Gary L. Thomas's Blog, page 47

Supernatural Counsel

When a couple you love is going through
a marital crisis, both spouses giving you two entirely different accounts of
what is happening and begging you for your insight…

When a child has prayed and prayed and
God hasn’t seemed to answer that prayer and they ask you what to do…

When your spouse needs a word of comfort
and encouragement, but you don’t know what to say…

When fellow church members have gone
through a heartbreaking ordeal and they want comfort and counsel, but you’re
terrified you’ll inadvertently say the “wrong” thing or something insensitive…

If you’ve been in or fear getting into
one of these situations, a friend of mine has some very helpful advice that
will take all that pressure off your shoulders and put it right where it
belongs.

In my pride, I’ve always thought it
would be wonderful to be an endless source of wisdom for all those who are
hurting or who wonder what they should do. In a way, I think probably most of
us are like that. But what if there’s a part of being an “endless fount of
wisdom” that is at root an evil desire instead of a holy one?

One of the men I dedicate the upcoming
book When to Walk Away: Finding Freedom from Toxic People tois
the kind of friend whose counsel often feels like a spiritual bath. It’s
cleansing. I actually have a few friends like that, so it was a little
surprising when this friend told me he’s trying to no longer be that kind of a
guy.

Dr. Mike Dittman explained that after
years of wanting to have the “right” answer to every counseling question he
received, God led him to pursue an entirely different path of ministry:

“People have often asked me to help them
figure something out or fix something in their lives. They want answers to
their questions and affirmation in their struggles, but not to learn how to
pray. My goal is no longer to solve their problems or soothe their pain. Rather
than fixing their lives to make them feel happier, my aim is to help them find
God in the midst of their challenges.”

What if, instead of having an “answer”
for our spouse or kids or friends, we said, “Let’s figure out how you can hear
God’s heart on this matter?” How would that change everything?

For starters, this takes the pressure
off us in so many ways. We’re not the hero; at most, we’re the Uber driver
taking them where they need to go.

Second, it honors the active work of
God’s Holy Spirit. We freely admit (and perhaps remind them) that we’re not the
“source,” but we’re the friend walking with them as they connect to the source.
Our “job” isn’t to have all the answers. Our job is to point them to Jesus.

Imagine how this could impact our
relationship with our kids: we’d focus on training them to turn to God as we
turn to God with them. If a child heard their parent say, “I don’t know what
the answer is, but let’s seek God together about it” and you go into the
Scriptures and pray and talk until an answer emerges, don’t you think that
would be even better for our children than a “Father Knows Best” (or “Mother
Knows Best”) speech? It’s the spiritual application of that old cliché,
teaching someone to fish instead of providing a fish.

Mike confesses that, early on in his
ministry, in his desire to help people, he was getting in the way of what
matters most: their prayer life. “After several years of using my counseling
and teaching gifts as a pastor and a professor, I came to realize that I was
educating their minds and encouraging their hearts, but not really leading them to Jesus. I pointed people to Jesus, I
told them to spend time with Jesus, and I nudged them to make Jesus the center
of their lives. All that was good, but they weren’t asking me to teach them to
pray.”

Mike now “evaluates” his ministry on an
entirely new basis. It’s not, “That was the most helpful session of counseling
ever!” or “Fantastic sermon!” Instead, it’s “Do people see the spirit of Jesus
so strongly in me that they ask me how to pray?”

How do we apply this?

The next time a spouse (particularly if you’re
married to a new believer) or a child asks you about something and the answer
seems easy and obvious, pause before
you speak. Ask yourself first how you can address the question in a way that
points them to Jesus instead of to
you. The goal isn’t for them to leave having a higher opinion of you; the goal
is to help them grow increasingly aware of and dependent on God. And never
assume that they’re asking the right question to begin with. How many times
have we gone to God with a concern, only to hear from Him that we’re actually
concerned about the wrong thing?

What I like about this in regards to
marriage is that advice from us may sound self-serving; helping them hear from
God in a way that they believe they are hearing from God removes any
self-interest on our part and makes their transformation about them and their
God, not a disagreement between two spouses.

For those of you running organizations
(churches or businesses), I read a very helpful, inspiring and practical book
that seeks to apply this principal to leadership. It’s called Mastering the
Art of Presence Based Leadership: Discerning the Wisdom of Christ as Real-Time
Partners with Him by Keith Yoder.

The reality
of Jesus and His continued presence through the ministry of the Holy Spirit
means that ministry and counseling can be and should be supernatural. It
may not look miraculous, but this approach acknowledges the ongoing reality and
presence of God, including his ability to make his will known in ways that may
seem quiet and reasonable. In the end, anything that reminds us that God is the
hero rather than us is surely a step in the right direction.

The post Supernatural Counsel appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Healing Words in a Hurtful World

It’s been exactly a year since Lisa went into surgery to have her tumor removed. That morning, she told me she wanted two things. First, she wanted me holding her hand and praying for her as she was taken away, and second, she wanted to wake up from sedation without the breathing tube still in her mouth (which would signal they didn’t have to remove a large portion of her lung) and with me holding her hand telling her, “It’s not cancer.”

That became my fervent prayer. I pleaded with God to allow me the opportunity to say “it’s not cancer” to my wife, his daughter. By his grace, I was able to hold my wife’s hand in the recovery room, brush the hair from her groggy eyes, the same gentle eyes I’ve looked into first thing in the morning for the past thirty-four years, and be the first to tell her, “It’s not cancer. It’s not cancer. You’re going to be okay. Now it’s just about getting better.”

I
was beyond grateful to God for allowing me to deliver that news to my wife.

I was reminded of this encounter when I read the Apostle Paul’s admonition for us to “Encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). It was such a blessing to be able to encourage my wife in the hospital, but would I carry that same attitude home?

Paul obviously wasn’t talking to husbands whose wives were in the hospital. Paul wasn’t writing to wives whose husbands had just been fired. As a matter of course, in the normal patterns of life, he wants us to deliver encouraging, healing words to others every day, beginning with our spouse.

Though my wife’s body was attacked by a tumor, her soul is consistently attacked by unkind words, the spiritual rebellion of those she loves, her own imperfections, and negative self-talk. Every spouse regularly experiences these “soul attacks.” We can be the dissenting voice speaking encouraging words of assurance, hope, and comfort.

What if we prayed, “Lord, please give me at least two things I can encourage my spouse about today?”

“Lord,
I’m asking for some supernatural insight to build up my husband/wife. What
would you have me say?”

What
if we waited eagerly for our spouse to come home so that we could share with
them what God inspired us to say? Wouldn’t that be better than “holding a fight”
inside, just waiting to unleash on them as soon as we have a moment alone?

We don’t have to wait until there’s a potentially life-altering illness, a betrayal, or a personal failure to encourage and build up our spouse. But when others do launch an assault, that’s the time for us to step up and put encouragement into hyper drive.

“No,
you’re not the worst dad in the
world; you’re one of the best! I’m so proud of the way you love our kids.”

“Your
boss doesn’t understand how good she has it to have you working for her.”

“I
only wish others could see the wonder of you the way I do; then they’d be
knocking each other over to include you in their lunches instead of excluding
you.”

Let’s
be our spouse’s chief encourager. No one else can encourage them the way we
can. Their parents may favor other siblings; their friends may get too busy to
call; young children may resent being told “no” and older children may be too
busy to call. It’s our job to survey whatever threatens our spouse’s physical
and spiritual well-being and cooperate with God to say, “I have some good news
for you. Some wonderful news…”

It
was such a joy to have encouraging words for my wife in the hospital, but I
pray that year old episode will become a more regular pattern of encouragement in
the years ahead.  

“Encourage
one another and build each other up.”

P.S. I
realize as I re-read this that many of you woke up from surgeries only to be
told, “It is cancer” and had to face a very long road of recovery. I share a
special prayer for you that God will comfort you, heal you and encourage you in
the days ahead, and that He will give your spouse extra grace to serve you and
support you during this difficult time.

The post Healing Words in a Hurtful World appeared first on Gary Thomas.

One of the Most Miserable Marriages Imaginable

To
understand how difficult it is to be married to a certain kind of person, you
need to know that the Bible was written in a desert. The Promised
Land is described as a place of “milk and honey” but even the most generous of
geographers would call it “arid.” Average temperatures run in the high
80s and 90s. Places like Tel Aviv aren’t just hot, they’re also very humid.

Having
been a resident of Houston, Texas for nearly a decade, I don’t have to imagine
how it feels to live in temperatures in the 90s with high humidity—I run
through months of days like this every year. One of the best feelings in life
is to come in from a long, hot and humid run and step into an air-conditioned
house. If “How Great Thou Art” isn’t the first thing that comes out of your
mouth, you have a calloused soul indeed.

It’s out of that context that I recently
read Proverbs 25:24: “It is better to live in a corner of the roof than in a
house shared with a contentious woman.”

In a hot and humid world, the one thing
I would not want to do is live outside. The second thing I would hate to
do is to be exposed to the sun without shade, which this image implies. The
third thing that would make it even worse is having to stay on the corner so
that there are at least two sides in which I could fall off and potentially
break my neck.

The
writer of Proverbs has created an image that, three thousand years ago (when it
was written) would have caused everybody to think “ewwwwwww….” And that’s the
image he uses to picture what it’s like to be married to a “contentious”
person.

If
you’re single, don’t marry a contentious person. If you’re married and
contentious, you need to kill this tendency before it kills your marriage.

Contentious
means quarrelsome and argumentative. Synonyms include belligerent, combative, and
confrontational. It exists on a continuum. Just as you can be tipsy, drunk, or
passed out, so you can be consistently confrontational, full on argumentative,
or contentiously toxic. Most of us exist on this dangerous spectrum at some
point or other.

Proverbs
was originally written for young men, so it’s only natural the writer would
warn against picking a contentious wife, but it’s just as true a warning for a
woman not to marry a contentious man. And the wisest man who ever lived
argues that it’s so unpleasant to be married to such a person that it’s
actually more pleasant to live in a hot and humid place, exposed to the sun and
having to constantly guard against an injurious fall than to share an
air-conditioned mansion with an argumentative person.

Here
are a couple examples: one wife puts up with a husband who has strong political
opinions and who loves to watch politically oriented shows. Every day he has a
dozen fantasy debates against opponents who can’t even hear him. She’s
embarrassed at church, restaurants, and family gatherings. One innocent
“trigger word” from an unaware person, like “immigration,” “taxes,” “Obama,” or
“Trump” and she tries to get as far away as possible because she knows what’s
going to follow. If a pastor mutters one of those words in a sermon, that’s the
only part of the sermon this man will hear—and all the wife will hear about on
the drive home. He is consistently one sermon, actually one sentence in
a sermon, away from leaving his fifth church.

A
husband has a wife who is easily disappointed and processes her disappointment
verbally. He has his feet cut out from under him several times a day. He folds
the towels wrong. He buys the wrong food at the grocery store. He orders the
wrong dish at the restaurant; there’s always a “better” choice. When his wife
sent him with his daughter to a used bookstore to use up some store credit
before moving out of town, he got yelled at for buying six books for himself
and six for his daughter.

“What
did you expect me to get at a used bookstore?” he asked.

“Not
six books!” she said. “Maybe one or two.”

“We
had $80 credit!”

You
get the point. Living with a contentious person leaves you continually on edge,
having to justify a dozen decisions or opinions a day. There’s no peace, little
quiet or rest. It’s like living with a prosecuting attorney, without a defense
lawyer, and you’re the accused. It will feel exhausting. No matter how good the
rest of your life is, the fact that you married a contentious person will feel
like getting splashed with cold water several times a day. It gets really old
really fast.

So, if you’re single, the writer would advise, don’t marry
a contentious person. If you’re dating a woman or man who is
extremely opinionated and contentious, you don’t need a second date. If you’ve
fallen head over heels in love but notice that he or she is contentious on the
100th date, thank God that you didn’t rush into marriage right away
and can still get out of there. You’ve escaped. Good for you.

If you recognize yourself as a contentious person, don’t
pass it off as just the way you are. The “way you are” may be destroying your
marriage.
We urge guys who are looking at porn to get help because eventually that
repeated action will wreck sexual intimacy. In the same way women (and men), you
need to know that if you are contentious you will wreck relational
intimacy. If you want help, here are a few suggestions.

Because Christian transformation begins with the renewing
of the mind (Romans 12:2), remember to do what I suggest in Cherish:
preach the Gospel to yourself first thing every morning so that you can extend
the same unmerited grace to your family members throughout the day. The Gospel
is, in part, the unconditional acceptance, love, and affirmation of your
heavenly Father based in the death and resurrection of Jesus. It’s something
you didn’t earn and therefore something you can’t lose. Your acceptance by God
is rooted outside who you are and what you’ve done in the finished work and
person of Jesus Christ. Give your spouse and children what God has given you.

The “Gospel” isn’t just a belief; it’s a way of life. It’s
living in the awareness of our debt to God so that having received grace, we
can offer that grace to others.

Second, memorize Philippians 4:8. You’ve heard it a million
times, but use it as a filter. Because it’s so familiar, I’m going to write it
out as a list. The apostle Paul says the only things you should think about
are:

Whatever is trueWhatever is nobleWhatever is rightWhatever is pureWhatever is lovelyWhatever is admirableWhatever is excellent or praiseworthy

If
thinking about the acts of the current President or Congress always make you
contentious, stop thinking about him/them. Don’t let a toxic government create a
toxic marriage or home. If your spouse knows only how they disappoint you,
inconvenience you and frustrate you, you’re thinking about the wrong things.
You talk about what you think about so stop thinking about how often your
spouse lets you down and find the few things that you can praise (unless it’s
abuse and you need to get to a safe place). Your marriage may depend on it. The
happiness of your marriage almost certainly does.

Go
on a correction fast. It’s not wrong for a person to go into a bar,
but it can, under certain circumstances, be foolish for a recovering alcoholic
to do so. In the same way, a contentious person should think twice about expressing
any negativity or correction until he or she can get it under control. Recognize
that you have a problem and respect the severity of the problem.

Proverbs
18:21 is clear: “The tongue has the power of life and death.” Men, if you have
loaded guns in your home you probably keep them in a locked cabinet. Take as
much care with your tongue. Colossians 3:19 is clear and extreme when it tells
husbands, “Love your wives and never treat them harshly.” Did you catch the
word “never?” That means it’s not okay to be harsh when you’re really tired.
It’s not okay to be harsh when your life is disappointing. It’s not okay to be
harsh when you’ve had a long day. Paul says we never get to be harsh
with our wives.

But
wives, Proverbs 25:24 essentially says that the same is true for you. Sloan
Wilson, author of the best-seller The Man
in the Gray Flannel Suit, utilizes
a novelist’s brilliant touch when he depicts a wife who cuts her husband
down. Listen to this scathing indictment of a woman slowly poisoning not just
her marriage, but the husband whom she once promised to cherish: “She had a
high art of deflating him, of enfeebling him, with one quick, innocent sounding
phrase….She was, in fact, a genius in planting in him an assurance of his
inferiority.”

The
famous Puritan John Owen once said, “Kill sin or it will kill you.” I’ll borrow
heavily from Owen to say, “Kill a contentious spirit before it kills your
marriage.”

I’m
not suggesting being married to an argumentative person is grounds for divorce.
If you find yourself in that unhappy place, make your home in Philippians 4:8,
lest your spouse’s contentious heart turn you into a contentious person
yourself. In other words, don’t treat your spouse like your spouse treats you.
Fighting sin with sin doesn’t conquer sin; it multiplies it.

Instead,
preach the Gospel to yourself. When we are reminded of how much God loves us,
accepts us and forgives us; when we meditate on his wisdom, power and wonder,
the negative opinion of a fallen human being—even a spouse—won’t define us.
Live in the affirmation of God. Go back and read the blog entitled “Arise and
Shine.”

And
then, prayerfully consider sharing this blog with your spouse. They may not be
able to hear it from you, but perhaps they can hear it from someone else. We
don’t usually have a problem calling out other relationally destructive sins
like addictive gambling, excessive spending, porn, affairs, or domestic
violence. A contentious spirit is on par with many of these. It needs to be
called out and addressed.

So,
if you’re single, just don’t go down that road.

If
you’re married, take a hard U-Turn. There aren’t enough riches or big enough
houses in this world to make up for living with a contentious spouse.

The post One of the Most Miserable Marriages Imaginable appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Your Wife’s Privacy

A friend of mine is a
medical doctor who has held the beating heart of a living person in his hands.

That blows me away. I
can’t even imagine that kind of
responsibility.

But here’s the thing:
every husband has his wife’s “spiritual heart” beating in his hands every day.
Our wives make themselves just as vulnerable spiritually and emotionally as my
friend’s patients do physically.

We’ve just gotten used
to it.

Every husband has
“inside” information on his wife: a health issue, something in her past, a
secret fear. Sometimes, we might accidentally talk about it because we didn’t
realize it’s sacred. Who knew your wife cared if others found out she used
Spanx? Or it could be something more serious and heartfelt, like occasional
panic attacks or losing her temper with the children.

Don’t trust yourself to
know what your wife would find hurtful if it’s shared. The safest approach in
marriage is not to disclose anything to
anyone we haven’t heard our wives
disclose first. She may feel comfortable sharing something with a friend that
she doesn’t want her parents to know, or vice versa. That’s her call, not ours.

Young husbands, if you
violate your wife’s trust even once, there’s going to be a natural reluctance
going forward on her part to share anything intimate with you. What you say to
others will largely determine what she says to you.

When a wife makes herself
vulnerable to us, we have to hold what she shares as a sacred trust. When your
wife shares personal information with you to elicit your support, you know
enough to also harm her if you’re not tender, thoughtful and circumspect about
what you share. Think of it this way: the Seattle Seahawks offensive linemen
need to know if Russell Wilson has an injury that could affect his ability to
pass the ball. The Green Bay Pikers don’t. Letting the other team know would be
seen as an almost unforgiveable betrayal. Your wife feels like she’s on your
“team” and is willing to be more open with you. Living in a sometimes cruel
world, she may feel others would use that same information to ridicule or harm
her.

It’s not just about
sharing information, however; sometimes it’s about using it. Imagine Russell
Wilson threw an interception, making a lineman so angry that he hit Wilson
exactly where he knew Wilson was already wounded. Unthinkable, regardless of
how angry he was over Russell’s poor decision. But that’s what a husband does
when he takes something his wife has shared and spits it back in her face
during an argument. You hit her where she’s most vulnerable. Marriage is
supposed to be all about building your spouse back up, being a healing and
redemptive presence, something you completely undercut if you use “inside
information” to hurt instead of heal.

When you do blow it, out
of anger or carelessness, understand that your initial response when called on
it may make the situation even worse unless you immediately take responsibility: “I’m such an idiot! Of course I
never should have shared that. There’s no excuse. I’m so, so sorry.” This is
your response even if you’re surprised she took offense. Don’t argue with her
over whether she “should” feel exposed or not. If she feels exposed, she has been exposed so she doesn’t have to
justify her hurt.

In my Cherish
seminar I talk about a guy whose wife has a serious issue with flatulence.
She’s terribly embarrassed by it and even occasionally takes medicine to
address it. Her husband knows about it because, well, he has two ears and a
nose, but also because he found a medicine bottle and asked his wife what it was
for. She turned fifty shades of red before finally answering, “Gas.” He’s a
gregarious guy who really doesn’t care what others think about him, so whenever
they’re out in public and his wife “slips,” he immediately says a loud, “Sorry!
My bad!” All their friends think he has a serious issue with gas and he just
laughs about it. In reality, he’s protecting one of his wife’s most vulnerable
secrets. Trust me, she appreciates it and has her own ways of making it up to
him (they told this to me as a couple, so he wasn’t betraying her secret on his
own).

No guy I know would
leave his laptop open with personal files on the screen and all his passwords
on display for anybody at Starbucks to peruse while he takes a two-hour walk.
Love your wife at least as much as you love yourself—respect her privacy as
much as you respect your own.

P.S. There’s not a
single typo in this blogpost. Any apparent one is an intentional dig against a
friend’s rival team.

The post Your Wife’s Privacy appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Learning to Love an Imperfect Man

[This is an excerpt adapted from my book Loving
Him Well: Practical Advice on Influencing Your Husband. Accordingly, it’s
focused on wives, but most husbands could figure out the opposite application.
Let me also state that this chapter was written for women in satisfying or
perhaps disappointing but not abusive relationships.]

No woman gets to marry the fourth member
of the Trinity, because that person doesn’t exist. If you are married, you have
joined yourself with a fallible human being. In fact, James 3:2 promises you that your husband will find new
and creative ways to disappoint you when he states, “We all stumble in many
ways.”

Notice the words
“all” and “many.” No spouse avoids this reality. We all — including your husband — stumble in many ways.

Since every wife is married to an
imperfect man, every wife will have legitimate disappointments in her marriage.
How can you learn to appreciate an imperfect man?  Acceptance and encouragement are actually biblical requirements:

•   “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order
to bring praise to God” (Romans 15:7).

•   “Encourage
one another and build each other up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11).

For your own spiritual health, you need
to learn how to love an imperfect man. When I urge you to affirm your husband’s
strengths, I’m not minimizing his weaknesses; I’m just encouraging you to make
the daily spiritual choice of focusing on
qualities for which you feel thankful. The time will come when you can address
the weaknesses — after you’ve established a firm foundation of
love and encouragement. For now, you must make a conscious choice to give
thanks for his strengths.

I have found Philippians 4:8 as relevant
for marriage as it is for life: “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever
is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if
anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.”

Guys rise to praise. When someone
compliments us, we want to keep that person’s positive opinion intact. We get a
rush like nothing else when we hear her praise or see that look of awe in her
eyes — and we will all but travel the ends of the earth to keep it coming.

Isn’t this approach, based in God’s
Word, at least worth a try?

I fully understand it can be a
monumental spiritual challenge to appreciate a man who disappoints you in many
ways. But here are a few tried and true spiritual practices to point you in the
right direction.

1. Give Your Husband the Benefit of the Doubt

Some wives can literally stew in their
disappointment about their husbands’ relational shortcomings: “Why won’t he
help me?” “Why doesn’t he seem to care?”  What they don’t understand is that it
is very possible their husbands may not know what to do. Many women accuse
their husbands of being uncaring or unloving when, in fact, they may just be
clueless. It’s possible that he’s not trying to be callous or uncaring; he just
honestly doesn’t know what you need or what he’s supposed to do. And there are
few things most guys hate more than not knowing what to do.

This
is key: it’s easier and less painful for us to ignore the problem than to admit
incompetence.

One wife told me that when she and her
husband began traveling together, she’d ask him, “Are you hungry yet?” He’d say
“No” and she’d sit and stew because obviously he didn’t care about her. When
she learned to say, “Hey, I’m hungry, let’s stop for lunch,” her husband was always accommodating. She eventually
realized that her husband wasn’t trying to be thoughtless; he just wasn’t
catching the hint.

2. Share a Slice of the Grace That God Gives You

Counselor Elyse Fitzpatrick once told
her small group about how God had moved her from a legalistic, works-oriented
faith to a “grace-filled, peaceful existence with my merciful heavenly Father.”

“The pressure is off me,” she told them.
“Don’t get me wrong; it’s not that I’m not pursuing holiness. It’s just that I
know that my Father will get me where He wants me to be and that even my
failures serve, in some way, to glorify Him. My relationship with God is
growing to be all about His grace, His mercy, His power.”

Then Elyse’s friend “astounded” her by
responding, “That must be such a blessing for your husband, Elyse. To be
walking in that kind of grace must enable you to be so patient and so
grace-filled with Phil. To know that God is working in him just as He’s working
in you must make your marriage so sweet and your husband so pleased. It must be
great for him to know that the pressure is off for him too.”

The reason this friend “astounded” Elyse
is because Elyse didn’t initially make the connection her friend made. “I
scarcely ever extended to Phil the grace I enjoyed with the Lord. Instead, I
was frequently more like the man in Jesus’ parable, who, after he was forgiven
a great debt, went out and beat his fellow slave because he owed him some
paltry sum.”

There was a gap in Elyse’s mind about
receiving grace and giving grace. To her credit, she responded to the truth as
it was presented and her marriage was blessed accordingly. It takes great
spiritual maturity to love mercy, to offer grace, and to give someone the same
spiritual benefits we ourselves have received from our heavenly Father. Get in
touch with how much God has done for you — how he has seen every wicked act
you’ve ever committed; heard every syllable of gossip; noticed every malicious,
ugly, and hateful thought — and still, he loves you. Even more, he adores you.
And he’s forgiven you.

Now comes the hard part: will you give
your husband at least a slice of what God has given you?

3. Form Your Heart through Prayer

Practice praying positive prayers for
your husband. Find the five or six things he does really well, or even just one
or two, and try to tire God out by thanking him for giving you a husband with
these qualities. Follow up your prayers with comments or even greeting cards
that thank your husband personally for who he is.

Prayers of thankfulness form our soul
and groom our affections. Counselor Leslie Vernick explains, “Cognitive
therapists know that what we think about directly affects our emotions. If we
think on negative things, nursing bad attitudes or critical spirits, our
emotions take a downward spiral. Conversely, if we think on things that are
good, true, right, things that we are thankful for, then our emotions can be
uplifted.”

One session of thankfulness will not
soften a rock-hard heart. But over time, thankfulness makes a steady and
persistent friend of affection.

4. Go to the Cross

Some desires are never going to be
fulfilled and need to be “crucified.” In fact, I’ve seen various studies that
suggest over fifty percent of marital “issues” will never be resolved. This
requires the brilliant but severe remedy of the cross. We need to constantly
remember that our life isn’t defined by our marital happiness, but by seeking
first God’s kingdom and righteousness (Matthew 6:33). That pursuit will, in the
end, produce happiness, but we have to keep first things first.

So here’s the spiritual “trick.”
Transform the focus of your expectations from what you expect of your husband
to what your God expects of you. We can’t make any one person do what we think
they should do. But we can surrender to what God would have us do in light of
that.

If you don’t die to unrealistic
expectations and if you refuse the cross, you’ll find yourself at constant war
with your husband instead of at peace. You’ll feel frustrated instead of
contented, and disappointed instead of satisfied. Why? We often forget that both
partners in a marriage
have their expectations, and sometimes these expectations conflict.

Ruth Bell Graham offered these words:

“I pity the
married couple who expect too much from one another. It is a foolish woman who
expects her husband to be to her what only Jesus Christ can be: always ready to
forgive, totally understanding, unendingly patient, invariably tender and
loving, unfailing in every area, anticipating every need, and making more than
adequate provision. Such expectations put a man under an impossible strain.”

5. Ask God to Change You

As soon as you begin offering prayers of
thankfulness for your husband, be sure of this: the enemy of your soul and the
would-be destroyer of your marriage will remind you of where your husband falls
short. You can count on it.

You’ll find yourself growing resentful:
“Why should I thank God that my husband works hard during the day but when he
comes home he won’t even talk to me?” “Why should I thank God that my husband
has always been faithful to me — when he doesn’t earn enough money for us to
buy a house and I have to work overtime?”

You need to respond to this temptation
with a healthy spiritual exercise: as soon as you recall your husband’s
weaknesses, start asking God to help you with specific weaknesses of your own. That’s right — as
backward as it may sound, respond to temptations to judge your husband by
praying for God to change you. Go into prayer armed with two lists: your husband’s
strengths and your weaknesses.

Lest you think I’m blaming women for
everything, let me say that I do the same thing: I go into prayer armed with my
wife’s strengths and my weaknesses. I think both husbands and wives should do this.

A husband married to a disappointed wife
loses most of his motivation to improve his bad habits. Why do you think your
husband worked so hard before you got married? Because he loved the way you
adored him. He wanted to catch your attention, to impress you. And when he saw
that you did
notice and did
appreciate him, it made him want to please you even more. He
felt motivated to move by the way you adored him.

The relational cancer of blatant
disappointment will eat away motivation for further change. Before you try to
influence your husband, sit back, enjoy him, appreciate him, and thank God for
him. Before you begin to think about what he needs to change, make an
exhaustive inventory about what you want to stay the same. Then thank God for
that — and thank your husband too.

Let me end by telling you a marital
secret that startled me: the more thankful I become about my wife, the happier
I became in my everyday life. It makes sense, if you think about it. Regularly
thinking positive thoughts about your spouse cultivates an overall sense of
well-being.

Thankfulness is a learned skill, urged
on us by Scripture, but like so much of the Christian life, we are radically
blessed by obedience when we step out and do what Scripture calls us to do. If
you can learn how to appreciate an imperfect man, your husband will feel
blessed indeed—but you will feel blessed even more. 

For more like this, check out Loving
Him Well: Practical Advice on Influencing Your Husband

The post Learning to Love an Imperfect Man appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Arise and Shine

She
looked like a new woman.

My
coworkers marveled when they finally realized that this was the same woman who
had come to see me some weeks ago. The difference was that stark.

The
first time we had met she felt beaten down. She could hardly speak three
sentences without reaching for another Kleenex. But three weeks later she had
light in her countenance, hope in her eyes, and confidence in the way she held
her head.

The
previous meeting, we hardly mentioned marital strategies. Instead, we talked
about some spiritual truth. She learned to stop defining herself and her
life by the disappointments of her marriage and to start looking at herself and
defining herself by her relationship with God.

That
simple spiritual strategy of no longer defining herself by the frustrations of
one man and learning to root her identity in the acceptance and affirmation of one
God was like pouring water on a thirsty plant, and it made her flourish (it
also led to the eventual restoration of her marriage, but that’s another story).

When
Isaiah tells Jerusalem to “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory
of the Lord has risen upon you,” (Isaiah 60:1) he was talking to a beaten-down
nation that just wanted to breathe.
They couldn’t even conceive what it meant to shine. Yet Isaiah told them that God had much bigger plans for them
than survival. He wanted them to thrive, to be a light, to be a symbol of His
glory.

In
the New Testament, Paul calls us “more than conquerors” (Romans 8:37). Life in
Christ isn’t about survival or just barely getting by. It’s about victory
followed by celebration and thriving. A marriage set in Christ can aim to
celebrate and thrive in God’s presence.

The
irony is that thriving and celebration is rooted outside the marriage rather than within it.  In another passage Paul puts it this way: “And
don’t be wishing you were someplace else or with someone else. Where you are
right now is God’s place for you. Live and obey and love and believe right
there. God, not your marital status, defines your life” (1 Cor. 7:17, The
Message).

God, not your
marital status, defines your life.

When
God rather than your marital status defines your life, marriage changes
dramatically.  One husband, deeply
frustrated by his wife’s stonewalling, fell in love with God’s grace all over
again and from that platform spent a full year slowly wooing his wife back to
an emotionally and spiritually intimate marriage. He wasn’t motivated by his
wife’s response, for at first there was none (it took a year for his
wife to respond in kind). But he was motivated by his heavenly Father’s
approval. He told me, “I could feel
the pleasure of God every time I chose to be patient, to be tender, and to be
charitable.” He wasn’t getting any positive feedback from his wife, but he was
fueled by the positive feedback from his God.

When we treat our
spouse based on what God deserves rather than what our spouse deserves, even if
they don’t respond there’s a wonderful moment of worship.

I
have personally witnessed women in frustrating marital situations or
frustrating singleness learn how to “arise and shine” even when their situation
stayed the same. I have seen men humiliated by their wives’ rejection and brow
beaten by derision learn to listen to another voice and begin to shine in spite
of who they were married to. I have seen daughters and sons gain new strength,
new vitality, and a new zest for life when they determined that their parents
were wrong and God’s declaration about them was right.

How
did they get there? They made the simple decision that the relational situation
beating them down would no longer define them; instead, they drew their identity
from their relationship with and reliance upon God.

This
isn’t just a nice theological sentimental thought. It works. It’s not an excuse
to avoid working on legitimate issues in your marriage; it’s an invitation to
work on those issues from a proper spiritual framework: the affirmation and
worship of God.

So,
while there is an appropriate time to think through the issues in your marriage
(or other relationships), do so from the foundation of God-affirmation. If you
are in Christ, you can claim the following:

You are chosen and dearly loved by your
heavenly Father (Col. 3:12)You are protected by God’s “glorious might”
(Col. 1:11)Regardless of how you have messed up, “God has
reconciled you through Christ to present you as holy, without blemish and free
from accusation” (Col. 1:22)Others may take us for granted, but God
promises to reward us (Col. 3:24)By His power, God will fulfill every good
purpose for you (2 Thess. 1:12)If you’re worried about messing up in the
future “God will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one” (2 Thess.
3:3)If there are worries about your financial
future, “God richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” (1 Tim.
6:17)You have the promise of the Holy Spirit (Eph.
1:13-14)

I
could go on for pages with more promises, but these are initial suggestions for
how you can learn to arise and shine in the face of this fallen world’s hurts
and disappointments. Learn to look at everything through the lens of Jesus and
His promises.

My prayer this week is that you will reorient yourself, your thinking, your identity, your hope and your purpose on the God who calls you not just to survive, but to arise and shine.

The post Arise and Shine appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Holy Marriages are the Happiest Marriages

One
of the kindest words God has ever spoken to me is the word “no.”

One
of God’s most effective tools to preserve my freedom and keep me out of
spiritual slavery is when God says, “Don’t.”

Spoken
by a supremely loving, all-wise, heavenly father who wants me to enjoy the
abundant life, “no” and “don’t” are loving words, merciful words, and grace-filled
words.

The
great evangelist John Wesley explained why when he said no one is truly
happy who is not pursuing holy. Think about it: have you ever met a truly
happy addict? He may have moments of pleasure, but those illicit moments usher
in much more misery, long-term. Addiction is an excruciating exercise in
frustration, where you increasingly give ever more of yourself to get less and
less pleasure until you don’t even like yourself very much anymore.

Have
you ever known a happy man whose anger is out of control? Isn’t he miserable, destroying
his closest relationships and pushing out any real chance of true intimacy and
joy?

Have
you ever known a woman who is negative or materialistic to be happy? Isn’t she
always frustrated, disappointed, cursing under her breath, never getting to that
happy place of contentment where she can breathe a sigh of satisfaction and truly
rest in “enough?”

Holy
leads us to happy. Holy protects happy. But pursuing happy for its own sake is
to risk making unholy choices, which in the end undercuts our happiness.

A
culture largely removed from a serious pursuit of God doesn’t even understand
that pursuing happiness first is in one sense settling for less.
Happiness is wonderful, but a life based on God’s presence, glory, and love is
more wonderful still. The good news is, we don’t have to choose! We can advance
beyond happiness to the God-centered life we are meant to live.

This
is why singles seeking a partner and married people who already have a partner need
to rethink their priorities about what they want out of marriage. If you’re
pursuing what will make you happy at the expense of holy, you’re more likely to
miss happy. If you pursue holiness, you’re far more likely to arrive at a happy
marriage. Find a life partner who inspires you toward Christ-likeness and
you’ll find the person who is most likely to make you happy.

A Holy Marriage

When
my book Sacred Marriage came out with
the provocative subtitle, “What if God designed marriage to make us holy
more than to make us happy?” I was asked where this line came from. Let’s
take a journey to see how Scripture addresses marriage, looking at what it says
and doesn’t say, to arrive at the conclusion that our first concern should be
to pursue holiness.

First, let’s look at the creation of marriage.  Man and woman are called together to fulfill the purpose for which God created them—to be fruitful, to fill the earth, and subdue it (Genesis 1:28).  These purposes point toward a holy life—raising kids who love God, and responsibly using our talents to serve God and join with him in building and ruling this world—far more than they support the modern notion that marriage is all about individual, self-absorbed happiness. From the very start, marriage is described as a mission more than it is described as a matinee.

In
the New Testament, one of Paul’s clearest recommendations for Christians to
consider marriage is for the purpose of overcoming sexual temptation: “Since
there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her
own husband” (1 Cor. 7:2).  Paul is
directly saying that one of the purposes of marriage is for the sake of living
a holy life, in particular, overcoming sexual temptation. “If they are not
practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to
be aflame with passion” (1 Cor. 7:9).

Elsewhere, when Paul talks about the nature of marriage to the Ephesians, he also showcases holiness.  “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” (Eph. 5:25-27)  Paul says that we should base the marriage relationship on the relationship that Christ had with the church—a relationship in which Jesus seeks the church’s holiness.  So too we love each other by encouraging growth in holiness.

Peter also connects marriage and holiness when he warns men that if they fail to treat their wives with respect and as co-heirs in Christ, their prayer lives will be hindered (1 Peter 3:7).  Holiness within marriage is essential for us to maintain an active prayer life.  Once again, this points toward holiness, not happiness.  You can pray all you want in an unhappy marriage; but prayer will be blocked solid if you’re in an unholy marriage.

The writer of Hebrews also seems to point toward holiness in marriage.  In 12:14, we’re told, “Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy.  Without holiness no one will see the Lord.”  While not directly addressing marriage here, the writer is clearly addressing relationships, emphasizing the role of holiness as a goal in relating to others. He doesn’t say make every effort to be happy.

Most telling of all are the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 6:33 Jesus tells us to seek first, above all else, as our top priority, “the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” He doesn’t tell us to seek first happiness, an intimate marriage, a fulfilling vocation, financial success or even physical health. Our first concern when we wake up every day should be God’s agenda, not our own, and seeking to grow in righteousness—dying to the things that offend him, embracing the life and virtues of Christ that honor him.

The Bible clearly doesn’t tell us to pursue happiness with the same force it tells us to pursue righteousness, character, holiness, and integrity. There is one exception, of course. In Deuteronomy 24:5 a young man is told to take a year off after getting married so that he can “stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married.” 

The
verse in Deuteronomy clues us into the fact that perhaps God calls us to
holiness because (at least in part) he wants us to be happy. He is not
“anti-happiness.” Rather than pit holiness and happiness
against each other, we need to understand how they support each other. In
moments of decision, however, it’s clear from the biblical record that God
values our obedience and character more than any emotional disposition.

Making a Wise Choice

What
does this mean if you’re single? How does it impact the way you date, who you
date, and who you choose to marry?

Proverbs
31:30 warns single men “Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman
who fears the Lord will be
praised.” More than you care about what a woman looks like, incline your heart
to a woman who fears God. Beauty is a wonderful thing and not to be taken
for granted, but it is not the supreme thing. Date a woman who will offend
you before she offends God, so that she challenges you to also pursue a holy
life.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog,you probably want to be the kind of man
or woman God wants you to be. Doesn’t it make good sense to date someone who
will help you be that kind of person, instead of someone who may tempt you to
become a different kind of person and do something you’ll eventually regret?

On one of the occasions when I refused to
do a wedding, it was partly because the woman told me and my wife that she’d
like to be just like her mother, whom she respected and adored. Yet her fiancé
despised her mother in a condescending way. We urged her to put her romantic
feelings aside and ask herself, “Why do I want to marry someone who despises
the kind of person I want to become?”

If the best life is found by seeking first
the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, shouldn’t our most intimate
relationship be with a person who shares the same end and is determined to help
us on our journey?

There’s yet another aspect to this. The
writer of Hebrews says, “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward
love and good deeds” (10:24). Good deeds will be greatly rewarded in heaven (2
Cor. 5:10; Gal. 6:9; Matt. 25:21). If you marry a believer who inspires you to
live a life of service and righteousness, your eternity will be different. Good deeds don’t get us into heaven,
but they certainly seem to impact the color of our life there.

So, marrying for holiness will, I believe,
not only give you a happier life on earth but also a more rewarding life in
heaven. It’s not wrong to want to marry a beautiful
woman, and/or a man you enjoy spending time with. Those are good desires. Just
don’t compromise on the faith part. Marry for holiness and you’re far more
likely to arrive at happiness. Marry for happiness apart from reverence for
God and his ways, and you’ll likely find that you’ve built your future
happiness on soap bubbles and sand.

Trust Jesus. He knows what he’s talking
about and he wants the best for you. The very best is to seek first the Kingdom
of God and his righteousness. Those loving, wise words should be the driving
force in your pursuit of marriage.

And if you’re already married, while
conflict resolution, communication skills, and sexual intimacy all have their
place in rebuilding a struggling marriage, why not double down on your mutual
pursuit of holiness? It’s what God designed you to experience, and it’s what,
in the end, will foster and preserve the happiest of marriages. Jesus tells us
that if we seek first His kingdom and righteousness, “all these things will be
given to you as well.”

Singles, for more of this, check out The Sacred Search.

The post Holy Marriages are the Happiest Marriages appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Books to Shape Your Heart and Soul

A pastor wrote to me asking for help with a church member who is well read and very cerebral, but who needs a little help shaping his heart and soul. He asked me for some books he could recommend, so I put together the following list in no particular order.

It’s a mix of classics and contemporary books, with the filter of helping an earnest believer evaluate the state of their heart and soul—going beyond doctrine to practice and transformation.

This isn’t my normal kind of blog, but the truth is, the more we shape our hearts to reflect the love and presence of Jesus Christ, the more every one of our relationships will benefit. So here’s the list. Feel free to add some suggestions of your own in the comments.

As always with such lists, there will be points of doctrine reflected in a few books with which I disagree; remember, this isn’t a list to help someone understand basic doctrine. It’s focused on spiritual transformation and draws from some traditions with whom I have some doctrinal disagreements. I know I’ve left several good ones out, but these are the ones that came to mind:

Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

A.W. Tozer,  The Pursuit of God

Gary Thomas, Holy Available

Peter Kreeft,  Back to Virtue

Andrew Murray, Humility

Phillip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace?

Gordon Smith, On the Way: A Guide to Christian Spirituality 

R. Somerset Ward, To Jerusalem: Devotional Studies in Mystical Religion 

Gerrit Scott Dawson, Jesus Ascended: The Meaning of Christ’s Continuing Incarnation 

Lorenzo Scupoli, Spiritual Combat

N.T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters 

St. Theophan the Recluse, The Path of Salvation: A Manual of Spiritual Transformation 

Bob Sorge, Secrets of the Secret Place 

John Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection 

Gordon Smith, Called to Be Saints: An Invitation to Christian Maturity 

Sherry Harney, Praying with Eyes Wide Open. 

Thomas Cogswell Upham, Principles of the Interior or Hidden Life 

Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines 

Louis of Granada, The Sinner’s Guide 

John Ortberg, Soul Keeping 

Les Parrott, Love Like That

 Kevin Harney, Seismic Shifts: The Little Changes That Make a Big Difference in Your Life

The post Books to Shape Your Heart and Soul appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Never Surrender

A divorce lawyer recently posted an article arguing that the vow “till death do us part” is passé, unrealistic, and needs to be discarded. There’s no shame, he said, in knowing that it’s unlikely and “even rare” for marriages to last for a lifetime, so let’s stop with the pretense. He admitted children face some pain during divorce, but hey, divorce is already so common our kids need to learn that a broken family is simply part of the price you pay for growing up. Please, he pled, let’s dispense with the guilt-casting and moralizing and just admit that a lifelong marriage of fifty years not only isn’t realistic, it’s not even all that desirable.

This divorce lawyer is a blogger and author and I’m not going to give him one extra click of free advertising by mentioning his name. While his words might keep his divorce practice prospering, they are exactly the opposite of what non-abusive marriages need today.

I’m writing from the perspective of a man who just celebrated his thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. Like most couples, Lisa and I have lived through some tough seasons in our marriage when we weren’t sure we would make it. I shudder when I think about one particular season that, had Lisa and I given up in, our second two children and our precious grandchild would never have been born. I’m so glad we didn’t read that divorce lawyer’s article back then. Instead, I would want to read the following.

Never Surrender

There was a time when just about every citizen of Great Britain saw Nazi Germany as an unstoppable juggernaut. Even the most optimistic knew the outlook was bleak. France was falling far more quickly than anyone had anticipated. Britain’s once indomitable military looked vulnerable, and some even considered the horrendous possibility that if defeat was likely, perhaps it might be better to let the Nazi government in rather than suffer the consequences of opposition.

With a last gasp of determination, England elected Winston Churchill to be its new Prime Minister. Churchill all but put the country on his back and reset expectations with a famous inspirational speech: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat….What is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be.”

One speech was enough to get Britain going and to instill hope, but one speech wouldn’t win a war. They still had to fight. As Britain prepared itself militarily and industrially world events grew even more grim. The horrendous but now certain reality of a homeland battle, unlike any Britain had fought for centuries, was upon them. Axis planes and soldiers would invade British airspace and land. Even London would see violence. In fact, Buckingham Palace and its grounds would be hit over a dozen times.

Most experts didn’t think Great Britain could survive. The Nazi military machine was undefeated. Joseph Kennedy, the United States Ambassador to London, was adamant in his belief that London would fall, urging the President to prepare accordingly.

Churchill got back on the wireless and delivered another astounding speech: “We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

And they didn’t.

Britain’s victory gave the entire world hope that Hitler could be defeated. It preserved a crucial and strategic European base to fight back against the Nazi forces. If Britain had fallen the way France did, historians shudder to think what could have happened next.

As a pastor, I see spouses and individuals take up the vision for their families that Churchill cast for Great Britain. These spouses see the enemies of their family: addiction, lust, financial malfeasance, mental illness, physical ailments, a society hostile to their faith and deliberately lecherous toward their marital vows, and yet these spouses, sometimes together, and sometimes alone, rise up from prayer to proclaim, “We shall defend our family, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight our addiction; we shall fight for our children’s minds and hearts; we shall pray, fast, learn, grow, deny ourselves and build our souls so that we love instead of hate; forgive instead of resent; serve instead of tear down, encourage instead of taunt. We won’t allow money or pleasure, or selfish ambition to burn this home down. Though a thousand demons assault us, though our entire culture conspire against us, we will stand strong in faith, belief, and the grace of Jesus Christ.”

I know a husband who had to sell his house and quit playing golf when he found out how much secret debt his wife had accumulated. It would take years, not months, to crawl out of that debt, but he wasn’t going to let that debt tear his family apart. He didn’t destroy his wife’s reputation by gossiping; some of his buddies just thought he had become too lazy to get up for those early Saturday morning rounds. He had made a vow to keep his marriage together and he was going to keep it. He hadn’t made a vow to sustain his golf handicap, so he put first things first.

A wife nobly helps her husband fight his depression. She knows he didn’t “choose” to be depressed, but when a husband is depressed, one of the things he often can’t care about is…you. It’s a lonely battle, and when your spouse doesn’t seem able to even appreciate you for fighting it; in fact, when he suggests you’d be better off without him so why don’t you just leave, it would be easy, so easy, to blame God for not healing him and go your way. But not this wife. She’s in it to win it and shows the Churchillian determination to depend on God and keep her family together.

Another wife would tell you she probably shouldn’t have married her husband. They got pregnant before they even talked about engagement, and she thought she was doing the right thing to go ahead and get married. Their baby daughter ended up having some special needs. Two more children followed. There was a brief separation, but when she saw how her already troubled daughter felt even more insecure as her parents drifted apart, this wife doubled down on her marriage and has lived the life of a modern-day saint. Does her husband cherish her? That’s not really his thing. Do their recreational interests match up? Not even close. Is he as into God as she is? He accommodates her belief without truly sharing it. So many reasons to leave, so many reasons to quit, but one reason to stay: she made a vow, and she is keeping it. The friends who know her better than I do call her one of the strongest believers they’ve ever met.

I salute these individuals and couples. Like Britain, their victory isn’t just for themselves; they inspire the rest of the world. Their example gives hope and courage to other families that sometimes, when things seem entirely hopeless, when it feels even foolish to believe you can win, victory at great cost is still an option:

“We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

To all those still fighting such a war in their kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms and dining rooms, I salute you and pray God will strengthen you in the midst of your battle.

The post Never Surrender appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Beds!

Nicolas Rolin frolicked, adulterized, gambled, and even murdered his way through the fifteenth century until he looked mortality in the face and realized he was going to die sooner rather than later. Given that he had broken every one of the Ten Commandments at least once, the prospect of facing God terrified him.

A priest told him his only chance was a generous act of charity, so Rolin built one of the first public hospitals in the world, located in Beaune, France. Each bed held two patients. These beds weren’t particularly large by modern standards, about the size of what we’d call a twin bed today. As I looked at them while touring the hospital, I was a bit grossed out by the thought of lying so closely to another sick person but, in fact, the hospital soon discovered they had to recruit the meanest, most cynical nun they could find to stand guard at the door to keep people out.

Why?

Many people started faking illnesses just so they could sleep on a bed, even if that meant sharing close air space with a disease-breathing bedmate.

In the fifteenth century, beds as we know them today were relatively rare. You slept on straw, on the ground, perhaps on a blanket. Sleeping on a bed felt luxurious, even if you had to share it with an ill stranger.

As one who travels about a hundred nights a year, I’ve slept in more beds than I can count. Usually I’ll request a new room if I’m placed next to the elevator or the ice machine, both of which attract a lot of noise. But following my return from France (and a tour of the historic hospital in Beaune), I stepped out of an elevator in Saskatoon and saw my room sandwiched between the elevator and an ice machine.

One month before, I would have muttered to myself, “I have to sleep in a bed by the elevators across from an ice machine?” Instead, this time my attitude was entirely different: “I get to sleep in a bed by the elevators across from an ice machine!”

For most of human history, beds have been an unparalleled luxury, not to mention warm showers and climate-controlled rooms. We are so spoiled in this day that it’s nearly impossible not to take for granted what once would have been considered extreme luxury.

And thus we become hyper-intolerant of the smallest inconveniences.

When you’re disappointed in your marriage, heart-broken over one of your children, or frustrated in your employment, it’s easy to forget how luxurious the rest of our lives are compared to the ninety percent of earth’s inhabitants who have gone before us. I believe we could endure a few more disappointments in life a little bit better if we asked God to open our eyes to the blessings we’ve become accustomed to.

We pray as if happiness depends on getting what we don’t have but want. In reality, happiness is often about learning to be thankful for what we already have and appreciating the things we take for granted that would have astonished our ancestors.

This morning, as I wrote, I heard several sounds: a washing machine spinning its final cycle. Air-conditioning clicking on when the house temperature inched above seventy-three degrees. A toilet flushing in the background. Any one of these three modern conveniences would have revolutionized the lives of common people up until the last century or so. Their invention would have been the talk of the town. Today, we complain if one spouse leaves a sock on the floor, we fight over where the thermostat should be set, and we yell at the kid who forgot to flush.

See the difference? Instead of being grateful for these luxuries, we fight over the new circumstances they set up!

One of the biggest determiners of how happy you are is whether you think more about what you already have that makes life so comfortable and wonderful, or whether you obsess over the one or two things you lack that make life feel a little less comfortable.

The same principle applies to marriage and parenting. If I stop asking God to change my spouse and instead spend time thanking God for the many qualities I have learned to take for granted, I will become much happier in my marriage. If I pause to mention to God the graces he displays in my children rather than always praying about the one or two things I wish he’d “improve” in them, I’m going to have much more joy in parenting and offer much more love to my children.

For the Christian, thanksgiving isn’t just a lifestyle and a commitment; it’s also a command: “Give thanks in everything, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess. 5:18).

My relationship with God began to change when I began keeping a list of all the marvelous things he is and does as evidenced in Scripture. Instead of trying to browbeat him into doing one more thing I thought mattered, I began spending more time thanking him for what he has already done and for who he already is.

And then I did the same for my wife. The year Cherish came out I kept a daily journal of Lisa’s excellent character qualities and acts of kindness, with a view toward giving it to her at Christmas. It was a gift to me as much as it was to my wife, as it made me a much happier husband who feels blessed rather than disappointed.

Here’s what I’ve found: when I’m consistently thankful for what I’ve already received, joy overflows, happiness reigns, and contentment covers me from morning to night. I enjoy what I already have that much more and am able to endure what I don’t yet have with a little more patience.

Thanksgiving may be a one-day holiday in the United States and Canada, but in the Christian world it should be a way of life, one that will usher us into a new way of thinking, and a new sense of well-being with God, our spouse (or lack of one), and our children.

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