Gary L. Thomas's Blog, page 38

Freedom from Within: Part 2

Last week we talked about the importance of detachment. This week we’re going to address how we can experience it.

It is an impossible task to slowly disengage ourselves from every errant passion. What we need instead is a powerful war of engagement, which we find by attaching ourselves to something else. That’s the “secret” behind the virtues; instead of trying to stop sinning, we focus on practicing a virtue, and the positive takes the place of the negative.

When I proposed to my wife, out of love for her I was rejecting every other woman as a possible romantic partner. My affection for Lisa was such that it eclipsed any other romantic interest. Intense love for something inevitably leads to the rejection of something else.

John of the Cross teaches, “A more intense enkindling of another, better love (love of one’s heavenly bridegroom) is necessary for the vanquishing of the appetites. . . . By finding satisfaction and strength in this love, one will have the courage and constancy to deny all other appetites.”

Detachment thus begins with an active, vigorous life of worship. If you don’t earnestly worship God, you’re going to earnestly and passionately sin against Him.

One of the surest (but not, admittedly, one of the most mature or most advisable) ways for me to have broken my emotional attachment with Sharon in high school (see last week’s post) would have been to “fall in love” with someone else. It’s easier to leave something if you believe you’ve found something better. As humans, we don’t exist very well in vacuums; we’re sucked one way or the other by our passions, so—spiritually speaking—instead of seeking a passionless existence, we need to more intensely focus our affections. John of the Cross points out that the lure of the world can be so strong that “if the spiritual part of the soul is not fired with other more urgent longings for spiritual things,” the soul won’t be able to deny its appetites for the wrong things.

The more I read the classics, the more I’m reminded of how vulnerable we are to sin when we don’t take the time to delight in God, gaze at His beauty, meditate on His loveliness, sing songs of worship as we go about the day, and hang on to the truths of Scripture. The more we set our minds on God—His beauty and His truth—the less enamored we become with the things of the world.

Be aware that this takes time. The enjoyment of our “replacement” may feel artificially forced at first, but we’ll develop a taste for it if we don’t give up too easily. Affection is built over time. If you have fed off an illicit practice for a while, it will take some time to learn to live without it; you can’t expect the desire to immediately die. This is where discipline can be marginally helpful, for habits become less forceful the longer we stay away from them.

Many Christians struggle with their desire for God largely because they’ve never been taught how to love Him; or when they are taught to relate to Him, they’re given a simplistic formula.

My book Sacred Pathways explores nine different “spiritual temperaments,” which are really nine different ways to build your love relationship with God. You might look there if you need some more insight in this regard.

The idea is to build a complete life with constructive recreation, spiritual adoration and wisdom, and meaningful work and relationships so the yearnings that so often lead to sin have less of a place in our lives. This is part of the ancient practice of mortification—removing the cause of sin even before temptation strikes. The ancients recognized that while it is possible to deny strong desires, it is more productive to empty these desires before they present themselves.

A Surprising Trade

In sixteenth-century Spain, a man named Nicolas became exceedingly wealthy, and that meant exceedingly powerful as well. Nicolas loved and sought money, and he made more of it in banking and financial transactions than other men made in peddling goods and services.

Nicolas’s skill became so pronounced that an archbishop asked him to patch the shaky hull of the archbishopric’s financial ship. Nicolas succeeded so spectacularly that the king took notice and invited Nicolas into his court. The king reasoned that what Nicolas could do for God, he could also do for God’s servant, His Royal Highness.

Nicolas increased the king’s holdings to such an extent that he became a daily presence at court. By the age of thirty-seven, he had reached the highest strata of society. He could afford anything he wanted, and his words were taken seriously by the highest powers in the land. Then he met a tiny, penniless, balding, and seemingly powerless man, whose teachings we have already encountered—John of the Cross.

In league with a nun named Teresa of Avila, John had started a new order of Carmelites, known for their austerity, poverty, and simple rule of life. While Nicolas had everything most people desire, John lived the common man’s worst nightmare—he wore no shoes, he traveled cross-country with minimal clothing and often without food, and he was pledged to sexual abstinence.

Yet after meeting John, Nicolas left the court, gave away his money, and entered the Discalced (shoeless) Carmelite order. The man who once walked on palace floors now by choice walked barefoot on the stony, sometimes snowy, roads of Spain.

Nicolas responded to the same call that led fishermen to drop their nets and follow Jesus. It was the same inner detachment that centuries later would lead my friend Bob Patton to change his career when he was just reaching his prime as a professor and accept a position with a small church.

Throughout the centuries, Christians have found great meaning, purpose, and fulfillment in spurning the very things that so many people crave. But it would be a gross distortion to define Nicolas’s new life by what he left behind. The truth is, he embraced something even better, and that’s the real key to detachment. By opening his heart to adopt the spirit and attitudes of Jesus Christ, he began removing himself from the lusts of the flesh. His heart was touched by prayer in a way it was never touched by gold, power, or influence.

Detachment is about far more than merely abstaining from sin. Its practice begins with the delight of our soul, Jesus Christ. When we look at the model of Christian living—Christ Himself—we can immediately see how central detachment was to His existence.

Jesus detached Himself from heaven to become man. He detached Himself from His parents to take up the public ministry of the Messiah. He detached Himself from His people’s favor to become their Savior. He detached Himself from life on earth to die for our sins. He detached Himself from spiritually experiencing His Father’s presence so He could become sin for us.

Everything that matters most, Christ gave up. And He is the model for how we live the faith. Do you want to experience Jesus in a new way? Look for Him in the virtue of detachment.

When we learn it is better and more fulfilling to give than to receive; to encourage than to be praised; to love than to hate; to be gentle than to be harsh; to forgive than to hold a grudge; to serve rather than control; to lift up rather than manipulate; to worship than to lust; then we are truly entering the blessed path of detachment.

God calls us to learn detachment, and it is no shame to admit we are still in kindergarten where this is concerned. Most of us struggle with petty sins, jealousies, and attitudes that make us miserable. This is where I suggest we begin: by allowing God to search our hearts and show us truthfully what it is we are craving. Don’t just examine what you do; examine what you desire or even crave.

The detached Christian is the one who experiences inner freedom. Shorn of ambition, greed, jealousy, avarice, gluttony, lust, or manipulation, the detached Christian is able to enjoy a new dimension of happiness very few ever find in this world. Ironically, spiritual detachment is the only way to truly enjoy the physical world, which God made for our pleasure. Without the gap we build by detachment between us and created things, our desire for the objects and pleasures of this world may consume us.

There is so much strength to be found in detachment. Fall in love with God, and let Him shape your desires. Refuse to feed off errant passions and allow God to give you your life back from the cravings that have distressed you thus far.

The post Freedom from Within: Part 2 appeared first on Gary Thomas.

The Gift Every Relationship Needs

If I could give one gift to married couples, parents, roommates, and fellow Christians, I think it might be…compassion.

Let me try to explain why we often lack it, and why it’s so essential to strive for more of it, with this analogy. Prior to filming the curriculum for Sacred Pathways last fall, a dermatologist recommended I have a few white bumps under my eyes (syragamas) taken off. They’re not a big deal, but with camera closeups, I thought he was probably right.

The dermatologist who took them off said the spots would scab up and he warned me not to scratch them or the marking could become permanent. When he first said it, I thought. “How gross! Who would scratch off scabs?”

I said that because I didn’t realize how much they would itch, especially during a run. For all my running life, if something itched during a run, I’d scratch it to get relief. It’s automatic. But I had to intentionally remember to live with that itch. Scratching for immediate relief would create long-term problems.

That’s a picture of addictions and bad habits. Without the “addiction” or “bad habit,” the thought of scratching seems gross, weak, repugnant: “How could anyone do that?” Feeling the itch firsthand you think, “Ahhhh. Now it makes sense…”

Compassion is difficult if we’ve never felt the “itch.” We can’t imagine why some people do such destructive things; it makes no sense, so we judge them and look down on them and think of them as weak.

Because men and women are different beings with different brains, I’ve worked hard to help wives have compassion for men, and husbands to have compassion for women. Each gender has different “itches” and some spouses, frankly, lack any compassion for any itch they’ve never felt.

I just finished reading Elin Hilderbrand’s novel Summer of ’69. One of the many substories portrays a wife who is pushing her husband away by becoming an alcoholic. Her only son has been sent to Vietnam and basically she just wants to put herself in a stupor until her son returns home. It’s too painful for her to be conscious; the danger is real. While her choice of comfort is making things worse, you can at least understand the itch of a mother’s love and terror. Her husband is understandably angry at her behavior, but lacks compassion for the underlying cause. He doesn’t have to excuse what she’s doing, but it might help if he took a moment to understand why she’s doing what she’s doing.

Last weekend I spoke at a conference where a pastor gave his testimony about overcoming porn. He mentioned that 70% of men struggle with this—that seems high to me, and I’ve seen slightly lower numbers reported by Barna (around 64-65%). There’s a reason this is such a common struggle for men: Dr. Louann Brizendine, who studied at Yale and Harvard and is now on the faculty of UCSF Medical Center, states that “Men have two and a half times the brain space devoted to sexual drive in their hypothalamus.” While there are many differences in our brains, in general, the struggle for sexual purity isn’t the same for a husband as it is for a wife, for the simple reason that sexual thoughts are going to be far more frequent and common and more easily stirred in the husband. Thankfully, in my experience, this changes somewhat as we age, and science backs this up as men’s testosterone does tend to decrease with every decade of life.

This doesn’t lessen the impact, however. I’ve read one study that revealed about 35% of women who find out their husbands look at porn have legitimate PTSD. One confession from their husband won’t “cure” PTSD. When a guy, just weeks or even a couple months later, says, “When are you going to get over this?” he’s displaying a cold heart without compassion. He doesn’t get how hurtful his actions were to his wife. He can understand why he looked at porn; he doesn’t understand how his wife doesn’t understand why he looked at porn, and he just wants her to get over it. He lacks compassion for the depth of her pain and the feeling of betrayal. The couples I have seen who have grown closer through this struggle usually have a husband who remains genuinely repentant and humble, and who strives to understand the hurt from his wife’s perspective. He develops compassion for her.

Most men who look at porn started long before they were married, so it’s never a wife’s fault when he keeps looking at porn after marriage; it is monstrous to blame the wife for this, even if she has allowed the sexual relationship to cool somewhat. But compassion reaches past fault-finding to seek understanding, and then to offer help with empathy.

I have compassion for wives whose hearts are broken and whose souls feel devastated when they find out their husbands have been mentally unfaithful with porn; of course they are hurting and no, they shouldn’t have to live with that kind of behavior. But I also feel compassion for the men who were often tempted by porn as young boys while never looking for it, and who soon found themselves struggling with a temptation that got into their brain and just won’t let go. Without excusing the behavior at all, I’d simply like to point out that if this was an easy struggle to win, I don’t think 65% of men would be losing it. And, as a pastor, I’ve never seen shame help someone change. In his book Unwanted, Jay Stringer makes a compelling case that shame is the empowering agent behind this struggle. Casting shame instead of compassion is likely to make a bad problem grow worse.

In this world, however, we pit men against women and women against men. There are blogs that always take the women’s side, and a lot of angry spouses who have been hurt by their husbands share their outrage. And I’ve read blogs that always take the men’s side, and a lot of angry husbands hurt by their wives share their outrage. I’ve been attacked by both kinds of blogs! (The men’s blog laughed at me for being bald, which, in their minds, proved I’m a weak man who always takes the women’s side. I’d like to see them tell that to the Rock…)

In another vein, people sometimes wonder how I could have written Sacred Marriage and When to Walk Away. The answer is compassion. When you see the nightmare an abused woman must live with, as she is emotionally and/or physically terrorized and crushed in spirit, you can’t, if you have any degree of compassion, legalistically tell her to “get over” her fears and stick to her vows. Taken in its cultural context, Jesus said what he said about divorce to protect women, not to imprison them. Out of compassion, you want to write a book like When to Walk Away. God has given me great compassion for the victims of bullying and abuse.

On the other hand, when you’ve witnessed the awful destruction that divorce foisted as a weapon (due to selfishness, disappointment, or difficulty), you want to urge the church to reach a little higher, to learn the spiritual lessons that only difficult marriages can teach (if we don’t run from them). That’s when you want to write a book like Sacred Marriage. God has given me great compassion for the victims of divorce (spouses and children).

Many in the church want me to choose sides but that’s not something I’m willing to do. Life rarely works that way.

If you want to cherish a spouse who has a lot of issues, you have to begin with compassion. Compassion begins with finding out what hurts our spouse has gone through and what may have led to their current “itch.” Abuse, shame, neglect, or maybe poor choices that created the grooves for an addiction that they’re now trying to fight as an adult aren’t easy to get over or master. Whatever created the itch, I want to have compassion for the itch even if I’ve never felt it, and I want to celebrate their effort and courage to stop itching.

Last year I read Addiction and Grace: Love and Spirituality in the Healing of Addictions by Dr. Gerald May for the third time. It’s a rare contemporary book that gets that much attention from me but the reason I keep re-reading this one is that it gives me compassion for the universal struggle all of us have with attachments. The way Dr. May describes spiritual attachments basically labels every one of us an addict of some kind. Realizing I’m an addict, I can have more compassion for other addicts.

When I get weary of people destroying their lives, throwing away their families, making a bad situation worse by going back to the behavior that is ruining them, I ask “Why would they do that? …until I read May’s book, and then the question becomes, “Why do I do that?”

Compassion doesn’t mean your spouse or child or parent hasn’t and isn’t hurting you. Compassion doesn’t excuse offensive sin or destructive behavior. But compassion seeks to first understand and second offer itself as an agent of healing. It’s supernatural kindness, forgiveness, and grace. If you don’t think you need compassion, you’ll never be able to offer compassion. But without compassion, your relationships will remain worldly. A sacred marriage needs sacred compassion.

The post The Gift Every Relationship Needs appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Freedom from Within

Detachment, Part 1

For me, the saddest flowers in all the world will always be yellow roses.

The last time I purchased them was decades ago, after the fifth or sixth breakup with “Sharon.” Yellow roses were her favorite.

Sharon and I were involved in an on-again, off-again relationship during high school, and, try as we might, we could never quite declare it at an end. I was much too immature to maintain a long-term relationship, but I was also too immature to detach myself emotionally from Sharon.

I felt so guilty that every time we decided to end the dates, I went out of my way to express to Sharon how special I thought she was—beginning with the yellow roses. And, of course, as these things happen in high school, that was inevitably followed by Sharon being reminded what a great guy I was. And since I thought she was so special and she thought I was so great, maybe we ought to give it “just one more try.”

It is one thing to be surrendered. It is another thing entirely to be detached. Surrender is an act of the will, accepting physical circumstances or situations God has ordained and looking for His good purpose in them. Detachment means we stop finding our meaning and security in people, things, positions, money, and power so they no longer lure us into actions we know are unwise or unprofitable. Surrender is about what we submit to; detachment is about what we yearn for.

Detachment is the attitude that helps us cooperate with God’s work as He shapes our desires, so we come to rest in the knowledge that what is truly valuable to the soul can only be given by God Himself: “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

Freedom from Within

It is extremely difficult for us to deny ourselves what we truly desire. The great Reformed writer, John Owen, points out, “He hates not the fruit, who delights in the root.” We might have sporadic success at staying away from something that has captivated our heart, but it is unlikely we will have consistent success. To stop feeding on harmful things, we need to consider our improper appetites: “When the appetites are extinguished—or mortified—one no longer feeds on the pleasure of these things.”

Christians today can become so focused on stopping a sinful behavior that we can lose the practical nature of virtue. We want to stop sinning without examining and freeing ourselves from the root desires that are disordered. To be free from sin, we need to look at the internal cause rather than just focus on the action. When a Christian falls today, 99 percent of the spiritual effort is spent trying to control the “stumbling”—that is, we focus on outer strategies to help us avoid the situations in which we sin. A young dating couple will be told never to be alone together; an alcoholic will be warned away from bars or liquor stores. But if the heart is bent by an appetite that leads to sin, all the external discipline agreed on in moments of strength will wilt in the heat of desire.

Iron will—external discipline that creates physical distance but not spiritual deliverance—will meet with only limited success. If you have been fighting sin unsuccessfully, in large part because while you offer up the action, you can’t stop the craving, then you need the virtue of detachment. This virtue begins when we turn our eyes from the created to the Creator.

Chains of Silk

In Victorian novels, romantic tensions often occur when a member of the upper class falls in love with a member of the lower class. Back then, to love someone beneath you in society was considered poor taste. Rather than elevating the person in the lower class, it tended to deflate the reputation of the person from the upper class.

John of the Cross argues that when we love the created over the Creator, we do the same thing: We lower ourselves to the level of what we love. Just as we are raised when we are enraptured by God, so we devalue ourselves when we desire lesser things. “Anyone who loves a creature, then, is as low as that creature and in some ways even lower because love not only equates but even subjects the lover to the loved creature.”

When we love something God has created more than we love God Himself, we not only set ourselves up for huge disappointment but also set ourselves up to sin against God, over and over. This is the tragedy of our sin: “Since nothing equals God, those who love and are attached to something other than God, or together with Him, offend Him exceedingly.”

God offers us spiritual fulfillment, true character transformation, joy, peace, purpose, spiritual fellowship, and freedom—all the intangible blessings that mean the most. But we become fixated by anything else—everything else! Instead of interior peace, meaning, freedom, and fulfillment, we crave things that excite the mind, ego, and flesh for a brief moment but then usher us into all kinds of agony and frustration long-term. God, who can satisfy every true need, is standing beside us, waiting for us to revel in His presence and receive His good and holy gifts, while we set our desire on baser things.

Imagine the change that might take place in your relationships if you stopped looking to others and sought your deepest needs in a benevolent, ever-present God. You would no longer need to make wearying demands on a spouse. You could become a servant lover, instead of demanding one. If you were frustrated in your relationship with your parents, you could stop asking for something they couldn’t really give, and instead find acceptance and true love from your heavenly Father. If you were a parent, instead of burdening your children with your own expectations, hopes, and ego needs, you could concentrate on equipping them to become who God made them to be.

Demands ruin relationships. Unfulfilled demands turn relationships into a living hell and make us miserable. Unfortunately, it never occurs to most of us to learn how to have God fulfill our needs.

Detachment means that you relinquish every demand you place on things and other created beings—even legitimate ones. Requests are legitimate, but demands create spiritual chains. They make you vulnerable to an imperfect person who may use your wants to manipulate you, or who may simply lack the spiritual or emotional health to provide what you want or need.

François Fénelon warns, “Golden chains are no less chains than are chains of iron.” It doesn’t matter what binds you as long as it binds you. Whether the cords you are entangled with are made of silk or nylon; whether your yoke is made of steel or a beautiful piece of oak; whether your cage is rusted or polished, imprisonment is hell, and your demands are the bars that hold you.

The road and ascent to God, then, necessarily demands a habitual effort to renounce and mortify the appetites; the sooner this mortification is achieved, the sooner the soul experiences freedom and spiritual abundance. Until the appetites are eliminated, one will not arrive no matter how much virtue one practices.

The Glorious PUrsuithttps://garythomas.com/books/the-glorious-pursuit/

This post focused on the need for detachment. The next post will explore how we can foster detachment and put it into practice.

For a more thorough treatment of this and other virtues, check out my newly revised book The Glorious Pursuit: Becoming Who God Created Us to Be.  The Glorious Pursuit would be particularly helpful for individuals, couples, or small groups who want to grow in Christ by focusing on the positive–what we are to become—rather than the negative—what we should stop doing.

The post Freedom from Within appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Ask Yourself These two Questions Before You Agree to get Married

Determining someone’s character can be a bit tricky if your brain is a little fogged by infatuation, so I’ve come up with a question that helps singles look at their potential mate with a little more clarity:

“After watching this person interact with others, would you like to become more like them? Because if you marry them, you will.”

If you go into marriage assuming you’ll be the one to “pull them toward Jesus,” consider Paul’s admonition in 1 Corinthians 15:33: “Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”

Are you risking your character—one of the most precious things about you—by spending more and more time with this person? Or would marrying this person likely elevate your character?

If you’re younger and would like to eventually have children, ask yourself another question: “Would I want my daughter/son to be just like this person I’m thinking of marrying? Would I want my son to treat women the way my boyfriend treats women? Would I want my daughter to have the same passion (or lack thereof) for God as my girlfriend does?”

When Jesus tells us to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness (Matthew 6:33), He’s making character development a key priority for His followers. Nineteenth century writer Henry Drummond wrote, “Since we are what we are by the impacts of those who surround us, those who surround themselves with the highest will be those who change into the highest.”

Choosing a person based on their character is thus one way to trust Jesus and obey His words in Matthew 6:33. You are more likely to seek first His righteousness when you surround yourself with others who seek His righteousness, especially when it comes to marriage.

Drummond goes on to say, “There are some men and some women in whose company we are always at our best. While with them we cannot think mean thoughts or speak ungenerous words. Their mere presence is elevation, purification, sanctity. All the best stops in our natures are drawn out by their conversation and we find a music in our souls that was never there before.”

Remember how astonished the religious leaders were that the disciples exhibited such bravery and wisdom even though they were “formerly unimpressive and unschooled”? And what was their conclusion? “They took note that these men had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

Do your friends and family think you are a better version of yourself since you have been dating your partner? Or are they worried that you are changing for the worse? Do you like who you’re becoming when you spend more time with this person, or do you wince with regret and try to pacify your concerns with excuses: “He’s a young believer yet, but I’m sure he’ll grow.” “She’s preoccupied with worldly things now but our church will help her mature.”

With this principle in mind, here are two questions to ask. Even better, get some feedback from objective friends and family members.

Do I want to become more like this person in character and faith?

Would I want my future children to model themselves after the person I am dating?

For more on making a wise marital choice, check out Gary’s book, The Sacred Search

The post Ask Yourself These two Questions Before You Agree to get Married appeared first on Gary Thomas.

A Soul Filled with Peace and Rest

How would you like to be a person who has an unusually high level of personal peace?

What would it be like if your demeanor could be described as living in spiritual rest?

What if you could live with a settled conviction that all will be well even if your outside world seems to be spinning out of control?

Jesus promises we can have this to the full.

In his magisterial essay Pax Vobiscum, nineteenth-century writer Henry Drummond lays out Christ’s “recipe” for rest and personal peace. In Drummond’s mind, gaining peace is like baking a cake: there are certain ingredients that need to be mixed together and put through a certain process. When you do that, a “cake” (peace) results.

The first thing to understand if you want to gain rest is that “restlessness has a cause.” Makes sense, right? To have rest and peace, we must first remove restlessness. There’s a spiritual condition that results in restlessness, and a spiritual condition that results in peace. We’ll come back to this point but keep it in mind. We have to attack the cause of restlessness if we want to enjoy true and lasting rest.

The recipe for restfulness and personal peace begins with this: “Come to Me and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:29).

Rest is found in relationship. Think of it this way. Imagine being in the middle of a windstorm and hurricane. Furniture is flying all around you. Your house has just disappeared. You don’t know when the storm will end. But right next to you, holding your hand, is Jesus. You can see Him, hear Him, touch Him. How could you not have peace? His presence overcomes and overwhelms the earth’s seeming chaos. Because you’re experiencing this devastation and destruction with Him, you still have peace because He’s a more significant factor than the storm.

The second step in the recipe for achieving rest is understanding that it is acquired via a process. “Learn from Me and you will find rest for your souls.” We have to learn to spiritually rest. Peace won’t fall from the sky. It won’t “just happen.” We have to learn how to “cook” personal peace in our “spiritual oven.”

What does that learning involve? Jesus tells us the two key ingredients that produce peace are gentleness and humility. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:29)

Rest for our souls will be found in Christ’s gentleness and humility. Which means, as you learn to live with gentleness and humility, you gain rest.

Let’s go back to what we said earlier: restlessness has a cause. What is that cause? “Pride, selfishness, ambition. As you look back upon the past years of your life, is it not true that its unhappiness has chiefly come from the succession of personal mortifications and almost trivial disappointments which…life has brought you?”

When our ambitions are frustrated; when our selfish hopes and wants are dashed; when we feel slighted—either attacked or ignored—we lose our peace. We feel the loss so sorely our souls scream out in pain. “Wounded vanity, disappointed hopes, unsatisfied selfishness—these are the old, vulgar, universal sources of man’s unrest.”

Responding harshly to others or ourselves instead of responding with gentleness makes bad things worse. Arrogant harshness pushes rest and peace away. Gentleness invites them back in the face of a full-frontal assault. Perhaps that’s why Ambrose calls gentleness one of the two “parents” of all virtue.

Gentleness and humility strike the cancers of restlessness at their very core, isolating them, and taking away any chance that unrest has a place to grow. “They cure unrest by making it impossible. These remedies do not trifle with surface symptoms; they strike at once at removing causes.”

Look at how practically, clearly, and simply the virtues of Jesus lead to rest and peace: “Be lowly. The man who has no opinion of himself at all can never be hurt if others do not acknowledge him. Be meek. He who is without expectation cannot fret if nothing comes to him.”

If you must be recognized and praised, you will never have peace. “There are people who go about the world looking out for slights, and they are necessarily miserable, for they find them at every turn—especially the imaginary ones.”

To know true peace, you must value peace. I’m going to repeat that to emphasize it. To know true peace you must value peace. Too many of us don’t, or we don’t value peace enough. We want peace and success. We want peace and affluence. We want peace and acclaim. But those three things work against our peace if peace isn’t valued above them. Pursue peace and you might become wealthy and acclaimed; pursue wealth and acclamation and you destroy peace because you become vulnerable to the causes of unrest. You worry about whether you have enough wealth or whether you might lose it. You worry that someone else has more acclaim than you do, or that your acclaim is fading. If peace isn’t a primary value, you’ll never have it.

Here’s how backwards Jesus’ recipe for peace can sound if we don’t “unlearn” our former way of thought (that security is found in acclaim, affluence, and earthly standing): “The first effect of losing one’s fortune is humiliation; and the effect of humiliation is to make one humble; and the effect of being humble is to produce rest.”

If I ask you, do you want peace, your first thought will be, of course! If I tell you the path to peace is humiliation, you’re just as likely to say, “No thank you. I don’t want peace that much.” It is a lie to say we value peace if we don’t value what brings peace. It is a lie to say we want to be spiritually healthy if we strive after the very things that make us spiritually unhealthy.

Does anybody doubt that Jesus had peace? Of course not. But did Jesus have money? No. Did Jesus have many detractors? Yes. Did Jesus have people plotting to kill Him? Absolutely. Did Jesus have a close friend betray Him? Of course. Did Jesus’ disciples remain by His side during His most vicious trial? No.

Not even one.

Let’s see: No money. Lots of enemies. Fair weather friends. An unfair trial, torture, and a death sentence.

And yet, peace?

“Christ’s life outwardly was one of the most troubled lives that was ever lived. Tempest and tumult, tumult and tempest, the waves breaking over it all the time till the worn body was laid in the grave. But the inner life was a sea of glass. The great calm was always there.”

Peace is found in who you are, not in what you have. Peace is found in whose you are, in whose hand you are holding. Peace is found in what you value.

Would you have rest? Then first come to Jesus above everyone else. Make Him the center of your affections and thoughts.

Second, learn the process of rest—let go of pride, ambition, the lust for fame, financial gain. These actively and viciously work against your peace. You cannot have peace if you seek those three.

Third, pursue gentleness and humility. Stop asking the world to celebrate you. Focus instead on celebrating Christ. Recognize that every seemingly bad thing in your life can produce good spiritual fruit if that bad thing is viewed through the lens of humility.

Take these three short steps and this very moment you could be on the doorstep of rest! You are at the very portal of peace! You simply have to say and mean it, “I want peace more than I want acclaim. I want to be with Jesus more than I want anything or anyone else.” Then keep walking in that direction until you get further into that attitude and deeper into an unshakeable peace and spiritual rest.

“Rest lies not in emotions, nor in the absence of emotions…It is the mind at leisure from itself. It is the perfect poise of the soul; the absolute adjustment of the inward man to the stress of all outward things; the preparedness against every emergency; the stability of assured convictions; the eternal calm of an invulnerable faith; the repose of a heart set deep in God.” For more on how practicing the virtues of Christ will set you free and give you your life back, check out my newly revised book on practicing the virtues: The Glorious Pursuit: Becoming Who God Created Us to Be.

The post A Soul Filled with Peace and Rest appeared first on Gary Thomas.

In Both Seasons

Four centuries.

Four hundred years! That’s how much time passed between the last Old Testament prophet speaking in the Old Testament and the dawn of Christmas. The birth of Christ crashed into world history, launching what J.R.R. Tolkien described as a “eucatastrophe” (a good destruction) to launch God’s story in an entirely new direction.

For His own purposes, after Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi died, God chose to be silent to his beloved people, leaving them to remember only what He had already done and already said.

Then comes the book of Matthew, which begins by slowly and laboriously recounting the Messiah’s ancestors. Matthew then launches into a fast and furious explosion of events: Jesus’ miraculous conception, the supernatural events surrounding his birth (angels and stars!), and the glorious and fantastic prophecies surrounding his entry into the world. The entry of love is so good and so menacing to the forces of darkness that the forces of darkness unleash a pogrom to kill the young boy. The pogrom fails, the boy is safe and then…

Then the story takes a long pause. Between the last verse in Matthew chapter 2 and the first verse in chapter 3, nearly three decades pass before Matthew picks up the story again. This long-awaited Messiah has finally come, but all Matthew cares to tell us about his first thirty years is shockingly sparse: “He went and lived in a town called Nazareth.”

This narrative is both the Word and the way of God: long waiting, intense action, followed by long waiting. Decades (or even centuries) may come and go before anything seemingly significant takes place. The Gospels testify to a patient God who sometimes takes centuries to set up his move, and who then thinks nothing of sitting on it for another thirty years until everything is just right.

Is this not also true of God’s work in our lives? At times, God’s activity will seem intense and glorious. At other times, it may seem as if he is taking a nap. Waiting is, by God’s design, a significant part of the Christian life. Sometimes, we will feel as if we are in the center of God’s work; at other times, we may feel like all we are doing is living an anonymous life in a simple town.

In both seasons, however, we are still living the life of Christ.

The post In Both Seasons appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Your Sacred Family

Do you remember the biblical story of the esteemed Abiud?

No?

Well, what about Azor, Shealtiel, Zadok, or Matthan?

You haven’t heard of them either?

At this point, you might feel that you don’t know your Bible as well as you thought. But don’t worry; none of these names would be recognizable to any but the most knowledgeable of biblical scholars. These men lived between the reign of Josiah, after which Israel was exiled to Babylon, and the coming of Christ.

Matthan was the father of Jacob, who was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, as recorded in the first chapter of Matthew. Many of the names in this list are familiar to people of faith — Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and Solomon. But some of the names listed in Matthew Chapter 1 are stunning in their anonymity. Their inclusion is a very loud statement from God that anonymous lives matter. He, the author of Scripture, wants their names remembered.

Just think how quietly and anonymously these families lived, but for that one mention of one person’s name in Matthew. We don’t know, for instance, if Shealtiel led his family in daily devotions. We don’t know if Abiud fasted every Friday for his children’s faith. We don’t have a clue if Azor was a man of high standing, or if Matthan was happily married. We do know that by the time the line reached Jesus’ earthly caretaker named Joseph, that man listened to God, married a supernaturally pregnant woman and faithfully assumed the responsibilities of raising the Son of God. As for the others, all we know is that they lived, they died, and God used them to move history closer to the promised Messiah.

We don’t choose the epoch in which we are born. Some people are born to great fame; Esther was destined to save a nation. Some are called simply to hold a tiny place in history in preparation for the next great generation or event. God’s mission through the millennia trumps all; He is the one irreplaceable actor who truly matters. The coming of Jesus is so monumental, so colossally important, that merely holding the next place in line until everything was ready for His arrival proved to be a biblically noteworthy life. The same holds true today; our lives are significant only to the extent that they proclaim Christ’s greater significance.

What this list also tells us is that God has worked through families for all of history. Some families take up chapters, even books, of the Bible. Some shine for just a few brief verses. Some are signified by just one name in a list, and some don’t even get mentioned. But all matter to God.

The truth is, as we raise our families, we don’t know what we’re really building. Do you honestly think Shealtiel thought his life would help pave the way for the Messiah? And since Jesus tells us “many who are last will be first” (Matthew 19:30), it’s reasonable to assume that the lack of fame or notoriety on earth has absolutely nothing to do with what may be celebrated with great fanfare in heaven.

One of the lessons in all this is the importance of family faithfulness without earthly recognition. No one is clapping when you choose to pray for your child while you nurse; no one is putting your face and name In The Wall Street Journal when you study God’s Word before you start your day. ESPN isn’t reporting the score of your personal sacrifice as you go without to provide something very important to your child. No one is nominating you for a Nobel Prize for gathering the courage to confront a potentially troublesome sin in your child’s life.

2020 is filled with stories of parental heroism that will never be told. I’ve prayed for families who spent weeks beside a child lying in a hospital bed. A single mom spent money she didn’t have for a dog she didn’t need because her daughter’s therapist told her this one particular breed was really good for a young woman struggling to find a reason to live. A dad became a voracious researcher to find the best place for his daughter to receive in-patient treatment for an eating disorder (he also bought his daughter a dog by the way, not because he wanted one but because his daughter needed a loyal, twenty-four hour companion). An entire family got rid of gluten in their house when they found out that the constant rashes on two of their three children (not to mention the cramping and occasional sinus issues) could be traced to a gluten intolerance. For the record, this mom really likes her bread…

I’ve also witnessed stories of marital heroism: a young couple struggling to learn how to love each other instead of just giving up. A wife who went against her mother’s advice and took her husband back and who now is very glad she did (it was a long and excruciating road to get to where she is; you can read about her in a book that will be published about two years from now). A military couple finding creative ways to stay connected during a long deployment. A married couple with young kids who decided they weren’t just going to “accept” a ho-hum sex life anymore and spent a year bringing new delight to each other.   

CNN didn’t cover a single one of these stories. The Washington Post was too busy hating on a politician to care about parental sacrifice. Hollywood had its own agendas this year, and the nuclear family was definitely not one of them.  

Ah, but there is One who hassmiled over these acts of sacrifice and does the same as He witnesses your acts of service as well–One who promises to reward your faithfulness.

We may not understand where our family “fits” in history or even if anyone would notice if our family just disappeared. But that’s not up to us to decide. Because God is the Creator of life and the Designer of our world, our family’s history is a sacred history. That’s why I like to say that we don’t have to make family life sacred; it is sacred. The only question is, do we treat it as such? 

This side of heaven, we can’t possibly know how significant our role is, because we can’t see the story that will follow. We don’t know what our children or grandchildren, and certainly not our great, great grandchildren, will become. All we can do is be faithful day by day with our prayers, example, sacrifice, and witness, leaving a legacy of faith and putting our place in history into the sovereign hands of God.

We can be sure you and I will not appear in any other earthly Bible, for no other earthly Bible will be written. But we can be equally sure that faithful lives will be noticed and recounted in the eternal Book of Life — when we will finally realize just how sacred our family’s faithfulness has been.

The post Your Sacred Family appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Stable Christmas

One of the best lines I’ve heard someone utter about 2020 is that they are seriously hoping for something ‘precedented’ in 2021. So many things in 2020 have been called “unprecedented.” 2020 has certainly been been a year of chaos and tumult. My good friend Dr. Rebecca Wilke offers some healing words of hope as she looks at the message of Jesus being born in a stable and what that teaches us about facing the uncertainties and interruptions so many people are living through this Christmas season.

And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. He took with him Mary, to whom he was engaged, who was now expecting a child.

And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped Him snugly in strips of cloth and laid Him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.

Luke 2:4-7 (NLT)

This year has brought unprecedented challenges to our lives, particularly the terrifying experience of a global pandemic.  For months we have feared for our wellbeing and for the health of our family and friends.  Finances were hit hard, kids had to be homeschooled, and facemasks became part of everyday fashion.  So, after all of the ups and downs of 2020, it’s probably not surprising that many of us are hoping and searching for more stability during the upcoming Christmas season. 

Unfortunately, Christmastime rarely seems to be all that stable. No matter how much effort we put into preparing for our holiday celebrations, problems invariably arise.  For instance, someone gets sick. Grandpa is cranky. The cat goes missing. That special gift you ordered never arrives.  The gravy is lumpy. A pipe upstairs breaks, sending water into the kitchen.  The list of challenges could go on and on.

Far too often our plans for a holiday filled with peace and calm have fallen short of our expectations.  Many of us also have sad experiences that occurred at Christmastime—like in 1992 when my dad died on December 22nd.  That kind of loss and any other trauma hits us hard, especially when it happens during a celebratory season.

Maybe we shouldn’t be so astonished that the holidays aren’t the most stable of times since the first Christmas was rather chaotic too.  The verses in Luke above remind us that Joseph and a very-pregnant Mary had to journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem.  No doubt because other travelers impacted local lodging, the couple couldn’t find a single room available after their long trip.  Instead, they were offered a stable—a place where animals were sheltered and fed. This messy, noisy, and fetid environment would become the delivery room for God’s Son, Jesus.  A manger, or feeding trough, became Jesus’ crib after Mary had wrapped Him in some simple strips of cloth.

As if these unstable circumstances weren’t challenging enough, some unexpected guests decided to stop by.  Angels had appeared nearby to tell a group of shepherds about Jesus’ birth.  Then “when the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, ‘Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.’”  They did just that: “They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger” (Luke 2:15-16).  Whatever private moments the new parents had together were suddenly interrupted by visitors hoping to catch a glimpse of the precious gift they’d just received.  Although Scripture doesn’t record the details, it’s possible other people may have popped by too since “after seeing Him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child” (verses 17).

That first Christmas was far from a calm, peaceful experience—and it probably didn’t live up to either of the parents’ expectations. Whatever vision Mary might have had for labor and delivery, we can assume it didn’t include a dingy, dirty environment that would soon be invaded by total strangers.  If Joseph had planned for a safe, secure setting to temporarily house his new family, that idea went right out the stable door. But this wasn’t about them, was it?  God had a plan for His Son—one that would be real and raw and inclusive of people who needed His presence. To God, that chaotic scene was the perfect place to showcase Jesus.  Actually, this “stable” Christmas served as the commencement of Jesus’ mission, as Philippians 2:6-7 aptly points out:

Though He was God, He did not think of equality with God
as something to cling to. Instead, He gave up His divine privileges;
He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human

being when He appeared in human form.

This is the message of Christmas:  Jesus came to serve and sacrifice.  There’s no clearer picture of that than His leaving the wonders of Heaven in order to take on human form.  Perfection decided to live among imperfection, starting with that first night spent in a stable. 

Like Jesus, we are called to serve and sacrifice too. This isn’t always easy, but as the Apostle Paul reminds us, “since we are His children, we are His heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share His glory, we must also share His suffering” (Romans 8:17).  As members of God’s forever family, we have the privilege to live and work among the very people Jesus came to save.  And there is no better time than Christmas to “tell others about Christ . . . (because) we want to present them to God, perfect in their relationship to Christ” (Colossians 1:28).

As you prepare for the upcoming holy days, would you consider what your version of a “stable” Christmas could look like in 2020?  It might be quite different than what you initially envisioned, but this is a year of different, so why not go with that theme?  Whatever your plans, make sure Jesus is in the midst of the mess and mayhem. That way you can stay focused on the Savior who provides stability during every season of life.

For more information about Rebecca’s books and resources (along with her husband, Dr. Steve Wilke), visit  www.sonkist.com.

The post Stable Christmas appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Asking too Much of Our Marriages

Stanford professor David Cheriton cuts his own hair and bought a used Honda Odyssey for his family. He’s lived in the same colonial-style house for over thirty years. He flies commercial and even reuses his tea bags.

You might conclude that Dr. Cheriton is trying to conserve as much of his university salary as he can to prepare for retirement. Stanford pays better than most universities, of course, but still—it’s teacher’s pay. Right?

If you read Forbes, however, you might know that Cheriton was one of the early investors in Google, as well as several other highly successful companies, with the result that his financial net worth today hovers around $8 billion dollars.

Here’s how much eight billion dollars is: if David decided to give you a birthday present of one million dollars cash, it would cost him 0.0125% of all he owns. You wouldn’t know David is that wealthy by watching him, but he could buy the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Yankees and still have enough money left over to buy your house as well.  

You could do a fascinating study on the “quietly rich” amongst us. Every now and then we’ll read news stories of people who had modest jobs but who left a million or two to their favorite charity upon their death. Those are fun stories to read.

There’s an entirely different kind of “quietly rich” people who live among us. We could call them Christians. God offers so much, yet we tend to receive so little. Here’s what God offers:

Deep peace that comes from trusting Him (Ephesians 2:14)Joy that leads to strength (Nehemiah 8:10)Wisdom (Psalm 111:10)Fulfillment that follows an obedient life (modeled by Jesus in John 4:34)Excitement that bursts from a life of supernaturally inspired serviceComfort, counsel, and conviction from the Holy Spirit (John 14:26)Salvation (Acts 4:12)Forgiveness of sins (1 John 1:9)Strength to overcome bad habits and sins (1 Corinthians 15:57)A clear conscience (1 Timothy 1:5)The knowledge that God can use everything—even bad things—for good (Romans 8:28)

Too often, we live like billionaire children of a wealthy God who ignore the riches he offers but then turn around and resent our spouses for not giving us pennies from their depleted piggy banks.

Until we understand how rich we are in Christ and all that God makes available to us as His children, we will ask our marriages to do more than they were designed to do. Without drawing on the riches of life in Christ, we feel hungry and needy and ask our spouse to bring us the peace, joy, fulfillment, and excitement that comes from Christ.

If I believe my deepest needs are met in Christ—if my joy is dependent on my salvation (which can’t ever change), my need for wonder is met in daily worship, my need for fulfillment is met in being used by God, my affirmation is met by God’s acceptance, then anything my spouse brings to me is a plus. It’s the frosting, not the cake. It’s the sprinkles, not the doughnut.

When I read Teresa of Avila’s autobiography, I read the words of a very satisfied woman who was never married. She experienced spiritual ecstasies and devoted herself to several difficult missions that gave her a reason to get out of bed. She didn’t get anything from a spouse because she never had one —not a single back or foot rub, birthday gift, anniversary dinner, not even one “I love you, babe” at the end of a hard day.

What if we pursued God as earnestly as did Teresa, but we also got to enjoy the occasional benefits that marriage offers? I think we’d be happier and more appreciative of what marriage adds to our life rather than being so sensitive to what it doesn’t offer.

When we draw deeply on all that God makes available to us, we become less desperate in our marriage. Your sexual intimacy may not set off fireworks, but it can be a pleasant and nice addition to an already full life. When a guy tells me that sexual intimacy two or three times a week isn’t “enough,” the last thing I’m going to do is lecture his wife to do more; in that instance, especially with young children, he needs to learn how to lessen his expectations. When I talk to a wife who admits to me that she is married to a good man in every way but she’s upset because he doesn’t initiate prayer every night the way her best friend’s husband does, I want to recount (but I don’t) the issues from my last five pastoral counseling sessions to put things in better perspective.

It’s not wrong to want to improve your marriage. And there is a place and process for legitimate requests for change—that’s for another blog post. But it is wrong to live in forgetfulness of all that God offers and to look at your marriage from the perspective of an atheist. It is foolish to make your happiness dependent on the whims and inclinations of a fallen human being.

Expecting to find most of your fulfillment in God means you become thankful for what you have rather than be obsessed over what you don’t. Your spouse may not be your very best friend, but the intimacy you share with God in prayer makes you feel like you’re connecting with someone on a regular basis. Family life might seem routine, but surrendering to the work of the Holy Spirit as He uses you in miraculous ways—calling that friend just when they need a word of encouragement, praying a powerful prayer over a friend or even a stranger, being there at a soccer game when someone just needs to talk—gives you the sense of purpose and meaning you want and need.

Go ahead and keep raising the issue in your marriage; even seek marital counseling when appropriate. Just don’t do any of that forgetting what you do have through Christ and without placing your primary fulfillment on Christ.

Throughout my marriage I have found that the more I receive from God the less I ask of my spouse. God gives us what no spouse ever can. Begin asking more of God because He wants you to (John 14:13) and let your spouse be the “seasoning” in your life, not the main course.

Marriage is very, very good when you first draw down the riches of life in Christ and then sprinkle in the little extras that a spouse offers. It becomes very frustrating when we ask a spouse to be what God designed Himself to be—our main course.

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Celebrating Christmas Your Way, Part 3

In parts ONE and TWO of this series, we looked at how believers can enrich their Christmas celebrations by keeping their preferred sacred pathway(s) in mind. We’re wrapping up the series this week by looking at the pathways of enthusiasts, contemplatives, and intellectuals.

Enthusiasts

Enthusiasts thrive on celebration and mystery, and Christmas can be full of both. During the month of December, it feels like much of the world is celebrating with us during this “most wonderful time of the year.” You’ll probably have Christmas songs playing before Thanksgiving leftovers are consumed. You’ll also likely be the family member pushing others to get the Christmas decorations out as soon as possible.

Because enthusiasts tend to be more relational in their worship (celebration is more fun when you’re sharing it with others), if you’re married to an enthusiast, you best be prepared to attend a songfest or two, church services given over to singing carols, or (in other years, but perhaps not this one due to COVID 19) house parties, and public performances of the Messiah or Nutcracker. If enthusiasts get together with friends and family members they are often hoping for lots of laughter, singing, and celebration—happy times!

Christmas also lends itself to the supernatural mystery that marks many enthusiasts. The popular phrase “it’s a Christmas miracle!” leads right into your preferred pathway. Ask God to help you make a difference in another family’s life, surprising them with food or clothing or gifts. You want to be used by God in ways that go beyond natural understanding—the kind of person who wants to pass on a divine encouragement, offer an unexpected visit at just the right time, or make a phone call exactly when it’s needed. Your “gift giving” may be small but momentous events like these where you hope God will use you in spontaneous and surprising ways to bless others during this holiday season.

The very “act” of Christmas touches both sides of your passion for God—celebrating that something so wondrous happened, and marveling at the mystery: God became a baby? God in flesh? Give yourself time to celebrate and marvel throughout this season.

Contemplatives

Contemplatives are known for the emotional heart of their faith. They major in adoration and are happy to sit at God’s feet and spend much time alone in His presence. Today, Christmas is often viewed as a “busy” season, but over-activity is the death knell of the contemplative’s faith. He or she needs time, space, and quiet to connect with God. You can’t “feel” for your Savior if you are wrapped up in anxiety, a never-ending to-do list, or attending a long string of parties that keep you preoccupied and up late.

Contemplatives will remind themselves and us that Christmas is, above all, an act of love. “For God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son…” (John 3:16). They want to receive Christmas as a statement of love, an act of love, and the embodiment of love. Accordingly, their worship will focus on responding to and returning that love. While others are often singing songs, having parties, buying gifts, attending extra church services, or doing good deeds, the contemplative wants God to know that He still has their heart, their first affection, and their focus, and that they want, more than anything, to spend time alone with Him, looking on His face and drinking up His love.

For instance, they may slip out of a Christmas party and go into the backyard, alone, just to tell Jesus, “I love you.” Their very favorite present to give might be something creative that they offer to God.

In the book Sacred Pathways I recount how, as a teen, I gave an anonymous Christmas Eve gift to a family. The anonymous part was essential for the gift to be received as a gift primarily to God. Contemplatives cherish “secret acts of devotion.” If you’re musical, you may create your own song celebrating the birth of Christ; what makes it an anonymous gift is that it’s a song that you’ll not share with anyone else. You may write a poem and burn it in a holy flame. You may give an anonymous gift to someone in need. Though the “secret acts of devotion” will differ, the motivation will be the same: by giving anonymously, you’re giving one hundred percent to and for God, out of love for God.

If you’re a contemplative, give yourself a few opportunities to meditatively pray through the events surrounding the birth of Christ (Matthew 1:18-2:18; Luke 2:1-40). Take a couple weeks to do this so you don’t have to rush past a single event in the Christmas story. Revel in the love of God that each act exhibits. Consider the love Mary had for Jesus, and the love the baby Jesus had for Mary. What about Joseph? And those who visited Him? Don’t miss the joy and exuberance of the angels.

You can still participate in others’ singing, and gift-giving, and party-attending, but you’ll come out of this season most fulfilled if you come out of it feeling loved and believing you have correspondingly grown in your own love for God.

Intellectuals

One of the best ways to awaken an intellectual’s heart is to engage his or her mind. When intellectuals understand something new about God, they gain greater respect and appreciation for Him and it increases their zeal for worship. The fact that God really did become “man in flesh” matters; not for the sake of argument, but for the sake of wonder. The fact that Jesus was born “of a virgin” matters. They won’t settle for superficial or sentimental agreements, as if truth is an afterthought. They will likely be more precise about the chronological timeline of the Christmas story (such as the delayed arrival of the wise men) and will want to be clear about what actually happened and when. If you set up a nativity scene and they keep moving the wise men out of the manger scene while the shepherds are present, now you know why! (If you’ve read my book, you may remember me recounting three scholars vigorously debating the location of the Sheep Gate in ancient Jerusalem.)

While others are singing the same old Christmas carols, intellectuals are likely to spend their time reading a solid Advent devotional. One option is a book put together by my alma mater, Regent College; The Cradle and the Cross: A Regent College Advent Reader (which I contributed to) can be obtained through the Regent College bookstore (bookstore@regent-college.edu). There’s also a devotional based on the Christmas sermons of Charles Spurgeon; intellectuals know you can’t go wrong with Spurgeon: Joy to the World: Daily Readings for Advent. Popular writers such as Tim Keller, Rick Warren and Paul David Tripp have each written their own advent devotional books, so you’re not likely to run out of new material any time soon.

For family gatherings and celebrations, let the intellectual do a little bit of teaching. My extended family would do this for me, even though I’m sure I got far more out of it than any of them did. Putting thoughts together in a coherent enough fashion to share them with others will help intellectuals enter into a more fervent time of adoration and worship. Intellectuals have to “put up” with more than their share of Christmas carols that aren’t theologically accurate, or depictions that don’t correlate with Scripture (there’s not a single instance of a feminine angel in the Bible).  So if you can give them just a few minutes to put their thoughts in the right place, their hearts will follow.

Putting it All Together

If you’ve still got children at home, consider reading through the past three blog posts together and setting an agenda to worship Jesus this holiday season by incorporating each family member’s personal preference. Letting your children choose their favorite worship activities will help you get to know them, and it will make them feel known and understood. It will also broaden your entire family’s experience of Christmas.

If you’re an intellectual, enthusiast, or contemplative, please share some of your favorite advent practices in the comments section below so that others like you can be inspired to make the most of this holy season.

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