Posted: November 30th, 2009 |
Filed under: God, life |
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You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all. Everything you are and think and do is permeated with Oneness. -Ephesians 4:4-6
There is so much friction and division among believers, you would think we all serve different God’s. Maybe some think they do. I’ve heard professed believers communicate with each other using the phrases, ‘My God…’ or ‘Your God…’ It’s usually in defense of a particular brand of scriptural understanding and it’s never with the goal of ‘staying together.’ It’s with the goal of ‘being right.’
What if two offended brothers had to stay outcasts until they could get along? What if they had to be locked in a room together, forced to hear each other out? You may never agree, but you have to find a way to get along. To live together…
I believe that we’re not supposed to give up on each other. We’re not allowed to write one another off. You can’t scratch out a name on God’s invite list. It’s not your party. So, with that in mind, how do you propose you get along?
We all have those people who see our worst when they look at us. They twist our words and hear what they want to hear. They try to put us in the mold they’ve made for us. It’s so tempting to want to lash out, to defend ourselves, but that is not our job. We can be firm, speak plainly, practice self control, but sometimes we lose our patience and want to bite their ears off. The temptation is to belittle them.
We serve one God. We’re all on the same path and will, one day, eat at the same table, worship side by side and be eternal neighbors.
You cannot get away from your family because of the Blood that ties you together.
But that doesn’t mean you should all look and speak and act the same. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift. -Ephesians 4:7
We’re a multi-dimensional, multi-cultural, extremely diverse family, we’re not supposed to be a freaky group of clones. With so many differences, it’s no surprise that disputes occur. In a ‘church’ of actual people, there are going to be mistakes, hurt feelings and flattened toes.
The best way to do your part to stay together is to approach one another with humility. Be slow to speak, slow to anger and be patient. There is nothing more antagonizing than when you’re trying to have a conversation with someone who thinks they are spiritually or intellectually superior. The pretension is nauseating and impenetrable. The best way to deal with that is to hold your tongue. Time will tell the truth.
It’s an act of submission. Choose to be last. Be the least important, the least ‘right’, the least…
“So you want first place? Then take the last place. Be the servant of all.” -Jesus, Mark 9:35
You’re not submitting to ‘man’, you’re submitting to the under current of the way God works. He lets those, who like to talk, talk themselves into their own trap with no help from you. Soon enough, the truth will be known and there will be no words needed to explain.
It’s an act of worship. We trust Him to defend us when we’re lied about and correct us when we’re wrong. When you hold your tongue, you get to learn the lessons in private rather than out in the public arena. We’re all being taught. Don’t draw attention to yourself with your relational drama and incessant need to be agreed with. Maturity helps you get along with others.
Maturity knows that God can take care of you better than you can take care of yourself.
May our dependably steady and warmly personal God develop maturity in you so that you get along with each other as well as Jesus gets along with us all. Then we’ll be a choir—not our voices only, but our very lives singing in harmony in a stunning anthem to the God and Father of our Master Jesus! Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.-Romans 15:5-7
It is utterly inhuman to not want to get your own way. It may be the hardest thing to do, but forgiving others and restoring relationships is the a blatant act of selfless God worship. Your dignity does not come from being the least guilty. Your worth does not come from the perception of the crowd you’ve drawn. Your honor is not in winning the debate. Your grandeur is in forgiving and forgetting.
Smart people know how to hold their tongue; their grandeur is to forgive and forget. -Proverbs 19:11
Posted: November 25th, 2009 |
Filed under: life |
14 Comments »
This question was sent to me and I thought I would make it today’s blog post, because others could benefit from reading it…
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This is just a question, which I would LOVE to get your response.
Regarding something you said in one of your videos regarding infidelity, you said something to the effect of “You must allow yourself to be broken or…….it’s not good”
My husband had a 3-yr. affair. We have been working for the past two years to keep our marriage together. He is repentant, but it certainly seems like he’s not broken. In a way it feels like he’s still somewhat in denial, because he just can’t (or doesn’t want to) feel the PAIN. How can I help him??? I know we can’t “properly heal” unless there’s brokenness. PLEASE RESPOND. Thank you so much. I love your site!!
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Thank you for your kind words. I think it’s awesome that the two of you have worked so hard for so long…. It’s a terrible place to be…no matter the individual situation.
If your husband hasn’t let himself break, then that is still in front of you. There are a lot of reasons why people come across that way. One of the biggest reasons is to save face. They need to be strong, emulate deliverance… There is a pressure to be healed. The answer for some is to look healed.
What is he like in other tradgedies? Is he the strong one? Is it possible he’s trying to be strong for you? He’s hurt you so much, maybe he doesn’t think he can break because you need him.
Something that people don’t know about breaking (unless you have) is that there is an overwhelming dread that you can’t make it back. That you’ll die in there. You sink into the blackness and wait for it to be over. Wait for a death that won’t come. You start out with the smallest thread of hope that you can make it, then the hope fades. When it fades, fear shrieks through you like some evil abyss swallowing you from the inside out.
Then you start realizing something… You thought your hope was in Jesus, but you realize it wasn’t. You realize that you had hope in your abilty to surivive..human resolve. Then you start to recognize what you did to Jesus. Your lack of faith, the distance you kept him at… All of your failures, selfishness, self righteousness… It’s overwhelming, crushing. You’re at the bottom. Then the Truth starts to seep in… He died for this, He loves you…. And the love…the LOVE destroys you. Beautifully gut wrenching. A piercing howl of death ripping and shredding. You think you’re going to die. And you do.
You start to hear sound again, like a strobe light of life in flashes of color. The silent hurricane has subsided, but the breeze still burns like an electric shock to a body with no skin. Raw and new.
Whispers of Love nurse you as you sleep. Breath of Life breathes over you like a lullaby from a new mother.
Love him. Don’t expect this process to go according to any schedule.
He may fall again…
If you can, don’t give up on him. You’re in a hellish fight, too. When he breaks, you will lose him. But when Jesus carries Him back, he’ll be a different man.
Don’t look at the outside. The outside is very deceiving… He could be dying inside-for MANY reasons. Reasons he may not be able to tell you.
My advice: LOVE him. Love destroys the weeds.
I hope I helped!
Posted: November 24th, 2009 |
Filed under: life |
4 Comments »
In some cases reader/listener comments (concerns?) spur a response from me. Especially if the discussion could provoke thought. I use my writing to get people to consider ideas and beliefs from a different angle. I like to flip things over and see if they still run. I want to make people think or move. Looking for signs of life…like a cattle prod…
Feel free to join the discussion if it inspires you. I’m not a fan of ‘debating’ scripture because there is no one on the face of the Earth who gets it completely right.
…none of us is perfectly qualified. We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. If you could find someone whose speech was perfectly true, you’d have a perfect person, in perfect control of life. -James 3:2
However, healthy, respectful dialogue is stimulating until someone injects their emotions, then it’s pointless. There is no ‘us’ and ‘them’. We may be in different places, but, as Christians, we’re all on the same path, heading in the same direction. One day we’ll all ‘get it’ and laugh at how far off we all were.
I’m having a hard time with the predestination stuff– after all, doesn’t that just make us puppets?
I don’t care what anyone’s take on predestination is. I don’t spend that much time thinking about it. Mostly because it doesn’t affect my responsibility to ‘do right.’
I guess it comes up once in a while, though. I can ‘worry about tomorrow’ for instance, but comfort myself with scriptures that tell me that God is in control. I can watch a person wring their hands worrying about landing the job they want and tell them that it will happen if it’s God’s will. I can try to offer comfort to a mother who just miscarried by telling her that God knows what He’s doing even though we don’t.
I choose to take the Truth about God and weigh it against all aspects of life. I want to see if the paint matches in the dark as well as the light.
I’ve never used the word ‘predestination’ in my writing. It’s a wall of contention that I’m not interested in scaling. I write my interpretation of scripture and let it land where it may.
In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will. -Ephesians 1:11 NIV
Just for fun, the New Testament talks about God’s predestined (foreordained, decided beforehand, predetermined, etc…) plan in all of these other places (and translations): Acts4:28, Rom8:29, Rom8:30, 1Cor2:7, Eph1:5.
If the scriptures, which tell us that God has a ‘predestined plan’ that He brings about by using ‘everything,’ make you uncomfortable because they sound too much like predestination, then I’m not sure what to tell you. I would recommend studying it against the scriptures and beliefs that you do trust.
Were you ‘on His mind when He was on the cross?’ Or was His sacrifice entirely impersonal? If you, in 2009 were on his mind 2009 years ago, then didn’t he ‘foreknow’ your sin? Isn’t that why he died?
He died like an unblemished, sacrificial lamb. And this was no afterthought. Even though it has only lately—at the end of the ages—become public knowledge, God always knew he was going to do this for you. -1 Peter 19-20
The truth has to be true all the time or it’s not the truth.
I wouldn’t use this word, myself, because of the heartless and indifferent connotation, but for the sake of conversation: Aren’t we supposed to be like ‘puppets’ or sorts? Let God enter our bodies and let His life be ours-giving us His movements, character, touch… Aren’t we supposed to let God animate us and even speak through us?
He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. -Ephesians 3:20
…if God created the world fully knowing that it would be sinful, is He not the originator of sin, and thus evil? Is He then not in fact infinitely good, as some part of Him must have been evil in order to bring it about? Was not man set up to fail? It would follow, then, that all the terrible things that happen in this world are not only of God, but *by* God. I find this absolutely ridiculous.
Just because God is infinitely good does not mean that evil cannot exist. God is Sovereign and He allows evil a place in His plan. God is not the originator of moral evil.
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. -Isaiah 45:7 KJV
‘Moral evil proceeds from the will of men, but physical evil proceeds from the will of God.’ -Amplified Bible footnote
If the only way you can ‘not fail’ is Jesus, then, yes: man, alone, is set up to fail. We are not designed to live apart from Jesus. The plan was Him and for you to need Him.
There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. -Jesus, John 15:13 NLT
…God is love. -1 John 4:8 NLT
Maybe God wanted to express who He is by doing the ultimate act. Maybe God is the ultimate victor when He makes evil bow down to Him as He uses its very nature as a vehicle to glorify His very nature. ’No greater love…’ He chose Himself when he chose Love and created a world that needed Him. Set up to fail without Him.
Posted: November 23rd, 2009 |
Filed under: God, life |
14 Comments »
Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. -Ephesians 1:4-5
God planned for Jesus to die for our sins before He created the world. If the scripture is true, then that means God planned to save us from sin before the first sin was committed. If he planned for our rescue before the object of rescue breathed the first breath, then He knew about our sin before He created us. Not only did He know about it, He wrote it down.
Even before I was born, you had written in your book everything I would do. -Psalm 139:16
If He wrote our stories out, then He wrote about our failures, too.
One of the biggest mistakes we make when trying to understand the mysteries of God and the way He works is when we don’t look at the information with Jesus as our vantage point. We tend to look at things from the view point of sin. When sin is your filter, then you ask the wrong questions.
The difference between asking, ‘Did God, then, plan for sin?’ and ‘Did God plan for Jesus?’ is perspective. Nothing makes sense when you are using sin as your glasses. You have to start with Jesus and let the rest fall in line behind Him. Jesus falls behind no one and no thing.
Jesus was not an afterthought.
God does not respond to what we do. God does not learn, if He did, then who is He learning from and why are we not worshipping that entity?
God does not respond to what we do; we respond to what God does. -Romans 3:28
We have to study the scripture for ourselves. We like to listen to others teach and then decide whether or not we agree based on our existing beliefs. We go to church, read the Bible, have religious conversations with what we want to hear already in mind. We’re so busy defending our beliefs that we don’t leave room for learning.
If God planned for Jesus, then He did plan for sin: Jesus. It starts with the Son, the rest follows behind. If you can’t grasp that, then you can’t grasp what Ephesians 1 says next. It’s a collision of finite understanding colliding with infinite wisdom. We cannot understand the supernatural with natural reasoning. It’s a mistrust of scripture that leaves you like an incomplete puzzle.
…we’re a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! -Ephesians 1:7
If God planned for Jesus, then the truth goes so much deeper than Him knowing about your failure before you fell. It goes beyond your birth, the birth of your parents or your parents’ parents. The truth about who you are to Him goes beyond you and there is nothing you can do about it. He chose you long before he formed the dirt under your feet. The truth of Jesus deflates the pretentious power of sin completely.
With this in mind, how can you not be free? Sin doesn’t have a say because it’s not new or unknown. When you find out that you have been ‘chosen from the foundation of the Earth’ to be ‘adopted’ through Jesus, then how can you think that what you do and don’t do plays any role whatsoever? If the decision was made before DNA was created, then how do you think you can change a bit of that?
It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. -Ephesians 1:11
Creation does not move the hand of the Creator. We do not ‘look back at the fingers that mold us‘ and question Him (Rom9:20). You cannot understand the truth if you are trying to understand through sin.
That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. -Romans 6:11
When you or another sins, do not base your decision for action on the sin.
Base your response on Jesus. It’s all about Him and we get to live in that gift.
What happens inside of you when you hear the truth? If you believe it, then you experience crazy freedom. The truth setting you free….
It’s in Christ that you, once you heard the truth and believed it (this Message of your salvation), found yourselves home free—signed, sealed, and delivered by the Holy Spirit. -Ephesians 1:13
Posted: November 20th, 2009 |
Filed under: God |
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You decide according to what you can see and touch. -Jesus, John 8:15
Humans are naturally egocentric. We base our response to life on our experience. When opposing ideas are introduced, our first inclination is to reject them. The only time we entertain the notion that we have something yet to learn is when what we know collides with what we know and we have to reexamine what we know. This doesn’t happen unless you’re in a state of brokenness. If a firm internal belief is shattered by an external fact, then we are no longer solid and have to find a new position of solidarity before we experience what it is to be whole again.
The first response to hearing the Truth is fear. As you watch the fabric of life as you know it…faith as you know it…become loose and transparent, it makes you feel small and powerless.
We can hear that we are in an ‘alien’ state of existence. We’re travelers, lost children on foreign soil who wait for a horn, a light in the East, a Savior on a cloud. How is it that we can believe the most amazing stories not witnessed, but not the Truth right in front of us? You believe that Jesus was conceived in a virgin, but not that God’s plan shatters through the fabric of yours. You know that Paul was accosted on a road to Damascus, yet you still spend yourself on your bedroom floor begging God to let His will prevail. You believe that the Son of God offered Himself as a sacrifice for sin, died, rose and lifted off the earth to disappear into clouds on His way to Heaven, but you cannot believe that the person who hurt you can be transformed by that miracle.
Jesus said, “You’re tied down to the mundane; I’m in touch with what is beyond your horizons. You live in terms of what you see and touch. I’m living on other terms. I told you that you were missing God in all this. You’re at a dead end. -John 8:23
Jesus, the human, kept His eye on the Truth as He travelled through the facade. Life is an obstacle course. A process, not a purpose. A journey, not a destination. You cannot look at a member of your own traveling tribe and bind them to the lies of the land on which they walk. Failure is inevitable, if there is breath, there is hope. Don’t determine the prognosis of the fallen based on your understanding and personal confines of acceptability. Unless they’re dead, they’re still in the game. If for no other reason than to epitomize your unbelief in the finality of Grace. The pebble in your shoe.
You are brought through experiences and are formed as a result of the squeezing and stretching. If you look at the here and now, what you can see and touch, you completely miss God in the process. You see yourself as a victim. You scramble to keep your grasp on what you deem yours, you wait on others to do the right thing because you see their faults clearer than you see your own. We should be scrambling in a race to be the first to reconcile. Loose ends are cancer to your freedom and if you do your part to prepare them for reattachment, you can be free while you wait for the healing.
You can focus on the sin that divided, but why would you ‘think on those things?’ If you use sin as the glasses, then you will never be free. You have many reasons to maintain the separation, but how many times do you have to revisit the overgrown battlefield of mistakes and selfishness to give you the power to maintain your defiant stance of righteous indignation? Contempt is not in your nature, you want to show kindness and have to suppress the love that wants to seep from the depths of you. Yet, you have to honor the scarred with the resolve to ‘never forget’.
Forgiveness is freedom, whether your target deserves it or not. The freedom is for you, not them. The forgiveness is reciprocal, not from them, but from God. He wants you to forgive the unworthy so you can identify with Him as He forgives you….also unworthy. This isn’t about them…this is about you. You have been brought to this place because there is a part of you that needs to be placed on an altar and burned. You are not a victim of your circumstances. An accident has not overtaken you. Nothing in your existence gets altered without instigation from the ‘Sovereign Strong’.
All we’re saying is that God has the first word, initiating the action in which we play our part for good or ill. -Romans 9:18
Did someone ‘play a part for ill‘ and you are stuck with the bruises? Are you grooming your concept of God while you punish the bad teammate? What if God instigated the action for a purpose you’re not privy to? What if it’s obedience to self-abandonment that gives purpose to your plight and it’s not about ‘here and now’ at all? Are you missing God because of your short sightedness, narrow mindedness, experiential determination? When you question your circumstances, you question God.
Look up to keep yourself from looking down. Look around only with the vision of what is up. Spin in the twist. Dance in the Truth.
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Posted: November 17th, 2009 |
Filed under: life |
8 Comments »
‘If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out.’ -Galatians 6:1
One of the biggest issues I’ve seen among believers is about how to respond when one of their own sins. I think that most want to do the right thing, but don’t know how. When a person sins, especially the ‘big sins’, they create a mess. Continuing in the sin often seems easier than coming clean because more often than not, a person is abandoned in their mess as soon as the sin is exposed.
This leaves the fallen under a tremendous amount of suffering. The weight of their sin and it’s effects are crushing. Though it may be tempting to tell them that they deserve it, that is not what the cross stands for. The cross is something completely undeserved and universally available. It goes beyond the one who didn’t know better, because it’s a categorical phenomenon to those who absolutely did know better. The greater the sin, the greater the gift of grace. Grace is relentless and it never loses simply because it won long before any of us were in the picture.
Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived. -Galatians 6:2-3
It’s easy to know how to communicate with someone who is not a Christian when they want to know how to get rid of their sin. We tell them that everyone sins and that the responsibility to clean themselves up does not belong to them. We tell them that there is never a place where they can go that would be too far. However, it seems that the rules change once you become a believer.
It appears that believers are put under a new law (the old ‘law’) and are required to perform accordingly.
Life is hard enough as it is. People don’t need any extra pressure to keep up with the standards put on the so-called code of Christian living. Most of us are doing well to have the faith that God loves us even when we aren’t very lovable. It’s hard to believe that God can forgive the selfishness that hazes our view. We’re not supposed to exhaust our ability to do good, we’re just supposed to not let our faith fail.
So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. -Galatians 6:9
If you’re to the point that you can say you’ve got perfect faith in God and now just need to focus on your level of holiness, then you’re further from the truth than you’ve probably ever been. Perfect faith does not exist because of the continuous faith evolution that occurs in a growing Christians life. If you’ve stopped growing, evolving, then you’re dead.
If people know this already, then why do they still respond so ungraciously when fellow believers fall down? It’s as though the understanding of Truth dissolves when you’re not hearing it.
Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like. -James 1:22-24
We’re not supposed to add to the trouble of human lives by imposing rules. The law is written on their hearts by no doing of their own.
They show that God’s law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within them that echoes God’s yes and no, right and wrong. -Romans 2:15
If someone (unless you’re 12 and it’s your mother) tries to apply their personal rules for Christian conduct to you, then you must reflect on their identity somehow. They’re not trying to improve you, they’re trying to boost themselves.
These people who are attempting to force the ways of circumcision on you have only one motive: They want an easy way to look good before others, lacking the courage to live by a faith that shares Christ’s suffering and death. All their talk about the law is gas. They themselves don’t keep the law! And they are highly selective in the laws they do observe. They only want you to be circumcised so they can boast of their success in recruiting you to their side. That is contemptible! -Galatians 6:12-13
Shake out of those cold fingers trying to tie you down like a sacrificial lamb. You are on your own journey. Be free in your God discovery expedition. Write music when the Truth sings and learn from the tumbles. You start out like a drunk college student with the wet diploma, but you gain maturity in the times that sober. Forget about what people think of you, just love God, be real and keep notes.
Because of that Cross, I have been crucified in relation to the world, set free from the stifling atmosphere of pleasing others and fitting into the little patterns that they dictate. -Galatians 6:15
Loosen up your girdle’s and start learning the stuff that matters. It takes a lot of bravery to walk around without your makeup, but the scripture spells it out for you. There are no more secrets, the freedom is found in the believing. When you stop straining and start seeing that you can’t perfect what you couldn’t begin, then you have to return to the simple faith to see the truth that sets you free.
Can’t you see the central issue in all this? It is not what you and I do—submit to circumcision, reject circumcision. It is what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life! -Galatains 6:16
inspired by Galatians 6
Posted: November 16th, 2009 |
Filed under: God, life | Tags: freedom, grace |
11 Comments »
I’ve always been turned off by the idea of a denomination making their employees, church members or college students sign a contract of rules they will obey in order to be in their position. So many of the people who sign it knowing that they don’t see anything wrong with some of the prohibited actions and they don’t necessarily plan on following the rules. Only, later they feel guilted into obeying the contract that they put their signature to.
They’ve been harnessed like animals to rules that were designed to benefit them. Instead of religious organizations trusting the individual relationship with God, they create pockets of entrapment for the people who made their mark by the ‘x’.
When anyone complies with any rule-keeping system, they throw away the gift of freedom that Jesus earned for them.
I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ’s hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. -Galatians 5:2
The only reason to submit to a set of rules for moral conduct is because you don’t believe that what Jesus did was enough. That is the small print on the bottom line. You believe that your sin is more powerful than His crucifixion. He’s not enough for you. We are supposed to take a stand against fear driven religious legalism because of our faith in the finished work of Jesus.
Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you. -Galatians 5:1
This should alarm you. If you submit to a set of rules, the rules become your master. You can’t serve two masters. These religious organizations, in trying to do a good thing, are causing you to choose between your job, your church, your education, or Jesus.
No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. -Matthew 6:24 NIV
It’s a wolf who looks like a sheep. It’s a trap.
Choose who you will serve. If choosing Jesus and freedom are not options because you want to work for your denomination, be a member of your church or go to a Christian University, then choose your religion. Choose who your predecessors chose. Choose what tradition tells you to choose…‘but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.’ (Josh24:15) A signed contract trades ownership from Jesus to the rules.
Most people believe that ‘falling from grace’ means ‘to sin.’ However, grace is forgiveness of sins. If you don’t sin, then you don’t need grace. Falling from grace is following a set of rules to keep yourself from sin.
I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. -Galatians 5:4
Ignoring religion and devoting yourself to it are both dead ends. God has set things up to where you can’t win within yourself. You are bound to your need for Jesus.
So, what do we do with our freedom? Obviously we can’t win by doing whatever we want and we can’t win by obeying all the rules. The only way to keep your freedom is to live selflessly. Whatever that means to you. The root of sin is self, so if you live selfless, then you are not looking for your own gain and your not focusing on your rule abiding abilities.
For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. -Galatians 5:17
Selfless people are free to love. That’s why we were set free. To love.
Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. -Galatians 5:23
When you actually know what this whole thing is all about, you don’t worry about yourself anymore and you don’t worry about the way others perceive you and your relationship with God. You are not like anyone else, you have your own flavor. As long as you’re not trying to get your own way or trying to keep yourself clean, then you can just be.
When you hear this stuff, you have to let it move beyond sentiment. Feel it change you. Feel the truth set you free.
Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original. -Galatians 5:25-26
inspired by Galatians 5
Posted: November 13th, 2009 |
Filed under: life |
10 Comments »
Lindsey posted her story here a couple of days ago. You can read {part1} here and {part2} here.
This is her husband, Josh’s, perspective:
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taking responsibility
One night, I was surfing the internet on my home pc. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, was really just passing time. On a whim, I pulled up the internet history.
Little did I know that one act would be the catalyst for a life change that would turn my marriage and faith upside down and inside out.
I found history of an email account I knew nothing about, and I had also started becoming suspicious of my wife’s constant texting. I would check the phone, but she had always deleted the messages. Things hadn’t been going well for a while between my wife and I and these were huge red flags to me. We were arguing more then usual, and in between the arguments were cold conversations about separation, disappointment, and moving on.
We worked for the same company, and a few days after I found the email account, she told me her phone had died. I left early that day, taking her phone with me to ‘charge it’ hopeful that it had died before she could erase any messages. I didn’t know what I would find, but I was sick to my stomach for the entire drive home. Then I plugged in the phone, opened her text messages and my worse fear was realized. There was just one message and it was incredibly graphic. I nearly threw up as I read it, both because of the content and because of who it was from.
I knew this man, was friends with him, respected and admired him.
Shock set in, the thought of my wife having an affair absolutely unbelievable. She had always been distant, detached, quiet, and reserved. The contradiction between who I had always known her to be and the evidence in front of me seemed unreal.
When she came home, I asked her a question I never thought I would have to ask, “Are you having an affair?”
A look flashed across her face (Relief? Pain? Guilt?)
Her quiet reply, “Yes.”
I slept in a separate room that night. I couldn’t be near her. I was disgusted by her, by him, by this thing they had brought into my house. I cried more that night than I can ever remember crying in my life. It was as if the final piece of the façade of my life had fallen and I was exposed.
All the while a voice was growing louder and louder in my mind. Through my rage and tears were questions.
Where have you been?
Did you protect your wife from this?
Is she the only one to blame?
God was whispering in my ear, making His presence known in my darkest hour. He didn’t condone what my wife had done, but He used that moment to demand that I look at my own heart.
And my own heart was very dark.
Where have you been?
The reality is that I abandoned my wife long before she abandoned me. I had been gone for years emotionally and physically, pursuing a life that didn’t involve my family at all. I was training for triathlons, playing hockey, mixing in a little golf, and working long hours at a job I loved. The little time I was home, I was inattentive, irritable and unhelpful. I didn’t care what my wife needed, what my children needed. I was a selfish husband, a distant father, and an even worse provider. I was too busy obsessing about and pursuing what I needed to bother with caring for my family.
An addiction to pornography had also consumed me since I was a child. I never really learned how to pursue my wife because I had no need or desire to do so. It was easier to spend two minutes finding the website of choice than spending two minutes pursuing intimacy with my wife. The women on the Internet didn’t say no, didn’t require an investment, and didn’t make demands.
Did you protect your wife from this?
The saddest part of all of this is that I knew this man; knew they had a relationship in and out of work, even knew that he made her uncomfortable sometimes with his comments. But I admired and respected him as a peer and as a Christian leader. He had a great family, a great job, and was very active and well-respected in his church. I just didn’t think their relationship was any big deal, so dismissed the few concerns she raised.
Is she the only one to blame?
I had been involved with another woman at work for quite some time. It started innocently, flirting and joking. We started emailing, some days sending 20 or more e-mails back and forth, full of innuendo and unspoken desire. Emotionally, she made me feel respected. She admired my dedication to work, to my sports, and made me feel attractive and wanted. While things never became physical, the emotional attachment was sucking every last bit of my attention and energy. In just a few short hours the full weight of that question crushed me. The horrifying realization that while my wife made the choice to have a physical affair, I might as well have driven her to his house and walked her to his bed.
As I looked at my wife the next morning, I knew I had taken her and our marriage for granted. More importantly, I knew that I still loved my wife and as much as she had hurt me, I had hurt her in kind. I couldn’t walk away, because I was just as responsible as she was for the destruction of our marriage.
Surviving the aftermath of the affairs have been full of pain and anger and beauty and hope. God stepped into our lives, and offered His hand and His grace to pull us out of our pit of destruction.
Even so, our life isn’t perfect. We still argue, still hurt each other, and are still tempted by sin. The only saving grace that holds our marriage together is our Lord and Savior protecting us and binding us back
together.
I wouldn’t wish what we have been through on anyone; but I also don’t regret one second, because this brought us to God.
And because of Him, I can say with all sincerity to my wife “I love you, I always have. I will never leave you, and I am sorry I did not protect you from this.”
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Josh, thank you for sharing your story here. Your ability to hear God over the scream of your pain is one of the most beautiful examples of Grace I’ve seen. If you were doing this on your own, you would be bitter by now. I hope this inspires many…. -Serena
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Posted: November 12th, 2009 |
Filed under: life |
19 Comments »
It was a brisk Saturday morning in early Fall when those words popped up in a chat window on my computer screen.
Melody, my wife, had run to the grocery store and I was home alone, having just logged into an instant messenger service that I used often. The woman on the other end of that post lived somewhere in Kentucky. I had recently made contact with her in an online chat room.
An adult chat room.
I stared at the words on my screen. My heartbeat sped up…palms began to sweat.
How easy it would have been to ignore her post. How easy it would have been to simply have told her that I was not available to meet her later.
It was the moment of decision. I had recently started chatting again after a ten month hiatus. I started back innocently enough with sports chat, but quickly migrated back to the seedy and titillating adult rooms full of other bored, lonely, checked-out people looking to connect with someone…anyone.
I had taken a break from chat rooms because ten months earlier I had done the unthinkable. I actually agreed to meet a woman face-to-face that I had met in a local chat room. My private, virtual life and my flesh-and-blood “real” life intersected. Nothing happened that day, but as I sat across the table from her at a local restaurant, I realized I had crossed lines that I had vowed I would NEVER cross. I came home that day and took Yahoo Messenger off of my computer and stopped cold-turkey.
For ten months…
“I can be in Birmingham tonight if you want me to be.”
Ten months later, I sat staring at those words on my screen…watching the cursor blink…knowing she was waiting for a response.
I typed “Ok” and, after what seemed like forever, finally hit “send”.
At that moment, paralyzing fear and intense excitement rushed through me simultaneously.
Terrifying fear because I knew what she was coming for and I knew that I would cross that final line and go there, if for no other reason than because she had driven all the way from Kentucky and I felt some twisted sense of obligation.
The excitement flowed from playing with the forbidden. I think a needy and desperate part of me also relished the fact that someone was willing to drive over 350 miles to meet me.
I crossed the line that night and never even got her last name. Today I can’t even remember her first name. I never spoke to her again, but the damage had been done. I had added physical adultery to my secret life of pornography and chat rooms. I crossed a line that I never imagined crossing. The lies I had fed myself for years about pornography being innocent and “something men do” and “not a big deal” mocked me as I drove home that fateful Saturday night.
One word consumed my thoughts. Adulterer.
The shame I felt and the contempt I had for myself was suffocating. Oh how far I had drifted. What I thought was innocent and “not a big deal” had been literally sucking the life out of me. I was a shell of a man completely checked out…thinking only about the next alone opportunity I would have for my fix.
And then I thought about my precious wife and my kids. Telling Melody what I had done was not even remotely on my radar. I vowed this was the last time and was successful in white-knuckling it for another nine months. Nine months later it happened again.
And again.
And again.
And, again.
By the time my secrets came out, it had happened seven times. Seven times over a three year period.
Secrets. Lies. Cover-up.
I was a desperate, conflicted, empty shell.
And then my two worlds collided and I was exposed. It was a beautiful undoing. Pain and relief rushed into my empty soul at the same time. Witnessing the heartache and anguish that Melody went through was unbearable. Melody’s deep, anguishing wail from behind our locked bedroom door will forever haunt me.
I went to an intensive in Minnesota and began to understand sexual addiction and my own woundedness and started the journey of recovery. It took much more pain before I finally reached my bottom in 2002. I knew that recovery was worth it so that I would not hurt Melody and the kids, but that was not enough. I had to get to the place where I believed in the core of my being that Tray Lovvorn was worth recovery.
Early one morning as I was reading through the Gospels, this thought occurred to me:
“God knew all about my sexual addiction and my seven affairs when he saved me.”
That was the day I began to understand just how amazing and scandalous and wonderful God’s grace is. I began to uncover layers of unbelief that skewed my view of God and His tender mercies toward me. I ran to promises like Zephaniah 3:17:
“The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.”
I chose to believe that God saved me because He loved me and because He delighted in me and not because of anything I could offer Him. I spent years delicately managing my personal reputation and He showed me His love and favor when I doubted it the most.
No matter what you have done or how far you have strayed, God is right now singing over you. You can surrender…and stop…and rest…and listen to the beautiful song or you can choose not to believe it and go on with your efforts of self-righteousness.
My prayer is that you will stop and listen sooner than I did. That it won’t take as much pain and heartache in your life.
He is singing over me…
He is singing over you…
Do you believe it?
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Traylor, thank you for breaking your heart open again so we can see how deeply you have been healed. It’s an honor to host your story. -Serena
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You can find Traylor on Twitter, read more of his writing here and watch a video with he and his wife Melody here.
Posted: November 10th, 2009 |
Filed under: life |
14 Comments »
…continued from part1
Those three simple words, “I don’t care,” harshly illustrating the depravity of my soul, my sin for all to see. And then, we are caught by my husband not long after it started; that lack of caring resulting in a selfish recklessness that did not bode well for hiding a secret such as this.
My husband is devastated; full of fury and hurt. Each and every minute spent in each other’s company is agonizing, painful, full of grief, and often anger.
Consequences for the affair come swiftly, and come hard. I feel my identity being ripped away; the separation violent and bloody. When I made my choice, I threw away the beauty of being a wife, a mother, a friend. Trying to put that skin back on in the aftermath feels uncomfortable, like I am trying to wear clothing meant for someone else, someone more worthy. Shame sets in, and I do what I have always done. I start wrapping layers of protection around me; trying to numb the pain. 
But there is also love, has always been love between my husband and I. The only tenuous thread we have to hang on to in the middle of the storm raging between us. My first real glimpse of God occurs the morning after, when my husband says “I love you, I always have. I will never leave you, and I am sorry I did not protect you from this.”
That first new bond between us is made in an instant, a feeling of awe and the gentle sigh of hope that he (and He) could still love me, after what I’ve done. God is already moving, rushing in to take back what has been lost.
But the sad reality is that I am not ready to be found, and won’t be for a long time.
In my mind, I start to place blame, because it is easier to bear then the pain. There is no explanation, no reason I can give that will make who I have become any less horrifying, any less sickening. But I carry the damage of a childhood filled with sexual and emotional abuse that taught me that I was an object, to be used. A childhood filled with abandonment and neglect that taught me that I was unlovable, unwanted. And this man, this first experience with a “Christian,” taught me that God surely had judged me, and deemed me unworthy. Why else would He allow this man to walk in and destroy my life, allow this to happen to a desperate girl making her first attempts to really seek Him?
These thoughts batter the aching rawness of my heart, as I slide into a world of depression and self-pity that will not budge for almost a year. I go through the motions of attending counseling and recovery, try to use God as a band-aid over my gaping wounds instead of as the Healer, and say what everyone wants me to say. But inside I am screaming and fighting, wrestling with God and what He is asking of me.
I do not want to believe His love for me.
I do not want to obey His commands.
I do not want to let go of the control I think I have.
I do not want to let go of my crushing unbelief.
Our church continues to surround us, fills our lives with grace and stories of a merciful and loving God who abhors what has happened, who weeps with us, who is waiting for us. And then, an angel befriends me. A sweet and precious woman of God obeys His command. She patiently teaches me who God really is, what faith really means, what salvation is.
Only then, do I truly repent for my sin. I have been “sorry” for a long time. Sorry for the pain, sorry for the heartache, sorry for the consequences. But not until this moment, as she walks me through accepting Christ as my Savior, do I finally feel the weight of my sin, cry out in agony and beg forgiveness over what I have done against my Father. Only then, do I forgive myself.
Since then, this journey towards God has been rough; full of steps forward and back. Even so, I can so clearly see the devastation of my life without Christ, and have found such precious hope and beautiful peace in the promise of my life with Christ. It certainly has not been easy; this process of letting go of all that I was in order to claim all that God wants me to be. Learning how to receive grace and learning to accept that
I am forgiven,
I am loved,
I am free.
I am constantly reminded that I am a work in progress, our marriage is a work in progress, and always will be. We don’t have it all figured out and we still have trouble sometimes trusting and seeking God and honoring each other as we should. But He loves us anyway, understands our pain, and knows our hearts. And He has been so faithful, capturing our souls with Truth and showering us with gracious love in a million different ways each and every day.
My husband and I are on this journey together, our goal united. We live and breathe everyday to glorify God through our new life and love, our marriage, our painful past. Simply so that others may know Him and love Him too.
And now that you have read our story, I leave you with a question and a challenge.
Whatever you are doing, whatever you have done, whatever has been done to you…Are you willing to stop, willing to take a deep breath full of mercy and power and love, and allow your story to become His story?
He’s waiting for you, and He loves you right now, as you are. Even in the midst of your own abyss.
That’s what grace is.
That’s who God is.
All you have to do is cry out, and believe.
“I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord. -Psalm 40: 1-3
Lindsey is on Twitter and you can read more of her writing here.
