Gary L. Thomas's Blog, page 37

You Hurt Because You Care

Patrick and Michelle’s daughter has lived with her boyfriend for two years. She knows her parents disapprove but she’s open to continuing their relationship. She’s warned them that any “sermons” or even “sighs of disappointment” will threaten future contact, so they’ve settled into an uneasy distance in their relationship. Patrick asked me for prayer because he had taken the time to find a creative birthday card for his very artistic daughter and a thoughtful gift. He spent days crafting just the right (non-judgmental) message; and, eight weeks later, he still hadn’t received even an acknowledgement of the card or gift.

Because of Jesus, we believers enjoy much joy in the Lord, happiness in our salvation, delight in receiving from God every day, a quiet fulfillment that flows from seeking first the Kingdom of God and proclaiming Jesus as rightful King, and confidence in the future because we know God is walking with us.

We wouldn’t trade these spiritual blessings for anything. The Christian life is a rich life of mercy and we are all ultimately spoiled by our Heavenly Father.

But in another sense the Christian life is a sad life, a hard life, a life of much sorrow and pain.

We hurt and will continue to hurt because we care.

Why might Christian couples and parents hurt more than others do? For us, it’s not enough that our marriages stay together, or that our children or grandchildren are healthy and gainfully employed. We care even more about our loved ones’ hearts and salvation. Because we live in a fallen world, and because every individual must make her or his own decision as to whether they will acknowledge Jesus as King, we are vulnerable to the biggest hurt and the most intense pain imaginable: a spiritually lost loved one.

The apostle Paul experienced this personally, as he wrote in Romans 9:1: “I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience is testifying to me with the Holy Spirit—that I have intense sorrow and continual anguish in my heart.”

Think about this: Paul, the mighty apostle who had a special vision of the heavenlies and who had seen Jesus in a direct revelation still lived with “intense sorrow and continual anguish.” This pain and anguish were part of Paul’s inheritance as a follower of Christ. Why? Because Paul cared. It mattered to Paul that Israel—his extended family—acknowledge Jesus as Lord. Israel’s temple seemed secure, their nation seemed to be at peace, but in Paul’s mind their alienation from God was too terrible to contemplate. He couldn’t rest while his fellow Jews refused to acknowledge Jesus as their Messiah. The only way he could avoid “intense sorrow and continual anguish” was to stop caring, and for Paul that wasn’t an option.

In 2004, Oprah Winfrey made headlines by giving her entire studio audience free automobiles. At first, there was overwhelming gratitude. Later, a few recipients grew angry when they discovered how much they’d have to pay in taxes for their free car. Many of us were astonished at the anger leveled against a woman who had done such a kind deed.

When we first become believers, we may be astonished at all the “free things” we get—Salvation! Joy! Peace! But later we’ll discover there are some “taxes” to pay in this world, including the hurt we feel over those who are spiritually lost. The joy we feel over our salvation turns into anguish over a loved one’s alienation from God.

This is the “cost” of being a believer. There’s no way out of it as long as we live in a world that isn’t yet completely surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It’s like wanting the clean air of Aspen—without the snow or altitude. Christianity involves tremendous joy and searing pain. They don’t cancel each other out but rather are the two sides of having certain hope in a fallen world.

Blog posts like this can’t remove your pain; rather, they’re meant to validate it, to tell you you’re not alone, and encourage you with the truth that such pain has been the cost of following Jesus for every earnest believer who has ever lived. It’s normal to hurt every day over a spiritually lost loved one. That’s the cross we bear as Christians. 

It’s why Patrick still prays for his daughter with hope and still grieves for his daughter with anguish.  He hurts because he cares, and so will we.

The post You Hurt Because You Care appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Our Weird Relationship with Sex and Nudity

In our upcoming book Married Sex: A Christian Couples’ Guide to Reimagining Your Love Life (October 2021 release date), Debra Fileta (https://truelovedates.com/) and I make it clear that porn is destructive to a marriage’s sexual relationship. If a guy tries to push back and says watching porn with his wife gets him excited, my response is, “Is it your wife you’re excited about, or the thought of sex? Because those are two very different things.”

As I say in my Cherish seminars, we should use sex to cherish our spouse, not use our spouse to cherish sex. Wives in particular know the difference, and it’s huge.

But, having said this, shaming someone who gets excited by sexual images doesn’t help, and far too many sermons and books do that.

It’s normal to notice an attractive body, much less a naked one. It’s normal to be excited when you hear people having sex. For men in particular (whose initial sexual interest is often generated in the limbic portion of their brains), it’s close to inevitable. Our modern society makes sex and nudity seem forbidden which, for some people, only adds to the allure.

The way we live today is weird, historically speaking. For most of human history, married couples didn’t have master suite bedrooms with thick walls. Many children were conceived in one-room farmhouses with perhaps even a mother and father-in-law on the other end of the room, or neighbors in tent-like structures within hearing distance. You bathed, you dressed, you got undressed, and yes, you had sex in semi-private surroundings, at best.

We’ve taken our bodies and sex and tucked them away into these private boxes, making it mysterious and a little naughty, and nudity a bigger deal than it is. For instance, can we just be honest and state that it’s infantile for an adult male to get excited or upset about a woman breastfeeding in public?

Christian culture can make things worse by acting as if seeing a beautiful body must lead to getting sexually aroused which must lead to acting out. You can appreciate a body, you can smile at what you overhear, without getting all sexual about it.

It’s safe to say that in one sense we are more private than just about any point in history, and in another sense we are less private than at any point in history.  A twelve-year-old boy a thousand years ago would have seen multiple real female bodies in various stages of dress and undress. A twelve-year-old boy today has likely seen hundreds of images of female nudity, but perhaps not one real body. The shame that has come out of this bizarre digital divide hasn’t helped us be healthier. Sometimes, it just makes us weird, neurotic, and obsessive.

A Modest Mind

Ambrose, one of my favorite early church fathers, urges men to adopt “modesty of the mind” as much as he urges women to adopt modesty when it comes to clothing. He tells men that looking at a beautiful woman and feeling that “brain spark” (my phrase, not his) isn’t a sin: “To have seen is no sin, but one must be careful that it be not the source of sin. The bodily eye sees, but let the eye of the heart be closed; let modesty of mind remain.”

Teaching young women about modest clothing without teaching young men about “modesty of the mind” is pathetic. But if we teach young men that they are not supposed to be attracted to attractive young women, we are confusing and torturing them. They can’t help but be attracted! But they can stop short of lust.

Ambrose explains,“ Jesus does not say, ‘Whosoever shall look hath committed adultery,’ but ‘Whosoever shall look on her to lust after her.’ He condemned not the look but sought out the inward affection.”

So guys, it’s not shameful to be tempted by porn (and I realize that about twenty percent of porn consumers are women, so this applies to both genders, even though Ambrose, true to his time, exclusively addressed males). If you apply wisdom, there’s definitely a repugnant underbelly to porn that should be more than enough to warn you away. But there’s not something wrong with you when you see a beautiful woman showing a little skin and your brain goes “ping!” What you do with that spark might become shameful, but the spark isn’t shameful. If you cross over from appreciation to sexualizing, you’re going to torture yourself. That’s why Ambrose gently counsels, “let us not instill this fire into our bones.” Nothing good can come of letting your mind roam into forbidden territory. Don’t let the “spark” become a raging fire.

In one sense, many of us simply need to relax, smile, and chill. If you’re a sexual addict, you may need to unleash strong defenses, just as an alcoholic has to be careful about his or her environment. But for the majority of men and women, noticing doesn’t need to lead to lusting.

Let’s seek to have a wise and mature attitude about what it means to be a sexual human being who lives in a body. Don’t let yourself be shamed for a normal human reaction, but also guard against being entrapped by a fallen sinful reaction.

I’ve spent thousands of nights in hotel rooms. One night the walls were paper thin, and I awoke to the sound of a couple enjoying each other. The wife was excited and said something very intimate in a loud voice. Unfortunately, I could hear every word.

To make matters worse, when I left my room the next morning, guess who opened their door five seconds after me, and then shared an elevator ride with me all the way to the lobby? The healthiest thing to do in these situations is laugh (not out loud!) and smile. It’s just life, as God made us. Don’t make more of it than it is.

People have bodies. People have sex. Let’s not make something that is natural a source of shame or even undue embarrassment.

(If you’d like to get an early preview of some portions of Married Sex: A Christian Couple’s Guide to Reimagining Your Sex Life, stay tuned. We’ll be announcing a launch team sometime this summer and will make some of the material accessible for preview then.)

The post Our Weird Relationship with Sex and Nudity appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Are You Wearing Yourself Out Climbing the Wrong Mountain?

Imagine if you were told that everything you wanted most in life could be yours if you could scale this one mountain. You got in shape, gained strength, spent a lot of money to buy climbing gear, underwent years of specialized training, until finally, you climbed that mountain. It was harrowing, but you made it!

And then, when you got to the top, a guide told you, “Oops. You climbed the wrong mountain!”

That’s essentially the message that I think far too many of us will hear at the end of our lives. We’ll have given ourselves over to lesser pursuits and will enter heaven with great joy for what’s before us, but great regret for what we’ve left behind.

The modern world has so many compelling pursuits that it is so, so easy to miss a glorious one. In a world with a mountain range of options, how do we know we’re climbing the right mountain?

What All the Kardashians Are Doing

While vacationing in Colorado, Lisa and I spent an early evening at the Iron Mountain Hot Springs. We heard a group of women (I’m guessing it was a bachelorette party) in our pool discussing a surprising number of medical options to keep women looking young. What they did to their faces, injected into their bodies, paid to undergo treatments, and the effort they spent investigating and researching new options to look younger than they are (“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). I’m paraphrasing him here but basically he urged that women and men should earnestly pursue humility, patience, generosity, faith, compassion, courage, and kindness with the same intensity that those in the world pursue wealth, fame, worldly achievement, and physical beauty.

The world is wearing itself out to becoming wealthier, physically healthier, more famous, and more powerful. There’s a sense in which we Christians should be wearing ourselves out—or at least striving—to become holier. Before you think that sounds heretical, here’s the apostle Peter’s opinion:

For this very reason, 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. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins (2 Peter 1:5-9).

The deception of our age 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.

Maybe you’re not so into looking younger than you are. Even so, most of us as Christians can fall into seasons where we spend far more time and energy trying to lower our golf handicap, increase our social-media followers, lose weight, regrow hair, help our kids “succeed,” and increase the size of our financial investments far more than we think about growing in humility, surrender, discernment, and patience.

Worse, some Christians even suggest that trying to grow in character is dangerous because it could lead to “works righteousness.” Linguistically, it is nearly impossible to define Peter’s phrase “make every effort” apart from an affirmation of human cooperation in spiritual growth. That understanding is buttressed in Romans 6:11-14 and Philippians 2:12-13, among other places. These passages aren’t about getting into heaven (salvation); they are about how people who are saved should increasingly look. It’s not about pursuing where we’ll go; it’s about pursuing who we are.

The ancients (and Scripture) speak of the virtues of Christ as the spiritual body-building tools we can use to grow. Just as a body builder lifts weights to shape his or her physique, we should know which virtues help round out our character and learn how to practice them.

This ancient and cherished practice has fallen out of favor as of late, but with my book The Glorious Pursuit: Becoming Who God Created You to Be I’m doing my best to bring it back. I first wrote this book in the late nineties and was thrilled when NavPress asked me to update it so they could re-release it, which they have now done. I’m quite enthusiastic about its prospects and its message for today, especially since only about a dozen people outside my immediate family even knew who I was when it was first published.

A Thousand Boots and Spurs  

William Law tells the (fictitious, I’m guessing) story of a man who wore himself out so that he could die with a thousand pairs of boots and spurs. He sacrificed his health, relationships, sleep, recreation, everything, in a zealous pursuit to finally obtain one thousand pairs of boots and spurs. Eventually, he reached his goal—and when he died, everyone remarked how utterly ridiculous, foolish, and misguided his life turned out to be. Who could wear a thousand pairs of boots and spurs to begin with?

But then—and this is where it gets convicting—Law asks what the difference is between socking away a thousand pairs of boots and spurs or a thousand dollars (a thousand dollars was worth a whole lot more then that it is now). You can no more spend a dollar in eternity than you can don a pair of boots and spurs.

The Glorious Pursuit is a call to live the truly abundant life as God defines it—a life made possible by God’s grace, empowered by God’s Spirit, and modeled by God’s Son. It’s a pursuit that matters in every age, without regard to “fashion.” When Christians become more concerned about demonstrating generosity, compassion, and kindness than we are about gathering a huge pile of money, impressing others with our looks, or getting lost in nonstop entertainment, we witness to the reality of another world.

In fact, it’s a competing worldview altogether. If we take the virtues seriously, we should be more concerned with humility than fame, even fearing the fame that could jeopardize humility, which is far more valuable in the sight of God. We must pursue compassion and kindness and patience, even being thankful for the opportunities to grow in these virtues, rather than resent the frustrating people who are necessary in order for us to display and grow in compassion, kindness, and patience.

Practicing the Christian virtues is an ancient journey, well-attested to in Scripture and in the most beloved Christian classics, yet it is also a modern highway to spiritual growth and discipleship. Though I first wrote this book two decades ago, ancient Christian practices have a way of finding new relevance with every generation of believers who embrace the glorious opportunity of growing in Christlikeness. I pray some of you will join me in this time-tested, biblically ordained journey to become more like Christ by practicing the virtues of Christ.

More about The Glorious Pursuit here.

The post Are You Wearing Yourself Out Climbing the Wrong Mountain? appeared first on Gary Thomas.

The Valentine’s Day Gift that Keeps on Giving

Learning how to cherish each other can be the Valentine’s Day gift that keeps on giving.  Chocolate will be consumed (and have to be worked off). Flowers will wilt. Lingerie will…get torn? Stuffed in the back of your drawer until the next holiday? But using this romantic holiday to change the climate of your marriage for years to come could be just the gift you’re looking for.

I’m re-running a post I did for Ann Voskamp several years ago that explains the concept of cherish and the difference it’s made in my own life, and at the end we’ll discuss how you can use this holiday to make cherish a reality in your marriage as well.

“My dove, my perfect one, is the only one.”

Song of Songs 6:9

One morning I was in my study when I heard my wife gradually waking up. The best way to describe what happened is that my heart leapt. I hadn’t seen her yet, but just knowing she was moving and awake flooded my soul with new affection. I knew she’d shuffle into my office, still partly-asleep, come up to my chair for a hug, and then shuffle out of the room.

Sometimes it’s literally the best part of my day.

Did I ever dream that marriage could be like this, thirty years in, where simply hearing my wife wake up would emotionally move me?

Probably not, because it wasn’t like this in the first decade of our marriage, or even the second. Lisa and I have always loved each other, but the last several years we’ve discovered a hidden promise we made that we had forgotten about. Re-embracing that promise has deepened our love and added a new element to our relationship.

We realized we didn’t just promise to love each other on our wedding day. We also promised to cherish each other: “I promise to love and to cherish until death do us part.”

Love speaks of sacrifice, commitment, service, selflessness—all essential elements if a marriage is going to go the distance. But cherish speaks of delight and adoration. I don’t want my wife to think we live in the same house because the Bible says I can’t leave her; I want my wife to be cherished, to know she is “my dove, my perfect one, the only one” and that I would never want to be with anyone else.

Men want this too.

A pastor of a very large church asked seven men, all leaders, “How many of your wives love you?”

Every hand went up.

He then asked, “How many of your wives like you?”

Every hand went down.

Each one of these men felt loved; none felt cherished. That reality changes the tenor of a relationship; in a world where men are often ignored, taken for granted and rarely even acknowledged, much less thanked, many wives have no clue just what a man will do for a woman that he knows truly cherishes him.

Aspiring after a cherishing marriage has opened new realms for Lisa and me. It has drawn us closer. It has made our relationship and thus our home that much more pleasant. There’s a certain delight when you truly cherish someone you live with. If you cherish your spouse, it’s a treat just to see them—or to hear that they are awake. Cherishing feeds itself.

One way to distinguish “cherish” from “love” is to consider the ballet. A ballerina has to be strong, athletic, and balanced. The moves are physically demanding. But those skillsets aren’t all that different from that of an NFL linebacker, who also must be strong, athletic, and know how to stay on his feet. What sets the ballerina apart is the grace, the beauty, and the poetry. Love is the athletic strength of marriage—unquestionably the supporting spiritual foundation of any union. Cherish is the grace, the poetry, and the beauty of enjoyment. It takes your marriage to another level and makes it not only beautiful to dance, but beautiful for others to watch.

Just as 1 Corinthians 13 celebrates love, so the Song of Songs celebrates cherish:

Love is about being gracious and altruistic. “Love is patient, love is kind.” (1 Corinthians 13:4)

Cherish is about being enthusiastic and enthralled. “How much more pleasing is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your perfume more than any spice.” (Song of Songs 4:10)

Love tends to be quiet and understated. “[Love] does not envy, it does not boast.” (1 Corinthians 13:4)

Cherish boasts boldly and loudly: “My beloved is radiant and ruddy, outstanding among ten thousand.” (Song of Songs 5:10)

Love thinks about others with selflessness. “Love is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5)

Cherish thinks about its beloved with praise. “Your voice is sweet and your face is lovely.” (Song of Songs 2:14)

Love doesn’t want the worst for someone: “Love does not delight in evil.” (1 Corinthians 13:6)

Cherish celebrates the best in someone: “How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful!” (Song of Songs 1:15)

Love puts up with a lot: “[Love] always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Corinthians 13:7)

Cherish enjoys a lot. “His mouth is sweetness itself; he is altogether lovely.” (Song of Songs 5:16)

Love is about commitment. “Love endures all things. Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:7-8; ESV)

Cherish is about delight and passion. “Your name is like perfume poured out.” (Song of Songs 1:3)

Here’s the good news—in fact, the great news. Cherishing our spouse is something we can learn to do. There are habits, mindsets, and actions we can embrace that slowly build a cherishing marriage. The same God who cherishes the imperfect us is more than capable of empowering us to cherish our imperfect spouse.

As kids grow older and live their own lives and build their own families; as coworkers move on to new businesses, friends move away to new callings, and neighbors move to new houses in new cities, it is so fulfilling to have one person that I am called to cherish, and to be cherished by, above all others.

There are many good things to do and many noble things to seek on this planet and in this lifetime: cherishing and being cherished by your spouse is among the very best.

To help you make this Valentines’ Day special, we’re re-offering the Cherish Challenge in a new format. You and your spouse can go through the same eleven-week program so many readers did last summer, this time at your own pace. And the best news? It’s free! All you have to do is get the book (or open it if you already have a copy), https://garythomas.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Cherish-Challenge-Study-Guide-FINAL_compressed.pdf and get started.

And please, let us know how it goes!

The post The Valentine’s Day Gift that Keeps on Giving appeared first on Gary Thomas.

The Amazing Power of Thanking God for What He Hasn’t Done

The last time Lisa and I bought a house we made a naïve mistake that we won’t make again: we closed on the house with the builder promising to finish several items that weren’t yet completed. He was a Christian, after all, and had even written scriptures into the frame of the house before finishing it.

But he never did finish it, and his ability to stall exceeded our patience until we finally paid to have the rest of the work done ourselves. My wiser friends told me, “That’s why you always hold some money back until the house is entirely finished.”

Such suspicion may be wise on earth but applied to heaven it’s monstrous. One of the most worshipful things we can do is to praise God for blessings He has promised that we have not yet received. This has been such an encouraging spiritual practice for me that I’m eager to share it with you.

We can thank God for heaven even before we get there; we have Jesus’ word that He is preparing a place for us (John 14:2-3). Thanking God for heaven now floods our souls with joy that we don’t have to be afraid of death, and it reminds us that we don’t have to mistreat ourselves (like some medieval monks and nuns did) or work ourselves to exhaustion (as legalists do) to earn it. All of us will be amazed by our eternal comfort, but why not squeeze a little anticipatory joy out of that comfort just when we need it most—today?

Lisa and I spent the last several years trying to “catch up” on retirement; we did what financial planners tell you not to do—reduced our retirement contributions to pay for our kids’ college. We’re not anxious—God has been generous—but in the midst of normal concern about stock market volatility and unforeseen expenses, it brings such peace to thank God for Philippians 4:19: “And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” It’s appropriate to ask God to provide for us, but it’s even more appropriate to thank God that He will: “I praise You that I don’t have to worry about retirement. I thank You that You’ll get me through all the way to my death and even take care of my loved ones after I’m gone. You’ve anticipated everything I can’t so I can live with great peace and assurance. Thank You so much for that.”

Let’s say you’re about to become a parent for the first time or get married, and you’re concerned that you may be getting in “over your head.” You can thank God for this promise: “Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to all generously and without criticizing, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5). Pray like this: “Thank You Lord, that I don’t have to face this alone; I thank You that You will provide the wisdom I need for every life decisions so that I can live with joy, peace, and assurance as I face this new future.”

I took this a step further once and turned all my “long-term” prayer requests into prayers of thanksgiving. Though I haven’t seen the answer to many of them, I do have this from the mouth of Jesus Himself: “Therefore I tell you, all the things you pray and ask for —believe that you have received them, and you will have them” (Mark 11:24). If I’m praying for anything that isn’t according to God’s will, I don’t want that prayer answered my way—and I trust God to sort all that out. His job is to answer according to His will; my job is to be thankful for that.

If you have been praying for a son or daughter’s return to the faith, take a break and thank God for bringing them back. If you have been praying for release from a sin, thank God for His strength and deliverance. If you have been praying about a financial situation, thank God for providing in ways you never even dreamed. If you have been praying for healing, you know you will be healed, one way or another, so thank God that you will not live with this for eternity—healing is certain. 

This isn’t presumption. One of the greatest compliments we can give someone is thanking them for a promise that has not yet been received but for which we have their word that it will be received. It’s like paying an honest house builder for the entire house before he or she has even cleared the lot. We honor God when we thank Him for His declared promises even before they arrive and we flood our souls with joy at the same time. It’s a win-win. Try it and you’ll see.

Gary talks more about the virtue of thanksgiving in his newly revised book, The Glorious Pursuit: Becoming Who God Created You to Be.

The post The Amazing Power of Thanking God for What He Hasn’t Done appeared first on Gary Thomas.

When Family and Faith Collide

A dysfunctional family or an extremely close and connected family both present spiritual temptations. In one searing teaching, Jesus’ words expertly heal and wisely redirect us toward the healthiest spiritual response.

“‘Who is My mother and who are My brothers?’ And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, ‘Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven, that person is My brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:48-50).

A year ago, my wife and I read through the Bible chronologically. In a chronological Bible, popular statements of Jesus are collected, so you read the same teaching three times in a row. That’s what happened to us with this one in Matthew 12:46-50; Mark 3:31-35; and Luke 8:19-21. Reading these episodes back-to-back-to-back emphasizes the astonishing message that today’s church perhaps hasn’t grappled with as well as other ages of the church have, and that’s regarding how faith and family may sometimes collide. To save and preserve the family, we may have made an idol of it, as if Jesus died primarily to keep earthly families together. Those who come from irredeemably broken homes may feel like God has forgotten or even forsaken them and that their lives are a failure. Those from connected homes may be misled to value their earthly connections above their heavenly ones. Both are real spiritual dangers.

Jesus seems to reject the claim his earthly family was making on Him to stop what He was doing and pay attention to them. Two family members, James and Jude, became early leaders in the church and even wrote letters in the New Testament. What Jesus said about His family didn’t ultimately cast them away. Did it offend them at the time? We don’t know. Did they eventually get through the crowds and get to see Him? Again, we’re not told. The interpersonal dynamics of Jesus’ earthly family didn’t matter to the Gospel writers nearly as much as Jesus’ message that allegiance to God and commitment to obeying him supersedes familial blood.

This is a challenge and a hope, depending on your family.

Jesus is telling us that the two pillars of life in Christ are allegiance to Him and obedience to His word (“whoever does the will of My Father in heaven”). He emphasized this even further on another occasion when a woman shouted out, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.” and Jesus replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it” (Luke 11:27-28).

In the first century, there was no higher calling for a Jewish woman than to become a mother, and no greater hope than that she might give birth to the Messiah. Jesus rejects the notion that a woman’s highest call is to be a physical mother. More blessed than the woman who was his physical mother, Jesus says, is the woman who spiritually obeys what He teaches. There is no getting around this: to Jesus, God’s Kingdom matters more than family.

This call to obedience may be challenged when a family member doesn’t share (or perhaps even resents) your allegiance to Christ. In such circumstances, you may be tempted to appease a family member rather than stand strong in the faith and obedience to God’s Word, altering what you believe or at least what you say you believe. You may be tempted to compromise your beliefs in order to “keep the peace,” but by that act you are assaulting the peace and unity of God’s family, which is gathered around the worship of God and obedience to His word. Jesus is clear: He is creating a new family, a more important family, and as much as we should value our earthly families, our ultimate allegiance is to Christ’s spiritual family.

This same passage is a hope for those who have felt the sting of a broken home. Perhaps your family members were abusive and are no longer safe to be around; maybe they are dead or they have rejected you. When, for instance, a young woman comes from a dysfunctional home and wants a healthy relationship with a mom, she may never find it with the woman who gave birth to her—but God can lead her to an older woman in the church, a woman who worships God and affirms her commitment to God’s commandments—and be mentored in a way that nurtures her soul. Instead of despairing over what this fallen world has taken away, she can find joy in what faith in Jesus offers: spiritual mothers, spiritual fathers, spiritual sisters, brothers, sons and daughters in Christ. Relish your commitment to God’s body.

Of course, we hope and pray that each earthly family member will join God’s family so that we can share faith and a last name. But life in a fallen world is sometimes about learning how to live with loss. If your children, parents, or siblings have a “problem” with you because of your faith and your commitment to the commands of Jesus, grieve that loss but respond by building healthy relationships in God’s family that, in eternity, will be just as strong and just as (if not more) important.

Of course, there is no greater joy than when family members with the same last name are also brothers and sisters in Christ who proclaim and worship the Name above all names. As I wrote last week, my faith is my greatest motivation to stay engaged with my family and to stay motivated in my marriage. This post is for those who, sadly, have to choose…

From this famous encounter of Jesus with his family, we see that some of us need to be reminded not to let an overly connected family tempt us to compromise our faith. Others of us need to be reminded not to let a dysfunctional or broken family cause us to despair. Jesus offers an affirming Heavenly Father and united spiritual sisters and brothers joined in worship and obedience to the words of Christ. Let’s embrace what Jesus offers and learn to value what He values.

The post When Family and Faith Collide appeared first on Gary Thomas.

The Most Lovely of Virtues, Part 2

I checked the car-seat buckle for the third time. Allison, our firstborn, was thirty-six hours old and about to come home from the hospital, and I was terrified at having a living and breathing human being depend on someone like me, who lacks so many basic life skills it’s not even funny.

I put her car seat in the exact middle of the back seat, then I placed rolled-up towels around Allison’s body, just in case. We lived less than three miles from the hospital, but that harrowing trip home took me almost twenty minutes to drive. No telling how slippery a completely dry road might be on a sunny spring day when your firstborn child is sleeping in the back seat.

This was my first child, and nothing was going to harm her.

Eventually I learned that kids aren’t quite as fragile as they first appear. But I’ll never forget the gentleness with which I treated our firstborn.

This is the same gentleness that Paul commands us to have toward others. He says that as apostles, living examples of the character of Christ, “We were gentle among you, like a mother tenderly nursing her own children” (1 Thessalonians 2:7).

Gentleness is about treating others spiritually like a first-time mom treats her baby physically.

Gentleness is so crucial to the Christian experience that one Puritan suggests it “may well be called the Christian spirit. It is the distinguishing disposition in the hearts of Christians to be identified as Christians. All who are truly godly and are real Disciples of Christ have a gentle spirit in them.”

What is the attitude of Christ that gives us this gentle spirit? How do we become gentle in a brutal world?

The Gentle Christian

The Bible is clear that those who call Christ their master will display the virtue of gentleness. Philippians 4:5 tells us, “Let your gentleness be evident to all.” Not to the deserving. Not to those we “like.” We’re to be gentle toward “all.”

Colossians 3:12 adds, “Clothe yourselves with . . . gentleness.” When you wake up in the morning, before you go out the door, don’t just put on your shirt and pants; put on the virtue of gentleness.

Paul is even more direct in 1 Timothy 6:11, telling us to “pursue” gentleness. The image of “pursuing” assumes gentleness may be elusive, at least for some of us. It may not come naturally. If we don’t aspire after it, we may never “catch” it.

Peter urged us to answer nonbelievers with “gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15-16). That means even the enemies of Christ, those who oppose Him and ridicule His followers, are to be treated with gentleness. In this, Peter suggests that gentleness is not a bonus we give to the deserving; it is a debt we owe to all.

Even fallen Christians can be won back by gentleness. Paul counsels in Galatians 6:1: “If someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently.” Even though someone has brought shame on the name of Christ, we’re urged to maintain a gentle spirit.

Paul even goes so far as to urge us to treat with gentleness those who oppose us, saying, “Opponents must be gently instructed” (2 Timothy 2:25).

Gentleness is birthed in the recognition that Christian ministry isn’t about winning arguments; it’s about reconciling people to God and representing Christ to the world. Brutish force doesn’t reconcile, it divides; legalistic demands and ridicule don’t invite, they alienate. Grace and gentleness build bridges.

Since Paul urges Timothy to pursue gentleness, it must be possible to acquire this virtue in our own lives. Let’s look at how that might take place.

Becoming Gentle People

I was working on my car—always a frustrating experience for a mechanical klutz like me—and my youngest daughter, then still a toddler, was keeping me company. While I was under the car, Kelsey wandered over to my socket set and decided to see if she could open it up. Of course, it was upside down, and of course it was sitting on a sloped sidewalk. I heard a crash, a bunch of tinkling sounds, and a little girl uttering, “uh oh . . .”

I looked out from under the car and saw sixty-four round sockets rolling down the sidewalk.

“Oh, Kelsey,” I said.

I’m not a screamer. I didn’t yell or even raise my voice. But Kelsey was so sensitive at that age that just the tone of my voice was enough to shame her. She started to walk toward the house, but I called after her.

“Kelsey!”

She turned.

“You didn’t mean to do that. I’m not angry with you. It’s all right.” Kelsey broke down, ran back to me, and buried her weeping face in my shoulder. I was astonished at the intensity of her tears. “How is this girl going to survive in the world,” I thought, “if one carefully measured ‘Oh Kelsey’ sends her over the edge like this?”

But Kelsey’s response helps me be sensitive to how easily people in this world are wounded and how delicate are the souls we encounter every day. We often miss this because, on the exterior, everybody looks fine, but inside, many are bruised reeds just waiting to topple over (see last week’s blog post here The Most Lovely of all Virtues).

This led me to another observation. Too often we equate “gentleness” with “weakness” when in fact, the reverse is true. Letting loose with a tirade of anger is an act of weakness, not strength. When an adult holds a child’s hand, which one has to be most gentle? The adult, who is stronger. My kids could squeeze with all their might, but because they were weaker, they couldn’t hurt me. If I wasn’t careful, however, I might not realize I’m squeezing hard enough to hurt them.

The “spiritually strong” are the ones who need to exhibit gentleness and de-escalate situations that the spiritually weak can’t handle.

Gentleness is much more powerful than the human failings of temper, anger, and hatred. Anger has a place in the Christian life, as does confrontation. But gentleness has a far bigger role to play than anger, for gentleness means understanding human frailty. It’s a willingness to support, help, teach, and counsel with patience, until the other person becomes strong and mature. Gentleness also means the application of grace, and since grace is “unmerited favor,” the true definition of gentleness is the application of unmerited favor.

This means no one has to earn my gentleness.

How can we allow gentleness to cover us in trying situations?

Remember the Gentleness of Christ

The first step in becoming gentle is being overwhelmed by the gentleness with which God has treated us. I try to remind myself that I need to treat others like God has treated me. Gentleness doesn’t call us to ignore people’s failings—God doesn’t ignore ours—but it does call us to respond in a particular way. The difference is really in methodology—how sin and weakness is confronted and handled, not whether it will be handled.

We are completely undeserving, dead in our sins, still failing on a daily basis, yet God doesn’t write us off. He’s still there, still forgiving, still loving, still nurturing. Accept this gentleness for yourself. If you find this to be a difficult exercise, meditate on Matthew 11:28-30; 21:5, and 2 Corinthians 10:1. Let these passages feed your spirit and redirect your thinking so that you can understand the nature of the God who loves you.

Show Gentleness to Yourself

It is painful to hear people berating themselves for stupid things they did years ago. Maybe you did make a stupid business investment, but are we supposed to be born financially brilliant? Maybe you did fail sexually, but who among us has a perfect sexual past?

Sometimes people sin because they think they can fill a need, only to find that sin destroys and does not deliver what it promises. The spiritual life is one of learning and growing, and God, more than anyone else, understands this. Do we honestly think God expects us to go from eager pagan to Francis of Assisi in two weeks? This is not an apology for sin but merely a plea for a realistic view of living.

Even though some of my actions have brought shame on the name of Christ, gentleness calls me to apply unmerited favor, based on the death and resurrection of Jesus. If I do not learn how to be gentle with myself, I will find it difficult if not impossible to display gentleness with others.

Show Gentleness to Others

We can choose to live our life constantly disappointed with everyone around us, or we can be armed with the virtue of gentleness and enter into the blessing of authentic relationship. Let’s remind ourselves of some spiritual truths:

Nobody, apart from God, is perfect.

Your spouse will fail you.

Your children will disappoint you.

Your pastor won’t meet your expectations.

Your parents weren’t and aren’t perfect.

The time will come, therefore, when you will have a legitimate gripe. You will be right, and they will be wrong. This is the crossroads of gentleness. Which path will you take? Condemnation and censure, or the application of unmerited favor? Before you make that decision, remind yourself of how God has treated you.

Life is tough. It helps us to apply gentleness when we realize that people are being ground down all the time by the stuff of living. One time I took great offense when a woman I worked with snapped at me. I’d done nothing to provoke her. Later I learned that due to financial difficulties, she and her husband had recently lost their home, and it looked as if their car would be repossessed, too.

No, it wasn’t right for her to take her tension out on me, but I just happened to be there, and her stress was off the charts. As a Christian brother, I could absorb that frustration as a gift to her and to the gentle God who has treated me with unbelievable grace.

When a child comes home from school, seemingly bent on being deliberately difficult; when a spouse comes home from work and is being unfairly short-tempered; when a coworker snaps, I want to pause, pray, and consider: What is this all about? What is really going on here? And then, with self-control and grace, I pray I can respond gently.

Gentle living is blessed living. It’s soothing, refreshing, bathing people in the presence of Christ. No wonder it’s been called “the Christian spirit.” What else more accurately paints a picture of our Lord? What other virtue so radically gives us our life back from the harsh judgments and misdirected angers of the world?

This post is adapted from Gary’s newly released book The Glorious Pursuit: Becoming Who God Created Us to Be.

The post The Most Lovely of Virtues, Part 2 appeared first on Gary Thomas.

A Munich Moment

I walked through the Marienplatz in Munich with the old city hall and famous glockenspiel in the center of the square that draws tourists by the millions and sets up photo ops galore. In the middle of the square a young toddler defiantly resisted her mother’s attempts to get a smiling family photo. You could tell she was burning calories by the minute just to keep frowning as her mother implored her to smile for one quick second.

Maybe the little girl was tired. Maybe she was cold. Maybe she was hungry. But looking at this scene from the perspective of a dad and now grandfather, I wanted to tell her, “Honey, your parents feed you, clothe you, house you, and are even taking you on vacation. Everything you have is because of them. Just about your only job in life right now is to occasionally smile and give them a nice photo when they’re on vacation. Is that asking too much?”

Of course, that little girl is too young to realize how much she owes her parents. I view my own parents with increasing awe the older I get.

In spite of any disappointments or hurts you may have received from your parents, you literally do owe your very life to them. Without them, you wouldn’t exist. And nobody can give you anything more glorious than life, even if they withheld everything else. 

It dawned on me that sometimes I can be like that little girl. I owe God so much and yet can be so resistant with the smallest requests to serve others in return. To begin with, God created me. And then, he made me a human.  He could have made me a cow instead, which I’m very glad He didn’t. Standing in the rain for a couple years and eating grass, only to become someone’s dinner, and never getting to read a book, isn’t my view of an ideal life.

Even more, however, God released the grace for me to become a Christian, to know my place as His son, to understand and revel in His truth, to worship Him, and to receive His wise and affirming counsel.

Just think about how our entire hope is centered on who God is: As God the Father we know He is for us, not against us; God the Son died and rose from the dead so that our sins could be covered and we could be reconciled to God; and God the Spirit counsels us and empowers us to live a life that honors God, the life we want to live but are too weak to live on our own.

He’s everything.

We can never repay God for any of this. And one thing that God asks those of us who are married (just as that mother asked her daughter to smile) is to love His daughter (or son), our spouse, with an unselfish, devoted, and cherishing love. Nobody is easy to love all the time, just as it’s not always easy to smile if you’re three-years-old, cold, tired, and hungry, but in the context of all we’ve been given, is it really asking too much of us to honor God by loving His child, our spouse?

The most revolutionary thought in my marriage was learning to view God as my heavenly Father-in-law, using that earthly image and relationship as motivation to double-down on loving my wife well. This image removes our sense of obligation from “is my spouse worthy?” to loving an imperfect and sometimes difficult person out of reverence for a perfect God who has treated us so well.

I don’t want to be like a three-year-old girl who won’t give her parents, to whom she owes so much, one little smile for a photo. I want to be like a husband who loves his wife because he is acutely aware of all he owes the God who calls my wife His daughter. I want to be tireless in showing Him how grateful I am, and how mindful I am of His many blessings, knowing as an earthly dad that few things mean as much to me as someone loving my own children well.

It is a joy and delight to love a woman as excellent as my wife.  But God calls me to always love her and never be harsh with her (Colossians 3:19) and even to love her like Christ loves the church (Ephesians 5:25ff.). That kind of love requires supernatural motivation, which only the love of God can provide. 

Think often of all that God has given you. You’ll see it’s not too inaccurate to realize that God asking us to love His son or daughter in return isn’t much more than a mom asking her daughter to give her one little smile in the middle of the Marienplatz on a cold winter day.

The post A Munich Moment appeared first on Gary Thomas.

The Most Lovely of all Virtues

(If you’ve ever lost a child to miscarriage, please be careful about reading further—this could be triggering and traumatic.)

“A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out” (Isaiah 42:3)

It was one of those afternoons that changed the way I think of others every time I’m in a public place…

Brent and Vicky (not their real names) were dear friends of ours decades ago, a young couple working part-time for our church as Brent went to seminary. Like many couples do, they struggled with infertility and had an entire mid-sized church praying for them. We knew they’d be wonderful parents and so we were elated when we got the news that Vicky was finally pregnant.

Six months later Brent called me: “Gary, the baby has stopped moving. Vicky is going in for an ultrasound today. Please pray!” I threw myself on my knees and pled with God to bring healing to this baby. I just didn’t want our friends to face this grief.

God, in His own wisdom, chose to take the child to Himself. When I walked into the hospital room and looked at Vicky’s face, I didn’t have a single word to say. We cried together, and then Brent asked me to run a few errands with him.

First, we went to the funeral home to make arrangements. The tiny white coffin Brent purchased broke my heart, to think that such a tiny human was going to be buried. Brent then asked me to go with him to the mall to pick out something to put in the coffin with his baby boy.

They had called him “little bear” (or something like that) while he was growing in Vicky’s womb, and Brent wanted to find a tiny porcelain bear to place in the coffin. A plush bear would be bigger than such a small child—thus the search for a tiny figurine.  I was already weighted down by grief, Brent even more so, but we shuffled into a large mall and then decided that one of two Hallmark-type stores would be our best bet to find what we were looking for.

The first store we walked into had a middle-aged woman at the counter. Brent saw a glass case with the perfect bear to bury with his son, and quietly asked how much it cost.

With a gruff, impatient, and challenging tone, the woman responded, “That bear is part of a set. If you want to buy that bear, you have to buy the whole set. You still want to see it?”

She didn’t want to be bothered to open the case.

I saw Brent flinch. Neither of us had much money to put together at the time; buying the whole set was unthinkable. I mentioned a similar store at the other end of the mall (it was a big mall), so with our heads cast down a little bit more, we shuffled with slightly shorter steps into another store with a young woman behind the counter.

“Hey guys, how ya doin’?” Her cheery voice lifted our spirits a little; here was someone who wasn’t overwhelmed by life and who didn’t seem to resent our presence.

Brent saw the exact same bear behind a case and asked, with an apologetic tone, “Is this bear part of a set?”

“Yes, it is, but let me see if my boss will let me sell it to you individually.” She made the effort to go into the back of the store, came out with a smile, told us the price, and I will never forget the look on Brent’s face. As a first-time dad, he didn’t want to disappoint his son. He had found the perfect gift to lay next to him.

As we walked out of the mall, it dawned on me that if you had asked the two salesclerks (one gruff, impatient, and unhelpful; one cheerful and kind) to guess where we had been before coming to the mall, they would never have imagined that we had left Vicky in her hospital room just after she experienced the still birth of a beloved child, and then gone to a funeral home to pick out a small white coffin. If you had asked these women why two young men were shopping for a tiny, porcelain bear, given a hundred years they wouldn’t have been able to guess that we were buying a bear to place in a beloved child’s coffin.

And that’s when it hit me: bruised reeds and smoldering wicks don’t wear signs on their foreheads, but they’re all around us. “Bruised reeds” are fragile and easily broken people. “Smoldering wicks” are souls so precariously holding on to their mental, emotional, and spiritual health that one unkind comment, one inappropriately quoted Scripture verse, can send them over the edge.

The Bible tells us that Jesus the Messiah was so gentle that He could interact with souls that fragile without doing further harm, and slowly nurse them back to health. Isaiah prophesied,    

“A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out” (Isaiah 42:3)

In businesses and churches, in stores and shopping malls, and even in ballparks, we are surrounded by bruised reeds and smoldering wicks. They don’t wear signs around their necks, but their hurting hearts and discouraged souls will be most nourished when they interact with a person who practices the virtue of gentleness, the mark of the Messiah.

Though Jesus gave Himself a number of figurative titles (such as the Good Shepherd and the light of the world), when it came to actually describing His character with specific virtues, there are only two virtues mentioned, and gentleness is one of them. In Matthew 11:29 Jesus describes Himself as “gentle and humble in heart.”

Before Jesus came, the prophets predicted that the Messiah would be known for His gentleness: “See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9, fulfilled in Matthew 21:5).

When the apostles looked back in memory of our Lord, they thought of this virtue: “By the humility and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you” (2 Corinthians 10:1). The first-hand witnesses of Jesus thought of gentleness when they thought of Him.

Let’s put this together: the Bible predicted that Jesus would be gentle; Jesus affirmed that He was gentle; and the early church—the ones who saw Him face-to-face and watched Him interact with others in public—remembered Him as gentle.

However we may feel about God, He reveals Himself to be gentle.

If we want to carry the message of the Messiah, we need to also adopt the manner of the Messiah, and that manner is gentleness. To truly convey who Jesus is, it’s not enough to just repeat His words; it’s how we speak those words that most accurately conveys His Spirit. Jumping in with verbal saws to remove spiritual slivers doesn’t accurately represent the One who could touch bruised reeds without breaking them or speak to smoldering wicks without snuffing them out. The Spirit of the God-man, who was sent to reveal the nature of our Creator, was clothed in gentleness; and this virtue allowed Him to enter into the lives of broken, hurting people in a redemptive way. God wants to give each of His followers this same capacity for compassion.

In the next blog post, we’ll look at how we can begin to practice this virtue. For now, let us remember that every believer who wants to represent Jesus must aspire to what Ambrose calls “the most lovely of all virtues”—gentleness.

(By the way, the happy news is that after Brent and Vicky decided to adopt a child, Vicky was able to conceive again and carry that baby to term. They now have a full family of four children, two adopted and two biological.)

For more on practicing the virtues, take a look at Gary’s updated and re-released book The Glorious Pursuit: Becoming Who God Created Us to Be.

The post The Most Lovely of all Virtues appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Walking Away from a Child

Brandon has two daughters and a son, all grown. His son lives a destructive life, which hurts Brandon deeply. He admits that wanting his son to succeed may be a bit of “male pride,” and he has exhausted himself trying to force his son into making better choices.

His counselor has worked with Brandon for years and understands the overall family dynamics. “Brandon,” he told him, “You have two amazing daughters going to great places, but you spend the majority of your time thinking about and talking to your son. In fact, I think you spend more time fretting over your son than you do affirming and relating to your two daughters combined. Not only do your daughters feel left out, but all this extra attention stolen from your daughters isn’t even helping your son. In fact, it seems to be making things worse. Isn’t it time to make a change?”

Brandon thought that perhaps the counselor was being too “psychological,” so he wanted a pastor’s opinion. “After all, Gary,” Brandon pointed out, “Didn’t the prodigal’s dad give the prodigal half of all he earned?”

“Yes,” I said (though technically, it wouldn’t have been half—the elder son would have received a larger share), “But that’s not the point of the parable or its purpose. Besides, even looking at it that way, the father didn’t chase after the prodigal when he first left, did he? He let him walk away and experience the bitterness of poor choices. And during that season, the elder son got his father all to himself. The father embraced the prodigal son when he walked back, not when he walked away.”

Whenever you have a “difficult” child the natural temptation is to pour most of your energies into “saving” that child as you (perhaps unwittingly) spend less time and thought on the “faithful” ones. Yet the Bible specifically directs God’s people to focus on finding and investing in the most faithful: “And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2). 

When talking about ministry strategy, Jesus tells you that when someone resists, you’re to “shake the dust off your feet” (Matthew 10:14) and find other willing hearts who are open to correction and truth. Jesus modeled this by walking away from people when they asked Him to leave (Matthew 8:34-9:1).

With His last words to His disciples, Jesus told us to take the time to thoroughly train disciples, “teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you” (Matthew  28:20). This implies focused attention, spiritual care, and patient counsel. It takes time, effort, energy, and teachableness on the part of the disciple. If someone isn’t willing to follow the commandments of Jesus, they’re not good candidates to be trained as disciples.

When a child strays we should always leave the door open, continue to pray (and even fast), and of course we would run to them if they merely started walking back toward us. But both Jesus and Paul, in passages already cited, stress the need to make wise investments in people through the grid of making the most effective use of our time. Just as it is foolish to keep pouring money into a bad investment, so it’s unwise to spend the bulk of our time speaking truth to people who resent and ignore it. This warns parents to make sure we don’t neglect the faithful children for the unfaithful and unreliable, which may be our natural bent.

Before you’re a parent, you’re a Christian. Before you’re your kids’ mom or dad, you’re your Heavenly Father’s child and servant. And Jesus tells His followers that the church needs more workers, desperately so. “The harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest” (Matthew 9:38). Whether these workers end up operating a Chick Fil A, serving as judges or police officers, or running an auto body shop, we need women and men seeking first the kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33), creatively and passionately. Such women and men need to be trained and discipled. Don’t neglect training reliable people in hopes that you can rescue an unreliable, stubborn, or toxic relative, even if that relative is one of your own children. 

If you have a faithful child, qualified to teach others, one of the greatest gifts you can give to the church is to invest deeply in that child’s mind and soul and imbue that child with earnest passion to seek first the kingdom of God. Don’t make the faithful children pay for the unfaithfulness of their sibling(s). 

“Walking away” from an adult child in this sense by no means implies that you should shut off communication. It doesn’t mean you don’t welcome them over to dinner or stop calling them on the phone. Rather, it means you focus the bulk of your ministry time on reliable people who are qualified to teach others and that you zealously guard your efforts so that you don’t neglect a willing disciple for the sake of wooing a toxic prodigal.

If this seems like a difficult word, know that it’s part of a larger discussion about following in the example of Jesus and learning when to walk away from toxic people—even, at times, grown family members. Good spiritual offense requires sometimes applying wise spiritual defense.

This post is adapted from Gary’s book, When to Walk Away: Finding Freedom from Toxic People. This book also addresses how this concept applies to work colleagues, spouses, in-laws, and parents.

The post Walking Away from a Child appeared first on Gary Thomas.