us to focus the bulk of our “preparation” on planning a ceremony.

Here’s how we can change that:

Continue reading this free blog on Substack HERE.

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Resent the Situation, Not Your Spouse

Lisa and I get a bit vulnerable in talking about a (very pleasurable) recent vacation experience, to share about a principle I write about in Making Your Marriage a Fortress: learn how to resent the situation instead of your spouse when your marriage faces frustrating circumstances. It’s a tremendous blessing to our marriages when we learn to respond with empathy while being frustrated with the situation; even if that means having empathy for a spouse while we might be frustrated with them. This is a short video, but I think it addresses a vital marital practice.

Watch this discussion HERE on Substack.

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For Richer, For Poorer

Throughout this summer, we’ve been discussing resources for premarital couples, including my devotion, “Preparing Your Heart for Marriage: Devotions for Engaged Couples.” This is the last excerpt we’re running. The book has three parts: general devotions for learning how to become one. Section two focuses on the words of the statement of intent, and section three looks at the traditional wedding vows phrase by phrase. A common comment I hear from couples months after their wedding is how much of a blur the ceremony was. Having thought about, talked about, and prayed about the vows ahead of time can make the wedding ceremony all the more meaningful, not to mention help couples understand what the vows they are exchanging truly mean. This entry focuses on what it means to pledge to your spouse that you will be with them “for richer or for poorer.”

Did you know that Jesus talked about money more than he talked about heaven and hell combined? Close to 800 scriptures discuss money. About one-fourth of Jesus’ parables are about money, and one out of every seven verses in the Gospel of Luke discuss money.

Here’s the real shocker, one that people can hardly believe: Jesus actually talked about money more than he talked about love.

Why do you think this might be true?

Money carries a spiritual weight that can lift you up or hold you down. It will bless you as a couple or it can become a deep divide.

Every one of us has a unique relationship with money that rarely gets discussed and that usually remains unconscious. Our feelings about money are visceral, deep-seated in the core of our being, and many of us don’t even recognize the way these feelings motivate us. Some of us deeply fear losing our money, and we react with panic and anger if it is threatened. Others of us are driven by greed to always have a little bit more, and we will sacrifice some of our most intimate relationships to make more time and energy available to procure more money. I have seen some literally sacrifice their health and peace of mind to bring “just a little bit more” into what already looks like an abundant pile of resources. For still others of us, we’re driven by a simple selfishness that insists “what’s mine is mine” and are robbed of the tremendous joy found in giving. A few blessed souls have found that generosity with money brings great freedom.

Continue reading this free blog on Substack HERE.

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Great Sorrow and Unceasing Anguish

I love to live in and preach on the joy of the Lord. But Jesus described himself as a “man of sorrows.” Paul talked about his “great sorrow and unceasing anguish.” Parents whose children have gone astray, or those who have loved ones who do not yet believe, can find comfort in Paul’s words and experience. The Christian life is, by nature, a life of tremendous joy. We hear about that all the time. But the Bible also warns us to expect times of great sorrow and unceasing anguish. Knowing this ahead of time can draw us closer to Christ rather than lead us to resent him for not removing the trial.

The challenge with talking to brokenhearted parents is that having adult children who are hurting or in rebellion isn’t like surviving a car accident or even a heart attack—a one-time horrific event that you can immediately start healing from. It’s more like being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis or early-onset Parkinson’s in that the injury is ongoing. The attack is happening to you even as you read these words. I’m so sorry, parent. I wish we were talking about a past injury and how you could “get over it,” but I know many of you feel like you’re still bleeding in the ICU.

Thanks be to God, he has made provision for our ongoing sorrow and even our unceasing anguish. Sometimes we think that if we really love the Lord, it’s not appropriate to live with sorrow and certainly not with anguish. Shouldn’t he just heal us and make everything better? Or why can’t we just get over whatever is bugging us? Why can’t we just live in the joy of the Lord?

But even the apostle Paul lived with a deep wound, and it’s not entirely unfair to call that wound a parental one. Someone Paul loved very much would not surrender to the truth and love of Jesus: “I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit— I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel” (Romans 9:1-4a).

Paul’s paternal love and passion for the nation of Israel meant that though he had visited heaven, though he had seen Jesus in a vision, though he lived with a level of spiritual power and insight that few have ever known (and perhaps no one ever has or will, other than Jesus), yet he wasn’t always “happy.” His sorrow was “great” and his anguish was “unceasing” because someone he loved very much wasn’t responding to Jesus. Paul even wished he could be cut off—i.e., damned—in their place.

Many, many Christian parents feel this way about their children. “Dear God, take me instead! Just please, save my children.”

You needn’t feel guilty over the sorrow and anguish you feel. Both are demonstrations of your love and spiritual health. It’s just like Satan to engineer the biggest hurt you could imagine—wooing one or more of your children away from God—and then make you feel guilty that you can’t “get over it.”

Of course you can’t!

Continue reading this blog post on Substack HERE.

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Your Ideal Marriage Is Killing Your Sacred Marriage

I was so moved reading a passage from Dietrich Bonhoeffer recently, and saw some clear analogies for marriage, that I wrote this longer post on it. It may seem a bit theoretical (and perhaps boring) to some, but for those of you who like to dig into these things, it could start a great conversation in the comments. Let me know what you think. 

What if disillusionment is a necessary way station to a holy, rich, and sacred marriage?

I’ve been re-reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, and everything he says about community is equally true for Christian marriage. It’s possible to value the notion of community in such a way that you undercut the reality of it, and the same is true of marriage.

Bonhoeffer writes, “Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.”

Idealistic notions of what Christian community “should” be are the enemies of us embracing what it really is—a group of needy, fallen believers, living together under the direction, grace, mercy, and forgiveness of Christ. Holding onto idealism, by definition, keeps us from living in reality, in what is.

Isn’t the same thing true of marriage? When we forget that marriage is about two people who stumble in many ways (James 3:2) gradually growing in sanctification, being forgiven and forgiving, raising a family and serving God, we hang on to the counterfeit notion of what we’ve been told marriage should be—and thus miss out on God’s most glorious alternative.

In this light, disillusionment with our ideal marriage is an essential step toward adopting a truer and more powerful vision of marriage. “By sheer grace,” Bonhoeffer writes, “God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream. God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth.”

Don’t let that last sentence jar you: God is both, and emotions aren’t necessarily antithetical to the truth, but they can be, and when they are, truth must win out.

To get to true community, we must die to false notions about community, which usually result from being disappointed by the fallen reality. The same is true of marriage: “The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both.” I’ve written elsewhere that it’s essential for cherishing (a chosen mindset, attitude, and disposition) to replace infatuation. Infatuation is doomed to die and must die before the choice to cherish can begin.

Continue reading this blog on Substack HERE.

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You Can’t Please God and the World: It’s One or the Other

I realize I’m jerking the paid subscribers around a bit, posting bits and pieces of several works in progress, but that’s part of the fun of what Substack offers: the chance to share works in progress, hopefully garnering feedback while I refine my thoughts. And I hope these words can be an encouragement to you, as it’ll be years before they are published in formal print. (This is likely going to be the book I’ll seek to publish after I publish the book on hurting Christian parents.)

Where this chapter fits into the book on divine affirmation: we won’t revel in divine affirmation if we don’t value divine affirmation. If we continue to seek our joy from the world’s approval and acclaim, we’ll stop seeking God’s approval and acclaim, as the two are at odds with each other. This is chapter three: after presenting the joys of being “good enough for God” (through Christ), it asks the reader, “Will this become more valuable to you than being good enough for the world?” In the end, we have to choose which “city” we want to dwell in — Babylon or Jerusalem.

A Tale of Two Cities:

Great in the Sight of the Lord

“Woe to the man that hath his portion in this life! O miserable health, and wealth, and honor, which procureth the death, and shame, and utter destruction of the soul!”

Richard Baxter[i]

God must have known that John the Baptist’s spiritual call would make him seem weird, abrasive, and an outcast. How could he get such a servant ready? What vision could he give him to replace what he knew John wouldn’t get from the world? John would have to derive courage from an entirely different realm because there would be no encouragement, no praise, no succor from this world to keep him going.

God prepared John the Baptist for a life of human alienation and suspicion by pouring out abundant divine affirmation. Before John was even born, an angel said, “he will be great in the sight of the Lord.”[1]

That sentence, “great in the sight of the Lord” is where divine affirmation is born. It is contrasted in the Bible with “great in the sight of the world.”

You could spend an entire afternoon trying to count how many times “Babylon” appears in the Bible.[2] She is the very picture of human greatness. She is called the “glory of kingdoms” (Isaiah 13:19) and often referred to as “Babylon the Great” (Revelation 17:5, 18:2). But these monikers are meant to be read as worldly evaluations, almost with sarcasm. “She seems so great and mighty, but watch her fall…”

In contrast to Babylon the Great, Jerusalem is “the Holy City” (Revelation 21:2). Notice the intentional difference in language. One city is “great” in the eyes of the world; another city is “holy,” i.e., set apart for God, great in the sight of God.

Do you want to be “great” in the sight of the world or “holy” and great in the sight of God?

Do you want to be defined by how the world views you or by how God views you?

At times (in fact, most of the time), these opinions will go to war against each other; if we don’t place all our hope, joy, focus, and energy on our allegiance to God, we’ll be torn apart in the inevitable struggle between allegiance to one or the other. If I’m a wide receiver playing in the NFL and the quarterback throws me a pass, I don’t have time to decide which end zone to run toward. If you’re playing soccer but have placed a bet on the other team winning, you’ll run circles in the middle of the field—do I kick this way, or that way? You’ll look like a fool.

Decisiveness is everything when it comes to living out of the affirmation of God and living for the glory of God.

God may not ask us to be as “weird” as John the Baptist was. We may not have to dress so unfashionably or eat locusts while we stomp around the desert and rail against the political authorities. But our motivation should be the same: to become “great in the sight of the Lord.” Who cares what anyone else thinks? Seek greatness in God’s eyes, and God’s eyes alone.

Continue reading this post on Substack HERE.

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Marriage Is a Team Sport

Did you know we have a devotional written for engaged couples to help them spiritually prepare for their special day and life thereafter? It’s called Preparing Your Heart for Marriage. If you know a couple that’s engaged, or even recently married, this might be a great gift idea for them. This is an excerpt from that book. 

“Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

2 Peter 1:5-8

During the 2016 Summer Olympics, the U.S. volleyball team of Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross lost a rough semifinal match to the Brazilian team. Walsh, the most decorated female Olympic beach volleyball player ever, wasn’t having her best day, so the Brazilian team kept targeting her, directing most of their attacks her way. In a stunner, the U.S. team lost in straight sets—the first match Walsh Jennings had ever lost at the Olympics.

To her credit, Walsh Jennings took responsibility and said she just had to start playing better (which she did; she and April Ross went on to win the bronze medal).

Marriage is kind of like beach volleyball. There are two players per side, and the team can be only as strong as the weakest individual. If one partner has a persistent weakness, the marriage will suffer accordingly.

Continue reading this blog on Substack HERE.

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