Gary L. Thomas's Blog, page 49

The Demonic Danger of Self-Righteousness

What if one of the most dangerous attitudes for believers is self-righteousness?

What if it’s possible to be “right” and toxic at the same time?

What if, in the name of doing God’s work, we find ourselves furthering the cause of Satan?

I’ve been reading through Thomas Brooks’ Christian classic Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices. It’s a book I’d recommend every Christian read. Precious Remedies may remind you of C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, though in a vastly different, point-by-point Puritan style of presentation. Brooks (a 17th century English non-conformist Puritan preacher) presents Satan’s methods (“devices”) and then “divine remedies” to counter them.

One of the most vicious and subtle attacks on God’s church, according to Brooks, is Satan’s determination to destroy the saints by dividing them, until we “bite and devour” one another (Gal. 5:15). One of Satan’s favorite tools to accomplish this aim, according to Brooks, is the saints’ own self-righteousness. We catch somebody doing or saying one thing wrong, and then use that as license to destroy them and everything they are.

Brooks quotes Erasmus who showed how silly self-righteous judgment can be. Erasmus chastises a scholar who “collected all the lame and defective verses in Homer’s works—but passed over all that was excellent. Ah! This is the practice of many people, that they are careful and skillful to collect all the weaknesses of others, and to pass over all those things which are excellent to them.”

Homer’s writings are widely regarded as foundational works of great literature, but if you focus on his worst passages, you miss the beauty, power, and poetry of the best.

It would be like someone collecting videotape of Tom Brady’s worst plays, weaving them together, and putting out the video with a caption, “Tom Brady is not a great quarterback.” You ignore his nine Super Bowl appearances and six Super Bowl rings because, well, in a January 2010 playoff game against the Ravens he threw for just 154 yards and had three interceptions.

The chronicler reveals himself to be an absolute fool. Brady had a bad day, but he’s still a great quarterback.

Yet how many of us treat family members this way, looking for the worst and defining them by their worst? And how many of us treat Christians with whom we disagree this way?

Self-righteousness shame casting gets us angry and vindictive and then it snowballs. We look for more that is wrong, more to chastise, more we can use to “shame” who has now become our enemy as we “bite and devour one another.” We forget the human condition—that every person has strengths and weaknesses.

Dare I say it? Every ministry has truth and lies. The only perfect sermon was the sermon on the Mount. The only perfect book is the one God wrote. The only perfect spouses (Adam and Eve) didn’t stay that way for very long. This is the lesson I take from reading the Christian classics: there are often many nuggets of gold occasionally surrounded by a few pieces of excrement. I am most dangerous and most deadly when I become a stranger to humility and make myself the arbiter of all things true and moral and good.

Brooks asks why we “enjoy” self-righteous diatribes: “Tell me, saints, is it not a more sweet, comfortable, and delightful thing to look more upon one another’s graces than upon one another’s infirmities? Tell me what pleasure, what delight, what comfort is there in looking upon the enemies, the wounds, the sores, the sickness, the diseases, the nakedness of our friends?”

If we gather in groups to share our spouse’s shortcomings; if we meet after church to chastise the sermon’s weaknesses and the church’s failures, if we gather in blogs or on Facebook to organize and execute the most recent take down of the next victim, we may be giving way to one of “Satan’s devices.” Self-righteousness is like a snowball rolling down the hill that gets larger as it rolls, picking up momentum and force as others join in. Now, imagine an entire church or online community pushing that ball. I’ve seen some get so frenzied in their zeal they’d roll that snowball right over Jesus to attack the object of their disdain.

It’s Personal

What if Jesus views that “object” of your scorn as his son or daughter? If you have kids you know they aren’t perfect. You know they make mistakes and occasionally do or say stupid things. But you can’t stop looking at them through the eyes of a parent, can you? You are still for them even when you are against what they do or say. That’s the attitude of a graceful Christian—you remain for someone even when calling them into repentance.

God looks at every Christian you attack as his son or daughter. When we must disagree and confront sin and false teaching, we should do it with reverence. Christ died for the person you are attacking. Christ wants that person’s best. If we had to be perfect to merit God’s favor, no one would be left standing in the church.

I’ve said time and again that the biggest mind-transformation for me was when I “got” that Lisa is God’s daughter (1 John 3:1) and that as his daughter she is dearly loved (Ephesians 5:1). Any correction, any challenge, has to be done with the understanding that I am talking to God’s daughter. That calls me to more than respect; it calls me to reverence and divine gratitude. Her heavenly father has given me everything, and how I treat her says as much about how I view Him as it does about how I view her. If one of my children mess up, I know they need to be challenged, but I want it to be done with grace and understanding and good will, not hatred, malice, slander, or making them sound worse than they are.

It took me a little longer to extend this beyond my family to other believers. But this is why you won’t find me attacking books or people in this blog. I don’t know how to do it with reverence. I’ve seen my mentor J.I. Packer do it (just read Keep in Step with the Spirit). I’ve listened to another mentor, Dr. Klaus Bockmuehl, do the same with theological “opponents.” But it’s so difficult to do and it’s so easy to go from being right to being self-righteous, and that tiny gap is where you go from serving God to perhaps unwittingly furthering the cause of Satan who seeks to divide us by inciting us to bite and devour one another. “They sharpen their tongues like swords and aim cruel words like deadly arrows” (Psalm 64:3).

The world’s hostility toward the words and people of Christ grows daily; how much must it grieve our heavenly Father when he sees his children adding to this hostility?

The Gospel is What we Receive and Give

Brooks says something shocking: “Does not God look more upon his people’s graces than upon their weaknesses?” Consider how God describes David as “a man after my own heart.” James reminds us to remember the “patience of Job” (5:11), ignoring the twenty chapters of Job’s impatient ranting. Rahab the prostitute isn’t remembered and condemned for sleeping with hundreds of men; she is celebrated for hiding two of God’s chosen. In some Christian quarters today, any individuals who did what these three did would be defined by their worst moments, cast out, and banned.

Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous is a hero to many who never met him but often felt like a train wreck waiting to happen to those who did. Wilson’s associates often lamented how such an unworthy man was the figurehead for such a worthy mission. Bill’s frustrated addiction to alcohol became arguably an addiction to sex, making him chronically unfaithful to his wife. The transfer from alcohol to sex addiction isn’t uncommon; in AA circles it’s derisively described as “thirteenth stepping,” and Wilson was one of the most prolific thirteenth steppers who ever lived. A long-term mistress, Helen Wynn, was actually a beneficiary in his will. And (this is particularly sad and heart-wrenching), in the last few weeks of his life, as Bill Wilson lay dying, nurses recorded three separate times that Bill demanded a drink and became furious when they didn’t comply.

Knowing all this, any fame-thirsty blogger could have written a good “take down” of Bill; his hypocrisy, his unworthiness to be a figure of renown. How could AA or its message be any good when its founder was so “bad”? But the program Bill launched—though imperfect—has benefitted tens of millions of people, helping them find the freedom that he never entirely did.

Can I be honest with you? If you get to know any of the people behind the headlines, they are all broken people with broken pasts. And broken people usually still have a limp. Some, like Beth Moore and Bob Goff, have bravely shared glimpses of their painful pasts. Others don’t have the strength or desire to share so freely (perhaps for some good reasons) but if you dug deeply enough, you wouldn’t find a single public face without some private shame.

We are all messed up, in some way. Stepping out of the sewer is a universal human condition. To step out in the public and be used by God, we might have washed our face but forgotten to wash behind our ears or still have something sticking in our hair. As a person saved by grace I want to extend grace myself and try to whisper to the person, “You’ve got grime on your neck” rather than laugh out loud, point it out to everyone, and make the person feel shame because even though they’ve left most of the sewer behind, a little stink is still sticking with them.

Here’s a warning: when God loves someone as a daughter or son and you tear that person apart, now you’ve got a problem with God. Read the book of Job; God was angry with Job for getting things wrong, but he grew even angrier with Job’s friends for the way they responded to Job’s errors.

Let me be clear: if my son or daughter was doing or saying something heinous, and another believer found a way, with grace, to confront and correct them, I’d be grateful for the person doing the correcting. My heart would be filled with love and gratitude for them. If they did it in a self-righteous way, however, destroying and attacking their person, even if I agreed with what they were saying I would hate what they were doing. Job’s accusers said many true things, but being against Job, even in his ranting, made God stand against them because “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

God has one church—a very imperfect church. If we tear that one church apart, what’s left? An open playing field for Satan.

The Essential Ministry of Confrontation

 As a postscript, I want to make clear I don’t discount the sometimes necessary ministry of confrontation, otherwise you’d have to throw out the entire book of Jeremiah and the ministry of John the Baptist (but notice how both ended clarion calls of judgment with gracious invitations of healing). There has been some very necessary deep cleansing in the church. If men won’t treat women with respect out of reverence for God, perhaps at least they’ll now start doing so out of fear of the world’s shame and reprisal. The church is commanded to protect and stand up for the vulnerable and oppressed (Prov. 24:11) and to “gently” restore those who have sinned (Gal. 6:1). We have a very difficult time balancing these two charges, but we must find a way. We can fall off on either side.

Tim Challies’ sometimes negative reviews of books help me clarify my own thinking. Scot McKnight is someone I occasionally check out to help me think through controversial issues (I love the way he usually waits and reflects instead of commenting off the cuff). Sheila Gregoire offered some much-needed corrections to perhaps unforeseen horrendous implications behind the good intentions of the purity movement. Deb Fileta wrote True Love Dates to correct some faulty thinking on dating and was so successful, Josh Harris pulled his book from publication and ended up endorsing Deb’s. I may not always agree with Tim, Scot, Sheila or Deb, but I’m frequently listening.

It’s clear from the words of Jesus (Matt. 7:1-5) and Paul (1 Cor. 11:31; Romans 14:3, 10, 13) that we should spend the vast majority of our time judging ourselves first and encouraging others rather than attacking them (1 Thess. 5:11). That’s the practice that sets up a healthy foundation with which to confront the weaknesses of others, but it’s the first practice the self-righteous man or woman leaves behind. Pointing out the wrongs of others or the false-teaching of others doesn’t, in itself, absolve you from searching your own heart for evil and your own words for untruth. If you’re reading a blog or listening to a podcast or following someone on twitter that attacks more than it encourages, be careful. Seriously—if you’re in a tribe, online or otherwise, known more for what it opposes than what it is for, you are extremely vulnerable to being drowned in your own self-righteousness, and all the agreement you’re collecting will only push you further in that direction.

If someone actually takes glee in taking someone down, that may say more about their soul than the person they are attacking. Opposing someone who is wrong doesn’t make you right. There are two ways to miss a target.

This is why we need to be aware of the danger, even the demonic allure, of self-righteousness. “There are no souls in the world who are so fearful to judge others—as those who do most judge themselves; nor so careful to make a righteous judgment of men or things—as those who are most careful to judge themselves” (Brooks).

After reminding us that God looks more on our “graces” than “weaknesses,” Brooks writes, “Ah, saints, be like your heavenly Father!  By so doing, much sin would be prevented, the designs of wicked men frustrated, Satan outwitted, many wounds healed, many sad hearts cheered, and God more abundantly honored.”

God, please grant me the grace to correct others as you have corrected me—being for me even as you are against what I am doing; offering hope for the future more loudly than condemnation about the past; affirming me as a person even as you challenge my errors. Let me be so enamored with the perfect righteousness of Christ that I become dead to my own self-righteousness and treat others with the grace you have shown to me. Have mercy on us and please heal our broken and divided church with grace, humility, truth and compassion. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

The post The Demonic Danger of Self-Righteousness appeared first on Gary Thomas.

The Most Difficult Thing God is Asking You to Do

Miranda had been spending money on a secret credit card for months. She hid receipts, she removed price tags, she sometimes even lied about where something came from. “My mom gave that to me!” Eventually she couldn’t hide the bills any longer, and her husband realized they were going to have to sell their house to get out from under their unsecured debt.

Franklin shared a very personal secret about his wife with his best friend, “just between the two of them.” His best friend told his own wife so you could imagine the shock Franklin’s wife felt when the other wife told her she was praying for her. For that.

Since the Bible tells us we all stumble in many ways (James 3:2—just pause for a second and think about the implications of the words “all” and “many”), every married person can write their own stories about the despicable things they have had to forgive. In his book What’s So Amazing About Grace Philip Yancey recounts his wife telling him, “I think it’s pretty amazing that I forgave you for some of the dastardly things you’ve done!”

If you want to build and maintain a lifelong, intimate marriage, one of the most difficult and yet most essential spiritual skills is forgiveness. It may feel like the hardest thing God ever asks you to do. It seems unfair and sometimes even unbearable. But if we call ourselves followers of Christ, we must come to grips with the fact that Jesus never allows forgiveness to be “negotiable” among his disciples:

“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6:14-15).
“And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins” (Mark 11:25).

Forgiveness is the spiritual air we breathe in from God, and the spiritual air we breathe out toward others. If breath is stopped in either direction, we suffocate spiritually. Our marriages will wither and so will our souls.

Forgiving your spouse isn’t an option. It’s not something we can consider: “Do I want to forgive him? Should I forgive her?” When we decided to become Christians, we decided to be and to keep being, forgivers.

Such forgiveness begins with understanding how God has forgiven us. Andrew Murray writes, “The redeemed saint can never forget that he is a forgiven sinner. Nothing works more mightily to inflame his love, to awaken his joy, or to strengthen his courage, than the experience, continually renewed by the Holy Spirit as a living reality, of God’s forgiving love. Every day, yes, every thought of God reminds him: I owe all to pardoning grace.”

Think often of what God has forgiven you and how he continues to offer you forgiveness for today. The stream of God’s forgiveness should flow through us; we mustn’t be dams that stop its run. Murray again: “As forgiveness of your sins was one of the first things Jesus did for you, forgiveness of others is one of the first that you can do for Him.”

It’s frustrating to work with a couple where one person is obsessed with their spouse’s sin while being so very blind to their own. Because they think their sin is less odious, they resent the implication that it’s even worth mentioning in comparison. Our stink is always less to us than the stink of others. It’s a monumental challenge whenever any spouse comes in for pastoral counseling and there is no conviction in their life and no perception of their own need for God’s grace. Blind self-righteousness imperils a marriage. If any spouse forgets they also stand in need of daily grace, they become vicious accusers and manufacturers of contempt. It usually sends a marriage into free fall.

I’ve seen couples survive affairs, porn, food addictions, substance abuse, financial misdeeds, and other challenges. But since all of us are sinners, no marriage can maintain its intimacy without regular and frequent forgiveness. Thinking you can be married—or be a Christian—without forgiving, is like pretending you can run the hurdles without jumping. You can’t do it. It’s part of the journey. At some point you have to realize that the problem isn’t just that your spouse sinned; it’s that you can’t forgive. The unwillingness to forgive may be what’s holding your marriage back.

On the positive side, there are few things more moving to me than those testimonies of spouses who have shown supernatural forgiveness in such magnitude that God becomes the hero of their story. I’ve been moved to tears hearing accounts of wives who forgave their husbands so generously, and husbands who forgave their wives and dropped it, without all those wicked passive-aggressive reminders of previous misdeeds. Such accounts lead me to worship because such forgiveness may be the most un-human and most divine-like thing we are ever asked to do. Andrew Murray writes, “If the world sees men and women living and forgiving as Jesus did, it will be compelled to confess that God is with them.”

Are you committed to forgive your spouse, and to keep forgiving your spouse? Forgiveness does not preclude consequences, including separation or even, in certain cases, divorce. Forgiveness doesn’t mean a woman allows herself to be physically abused. Allowing someone to face the consequences of their sin isn’t, on its own, a failure of forgiveness. You can forgive and separate in a situation that’s not safe.

But let’s not allow the exceptional cases to blind us from the need to forgive in the difficult cases—marriage can and must teach us how to forgive. Christians must be “extreme forgivers.”

We have been forgiven. We must forgive. Grace received must become grace given. It’s a package deal.

Some of you may be letting your marriage slowly die by a refusal to do for your spouse in a much more limited way what God has abundantly done for you. Just know that, in the end, this isn’t as much about being a husband or a wife as it is about being a Christian. Freely you have received; freely you must give and that means freely you must forgive.

[If you struggle with forgiveness and want to know how to get there (as well as the necessary limitations such as holding people accountable as we forgive, etc.) I’ve written on this topic pretty extensively in two books: chapter 7 of Authentic Faith (“Giving up the Grudge”) and  chapter 10 of the revised edition of Sacred Marriage (“Falling Forward: Marriage Teaches Us to Forgive”).]

The post The Most Difficult Thing God is Asking You to Do appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Let’s Pursue a Deeper Kind of Love

 

A divorced woman told my daughter that “Finding the man I honestly believe is the love of my life is still not worth the pain and difficulties of being divorced from the father of my children. At some point, having someone to talk to about a funny thing one of your kids said means more than feeling madly in love.”

This woman’s story captures the empty promise behind the all-consuming but short-lived passion that is often defined as “finding the love of my life.” We not only want to be swept off our feet by our romantic passion; we want someone who will keep sweeping us off our feet.

This woman believed such a thing existed and blew apart her marriage in search of it. Now, in hindsight, she thinks she made a very sad mistake.

Neurologically, the notion that we can find that one person to keep sweeping us off our feet is scientifically disproven. An infatuation has a shelf life of less than two years. As I said in a post a few weeks back, mature love means we have to move from “fascination” to “admiration.” Michael Jordan was voted MVP only five of the fifteen seasons in which he played pro basketball. I doubt there was a coach in the league who wouldn’t have chosen him first if he was drafting a new team in at least twelve of those fifteen seasons. But it’s hard to be “fascinated” with Jordan when you’ve seen him be “fascinating” so many years already.

In the same way, you can have an MVP spouse, but after a few years together, that MVP spouse will feel like normal, even average. That’s simply the way our brains work. If you cut your MVP spouse in hopes you can sign a newer model, be prepared for the inevitable letdown.

Neuroscience warns that if you get married because of overwhelming feelings and then break up your family and get divorced because the feelings are gone, the pain you’ll feel over your broken marriage and loneliness in parenting will last decades longer than the next infatuation ever will. You will pay for grams of pleasure by swallowing kilograms of pain.

Some women (and a few men) are all but forced into divorce through habitual unfaithfulness and abuse on the part of their spouse. Those are sad but sometimes necessary stories. But it’s particularly foolish when someone gets divorced because they’re chasing something that doesn’t exist—an ongoing infatuation. Instead of divorce being used as a protective tool, they’re using it as a weapon with two sharp sides, and they’ll end up hurting themselves just as much as their spouse.

The Spiritual Slide

When we become disappointed in an idol (and romantic infatuation is a prime example of an idol), we become resentful because we feel conned. The next step is to go overboard in the other direction: what we used to worship we now disdain. Before, they could do no wrong. Now, they can do no right.

Both stances are immature, deceptive, and destructive. No human partner can complete us. And every human partner usually has at least some redeeming qualities. But to justify our abandonment (or future abandonment), we may become crazed in our judgment and blind in our prejudice. It’s almost like we’re trying to pay someone back for not being who we thought they were.

There must come a day in our marriage when we accept a more mature love. Remember what the woman told my daughter: “At some point, having someone to talk to about a funny thing one of your kids said means more than feeling madly in love.” Contentment in marriage invites us to appreciate and value the quiet parts of a lifelong partnership.

Such an approach isn’t settling. It’s not even a compromise.

It’s reality.

Not once does the Bible promise us ongoing infatuation. Many times, however, it mentions children as a particular blessing:

Proverbs 17:6: “Grandchildren are the crown of the elderly…”

Psalm 127:3: “Sons are indeed a heritage from the Lord, children a reward.”

And, of course, having children is one of the commands that follows marriage (Genesis 1:28). We’re not commanded to feel. We’re commanded to be fruitful.

Romantic infatuation is a wonderful, God-given experience. Since God created our brains, it’s entirely appropriate to thank Him for seasons of infatuation.  But children are also a blessing of marriage, and it isn’t a compromise to see this as an equal joy of spending life together.

When my youngest daughter was a toddler, Lisa saw her licking the window. “Kelsey,” she cried out, “What are you doing?”

“I’m a windshield wiper!”

I’m thankful Lisa immediately thought to call me on the phone instead of post it on social media to a few hundred “friends.” She knew no one would enjoy that story as much as I did. (And, fortunately for Kelsey, Lisa kept the windows very clean.)

Raising our children together has given us a lifetime of shared memories and friendship that runs as deep as the center of the earth. You want to feel especially close to your spouse? Fast with them for a day and use the meal time to pray for one of your children.

Such a friendship lasts longer than a wild, intense infatuation. I agree with the woman my daughter overheard. Romance is wonderful and I like the fact that there are still moments in my marriage when Lisa and I get weak in the knees thinking about getting alone together. But other times, simply having someone to talk to when one of the kids does or says something means a lot.

A whole lot.

Let’s not discount that.

The post Let’s Pursue a Deeper Kind of Love appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Your Day’s Not Done Until…

The way Lisa treats me might make some young women nauseous, because she serves me like we’re living in a 1950s sitcom. Just one example: because she cares so much about health and because she knows my taste buds on their own might lead me in a very different direction, Lisa tries to prepare every meal she can. I walked into the church the other day with a smoothie Lisa had made. A coworker asked, “Hey, what’s in that?”

“I have no idea,” I responded. “Lisa told me it was best if I just didn’t know. ‘You’ll eat it,’ she said. ‘You have before.”

As an empty nester who wakes up when the first number is usually a 4, I can crunch 12-hour days but that means I’m pretty tired when I get home, so Lisa takes over and does much of the work in the evenings. I don’t do that much at home. I try to do my own laundry but sometimes Lisa gets ahead of me even there.

Someone watching us would say, “Man, she really serves him.”

If they watched a little more closely, they’d see my goal to get the newspaper on the days it comes so Lisa doesn’t have to go outside. They’d see me lifting all the blinds because Lisa doesn’t like to do that. They’d watch me stop at the bank on Friday to get Lisa’s cash for the farmer’s market Saturday morning, and they’d hear about what Lisa calls her “magic gas gauge” because I try to make sure her gas tank gets filled.

And perhaps they would have heard what I told Lisa when we became official empty-nesters: “Anything you want to do now, let’s have you do it. If you want to go back to school; if you want to start a business; if you want to get more involved at church; if you want to just hang out, you can do whatever you want to do. I’ll support you in anything.”

Lisa is all-in with serving me and I’m all-in with serving her in part because serving someone you cherish brings so much joy. When Lisa was on a trip last summer visiting some family while I stayed in Houston to preach, the day wasn’t complete for me unless I had done something to make her life sweeter when she returned: topping off the gas tank, getting a task done she normally would have done, getting some dirty boots shined (which she laughed about when she got back because they were “mud” boots and she didn’t care about them not being shined; how am I supposed to know what “mud boots” look like? I guess the mud should have been my first clue).

Wanting to cherish the person you cherish becomes part of what you want to do. In fact, the day’s not complete until you do it. Cherish may begin as a commitment, but it soon morphs into a pleasure.

I love being in an “all in” marriage. Looked at from one angle, some might say, “Does she consider herself his servant?” And then looked at from the other, it might be, “Does he think he exists just to make her happy?”

It’s easier for us because our kids aren’t home; this kind of devotion to each other’s needs is a little more complicated when you both have jobs and young children who need nurturing (and driven around town, bathed, picked up after, etc.). But for any married person at any stage of life, I’d urge them to develop the cherishing mindset that your day isn’t complete until you’ve done something concrete to bless your spouse and make their life just a tiny bit happier. Just because you can’t do everything you wish you could do for each other doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do anything.

Just try it, for a week: Find something your spouse hates to do and start doing it for them. Find something your spouse enjoys and start giving it. It may take less than a minute (how long do you think it takes me to lift the blinds?), but even that little bit builds and maintains the cherishing mindset.

This attitude spreads into all aspects of marriage. Sex becomes particularly enjoyable when both spouses cherish each other so much they wouldn’t even think of being “done” until the other person is done. And preferably a little worn out.

The mindset this engenders can be so helpful, because when I’m regularly thinking about what I should do today to bless Lisa, I’m not thinking about what she’s not doing for me (it would take me a good while these days to think of something). I’m not a neuroscientist, but I swear there’s a little dopamine rush when you take the initiative and serve your spouse. You start to get more joy out of giving than getting (didn’t a famous person once say something about that?).

As Lisa and I age—well, as I age and Lisa keeps looking about the same—there may be plenty of guys with more hair than I have, a better body, more money, and far greater charm. But I don’t think Lisa is going to find a guy who takes more joy in serving her, who is so devoted to her well-being, and who doesn’t think a day is complete until he has been involved in doing something to bless her. And anybody who chooses to cherish their spouse can become exactly that kind of spouse.

This is just one of the gifts the cherishing mindset has given us. It has taken our marriage to the next level. You might already be on a higher level than us, but you can go even higher when you remember you didn’t promise just to love your spouse, but to cherish your spouse.

A postscript for those in selfish marriages: I’m not suggesting that if you do this with a selfish spouse they’ll start serving you. However, there can still be a certain joy when you know you’re fulfilling your promise and pleasing your God by serving your spouse. This blog post isn’t a promise or even a strategy; it’s a personal discovery of the truth behind Jesus’ words, “It is better to give than to receive.” Being married to a selfish person can be so discouraging, but don’t let your spouse’s selfishness rob you of experiencing God’s generosity by doing what you know is right and what pleases Him. God sees (Gen. 16:13) and God rewards (Heb. 11:6). You may have to wait a little longer to enjoy the fruits of your cherishing love, but God’s promise never fails (Heb. 10:23).

And, of course, part of being “all in” for your spouse is doing what’s best for them from God’s perspective, which in the case of addiction or abuse isn’t enabling; it’s confronting, holding them accountable, and allowing consequences to follow. Your spouse may not be pleased by these actions or feel served, but from God’s perspective you are being the best kind of servant you could be.

The post Your Day’s Not Done Until… appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Cherishing Sex is the Best Sex

One of the most delightful discoveries on my journey to cherish Lisa was finding out the difference cherishing makes with sexual intimacy. A cherishing mindset helps you enjoy the richest aspects of sexual intimacy while protecting you from the worst tendencies of sexual desire and pleasure. Because sex can be such a powerful experience, it’s easy for the desire and pleasure to take over until it becomes more about two bodies than two lovers and two spouses. And with the ever-present promise of such intense pleasure, it’s easy to become selfish.

When you decide to let cherishing direct what happens between the sheets, you make it your goal to “use sex” to cherish your spouse instead of using your spouse to cherish sex. The difference is enormous.

For instance, when a man is cherishing his wife, she, not an act, is what he desires and cherishes. Sex becomes a tool to proclaim her beauty, her worth, her desirability, and her excellence. When a man desires sex in general instead of his wife in particular, she’s going to feel used rather than cherished, and the sexual act can actually do great harm. (I’m not trying to be a prude here; maybe she just really wants the pleasure and physical release as well—there are different kinds of sex in a lifelong marriage).

For your husband, cherishing means he also wants to be desired sexually, not “serviced” reluctantly. If he’s healthy, he doesn’t want “obligation sex,” though he may take it when life is crazy busy (again, real life), but his soul will be filled only by cherishing sex.

It made such a difference when I began to look at each act of sexual intimacy as another opportunity to cherish my wife. That mindset changed everything, helping me to let go of unhealthy and selfish views of sex, and bringing to the forefront the best parts of sex.

Wives, God designed your husband’s brain to cherish you and to be enthralled with your body. In His word, he directs men to put one hundred percent of their sexual focus on their wives: “May you rejoice in the wife of your youth.  A loving doe, a graceful deer—may her breasts satisfy you always; may you ever be captivated by her love” (Proverbs 5:18b-19).

If you want me to be honest, the Hebrew word translated “breasts” is actually slightly more specific, but there’s no way I’m putting that in my blog. You can figure it out on your own.

This God-designed power of wives’ bodies to enthrall their husbands revealed itself to me during a trip to California. Lisa and I drove to a trail where I planned to run and Lisa planned to walk.

“Do you have your cell phone?” I asked her.

“No, I left it in the room.”

“I don’t want you walking out here without a phone. Why don’t you take mine?”

I took off running but came to the end of the trail less than a mile later; we had started in the wrong direction. I turned around and met Lisa walking toward me. “Hey,” I said, “We need to turn around. The trail ends up there. But can I have my phone for a second? I want to type in some notes so I can clear my mind.”

“Sure,” Lisa said, and pulled my phone out of her…jog bra.

I had been married to her for about thirty years at the time. I had had that phone for at least two years. But that black piece of plastic carried almost a supernatural glow like I had never seen. “Sacred Cell Phone!” (sorry) Just holding it, I forgot what I was trying to do.

“What?” Lisa asked.

“Give me a second,” I said, pathetically trying to remember why I was holding this now sanctified piece of plastic in my hands.

As embarrassed as I am to admit this, God made me to respond to Lisa’s body and in particular, her breasts, just like that.  It pleases him. When a guy is enthralled with his wife, and a wife knows she has that kind of power to transfix her husband, it’s a beautiful thing and helps keep the power balance in marriage. I’m not, not, not defining a woman’s power by (or tying her worth to) her sexual appeal, but as part of a healthy marriage, it’s a wonderful thing.

The other God-honoring aspect of this is that the more I’m enthralled with Lisa, the more I’m freed from sexualizing any other woman. I can appreciate their wisdom, wit, faith, insight, friendship and leadership without valuing them or evaluating them based on physical appearance or sexual appeal. If you’re already full, it’s easy to pass up a Big Mac.

For her part, Lisa doesn’t have to worry if she’s desired by any other man or struggles to maintain a false stereotype of a never-aging body that the culture at large deems desirable. She knows the mere act of carrying my cell phone in her jog bra is enough to turn me into an embarrassing adolescent who is so gob-smacked he can’t even remember what he wanted to say (thirty years after we got married, mind you!). Too often, a woman who is ignored or under-valued by her husband is more inclined to “test” her desirability with other men, a perilous lose-lose situation, biblically speaking.

Another aspect of cherishing sex that transforms the relationship is that this is the only occasion when a husband’s pride and ego work in his wife’s favor. One of the absolute best ways for a wife to “give” to her husband is to learn to receive (and even ask for) sexual pleasure with abandon. When a husband can leave a wife exhausted, panting and smiling and can say to himself, “I did that to her, thank you very much,” well, both spouses win.

Here’s a key element in pursuing a cherishing sexual relationship, however: cherishing sex isn’t about desiring sex; it’s about celebrating your spouse. That makes your spouse feel affirmed. Otherwise she may just feel used. It’s not about your “needs.” It’s about her beauty, her desirability, her loveliness and her pleasure.

In a healthy, cherishing marriage that extends into the bedroom, two Scriptures are showcased. Wives want to hear Song of Songs 6:9: “My dove, my perfect one, is the only one.” If a wife catches her husband watching porn or checking out women on the sidewalk; if the man she dressed to please for their date night turns his eyes from her to watch the waitress walk by, she feels like she’s in a competition that she has just lost. She wants to be “the perfect one, the only one.” The goal for every cherishing husband is to make his wife feel exactly like that. “Why would I look at her when I can look at you?”

But wives, your husbands want to hear, “He is altogether desirable. This is my beloved and this is my friend” (Song of Songs 5:16). If you cherish your husband ninety-nine ways but make him feel sexually undesirable, he’s probably not going to feel cherished no matter what else you do.

Sheila Gregoire wisely warns that “obligation sex” (simply meeting the man’s need for a sexual release) just doesn’t work long-term. No woman can be that altruistic. And no healthy man should be pleased without pleasing his wife. Pursuing a cherishing sexual relationship comes closer to what Sheila describes as a healthy sexual attitude: “Instead of emphasizing his need for sex, then, let‘s emphasize mutually satisfying sex— something that you both want, that you both find pleasurable, and that you both find intimate.” (For more on this, check out Sheila’s book, The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex.)

It’s not a coincidence that the typical sexual sin for men is voyeurism, and for women, exhibitionism. Here’s what’s going on spiritually. When a man chooses to become a voyeur, he’s saying to himself, “It’s not enough for me to be satisfied with a woman; I want to find sexual excitement from all women.” That attitude alone sets a man up for many selfish failures and fosters a predatory attitude that makes him a prime candidate to become a poster boy for the me-too movement.

When a woman decides to become an exhibitionist, here’s what’s going on in her mind spiritually: “It’s not enough for me to feel beautiful by being desired by a man, I want to know that men in general find me attractive.”

With the voyeuristic husband and the exhibitionist wife are saying is, “My spouse isn’t enough for me.” How can anybody feel cherished when they are regularly told by word or action that they’re not enough? In both attitudes, sex is divorced from the marriage and fulfillment is sought outside the marital bed where it can never be found, because both attitudes destroy marital sexual fulfillment that God created us to enjoy.

Men, you’ve probably heard this, but the allure of porn is the dopamine rush that hits your brain when you see something new. That’s why an already viewed picture or video won’t “work” like it did before. Excitement comes from the new and the unseen. It doesn’t take a scientist to point out how this is exactly the opposite of marital sex, where you are cherishing the body of a woman you have seen in many ways and perhaps for many years. Neuroscience is pretty clear: you can’t cherish your wife fully if you are re-wiring your brain with porn. This is a fight worth fighting.

There’s so much more to say on this topic, which I’m thinking of addressing in an upcoming ebook. For now, let me suggest that you can take your marital intimacy to an entirely new place if you just think about injecting the concept of “cherishing each other” into your lovemaking. What happens next will be different for every individual and every couple. But making “cherishing” the benchmark of each act and the relationship in general can do wonders to help couples walk out of harmful past sexual habits and into new horizons of refreshing sexual intimacy, pleasure and even abandon.

The post Cherishing Sex is the Best Sex appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Ready or Knot?

As a pastor, Scott Kedersha has worked with more than 5,000 premarital couples to prepare them for their new life together. His book Ready or Knot? offers practical and Christ-centered guidance for engaged couples as they get ready for their special day. Scott asks some tough (but vital questions) and gives some great advice for premarital couples.

Scott and I both think Ready or Knot would serve as a great companion to my own devotional for engaged couples, Preparing Your Heart for Marriage. I was honored to write the foreword for Scott’s book, which you can find below:

 

As a boy scout, I never made it past “Tenderfoot.” The next rank up was underwhelmingly called “Second Class.” It just didn’t seem worth the effort to work toward something as humble as “second class,” so I switched my focus to baseball.

One of the things that held me back is that I’m so terrible with knots. I momentarily learned one or two in an attempt to get a merit badge, but I forgot how to retie them fifteen seconds later. Nobody in the entire troop trusted me to tie down the tent we’d be sleeping in. While I knew the names—the slip knot, the trucker’s hitch, the bowline, the double fisherman’s knot—all my fellow scouts would have chosen a Brownie over this Tenderfoot in order to secure our shelter.

God, on the other hand, excels at knots. He can take the two most diverse substances on this planet—a man and a woman—and tie them together in a ceremony so that the two become one:  “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh” (Matthew 19:6).

There’s something about such “knot tying” that delights the heart of God. Remember what Jesus did with James and John? A seemingly offhand comment packs a powerful punch when you reflect on what it means. After mentioning James and John, Mark tells us that Jesus “gave them the name Boanerges, which means ‘sons of thunder’” (Mark 3:17). Jesus gave two brothers, two different people, one name. They were something together that they weren’t individually.

Such unity is so undervalued in our individualistic times that pursuing true unity as a married couple can be a prophetic act of faith. Psalm 133:1 proclaims “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity,” which Jesus emphasized with his famous prayer: “I pray …that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you” (John 17:20-21).

More than marriage is about sex and children, it’s about unity. Time-wise, sex takes up less than one percent of a married couple’s time, and nobody else witnesses it. Unity covers everything the couple does and says, even when they’re not together, and everyone can see it. And while you can have a marriage without children; you cannot have a marriage without unity. Christian marriage is a humble, iron-clad, surrendered commitment to a God-inspired and God-tied unity.

Scott Kedersha has written the “marital scout’s guide” to what knots need to be tied, how to tie them, and, on occasion, when to know that these two strands of rope should actually not be tied together (or at least not yet) in order to achieve such unity. He’s even thrown in the occasional illustration to teach you how to tie the knot of conflict resolution, communication, finances, friendship, extended family dynamics, sexual intimacy, and spiritual intimacy.

Don’t skip a step. I know from past experience that skipping a step can make your knot look like a tangled phone cord by the time you’re through. To get the most out of this manual, pray for God’s enlightenment, surrender to his words, pursue his agenda and design for marriage (which Scott so ably captures here), and you’ll experience the true blessing and miracle of being tied into an indissoluble knot whose craftsmen is none other than God himself.

Few experiences on earth match the beauty, wonder and fulfillment of an intimately connected marriage. Ready or Knot? will show you how such a knot is tied.

The post Ready or Knot? appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Your Marriage Needs More than Carbs

One thought from Angela Duckworth’s book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance struck me as being particularly relevant for marriage. While Grit is mostly about work and vocation, apply the following thought in relational terms and you’ll see what I mean:

“What ripens passion is the conviction that your work matters. For most people, interest without purpose is nearly impossible to sustain for a lifetime. It is therefore imperative that you identify your work as both personally interesting and, at the same time, integrally connected to the well-being of others.”

Let’s change the words just a little while keeping the principle intact: Passion without purpose is nearly impossible to sustain for a lifetime. A romantic infatuation with no greater end than our own delight is like soap bubbles, fog, and a sunset—fascinating and ephemeral at the same time.

My own marriage has deepened to the same extent that Lisa and I have found a purpose behind our passion, and that purpose is help people become “closer to Christ and closer to others.” We both know our marriage isn’t simply about ourselves anymore (it never really was), and we continue to grow in respect and appreciation for each other as we each seek to extend ourselves on behalf of others.

If you think about it, it’s only natural that you will feel more affection and respect for someone who is doing unselfish things. As you get older in your marriage, admiration must begin to replace fascination.

It’s a doomed mission to remain fascinated with someone you know so well, but the same intimate knowledge that undercuts fascination is what builds admiration, if you and your spouse are living an admirable life.

One of the best things about being a Christian is that God equips those whom he calls. When you step out in obedience to make your life one of service, God’s Holy Spirit will empower you so that you can do more through Him than you could ever do on your own—all the while drawing your spouse’s respect and admiration in the process.

My book A Lifelong Love has an entire chapter on how important a sense of mission is to a thriving marriage, including how to find that mission. I describe what I call “the magnificent obsession” as being partners who aim to live out together Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:33 to seek first his Kingdom—to focus on accomplishing His work above our own personal agendas. Whether that leads you to dedicate your lives to the arenas of education, small business, the arts, or the local church, your relationship will grow in proportion to an ultimate purpose that goes beyond your happiness and seeks to bless others.

The best relationships have plenty of delight, but delight is sort of like icing—while you may crave it, it only makes you hungrier sooner rather than later if there isn’t something substantive beneath it. Think of “romance” as the carbs and “service” as the protein of marriage. You don’t have to choose one over the other, of course, but you will get hungry sooner rather than later if you try to subsist only on carbs.

 God made your body to need protein. He made your soul to need selfless service. Trying to keep a marriage together without it goes against his creational design from the very beginning: “God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground” (Gen. 1:28).

“Serving together” may not sound “romantic” to some of you, but living a life of purpose has given me more romantic feelings for my wife, not less. I don’t know that either of us has ever felt more “in love” than we do now, thirty-four years into our marriage. Maybe we’re just getting the normal “empty nester” bump that I’ve read about. But it at least feels directly tied to increased purpose and mission and working together more than we ever have.

So, to increase the passion in your marriage or even to sustain the passion in your marriage, double down on purpose and mission. If you’re raising children, make sure you’re a team raising disciples of Christ. It’s not enough to raise them to be well-educated, well-mannered, and culturally “successful.” Decades from now, if that’s all you’ve done and they end up as selfish consumers who live trivial lives, you’re likely to say “to what purpose did we sacrifice?”

The only thing more fulfilling than doing work that you think matters is raising kids who do work that matters and who live lives that matter. Whether your child grows up to be a police officer, run a post office, own an independent coffee shop, be put in charge of children’s ministries or an entire church, or build a business that employs dozens or thousands of employees, if their faith drives what they do and influences how they do it, the thrill is immense. Just like marriage, parenting must have an ultimate purpose in order for it to ultimately satisfy.

Get away this weekend or even for a one-hour date night discussion and talk about how the two of you can use the resources and influence God has given you to have a new and greater impact on others in His name.  What has he uniquely gifted you to do? How can the combination of your strengths (even if one of you is primarily serving in the “support” role) point the way toward making the most of your life? If you have a copy of A Lifelong Love hanging around, re-read chapter 5, “Got Mission?”

Sustained passion needs purpose. If you want to build and keep the passion, you’ve got to find and build the purpose.

The post Your Marriage Needs More than Carbs appeared first on Gary Thomas.

No Spouse is Everything

Don’t you think it would be cruel to ask your spouse to hold down five jobs?

Let’s say your wife is a university professor, but you expect her to also serve as a detective in the police department, an investment advisor at a local bank, a case worker for child protective services, and sell new cars on the weekend.

That would be insane, right?

Or say your husband operates a Chick-Fil-A, but you expect him to also coach the high school football team, be a plumber on the weekend, serve as head librarian at the local seminary, and inspect houses during his “free time.”

Hopefully, no one would ask their spouse to hold down five jobs, but many of us ask our spouses to be five different people.

And that’s just as cruel as asking them to hold down five jobs.

Can we accept that given the human condition, no spouse is the “total package?”

Louis of Granada (a sixteenth century Dominican Friar) paints a beautiful portrait of how we must learn to honor God as creator by pointing to the variety we find in nature. God doesn’t use a cookie-cutter to shape his world. Every creature has certain weaknesses and strengths. We honor God when we learn to celebrate the beauty of one creature without asking it to have the strengths of other creatures. Those worship God the most who celebrate the frailty of a hummingbird and the bulk of a rhinoceros.

Here’s how Louis describes it:

“We find beautiful variety in the works of nature, where the Sovereign Creator wisely apportions all gifts or qualities so that the lack of one perfection is compensated by the possession of another. The peacock, which has a harsh and displeasing voice, possesses a beautiful plumage; the nightingale delights the ear, but has no charms for the eye; the horse bears us where we will and is valuable in camp and field, but is rarely used for food; the ox is useful for farm and table, but has scarcely any other qualities to recommend him; fruit trees give us food, but have little value for building; forest trees yield no fruit, but afford us the necessary material for erecting our dwellings. Thus we do not find all qualities or all perfections united in one creature, but that variety among them which constitutes the beauty of nature and binds them to one another by a mutual and necessary dependence.”

So what’s “better”—a nightingale or a peacock? There’s no objective “correct” answer to that question. Should you celebrate fruit trees or forest trees?  That depends. Dogs, of course, are superior to cats in every instance, but other than that comparison, God’s brilliance as Creator is seen in the variety of his creating. There are four seasons, seven continents, and eight planets in our solar system and none of them are exactly the same.

God’s creative variety is perhaps most marked by the vast differences among people, and that means spouses, too. Physically, emotionally, and intellectually, God comes up with countless combinations, and for a spouse you get to choose just one. Is an extrovert “superior” to an introvert? Is IQ more important than EQ (emotional awareness)? Is an engineer a better spouse than an artist? Is a mechanic a better spouse than a poet?

Maybe you married a “peacock:” he or she looks great, but they couldn’t pitch a tent if their life depended on it. Maybe you married an ox; he or she gets a whole lot of work done but can’t carry a conversation. Maybe your spouse couldn’t hit a nail with a hammer but he or she makes a good enough living to pay someone else to swing that hammer.  Rejoice in who they are instead of pining after what they’re not.

Wanting your spouse to be an ox, peacock, horse and nightingale all wrapped up into one amazing person isn’t just cruel, it’s insane and actually a bit freakish.

If you’ve read Cherish then you know that a cherishing marriage is based on viewing your husband and wife as “Adam” or “Eve,” the only man or woman in the world. When we choose to marry someone, we choose to cherish someone (“I promise to love and to cherish until death do us part”) and cherishing necessitates training our minds and hearts to be satisfied and even enthralled with our choice. A $10,000 two carat diamond seems beautiful, but if you’re a castaway on a deserted island, you might prefer a butane lighter that costs $2.99. Value can be relative to the person who holds it, so once the marriage vows are said, we don’t expect our spouse to be anything other than what they are. Who they are must also become what we need.

There is an entirely new satisfaction in marriage when you learn to enjoy your spouse as they are instead of forever plotting to change them into someone else.

This isn’t just about your own satisfaction in marriage, however. It’s also about worshipping the God who created your spouse. If He has given you an ox, thank Him for the ox! If He’s given you a peacock, become the world’s number one fan of peacocks. You’ll be happier, your spouse will feel cherished, and your God will feel worshipped. Everyone wins.

Hopefully, you’d never ask your spouse to hold down five jobs. In the same way, don’t ask him or her to become five different people.

The post No Spouse is Everything appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Your Marriage is About so Much More than You

A few years ago, Lisa and I took a military transport and landed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It felt unbearably hot, even for a couple traveling from Houston. Yet the Navy chaplain escorting us around said, “Congratulations—you wisely came here during the coolest time of the year.”

Trips like this one overwhelm me with the sacrifices our soldiers make on our behalf (if you’re one of them, thank you). Many are separated from their families for months at a time. Their restaurant options make cooking at home seem like a good option. The internet connection brought back fond memories of 1990 (It took me 45 minutes to download a 32-minute podcast). And the “coolest time of the year” felt like walking on top of solar heating panels.

My first assignment at the base was to speak to a youth group on The Sacred Search (making a wise marital choice). Afterwards, an 11-year-old boy asked to shake my hand and said, “I just want to thank you for saving my parents’ marriage. My dad said your book [Sacred Marriage] held them together, and our home has been so different ever since they read it.”

Lisa (sitting next to me) and I were at a complete loss for words. He was so young, and so earnest, and so thankful, and it reminded me of a truth every parent needs to take to heart:

Your marriage is about so much more than you.

This kid said his life had been changed because his parents’ marriage had been changed.

When you fight to stay intimate with each other, when you struggle to persevere and forgive, when you pray and work to defeat the personal demons that war against your marriage, your fidelity and your very soul, you’re not just fighting for your own happiness. You’re fighting for your kids and grandkids. You’re fighting for the church’s witness. You’re fighting for the glory of God.

People who run first marathons often run for charities, saying, “I don’t want this to be just about me.” They’re willing to endure 26 miles because it means more than mere exercise to them. In our marriages, the stakes are even higher than that. Will we endure, and not just endure, but press in to each other so that we not only stay together, but thrive together and learn to cherish each other in our passion to give the world and the church the joy and example of a sacred, intimate marriage based on a mutual love for Jesus Christ?

If you could have seen how vulnerable that 11-year-old boy seemed, how sincerely grateful he was, you would be moved as much as Lisa and I were.

For younger couples, this is an inspiring call to rethink your priorities and double-down on the primacy of your relationship to God first, your marriage second, and parenting third. One of the most important tasks of parenting is demonstrating what it means to cherish your spouse. If you give your kids a warm kiss but your spouse a cold shoulder, they’ll notice. If you speak kind words of encouragement to them in the morning but cruel words of contempt to your spouse in the evening, they won’t define their home as “loving.”

For older couples (or perhaps those on their second marriage), the empty nest years offer an opportunity to take your marriage to the next level. We can’t erase all that our kids witnessed when they were growing up. But we can demonstrate the difference Jesus makes in a marriage when we re-surrender our lives to him, orient ourselves around loving him and then loving each other, choose to make our marriage more of a priority, and pray that we can give our children and grandchildren an inspiring picture of mature love going forward.

Lisa gets this, so one of my favorite things about having our children visit is her determination to make sure our marriage is operating at its finest. In part, that means we are definitely going to have sex the night before they visit. I’ve always been willing to do my part to help make this happen. Taking one for the team, of course…

Whether your children (or grandchildren) live with you or are older and just visiting, more than they need a hot meal and clean sheets, they need to see the power of a God-centered, God-empowered mature love. We might wish we could have done better for our children in the past, but a darker past will only serve as a contrast to a brighter future, glorifying God all the more and pointing our children toward Him as the one who makes all things new.

The empty nest, by definition, is defined by loss. Let’s redefine it by filling that loss with an increasing level of love and cherishing for each other. After all, our marriages aren’t just about us. They’re about so much more than that.

The post Your Marriage is About so Much More than You appeared first on Gary Thomas.

Learning to See What God Sees

The conversation took place almost a decade ago, but I can still remember it. “If either of you ever have any doubts,” this man told me and my best friend, “you need to know you’ve got two really good boys.”

The man speaking to us was our sons’ high school principal. He’s the kind of school administrator parents dream about—involved with students, present on campus, wise and empathetic. The three of us met weekly in a Christian accountability group so we often got the “inside scoop” as parents in regards to what was going on at the school.

From his vantage point as a principal, our friend saw everything. And he wanted both of us to appreciate the positive impact our sons were making at their school.

It can be scary raising children because you want them to turn out well. You know the stakes, and you hope your kids are among the “good ones.” But you also see every imperfection. For Christians it’s even more intense because, admittedly, we have other standards as well, caring about things like faith, prayer, and thirst for God and His word. It’s not enough that our kids aren’t into drugs. We won’t be happy unless they’re also into Jesus.

Because we care so much it’s only natural (but still a dangerous temptation) to look at our kids and see primarily what needs to change. And if we’re not careful it’s easy to define our children by what needs to change rather than affirm them with what they are already doing and who they already are that honors and glorifies God.

We need far more of the attitude displayed by the apostle Paul. He dealt with churches that had every kind of evil imaginable: sexual sin, infighting, laziness, self-indulgence, heretical teachers, you name it. Yet in all his letters he comes off as an encourager who notices the good.

Consider his words to the Romans:

“And concerning you, my brethren, I myself also am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able also to admonish one another.” Romans 15:14

Really?

Didn’t he just warn them, “Do not be arrogant!”(11:18)

Didn’t he just tell the “strong” to lighten up on the “weak,” and the “weak” not to judge the “strong?” (chap. 14).  Didn’t he have to admonish them, “Who are you to judge the servant of another?” (14:4) Didn’t he have to lecture them to “accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God?” (15:7)

Throughout his letters, Paul exercises the grace to call out someone’s good in Christ even in the face of their weaknesses.

For marriage and parenting, we need the eyes of Paul, always thankful for the good we see wrapped up in lives of imperfection.

Paul doesn’t allow any weakness to define the church at Rome; instead, he defines them by the grace of God. He chooses to see the goodness God squeezes out of their limitations: “I am convinced you are full of goodness.”

After having to patiently set them straight on fundamental issues like faith, the law, circumcision and the Sabbath (where it’s clear they’re dangerously close to veering off course), he then tells them how confident he is that they can “admonish” (teach) one another. He schools them, but then says, “you’re ready to be teachers.”

Paul was brilliant at calling people further forward while commending what God has already done and will do. He speaks as if obedience is already done because he’s so confident in God’s presence and empowerment. He may well be the most brilliant motivator the church has ever known, and the book of Romans proves it.

Can you, like Paul, learn to respect an imperfect husband who occasionally stumbles or gives way to pride? (I’m not talking about accepting physical or verbal abuse, dangerous addictive behavior, or the like.) Can you love an imperfect wife who gives in to a critical or negative spirit? Even after witnessing these weaknesses are you bold enough to say, “I am convinced you are full of goodness?”

Anybody could love a perfect husband or wife, a perfect son or daughter. It’s no credit to you if your love is conditioned upon godly behavior. Christian community—beginning with the family—calls us to love, accept and affirm the less than perfect, as we view everyone through the lens of grace—the same lens through which God views us.

My son’s principal encouraged two dads because he understood while no student is perfect, he could clearly see the evidences of God’s grace in both our sons’ lives, and he didn’t want us to miss it. He didn’t want us to do anything less than encourage our sons and affirm their maturity and growth. He had the heart of Paul, the same heart all of us should seek as we live in grace-based families.

Can you rise from prayer, knowing your spouse and kids are still struggling with several weaknesses, yet put your trust in God confidently enough to state, “I am convinced you are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another?”

If so, you know that grace has visited your soul.

It comes down to this: what will be the song our family members hear us sing most often?

Will it be songs of God’s promise or songs of each other’s failings?

Paul looked at what God was doing over and above what those in his care were doing. When we look through those eyes—the eyes that see God’s provision, God’s empowerment and God’s grace—we can’t help but respond with hope, encouragement, and affirmation.

The post Learning to See What God Sees appeared first on Gary Thomas.