Wisdom From Others: Thoughts on Marriage

A few months ago I spent some time over at resolved2worship. I was immensely encouraged and challenged by this blog... reading about Alyssa and her husband's real-life love story here. [Warning- it's LONG- as in 12-parts-plus-some long, but oh so wonderful!]

The story speaks of trust, fear of man, parenting, faith, communication, believing lies, hearing from God, keeping Christ at the center, God's love, and ultimately His redemption and sovereignty. It includes lots and lots of pain, but also so much beauty in the restoration that Jesus brings to their family [they have 8 adorable kiddos, by the way].

So after reading the story in its entirety, I wanted to share some of the wisdom about marriage, relationships, and life that I took away from it [all that follows is written by Alyssa from resolved2worship.]

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The number one purpose of marriage is to conform us into the image of Christ.

What is the image of Christ? I think it can best be summed up in three words: unconditional love, mercy, and grace.

So the questions are. . .

- "How would you ever learn unconditional love if you married someone who met all of your "conditions?"

- "How would you ever learn mercy if you were married to someone who never sinned against you?"

- "How would you ever learn grace if you were married to someone who was always deserving of all good things?"

Because God's greatest desire for a couple, and in marriage, is not compatibility or like-mindedness or perfect one-ness. His greatest desire is that we be conformed to the image of Christ. We are conformed to His image not by living with a perfectly compatible, unfailing, deserving mate. We are conformed to His image by being married to an incompatible, failing, undeserving mate.

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It is really okay if your heart gets involved and then God sends red flags and tells you to turn around, or cut it off. It might be very hard, and it might be painful. God tells us there could be heart break in relationships. So trying to avoid heart break in a [relationship] can be trying to play God.

God's Word says trials build us. If you go through a difficult, heart breaking relationship, that is God's love for you. Let it take you to the cross, grow you up and prepare you for the relationship that does end in marriage.

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You want a guy who pulls you closer to Jesus, not a guy who just pulls out the flesh in you. Ask yourself when you're with a guy, "Do I grow in my walk with God when I'm with him, or is it all just fleshly attraction? Does this guy pull Christ out of me, or pull out my flesh?

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The best preparation for marriage? The best "system?"

Real and deep communion with Jesus Christ that penetrates past all externals - a relationship with Him that is greater than any fluffy methods promising less broken hearts and more physical "purity." If you are in real communion with Jesus Christ, it's a relationship that cuts deep to the heart, where true purity either is, or isn't.

Weekend Wrap-Up: Holiday Cheer

Thanksgiving is over, and that means that CHRISTMAS is right around the corner! Here are a few tips to create some holiday cheer.

1. Get into the Christmas spirit and take a listen:

2. Check out these super cute vintage ornaments you can make.

3. Best part of December??? ABC's 25 days of Christmas!

4. Die from cuteness overload as you enjoy this rendition of the Christmas story:

5. Remember that although music, ornaments, movies, and the like are oh so much fun, it's all about Jesus!

Rest

This morning I was looking through my huge stack of papers and packets that I have procured over the last couple months of being on EDGE Corps... there's the packet on dealing with conflict, the endless Bible Study charts, the printouts for our women's study, and then I stumbled across what I was looking for: a little packet that we received at our regional staff meeting back in the beginning of October. The title across the top reads "Rest: Fatigued, Frazzled, Fried, or Flourishing." Our lovely friend Marilyn gave this talk at the meeting, and I was looking for this packet for my mom, who had asked for it awhile back after I had told her about it.

But isn't it funny how when you are looking for answers for someone else, you often find them for yourself? I turned to the second page and was just glancing over my notes, when I came across this little gem:

God calls me to be faithful, not spectacular.

I had written this under "The Seduction of Leadership" as a reason that we don't rest. And this quote was starred:

It is possible to gain the world of ministry success and lose your own soul in the midst of it all... there is a real tension between what the human soul needs in order to be truly well and what life in leadership encourages and even requires. -- Ruth Haley Barton

Wow. How I needed to hear this at this exact moment. As I feel the pulls of ministry, I must remember that God doesn't need me, He lets me. I will have to disappoint people. I cannot be intoxicated by the demand for me. I need to rest. Really rest. Not sit-and-watch-tv-rest. Not endlessly-scroll-through-facebook-rest. I need to surrender-control-rest. I need to be-still-and-know-rest. I need to sit-at-His-feet-rest. And when I do that, I will be faithful. Which is what He calls me to be.

Looking At

I love figuring stuff out. I love looking back, seeing where I've been, and looking now at where I'm at. I love looking deep within myself and discovering something I hadn't seen before. I love answers. I love reasons. I love control.

But something I've been realizing lately is that no matter how much I look back, no matter how much I look in, it will never be as important as looking at HIM.

I can look at my wounds and past all day and not get anywhere and look at Jesus for a second and it changes everything.

Looking back, looking in... it's necessary. Every once in awhile. It's crucial to our emotional well-being. But looking at. Well that's just a whole different ball game. Because even if we look back or in, and don't find what we're looking for- answers, reasons, control- we can be certain that when we look at- the One who created us and loves us perfectly- we will always come away with something better than what we were looking for.

And while I've found that I have to limit myself to how much I look back or in, there's no limit on how much I look at Jesus... the more I look at Him, the more I become like Him. And that's just a-ok with me.

Freedom Friday: Sold

I read Sold by Patricia McCormick this weekend. And it literally took me maybe 3 hours.... I think it's written for teens. But it's so good! Here's a journal entry I wrote after I finished it:

I've always seen rescuing victims of sex trafficking as a dauntless, impossible task. Millions, millions of slaves, how could we ever, I ever, make a dent? But it's not about making a dent in those millions. It's about each one of them. One girl. One boy. One soul. That would be worth it. To that one person, rescue would be the world to them. Their life would never be the same. It would be a worthy cause. One soul.

So my recommendation: READ IT. It is a quick read, but one that will change you.

Giving: When It's From Daddy

So a few months back I wrote a post about giving. I made the observation that I felt that God had really been revealing a lot to me about giving leading up to my EDGE Corps experience and in the first few weeks of raising support. And He never stopped teaching me things. I know that this summer I learned so much about having a giving heart, learning both from my donors, as well as through the Word. But somewhere between the middle of August and now, I started to forget some of these things.

I started to believe that what I had was mine, and I didn't want to share. I started to see my possessions  money, and time as things that I had worked hard for, so why should someone else benefit from them?

Yes. I know. Even after a summer of seeing God provide BIG time. Even after so many people sacrificing and generously giving to me. Even after living with some of the most giving people I know. I sure can be daft sometimes.

Orrrr, I'm just human. And it takes me more than once to learn a lesson. So let's just say that this last week at church really struck me hard. The sermon's topic: Greed. Ohhh boy. Just to give you a tidbit, one line that has stuck with me is this: "Being stingy can just be a cover-up for greed." Yikes. But the real lesson I took away from it was this:

That which I feel my father has provided for me, I can give freely. That which I feel I have provided for myself, I will have a tight grip on.

Let me break it down for you:

My pastor told how he had bought his daughter an MP3 player when she was younger and filled it with  a bunch of Christian music. After a few days he noticed that he hadn't seen the MP3 player in awhile and asked his daughter about it. She explained that she had met a girl on the bus who didn't have an MP3 player, or even any Christian music for that matter, so she gave it to the girl. Similar scenarios happened a few times after this, where the dad would buy her a new MP3 player and she would inevitably end up giving it to someone less fortunate than herself. Finally, when the daughter was old enough to pay for her own MP3 player, she kept it, and still has it to this day. Once she spent her hard-earned money on it, she wasn't as generous with it.

This is how it so often is with us [well, with me anyway]! If I see what I have- possessions, money, time, as coming from my daddy- God, I can live open-handedly with it. I can give freely. It is only when I start believing that I have provided and worked for what I have, when I forget that all I have is a gift from God, that greed starts to creep in. And I know that's not the way I want to live. I want to live generously. I want to live with open hands and an open heart. I want to live like Jesus lived.

Weight of Glory

Part of our job in EDGE Corps includes going through a curriculum, and one of the first things we were assigned was to read "The Weight of Glory" by C.S. Lewis. This guy pretty much blows my mind anytime I read anything by him, but with a title like that I knew this one was going to be extra explosive to my brain. 

And it was. But the part that really grabbed me, that wouldn't let go of its firm grasp, wasn't actually the main point. It was a small section a couple pages in, that spoke of nostalgia.

Lewis rips wide the secret that each of us has a deep desire for our own far-off country... "the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence." This secret yearning, it is so intense, that we "betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name" when any mention of this desire arises.

But Lewis goes on to explain that we have never actually experienced this in our reality, and that when we get "nostalgic" about certain moments in our past, we would not find the actual thing itself, but rather only the reminder of it:

"The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust in them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things-- the beauty, the memory of our own past-- are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers."

This "thing itself," ultimately, is the desire for heaven in each of us, the desire for our proper place, our home. And when we get a glimpse, a tiny sliver of a reflection of this place, we become shy and awkward and desirous and worshippers. Our minds can barely wrap around it, so we belittle it to a memory. A moment. A smell. A tune. But it isn't really any of these that we long for, it is heaven. Eternity placed in our heart.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 

- Ecclesiastes 3:11

Sometimes I feel like God must have placed an extra scoop of eternity into my heart, the desire for it is so strong. I always used to consider myself as one of the most nostalgic people I know. Now I know that I'm just longing for my true home, and trying to label it something else, trying to make sense of it with my human mind. No more will I turn these nostalgic memories into "dumb idols" that will just break my heart. I will go to God with them, and acknowledge that I am longing for Him, and that He alone can satisfy my deep yearnings.