Gary L. Thomas's Blog, page 42

Fire Up Your Soul

Several engineers who met weekly for a barbecue entered into a frenzied rivalry over who could light the charcoal briquettes faster than anyone else. By “lighting the coals,” I don’t mean just getting them started; the black stones had to be white hot and ready for cooking.

After several creative attempts, one engineer blew away the competition by having the coals ready in three seconds.

How did he do it? I’ll tell you if you promise not to try this at home: a ten-foot pole, an ignition device, and carefully applied liquid oxygen.

For me, reading the great Christian classics—devotional books written over the past two thousand years—are “liquid oxygen” to my soul. I don’t want to sound cynical or critical, but when I look left and right, I’m not always inspired by what I see. Many Christians take their faith for granted; others feel downright discouraged. Relatively few seem to walk with a sense of joy, purpose, and passion.

But when I look back—whether it’s the seventh century, or the thirteenth century, or the sixteenth century—I find any number of friends who inspire me with their earnest desire to love and serve God above all else.

I look at it this way: if you’re considering going to a particular college, what’s one of the first things you do? You go online and find student reviews of people who have already been there and who can tell you what it was like. If you want to start a successful franchise, what would you do? You’d probably talk to someone who is already operating one and ask them how it’s going. In the same way, if we want to grow in the Christian faith, why not seek some helpful advice from those who have walked this journey in centuries past?

The Christian classics provide a treasure trove of inspiration for any believer serious about truly discovering what it means to pursue a life of intimacy with God. Taking advantage of these books has been one of the most powerful spiritual disciplines I’ve ever known, something I began in my late teens.

There are some, however, who are, at best, “suspicious” of this practice.

“Enemies” of the Gospel

After I preached at one church, an earnest young man came up to me and said, “What you shared is so important for the church to hear; it was truly inspired. But why did you have to quote enemies of the Gospel to make your point?”

I sighed.

I had quoted Francis of Assisi and an Eastern Orthodox monk.

“Francis couldn’t very well have been a Calvinist, could he?” I asked, “seeing as how Calvin wasn’t even born until Francis had been dead for almost three hundred years. And while evangelicals certainly have disagreements with certain points of Eastern Orthodox theology, do you really want to write off the wisdom this wing of the church has gained over the past two millennia?”

My final admonition was this: “Do you truly want to limit your reading to the ‘three Johns’—Calvin, MacArthur, and Piper? While I have enormous respect for the Reformed tradition, I have gained so very much from reading widely and seeing how different generations and different Christian perspectives have broadened my understanding of the journey of faith.”

I believe it is silly for us to avoid the devotional writings of ancient Roman Catholics (many of whom wrote before the Protestant church was even born) or Eastern Orthodox Christians. From the perspective of systematic theology (biblical doctrine), I don’t agree theologically with everything that John of the Cross or John Climacus writes, but their devotion fans into flame the burning embers of my faith.

Ralph Venning, a renowned Puritan preacher from the seventeenth century, actually urged his church members to read John Goodwin’s A Being Filled, even though Goodwin was a thoroughgoing Arminian (and thus at odds with Venning’s theological Calvinism). He explained, “Though I confess myself not to be of the same mind and opinion with the learned author in some other controverted points, yet I cannot but give my testimony concerning this piece, that I find an excellent spirit moving on the face, and acting in the heart of it, to promote the glory of God, the power of godliness, and consequently the good of men, especially of Christian men.”

William Law, a 17th century Anglican, chastised his fellow Englishmen for neglecting the Christian classics:

Why then must the Bible lie alone in your study? Is not the spirit of the Saints, the piety of the holy followers of Jesus Christ, as good and necessary a means of entering into the spirit and taste of the gospel as the reading of the ancients is of entering into the spirit of antiquity?

Is the spirit of poetry only to be got by much reading of poets and orators? And is not the spirit of devotion to be got in the same way, by frequent reading the holy thoughts and pious strains of devout men?…Is it not…reasonable for him who desires to improve in the divine life, that is, in the heavenly things, to search after every strain of devotion that may move, kindle, and inflame the holy ardor of his soul?

Devotional reading differs from doctrinal reading in that we’re not looking for answers to controversial theological questions, but rather for insight into the ways of God with women and men. That’s why Law urges us to find the classic writers who can “inflame the holy ardor” of our souls.

The practice of pious readings not only inflames us with John of the Cross’s passion for God, John Climacus’s willingness to discipline himself for God, William Law’s commitment to progress daily in God, Madame Guyon’s submission to God, and Teresa of Avila’s contemplative devotion for God, but it also chips away at our personal prejudices. I rarely hear a sermon that talks about pride with the same seriousness that you read about it in the classics.

Years ago, Dr. James Houston, a professor of spirituality at Regent College, encouraged us seminarians to read Teresa of Avila. Why? Because she was as different from most of us as anyone could possibly be. She was from another country, another century, and another tradition. She was female, and most of us were male. She wrote The Interior Castle near the end of her life, and most of us were at the beginning of ours. She could provide answers to questions we didn’t even know to ask.

I found Teresa’s commitment to prayerful intimacy with God very challenging. Prayer was often a battle cry for me until Teresa urged me to settle down and seek an intimacy far removed from works. It was natural for Teresa, a woman, to seek to become the bride of Christ, but how could I, a male, have the same intimacy in a different way?

Teresa couldn’t fully answer this question for me, though she pointed me in the right direction; but I found some additional assistance in the works of Andrew Murray, a rather modern writer if judged by the standards of the classics. Soon my prayer wasn’t just “Thy kingdom come—today!” but “My precious Lord, I want to be often and long alone with You.”

Every Christian needs other Christians to point out new possibilities of faith and growth. None of us is so advanced as to be a self-sufficient “spiritual machine” that has a monopoly on our understanding of the Christian life. When I read the classics, I’m challenged by the fire and holy passion burning in the souls of men and women who ached to know God as intimately as He can be known.

Practicing a Lost Art

Because reading the classics as part of our spiritual training is practically a lost art, mentioning some basic practices may be helpful. The first thing to remember is that devotional reading is not solely an intellectual exercise; its aim is the active transformation of the heart. James Houston has said that most damnation comes not through ignorance but in keeping things in our heads instead of our hearts.

We read with our hearts by allowing God to challenge our attitudes, our reactions, and our emotions. Your mind may be tempted to dismiss a convicting truth because, surrounding it, you are able to spot a single theological error or weakness, or perhaps because the author is using an outdated method of biblical application. Don’t fall into this trap. Devotional reading is meant to challenge the inner soul. I read systematic theology to find out how to think correctly, but I read the classics to measure the temperature of my heart.

The second thing to remember is that it’s usually more profitable to read a good book two or three times than to read five mediocre books. I realize that all of us have different learning styles, but very few of us can “own” a book—in the sense that its truth becomes part of us—after one quick reading. Devotional books need to be read and reread slowly, so that we can ponder their ideas and thoughts.

The third thing to remember is that, unlike scriptural reading, we need to be wary of the writer’s limited perspective. William Law’s later book, The Spirit of Love, has a considerably different emphasis than his Serious Call. The norm is that a writer will sound very legalistic in the early years and then in the later years mature into a more grace-filled approach stressing intimacy with God over-zealous works. It helps to know where a writer is on his or her journey so you can provide a biblical balance. The classics are inspiring, but they are not inspired, and thus need to be read with a discerning eye.

The fourth thing to remember is that God can play beautiful music through dented instruments. When we encounter spiritual writings, our tendency may be to completely reject a writer’s particular emphasis rather than find the truth that his or her side represents. It would be easy for us to read John Climacus’s account of the monastic “prison” in which painful acts of penance are performed in a virtual torture chamber, become horrified by the self-abuse that was carried on in the name of Christianity, and dismiss it out of hand. Or we can be challenged by seeing how earnestly other Christians have sought to be rid of sin. We may disagree entirely with their method, but we can learn a great deal from their motivation.

There’s another aspect to this that I find fascinating. When I read Johannes Tauler’s sermons, I’m reading homilies that Martin Luther himself read and studied, calling them “pure theology”. Just about everybody, of course, read Augustine. When I read Madame Guyon, I’m reading a book that John Wesley and Count Zinzendorf both found immensely fruitful. When I read Spiritual Combat by Lorenzo Scupoli, I’m reading a book that Francis DeSales carried with him, daily, for 18 years. Fenelon mentions De Sales by name in his classic Christian Perfection. Which means Augustine inspired Scupoli, who taught DeSales, who challenged Fenelon, who now teaches us. This kind of thing amazes me and connects me to the history of God’s working among His people.

Next week’s post will have my own personal collection of recommended classics. In the meantime, you may also want to check out Thirsting for God, a book I wrote to present some of the most common themes from the Christian classics.

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Published on July 22, 2020 03:30

Cherishing Lisa Awake

Before I set the bar of my marriage at cherishing my wife, I thought I had run into an unsolvable conundrum.

It had to do with waking up Lisa.

I’m a morning person, to an extreme. It’s a very good morning for me if I wake up, look at the clock, and see the first number is a “5.” Far more often it’s a “4” or even (sigh) a “3.” Once I’m awake, it’s very difficult to go back to sleep, so I usually lay there for twenty minutes and then just get up.

Lisa is definitely not a morning person. She doesn’t like the jarring sound of an alarm clock or even any of the 57 noise/music options on her phone, so she usually asks me to do the waking. Years ago, this put me in a sore spot because, not being a morning person, Lisa doesn’t like waking up. And that whole thing about not shooting the messenger? You can imagine.

But if I didn’t wake her up, she’d be angry at me for her getting a slow start to her day.

Thus my dilemma: wake her up and get slammed for waking her up. Don’t wake her up and get slammed for not waking her up.

I thought I couldn’t win until I figured out it was basically about the way I was waking her up. Decades into our marriage, I think I’ve got it down. Open one shade (not two or three) so the morning light can slowly seep in. Touch her cheek, then kiss her cheek. Don’t go into the banter that I think is hilarious: “Good morning Lisa! You don’t have to sleep anymore! You get to wake up! Aren’t you glad sleep time is over!” Lisa never gets the humor that seems so impressive to me. It’s taken years, but I’ve gotten over it.

But here’s the thing: it takes me maybe a minute to do this and Lisa feels cherished first thing in the morning. What used to be a source of contention is now a source of intimacy.

Every marriage has these simple little things we can do that make our spouse feel cherished, and they’re not that hard. If your goal is simply to love (be faithful, committed, loyal, serve) your spouse, you can avoid something that seems “extra” because your focus is only on fulfilling your duty rather than delighting in your spouse. Cherish raises the bar.

Lisa was at a gathering of wives that got somewhat explicit when one woman said there’s a particular sexual favor her husband just loves. “But do you like doing that?” the other wife asked.

“It makes him so happy” the first wife responded.

When Lisa recounted this to me, I was struck by the way this cherishing wife got to the real issue: Instead of answering, “Do you like this,” she responded, “This makes my husband happy. This makes my husband feel cherished.” To her, that was the issue.

Of course, in a marriage marked by abuse or sexual demands/manipulation, this could be taken the wrong way. In a healthy marriage, a wife doing something that her husband really enjoys is a way for her to say, “I like making you feel cherished.”

So, whether it’s first thing in the morning or the last thing at night, find those “little things” that make your spouse feel cherished. If you truly cherish your spouse, the fact that these acts make them feel cherished is all the motivation you’ll need.

Cherish Challenge Week Five

Read (or listen to) chapter 6 in Cherish.Following the model of how God indulges Jerusalem (discussed in chapter 6), ask yourself, “When is the last time I did something to indulge my spouse?”Ask your spouse, “What do I do that makes you feel especially cherished?”Please, share your practical testimonies with us about how a blog post, chapter, and exercise in the Cherish Challenge is positively impacting your marriage. We want to feature your stories! Share on the Cherish Challenge web page.

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Published on July 22, 2020 03:30

Beauty is a Blessing

Lisa and I were shopping in one of her stores years ago when I heard a song that stopped me in my tracks. The voice was ethereal and enchanting. I fired up Shazam and discovered I was listening to Nina Gordon.

Nina became one of my favorite female singers (she’s also part of a hard rock group I’m not nearly as fond of). Lisa knows my iPod is filled with a few dozen Nina Gordon songs. And Lisa’s level of jealousy over my enjoyment of Nina’s intoxicating voice is zero on a scale of one to ten, even though singing isn’t really one of Lisa’s strengths.

Few people would say it is a sin for me to enjoy Nina’s music. If I’m running and one of her songs comes up on my playlist, making me go “yes!” I can’t imagine anyone would think I’m “cheating” on Lisa

But what if I enjoyed Nina’s beauty?

Would that be a sin?

Some women (and men) seem to think so. I’ve heard descriptions of “lust” reduced to, “My husband shouldn’t even find other women attractive.” You might as well say, “My husband should be a piece of granite.”

The problem is, God didn’t create your husband to be a piece of granite. God created your husband to be a man. And most men enjoy feminine beauty.

There is a major difference between appreciating beauty and lusting after a woman, but I fear some are so hurt, wounded, and offended that they can’t allow for such a distinction.

Part of me thinks this is such an explosive discussion that more a discerning writer would just step around it, but I trust we have a strong enough connection by now to address this as it does have an impact on what it means to cherish our spouse, and just as important, to make our spouse feel cherished by us. In order for our spouse to feel he or she is our “Adam” or “Eve,” is it necessary for us to be blind to any other person’s beauty?

Abuse Doesn’t Negate the Use

There’s a famous Latin phrase, absus non tollit usum, which roughly translated means “the abuse does not invalidate the proper use.” Just because something can be abused doesn’t mean it can’t be properly used. And that’s the mindset by which I believe we have to understand the allure of beauty.

In the Bible, God celebrates beauty:

Ezekiel 16:14 “Then your fame went forth among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of My splendour which I bestowed on you,” declares the LORD God.

The psalmist exalts the beauty of the queen: “Let the King be enthralled by your beauty,” and goes on to mention an entire nation, indeed, an entire world, being enthralled with her (Psalm 45).

God exalts Tyre for once being “full of wisdom and perfect in beauty” (Ezekiel 28:12).

To say beauty is a blessing isn’t to say we should define our wives by their beauty or make their physical appearance what we value most about them. If my daughter hears one more young pastor talk about his “smoking hot wife” she is going to walk out of the service, right then and there. And, of course, Peter is adamant that a woman’s beauty should come from her character, not outward adornment (1 Peter 3:3-4).

It’s thus quite possible to take this “beauty is a blessing” thing too far. But I wonder if some elements of the church have undercut how enthralled men can be by beauty and have treated this God-given creational reality as a result of the fall because they think the abuse nullifies the use.

A British playwright once said that the most beautiful thing a man will ever see is a naked woman (he added that the most beautiful thing a woman will ever see is her firstborn child) and I think he was a man who understood men. All forms of beauty are wonderful, but a woman’s beauty is…different.

Going back to the Latin phrase that the abuse does not undercut the proper use, one of the dangers of things like porn and lust is that they are so limiting. For example, my friend’s wife can enjoy a glass of red wine without wanting to drink the entire bottle or even a second glass. “In fact, most times,” he tells me, “she doesn’t even finish the first glass.” This wife can use wine without abusing wine, which allows her to enjoy it as an appropriate pleasure. But if she ever drank to feel buzzed, the use of that wine would become abuse and she’d be wise to avoid alcohol altogether. A guy with a history of “abusing” beauty is a fool if he lets proper use (for spiritually healthy minds) lead him back into a prior pattern of abuse—looking to lust.

Philosopher Dr. J. Budziszewski wrote an entire chapter on “The Meaning of Sexual Beauty” in which he admits that for men, “women seem to glow in more hues than men do, and in different ones. The spectrum is wider, the world has more music and color, just because there are women in it.” Distinct feminine beauty is thus a good thing, what God created men to experience.

He then uses an analogy of classical ballet, pointing out that a man is “affected by the grace of the woman’s movements in an entirely different manner than by the strength of the man’s, but it isn’t about wanting to have sex with her.” I could be mesmerized by a ballerina’s grace, beauty, athleticism, and body, in a way I’d never be mesmerized by a man, without thinking, “I wish I could sleep with her.” So I can appreciate her without lusting after her.

But, there’s a “but.” Budziszewski admits that if I ponder that ballerina’s beauty too long and too intensely, sexual feelings may arise.

If, husband, you have a track record of pornography that has greatly grieved your wife, if you have a constant “neck problem” that regularly insults your wife, please do not take this post as permission to tell your wife “all men like to look and there’s nothing wrong with it.” You’re trying to excuse abuse by someone else’s legitimate use and that’s not what we’re talking about. That’s like an alcoholic insisting he can hang out in bars because “there’s nothing technically wrong with that.” All our actions should be centered around making our spouse feel cherished and honored and for our wives to feel like Eve, “My dove, my perfect one, my only one” (Song of Songs 6:9).

Beauty can be appreciated without it always being about sex. But this doesn’t mean appreciating beauty can’t lead it to become about sex. “A wise man governs his eyes, not because it is wrong to delight in beauty,” Budziszewski writes, “but because otherwise his delight may suffer transmutation into something very different.”

How Do We Use Without Abusing?

One of my beloved classic writers, John Climacus (579-649), suggests that properly appreciating a woman’s beauty can lead to worship. He wrote of Nonnus, the bishop of Heliopolis. “Having looked on a body of great beauty, he at once gave praise to its Creator and after one look was stirred to love God.” Recognizing the deeper truth he was witnessing, Climacus remarked, “It was marvelous how something that could have brought low one person managed to be the cause of a heavenly crown for another.”

This is where the gift of worship comes in, for “to the pure, all things are pure” (Titus 1:15). If a woman’s physical beauty stops me in my tracks the same way that first Nina Gordon song does, I can worship God for being such a brilliant creator.

If I’m not in a healthy state spiritually and sexually, however, I’m more likely to respond in a spiritually unhealthy way. A worshipful heart allows us to enter into a genuine, soul-satisfying appreciation of beauty without wanting to exploit it. There is a world of difference between appreciating a beautiful body and sexualizing, dehumanizing, and selfishly wanting to “consume” that beauty for our own pleasure.

Next to worship, I make sure to remind myself that in God’s creative genius, sex and love are part of the same package. With love, sexual interest is to be mutually enjoyed in lifelong marriage. When we remove love from sex, we risk fostering an addiction in our own souls and guarantee abusing the person we are selfishly lusting after.

Psychologist Patrick Carnes warns that, “Anything that is exploitive or harmful to others or degrades oneself will activate the addictive system.” If you separate sexual interest from love and begin to look lustfully you will either create or strengthen an addiction. Healthy sex brings healing, pleasure, and intimacy, but exploitive sex brings addiction and the loss of control.

If someone knew you were watching them or sexualizing them in your mind, would they feel violated? If so, you’re acting out. The ”use” has become “abuse.” A spouse may present herself to her husband with provocative clothing because she wants to excite him. An anonymous woman on the beach, at the grocery store, or running in the neighborhood isn’t inviting your sexual interest. And don’t think she can’t tell. In When to Walk Away I recount this true anecdote: “A good friend of mine is married to a beautiful woman. He noticed one time that a customer at the checkout line was mentally addressing her with a brazen stare. They talked about it on the way home and she confessed, ‘It happens all the time. And yes, it feels like rape. It is a violation. I can feel it.’” Lust has a spiritual quality to it that’s creepy and real. It’s not as invisible as men think, at least not to the spiritually discerning. Men don’t talk about this enough, but women sure feel it.

This, then, is the protective “guardrail” of appreciation: as a Christian who worships God, we should know that love and sex are a package deal. And we should never separate them. When you separate sexual interest from love, you open the door to all manner of horrors.

Men, on our journey to cherish our wives and honor them as “Eve,” the only woman in the world we will ever look at in that way, let’s celebrate the “use” of beauty as a blessing that reflects God’s creative genius while guarding against the abuse: looking too long and too intensely in a way that leads to damnable abuse. God gave us men eyes that are designed to be utterly captivated by our wives throughout their lives (Proverbs 5:18-19). That’s the proper use of beauty. But he also gave us minds to figure out when the proper use becomes abuse.

It’s worth pointing out that when we teach this to younger men, we have to emphasize that the “problem” is never the woman’s beauty. It’s the man’s focus. If asking a man not to notice is to ask him to become a piece of granite, asking a woman to try to appear less beautiful so she doesn’t “cause” him to stumble is asking her to become a piece of granite, which God never created her to become. The problem isn’t her beauty; that’s a blessing.

Famed novelist Robert Louis Stevenson rightly called out early missionary efforts to clothe indigenous races. He believed this was “infecting” them with the “beastliness” of our own sexual hang-ups. The same warning exists today whenever we talk about “modesty.” Of course we all want to dress with appropriate decorum. But my hang-ups shouldn’t be used to limit any woman’s wardrobe. Nor should women be guilted into catering to the lowest common denominator of men who haven’t learned how to control their lust.

Learning to cherish my wife as my Eve (or a woman cherishing her husband as Adam) will help us have a healthy basis with which to appreciate beauty without being ruined by abusing beauty.

Cherish Challenge Week 4

Read (or listen to) chapter 5 in Cherish.Talk about the comfort you have, as a couple, in “noticing” other people. If your spouse feels insecure because of your past misbehavior, hear him/her out. Remember, the important thing isn’t “maintaining your rights,” it’s making your spouse feel cherished. You may not be able to stop “noticing” but you can change the way you notice, and if you want your spouse to feel cherished, that needs to be taken into account.After reading chapter 5 in Cherish, root out any markers of “contempt” in your relationship. Ask your spouse if there is anything you’re doing that even smells like contempt.Think about John Gottman’s insight; “Being mean is the death knell of relationships.”Let us know how pursuing cherish has helped you appreciate your spouse and rooted out contempt. You can do that in the comments below and/or on our Cherish Challenge webpage here.

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Published on July 15, 2020 03:30

A Lifelong Journey Toward a Cherishing Marriage

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If you’ve read Cherish, you may remember the story of Laura and Curt. As a five-year-old girl, Laura stood on the sidewalk wearing a “fancy dress” she had picked out to welcome her daddy home from work, but he never did return. That jarring experience—being all dressed up, eagerly anticipating her father, and then being let down—stamped Laura’s brain and did a number on her self-esteem, as if she wasn’t “worth” coming home to. Her parents’ divorce soon followed, and Laura saw her dad just two brief times before he died. She was sixteen years old at the time of his death and never had a relationship with him, leaving her with a wounded heart.

Before she got married, Laura told Curt, her soon-to-be husband, that she didn’t care how much money he made or how big of a house they lived in; she just wanted to be cherished. To his credit, Curt learned that cherishing a woman who had been left standing on the curb as a young girl meant leaving work on time. Laura’s dad may not have thought she was “worth” coming home to, but by his actions Curt has told Laura, thousands of times now, that as a wife she’s so wonderful he can’t wait to take her into his arms. Laura had me near tears when she explained, “The best part of my day is in the evening when I hear the garage door opener click on and I know my man is coming home to me.” In the book I make the connection that Laura’s gifting as a Bible teacher, hostess and friend who lights up the room is evidence of how being cherished can help us overcome deep childhood wounds.

Curt and Laura have now been married more than forty years, but the journey toward cherishing each other continues. This is a great post to show us how, even though we may have been convicted by the call to cherish our spouse in the past, we need to keep winning the “mental battles” that war against our earlier decision.

This particular event happened on a Tuesday. Curt was supposed to do something that day, so at dinner Laura asked him if he had done it.

“Oh, no,” Curt said. “I forgot.”

Laura told me, “Fleshly Laura immediately thinks, ‘Well, he doesn’t forget things he has to do for work…’” but she chose not to dwell on it and let it go, at least for the evening.

The next morning, Laura faced a dilemma: should she remind Curt to do what they talked about last night that he had forgotten to do? It was time sensitive and really needed to get done. Her words again: “Fleshly Laura strongly rises up and says to herself, ‘why should you remind him? Just let him forget again and have to face the consequences!’” Part of those consequences would have been knowing he had let Laura down, and since Curt truly does cherish Laura, it would cause him considerable pain to know he had done that.

But fortunately “fleshly Laura” is no match for the redeemed believer Spirit-led Laura. “Whoosh! The Holy Spirit whispers one word to me and I am quickened: cherish. My choices are now crystal clear. Don’t remind him and let him ‘get what he deserves’ or graciously come alongside and nicely mention it so that he has the opportunity to follow through and not fall on his face.”

This is such a real description of internal dialogue we face in marriage every day, isn’t it? Are we setting our spouse up to fail or to succeed? The word “cherish” became a reminder to Laura that she wants to set up her husband to succeed.

Laura wrote to me, “Well, Gary, the ‘one word that changes everything for your marriage’ did its work. I immediately confessed my sin for even considering a course of action that may intentionally have brought hurt to my husband. And here’s the best part: before I could remind him, he said that he had done it. Silence saved me from hurting him! He has no idea the battle that fleshly Laura had with Spirit-minded Laura. But praise God for that one well-timed whisper from the Spirit, cherish.”

I want to thank Laura for her vulnerability, because after I asked her if I could print her words in a blog post, she had to confess to Curt what had gone on inside her! And she took one for the team—for you all—by agreeing to go public, knowing she’d have to confess to Curt what had been going on inside her.

By letting us into her own internal battle, Laura points all of us toward continually choosing to cherish. It’s not a one-time decision. You may have read and been convicted by the book, but then stopped cherishing your spouse. That helps your marriage about as much as running a marathon in 2018 helps your physical health today. That’s why we’re inviting couples to make this the “summer of cherish.” We want to help you make cherishing a pattern of your relationship, even if you’ve read the book or attended a Cherish seminar.

Let’s encourage each other to keep raising the bar of our marriages and learn in the nitty gritty of daily married life what it truly means to cherish our beloved.

Cherish Challenge Week Three

Read this blog post along with chapter 4 of CherishSpend some time by yourself in prayer, asking God to reveal your own mental battles that keep you from cherishing. Have you been winning or losing these battles? How can the mental reminder of the word “cherish” keep you focused?We’d love it if you would share a quick sentence or two about how the word “cherish” has kept you moving toward your spouse when you were tempted to move away. You can do that in the comments below and/or on our Cherish Challenge web page here.After reading chapter 4 of Cherish share with each other what in your marriage makes you feel most honored and then most dishonored.

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Published on July 08, 2020 03:30

Love Like You Mean It

I state clearly in Cherish
that love and cherishing don’t compete; they complement each other. Growing in
our understanding of what love is and how to love each other will strengthen
our ability to cherish our spouse. This month marks the release of one of the
most engaging and convicting marriage books I’ve ever read: Love Like You
Mean It by Bob Lepine. This book focuses on love, but in a way most of us
have never thought of. I was honored to write the foreword for this book and am
including it here. I hope all of you will check out Bob’s incredible work.

When
Lisa and I married, I had known her since she was just twelve years old (but I
thought she was fourteen at the time). We had been in the same Sunday school
class, we had been on church camping trips together—including a fifty-mile
canoe trip—and I had mopped the floors at Herfy’s Hefty Burgers while she
laughed and didn’t believe me when I insisted I usually got to cook the
burgers. We sat in early morning college classes together, including an
excruciatingly boring linguistics class that Lisa, of course, excelled in, and
had been through the calendar several times: a day spent playing in the snow at
Mt. Baker, autumn walks in the leaves surrounding Sehome Hill Arboretum, spring
bonfires on Bellingham Bay; and summer evenings in our respective hometowns. We
had gone to watch the state high school cross country championships (which Lisa
didn’t think was a date but I did); we had been to numerous church services and
Campus Christian Fellowship meetings; she had encouraged me when I was shocked
and saddened and processing it by volunteering at a Keith Green memorial
concert together. Put all of this together, and I had seen Lisa in just about
every form of dress, climate, and activity (acceptable for Christ followers) two
people could do and yet…

And
yet on our wedding day she just looked so different.

Watching
her walk up the aisle I wondered, how could someone so familiar be so
excitingly new? It wasn’t just that she was wearing more makeup than usual
(she’s not much of a makeup person, to be honest; she has a natural beauty all
her own); but I had never seen her in a wedding dress, never seen her walking
up a church aisle to join her hand in mine, and after a few heartfelt promises say
those wonderful words “I do” kiss me on the lips.

I got a little bit of the same feeling reading Bob Lepine’s Love Like You Mean It. I’ve read so many marriage books I’ve almost become inoculated against their advice. The “Christian marriage book” has practically become a trope. But I was challenged by virtually every paragraph of Bob’s marvelous book as if I was reading a Christian marriage book for the very first time.

For instance, rarely has an author grabbed me in the first two paragraphs like Bob does here:

Nobody knows who said it first. But the statement is still true. “Everybody wants to go to heaven. But nobody wants to die.” The premise of this book is similar. Everybody wants a marriage that is filled with love. But nobody wants to die to self.

The entire book is wise,
seasoned and mature. You can tell Bob (who has guest hosted the Family Life
Today broadcast for decades) has spoken to many couples and heard from the
church’s leading and most cherished authors because he takes the best of them and
then elevates their advice to the next level. That’s what I found so
amazing about this book.

Another thing that struck me is that because this book is essentially exposition (going through a Bible passage word by word), it carries a power and conviction that so many books simply lack. This isn’t a book that comes about from clever marketing gimmicks, or seeks to repackage familiar content with stylish or hip language, or that is based on Bob’s opinion of what marriages need today. He draws on a very familiar passage (1 Cor. 13:4ff) but makes it sound and feel astonishingly new—just like Lisa looked to me on our wedding day.

Most
marriage books begin and end with what the author thinks is most important:
communication, conflict resolution, sexual intimacy, finances, parenting, etc. Love
Like You Mean It begins and ends with God’s definition of love and that’s
what makes it so powerful. In the end, if we pursue love and grow in love (as
God defines it) most conflicts, communication issues, sexual issues, financial
concerns etc. can be addressed in an entirely new way with an entirely new
power from an entirely new platform.

Even
if you’ve read every marriage book published in the last twenty years, you’ll
still find new inspiration, encouragement, challenge, conviction and
God-breathed hope and wisdom in this fine work. That’s why I’m so delighted to
recommend it to all believers who want to look at marriage and love—two very
familiar words—and rediscover both of them in a an entirely new light: God’s
light.

Cherish Challenge Week
2

Read chapter 3 of CherishAfter reading chapter 3 of Cherish, ask your spouse how you can help set them up to succeed in the coming week (or month). Use the “ballet is woman” analogy to figure out how to showcase your spouse.Ask each other if there is another couple (or small group) you want to invite to do this Cherish challenge with you. Sometimes, talking about it as couples instead of just as a couple helps foster new ideas. People can sign-up for this challenge at any time—there’s no deadline. After you’ve discovered how to showcase your spouse and put it into practice, let us know how it went! Email us using the submission box here.

I’ve gotten a few messages from couples asking if they need to sign up to take part in the Cherish Challenge? I just wanted to clarify that this summer long experience is absolutely FREE!

Each weekly challenge will be posted to my social media accounts and webpage on Mondays, blogs will be uploaded to my website on Wednesdays, and Cherish Challenge email updates will be sent out on Fridays.

If you would like to receive these email updates as well as my weekly blog newsletters, please be sure to subscribe to my email list. This can be done in the sidebar to the right.

If you would like to be entered into the drawing to win some of the prizes we are giving away at the end of the summer, please submit a photo of you and your spouse (optional) and a testimony (optional) on the Cherish Challenge webpage.

You can also find any additional information about the challenge there as well: Cherish Challenge 2020

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Published on July 01, 2020 03:30

Delicious Difference

I
have sought to suck the marrow out of life. Since I am married for life, I want
to be intensely married, to explore it, to understand it, to experience
it to the full extent that I can. In order to do that, I need the courage to delight
in the differences between women and men.

My eyes were freshly reopened to this by natural philosopher Dr. J. Budziszewski, a Yale educated professor of philosophy at the University of Texas. In his book On the Meaning of Sex he philosophically but poetically broadened my understanding of marriage as God created it, which I am so enthralled by. And that is because as a man I am married to a woman. I was created to be fascinated by the wholly other, my wife.

We
often fear to discuss the differences between men and women because they can be
so politicized and we avoid appropriate conversations because they can be so polarized.
Let’s put those discussions aside for a moment so that we can address how literal
differences play out in marriage in a good, healthy, God designed way. This
isn’t about power, roles or influence; it’s about understanding how two people
can become radically one. We needn’t be afraid to admit what nature and science
says is obvious.

Dr.
Bud (Sorry, Dr. Budziszewski, but I simply can’t keep typing out your full name;
it takes me ten minutes to get it right and it is driving my spellcheck
absolutely insane) uses the work of neuroscientists to affirm that “the
cliché that variation within each sex is greater than variation between the
sexes is simply false.”

The
brain science behind this is too large to repeat here but let me give you a
taste: “Large parts of the brain cortex are thicker in women than in men.
Ratios of gray to white matter vary, too. The hippocampus, which plays a role
in memory and spatial navigation, takes up a greater proportion of the female
brain than of the male brain. On the other hand, the CA1 region of the
hippocampus is larger in the male…The right and left hemispheres are more
interconnected in female brains than in male ones…The amygdala, involved in
emotion and emotional memory is larger in men, but the deep limbic system,
which is also involved in emotion, is larger in women…” These differences
are evidenced-based and God designed.

Dr.
Bud lists double this amount of neuroscience, but since this is just a
blog post, not a book (I’m happy to recommend his book if you want to read more),
this should be sufficient to make the point that this isn’t about any specific opinion,
it’s about the reality of neuroscience. One of Dr. Bud’s students tried to
argue (for political and social purposes) that except for our genitals, men and
women are identical, to which he responds, “our brains are even more
different than the rest of our bodies.”

Understanding
this research makes me appreciate marriage as much as it makes me appreciate my
wife. There is so much I can learn from my wife as God designed us, to
better understand her, to study her and learn from this aspect of her humanity
that is simply not natural to me.

This
also isn’t to slam singleness at all. Pointing out that parenting shapes you
like nothing else ever will isn’t to deny that there are other ways to be
shaped (just talk to someone who has actually fought in combat, or gone through
cancer, etc.). What this does tell me is that being married as a man to a
woman affects me in ways that male friendship never could. And that’s by
God’s design. It is spiritually good for me and I need to lean into it.

Dr.
Karl Barth, a famous early twentieth century theologian, stressed that just as
the full image of God is displayed when male and female come together in
marriage, so the fullness of relational intimacy is experienced in the
differences between women and men. Dr. Bud calls this the “duality of nature. Manhood
and womanhood reflect the same human nature, and with equal fidelity and
dignity, but they reflect different facets of it.” My soul is enriched and my
world is broadened when I experience my marriage in this context.

The
two ways to distort this glorious truth of our duality is to attach value to
biology by saying different must mean inferior (on the part of one or the
other) or to assume that “because the sexes do have equal worth, they must be
exactly the same.” Both of those points are demonstrably untrue—to science and
reason. They are both born out of power plays and political agendas. We should
yearn for the poetry of marriage, delighting in God’s creation. Our differences
are a gift to us, though they may not always feel like it.

When
Dr. Bud speaks of “polaric complementarity” he highlights a beautiful truth
that enriches our understanding of marriage: “Each sex completes what the other
lacks and helps bring the other into balance.”

Instead
of wishing Lisa was something other than what she is, I can recognize that she
completes what I lack and helps bring me into balance. That sounds beautiful to
me.
As a pastor, I’ve seen some women resent men for being men, for acting like
men, for thinking like men, for responding like men. I tried to address this in
my book Loving Him Well, for instance, when I talk about the different
ways that male brains and female brains express empathy. For example, in times
of stress, many women really do think the female tendency to “mirror” hurt is
relationally superior to the male tendency to try to “fix” or “solve” hurt. Hilarious
videos about this have made all of us laugh (“It’s Not About the Nail” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg).

Brain
science suggests mirroring and fixing are two complementary forms of
expressing empathy. One brain primarily acknowledges the pain (which
is important for the other person to feel understood) while the other seeks to solve
the problem. It’s a better world when empathy is expressed by feeling and
doing. Because Christian marriage is the joining of male and female, we don’t
have to choose one over the other. We and our children can have both. We don’t
have to fight over the “superior” response. We can marvel, appreciate, and
respect our differences (but I still believe husbands need to learn how to
mirror empathy first, or our wives will never feel cherished and understood).

Dr.
Bud warns that those who militantly argue (for the sake of politics or
theology) that men and women should be seen as identical in every way lest
power be expressed in unfortunate ways, often end up devaluing women, in this
sense: “The underlying wish is that both sexes would be men, but that some of
these men would look like women.” I don’t want to be married to a man who looks
like a woman; I want to be married to my “Eve,” so different and lovely in all
the right ways, difference that is delicious to my soul in every way.

You
can take this too far, of course, so couples need to be careful that they don’t
let stereotypes define their own relationship, which is unique. While it is
undeniably and scientifically true that women everywhere (across all cultures)
“tend to have much higher survey scores than men in nurturance or
tender-mindedness” and “also show greater sensitivity to emotion” and that “men
are in general more assertive” it is also true that “any given woman may be
more assertive than most men.” Dr. Bud doesn’t use this language, but I think
it’s fair to summarize him as saying that this is the exception that proves the
rule. “The fact that most women are more nurturing than most men
is much more than an accident. It arises from a genuine difference in the
underlying reality, the difference between womanhood and manhood as such.” But
a successful marriage is based on the brains two people have, not the brains
that most genders are assumed to have.

I
am saddened that we can’t talk about these marvelous differences without
falling into heated arguments about power and roles in both marriage and the church.
I believe what Bud is talking about could be respected and enjoyed by both
egalitarians and complementarians. It could enrich everyone’s marriage. I’m
not trying to help either side win an argument; I just want wives to be in awe
that they get to be married to a man, and for husbands to be grateful to God
that they get to be married to a woman and seek to learn all they can from
God’s design for marriage.

It’s
one thing to say that women are different; it’s another thing for me to say,
“I’m glad you’re different. I need your difference. Your
difference makes me a better and more complete person.”

I’m
sure I haven’t done justice to Dr. Bud’s fine essay, as he is able to go into
much greater detail and obviously displays philosophical skills that far
outnumber mine. But I do hope this will draw couples together in a world
determined to pull us apart.

For
week one of our “Cherish Challenge,” let’s remind ourselves that an essential
cornerstone of building a cherishing marriage is cherishing (rather than
resenting or denying) our spouse’s differences.

Cherish Challenge Week One (If you didn’t read last week’s post launching the Cherish Challenge, you can find it here Raising the Bar for Our Marriages

Read this blog post together along with
chapters 1 and 2 of Cherish. Spend a date night or date afternoon talking
about your differences—the way you talk, the way you think, the way you respond
to stress. Apologize to your spouse if you have resented
him/her for acting like a person who is different. Listen if your spouse wants
to tell you how they have felt devalued in part for being who God created them
to be Tell your spouse at least three things you
appreciate about him/her being different than you

I’ve
gotten a few messages from couples asking if they need to sign up to take part
in the Cherish Challenge? I just wanted to clarify that this summer long
experience is absolutely FREE!

Each
weekly challenge will be posted to my social media accounts and webpage on Mondays,
blogs will be uploaded to my website on Wednesdays, and Cherish Challenge email
updates will be sent out on Fridays.

If you would like to receive these email updates as well as my weekly blog newsletters, please be sure to subscribe to my email list. This can be done in the sidebar to the right.

If you would like to be entered into the drawing to win some of the prizes we are giving away at the end of the summer, please submit a photo of you and your spouse (optional) and a testimony (optional) on the Cherish Challenge webpage.

You can also find any additional information about the challenge there as well: Cherish Challenge 2020

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Published on June 24, 2020 08:00

Raising the Bar for Our Marriages

Sheri
and Chad both have naturally strong personalities that occasionally “led to
much conflict in our marriage, as we each tried to figure out love, life and
parenting in the last 27 years.” It got so difficult at one point that Sheri
began asking God if she could be released from her marriage vows, but Chad
“bent his knee to Jesus, and began to make incredible strides in allowing his
heart and his approach to life and me be softened and changed.”

Sheri
asked Chad to read Sacred Marriage and Cherish. The response was
more than she had hoped for. “These are the FIRST marriage books Chad has
willingly read and WOW, have they brought even more beautiful changes to this
man I so deeply love!”

Sheri
and Chad’s testimony is particularly encouraging because it demonstrates how a
seemingly unbearable marriage really can change to become a source of
joy and delight.

On
a recent weekend, some friends needed some help and Chad made the decision on
his own to help them, though it would require a good bit of travel on his and
Sheri’s part. He came home at six in the evening and told Sheri to get dressed.
She was in “relaxed” attire for a Saturday at home and really didn’t feel like
driving an hour away on a moment’s notice.

“You need to understand
that I am NOT a spontaneous person…at ALL!!!!” Sheri wrote on her Facebook
page. “Chad would do everything in life flying by the seat of his pants. I have
almost every moment of the day planned. Living together has stretched us…Chad
knows that I plan and I try…try…to not vomit when he wants to be
spontaneous.”

But “going along to get
along,” Sheri got dressed without any argument. As she walked down the stairs, though,
Chad paused and asked, “Sheri, am I meeting your needs best by demanding
that we go to Red Lodge right now, or would it be best for you if we stay home?
Do you want me to ask our friends if they are comfortable going on their
own?”

Sheri’s mind practically
exploded: “WOAH!!! What just happened??!!! In twenty-seven years of marriage, I
am not sure if that has ever happened! Chad wanted to do something, insisted that
we do something, but then he stopped and sincerely asked what would be best for
me!” Sheri says that Chad has always been considerate of her, but when they
were on opposite sides, he usually won.

“Chad
and I talked about this later that night, after we had made sure our friends
were happily settled in the cabin in Red Lodge, I told him how deeply this
small act impacted my heart. I know Chad loves me. I know he will protect me
with his very life. He has learned to lovingly serve me and we have a beautiful
life together. What this ONE thing did, however, was show me that he is willing
to put a pause on what he wants and be intentionally considerate towards me. Wow!
Just WOW!”

“I
didn’t know that I could fall in love with him more, but those words coming from
his mouth Saturday night did just that…they caused me to fall a little more
deeply in love with my man. My heart is safe with this man and I am grateful
that he continues to grow and mature in his faith and his demonstrated love for
me.”

I’ve
said many times in conferences that applying a few of these principles really
can change a marriage. Even though you’re married to the same person, you can
experience an entirely new relationship. Sheri wrote, “Read Sacred Marriage
and Cherish, my friends. Chad says that those books are WHY he asked
that question and changed his perspective on Saturday night. They are powerful
and life-changing. I know, because my husband is changing day-by-day since
reading them. And it is beautiful!”

Testimonies
like these make us even more eager to get the word out about the message behind
Cherish because we’ve seen it work, time and time again. That’s why, this
month, we are unleashing the “cherish challenge” that will run through the
summer. Our hope is that hundreds of couples will want to stand up and say,
“If such a marriage is possible, I want to experience it.” Our goal is to run a
nationwide (and even worldwide since this blog has many readers outside the
U.S.) campaign to spend this summer learning together how to cherish our
spouses.

We’ll offer weekly testimonies and encouragement, so we’re also asking for your
help. With each round, we encourage you to send a picture or a very short
testimony of the difference learning how to cherish your spouse has made
in your marriage based on the aspect of cherishing we’re presenting that week. Let’s
encourage each other, let’s inspire each other, let’s raise the bar together.
Chad making just a few small changes brought such joy to Sheri; imagine the
amount of joy we can release in homes all over the world.

For
those who choose to take part, at the end of the summer (Labor Day weekend),
we’ll randomly draw out of all participants for the following individual prizes:

A $300 visa card for dinner and a night at the
hotel of your choice for one coupleA collection of all Zondervan books published
by Gary for one coupleA video curriculum and study guide of Cherish
for you and your spouse or your small groupA forty-five-minute zoom conversation with Gary
and Lisa. You can use this as a couple or save it for a group of friendsThree couples will get a signed copy of Gary’s Sacred
Marriage Gift Edition

While
we welcome couples from all over the world to join us in submitting photos and
testimonies, only couples in the United States and Canada are eligible to
receive the book prizes or the Visa card gift.

All you have to do to enter is click here, Cherish Challenge 2020. You’ll begin receiving weekly emails with tips, suggestions, and testimonies from other couples. I’m excited for every couple that takes up this challenge. It’s one thing to read a book or attend a weekend marriage conference; it’s another thing entirely to spend a summer thoughtfully applying the lessons from this book and being inspired by couples all over the world. That’s the kind of endeavor that could actually change the course of your marriage.

Men,
what if one thousand of you went to your wives and said, “I want to spend this
summer learning (or re-learning) how to cherish you?” Women, what if your
husbands, who may occasionally feel taken for granted, hear you suggest, “Hey,
let’s spend this summer learning how to cherish each other? You’ve been a great
husband and I want to learn how to help you feel cherished by the Fall.”

There’s
no cost to do the challenge together, other than what you choose to spend on
each other.
We just thought it would be fun to have couples do this across the world and
read inspiring stories about how other couples are choosing to live out the
message of cherishing their spouses. Let’s seek to raise the level of affection
in our marriages. Let’s seek out the higher aspects of love to learn together
what it means to create a cherishing marriage.

If you want to begin today, check out Cherish Challenge 2020. You’ll get all the information you need in response. And then check into this blog weekly for that week’s encouragement and challenge.

And
please, forward this blog to any other couples you think might benefit from a
boost in their marriage this summer. Even better, offer to do this challenge
with them, as a small group or with two couples who want to encourage each
other.

Let
the cherishing begin!

P.S.:
Just to be safe, my agents want me to add the “lawyer language” before I let
you go: “By submitting your
photo, you hereby consent to the use of it by Gary Thomas for any and all purposes.
You also consent to receiving future promotional material from Gary Thomas.”
The “future promotional material” simply means you’ll be added to our email
list, which you can unsubscribe from at any time.

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Published on June 19, 2020 03:30

Who's Your Hero?

It’s
a cliché now for people to proclaim, “When I was a young boy, my dad was my hero.
When I became a teenager, I realized he was an idiot. Now that I’m older, it’s
amazing how much smarter he’s become.”

But
what if that’s not true for you? What if your family hasn’t reached the
conclusion that maybe you know what you’re doing? As a pastor in a time of
great political polarization and even moral divide—where even the definition of
what’s moral seems up for debate—this notion that eventually our kids
will come around isn’t always true. How
do you keep your spiritual bearings then?

Or
what do you do if you are (or were) married to a gaslighting spouse? You
believe you’ve loved your spouse with supernatural love, forgiveness and
forbearance, and still, somehow, in your spouse’s mind, you end up being the
villain…

This
speaks to the fundamental notion of who our hero is. If I am my own hero and
others mistreat or even challenge me, I’m going to be tempted to resent or hate
them. How dare they attack me? I’ll be less inclined to respond with grace,
empathy, kindness and compassion because I’m going to make it all about me. The
danger that so rarely gets talked about is that toxic people tempt us to
become toxic when responding to their toxicity. Ambrose, an early church
father, warned believers of this over 1600 years ago when he wrote, “He who irritates us and does us an
injury is committing sin, and wishes us to become like himself.” If toxic
people make us respond in a toxic way, they win.

This
notion of “who’s my hero” also protects healthy self-love and combats noxious
self-hatred.
If I am my own hero and I don’t live up to my own standards, I may start hating
myself. This is my constant temptation. Because of what I do as a writer,
speaker, and pastor, I take character seriously. Even so, I know there are weak
areas in my life and I resent them. I was telling a friend/counselor
about a bent in myself that I loathe, and he shocked me when he responded,
“What else would you choose?”

“What
do you mean?” I asked.

“If
you don’t want this weakness, what weakness or even sin would you
replace it with?”

He
had me. I was wishing for perfection. And why do I do that? I’m tempted to make
myself the hero of my life. How long will it take me to learn the crucial
lesson that my radical imperfection points me to Jesus, leading me to make Him
the hero of my life? When I do that, I’m primed to be used by Him. But not one
second before.

If
Jesus is my hero, then when others mistreat me, I don’t have to make it about
me, and I can love them in return and walk away without being obsessed with
their opinion. Instead of fretting about them, I can meditate on God’s
acceptance and affirmation and feel good instead of nasty.

If
Jesus is my hero, even when I fail I’m newly grateful for God’s provision in
Christ and turn to worship instead of self-loathing. My sin leads me to
meditate on the heroic sacrifice of Jesus and the kindness and generosity of
God’s forgiveness more than my rottenness. One leads to hope while the other
leads to despair.

Because
Paul’s hero was Jesus, he spoke with a ferocity and courage that so many of us
lack today.
Though he was challenged, attacked, and reviled, Paul reminds the Galatians
that he is an apostle not because any human declares it so, or that he decided
to become one himself. He calls himself an apostle “not from me or by man, but
by Jesus Christ and God the Father” (Galatians 1:1). He testifies that Jesus is
his hero when he describes Jesus as the One who gave himself “to rescue us from
this present evil age.” And that sets up the courage Paul displays when Jesus
is the hero of your life: “For am I now
trying to win the favor of people, or of God?…If I were still trying to
please people, I would not be a slave of Christ” (Galatians 1:10).

In
the end, it doesn’t matter what your parents, spouse, ex-spouse or your
children think about you. Do what God has called you to do. Be who God has
called you to be. Leave all evaluation with Him. Paul believed he was
called by God to preach the message of God and accordingly was determined not
to evaluate himself or his ministry by how he was accepted by women or men or
even by himself.

If
we don’t get to this place, we’re not of much use to God. Peter is such
a powerful example of this. After experiencing so many miracles and hearing so
many profound teachings from Jesus, he denied even knowing Him, just when it
mattered most. This, after boldly proclaiming that even if the whole world
turned against Jesus, Peter would never deny Him! Before the cross, Peter was
clearly his own hero.

After
he failed so spectacularly, Peter gets a little one-on-one time with Jesus.
Jesus restores him, Peter realizes he’s not all that, and bathed in this new
humility, just weeks after the greatest sin of his life, Peter preached
a sermon at Pentecost that launched Christ’s church for all eternity.

If
your spectacular fail leads you to make Jesus your hero, you could be on the
brink of the greatest spiritual work of your life, something that will define
you for all time.

I
get a lot of email and comments on this blog from women and men who want me to
give my blessing or agreement to a previous divorce. They want to be cleared,
and sometimes go to great lengths to describe why they sought a divorce. It
would be spiritual malpractice for me to set myself up as having the authority
or knowledge to do that. I offer general principles, but in the end, we are all
responsible to God for what we decide. Behind all this, however, is my belief
that, regardless of what someone has done, I’m more concerned about what God is
calling them to do, right now. Even if they have sinned, God can still
use them. A lot of their insecurity may come from their desire to still be a
“hero” to others: “Please don’t judge me for what I have done.” In many cases,
that’s simply wasted energy.

I
have been married for thirty-six years (today, as I write this!) so I’ve never
been divorced. But there are a lot of
other things people could judge me for. That’s not the point! The point is that
we can’t love others or ourselves or fulfill our mission before God as long as
we remain our own heroes. If Jesus is our hero, and if the motive of our
heart is to help everyone proclaim Jesus as the one true hero, we are on the
launch pad ready to go into spiritual orbit. Buckle up your seat belt and
watch as God lights the fire and leads the way.

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Published on June 05, 2020 03:30

Who’s Your Hero?