(by James MacDonald)
For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.
2 Corinthians 1: 20
By nature, God is a promiser. He's made a ton of them to His children. A promise is the assurance that God gives to His people so they can walk by faith while they wait for Him to work.
You don't realize how much you need God's promises until your smooth and easy life suddenly turns sideways. This is the time to dig into God's Word and get something to wrap your faith around.
Now the Christian life would be easy if the space in time is small between when you claim God's promises and when you receive what He promised. Read it one day and get it the next. Wow - wouldn't that be great!?
But life's not like that.
The hard part is in the waiting between the promise and the answer; and even harder, when the waiting comes with uncertainties.
Where's this going? Where am I going to end up? What's my future look like?
The reality is, we just don't know and it's this not-knowing that crushes us. We doubt because we don't know. We worry and despair because we don't know. We falter and sometimes fail - all because we don't know. If only we knew how this trial was going to play out, we would be OK. But we don't.
I can take a bad day. I can take a bad month. I can even take a bad year or bad decade, if I have to, as long as I know how it will end up. For some of you it's a health crisis. For another, it's a question about your marriage or an uncertainty with a child. For someone else, it's a restlessness in your soul. We all have areas of uncertainty where we need to hold on to what God has said. His promises are what we cling to while we wait for Him to work. Our faith is in God. He knows what He has promised, He can't lie, and He can't forget. He will deliver on time, all the time. Who else can make promises like that?
Now I wish I could tell you that it always figures out perfectly in our lifetimes, but I would be lying to you. You cannot make sense of the promises of God with this life only. You must factor the reality of eternity into the equation. Eternity brings it all together. The promises of eternal life and the assurance of hope in heaven are what make God's promises exceedingly great and precious.
God, forgive us for thinking that everything must make sense today in the economy of our human satisfaction. Give us faith to believe that we're here for a purpose that is greater than ourselves, greater than our personal enjoyment, even greater than our participation in building Your kingdom. Our lives are about a legacy-Your glory. Amen.
* Name a promise that God has made to You in His Word that You need to remember today.
* What promise do you cling to that will only make sense in eternity?
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Why Waiting is Really Trusting
(by Daniel Darling)
Nobody hates waiting more than I do. At Wal-mart, I use the self-checkout, because there is usually no line. Unless, of course, I commit the unpardonable crime of putting the bread on the wrong plastic bag and the machine begins yelling at me. Then, of course, I have to wait for the human to come over and fix the machine.
At the post office, I hate waiting an hour to mail a package. So I usually use the automated box that allows me to send anything slightly smaller than an elephant.
I especially don’t like sitting in traffic in the Chicago suburbs, where I believe they widen the roads once every 76 years. So I have a better chance of seeing Haley’s Comet than getting into the turn lane on my local highways. Nice.
So you can understand that I have an especially tough time waiting on God. He just doesn’t seem to fit His plans into my rushed, hurried, panicked world. And in reading the Scriptures, I’ve learned that He hasn’t changed.
In fact, almost all of the great men in the Bible had to wait. Some agonizingly long. Let’s look at three examples.
Your Prince is Ready
Though Moses grew up in the house of Pharoah and was groomed to be the next in line for the throne, I believe he saw all of this as God raising him up to deliver his people, Israel. His mother probably had something to do with that.
As the years passed and Moses looked from the window of his stately palace and saw the oppression of his brethren, he grew more and more impatient. Finally, he acted on impulse and killed an Egyptian taskmaster.
So that meant 40 years in the wilderness. Here God’s people were suffering and their future deliverer is leading sheep in the backside of the desert. Yet God wasn’t delaying. He wasn’t stalling. He wasn’t anxious.
Finally, when Moses was broken and humble enough to be used as an instrument by God, God sent the 80-year old prince-turned-shepherd back to Egypt.
But do you see what his happening? The headlines wouldn’t read, “Prince leads coup. Prince leads revolt. Prince overtakes Pharaoh.” No, I wouldn’t be about Moses anymore. It would be about God. How about, “God Miraculously Delivers His People.”?
Dreams of Greatness
As a young man, God spoke to Joseph through dreams. In these dreams, Joseph was leading and his brothers and even world leaders were bowing at his feet. Kind of heady stuff for a teenager, don’t you think? And it didn’t play too well with his brothers.
But Joseph knew God was calling him to a special place. A place of impact and leadership and power.
So that’s why Joseph was probably stunned and shocked when he found himself in the bottom of a pit, praying his brothers wouldn’t kill him. Or when he found himself sold into a strange country, Egypt. Or when he was thrust into prison on rape charges.
Didn’t seem like those dreams were panning out too well, did it? Didn’t seem like God was working out His plan?
Oh, but God was working out his plan. And Joseph, while he didn’t know a lot, He knew He could trust God.
Running for King
Okay, so this prophet comes to his house, dumps some oil on his head, and then whispers in his ear, “Oh by the way, you’re going to be Israel’s next king.” But then it was back to the shepherd’s fields, back to being the forgotten son and brother, back to obscurity.
David was anointed king as a teenager, but he waited 14 long years to assume the throne. And those 14 years were hard years. He was Israel’s next king, but there was his madman, Saul, who was determined to see David dead and buried.
If you read the psalms you can experience David’s angst. He scratched his head in wonder, “Why is God allowing Saul to do this?” “Why doesn’t God just move Saul out of the way?”
But again, like Moses, like Joseph, David had to learn to trust God. And waiting, is trusting. David had to be broken, humble, and read to lead God’s people.
Do you see a pattern developing here? God often gives his people a dream, a desire, a calling and then puts them through a period of waiting.
It is in this waiting where your real courage and character are forged. It is in this period of uncertainty that you’re life takes on a whole new dimension. You learn how to trust God. You learn to lean on God. You learn what’s important and what’s not important.
So if you’re like me and you really hate to wait, know that waiting is trusting.
Nobody hates waiting more than I do. At Wal-mart, I use the self-checkout, because there is usually no line. Unless, of course, I commit the unpardonable crime of putting the bread on the wrong plastic bag and the machine begins yelling at me. Then, of course, I have to wait for the human to come over and fix the machine.
At the post office, I hate waiting an hour to mail a package. So I usually use the automated box that allows me to send anything slightly smaller than an elephant.
I especially don’t like sitting in traffic in the Chicago suburbs, where I believe they widen the roads once every 76 years. So I have a better chance of seeing Haley’s Comet than getting into the turn lane on my local highways. Nice.
So you can understand that I have an especially tough time waiting on God. He just doesn’t seem to fit His plans into my rushed, hurried, panicked world. And in reading the Scriptures, I’ve learned that He hasn’t changed.
In fact, almost all of the great men in the Bible had to wait. Some agonizingly long. Let’s look at three examples.
Your Prince is Ready
Though Moses grew up in the house of Pharoah and was groomed to be the next in line for the throne, I believe he saw all of this as God raising him up to deliver his people, Israel. His mother probably had something to do with that.
As the years passed and Moses looked from the window of his stately palace and saw the oppression of his brethren, he grew more and more impatient. Finally, he acted on impulse and killed an Egyptian taskmaster.
So that meant 40 years in the wilderness. Here God’s people were suffering and their future deliverer is leading sheep in the backside of the desert. Yet God wasn’t delaying. He wasn’t stalling. He wasn’t anxious.
Finally, when Moses was broken and humble enough to be used as an instrument by God, God sent the 80-year old prince-turned-shepherd back to Egypt.
But do you see what his happening? The headlines wouldn’t read, “Prince leads coup. Prince leads revolt. Prince overtakes Pharaoh.” No, I wouldn’t be about Moses anymore. It would be about God. How about, “God Miraculously Delivers His People.”?
Dreams of Greatness
As a young man, God spoke to Joseph through dreams. In these dreams, Joseph was leading and his brothers and even world leaders were bowing at his feet. Kind of heady stuff for a teenager, don’t you think? And it didn’t play too well with his brothers.
But Joseph knew God was calling him to a special place. A place of impact and leadership and power.
So that’s why Joseph was probably stunned and shocked when he found himself in the bottom of a pit, praying his brothers wouldn’t kill him. Or when he found himself sold into a strange country, Egypt. Or when he was thrust into prison on rape charges.
Didn’t seem like those dreams were panning out too well, did it? Didn’t seem like God was working out His plan?
Oh, but God was working out his plan. And Joseph, while he didn’t know a lot, He knew He could trust God.
Running for King
Okay, so this prophet comes to his house, dumps some oil on his head, and then whispers in his ear, “Oh by the way, you’re going to be Israel’s next king.” But then it was back to the shepherd’s fields, back to being the forgotten son and brother, back to obscurity.
David was anointed king as a teenager, but he waited 14 long years to assume the throne. And those 14 years were hard years. He was Israel’s next king, but there was his madman, Saul, who was determined to see David dead and buried.
If you read the psalms you can experience David’s angst. He scratched his head in wonder, “Why is God allowing Saul to do this?” “Why doesn’t God just move Saul out of the way?”
But again, like Moses, like Joseph, David had to learn to trust God. And waiting, is trusting. David had to be broken, humble, and read to lead God’s people.
Do you see a pattern developing here? God often gives his people a dream, a desire, a calling and then puts them through a period of waiting.
It is in this waiting where your real courage and character are forged. It is in this period of uncertainty that you’re life takes on a whole new dimension. You learn how to trust God. You learn to lean on God. You learn what’s important and what’s not important.
So if you’re like me and you really hate to wait, know that waiting is trusting.
Waiting for Patience
(by Betsy St. Amant)
Patience. It’s a tough word to swallow. Christians everywhere jokingly warn each other, “Don’t pray for patience! You’ll get it!” And we’ve all heard the joke,” I prayed for patience but I’m just not getting it fast enough!”
Funny or not, it’s true that we are all impatient by nature. I'm learning this more and more as I delve further into my writing career. An author’s world is seemingly controlled by that single little word "wait". We write and wait. Submit and wait. Receive word and wait. Resubmit and wait. We wait for edits, cover art, ISBN numbers, first releases, etc. It’s a process that just takes time, and though it is by far worth every moment spent; sometimes having patience is just plain hard.
It’s been said that we live in a microwave generation. In this day and age, we obtain things now faster than ever before, and yet it’s still not good enough, not fast enough for our speedy preferences. Nuked popcorn still takes too long to pop. Full dinners in a skillet take too long to heat. Our fast food bags don’t pop out the drive-through window quickly enough for our taste. We get married and expect to have the same things our parents have after twenty-five years of marriage! A new car, a nice house, extra spending money. These things all take time to acquire, yet our hurried, frantic minds can’t grasp the concept. We don’t want to be patient. We want things now.
I’d like to think that I'm a decently patient person. I get anxious about things, of course, but overall, I understand that "good things come to those who wait" and that usually, the end result is well worth the time spent. Yet knowing this and applying it to my life and career sometimes takes on a different perspective!
Why is patience so hard for us? Why do we want what we want, right when we want it? Why can’t we be content to sit back and trust the Lord’s timing over our own anxiety and urgency?
I believe it all goes back to control. Having patience means surrendering control of our lives to Jesus, the ultimate Timekeeper. It means saying “I’ll wait for You, Lord, because I trust You.” And that’s hard to do. It’s difficult not knowing what will happen. We live in a world that operates by plans, lists, details, and organization. How can we plan or make a list or organize if we don’t know what’s coming? If we don’t know what to expect?
It’s simple: we can’t. That’s where trust comes in. And you can’t have trust without first surrendering control.
Your palms might be growing sweaty right at the mere thought. Let go? Let Jesus truly take full control of my life? But what if His plans don’t match up with mine? What if He doesn’t want the same things for me that I’ve desired my entire life? How can I trust that? How can I know He won’t lead me astray?
Good questions. And I realized something recently while thinking about this dreaded little word "wait". A vivid image popped into my mind that I’d like to share with you.
Have you ever been blindfolded? I played games like this at youth camp. Silly exercises on the surface, but deep down, they taught us as teenagers how to build trust and become better teammates. Our group leader would tie a thick bandanna around my eyes and I would be guided by an un-blindfolded partner through an obstacle course. The entire point was to learn to trust my teammate's voice and instructions. If he said "go right", I moved to the right. If he said “step up”, I’d step up and over the object in front of me. I’d take baby steps or giant steps according to his commands. I’d back up, scoot over, crawl, etc. I did whatever it took to get through the obstacle without seeing. I literally had to blindly trust my partner, who saw the whole picture.
It's a lot like that in our spiritual lives. We, as Christians, are blindfolded. We can't see the entire picture. Our view is limited, and we're stumbling around, confused as to which direction we should go. And unfortunately, more often than not, we tend to ignore the voice of our Lord instructing us to safety. To success. To fulfillment.
How will we ever know where to go, or worse yet, where not to go, if we don't listen to Him? We'll never cross the finish line by stubbornly insisting we can manage on our own. God sees the entire path before us. He knows what's coming, what has been, what is, and still has a plan for each one of us. As Christians, we have to trust that. Whether that means waiting, walking, crawling, taking baby steps, running, etc.
Are you listening to the voice of our Savior today? I am. I'm going to keep waiting and keep trusting. And when I hear that still small voice instructing me to walk, I'll do so boldly and with confidence that I am on the right path.
It will be worth the wait.
Patience. It’s a tough word to swallow. Christians everywhere jokingly warn each other, “Don’t pray for patience! You’ll get it!” And we’ve all heard the joke,” I prayed for patience but I’m just not getting it fast enough!”
Funny or not, it’s true that we are all impatient by nature. I'm learning this more and more as I delve further into my writing career. An author’s world is seemingly controlled by that single little word "wait". We write and wait. Submit and wait. Receive word and wait. Resubmit and wait. We wait for edits, cover art, ISBN numbers, first releases, etc. It’s a process that just takes time, and though it is by far worth every moment spent; sometimes having patience is just plain hard.
It’s been said that we live in a microwave generation. In this day and age, we obtain things now faster than ever before, and yet it’s still not good enough, not fast enough for our speedy preferences. Nuked popcorn still takes too long to pop. Full dinners in a skillet take too long to heat. Our fast food bags don’t pop out the drive-through window quickly enough for our taste. We get married and expect to have the same things our parents have after twenty-five years of marriage! A new car, a nice house, extra spending money. These things all take time to acquire, yet our hurried, frantic minds can’t grasp the concept. We don’t want to be patient. We want things now.
I’d like to think that I'm a decently patient person. I get anxious about things, of course, but overall, I understand that "good things come to those who wait" and that usually, the end result is well worth the time spent. Yet knowing this and applying it to my life and career sometimes takes on a different perspective!
Why is patience so hard for us? Why do we want what we want, right when we want it? Why can’t we be content to sit back and trust the Lord’s timing over our own anxiety and urgency?
I believe it all goes back to control. Having patience means surrendering control of our lives to Jesus, the ultimate Timekeeper. It means saying “I’ll wait for You, Lord, because I trust You.” And that’s hard to do. It’s difficult not knowing what will happen. We live in a world that operates by plans, lists, details, and organization. How can we plan or make a list or organize if we don’t know what’s coming? If we don’t know what to expect?
It’s simple: we can’t. That’s where trust comes in. And you can’t have trust without first surrendering control.
Your palms might be growing sweaty right at the mere thought. Let go? Let Jesus truly take full control of my life? But what if His plans don’t match up with mine? What if He doesn’t want the same things for me that I’ve desired my entire life? How can I trust that? How can I know He won’t lead me astray?
Good questions. And I realized something recently while thinking about this dreaded little word "wait". A vivid image popped into my mind that I’d like to share with you.
Have you ever been blindfolded? I played games like this at youth camp. Silly exercises on the surface, but deep down, they taught us as teenagers how to build trust and become better teammates. Our group leader would tie a thick bandanna around my eyes and I would be guided by an un-blindfolded partner through an obstacle course. The entire point was to learn to trust my teammate's voice and instructions. If he said "go right", I moved to the right. If he said “step up”, I’d step up and over the object in front of me. I’d take baby steps or giant steps according to his commands. I’d back up, scoot over, crawl, etc. I did whatever it took to get through the obstacle without seeing. I literally had to blindly trust my partner, who saw the whole picture.
It's a lot like that in our spiritual lives. We, as Christians, are blindfolded. We can't see the entire picture. Our view is limited, and we're stumbling around, confused as to which direction we should go. And unfortunately, more often than not, we tend to ignore the voice of our Lord instructing us to safety. To success. To fulfillment.
How will we ever know where to go, or worse yet, where not to go, if we don't listen to Him? We'll never cross the finish line by stubbornly insisting we can manage on our own. God sees the entire path before us. He knows what's coming, what has been, what is, and still has a plan for each one of us. As Christians, we have to trust that. Whether that means waiting, walking, crawling, taking baby steps, running, etc.
Are you listening to the voice of our Savior today? I am. I'm going to keep waiting and keep trusting. And when I hear that still small voice instructing me to walk, I'll do so boldly and with confidence that I am on the right path.
It will be worth the wait.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Combating Loneliness
(by Sandy Coughlin)
At sunset last night, I found myself driving my son to his friend’s house. As I made the turn onto the boy’s street, my eyes immediately drifted to a house on the left. What I saw inside was so welcoming I had to slow the Suburban down! I couldn’t wait to drop my son off – “Bye, son, I love you too!” - so I could quickly turn the car around, and drive by this home again. As I slowly approached the house, I gazed into the window. (I kind of felt like the paparazzi!) Through the front window I saw a huge dining room table filled with 4 couples of all ages. Dark hair, gray hair, glasses … I could see their bodies leaning inward, engaged in conversation. I could almost hear the laughter and smell the food.
Good for them! I thought. I wish more people could see this beautiful picture! I even wished I had my camera. Then reality hit as a car approached from behind, and I sped off towards home.
What stops people from hosting like this more often? We all crave relationships and connection. A recent study called Social Isolation in America showed that on average, the American adult has only two close friends. It went on to say that 80 percent confide in family only. There are so many lonely people right in our neighborhoods, schools, work places and churches that would love to be invited over for dinner. I know I’m guilty of failing to think of the lonely person. And sometimes it’s hard to know, really, who is lonely?
A friend recently asked me this question: “In your twenties, what drew you to God?” I immediately replied, “Loneliness.” Having never voiced that before, I’ve been thinking about my response these last few weeks. I longed not only for God, but also for deeper human connections. The changes I made had to start with me. I could not rely on anyone else to soothe that lonely feeling inside. I learned to go to God first, but then He also showed me that I need others.
My husband and I have been reading the book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Although the book is rather long with many graphs, it shows how we’ve become a less social society since the 1950’s. I realize we live in a different society now, but the busier we become, the more people we cut out of our lives. If this trend continues, then where are we headed? How will we make it without each other? Who’s going to help when the hard times come?
Do you retreat to your loneliness or reach out for help? Do you turn to television and the internet for your friendships, or do you have real life friends who will come when you call or when your family is in need? I personally put the following steps into place in my own life, starting twenty years ago, and still resort to them now as a married woman.
Open Your Doors
Learn to open the doors of your home in whatever season of life you are in. Introduce yourself to others and invite them in. Think about what ministry can take place in your home. I can think of so many ways of getting involved with people and life – right in our very own homes.
Our friend, Scott, opened his home to a bunch of public-school, 3-5th grade boys for a couple of years. These “Wise Guys” played basketball, ate snacks, and learned spiritual lesson for boys. Years ago, my good friend, Carrie, went into different friends’ homes and taught 5th grade girls about relationships. She was my true inspiration for starting my Balcony Girls group. My friend Donnetta opens her home to young moms on Wednesday mornings just to be friends to these ladies. Of course many churches offer care groups which take place in the home setting. The ideas are never-ending, really. You take your passion and fly with it!
Become a Friend
Resist the urge to sit back and mourn because you think no one cares about you or your family. Start getting involved in other people’s lives – by caring about them! Ask a lot of questions – show interest in their lives and when the time is right, invite them over for a meal.
Friendship offers benefits to our emotional and physical health. Loneliness can cause high blood pressure and problems with sleep. Lonely people are even at higher risk for Alzheimer’s later in life. Being open and authentic with others will help combat loneliness.
Lose Your FEAR
We’ve learned, and taught our kids, how fear robs and steals. Fear is: False Evidence Appearing Real, and it’s snatching lives right and left. People do not want to be vulnerable because they’ve either been burned or rejected. As we grow in life, I say – get over it! Learn from bad experiences – read, pray, find healthy friends. Do what needs to be done to heal so that a bad experience won’t squelch future relationships that have great potential.
Be Yourself
Entertaining in our home has become easy for my husband and me. Why? Because early on we decided: We are who we are. When we invite people over, they get the real us. We are willing to open up, share, be vulnerable, and not pretend. People are attracted to our openness but sometimes they are afraid to be open themselves because it leaves them feeling vulnerable.
We know we are not self-sustaining – there is no need to pretend otherwise. We know we need accountability and closeness with others. We know that we find value in friendships. We’ve learned to offer help – and we’ve learned to ask for help. And it's made all the difference.
At sunset last night, I found myself driving my son to his friend’s house. As I made the turn onto the boy’s street, my eyes immediately drifted to a house on the left. What I saw inside was so welcoming I had to slow the Suburban down! I couldn’t wait to drop my son off – “Bye, son, I love you too!” - so I could quickly turn the car around, and drive by this home again. As I slowly approached the house, I gazed into the window. (I kind of felt like the paparazzi!) Through the front window I saw a huge dining room table filled with 4 couples of all ages. Dark hair, gray hair, glasses … I could see their bodies leaning inward, engaged in conversation. I could almost hear the laughter and smell the food.
Good for them! I thought. I wish more people could see this beautiful picture! I even wished I had my camera. Then reality hit as a car approached from behind, and I sped off towards home.
What stops people from hosting like this more often? We all crave relationships and connection. A recent study called Social Isolation in America showed that on average, the American adult has only two close friends. It went on to say that 80 percent confide in family only. There are so many lonely people right in our neighborhoods, schools, work places and churches that would love to be invited over for dinner. I know I’m guilty of failing to think of the lonely person. And sometimes it’s hard to know, really, who is lonely?
A friend recently asked me this question: “In your twenties, what drew you to God?” I immediately replied, “Loneliness.” Having never voiced that before, I’ve been thinking about my response these last few weeks. I longed not only for God, but also for deeper human connections. The changes I made had to start with me. I could not rely on anyone else to soothe that lonely feeling inside. I learned to go to God first, but then He also showed me that I need others.
My husband and I have been reading the book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Although the book is rather long with many graphs, it shows how we’ve become a less social society since the 1950’s. I realize we live in a different society now, but the busier we become, the more people we cut out of our lives. If this trend continues, then where are we headed? How will we make it without each other? Who’s going to help when the hard times come?
Do you retreat to your loneliness or reach out for help? Do you turn to television and the internet for your friendships, or do you have real life friends who will come when you call or when your family is in need? I personally put the following steps into place in my own life, starting twenty years ago, and still resort to them now as a married woman.
Open Your Doors
Learn to open the doors of your home in whatever season of life you are in. Introduce yourself to others and invite them in. Think about what ministry can take place in your home. I can think of so many ways of getting involved with people and life – right in our very own homes.
Our friend, Scott, opened his home to a bunch of public-school, 3-5th grade boys for a couple of years. These “Wise Guys” played basketball, ate snacks, and learned spiritual lesson for boys. Years ago, my good friend, Carrie, went into different friends’ homes and taught 5th grade girls about relationships. She was my true inspiration for starting my Balcony Girls group. My friend Donnetta opens her home to young moms on Wednesday mornings just to be friends to these ladies. Of course many churches offer care groups which take place in the home setting. The ideas are never-ending, really. You take your passion and fly with it!
Become a Friend
Resist the urge to sit back and mourn because you think no one cares about you or your family. Start getting involved in other people’s lives – by caring about them! Ask a lot of questions – show interest in their lives and when the time is right, invite them over for a meal.
Friendship offers benefits to our emotional and physical health. Loneliness can cause high blood pressure and problems with sleep. Lonely people are even at higher risk for Alzheimer’s later in life. Being open and authentic with others will help combat loneliness.
Lose Your FEAR
We’ve learned, and taught our kids, how fear robs and steals. Fear is: False Evidence Appearing Real, and it’s snatching lives right and left. People do not want to be vulnerable because they’ve either been burned or rejected. As we grow in life, I say – get over it! Learn from bad experiences – read, pray, find healthy friends. Do what needs to be done to heal so that a bad experience won’t squelch future relationships that have great potential.
Be Yourself
Entertaining in our home has become easy for my husband and me. Why? Because early on we decided: We are who we are. When we invite people over, they get the real us. We are willing to open up, share, be vulnerable, and not pretend. People are attracted to our openness but sometimes they are afraid to be open themselves because it leaves them feeling vulnerable.
We know we are not self-sustaining – there is no need to pretend otherwise. We know we need accountability and closeness with others. We know that we find value in friendships. We’ve learned to offer help – and we’ve learned to ask for help. And it's made all the difference.
Trying Too Hard to be Perfect?
(by Sandy Coughlin)
Do you struggle with things having to be “just right”? One of my callings in life is to reach others through the gift of hospitality, and I can’t tell you how many women I’ve encountered who feel the pressure for everything to be “perfect” before they consider having guests over. Maybe you’ve been that way in the past, and it’s burned out your desire to practice any form of hospitality.
Well I’m offering good news for the women who struggle with perfectionism: You can change your approach and attitude!
Let me start with this comment I received on my blog:
Sandy, thank you so very much for blessing us "try so hard for perfection women" with your blog. In growing up where everything had to be perfect prior to and during entertaining and taking that into my adult life as the norm, I have over the years just stopped entertaining because I didn't want that stress in my life anymore. My heart has changed in large part due to your blog and I am excited to entertain again with a whole new approach and attitude.
This reader was disillusioned by a home life where things had to be perfect. She probably grew weary of it and couldn’t stand the “measure up” attitude anymore. Although I did not have a mother who taught me this outlook, I did struggle with this slightly, right after I got married. I think it had to do more with desiring to project a perfect image.
I believe many younger women start their marriages off with this “trying so hard for perfection” syndrome. But then we start having kids, and we tend to mellow as life starts to knock perfection out of us! At least that is what happened to me.
Regardless of your station in life, I came up with three easy steps to keep in mind, to hang on your refrigerator, when you feel the “P” word sneaking up on you:
1. Be aware of the role FEAR plays in your life. What keeps you from reaching out? Do people really see you in this role of having to have things perfect? Does God expect us to have a perfect household before we open our doors to others?
2. Cross-examine FEAR to find the lie. Figure out what it is (or who it is) that makes you feel this way. If it’s a person, don’t have that person into your home! Get down to the nitty-gritty, deal with your source of fear, and move on.
3. Show yourself some grace. Think about it -- would you really be graceless to another person in their home if they weren’t perfect? Treat yourself the way you would treat others.
Ask yourself what hurdles you've overcome in the past in order to reach out to people, to give to others, and apply this to your current fear.
Hopefully you can relax when the pie comes out of the oven a little too dark (burnt!), or when you realize your kids are grungy and haven’t had a bath, or that you forgot to sweep the kitchen floor, or that you didn’t time your courses just right.
I was tested in this realm just the other day. My daughter asked if she could make a banana cream pie for dessert when our out-of-town guests were here. I was thrilled because she wanted no help from me, and it eased my mind to know that the dessert would be taken care of.
When the pie was finished, I realized that the bananas were put on top of the pie (not on the bottom where they belonged and also not soaked in lemon juice). Knowing she messed up, Abby told me right away. I found myself saying, “Don’t worry, Abby, the pie is beautiful! It’s going to taste great!” And it did!
Source: crosswalk
Do you struggle with things having to be “just right”? One of my callings in life is to reach others through the gift of hospitality, and I can’t tell you how many women I’ve encountered who feel the pressure for everything to be “perfect” before they consider having guests over. Maybe you’ve been that way in the past, and it’s burned out your desire to practice any form of hospitality.
Well I’m offering good news for the women who struggle with perfectionism: You can change your approach and attitude!
Let me start with this comment I received on my blog:
Sandy, thank you so very much for blessing us "try so hard for perfection women" with your blog. In growing up where everything had to be perfect prior to and during entertaining and taking that into my adult life as the norm, I have over the years just stopped entertaining because I didn't want that stress in my life anymore. My heart has changed in large part due to your blog and I am excited to entertain again with a whole new approach and attitude.
This reader was disillusioned by a home life where things had to be perfect. She probably grew weary of it and couldn’t stand the “measure up” attitude anymore. Although I did not have a mother who taught me this outlook, I did struggle with this slightly, right after I got married. I think it had to do more with desiring to project a perfect image.
I believe many younger women start their marriages off with this “trying so hard for perfection” syndrome. But then we start having kids, and we tend to mellow as life starts to knock perfection out of us! At least that is what happened to me.
Regardless of your station in life, I came up with three easy steps to keep in mind, to hang on your refrigerator, when you feel the “P” word sneaking up on you:
1. Be aware of the role FEAR plays in your life. What keeps you from reaching out? Do people really see you in this role of having to have things perfect? Does God expect us to have a perfect household before we open our doors to others?
2. Cross-examine FEAR to find the lie. Figure out what it is (or who it is) that makes you feel this way. If it’s a person, don’t have that person into your home! Get down to the nitty-gritty, deal with your source of fear, and move on.
3. Show yourself some grace. Think about it -- would you really be graceless to another person in their home if they weren’t perfect? Treat yourself the way you would treat others.
Ask yourself what hurdles you've overcome in the past in order to reach out to people, to give to others, and apply this to your current fear.
Hopefully you can relax when the pie comes out of the oven a little too dark (burnt!), or when you realize your kids are grungy and haven’t had a bath, or that you forgot to sweep the kitchen floor, or that you didn’t time your courses just right.
I was tested in this realm just the other day. My daughter asked if she could make a banana cream pie for dessert when our out-of-town guests were here. I was thrilled because she wanted no help from me, and it eased my mind to know that the dessert would be taken care of.
When the pie was finished, I realized that the bananas were put on top of the pie (not on the bottom where they belonged and also not soaked in lemon juice). Knowing she messed up, Abby told me right away. I found myself saying, “Don’t worry, Abby, the pie is beautiful! It’s going to taste great!” And it did!
Source: crosswalk
Get the Body God Planned for You
(by Whitney Hopler)
Pressure to live up to our culture’s current idea of a perfect body can leave you feeling bad about what you see in the mirror. You may think that if you could only get a thinner waist, thicker hair, longer legs, a shorter nose, a smaller rear end, or a bigger chest, you’ll feel better because you’ll look better.
But what if your perfect body is simply the one God created you to have – the unique design He planned for you before you were even born? What if you don’t have to agonize over your body and work hard trying to change it?
You can have the perfect body for you if you accept the body God planned for you and focus on taking care of it well. Here’s how:
Accept the body you have. Instead of fighting against God’s design, decide to operate within it to discover all the beauty and functionality God has placed there. Realize that, even though the shape of your legs or the size of your nose may not fit society’s highest standard of beauty right now, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. Understand that what needs to change isn’t your body itself, but your perception of your body. Embrace the reality that your body is nothing less than a temple for the Holy Spirit – a receptacle for God’s presence. Since God has chosen to honor your body by dwelling within it, choose to respect it yourself.
List what you like and dislike about your body. Make two lists: “Things I Really Don’t Like About My Body” and “Things About My Body I’m Not Totally Disappointed With.” On each list, write down what parts of your body are in their original condition (the way God made you), and what parts you’ve changed. Next to what you’ve listed for body parts in their original condition, write, “Blessings from God.” Next to what you’ve listed for body parts you’ve modified in some way, write, “I’m committing these to God.” Keep your lists to use in your personal prayer times.
Celebrate your uniqueness. You only have to think about the huge variety of beautiful flowers God has created to know that God seems to enjoy diversity. Recognize that He has created you to be distinctively unique among all the many people He’s made. Appreciate the fact that you’re one of a kind, and your body has been designed just for you – no one else. God knows you intimately; even better than you know yourself. So stop wasting your time and energy trying to change your body to be like other people’s bodies and start discovering more about your own God-given body.
Be honest about the current state of your body. Give yourself a reality check. For example, are you trying to squeeze into clothes that don’t really fit your body’s current size? If so, get rid of all clothes (including underwear) that don’t fit.
Be honest about your current lifestyle. Evaluate how often you incorporate exercise into your life: Do you walk short distances, or drive everywhere? Do you use stairs whenever you can, or do you look for elevators or escalators? Do you spend time regularly outdoors, or do you spend most of your free time in front of the television or computer? Consider how much sleep you’re getting on a regular basis: Do you usually wake up feeling refreshed, or do you have trouble maintaining your energy during the day because of insomnia at night? Think about what you eat: Are your meals nutritious, or are you more concerned about eating for convenience than maintaining a healthy diet?
Become physically active. Get your body moving as often as you can. Realize that sedentary lifestyles usually develop through the many little decisions people make each day, but you can gradually develop an active lifestyle by changing the many small daily decisions you make. God has designed your body to be physically active, and you can’t achieve a healthy body without incorporating regular exercise into your life. Find ways to increase your physical activity, such as by: walking more, playing more (running around with your kids or dog, engaging in a sport, etc.), doing your household chores more quickly and energetically, and working outside in your yard more often. Ask God to show you creative ways you can naturally increase your physical activity each day. Start an exercise program (after checking with your doctor) to build your strength and stamina slowly and steadily. Plan your program around goals that are specific, measurable, and realistic. Start seeing yourself as an active person rather than a sedentary one.
Choose food wisely. Look inside your refrigerator, freezer, pantry, and anywhere else you store food at home. Pull out all the packaged, processed foods you currently have. Then investigate their ingredients. Take note of how many calories they contain, as well as how much fat, sodium, and sugar. Figure what the correct portion size is for each food, and compare that to how much you usually eat in one serving. Next, use your information as the basis for making healthier choices with your diet. Avoid packaged, processed foods as much as possible, since they’re high in calories but low in nutrition. Instead, eat whole foods as often as you can – foods that are complete in and of themselves, like any raw fruit or vegetable. Try to give up snacking and eat only at mealtime. Go to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s homepage (www.MyPyramid.gov) to figure out your daily caloric goals and how many servings of the various proteins, grains, dairy, vegetables, and fruits you should be consuming each day. Eat lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free or low-fat milk and dairy products. Include lean meats, poultry, fish, beans, eggs, and nuts in your diet. Stay away from saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, sodium, and sugar as much as possible. Pay attention to what you drink as well as what you eat, since many beverages are packed with calories. Take a multivitamin and multimineral supplement daily. To track your current eating patterns, write down what you eat every day for about a week. Then use the knowledge you gain to change the way you regularly eat.
Discard fad diets. Fad diets actually sabotage your efforts to lose weight because they don’t work with the way your body naturally processes food. Your body needs a wide variety of foods – not just a few – to function well, so stop trying to eat just grapefruit and rice cakes and eat lots of different foods. Your body needs fat, so forget about focusing just on fat-free foods and instead learn the difference between good fats (like omega fatty acids) and bad fats (like trans fats and saturated fats). Realize that, while you may lose weight on a diet in the short term, you’ll likely gain it back after you go off the diet. What does work for the long term is changing your lifestyle choices slowly over time. Dieting for a while and then stopping may actually slow down your body’s metabolism, causing you to gain more weight than before. Instead of dieting, just start making healthier food choices and eat those foods in moderation, sustaining your new habits. Ask God to give you the strength you need to change your whole lifestyle rather than just go on a diet.
Eat for health. Decide to eat only to fuel your body, instead of for other reasons like to try to meet emotional needs. Inform yourself of the correct serving sizes and try to stay within them. When you’ve eaten more than you should, admit it to yourself, confess your gluttony to God, and pray for the self-control you need. Don’t eat mindlessly, such as polishing off a bag of chips while watching television. Keep in mind that everything you eat contains calories that will make a real impact on your health. Strive to eat only what contributes to your body’s health, not what detracts from it. Be informed and intentional about what you eat, how much you eat, and when you eat. Turn to God – not food – for comfort. Stop using food to cope with stress or to make you feel good about yourself. Realize that if your food has become your comforter, it has become an idol in your life. Only God can truly meet your need for comfort; food is powerless to do more than cause a temporary good feeling. So break your patterns of eating comfort food. Write down what types of food you eat for comfort, and when you usually eat them (such as consuming a bowl of ice cream after work). Then ask God to help you give up eating for comfort, return food to its proper place in your life, and turn to Him alone with your emotional needs.
Manage stress well. Respond to life’s stresses wisely so stress doesn’t harm your health. Don’t use food, alcohol, or drugs to try to numb yourself from the stress you feel. Write down whatever is causing you stress; then pray about your list, trusting that God can handle everything on it. Avoid stress triggers as much as possible, such as minimizing your contact with a difficult person in your life. Change the way you respond to stressful situations you can’t avoid. Get rid of unrealistic expectations that are causing you stress. Choose to dwell on positive thoughts rather than on negative thoughts. Stop worrying and pray about your concerns instead. Exercise regularly. Talk over what’s bothering you with some trustworthy friends. Journal your thoughts. Breathe deeply and stretch your muscles. Engage in some creative activities to release stress. Pray about each issue that’s currently causing you stress, asking God to help you overcome each one. Then pray for God’s peace, then rest in the confidence that He is at work in your life.
Age well. Accept the fact that your body will keep aging as long as you’re alive. Don’t fight against the natural aging process God has designed; aging isn’t a crisis. Look in the mirror and notice what’s changed about your body in the last year, five years, and ten years. Consider honestly how you feel about your body right now. Write a letter to God in which you express acceptance for your age and place your trust in Him for both now and the future. Realize that, despite how much society may disdain age, in God’s eyes there’s great value to it. Know that God will continue to fulfill His great purpose for your life, no matter what your age. Ask God to show you how your body’s aging process can bring you wisdom and draw you closer to Him.
Keep going. Continue to make better choices for your physical, spiritual, mental, emotional, and relational health. Since all these aspects of your health are connected, improvements in one realm will strengthen all the others.
Source: crosswalk
Pressure to live up to our culture’s current idea of a perfect body can leave you feeling bad about what you see in the mirror. You may think that if you could only get a thinner waist, thicker hair, longer legs, a shorter nose, a smaller rear end, or a bigger chest, you’ll feel better because you’ll look better.
But what if your perfect body is simply the one God created you to have – the unique design He planned for you before you were even born? What if you don’t have to agonize over your body and work hard trying to change it?
You can have the perfect body for you if you accept the body God planned for you and focus on taking care of it well. Here’s how:
Accept the body you have. Instead of fighting against God’s design, decide to operate within it to discover all the beauty and functionality God has placed there. Realize that, even though the shape of your legs or the size of your nose may not fit society’s highest standard of beauty right now, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. Understand that what needs to change isn’t your body itself, but your perception of your body. Embrace the reality that your body is nothing less than a temple for the Holy Spirit – a receptacle for God’s presence. Since God has chosen to honor your body by dwelling within it, choose to respect it yourself.
List what you like and dislike about your body. Make two lists: “Things I Really Don’t Like About My Body” and “Things About My Body I’m Not Totally Disappointed With.” On each list, write down what parts of your body are in their original condition (the way God made you), and what parts you’ve changed. Next to what you’ve listed for body parts in their original condition, write, “Blessings from God.” Next to what you’ve listed for body parts you’ve modified in some way, write, “I’m committing these to God.” Keep your lists to use in your personal prayer times.
Celebrate your uniqueness. You only have to think about the huge variety of beautiful flowers God has created to know that God seems to enjoy diversity. Recognize that He has created you to be distinctively unique among all the many people He’s made. Appreciate the fact that you’re one of a kind, and your body has been designed just for you – no one else. God knows you intimately; even better than you know yourself. So stop wasting your time and energy trying to change your body to be like other people’s bodies and start discovering more about your own God-given body.
Be honest about the current state of your body. Give yourself a reality check. For example, are you trying to squeeze into clothes that don’t really fit your body’s current size? If so, get rid of all clothes (including underwear) that don’t fit.
Be honest about your current lifestyle. Evaluate how often you incorporate exercise into your life: Do you walk short distances, or drive everywhere? Do you use stairs whenever you can, or do you look for elevators or escalators? Do you spend time regularly outdoors, or do you spend most of your free time in front of the television or computer? Consider how much sleep you’re getting on a regular basis: Do you usually wake up feeling refreshed, or do you have trouble maintaining your energy during the day because of insomnia at night? Think about what you eat: Are your meals nutritious, or are you more concerned about eating for convenience than maintaining a healthy diet?
Become physically active. Get your body moving as often as you can. Realize that sedentary lifestyles usually develop through the many little decisions people make each day, but you can gradually develop an active lifestyle by changing the many small daily decisions you make. God has designed your body to be physically active, and you can’t achieve a healthy body without incorporating regular exercise into your life. Find ways to increase your physical activity, such as by: walking more, playing more (running around with your kids or dog, engaging in a sport, etc.), doing your household chores more quickly and energetically, and working outside in your yard more often. Ask God to show you creative ways you can naturally increase your physical activity each day. Start an exercise program (after checking with your doctor) to build your strength and stamina slowly and steadily. Plan your program around goals that are specific, measurable, and realistic. Start seeing yourself as an active person rather than a sedentary one.
Choose food wisely. Look inside your refrigerator, freezer, pantry, and anywhere else you store food at home. Pull out all the packaged, processed foods you currently have. Then investigate their ingredients. Take note of how many calories they contain, as well as how much fat, sodium, and sugar. Figure what the correct portion size is for each food, and compare that to how much you usually eat in one serving. Next, use your information as the basis for making healthier choices with your diet. Avoid packaged, processed foods as much as possible, since they’re high in calories but low in nutrition. Instead, eat whole foods as often as you can – foods that are complete in and of themselves, like any raw fruit or vegetable. Try to give up snacking and eat only at mealtime. Go to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s homepage (www.MyPyramid.gov) to figure out your daily caloric goals and how many servings of the various proteins, grains, dairy, vegetables, and fruits you should be consuming each day. Eat lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free or low-fat milk and dairy products. Include lean meats, poultry, fish, beans, eggs, and nuts in your diet. Stay away from saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, sodium, and sugar as much as possible. Pay attention to what you drink as well as what you eat, since many beverages are packed with calories. Take a multivitamin and multimineral supplement daily. To track your current eating patterns, write down what you eat every day for about a week. Then use the knowledge you gain to change the way you regularly eat.
Discard fad diets. Fad diets actually sabotage your efforts to lose weight because they don’t work with the way your body naturally processes food. Your body needs a wide variety of foods – not just a few – to function well, so stop trying to eat just grapefruit and rice cakes and eat lots of different foods. Your body needs fat, so forget about focusing just on fat-free foods and instead learn the difference between good fats (like omega fatty acids) and bad fats (like trans fats and saturated fats). Realize that, while you may lose weight on a diet in the short term, you’ll likely gain it back after you go off the diet. What does work for the long term is changing your lifestyle choices slowly over time. Dieting for a while and then stopping may actually slow down your body’s metabolism, causing you to gain more weight than before. Instead of dieting, just start making healthier food choices and eat those foods in moderation, sustaining your new habits. Ask God to give you the strength you need to change your whole lifestyle rather than just go on a diet.
Eat for health. Decide to eat only to fuel your body, instead of for other reasons like to try to meet emotional needs. Inform yourself of the correct serving sizes and try to stay within them. When you’ve eaten more than you should, admit it to yourself, confess your gluttony to God, and pray for the self-control you need. Don’t eat mindlessly, such as polishing off a bag of chips while watching television. Keep in mind that everything you eat contains calories that will make a real impact on your health. Strive to eat only what contributes to your body’s health, not what detracts from it. Be informed and intentional about what you eat, how much you eat, and when you eat. Turn to God – not food – for comfort. Stop using food to cope with stress or to make you feel good about yourself. Realize that if your food has become your comforter, it has become an idol in your life. Only God can truly meet your need for comfort; food is powerless to do more than cause a temporary good feeling. So break your patterns of eating comfort food. Write down what types of food you eat for comfort, and when you usually eat them (such as consuming a bowl of ice cream after work). Then ask God to help you give up eating for comfort, return food to its proper place in your life, and turn to Him alone with your emotional needs.
Manage stress well. Respond to life’s stresses wisely so stress doesn’t harm your health. Don’t use food, alcohol, or drugs to try to numb yourself from the stress you feel. Write down whatever is causing you stress; then pray about your list, trusting that God can handle everything on it. Avoid stress triggers as much as possible, such as minimizing your contact with a difficult person in your life. Change the way you respond to stressful situations you can’t avoid. Get rid of unrealistic expectations that are causing you stress. Choose to dwell on positive thoughts rather than on negative thoughts. Stop worrying and pray about your concerns instead. Exercise regularly. Talk over what’s bothering you with some trustworthy friends. Journal your thoughts. Breathe deeply and stretch your muscles. Engage in some creative activities to release stress. Pray about each issue that’s currently causing you stress, asking God to help you overcome each one. Then pray for God’s peace, then rest in the confidence that He is at work in your life.
Age well. Accept the fact that your body will keep aging as long as you’re alive. Don’t fight against the natural aging process God has designed; aging isn’t a crisis. Look in the mirror and notice what’s changed about your body in the last year, five years, and ten years. Consider honestly how you feel about your body right now. Write a letter to God in which you express acceptance for your age and place your trust in Him for both now and the future. Realize that, despite how much society may disdain age, in God’s eyes there’s great value to it. Know that God will continue to fulfill His great purpose for your life, no matter what your age. Ask God to show you how your body’s aging process can bring you wisdom and draw you closer to Him.
Keep going. Continue to make better choices for your physical, spiritual, mental, emotional, and relational health. Since all these aspects of your health are connected, improvements in one realm will strengthen all the others.
Source: crosswalk
Friday, July 4, 2008
Our Common Sorrow
(by Hudson Russell Davis)
Like yours, my heart is a library of loneliness, longing to be read, but most people come only to browse. All too often the real feelings go back on the shelf.
— Tim Hansel
One of Satan’s chief means of crippling us is to convince us in our loneliness that we are truly alone, not simply without a mate but without a friend, without help and without God—forsaken. He whispers that whatever cries we utter are spoken into thin air and deaf ears, both human and divine. He tells us that people do not care and that God does not care, but it is not so.
Everything that has overtaken us is common to humankind. We all suffer loneliness. We all suffer rejection. We all raise up hope only to know disappointment. This is true of the single and it is true of the married, true under the limelight of success and the clouds of failure. We all know, to some degree, what it is to be misunderstood or ignored.
This does not mean that our sufferings are not individual, not unique; it means we do not suffer alone. I cannot know the ways you have been cut or the bruises you bear, but I care. We can never truly “understand” but need only love. While it is wonderful if someone understands, it is better if they care.
Each of us knows a particular sorrow, but we all know the pain of loneliness and the hurt of dreams deferred. We could resolve not to dream, but that is not wise. We could resolve not to feel, but that is not practical. By never speaking we could withdraw from the dangers of miscommunication, but that is not human. It seems so simple—no dreams no waking horrors, no feelings no hurt, no misunderstanding no discord. Isolation is a natural answer, but it is spiritual suicide.
If we choose not to risk we loose ever so subtly, the sharp edge to our faith. Over time we become people whose lives are as bland as our dreamless nights. Over time we become the boring but safe people who squash the dreams of others and tell them they should be “realistic.” Over time we may convince ourselves that we are the only unhappy souls in the world. We may even come to believe that a tasteless existence is really contentment. It is not. It is a numb, anesthetized, existence that falls short of living. It is a coma.
Self-deceit would rather ask nothing of God than wrestle with the answers he does or does not give. Isolation would rather resolve to need no one than risk failed relationships—even failed friendships. Because that is what it will come to if we never make peace with the loneliness. If it is suppressed, it may one day explode.
If ever we withdraw behind our carefully constructed barricades and for fear of disappointment relinquish hope, we shut out wife, husband and all living things. That is the danger—numbness not only to the hopes and dreams we harbored in our youth, but numbness to all dreams and hopes that life naturally cultivates.
Years of loneliness can warp our thinking and sap our strength. In time we may imagine that over that dune and the next dune is nothing more than sun, sand—and loneliness. So many of you have shared with me you felt lonely and alone in your loneliness. You have been very kind in telling me that my honesty eased your loneliness. I want to tell you that you were never alone. Alone is what the desert makes us feel, but we are not alone.
Indeed not only do I suffer the same trials, but also many of those you encounter weekly as you suffer in silence. How do I know? They have written and told me—a stranger—what they were afraid to tell you. And you have written and told me—a stranger—what you were afraid to tell them. Perhaps some of you felt comfortable with me because I had opened my heart and because you need not look me in the eyes and fear my rebuke. I have encouraged everyone that they are not alone, but want to add one last charge: break the silence! Open up and let someone in. And if someone speaks to you, listen between the lines for the pain that words cannot express.
Be a safe harbor for hurting hearts. Paul writes, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). You may find the comfort you have enjoyed here—in knowing my heart—closer than expected. Perhaps someone near you is waiting for you to break the silence and live by honesty. It is the surest turn in our healing to understand that we are not alone, that we share a common sorrow, a common longing, which is not our own private nightmare.
It is the Enemy’s greatest tool to cripple us, to isolate us in our loneliness. He then attempts to convince us that all the whispers and all the laughter is about us—that we are diseased or damaged and that everyone we meet knows it. But it is not true. He is a liar and the Father of Lies. There is no truth in him (John 8:44). Our greatest weapon is the faith we have been given in a God who loved us enough to rescue us “while we were still sinners” (Rom. 5:8). Our greatest weapon against the isolation is to confess both our love of God and our genuine longing to a living, breathing, person who can touch us and restore us in love.
Beware! Not everyone loves honesty. Those who have already given up hope will not want their memories stirred, will not want the embers poked. They fear disappointment. I fear disappointment. For some, who have found peace in simple answers, the complexity of a real God who acts in ways we do not understand and cannot explain will be too much. But if ever the Christian community is to rise above the charge of “hypocrite” we must come out of the shadows and honestly state that we are content but not satisfied.
Here, I will start: “Hi. My name is Hudson and I am lonely.”
Now you. ...
Source: crosswalk
Like yours, my heart is a library of loneliness, longing to be read, but most people come only to browse. All too often the real feelings go back on the shelf.
— Tim Hansel
One of Satan’s chief means of crippling us is to convince us in our loneliness that we are truly alone, not simply without a mate but without a friend, without help and without God—forsaken. He whispers that whatever cries we utter are spoken into thin air and deaf ears, both human and divine. He tells us that people do not care and that God does not care, but it is not so.
Everything that has overtaken us is common to humankind. We all suffer loneliness. We all suffer rejection. We all raise up hope only to know disappointment. This is true of the single and it is true of the married, true under the limelight of success and the clouds of failure. We all know, to some degree, what it is to be misunderstood or ignored.
This does not mean that our sufferings are not individual, not unique; it means we do not suffer alone. I cannot know the ways you have been cut or the bruises you bear, but I care. We can never truly “understand” but need only love. While it is wonderful if someone understands, it is better if they care.
Each of us knows a particular sorrow, but we all know the pain of loneliness and the hurt of dreams deferred. We could resolve not to dream, but that is not wise. We could resolve not to feel, but that is not practical. By never speaking we could withdraw from the dangers of miscommunication, but that is not human. It seems so simple—no dreams no waking horrors, no feelings no hurt, no misunderstanding no discord. Isolation is a natural answer, but it is spiritual suicide.
If we choose not to risk we loose ever so subtly, the sharp edge to our faith. Over time we become people whose lives are as bland as our dreamless nights. Over time we become the boring but safe people who squash the dreams of others and tell them they should be “realistic.” Over time we may convince ourselves that we are the only unhappy souls in the world. We may even come to believe that a tasteless existence is really contentment. It is not. It is a numb, anesthetized, existence that falls short of living. It is a coma.
Self-deceit would rather ask nothing of God than wrestle with the answers he does or does not give. Isolation would rather resolve to need no one than risk failed relationships—even failed friendships. Because that is what it will come to if we never make peace with the loneliness. If it is suppressed, it may one day explode.
If ever we withdraw behind our carefully constructed barricades and for fear of disappointment relinquish hope, we shut out wife, husband and all living things. That is the danger—numbness not only to the hopes and dreams we harbored in our youth, but numbness to all dreams and hopes that life naturally cultivates.
Years of loneliness can warp our thinking and sap our strength. In time we may imagine that over that dune and the next dune is nothing more than sun, sand—and loneliness. So many of you have shared with me you felt lonely and alone in your loneliness. You have been very kind in telling me that my honesty eased your loneliness. I want to tell you that you were never alone. Alone is what the desert makes us feel, but we are not alone.
Indeed not only do I suffer the same trials, but also many of those you encounter weekly as you suffer in silence. How do I know? They have written and told me—a stranger—what they were afraid to tell you. And you have written and told me—a stranger—what you were afraid to tell them. Perhaps some of you felt comfortable with me because I had opened my heart and because you need not look me in the eyes and fear my rebuke. I have encouraged everyone that they are not alone, but want to add one last charge: break the silence! Open up and let someone in. And if someone speaks to you, listen between the lines for the pain that words cannot express.
Be a safe harbor for hurting hearts. Paul writes, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). You may find the comfort you have enjoyed here—in knowing my heart—closer than expected. Perhaps someone near you is waiting for you to break the silence and live by honesty. It is the surest turn in our healing to understand that we are not alone, that we share a common sorrow, a common longing, which is not our own private nightmare.
It is the Enemy’s greatest tool to cripple us, to isolate us in our loneliness. He then attempts to convince us that all the whispers and all the laughter is about us—that we are diseased or damaged and that everyone we meet knows it. But it is not true. He is a liar and the Father of Lies. There is no truth in him (John 8:44). Our greatest weapon is the faith we have been given in a God who loved us enough to rescue us “while we were still sinners” (Rom. 5:8). Our greatest weapon against the isolation is to confess both our love of God and our genuine longing to a living, breathing, person who can touch us and restore us in love.
Beware! Not everyone loves honesty. Those who have already given up hope will not want their memories stirred, will not want the embers poked. They fear disappointment. I fear disappointment. For some, who have found peace in simple answers, the complexity of a real God who acts in ways we do not understand and cannot explain will be too much. But if ever the Christian community is to rise above the charge of “hypocrite” we must come out of the shadows and honestly state that we are content but not satisfied.
Here, I will start: “Hi. My name is Hudson and I am lonely.”
Now you. ...
Source: crosswalk
Thursday, July 3, 2008
When to Settle
(by Candice Watters)
When Steve and I started dating, one of my close friends said she was worried that we'd end up getting married. What in the world? I thought. We've only been dating a few days. Marriage? And so what if we do? What would be so bad about that?
"I just don't want to see you settle," she said. At the time, Steve was still planning to use his degree to go back to his small hometown to be the principal of his dad's church-sponsored school. I guess in her eyes that was beneath me. Me, a soon to be holder of a master's degree. "You've got so much ambition," she said. "I'd hate to find you, years from now, disappointed in him. A frustrated wife who 'under married.'"
My friend was a believer in the notion that to marry a man without certain traits or ambitions would be settling. And in her mind, settling was bad. No longer just a guideline, not settling was itself a goal. Something worth striving for. As in: Finish that report for work, lose 20 pounds, get a boyfriend, don't settle.
And so we find ourselves in the midst of a massive shift in marriage trends: women waiting longer than ever to marry, all the while holding out for their soul mate -- "the one." When a nice guy asks a woman out, if the sparks of attraction aren't hot from the start, she turns him down, reasoning, sure, I want to get married someday, but I'm not about to ... settle.
Where has all this not settling gotten us? In "Where Have All the Men Gone?" Laura Nolan writes about men who are still single at 35.
I realised that over the past decade [my friend] Jamie has effectively been degenerating from the man he was at 25 years old to the boy he is today. The person who fell in love and believed that when you found a great girl you counted your blessings and married her has morphed into someone in search of nothing more than a bit of fun, who views any relationship that he can't get out of at the ping of a text message with genuine unease.
I am often told that our problem boils down to bad timing. In our early twenties (the age at which our parents tended to meet and marry), we, arguably the first generation of properly educated and professionally ambitious women, were not ready to settle down and start having babies.
By our late twenties many of us did end up reconnecting with our first loves, or met men of a similar age who were still young enough to want to match and hatch. But for those who didn't, life is increasingly complicated — and infuriating.
Nolan says men are like eggs. If they don't hatch in time, they go bad. (The cost of delay is indeed high.)
In the wake of stories like this about frustrated women who are marrying later, or not at all, comes Lori Gottleib. She's shaking things up with her article "Marry Him!", saying women should settle and get married because "it's better to feel alone in marriage than actually be alone." Not only that, but the longer you wait to settle, the more settling you'll have to do (bad eggs anyone?).
Why does this matter? And why should you care? Because stories about family trends on the cover of The Atlantic have been known to send ripples through our society (anyone remember "Dan Quayle Was Right"?); because she's speaking from a camp that has long offered a chorus of hostility toward marriage and men, but now, thanks to her personal experience, appears to be changing her tune; and because even though you have to dig for it, I think some truths surface in the midst of her story.
Hers is a story that began with lots of dating and sex, but never marriage (no man was good enough), and a feminist ideology culminating in Gottleib choosing to have a baby via sperm donor. Now she's an exhausted, lonely single mom still waiting and wondering if she should have held out less hope for Mr. Right and gone ahead with one of the many Mr. Good Enoughs. Her present state is a far cry from what she envisioned when she started out. She used to see things optimistically: "I can have it all — a baby now, my soul mate later!" Now she knows better. "Well ... ha! Hahahaha. And ha."
Her sound and fury signifies something: Her dissatisfaction with what her choices have gotten her. It's not a bitter tale of heartbreak or self-pity as much as a warning to all the women still young enough to have a lot of good-enough men to choose from that, if they're wise, they will.
We'd be loath to admit it in this day and age, but ask any soul-baring 40-year-old single heterosexual woman what she most longs for in life, and she probably won't tell you it's a better career or a smaller waistline or a bigger apartment. Most likely, she'll say that what she really wants is a husband (and by extension, a child).
Not so fast you say. To which she replies,
Oh, I know — I'm guessing there are single 30-year-old women reading this right now who will be writing letters to the editor to say that the women I know aren't widely representative, that I've been co-opted by the cult of the feminist backlash, and basically, that I have no idea what I'm talking about. And all I can say is, if you say you're not worried, either you're in denial or you're lying.
We do desire marriage. And though we might not recognize that longing as such at age 20, the longer you go without it, the more you realize you need it. That's the truth part. She understands the problem. But that's not enough. Her "solution" — just go with the next warm male body who's not too weird — hardly seems helpful.
Even if her idea of marriage as less than "a passion-fest" and "more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business" is partly accurate, what woman wants to be in business for the rest of her life with a guy she's just tolerating?
Marriage columnist and author Maggie Gallagher (The Case for Marriage) agrees:
... in the end Lori, who has got her fingers on a big chunk of truth, has missed the most important point. Women shouldn't settle for less, we should appreciate more. A good family man is not a step down, it's a step up.
The Real Non-Negotiables
Have you ever known a man that you've thought about dating, but in the end, ruled him out because to do otherwise would be settling? If you're holding out for perfection, or have a long list of must-haves, it's possible you're overlooking some good men who are already in your life. Knowing what about a potential mate is worth appreciating and what's just eye candy has everything to do with when you should "settle."
Choosing to marry a man — whomever he is — inevitably involves compromise (on his part, and yours). That's why it's not truly settling. It's just making a decision. Something we do every time we pick one thing over another. In most areas, it's called being decisive. For some reason we've made indecision noble when it comes to dating.
What's needed is a new, objective standard for what makes a good match, because, for a Christian woman, there are some non-negotiables for choosing a mate. That's where Gottlieb's advice falls short. Thankfully we have a standard that's completely reliable.
* A man must be a believer.
* He must be able and willing to provide for his family.
* He must love sacrificially.
* He must be honest, have a good reputation and strive for the qualities of a spiritual leader. (See Acts 6:3, 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:6-9)
If you're measuring a man against that list, considering his aptitude for growing into full maturity in those areas, then marrying him is praiseworthy. Even if he is shorter than you. Or younger. Or bald. Failing to meet our worldly expectations — our romantic shopping list — is no liability if he meets biblical ones. That's the only list that matters.
And marriage to such a man could hardly be called settling. In another day, it went by the much more pleasant, and desired, description: settling down. When faced with a big decision, my dad used to say, "Honey, you have to settle the issue. Make the best decision you can, in view of the wisdom of Scripture and prayer. Then move forward confidently." Putting the unending list of options to rest is freeing. Once you make a decision, you can stop noodling, debating, and weighing the alternatives, and get on with the rest of your life.
"Find a good man and love him," Gallagher says. "Do it not only because it's the best way to raise a family. Do it because spending your life actually loving a man, however imperfectly, is better than spending your time perpetually shopping for the right set of inner sensations in your brain (a.k.a. waiting for 'the One.')."
And my friend who said I'd be settling if I married Steve? She was looking at externals, so her ability to rightly judge was skewed. I saw beyond where Steve was at that moment, to the man I knew he could become. And because my faith was based on that biblical list, I knew it was well founded. Thankfully I followed the wisdom of Scripture.
I wasn't disappointed.
Source: Boundless
When Steve and I started dating, one of my close friends said she was worried that we'd end up getting married. What in the world? I thought. We've only been dating a few days. Marriage? And so what if we do? What would be so bad about that?
"I just don't want to see you settle," she said. At the time, Steve was still planning to use his degree to go back to his small hometown to be the principal of his dad's church-sponsored school. I guess in her eyes that was beneath me. Me, a soon to be holder of a master's degree. "You've got so much ambition," she said. "I'd hate to find you, years from now, disappointed in him. A frustrated wife who 'under married.'"
My friend was a believer in the notion that to marry a man without certain traits or ambitions would be settling. And in her mind, settling was bad. No longer just a guideline, not settling was itself a goal. Something worth striving for. As in: Finish that report for work, lose 20 pounds, get a boyfriend, don't settle.
And so we find ourselves in the midst of a massive shift in marriage trends: women waiting longer than ever to marry, all the while holding out for their soul mate -- "the one." When a nice guy asks a woman out, if the sparks of attraction aren't hot from the start, she turns him down, reasoning, sure, I want to get married someday, but I'm not about to ... settle.
Where has all this not settling gotten us? In "Where Have All the Men Gone?" Laura Nolan writes about men who are still single at 35.
I realised that over the past decade [my friend] Jamie has effectively been degenerating from the man he was at 25 years old to the boy he is today. The person who fell in love and believed that when you found a great girl you counted your blessings and married her has morphed into someone in search of nothing more than a bit of fun, who views any relationship that he can't get out of at the ping of a text message with genuine unease.
I am often told that our problem boils down to bad timing. In our early twenties (the age at which our parents tended to meet and marry), we, arguably the first generation of properly educated and professionally ambitious women, were not ready to settle down and start having babies.
By our late twenties many of us did end up reconnecting with our first loves, or met men of a similar age who were still young enough to want to match and hatch. But for those who didn't, life is increasingly complicated — and infuriating.
Nolan says men are like eggs. If they don't hatch in time, they go bad. (The cost of delay is indeed high.)
In the wake of stories like this about frustrated women who are marrying later, or not at all, comes Lori Gottleib. She's shaking things up with her article "Marry Him!", saying women should settle and get married because "it's better to feel alone in marriage than actually be alone." Not only that, but the longer you wait to settle, the more settling you'll have to do (bad eggs anyone?).
Why does this matter? And why should you care? Because stories about family trends on the cover of The Atlantic have been known to send ripples through our society (anyone remember "Dan Quayle Was Right"?); because she's speaking from a camp that has long offered a chorus of hostility toward marriage and men, but now, thanks to her personal experience, appears to be changing her tune; and because even though you have to dig for it, I think some truths surface in the midst of her story.
Hers is a story that began with lots of dating and sex, but never marriage (no man was good enough), and a feminist ideology culminating in Gottleib choosing to have a baby via sperm donor. Now she's an exhausted, lonely single mom still waiting and wondering if she should have held out less hope for Mr. Right and gone ahead with one of the many Mr. Good Enoughs. Her present state is a far cry from what she envisioned when she started out. She used to see things optimistically: "I can have it all — a baby now, my soul mate later!" Now she knows better. "Well ... ha! Hahahaha. And ha."
Her sound and fury signifies something: Her dissatisfaction with what her choices have gotten her. It's not a bitter tale of heartbreak or self-pity as much as a warning to all the women still young enough to have a lot of good-enough men to choose from that, if they're wise, they will.
We'd be loath to admit it in this day and age, but ask any soul-baring 40-year-old single heterosexual woman what she most longs for in life, and she probably won't tell you it's a better career or a smaller waistline or a bigger apartment. Most likely, she'll say that what she really wants is a husband (and by extension, a child).
Not so fast you say. To which she replies,
Oh, I know — I'm guessing there are single 30-year-old women reading this right now who will be writing letters to the editor to say that the women I know aren't widely representative, that I've been co-opted by the cult of the feminist backlash, and basically, that I have no idea what I'm talking about. And all I can say is, if you say you're not worried, either you're in denial or you're lying.
We do desire marriage. And though we might not recognize that longing as such at age 20, the longer you go without it, the more you realize you need it. That's the truth part. She understands the problem. But that's not enough. Her "solution" — just go with the next warm male body who's not too weird — hardly seems helpful.
Even if her idea of marriage as less than "a passion-fest" and "more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business" is partly accurate, what woman wants to be in business for the rest of her life with a guy she's just tolerating?
Marriage columnist and author Maggie Gallagher (The Case for Marriage) agrees:
... in the end Lori, who has got her fingers on a big chunk of truth, has missed the most important point. Women shouldn't settle for less, we should appreciate more. A good family man is not a step down, it's a step up.
The Real Non-Negotiables
Have you ever known a man that you've thought about dating, but in the end, ruled him out because to do otherwise would be settling? If you're holding out for perfection, or have a long list of must-haves, it's possible you're overlooking some good men who are already in your life. Knowing what about a potential mate is worth appreciating and what's just eye candy has everything to do with when you should "settle."
Choosing to marry a man — whomever he is — inevitably involves compromise (on his part, and yours). That's why it's not truly settling. It's just making a decision. Something we do every time we pick one thing over another. In most areas, it's called being decisive. For some reason we've made indecision noble when it comes to dating.
What's needed is a new, objective standard for what makes a good match, because, for a Christian woman, there are some non-negotiables for choosing a mate. That's where Gottlieb's advice falls short. Thankfully we have a standard that's completely reliable.
* A man must be a believer.
* He must be able and willing to provide for his family.
* He must love sacrificially.
* He must be honest, have a good reputation and strive for the qualities of a spiritual leader. (See Acts 6:3, 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:6-9)
If you're measuring a man against that list, considering his aptitude for growing into full maturity in those areas, then marrying him is praiseworthy. Even if he is shorter than you. Or younger. Or bald. Failing to meet our worldly expectations — our romantic shopping list — is no liability if he meets biblical ones. That's the only list that matters.
And marriage to such a man could hardly be called settling. In another day, it went by the much more pleasant, and desired, description: settling down. When faced with a big decision, my dad used to say, "Honey, you have to settle the issue. Make the best decision you can, in view of the wisdom of Scripture and prayer. Then move forward confidently." Putting the unending list of options to rest is freeing. Once you make a decision, you can stop noodling, debating, and weighing the alternatives, and get on with the rest of your life.
"Find a good man and love him," Gallagher says. "Do it not only because it's the best way to raise a family. Do it because spending your life actually loving a man, however imperfectly, is better than spending your time perpetually shopping for the right set of inner sensations in your brain (a.k.a. waiting for 'the One.')."
And my friend who said I'd be settling if I married Steve? She was looking at externals, so her ability to rightly judge was skewed. I saw beyond where Steve was at that moment, to the man I knew he could become. And because my faith was based on that biblical list, I knew it was well founded. Thankfully I followed the wisdom of Scripture.
I wasn't disappointed.
Source: Boundless
Settling
(by Scott Croft)
In this article, author Scott Croft continues unpacking themes first explored in "When to Settle," by Candice Watters.
* * *
My advice is this: Settle! That's right. Don't worry about passion or intense connection.... Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year.
Whenever I make the case for settling, people look at me with creased brows of disapproval or frowns of disappointment.... It's not only politically incorrect to get behind settling, it's downright un-American. Our culture tells us to keep our eyes on the prize ... and the theme of holding out for true love ... permeates our collective mentality.
I came across these paragraphs the other night while doing some research on a completely different topic (it was late, and my internet research skills aren't state of the art anyway). The piece was written by an apparently non-Christian, successful, early-40s, single professional woman who had recently experienced an epiphany of sorts. She described an outing to the park on a beautiful spring day with a couple of friends — also single. In lamenting their common lack of romantic prospects, it occurred to the women that each of them had had decent guys interested in marrying them at some point but had turned them down in the hope of landing "The One," "Mr. Right," or some other term connoting the perfect man as they individually conceived of him. The had all refused to "settle" and were not pleased with the results of that strategy — thus the above advice.
We've talked a lot in this column and related comment threads about a biblical approach to dating and finding a spouse, but we've never directly addressed the idea of "settling." Before we dig in, let's define what we mean. Let's use the following as our working definition of "settling": a willingness to date or marry someone who clearly fails to meet all the major criteria on your "list" to the extent you dreamed about when picturing your spouse, and/or doesn't appear to be your "soul mate" in the Friends/Sex in the City/fill in vacuous worldly movie/show here sense of the word.
Think Christians don't deal with this? Think again. I can't begin to tell you how many single believers I have spoken to and counseled who are trying to avoid settling, worried that they are settling, think it's "wrong" to settle, etc. Good relationships have gone down the tubes or never gotten off the ground because of this issue. The question for us is whether that approach to dating and marriage gels with the biblical approach to life and love we've tried to outline here.
It doesn't, for at least three reasons.
A Selfish Premise
The first is that worries about settling reveal a selfishness approach to marriage that misunderstands the Bible's idea of love. "Holding out for true love" as the above quote defines it means demanding a person to whom I am completely attracted in the secular sense, somebody who meets all the qualifications on my "list," and whom I believe is the "best I can do." In the author's mind — and unfortunately in the minds of many single Christians — anything short of finding that perfect match created in one's mind falls short of "true love" and constitutes the sad and unwise act of "settling." Such an approach to love and marriage fundamentally misunderstands the Bible's idea of both. I wrote about this at length in this space many moons ago. The highlights are worth repeating:
I don't mean that such an approach [looking for a spouse based primarily on my own "list" and attraction] involves malice or the intent to hurt anyone. I simply mean that such an approach is self-centered. It conceives of finding a spouse from the standpoint of what will be most enjoyable for me based on my tastes and desires. What will I receive from marriage to this or that person?
In Scripture, love is described not as a mere emotion based on personal desire (i.e., "attraction"), but as an act of the will that leads to selfless actions toward others. According to Jesus Himself, the second-greatest commandment (after loving God) is to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:31). He also said "greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). Jesus' love for us did not result from our inherent loveliness or our wonderful treatment of Him. He didn't go to the cross as a spontaneous response triggered by mere emotion. His perfect love of us was a choice, an act undertaken despite our lack of attractiveness — and it led to both sacrifice and joy.
The apostle Paul agrees. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul describes the biblical definition of love in detail, and he lets us know that love isn't just felt, it does something — something selfless.
In the world's version of attraction, I'm a consumer, not a servant. I respond to attributes of yours that I like because of their potential to please me. Again, this is not malicious or evil — it's just not how we're primarily called to treat one another in Scripture. It's not the Bible's idea of love.
[According to scripture], marriage is a beautiful (if distant) analogy of the way that Christ has perfectly loved and sacrificed for the church, and the way the church, His bride, responds to her Lord.
Marriage is incredibly fun; it's also incredibly hard. For most people it is the greatest act of ministry and service to another person that they will ever undertake. Husbands are literally called to "give themselves up for" their wives. Wives are called to submit to, respect, and serve their husbands "as to the Lord." Though husbands and wives receive countless blessings from a biblical marriage, the very idea of biblical marriage describes an act — many acts — of love, service, sacrifice, and ministry toward a sinful human being. According to Scripture, marriage is anything but a selfish endeavor. It is a ministry.
What sense does it make to undertake that ministry based primarily on a list of self-centered (and often petty) preferences? If your idea of attraction — whatever that is — dominates your pursuit of a spouse, consider this: Is your approach biblical?
The Bible calls us to reject the world's approach to love and marriage. That may require a pretty radical rethinking of your own approach. If it does, join the club. If you can manage that rethinking (with the Lord's help), it will drain much of the angst from any discussion about "settling."
Everybody Settles
Another problem with the usual discussion on settling is that it usually reflects two unbiblical beliefs: (1) we can strategize our way around the effects of sin in human relationships and the reality that marriage is hard work, and (2) we can hope to be perfectly, ultimately fulfilled by marriage — or any other earthly relationship.
If you have a biblical understanding of human nature, then you will realize that in one sense, everybody settles — even the people who think they are refusing to. Every person who decides to marry makes the decision to marry a sinner. That means you will marry someone who is at some level selfish, who has insecurities and an ego, who has annoying tendencies that you will only discover after marriage because they will only be revealed in that intimate context. And don't forget, your spouse will have married the same type of person. As sinners, we all "settle" for marriage to a person who will not always meet our sinful, individualized, selfish whims, who will not be the spouse we "dreamed of" every day, and who likely entered the bargain with some level of expectation that you were going to be the one for them.
It's also true that anyone who enters marriage expecting it to serve as a substitute for Christ in the ultimate fulfillment of his or her own desires for companionship, love, intimacy, security or anything else will indeed be disillusioned — quickly. It's a fallen world, and we are sinners. We cannot gain in any earthly relationship what the world tells us to seek from "romance" and marriage. We all settle.
Nobody Settles
Finally, deep worry about settling for less than one desires or deserves in marriage fails two acknowledge two fundamental biblical truths that apply to all areas of the Christian life — not just dating and marriage: (1) as sinners, what we deserve is condemnation from God; and (2) we have been given greater gifts than we could possibly deserve or attain on our own. In other words, compared to what our lives should be before a just and holy God, no believer in Christ ever settles — in marriage or in anything else.
To get at this, we have to talk about sin again, so forgive me for being a little stark for a minute. The Bible teaches that we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It teaches that what we all "deserve" is instant condemnation at the hands of a righteous and holy God. We deserve hell. But the Lord hasn't given that to you, has he? For God's people, he has given salvation in Christ, eternal life, sonship in God's kingdom, and glimpses of heaven on earth — one of which is marriage. I know, I know — we're talking about settling here. Still, in any discussion of earthly circumstances or relationships, when we are tempted to pursue and think we're entitled to an idealized, easy, hassle-free life, it's no bad thing to think about the truth of what we deserve, and the blessings God has given us instead. God's people don't settle; the "best we could do" apart from Christ is a horrible tragedy compared to the lives we have with him.
What's more, nobody really "settles" in a biblical marriage because God has designed marriage as a wonderful gift that gets better with age. This is what people worried about settling don't seem to get. They think joy in marriage is all about the original choice one makes about whom to marry, rather than how the nurture and build their marriage. Again, this misses the picture of biblical marriage.
Read Song of Songs. Look at the implied deepening of a marriage that has to take place if Ephesians 5:22-33 is to be lived out. Sure, it takes hard work. But if two people are truly faithful as spouses, growing in God's word, studying one another deeply and attentively with an eye toward uniquely ministering to and serving each other, both will find that 10 years in they are known and loved and cared for better and more deeply than when they were newly married. That doesn't hinder passion, people. It builds it. More on this in later articles perhaps.
Bottom line, the real danger for God's people in pursuing a spouse is that we will "settle" for the world's vision of self, love, marriage and even romance, rather than a vision of those things steeped in scripture and rooted in the love of Christ. Biblical love and marriage ask more of us than the world's selfish pursuit of non-existent perfection. But the rewards are infinitely richer. "Keep your eyes on the prize"? Sure. Just make sure it's the right one.
Source: boundless
In this article, author Scott Croft continues unpacking themes first explored in "When to Settle," by Candice Watters.
* * *
My advice is this: Settle! That's right. Don't worry about passion or intense connection.... Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year.
Whenever I make the case for settling, people look at me with creased brows of disapproval or frowns of disappointment.... It's not only politically incorrect to get behind settling, it's downright un-American. Our culture tells us to keep our eyes on the prize ... and the theme of holding out for true love ... permeates our collective mentality.
I came across these paragraphs the other night while doing some research on a completely different topic (it was late, and my internet research skills aren't state of the art anyway). The piece was written by an apparently non-Christian, successful, early-40s, single professional woman who had recently experienced an epiphany of sorts. She described an outing to the park on a beautiful spring day with a couple of friends — also single. In lamenting their common lack of romantic prospects, it occurred to the women that each of them had had decent guys interested in marrying them at some point but had turned them down in the hope of landing "The One," "Mr. Right," or some other term connoting the perfect man as they individually conceived of him. The had all refused to "settle" and were not pleased with the results of that strategy — thus the above advice.
We've talked a lot in this column and related comment threads about a biblical approach to dating and finding a spouse, but we've never directly addressed the idea of "settling." Before we dig in, let's define what we mean. Let's use the following as our working definition of "settling": a willingness to date or marry someone who clearly fails to meet all the major criteria on your "list" to the extent you dreamed about when picturing your spouse, and/or doesn't appear to be your "soul mate" in the Friends/Sex in the City/fill in vacuous worldly movie/show here sense of the word.
Think Christians don't deal with this? Think again. I can't begin to tell you how many single believers I have spoken to and counseled who are trying to avoid settling, worried that they are settling, think it's "wrong" to settle, etc. Good relationships have gone down the tubes or never gotten off the ground because of this issue. The question for us is whether that approach to dating and marriage gels with the biblical approach to life and love we've tried to outline here.
It doesn't, for at least three reasons.
A Selfish Premise
The first is that worries about settling reveal a selfishness approach to marriage that misunderstands the Bible's idea of love. "Holding out for true love" as the above quote defines it means demanding a person to whom I am completely attracted in the secular sense, somebody who meets all the qualifications on my "list," and whom I believe is the "best I can do." In the author's mind — and unfortunately in the minds of many single Christians — anything short of finding that perfect match created in one's mind falls short of "true love" and constitutes the sad and unwise act of "settling." Such an approach to love and marriage fundamentally misunderstands the Bible's idea of both. I wrote about this at length in this space many moons ago. The highlights are worth repeating:
I don't mean that such an approach [looking for a spouse based primarily on my own "list" and attraction] involves malice or the intent to hurt anyone. I simply mean that such an approach is self-centered. It conceives of finding a spouse from the standpoint of what will be most enjoyable for me based on my tastes and desires. What will I receive from marriage to this or that person?
In Scripture, love is described not as a mere emotion based on personal desire (i.e., "attraction"), but as an act of the will that leads to selfless actions toward others. According to Jesus Himself, the second-greatest commandment (after loving God) is to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:31). He also said "greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). Jesus' love for us did not result from our inherent loveliness or our wonderful treatment of Him. He didn't go to the cross as a spontaneous response triggered by mere emotion. His perfect love of us was a choice, an act undertaken despite our lack of attractiveness — and it led to both sacrifice and joy.
The apostle Paul agrees. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul describes the biblical definition of love in detail, and he lets us know that love isn't just felt, it does something — something selfless.
In the world's version of attraction, I'm a consumer, not a servant. I respond to attributes of yours that I like because of their potential to please me. Again, this is not malicious or evil — it's just not how we're primarily called to treat one another in Scripture. It's not the Bible's idea of love.
[According to scripture], marriage is a beautiful (if distant) analogy of the way that Christ has perfectly loved and sacrificed for the church, and the way the church, His bride, responds to her Lord.
Marriage is incredibly fun; it's also incredibly hard. For most people it is the greatest act of ministry and service to another person that they will ever undertake. Husbands are literally called to "give themselves up for" their wives. Wives are called to submit to, respect, and serve their husbands "as to the Lord." Though husbands and wives receive countless blessings from a biblical marriage, the very idea of biblical marriage describes an act — many acts — of love, service, sacrifice, and ministry toward a sinful human being. According to Scripture, marriage is anything but a selfish endeavor. It is a ministry.
What sense does it make to undertake that ministry based primarily on a list of self-centered (and often petty) preferences? If your idea of attraction — whatever that is — dominates your pursuit of a spouse, consider this: Is your approach biblical?
The Bible calls us to reject the world's approach to love and marriage. That may require a pretty radical rethinking of your own approach. If it does, join the club. If you can manage that rethinking (with the Lord's help), it will drain much of the angst from any discussion about "settling."
Everybody Settles
Another problem with the usual discussion on settling is that it usually reflects two unbiblical beliefs: (1) we can strategize our way around the effects of sin in human relationships and the reality that marriage is hard work, and (2) we can hope to be perfectly, ultimately fulfilled by marriage — or any other earthly relationship.
If you have a biblical understanding of human nature, then you will realize that in one sense, everybody settles — even the people who think they are refusing to. Every person who decides to marry makes the decision to marry a sinner. That means you will marry someone who is at some level selfish, who has insecurities and an ego, who has annoying tendencies that you will only discover after marriage because they will only be revealed in that intimate context. And don't forget, your spouse will have married the same type of person. As sinners, we all "settle" for marriage to a person who will not always meet our sinful, individualized, selfish whims, who will not be the spouse we "dreamed of" every day, and who likely entered the bargain with some level of expectation that you were going to be the one for them.
It's also true that anyone who enters marriage expecting it to serve as a substitute for Christ in the ultimate fulfillment of his or her own desires for companionship, love, intimacy, security or anything else will indeed be disillusioned — quickly. It's a fallen world, and we are sinners. We cannot gain in any earthly relationship what the world tells us to seek from "romance" and marriage. We all settle.
Nobody Settles
Finally, deep worry about settling for less than one desires or deserves in marriage fails two acknowledge two fundamental biblical truths that apply to all areas of the Christian life — not just dating and marriage: (1) as sinners, what we deserve is condemnation from God; and (2) we have been given greater gifts than we could possibly deserve or attain on our own. In other words, compared to what our lives should be before a just and holy God, no believer in Christ ever settles — in marriage or in anything else.
To get at this, we have to talk about sin again, so forgive me for being a little stark for a minute. The Bible teaches that we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It teaches that what we all "deserve" is instant condemnation at the hands of a righteous and holy God. We deserve hell. But the Lord hasn't given that to you, has he? For God's people, he has given salvation in Christ, eternal life, sonship in God's kingdom, and glimpses of heaven on earth — one of which is marriage. I know, I know — we're talking about settling here. Still, in any discussion of earthly circumstances or relationships, when we are tempted to pursue and think we're entitled to an idealized, easy, hassle-free life, it's no bad thing to think about the truth of what we deserve, and the blessings God has given us instead. God's people don't settle; the "best we could do" apart from Christ is a horrible tragedy compared to the lives we have with him.
What's more, nobody really "settles" in a biblical marriage because God has designed marriage as a wonderful gift that gets better with age. This is what people worried about settling don't seem to get. They think joy in marriage is all about the original choice one makes about whom to marry, rather than how the nurture and build their marriage. Again, this misses the picture of biblical marriage.
Read Song of Songs. Look at the implied deepening of a marriage that has to take place if Ephesians 5:22-33 is to be lived out. Sure, it takes hard work. But if two people are truly faithful as spouses, growing in God's word, studying one another deeply and attentively with an eye toward uniquely ministering to and serving each other, both will find that 10 years in they are known and loved and cared for better and more deeply than when they were newly married. That doesn't hinder passion, people. It builds it. More on this in later articles perhaps.
Bottom line, the real danger for God's people in pursuing a spouse is that we will "settle" for the world's vision of self, love, marriage and even romance, rather than a vision of those things steeped in scripture and rooted in the love of Christ. Biblical love and marriage ask more of us than the world's selfish pursuit of non-existent perfection. But the rewards are infinitely richer. "Keep your eyes on the prize"? Sure. Just make sure it's the right one.
Source: boundless
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