Marriage

Marriage is About Honoring God

Marriage is very special to the Lord. He didn’t just create two genders and throw them together, hoping that they might be able to work out some kind of relationship. He actually create marriage when he created men and women. In other words, what’s important isn’t so much the relationship as the marriage itself.

Proverbs 18:22 NRSV
He who finds a wife finds a good thing,
and obtains favor from the Lord.

In our society, we have lowered marriage to simply relationship. It’s so much more than that. Marriage is an earthly picture of the Church’s relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. In Ephesians 5, Paul calls this kind of joining, two becoming one flesh, “a great mystery” (v. 32). And it is just that. When two—a husband and wife—join together, they become something wonderful. And that “something” is also a picture of how God wants to be joined with us.

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Is Porn the Norm?

Several years ago, Faith Popcorn, America’s foremost trend expert, hailed by the New York Times as the “trend oracle” and as the “Nostradamus of marketing” by Fortune magazine, declared, “Porn is norm.” She was not endorsing pornography, but predicting that media technology would push the limits of what is acceptable and would facilitate a culture of instant gratification; thus porn would be the norm. True to her prediction, pornography has moved out of the back allies of the urban scene and onto the main streets of America.

While most Internet businesses were going bankrupt, the porn industry was raking in huge profits, making it perhaps the most profitable business on the Internet. In the past, one had to travel to sleazy backstreets to find porn; now, it’s only a click away on the computer and on the remote control of the cable/satellite TV. Easy, private and nobody knows?except God. At home or in the hotel, porn is private, available and acceptable. Some estimate that as much as 70% of in-room hotel profits come from porn and that over 50% of hotel patrons participate. As people consume it in private, porn becomes the norm and goes public.

Whether it’s the infamous Super Bowl incident or the recent Paris Hilton hamburger commercial, porn is seducing its way into the mainstream. The church needs to be on guard against this tsunami of trash. As it inundates our culture, it is also seeping into our churches. Shepherds must be vigilant and use the rod and staff to defeat this enemy and guard Christ’s sheep.

A Reality in the Church

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What does it mean to surrender a loved one to God?

What does it mean to surrender a loved one to God? Does it mean you turn your back and walk away?

No, certainly not. Surrendering does not mean abandoning. It does not mean you no longer care.

Surrender is motivated out of love — such deep love for the person that you are willing to get out of the way and let God sit in the driver’s seat. Admit it: with us in the driver’s seat, things weren’t going quite so well. There were just too many things we were powerless to control.

Surrender is choosing to yoke up with Jesus.

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Asking for Support: Getting the Help You Need – Part 2

by Dale & Juanita Ryan | see: Part 1

We resist getting help

In spite of the abundance of God’s love and grace and the many ways in which love and grace are available to us, we do not easily reach out for the help we need. Even when we have acknowledged our need for help, we may find ourselves hesitating, finding excuses, resisting. Resistance to getting help is often the result of a mixture of fear and despair and shame.

Fear

It can be frightening to get help. In the process we feel vulnerable and exposed. Jim’s Dad had made cutting remarks about him all his life. Jim was so accustomed to hearing that he was lazy and stupid and irresponsible that every time he shared in his support group, he expected to hear these same hurtful comments in response. Even though people didn’t respond this way, Jim imagined that everyone must be privately thinking these things about him. As a result, he would sometimes begin to share only to freeze with fear and find himself unable to talk.

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Asking for Support: Getting the Help You Need – Part 1

by Dale & Juanita Ryan
See: Part 2 | Part 3

The God of the Bible is a God who saves and heals. The Bible is clear about this: He will deliver the needy who cry out, he will rescue them from oppression and violence. Psalm 72: 12,14) When we see our need, acknowledge our inability to save ourselves, and cry out, God delivers us. God rescues us from oppression and violence. Whether it is the oppression and violence of our compulsions and addictions or the oppression and violence of abuse and neglect, God delivers us and heals us. God is powerful enough and loving enough to deliver us from all of the oppression and violence we face.

This is the good news proclaimed in Scripture. And it is the basis for our hope on the recovery journey. We cannot save ourselves. Or heal ourselves. But God can. And God will.

Sound simple? It turns out to be anything but simple. There are several reasons for this. First, we find it hard to believe that God is

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Practicing the Art of Listening

Proverbs 18:13 NRSV
If one gives answer before hearing,
it is folly and shame.

I don’t know whether or not I’m a baby boomer, but I do know that I’ve grown up in the era of psychology. Everything is about learning how to relate to others, learning how to know one’s self, figuring out why we are dysfunctional.

One of the psychological “skills” that has been taught a lot is active listening. Wikipedia gives a great definition:

“When interacting, people often are not listening attentively to one another. They may be distracted, thinking about other things, or thinking about what they are going to say next, (the latter case is particularly true in conflict situations or disagreements). Active listening is a structured way of listening and responding to others. It focuses attention on the speaker. Suspending one’s own frame of reference and suspending judgment are important in order to fully attend to the speaker.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_listening).

It’s interesting to me that the Bible was talking about active listening long before we even had psychologists. “If one gives answer before hearing . . .” Even if we hear the sounds that doesn’t mean that we are hearing the content. The reality is that if we are thinking about how to respond rather than truly listening, we are focusing (again) on ourselves rather than the other person. We are working on a “defense” for our own position, rather than really caring about how that other person feels (and thinks). We are concerned about protecting ourselves rather than trusting God to protect us.

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What Do You Gain When You Rescue Someone?

Proverbs 19:19:
A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty;
if you rescue him, you will have to do it again.

“My husband is a hot-tempered man,” Rosie told me. “In a fit of rage, he broke my mother’s special vase.”

“What happened next?” I asked.

Rosie blushed as she talked about rushing to the store to find a vase just like the one her husband broke before her mother returned home.

I looked into her eyes and asked if she had covered for her husband in the past.

Rosie wouldn’t look at me. However, she admitted she had rescued her husband many times from the consequences of his behavior.

“Are you tired of rescuing your husband?”

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Family Doesn’t Come Easily

Proverbs 17:17 NRSV
A friend loves at all times,
and kinsfolk are born to share adversity.

These days everything is throw-away. We love our fast food disposable society. Our cars break down; we buy new ones. Our homes need remodeling; we buy bigger ones. Our relationships sour; we find new “families.” We’ve lost an important sense of investment in life. Rather than invest, we throw out. And we fail to learn many important lessons when we live like this. We also may find ourselves on the short end of the stick when adversity strikes because we won’t have established the kind of relationships and skills that are necessary to persevere through the hard times.

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Is My Way Always Right?

Proverbs 17:19 NRSV
One who loves transgression loves strife;
one who builds a high threshold invites broken bones.

I have a terrible tendency to want, to need to be right. And if my opinions, my way is always right, then I am likely going to be in contention with those around me who see and perceive the world differently than I do. Psalm 94:4 equates arrogance (the need to be right): They pour out their arrogant words; all the evildoers boast. (NRSV) Demanding that only our way is right is the same as boasting. And arrogance isn’t the way of the believer. The believer is called to be humble. In fact, when we are humble, we are obedient, but when we are not humble — when we are arrogant and self-seeking — we are living in strife with those around us and are in sin. In fact, it is impossible to please God unless we are humble: Before I was humbled I went astray, but now I keep your word. Psalm 119:67 NRSV

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What Kind of Friend Am I ?

Proverbs 17:17 NRSV
A friend loves at all times,
and kinsfolk are born to share adversity.

Prior to the giving of the Holy Spirit (in the New Testament), those who followed the Lord (predominantly Israelites) had only the capacity for earthly love, not for heavenly or agape love since they loved out of their own ability and not through the spiritual ability of the Spirit. However, there were still higher standards of behavior given. In the Law, the Lord required:

“You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” Leviticus 19:17-18 NRSV


You shall love your neighbor as yourself. It was this law that was discussed by the lawyer and the Lord Jesus in Luke 10:

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