marriage

Maundy Thursday Recommendations

Maundy Thursday Recommendations

1. 2 in 3 Americans Believe in the Resurrection…But… Aaron Earls asks author Rebecca McLaughlin for her response to a recent poll on Americans’ belief in the resurrection.

2. Waiting With Faith: Tim Challies begins, “Have you ever bitten into a green tomato? Have you ever sunk your teeth into a fall apple during the heat of summer or into a summer strawberry during the cool of spring?”

3. Hide and Seek: Chris Thomas isn’t just a friend, he’s one of my favorite bloggers. You’ll thank me for reading this beautiful story of the gospel at work in Chris’s relationship with his adopted son. He concludes, “I don’t need to run anymore. I don’t need to live in fear anymore, to pretend anymore. I am in Christ, that is enough.”

4. How Can I Help My Marriage Get Unstuck from the Past? Garrett Higby offers good advice from a biblical counseling perspective here. He says that, “ignoring unresolved issues from the past that shade or distort almost every conflict, make them easily offended, and create compensatory patterns or unrealistic expectations.”

5. Engaging Our Emotions, Engaging with God: Alistair Groves begins, “Emotions are tricky. Everyone has them. Everyone struggles with them. Many struggle with how they feel more than anything else in their lives. Then there is the sea of other people’s emotions in which all of us swim. I suspect most of us consider emotions to be more of a liability than an asset.”

Your Marriage Doesn't Need Better Communication

Your Marriage Doesn't Need Better Communication

“The biggest problem in our marriage is our communication.” It’s perhaps the most frequent issue that is brought to the table when Angel (my wife and counselor) and I meet with couples. At the core of many marriage seminars and conferences is the issue of how to improve the communication in your marriage.

I don’t buy it. Your marriage doesn’t need better communication.

Alright, alright. I’m overstating that for dramatic effect. There are some helpful things you can do to improve communication in your marriage. But the fact remains: I’ve yet to encounter a marriage that the fundamental issue is communication. More serious issues always lurk beneath the surface.

The reason that communication is often fore-fronted is that it is a neutral issue. Being a poor communicator isn’t a sin. We think if we can just learn new techniques, we will experience renewal in our marriage.

Communication isn’t your issue. Sin is your issue. Or, to put it in James’s language, your desires are your issue.

Reflections on 20 Years of Marriage

Reflections on 20 Years of Marriage

In January, Angel and I celebrated 20 years of marriage. If you’ve been a reader of this blog for a while, you know what a miracle that is. It is a gift to be able to celebrate his goodness and faithfulness.

Angel and I met in high school. She was a freshman, and I was a junior. She set her sights on me. I was oblivious… until I wasn’t.

After a long-distance courtship, we married at the tender ages of 21 and 19. I often tell young couples I walk through pre-marital counseling with that marrying early comes with unique gifts and unique challenges. There are gifts of getting married young. Those include the blessing of a long history with someone, protection from certain sexual temptations, and leaning into responsibility earlier than most.

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1. Marriage in Rapid Decline, Even Among Evangelicals: Colin Smothers shares some startling and disheartening news, ““According to a Census Bureau survey taken in 2018, only 35 percent of 25- to 34-year-old men were married, a precipitous and rapid plunge from 50 percent in 2005.”

2. 10 Things Pastors Should Know About Divorce: Speaking of marriage, this is an excellent article from Laura Petherbridge. Her first of the ten is that “Divorce is a death: Regardless of the circumstances, divorce signifies the fatality of the marriage vow. It’s the death of the dream, the breaking of the covenant, the ending of ‘what should have been.’ It often feels as if death would have been easier because death is natural and doesn’t carry the shame.”

3. That Feels Nice: I could read Chris Thomas’s lyrical writing all day long. I love this reflection on sin and the weight of the crashing ocean.

4. Painting on the Surface of Water: Wow. Mesmerizing, indeed.

5. Beware the Danger of a Victim Mentality: This article from Akos Balogh, an immigrant now in Australia, is very helpful. He begins, “I was a refugee from communist Eastern Europe—from Hungary. I grew up among other refugees, among victims: victims of an oppressive totalitarian regime; victims who saw loved ones imprisoned and killed; victims for whom fleeing their homeland was often the only option left. Now not for a moment do I want to minimise the suffering of my fellow (Hungarian) refugees. Their pain was real.”

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1. Confessions of a Recovering Political Idolater: I resonated with Jared Wilson's post. He says, "I have to stay aware of them, because when I am not consciously and intentionally directing my gaze to the glory of Christ, I can very easily get swept up in the winds of political discourse. I can get too animated by the rise and fall of those who cannot thwart God's purposes. I can get too angry or too disappointed in or too fearful of brothers and sisters who don't think about these things exactly like I do."

2. 4 Types of Churches in Dealing with Politics: Eric Geiger reflects on how churches tend to engage politics. Most importantly, we need to be those who can be offended and changed when the Bible confronts even our political ideologies. “I heard Tim Keller say in a sermon about the Bible: ‘If the Bible really came from God, and wasn’t the product of any one culture, wouldn’t it offend every culture in some way?’ He was not speaking about the Republican and Democrat parties/culture, but I believe the quote applies.”

3. How to Avoid Becoming the Leader Everyone Resents: Helpful advice from Carey Niewhof. He begins, "There is no level of leadership that exempts you from your weaknesses. You can lead one of the largest organizations in the world. You will still have weaknesses and frustrate your team. In fact, higher levels of leadership don’t mask your weaknesses, it exposes them."

4. Still Growing: Melissa Edgington always puts simple truths elegantly. Here she reflects on 21 years of marriage, "When I stepped through the back doors of the church back in 1999 and saw that precious boy that I loved standing at altar, I had no idea that knowing him was going to make me more like Jesus. We have grown. And we’re just getting started."

5. 2 in 5 Churchgoers Regularly Attend Multiple Churches: And four other church trends. An eye-opening read. Aaron Earls reports. In more encouraging news, "Two-thirds of churched adults (65%) and 82% of practicing Christians say they attend church because they “'enjoy doing it.'”

6. For Passion’s Sake: My friend, Anne Imboden just launched her blog at Glory in the Grind. You should subscribe. Her storytelling and sense of humor are great. Here she reflects on her kids and the worthwhile cost of fostering their passions, “It’s both inspiring and exhausting to have a 5 year old who loves to cook. Fueling his fire and encouraging his dream means I need to learn to share my kitchen and resign to the fact that it will never truly be clean again. It means I need to include him on my menu planning, letting him choose recipes from his own cookbooks and kits. It means I need to start preparing dinner at least 30 minutes earlier than usual to allow time to show him each step, wait on his slower motor skills, and clean up mistakes. It means I need to die to myself a little and let go of control, for the sake of supporting his passion… He is capable, and I need to give him opportunities to prove it. (Dinner was delicious.)”

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1. Should Christians Use Recreational Marijuana? Kevin VanHoozer offers wisdom to Christians in a nation with broadening availability to recreational marijuana. VanHoozer explains that we need to have an understanding of what marijuana does as well as a biblical understanding of recreation. He says, "'Recreation' originally referred to the process of spiritual refreshment: the act of restoring or reviving the soul. Today, it usually refers to things people do to relax or have fun. Recreation is an activity of leisure—leisure being “free” time. It can be solitary or communal. In either case, it is formative, either spiritually or socially."

2. It's True! Stress Makes Your Hair Grey: Sometimes old wive's tales are real… and I’m living proof of this one! Jennifer Walter reports, "Scientists knew losing these cells in hair follicles robs hair of its luster, but they had yet to pin down the mechanism responsible for triggering the depletion of melanocytes. Now, scientists finally have an answer: the fight-or-flight response."

3. Marriage Was Never Meant to Fill the Empty Spaces: An excellent and intimate reflection by Lauren Washer. She reminds us, "Marriage cannot fill the empty spaces but it helps point us to the God who emptied himself so we could be filled up with the knowledge of him. As we continuously seek to fill ourselves up with the knowledge of God, through his word and through prayer, he fills us with everything we need for life and godliness."

4. Respectable Sins of the Reformed World: Tim Challies offers an important critique of the sins that can go unchecked for Reformed Christians. He concludes his list with this doozy: “Impugning. To impugn is to dispute the truth, validity, or honesty of another person’s motives. And closely connected to disputing another person’s motives is suggesting that you know the truth behind them.”

5. Kangaroo Rats are Furry, Spring-Loaded Ninjas: As an Arizonan I particularly enjoyed these four-minutes. Our Creator has quite the imagination, don't you think?

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1. Visualize the Entire World's Wealth Inequality: Howmuch.net reports, "The Swiss are the richest with median wealth per adult at $227.9K. Haiti is the poorest country in the world with an estimated median wealth of only $214 per adult."

2. Nearly Half of Men Say They Do Most of the Home Schooling. 3 Percent of Women Agree: Ruh, roh. I smell marital trouble brewing. A recent Morning Consult survey revealed that 45 percent of men say they were carrying the bulk of the load for homeschooling—but only 3 percent of women actually said their partners were taking care of most of it.

3. Fandom Proves We Need Community: Eric Geiger shares, "Eric Simons quotes scientists, researchers, and psychologists who have studied what motivates a sports fan. The conclusion is a longing for community."

4. Why Our Modern World Can’t Stop Guilt: My friend John Starke considers why it is that a modern world that has seemed to throw everything it has to get rid of the outdated concept of guilt can’t seem to shake it. Starke concludes, “As Rich Plass has said, the soul will always find its way out. It’s true. Modern people try to bury their guilt before it’s dead, and like a zombie, it comes back to the surface in a more dangerous and wild version than before.”

5. A Husband's Perspective on His Wife's Postpartum Body: Tim Challies with a loving reflection on what a postpartum body means. He concludes that the husband considers his wife's body, "With gratitude, acknowledging that she has sacrificed her body so they could enjoy the thrill of pregnancy, the joy of children, and the blessings of family. And with desire, still longing to experience and increase the intimacy that has bound them together for all these years. He treasures each mark and each line as if they are his own. For in the sacred oneness of marriage, they are his own."

6. I Miss Baseball: Me too, Kevin James, me too.

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1.       3 Reasons Your Church Shouldn't Be a Perfect Fit for You: Daniel Darling concludes, "Too often our fights aren’t good fights. They’re over preferences and an unwillingness to die to our preferences in order to give, serve, and love our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Not only should you have things in your church you don’t like, you should embrace the privilege of the opportunity to grow in a community that will be used by God to sanctify you."

2.       I'm So Glad Our Vows Kept Us: Jennie Cesario is a masterful writer. Here she reflects on the difficulty and beauty of marriage. Please read this in its entirety. Here is a taste: " Our hearts are so very tender toward one another now with the long years, softened to a sweetness hard-won."

3.       5 Questions to Discern God's Will: Juan Sanchez with sound advice: " [W]e don’t have to fear what God wills for us. And thankfully, God has revealed His plan and purposes—His will—by His Word (Deuteronomy 29:29). We’re not in the dark about what God desires."

4.       How to be an Appropriately Transparent Leader (Without Oversharing): Carey Niewhof packs in a lot in this helpful post. He concludes, "I find often that the speakers or writers who overshare are people who are processing something for their benefit, not for the benefit of their audience."

5.       12 Fascinating Archaeological Finds in 2019: The finds include a $26.8 million Renaissance masterpiece that was hanging in an unsuspecting French woman’s kitchen and a perfectly preserved 32,000-year-old severed wolf head found in Siberian permafrost.

6.       An Unexpected Duet: Wait until 74 seconds in for the "what?!"

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1.       You Might Be a Snowplow Parent if... Jen Goins reflects on a trip to Minnesota that has her thinking about how we can easily mess up the objective of our parenting. Two of her six mistakes are: "A snowplow parent shovels away responsibility," and "A snowplow parent clears the path of negative consequences."

2.      Longer Than: This is masterful writing from Jennie Cesario about the how love grows as marriage ages. You won't be disappointed.

3.      What Does the Book of Job Tell us About the Unborn? Jared Wilson suggests that Job 31 tells us three things about the unborn. 

4.      7 Encouraging Reasons to Pray: Colin Smith reminds us what an incredible privilege it is to pray and what God does when we pray... and I love how he concludes this article. What an incredible perspective of heaven!

5.      The Wake of InnovationFrom the tractor to talking robots, society has feared innovations. But usefulness usually overcomes resistance. Is today any different from the past?

6.      The Rat Apocalypse in New Zealand: A rat apocalypse? Sounds Like real-life Halloween. Yikes.

9 Ways to Flee From Lust

9 Ways to Flee From Lust

The past two weeks we’ve looked at Jesus’ difficult words about lust in the Sermon on the Mount. Let’s be honest: the standard Jesus calls us to can feel profoundly unfair. It is God, after all, who created us as physical beings. It is God who created us as sexual beings. It is God who gave us desires. God gave us libido. And God gave us imaginations.

And in this, God has created us in his image! God is the being with the most powerful desires in the universe! What kind of image bearers would we be if we did not also have desires?

And so, in recognizing the reality that God created us as desiring beings, we recognize that God has called us to direct those desires at himself and his righteousness.  

Is it possible to never lust? No. Not in this life.

But it is possible to fight against anger and lust? Yes.

Tolerating sin is not okay. We must fight with everything we’ve got, small and large.

Knowing what is at stake, Jesus calls us to take radical measures to flee from lust. He says:

If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. (Matthew 5:29-30)

Let’s be clear what Jesus is and isn’t saying here. Jesus isn’t calling for self-mutilation. But Jesus is telling us to treat our twisted desires with the utmost seriousness. In fact that little phrase “causes you to” that Jesus applies to our right eye and our right hand is the same word for a trap in Greek. Jesus tells us to treat temptation to lust like a spring-loaded trap. Stay away!

The first two weeks we’ve addressed two large camps of how to do battle: 1) fight for the greatest pleasure of all (God himself); 2) consider the stakes of giving into our lust.

Today, let’s conclude by considering nine practical ways to battle lust in our lives[i]: