A great message for Christian girls (and guys) who are seeking a marriage partner

Not sure about the finger clicking though!

HT: TA

Just before we went on holidays as well as while we were away, Jakey’s sleep went pear-shaped. We’ve been incredibly blessed in that he’s been a good sleeper since birth and started sleeping through the night very early on. But then in March he got sick and then in April he experienced jet-lag in North America, and he started waking up 3-4 times each night for a feed. As you can imagine, my weary, groggy prayers through the nights have been, ‘God, PLEASE help Jakey sleep!’ and by that of course I mean ‘help him sleep through the night again so I can sleep!’.

And of course it’s fine to pray like this. Apparently such prayer is traditionally known as ‘Simple Prayer’ and it’s the gut-level type of praying that just blurts out before you even think about it. But as I stopped to think about my prayer and the fact that night after night, God didn’t appear to be answering it in the affirmative, I realised that the motive underlying that prayer was basically my own comfort and convenience. Sure, I want Jakey to sleep well for his sake too, but really I’m suffering more than he is so it’s pretty much a self-centred prayer request! And God doesn’t exist or answer my prayers simply for my own comfort and convenience.

Romans 8:28 tells us that God works everything for the good of those who love Him, and Philippians 1:6 tells us that God is bringing His children on to completion (perfection, maturity) in Christ. So while it’s not necessarily wrong to pray for things that make me comfortable (or happy, or physically and financially stable and secure) it may be a bit wrong-headed. Such motivations put me at the centre of my prayers rather than God’s glory or my Christlike good – and God obviously doesn’t measure what’s good for me in the same blinkered way that I do! I need to pray for things that are good for me from God’s point of view – that is, for whatever will help me to become more like Jesus.

So if that means I learn selflessness, endurance, compassion, and patience through Jakey not sleeping well (and even if it means I’m not clear-headed enough to write all the blog posts I’d like to), and if this is the good God would like to work in me, I want to learn to submit to that. So I try to modify my weary, groggy, overnight prayers – ‘God, please help Jakey sleep so I can too, but ultimately, please make me and him more like Jesus through this time’.

It’s not our habit to watch Oprah, but today Steve and I caught 30 minutes of her 2-part series on male sexual abuse – where over 2 days she gathered 200 men in her audience who had all experienced childhood sexual abuse. It was hard to listen to their stories but so important – and that was the point of these 2 shows.

There are many things that could be said in response, but a short note (and we write this both personally and as representatives of 5:17 church) – we want to say categorically that sexual abuse of any kind, especially that perpetrated on children, and perpetrated by people in religious authority, is a heinous and horrible evil. It is wrong and scarring on every level, and its perpetrators should be brought to justice. We grieve that such abuse occurs, we pray for its victims, we encourage them to find people of safety to talk to and seek help from, and we trust in the power of the Lord Jesus for the healing and hope that is so very much needed.

We’d also like to point you towards this book, just released by ReLit – Rid of My Disgrace: Hope and Healing for Victims of Sexual Assault. You may like to read all the reviews listed at the bottom of the Amazon page I linked to; I’m including two below.

“I thought I had gotten over the abuses in my past—I had forgiven my abusers, stopped feeling like a victim, and felt like I was a stronger person. After reading Rid of My Disgrace, I realized there were still underlying issues I hadn’t dealt with that were preventing me from getting close to other people and, worst of all, preventing me from having a deeper relationship with God. Each chapter not only discussed each emotion that had been secretly weighing on me, but also showed me that those emotions don’t have to rule me. Jesus’ death and resurrection apply not only to my sins, but also to the burden of someone else’s sin against me. My identity is no longer as ‘damaged goods.’ It is ‘child of God’ and with that comes God’s unending love. I highly recommend this book for anyone who has experienced not only some form of sexual abuse, but other abuses as well.”

—Adult female victim

“Rid of My Disgrace reminds victims of sexual assault that they are not alone and it is not the end of the story. From King David’s daughter Tamar to the courageous survivors telling their stories today, the Holcombs take sexual assault out of the shadows of shame and isolation and into the light of the gospel. With a solid grasp on both the effects of sexual assault and of redemptive history, the Holcombs thoroughly identify sexual assault and its aftermath while calling the reader to let even such a painful, hideous act be a part of their story of redemption through Christ’s sufficient work on the cross.”

—Monica Taffinder, co-founder and counselor, Grace Clinic Christian Counseling

Most people think conflict is yuck; I don’t know m/any who thrive on it. But what Jono (Steve’s / our Christian psychologist) taught us about conflict is that the worst thing about it is not necessarily the conflict itself, but the power we can let it have over us, unnecessarily. We learned that some people (not us) deal with conflict much better than others (like us); without denying its ‘yuckness’ they’re able to respond to it like water off a duck’s back. We however, were stew-ers; conflict got to us with both depth (of intensity of effect on our thoughts and emotions) and length (of time it bothered us). Hard work, and not very livable.

So did Jono teach us to live in denial, or become emotionless and detached? Nope, but we did learn (from God, through him) how to respond to conflict in such a way that it no longer needs to eat away at us – and yes, this makes for a much healthier, easier existence, as well as makes us much more effective in navigating our way through the conflict with godly wisdom.

What Jono taught us was that conflict (or any emotionally / relationally traumatic experience) often gains or holds power over us because of other factors in our lives / in our past. So for me, I have over the years developed an overly strong need to see justice or equity enacted and if it’s not, I can get very worked up. In an inter-personal conflict situation then, if I or a loved one is not receiving justice, or is on the end of injustice, I get very worked up. Now it’s not wrong to desire justice per se. It’s a godly quality and God seeks it for His people. But the thing is my desire (or need) for justice is possibly fuelled by some negative rather than positive elements, such as a need to control my environment and relationships or have them completely under control, or a lack of trust in God’s ‘delayed’ timing or purposes, or a self-centred self-righteousness rather than a genuinely impartial humility. So when these negative desires fuel my desire to see justice enacted, you can see that if the conflict is unresolved and injustice perpetuates, I stay worked up. The conflict situation asssumes  a power over me that my unrenewed, ungodly thought patterns can’t or won’t release.

The Bomb and the Trigger:

Jono showed us that many of our thought patterns can be similarly unrenewed (by God’s word, a la Romans 12:1-2) and ungodly. Then, when a trigger (precipitating event) occurs in the present, ungodly thought patterns that have built up over the past go into play, and we react badly – and often this harks back to an original past event where our unrenewed thought patterns first developed. If we can identify this original event (the original ‘bomb’ event that events in the present can ‘trigger’), bring it before God and invite Him to heal and renew us and our thought patterns, and if He does, then the connection between this original bomb event and the ongoing triggers we experience, will be severed.

So in my example above, if I can identify the factors or bomb event/s in my past (not in a mysterious Freudian sense, but a real, practical way), that have led me to so strongly or wrongly need ‘justice’ and equity and to be or feel in control in my relationships, and bring this to God for transformation by His word and Spirit, I can truly be set free from these unhelpful needs and patterns. And this is happening. It’s a work in progress as God continues to show me the issues behind these patterns. I won’t share them here but suffice to say He has healed and renewed both me and Steve in deep and real ways with respect to our bombs and triggers, and the way we’re now able to healthily and appropriately respond to conflict or other’s ‘disapproval’ etc is remarkably different from 2 years ago! We’re able to see conflict with much clearer, more realistic, less ‘taken personally’ perspective, treat it for what it is and disregard it for what it isn’t, deal with it biblically and prayerfully, and ‘let it go’ to the extent that we can’t and shouldn’t seek to control the outcomes. We’re able to put our trust in God and His approval of us rather than needing the approval of others (especially where it’s not going to be forthcoming anyway). And thankfully, we’ve also been able to share our lessons and experiences with others. (Mind you it’s not easy to bare one’s soul in a public blog like this, so please deal gently with this post )

In sum, I’ll borrow from an incisive piece of advice that came to Steve from our Bible College Principal – you could say God has been teaching us how to have tough minds, and soft hearts. You don’t want the opposite – tough hearts (that are thoroughly insensitive to people or conflict or relationship dynamics), or soft minds (that cave in under the least of pressures, not able to withstand with wisdom and grace) – but tough-mindedness and soft-heartedness is Christlike, to be emulated. I hope this post helps you copy Jesus in this way too, as you submit your thought patterns to God’s Word and Spirit for His powerful healing, transformation, and renewal.

Last Sunday we finished off the Jeremiah sermon series in chapter 45. (Meanwhile I’m still plodding through all 52 chapters in my personal Bible reading – long but worthwhile!) As per all good Bible reading / preaching / study, Steve seeks to preach sermons that follow the 3-step process of reading the Bible effectively – exegesis (what does the text say?), hermeneutics (what does the text mean? especially recognising that a time and culture gap needs to be bridged between the original text and here and now), and application (so what?).

Here’s a summary of last week’s ‘So What’ from Jeremiah 45.

God’s word to Baruch was: In a time of national and spiritual disaster, Baruch’s priorities were wrong; it was wrong of him to seek great things for himself.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 16:26 that life isn’t about the accumulation of abundance – about grasping for gain.

1 John 5:13 tells us that God’s people have been given the priceless gift of eternal life.

This means we don’t have to strive for gain or personal ambition in life; we’ve been given something so much greater.  If God has my back (like He had Baruch’s – Jer 45:5) it means I can freely give myself to Him and others.

So who or what am I ambitious for?

In Matthew 6 Jesus says to be ambitious for God and His kingdom – to seek first to see His kingdom growing.

This is especially needed in the face of coming disaster; 2 Peter 3:9 tells us a day of judgement is coming – which spells disaster for anyone not on the side of the Judge (through the Saviourship of Jesus).

In the face of this coming disaster, will you seek to build up your or some other human’s ‘kingdom’, or will you be ambitious to build God’s – to see more people finding refuge in Him?

There’s someone we know who keeps having to deal with rather nasty people. I know this is a bold description, but from their behaviour they don’t seem to be terribly kind, thoughtful, generous, or other-centred. The nastiness involves things like bosses clearly exploiting their employees, rude clients, and ‘friends’ scavenging off and even stealing from mates. It makes me so frustrated to hear about it. Why? Obviously because it’s downright awful and we hate seeing our friend go through it, but also because our friend isn’t a Christian. He doesn’t get to experience the blessing of relating with people (other than family members) who consistently seek to do him good and not evil.

So in my upset-ness for him last night as I was pondering the situation again, I wished he could meet some great Christian men. I so much want for him to meet some genuine Christian guys – faithful, solid, loyal, true in word and character, generous, loving, sacrificial.

And then it hit me (silly me) – all this describes Jesus.

It’s so much easier for us mere mortals to look for exemplary behaviour in other mere mortals. It might be our lack of familiarity with the four gospels, it might be that we emphasise Jesus’ transcendence to the detriment of his imminence, or his divinity to the detriment of his humanity. It might be that I’m female so I’m not practised at looking to Jesus for an example of what (hu)manhood should look like. Whatever it is, I’m slow to see Jesus as the perfect man, the perfect human. It’s like (I suppose – haven’t seen it!) watching Avatar without the 3D glasses – we know Jesus was incarnated so he could die and rise for our sins, but we don’t fully appreciate or savour the added dimension of his earthy human-ness – in all its raw, full perfection.

So I still hope and pray that our friend meets some great Christian guys, but now I realise I’ve got to attach that description more solidly to the man Jesus. I hope those Christian guys are ‘great’ because they know and copy Jesus really well, and I hope that makes our friend want to get to know Jesus himself – so he can see what an incredible man Jesus was – and come to know that life can be lived better – not least because of his exemplary humanity.

From Pastor CJ Mahaney’s wise and sobering blog post titled ‘Hunting Tiger Woods‘ -

The Bible in general, and the book of Proverbs in particular, reveals an unbreakable connection between our character, our conduct, and the consequences of our actions. These three are inseparable and woven by God into His created order.

But if you think CJ’s post is all about how bad Tiger Wood’s sin is, it’s not. The quote above is an incisive pastoral summary just introducing some of the issues raised by Tiger Wood’s ‘indiscretions’.

Please do click on the link above to read the entire post – it is gracious and points both us and Tiger Woods towards grace – because all of us need this great gift found in Jesus.

I am sitting in our study with our guinea pig Munchee on my lap, with her little hind legs stuck out in her ‘this is the life’ position. I’ve just finished reading Isaiah 45 – a majestic portrayal of God’s absolute sovereignty over Israel and both her friends and her enemies. As a proclamation it could sound arrogant if it weren’t true, and justly so. And what a great finish -

They will say of me, ‘In the LORD alone are righteousness and strength.’ All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame. But in the LORD all the descendants of Israel will be found righteous and will exult.

You don’t need 3 guesses to work out which side you’d want to be on!

But actually I was going to ask what you’re reading, and say that if you ever want or need a recommendation, Steve and I love both reading and recommending books (including books of the Bible) to people. We’ve been so influenced and grown through reading over our journeys as Christians that we can’t help spreading the love. Plus we have several hundred books in our library available for borrowing, so let us know if you’d like a summer reading list. We’d be glad to get you started!

Very often our conversations with people are about God, the Bible, Christianity, doctrine, ministry, following Jesus etc. You can probably guess why. But this can give people the idea that we aren’t ‘normal’ or don’t do anything ‘normal’.

(NB. I don’t think ‘normal’ is the best word for it because all of life for us Christians is 100% ‘spiritual’ AND all of life is 100% ‘normal’, but hopefully you still get the idea.)

So, here’s something ‘normal’ that Steve and I did today; we went to the Baskin Robbins on Moggill Rd in Chapel Hill and picked up our free Birthday Club ice-creams. Except that our cones didn’t have the extra over-flow fringe bit of ice-cream that the cones in the picture do, but they were yum nonetheless.

Then we walked around the block!!

Our CG (Community Group: a weekly 5:17 mix of Bible, people, and food) has heard Steve and me talk about how we’ve been actively trying to ‘do hard things’ recently, especially with the energy we came back from our big overseas trip with. We’ve known for a while that we’d sunk into a rut of  just surviving – doing the things necessary to stay in maintenance mode, badly wanting to be able to do more, but not having the all-round health and energy and impetus needed to get out of the rut.

Getting out of ruts (or ‘enacting change’) is another topic I’ve been thinking and reading about recently, but suffice to say for now, God used our trip to inject us with the new energy needed to change our patterns. So instead of pretty much just functioning in maintenance mode, we’re trying to function in ‘do hard things’ mode.

What do we mean by this? Well we’ve borrowed this fantastic motto from The Rebelution – “a teenage rebellion against the low expectations of an ungodly culture”, lead by Alex and Brett Harris. (They happen to be Pastor Joshua Harris’ younger twin brothers). You can read about their ‘do hard things’ motto here, and I recommend you do. It’s about choosing to live intentionally rather than reactively, doing the things that grow our Christian character and competence and impact in the world. This is instead of falling prey to the low expectations the world has of teens generally. Maybe this is applicable to our popular culture too, where not just teens but adults are encouraged to simply live in a way that makes them the happiest – not necessarily to live courageously, against culture where God calls for this, doing hard things.

For us it has a huge range of applications. Take chores for example. Doing hard things means washing the dishes NOW instead of later, because even though we could leave them a bit longer, it would be most helpful to exercise self-control and get them done now in service to the other.

In other areas, it includes tackling hard decisions head-on rather than procrastinating over making them. It means taking our husband-wife roles seriously, or biting our tongues and being quick to listen and forgive, or pushing out of the comfort zones of our personalities and experiences in order to reach out to someone who needs it.

Now all this could sound rather humanistic – as if ‘the only thing stopping you from achieving your dreams is a negative attitude’!! But just like The Rebelution, this isn’t a call to throw God out of the picture and ‘realise new heights of personal achievement as you take control of your life’. Rather it’s a call to dependent yet also ruthless obedience – the kind that achieves much precisely because of how closely God is involved. It’s a call to not let teen or Gen Y or pop or post-modern (or even conservative!) culture call the shots for how to live, but to do the truly hard thing by rebelling against all the often low expectations in order to achieve much for Jesus.

So if you’re in a maintenance mode or other kind of rut we pray you’ll be similarly inspired and motivated to do hard things by and for Jesus. Ultimately we follow his example in this as this week’s memory verse reminds us. He did the absolute hardest thing possible (being separated from his Father) for our sake to give us the possibility and power of doing hard things for his - and because he’s such a good Saviour and Lord these hard things usually end up being good for us too.