Reality Check

RE Pilgrimage

2011-05-17T05:09:00.003-05:00

Each morning I get a daily devotional from our friends in Ventura CA, Rex and Sherry Holt. Occasionally Sherry writes the devotional. Yesterday's was especially good and I'm reposting it here. I wrote Rex and Sherry and told Sherry that this settles it, she should write a book, and I said a book of her writings might rival Oswald Chambers' My Utmost... . I really mean that.

Sherry and Rex have a wonderful testimony that continues to work out even today as they are pastoring. I'm so grateful to call them my friends. They are true modern saints living out their beliefs in a fantastic way.
Sherry's Facebook Pic

Written by Sherry Holt on AWAKEN:
One of my favorite Bible verses is Psalm 84:5 "Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, Whose heart is set on pilgrimage.”

Rex and I have moved a number of times and at each new location, our lives have been enriched greatly. This verse represents people we love at all the various places that we have called home.

Our home in Togo was in an African neighborhood on a dirt street. Our house had been built by Europeans and was a mansion compared to the homes around us. We had given our female neighbors the invitation to fill their water basins from the faucet in our yard. The neighborhood children were a constant presence in the yard too. They had given me a name, which I had gladly accepted. The name they called me was, "Snoopy-bayno.” In the Eve language, it means "the mother of Snoopy" and you probably guessed that Snoopy was our dog. We wanted to give our dog an humble American name. He had originally been the heir to the Poodle owned by the French Ambassador to the neighboring country of Benin. Friends from Benin had surprised us with this gift.

While in Togo, I had a dear friend named Julienne Makany who had moved there from Brazzaville, in the Congo. I still consider her one of my dearest friends on earth. Julienne and her husband Levi were 2nd generation believers. They had 7 children. We communicated in French, which was neither her mother tongue nor mine, but it certainly did not hinder us from becoming "forever friends.” She knew how much I wanted a baby and it hurt her deeply because that prayer had not been answered.

One night she was leaving our house and for her very first time heard the children refer to me as Snoopy-bayno. It greatly grieved her. She rushed home, and knelt by her bed, extremely frustrated. A serious prayer conversation began between my friend and her Lord. She questioned God, "How long are you going to allow my friend to be called the mother of a dog!" That night she began to labor in prayer for me to have a baby.

After our son John was born, she came every morning to help me bathe him as an act of gratitude for answered prayer. She said, "I never want another prayer burden like that. You know there are some things that only come about by much prayer and fasting!"

I cried when Rex said he felt we were called to Africa, and I cried even more after our goodbyes to our families at the Memphis Airport as we were leaving. My husband led the way, and we two pilgrims made our home in that faraway land. I am so grateful that God chose us for this great blessing. Julienne Makany and so many other precious saints became our family--our sisters and brothers.

Now you know why I love that verse, "...whose heart is set on pilgrimage."

From a pilgrim formerly known as Snoopy-bayno,

Sherry

Mother's Day 2011

2011-05-08T04:13:00.005-05:00

Yesterday we had a great day of working, eating, and singing around the piano at my Mom's house. I and several others of my family enjoyed the day as we celebrated my Mom.

This morning one of my daily devotionals by Richard Rohr was about the maternal face of God. Very apropro for this day of honoring our Mom's. Thought I would share:

One of the things that led me into male spirituality was that most people have experienced their God image by experiencing the image of their mother. They experienced unconditional love not through the image of a man, but through the image of their mother. I realized how wounded the father relationship is with so many people.

For much of the human race, the mother is the one who parts the veil for us. She gives us that experience of grounding, of intimacy, of tenderness, of safety that most of us associate with our image of God. However, many people operate from a toxic and negative image of God. Nothing wonderful is ever going to happen as long as that is true. Early growth in spirituality is often about healing that inner image, whether male or female.

Most of us know that God is beyond gender. When we look at the Book of Genesis, we see that the first thing God is looking for is quite simply "images."

Genesis 1:26-27: Then God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them."

God is not looking for servants, for slaves or for people who are going to pass loyalty tests. God is just looking for images–"images and likenesses" of who God is. God divided this one whole image and likeness into what we call masculine and feminine. Whoever God is, God is profoundly and essentially what it means to be male and female. We have to find and to trust the feminine face of God and the masculine face of God. Both are true and both are necessary for a full relationship with God. Up to now, we have strongly relied upon the masculine.

Adapted from The Maternal Face of God.

GRACE

2011-03-26T05:50:00.003-05:00

Every day I receive a devotional from Radical Grace (Richard Rohr's Web site). I relate very
much to his posts and devotionals. The fact that he is a Catholic Father is amazing. Growing up as a Baptist, I was taught that Catholics are wrong and we should never even visit their churches. That makes my learning from Rohr a special treat, overcoming denominational labels and being open to truth from all sources. This one was extra special, worthy of posting and sharing.

GRACE IS EVERYWHERE

Enlightenment (John 8:12) cannot be manufactured, manipulated, or delivered on demand. It is always given from another. Wisdom is not a do-it-yourself project. The Spirit blows where it pleases, and for those of us on the journey, all we can do is listen for the lessons and remain open. Jesus called this faith.

All we can really do is ask for the grace to be open and willing enough to recognize the secret doorways God opens for us. The door is almost always some form of suffering—physical, relational, emotional, intellectual, or structural. I define suffering as what happens to you whenever you are not in control.

Enlightenment is not about knowing as much as it is about unknowing; it is not so much learning as unlearning. It is about surrendering and letting go rather than achieving and possessing. It’s more about entering the mystery than arriving at a mental certitude.

Enlightenment is all gratuitous grace, and the only reasonable response is a grateful heart and the acknowledgment that, always, there is more to the mystery.

Real Change

2011-02-04T05:14:00.003-06:00

Every day I receive a devotional e-mail from Richard Rohr, a Catholic leader. He has one of the best understandings of grace that resonates with me. Today's devotional really speaks to me. Thought I would share:

We operate with the assumption that giving people new ideas changes people. It doesn’t. Believing ideas is, in fact, a way of not having to change in any significant way, especially if you can argue about them. Ideas become defenses.

If you have the right words, you are considered an orthodox and law-abiding Christian. We burned people at the stake for not having the right words, but never to my knowledge for failing to love or forgive, or to care for the poor. Religion has had a love affair with words and correct ideas, whereas Jesus loved people, who are always imperfect.

You do not have to substantially change to think some new ideas. You always have to change to love and forgive ordinary people. We love any religion that asks us to change other people. We avoid any religion that keeps telling us to change.

Does this speak to you like it does to me? I read this and realized I've already learned this without knowing I've already learned it. I read one time that when we really learn is when we hear something that we've already learned in our life but we haven't verbalized it. We hear someone say it aloud and we say YES!!

Sometimes we think that's where we learned it, but as I experienced here, I read this and thought I already know this. I love the way this is written. It expresses truth as I've learned it and experienced it. Not that I continually practice it, but I KNOW it, I really know it!
MB

The Lens of Grace vs The Lens of Law

2011-01-12T04:52:00.002-06:00

Rex Holt, a friend of ours and a former staff member, writes a daily devotional. Recently, he wrote on law vs. grace and truth. I copied that devotional and pasted it here. He compared how we see life through lenses as our physical eyes see our world through lenses perfected individually for our eyes. Interesting comparison. Here's his devotional:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.' ") And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
(John 1:14-17 ESV)

My right eye is stronger than my left eye. I know because I just tested it reading a scripture plaque about 10 feet from where I am sitting. I also know because the glasses I am wearing were fitted by an optometrist who placed this heavy looking machine before my eyes and kept changing lens asking which is clearer, this or this? He kept using all kinds of lens, some stronger some weaker, until he had the perfect blend for my eyes. So the glasses I wear are fitted uniquely for me. Now I never stop to think which eye is better I just see and the two eyes working with the two lens give me good vision for which I am grateful.

All of us see life through different kinds of lens. When the lens are right we see accurately and images are sharper, more distinct, with brilliant and beautiful colors.

John is saying that we need new lens to replace the old bulky, hazy, foggy lens of the law. These new lens are grace and truth. Notice which comes first. Grace. Grace is the totally undeserved, unmerited, favor and acceptance of God. It is the unending, unwavering, unconditional, unexplainable love of God for me, just as I am. Jesus loves me. Jesus died for me. Not me perfect but me messed up, fouled up and broken up. This is the kind of grace that says, "I am crazy about you and nothing can make me change my mind. I am not leaving you and nothing you can do will stop me from loving you...just as you are."

When we receive grace we also receive truth. They are inseparable twins. Grace allows us to see the truth about God and the truth about ourselves. Grace and truth go together like a horse and carriage, love and marriage, peas and carrots...you get the point.

Grace will change the way you see life. When grace gets a grip on you then all of life changes... you are more joyful, playful, winsome and loving. You come alive–fully alive and you face life with courage and faith.

Are you seeing life through the lens of law or the lens of grace and truth?

It's amazing how what lens we look through determines what we see and how we see it and subsequently how we think and then what we believe and do.

Thoughts to ponder.
MB

Homeless Wisdom

2010-12-29T05:18:00.002-06:00

Each day I read in my e-mail In Box a devotional by Richard Rohr. Today's was this:

Less than a block from where I used to live in downtown Albuquerque, there is a sidewalk where the homeless often sit against the wall to catch the winter sun. Once I saw fresh graffiti chalked clearly on the pavement in front of the homeless. It said, "I watch how foolishly man guards his nothing–thereby keeping us out. Truly God is hated here." (I returned to copy the quote exactly because it felt both prophetic and poetic at the same time.)

I can only imagine what kind of life experience enabled some person to write in such a cutting but truthful way. I understood anew why Jesus seemed to think that the expelled ones had a head start in understanding his message. Usually they have been expelled from what was unreal anyway–the imperial systems of culture, which always create those who are "in" and those who are "out," victors and victims.

In God's reign "everything belongs," even the broken and poor parts. Until we have admitted this in our own soul, we will usually perpetuate exclusionary systems and dualistic thinking in the outer world of politics and class, and sometimes even in the church.

Adapted from Everything Belongs, p. 16

Interesting thought and something to ponder as the New Year approaches.
MB

Anabel

2010-11-21T03:52:00.003-06:00

Saturday November 20 we traveled to Fort Worth TX to attend and participate in Anabel Gillham's memorial service at Southcliff Baptist Church.

Paul was one of three ministers who spoke. To end the service a video was played of Anabel giving her testimony that I've heard many times of how God used her son Mason to show His love for her. We all then stood and sang Jesus Loves Me. There was not a dry eye in the house.
Very meaningful.

I tried to find that video somewhere online but couldn't. What I did find was the printed testimony. I copied and pasted it here:

But now, thus says the Lord, your Creator, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel, "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine!"

Mace could sing one song with great gusto -- just one: Jesus Loves Me.

Jesus loves me, this I know,
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong,
They are weak but He is strong.

He would throw his head back and hold on to that first "Yes" in the chorus as long as he could, and then he would get tickled and almost fall out of his chair.

Sometimes -- when I think back on those days that seem so long ago -- I can still hear him giggle. How special that memory is to me. . .

I never doubted for a moment that Jesus loved our profoundly retarded little boy. It didn't matter that he would never sit with the kids in the back of the church and, on a certain special night, walk down the aisle, take the pastor by the hand, and invite Jesus into his heart. It was entirely irrelevant that he could not quote a single verse of Scripture, that he would never be able to reason or to comprehend God's love, that he would never be a dad -- I knew that Jesus loved Mason.

What I could not comprehend, what I could not accept, was that Jesus could love Mason's mother, Anabel. I believed that in order for anyone to accept me, to love me, I had to perform for them. My standard for getting love was performance-based, so I performed constantly, perfectly. And I was convinced that if anyone ever really got to know me, he or she wouldn't like me.

Mace could never have performed for anyone's love . . . but oh, how we loved him. His condition eventually deteriorated to such a degree -- and so rapidly -- that we had to institutionalize him when he was very young, so we enrolled him in the Enid State School for Mentally Handicapped Children.

We drove regularly the 120 miles to see him, but on this particular weekend he was at home for a visit. He had been with us since Thursday evening, and it was now Saturday afternoon. As soon as the dinner dishes were done, I would gather his things together and take him back to his house. I had done this many times before, but today God had something in mind that would change my life forever.

As I was washing the dishes, Mason was sitting in his chair watching me, or at least he was looking at me. That's when it began -- spinning emotions, tumbling stomach, the familiar sickening thoughts of separation and defeat: In just a little while, I'm going to start packing Mason's toys and his clothes, and take him away again. I can't do that. I simply cannot do it. I stopped washing dishes and got down on my knees in front of Mace. I took his dirty little hands in mine and tried desperately to reach him.

"Mason, I love you. I love you. If only you could understand how much I love you."

He just stared. He couldn't understand; he didn't comprehend. I stood up and started washing dishes again, but that didn't last long. This sense of urgency, almost panic, came over me, and once more I dried my hands and knelt in front of my precious little boy.

"My dear Mason, if only you could say to me, 'I love you, Mother.' I need that, Mace."

I stood up to the sink again. More dishes, more washing, more crying. But now thoughts, foreign to my way of thinking, began filtering into my conscious awareness.

I believe God spoke to me that day, and this is what He said:
"Anabel, you don't look at your son and turn away in disgust because he's sitting there with saliva drooling out of his mouth; you don't shake your head, repulsed because he has dinner all over his shirt or because he's sitting in a dirty, smelly diaper when he ought to be able to take care of himself. Anabel, you don't reject Mason because all the dreams you had for him have been destroyed. You don't reject him because he doesn't perform for you. You love him, Anabel, just because he is yours. Mason doesn't willfully reject your love, but you willfully reject Mine. I love you, Anabel, not because you're neat or attractive, not because you do things well, not because you perform for Me -- I love you just because you're Mine."

Incredible! Unbelievable!

I had struggled for so many years, hating my performance patterns and yet living to perform, driven to perform, searching out the praise of people and thirsting for the love of God that I thought could come only to those who performed well enough to merit it. Yet God had just shown me that He loved me in spite of anything and everything, and He had shown me in a way that I could understand -- through my dear, sweet Mason.

Do you understand? You don't have to do anything for Him; you don't have to be something for Him. You can know that there is Someone who loves you not because of the way you do or don't look, or because of the talents you do or don't have. All you have to do is accept it: He loves you just because you are His.

* * *

Well, that's not the end of Mason's story. It wasn't long after that Sunday with him that Bill, our son Preston, and I went to visit him in Enid. We held his hand, stroked his hair, and talked to him. And then we prayed. God, by Your grace we've lived victoriously and have used Mace's little life and influence for Your glory . . . but we feel that he has suffered enough and that all the influence for Christ that can be realized from his life has pretty well been exhausted. God, if it be Your will, we ask that you take him to be with You.

We kissed Mason goodbye and headed home. It was the very next morning when the school called to say that Mason had "unexpectedly passed away during the night" -- and we knew that he had slipped away to be with Jesus.

The Far East Broadcasting Company in Cheju, Korea, received a letter from Bill a short time later: " . . . there was some insurance money. It belongs to God. We pass it along to FEBC for use in the China-Cheju Island project. . . ."

Mason's gift helped build a transmitter building for the 250,000-watt radio signal that now beams the gospel of Christ to China, Russia, and Japan. And it is because of Mason that people will continue to learn of Jesus, of His saving grace . . . and of the fact that He loves us just because we are His.

Yes, Jesus loves me . . .
Yes, Jesus loves me . . .

It was great to visit with Pres and Diane, Will and Kelly, and Wade and his wife and three children. We had not seen Will and Wade since our days at Southcliff. We sat at the dinner table with Will and Kelly and Will kept us all entertained and laughing. I told him I see a lot of his Dad in him.

It was pretty sad to see Bill Gillham. He's in a wheel chair and very bent over. He did know Paul and chuckled and responded to him. Bill is in Renaissance, a care facility in FW, and is taken care of and very loved by his family.

It's very sad to see this vibrant couple who affected so many lives through their ministry grow older and lose their health and now Anabel's gone. But there was much appreciation and love shown at the service. I sat with Mazie and Bill and it seems that Mazie was probably Anabel's closest friend. I introduced them years ago. Mazie was on the program to lead in prayer but she had to decline. She was sure she wouldn't be able to get through it.

We saw a lot of friends from long ago as we do every time we go back to Southcliff. It's hard to believe we left there 28 years ago. It was thirty years ago that the Gillham's moved to Fort Worth to be in Southcliff. Lots of memories!

So, Good-by Annabel. See ya later...

Mentoring-Be Who You Are

2010-10-22T05:38:00.004-05:00

I read the following in one of my daily devotionals:

As a mentor you can’t really pull or force people forward. In the final analysis, you cannot “grow up" other people. All you can do is reveal the real and keep growing up yourself. Jesus walked the earth as a mature, transformed, and enlightened man; and power went out from him. Those who have eyes to see and ears to hear will be attracted and will be pulled on the subconscious level—the soul level—just by being around you. It isn’t something that you can make happen. You simply are who you are; and others must finally do their own work, facing their own shadow, their own prejudices, their own egocentricity, and their own narcissism.

Thought this was good and said a truth succinctly.
I've always thought and taught "who you are is more caught than taught."
Just sharing...
MB

Marriage Reflections – Part 4

2010-09-25T05:00:00.006-05:00

This is the last of the four talks I did with Paul when we spoke on marriage the first two Sunday nights at Emmanuel in Enid.

I started with some thoughts on respect. I remember when I began to realize I hadn't a clue about the real meaning of this word. We were traveling some place with our two grown daughters and one asked the question, "How can I teach my kids to respect me?" As the discussion progressed, I came to realize that respect is one of those character traits that is more caught than taught. And that began my search to understand respect and to learn what it really was and what it means in relationships.

Respect is communicating value or worth.

I found this definition and it spoke to me. Further elaborating: respect is recognizing and communicating value and/or unconditional worth to another.

I also came to realize that perhaps the opposite of respect in relationships is shame or shaming someone. Maybe the opposite of the definition of respect could be applied to the definition of shame, communicating no value and or no personal worth or disrespecting a person. Shaming was my modus operandi, it was my way of relating, quite unknown to me. This could be a whole course of study in itself.

The main subject of my talk was triangling in relationships, and I used these thoughts on respect to segue into saying that triangling is a form of disrespect or shaming.

A triangle in a relationship involves three people. An example is shown with this diagram. There's me, you, and another person involved in a triangle. The black arrows show how relationships should be one on one, between two people. The red arrows show an unhealthy triangled relationship. One person (Me) relating to Other and trying to get Other and You to have a good relationship. That's triangling.
Triangles in relationships develop as a self-protective reflex of the emotional system itself.

Let me attempt to explain. Let's take a couple with their son and say that the Dad and the son do not get along. Mom tries to get the two to understand and relate to each other and she explains one to the other and she ends up being the intermediary and the relationship is in a triangular system.

Triangling is a natural effort to preserve the emotional system as it is, to keep it from disintegrating. The triangler (person) is well meaning, but what happens is that triangles in relationships prevent things from getting better and improving, as well as from getting worse.

A good illustration of this is a three-legged stool, which is an unhealthy picture of a relationship. All relationships should be two-way, relating from one person to another based on the two only and not on a third person. The principle: make your relationships two-party, not three-party.

Emotional triangles are common in families, among mothers, fathers, and children. Usually two close people are closely involved and the third person is the outsider.

The underlying cause of triangle relationships developing is when anxiety arises. Often, a person can't face the problems they have with another and to relieve that anxiety, draws in a third person. That way the problems can be talked about and fretted over with another, but not with the person involved. That relieves the anxiety, but does not lead to resolution or healthy relationships. The result is two unhealthy relationships. The solution is to make sure that all your relationships are between you and the other person only and not based on negatives about a third person.

This was a major lesson for me to learn. When I quit triangling in relationships, I found that I had to own each of my relationships and tackle my problems with each person I was in relationship with. I also found I was drawing strength and emotional satisfaction by this two-against-one situation. How bad is that!

Practicing this has revealed me to me. Interesting, huh? I now concentrate on my relationships, one-on-one and leave all other relationships to the two people involved. What a novel idea! And in the process I'm learning to respect myself, respect others, and not to shame or disrepect other people. Healthy, healthy! Getting there...

Oddly, it occurs to me that this is a long way around to coming to the Golden Rule. Who knew!
MB

Marriage Reflections – Part 3

2010-09-11T10:51:00.003-05:00

Continuing with the marriage principles that we spoke on at a recent marriage seminar we led...

The third topic I spoke about was on listening.

Years ago I traveled to Ohio and attended an Apples of Gold conference entitled Listening for Heaven's Sake. Prior to attending I had always thought I was an excellent listener and a good counselor. I learned differently.

A very few of the many listening principles I picked up and ones that have changed my entire mode of listening to others are the ones that I am addressing here.

Before I travel down that road, I want to restate a principle of life that has literally changed most of how I try to relate to friends and family. I'm a math person and I love how this principle communicates as an equation.
Exposure + Acceptance = Encouragement

As I practice this principle in life, it's amazing how changing it has been for me and for my relationships. I'm naturally a judging person, it's built into my DNA. So this principle has required major changes in the way I think and the way I relate. Anyway, that's a backdrop for these listening principles.

Two listening principles that I remember and therefore attribute them as the most important are spotlight listening and advice listening.

Whenever I would be talking with someone and had heard their problem or their story, I would sooner or later tell them a similar experience that I had had. I always thought that I was sharing something to show them that I understood, I was relating to and with them. Often I would preface that with "I know how you feel. I remember when..."

At the Listening Conference I learned that style is stealing the spotlight. I in essence was putting the spotlight or the importance on me and taking it from the one I was talking with. I was shocked. That shot down one of my best listening skills. Hmmm... Time to think about this.

After learning this, I began to practice this with family first and then with others. I was amazed at how off I had been previously, even often interrupting to share my experience. That stealing the spotlight principle is so right. Keeping the spotlight on the one who initially shares is important for respect, for acceptance, and for encouragement. I'm still learning, but I so love this. I'm not 100% yet, but I'm certainly better at listening than I used to be.

The second listening principle I had to unlearn and relearn correctly was advice listening. At this week long listening conference, I was really beaten up skill-wise as far as listening was concerned. I also began to learn that I was listening so I could give my all important advice to the one who had come to me. Yikes!

At the seminar I was given a picture of what it is to have someone come to you with a problem or to share a hurting experience. It's like this person is driving along in the car of his/her life and they see you walking along and they pull over and ask you to ride with them for a short distance.

The picture shows you that they are the driver and they are the ones who will continue on in their vehicle of life long after you are gone. You are there to share a short ride with them. They decide where they are going and they really decide how they are going to get there.

A way of listening and of sharing is to realize you are the passenger in their car of life and they will have to make their own decisions and pay their own consequences. Therefore a good listening and sharing strategy is to help them be aware of what choices they do have and what possible consequences might occur along with listening to their story with respect and encouragement. Wow! Was I turned upside down.

Prior to this I had the arrogant attitude that all problems, hurts, and struggles are handled one of two ways. Stop doing the sinful actions that are causing the problem or realize that God is in charge and He will take care of it. Hey, no wonder no one came to me the second time. I think I thought I was great because I helped them see their problem and get fixed. Great counselor!

I learned quite differently, and painful as it was, it was well worth it.

Applying these things to our marriage has helped our relationship and it has helped me personally more than could be possibly measured or expressed. Again, I'm still quite the student and not even in graduate school on this yet, but I am learning and growing and learning new and different ways to apply these skills.

I'm definitely a better person for having learned and trying to practice this. I definitely have a better marriage (at least in my opinion). And life has been so much more enjoyable. Life is an adventure, and a quite enjoyable one.

It has also helped me listen to someone's exposure of hurt, pain, guilt, or sin, and accept their person as I listen and hopefully they are encouraged.
MB

Marriage Reflections - Part 2

2010-08-14T20:08:00.003-05:00

In the last blog post I wrote about the first of four marriage principles that I talked about when we spoke the last two Sunday evenings. The first life skill or principle was "growth begins where blaming ends."

I received an e-mail from a person who read that post and then wrote in detail about how that life skill was new to him and it really struck him with the truth of it. That's always encouraging, to know that someone reads and especially that someone is helped.

The second marriage principle that I chose to speak about from the many that we've learned over the years, was "marital collusive games." I first came across this in a book, Intimate Partners-Patterns in Love and Marriage by Maggie Scarf. This book is not written from a Biblical perspective, but it has many truths that when applied are very helpful.

I first explained the word "collusive." The dictionary says: a secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, esp. in order to cheat or deceive others. The origin is
late Middle English: from Latin collusion-, from colludere ‘have a secret agreement’ (see collude.

I like the simple definition given in the origin of the word: to have a secret agreement. When a couple marries, unknown to them, they often make an agreement between them that is worked out between them in their marital life. Perhaps a couple of examples will help explain.

I'll use our experiences. The first involves anger. Looking back we realized that I had "secretly agreed without knowing it" or "colluded" to be the good girl and denounce anger. That agreement meant that Paul had to carry all the anger for both of us.

Here's how it worked: One day I saw a coach cuss our son out for something he did on the baseball field. It was just a summer pickup league and this was our first experience with that coach. I saw the coach angrily yell at Brett, but Paul didn't. He was visiting with some friends he was sitting with.

On the way home, I inquired if he had seen that. When he said no that he hadn't, I relayed the incident to him. He got very angry and went to the coach's home and had a talk with him. When he came home, I condemned him for his anger. He should not have done that, he was a pastor and should set a better example.

That's a collusive marital game. The game being played is that I had to keep my "good girl" image in place, so I transferred all the anger I felt and needed to express to Paul so he would, and then I could condemn him for being angry. But, notice that the anger got expressed.

For years we carried our labels well. Then through various circumstances and events over a period of a few years, we both learned to carry our own anger, own it and express it in non-harmful ways. What a switch!! I lost my good girl label and became real and normal. Paul lost his angry label and became real and normal.

That's just one example. Another example along the same lines is our preference of music. I was the good Christian girl who wanted to listen to and wanted my kids to listen only to Christian music. (Actually I know that no music is "Christian," only people can be Christ-like or Christian, but everyone calls it that, so I'm taking a little license here.) Paul liked Country & Western and 50's music. We kept these pretty separate. When I began to learn C&W music, Paul had a real problem. I was shattering his good-girl image of me. I was stepping out of this collusive marital game that we didn't even know we had set up. Now we both enjoy all types of music, very much suiting our own tastes. I love to two-step to C&W music, I love classical music, I love opera! And I still like most Christian music. Paul didn't have to do much changing on this one, I was the major culprit and game player.

We've had a few other collusive marital games that we've identified and exposed in our relationship. While we were raising children, Paul liked to wear the white hat; i.e., he liked to say "yes" to the kids' requests without thinking through all the ramifications. I wore the black hat. I usually said "no" and then might rethink it, but I was always aware of all the dangers and what-ifs and the responsibilities and schedules that had to be considered. We were a little late learning this one. We didn't recognize and pull out of this collusive game until the kids were almost grown.

We also had a great collusive marital game going about money. I was the saver, the check balancer, the no credit partner. He was the spender, the loaner, the borrower, the credit guy. This was a big one and took many fights, make-ups, learning, and practicing before we finally identified this collusive. It was a slow process coming to reality in this area, but we have been successful!

A sub-title for this post could be "The Games People Play."

Paul and I can visit with a couple for awhile and pretty well identify their collusive marital games. Not that we share with them what we see, but it helps us understand and relate to others.

Identifying your collusive marital games is not a one-discussion, let's figure this out kind of thing. It works well when both partners are committed to loving each other and wanting to give their best individually and get the most out of their partnership. I highly recommend it with this disclaimer, it's tough work and sometimes painful, but so worth it.
MB

Marriage Reflections

2010-08-04T05:01:00.004-05:00

Paul and I have been invited to speak on marriage recently, and this has caused us to reflect back over our 51 years of marriage and list and share important truths and concepts we've learned and tried to practice.

This last weekend we shared at Emmanuel in Enid, and the two marriage principles I talked about that had literally changed me and my relationship with Paul were these two: Growth begins where blaming ends, and Discovering your collusive marital games.

I learned about the first one while reading the book, Happiness Is an Inside Job by John Powell, and this was several years ago. This literally turned my world upside down. I reassessed my thinking after realizing I was not "owning" my own actions and emotions. I was quite the blamer. I thought because someone else did so-and-so, that made me sad or that made me angry or that made me whatever. Their actions made me feel the way I was feeling.

The little phrase, growth begins where blaming ends, stopped me in my tracks. Some of my phraseology was, "If only..." meaning if only so-and-so had not done that, or if only so-and-so didn't treat me like that. I finally began to hear myself and how I was thinking. If I wanted to grow and mature emotionally, I realized blaming others for my thoughts, feelings, and actions had to stop!!

And it did. And I began to grow emotionally and take ownership of my actions, which is easier, and my emotions, which is much harder. I now know and try to live within this fact that my feelings and emotions are caused by what's already within me; i.e., how I think, what my history is, what my baggage is, etc.

And my growth has involved knowing that what I'm feeling and what's causing my emotions are mine and I have choices and I can more clearly see these when I quit blaming others and realize choices are mine. Granted, what others do and say are stimulants and spark what's already within me, but what I say, do, and feel are mine!

That was a tough life lesson to learn and sometimes it's tough to live by, but it's getting easier. And, it's definitely very freeing. I'm not "owned" by others and I cannot and do not want to "blame" others for what's mine.

This has become and probably will always be one of my favorite life skills: Growth begins where blaming ends.

I'll write about the second one in my next post. And, hopefully that will be sooner than this one was from my last. How time flies!

Life is good!!
MB

Being Both Young and Old

2010-06-25T06:02:00.006-05:00

Being young

Being old aka mature

Below is one of the daily devotionals I read today. I took a little license and reworded some of the nouns to make it applicable to both male and female. Thought it was pretty good.

MASCULINE/FEMININE SPIRITUALITY

Question of the Day:
How can a person befriend both the young person and the old person within?

I believe in every person there are two basic archetypes and they are most simple: the young boy/girl and the old man/woman. In many of our lives, one or the other totally dominates, some never grow up and others never grow down. The ideal is when the two become friends and meet somewhere in the middle. That is the “grand” father/mother that we all love and need.

The young inspires the blossoming of things; the old presides over the harvest. The young hopes and expects and is naturally optimistic. I remember feeling that way when I was young: “It is still coming; it’s out there, wherever it is.” Now in my sixties “it” seems to have already happened, and I have struck the mother lode, the unified field underneath. Now life deserves both tears and laughter, I can be both grounded and free, both young and old at the same time.

Our native peoples said that “the young man who cannot weep is a savage and the old man who cannot laugh is a fool.”

From Despair to Hope

2010-06-07T06:06:00.005-05:00

Our friends, Rex and Sherry Holt, pastor Conejo Church in CA. They started this church and they are having a wonderful ministry. Rex and Sherry were our associates back in the seventies when we pastored in Wichita Falls. We've stayed friends all these years.

The Holts have three children, and the story of their coming is a miracle in itself. They were childless for 17 years and looked into adoption. In fact, they were very close one time to receiving a child through adoption but they were already headed for the mission field in Africa and had to decline. It was a heart-breaking time. I remember questioning the whole timing thing. The rest of their story is included below in Rex's e-mail to his church members this weekend. I grabbed two pictures off their church Web site so you could see Rex in the guy-picture (the white hair one) and Sherry in the middle of the church-dinner picture; one of their daughters is the one in the forefront. Great folks! Just wanted to share one of their ministry times.

Here's the e-mail Rex sent to his church members:
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows." 2 Cor. 1:3-5

We arrived home from Haiti this afternoon. It was a wild and wonderful adventure that started last Monday on Memorial Day.

We spent the night in Miami before arriving in Haiti early Tuesday morning. Our team of 8 people settled into our home for the week--small tents pitched in the front yard of a house with no running water. We purchased bottled water, put on a lot of mosquito repellent and began to prepare for a week of ministry.

A part of the team worked at Lamothe in Port-au-Prince to complete a reservoir that will provide water for this village of 600 families.

Curtis Johnson, Executive Pastor at Calvary Community, and I led a 2-day training workshop for 80 pastors in the Port-au-Prince area. "Leadership during a time of crisis" was the subject of the workshops. We looked at leadership principles from Jeremiah 29 and from the book of Nehemiah.

The first of 6 leadership lessons was, "During a time of crisis leaders must face reality." At this point I asked, "What are the realities that you are facing as a result of the January 12 earthquake in Haiti?"

I was not prepared for what happened next.

"I lost my wife," said one pastor. "She was away from the house and just disappeared." "We never found her body."

"My wife was teaching her class with 10 students," another pastor said. "A few minutes after the earthquake I came to the collapsed school building and saw her laying face down," he explained, "but we could not get the cement boulders off of her in time." "My wife and all 10 of the school children died."

One pastor who appeared to be in his thirties lost two children in the earthquake. All of the pastors lost their homes, their church buildings and practically all of their possessions.

Most of these pastors are living in tents with their families in what many of us would call impossible conditions. One man told of his father who had worked hard all his life to build his home and had several rental houses that would provide a living for him in retirement. The earthquake destroyed all the houses and thus his retirement was gone. I asked him if his father had insurance on these houses. He shook his head and said, "We don't have things like that in Haiti." The man is now living with a relative.

But the harshest of all realities is the emotional pain and distress these pastors expressed. They are concerned about the emotional and mental well-being of their wives and children and church members. Life will never return to normal for these pastors.

And yet in the midst of this untold pain, there shined the light of hope. It is the hope that Jesus gives to his people when life tumbles in. Over and over we referred to this great promise for people in captivity and great tribulation.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

During a morning session on Friday I became overwhelmed with the intensity of their pain. I felt I couldn't go on. I had nothing more to give. Nothing more to say. I felt a chilling despair. I turned to Curtis and said, "I've got to stop: I'm done." He came up, spoke a few words and said, "Let's pray." During his prayer I felt an unusual touch from the Holy Spirit. I got my heart and my hope back. Suddenly, I felt refreshed and knew exactly what I was to do.

I shared my story.

I told them how God gave us children when there was no hope of us ever having children. I told them how the Africans prayed and would not give up. I told them about their simple, child-like faith and how God answered their prayers after 17 years of childless marriage. I told them how Abraham who against all hope, in hope believed. I told them how the Africans during those days would say to me, "Pasteur, ayez un coeur d'espoir" - "Pastor, have a heart of hope."

I could see God giving these pastors a heart of hope.

At the end of the workshops the pastors gathered around to thank us for coming, for listening, and for sharing a message of hope. I am convinced that they are now facing the future with a new confidence and hope. I feel they have some tools that will help them lead their churches and communities to rise up and rebuild.

Though I was the only one from our Conejo Church family on Haitian soil last week, I believe we were all there in spirit. I felt your prayers. I felt your support and encouragement. Thank you!

May the quietness, confidence, and joy of our Lord be your strength this week. We have been given much. We have been blessed so that we can be a blessing.

Have a heart of hope. The best is yet to come.

In His grip of grace,

Rex

Memorial Day--The Dash

2010-05-31T06:35:00.005-05:00

A friend of mine posted a blog entry that talked about when you write about a person's life, one who has died, you usually list the date of birth, a dash, and then the date of death. The point is made that the most important part of this is not the date of birth nor the date of death but the dash in between, which represents how one lives their life.

Here's a great little video that shows this beautifully.

Thought this was pretty appropriate for Memorial Day.
MB

The Month of May: Triumphs and Tragedies

2010-05-15T11:43:00.003-05:00

The month of May in OK is known as tornado month.

This year it's already lived up to its name. We had an outbreak of tornados on May the 10th that followed six paths across the state: two in the south central section, two in the central section that tracked east following Highway 9 and the other one following I40, and then we had two across the northeastern section of the state. Over two dozen tornados touched down and several caused extensive damage.

That comprises some of the tragedies. We also lost a dear friend of years ago who died last week. Very sad. Today is the birthday of Paul's Mom who died a year and a half ago. These have been some sad things that have happened.

But for us the month of May could be called the month of birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and then there's Mother's Day. We had fun celebrating my Mom's 73rd year to celebrate Mother's Day. We had a family cleaning day (outside porches) and a patio picnic. She was very appreciative.

We have five family birthdays in May and one anniversary. We've already celebrated one of these and have five to go. Keeps me on my toes making sure I remember and prepare for each.

One of our special treats this May was attending a high school graduation of over a thousand graduates and watching one of our grandsons receive his diploma. He also received a full scholarship to the university he will attend next fall. Very exciting and thrilling for us as grandparents.

We also got to attend an awards banquet for graduate nurses in which our daughter-in-law was pinned and received four different awards. We were privileged to be invited and get to sit with our son's family.

My reality check about these things is that life is made up of both sad things and things to celebrate. It's all a mix. We have fun and enjoy the wonderful happenings and we're saddened and feel loss at the bad things that happen. Nothing extraordinarily profound about any of this, just musings.

Still, life is good and it's good to be alive to celebrate and to sympathize and to feel with others. It's a challenge to find meaning in both and a good exercise.
MB

Say What?

2010-04-03T19:39:00.002-05:00

If you're reading this, I'm surprised. I go so long between blog posts that I figure I probably lose what few readers I have. Anyway, I'm back. Thanks to those of you who've requested I write and who have questioned where I've been. I appreciate that.

I want to share a story that was shared with me recently.

This young couple who are in the ministry and have a position with a church moved to a new community and proceeded to meet their neighbors. One of their neighbors was a gay couple of men. The ministry couple visited with them and they became friends. They shared meals and visits and enjoyed each other's company.

The subject of their professions didn't come up for a long time.

When it did, the young couple declined revealing what they did for a living. It became a push-and-pull fun discussion. The young man said he couldn't tell them what he did, he just couldn't. They thought that was odd and kept pushing. The young man replied that he was pretty sure they wouldn't like him when they learned what he did, so he preferred not telling them.

Once a promise was extracted that no matter what the young man did, the gay couple would remain the young couple's friends. With that promise sealed, the young man revealed that he was a youth minister in a church.

Shock, shock! Unbelief!! How could such a loving, accepting young couple be ministers in a church? Impossible. But, they were reminded of their promise.

Then extreme shock when the denomination was revealed. This just couldn't be. It was so out of the norm and so not what the gay couple had experienced from anyone with the name Christian, much less in the ministry.

Well, the "rest of the story" is that the four are still very good friends, and even though they've both moved to different locations, they still stay in touch.

I love this story. It's a true story. The ideal would be that this would be the norm. If Christians are to be known by the love they have for each other and for others, it would be.

I'm just sayin'. . .
MB

Questions and Answers

2010-02-21T08:02:00.003-06:00

I've been reading some and thinking a lot about the subject of believers and the gay community. This is an interesting read and thought process.

I've run into some things that are thought provoking.

Let me first write about something else, related but not exactly on topic. I was raised in a very racial prejudiced setting, not only the area of the country but also social and family belief systems. It was very hard for me to even realize I was racially prejudiced, but when I did it was also extremely hard to change my thinking and my actions. Everything had been permeated by my adopted default belief system. But I'm here to say I have been successful and have obliterated, with joy and excitement, any and all racial prejudice.

One of the important experiences that cut the final link was a friendly conversation in a group where one of my very good friends of a different race was present and a joke was told. None of us "whites" thought anything about it, but our friend let us know how it made her feel. Not so good. Lesson learned: You don't joke about prejudices, especially ones that you've been freed from. Hmmm...

I find myself now cringing at "gay" jokes. I'm on my way!

But I have questions, so I've been reading. I came across some good thoughts on this subject. My questions are, do I still think the gay life style is sin? Can you be gay and be a Christian? Plus similar questions that are always asked, not only by people in the traditional Christian church but also by gay people to test someone they're talking to. My thinking is wondering if I really need to find answers to these questions before I can show love to all.

The writer I was reading brought out the fact that Jesus was faced with "test" questions many times during His three-year ministry on earth. He called them closed-ended questions with closed-ended answers. Jesus was asked about twenty-five of this type of question and fifteen of them were by His enemies to trap Him. It seems He only answered one of them, and He switched it from the legalistic setting to an eternal setting. Interesting.

This reminded me of questions I used to get when I was trying to share the gospel. Questions like "Where did Cain get his wife?" "Do you believe in the big bang theory?" "Do you really believe in creation?" and on and on. Anything to get off the personal subject of the here and now.

So, my conclusion? I'm not sure about my answers to the questions about the gay community just like I'm not sure where Cain got his wife. But I do know that the gospel is a life-giving, life-changing message.

My real question is can I show love to people in the gay community and be open, honest, loving, accepting, and transparent with them? That's a hard question for me having been raised in a fundamental, traditional, religious Baptist church. (Whew! That's a mouthful. :)

Grace living and grace loving is the New Testament message from God to me and I want that to be from me to others. What a challenge! What an exciting adventure to experience. To me this is not watering down the true message. It's living the true message in order to be able to share the true gospel.
MB

Do I Love in Deed or Just Words?

2010-01-31T09:27:00.003-06:00

This question has been bothering me and has caused me to think through some issues and to give my love capacity a heart check.

A current social trend is causing me some concern. That trend is that it is becoming more acceptable for someone to identify oneself as preferring a same-sex partner. We have different labels for both men and women.

My concern is not about someone else's decision and choice; it is my problem with how I think and can I love that person without judgment.

I now know several people who have made this choice. Some are open about it, some hide it, and some fight about it.

In Christian circles, there seems to be an attitude of judgment, shame, and exclusion. I can even say that it seems to be one of hate. Isn't that an oxymoron? Christian people hating and not loving some who have made a choice that disagrees with their belief system.

I have interaction with many who are not in Christian circles. Some of the comments I hear them say are: Who cares? What business is it of mine what another person chooses in that area? That's not for me, but I respect someone who makes that choice. And other comments that don't seem to have a sense of judgment about them.

Someone asked me a few years ago if I still believed the Bible. What prompted that question was that I was not so judgmental any more and not so OCD about my interpretation of certain scriptures. My answer was that of course I do, but I have changed my opinion about what I believe the scriptures are saying. My emphasis now is on the person and showing grace and love while still holding truth in my beliefs.

I'm startled that same-sex preference people say that the group of people who are the most hateful and the least accepting of them are Christians. What an indictment against us! It makes me think of what the Pharisees said of Jesus that he associated with those who were not acceptable to them. The very righteous, judgmental people of Jesus' day were astonished that He would show love and acceptance to the ones who were living contrary to their religious beliefs.

I love the statement, "They will know we are Christians by our love." Isn't that the first thing we should be concerned about? Not a wishy-washy love that has no grace and truth, but a genuine love and acceptance of the person even if that person doesn't believe like I do.

I want to write about this in the next few posts on this blog.
I welcome your comments.
MB

Friend in Haiti

2010-01-27T04:39:00.004-06:00

Our friends, Rex and Sherry Holt, pastor a church in Southern CA. In past years they were SBC missionaries to Togo West Africa, where they speak French. Rex was asked to go with a medical team to Haiti. The team left last Saturday morning. Yesterday, Tuesday, Rex called Sherry from Haiti and Sherry wrote about it in their daily church letter to members, to which I subscribe. It's an excellent recounting of what Rex is experiencing in Haiti.

January 26, 2010

About 6:30 p.m., I got a call from Rex. Joe Hall was standing in the kitchen with me so I put the phone on speaker. I wish so much that I had a recording of it. He talked fast to try to tell everything he could since he had borrowed the phone from his tent-mate. A Haitian by birth, his tent-mate Julio moved to Florida a number of years ago and has been pastoring a church there. Since this terrible disaster in his homeland, he has returned home to Haiti to stay, leaving behind the church he pastored in Florida and everything that he had accumulated materially. His wife Suzette will join him this weekend and they will begin life again in Haiti.

Rex loves him and said they both agree that the Lord meant for them to spend these days together. Most of the tents are large enough to accommodate 4 or 5 persons, but Rex and Julio got the smallest tent and there is only room for the two of them. They pray together--sometimes in English and sometimes in French or they sing together--sometimes in English, sometimes in French. Rex says that he feels so at home in Haiti, because there are so many similarities to living in West Africa.

He spoke of the devastation being hard to conceive, walking in a city, block after block where buildings are leveled on both sides of the street. As he walks around, he engages practically everyone he passes in conversation and they all speak of having lost loved ones. Their only requests are for water and food. He told of two examples of children asking for food at the orphanage where their tent is set up. The volunteers have been instructed not to give away food or water but to respond that they came with medical supplies. This is a tough thing to do, but necessary to keep a riot from breaking out because so many people are thirsty and hungry.

He told about a young man who came up to him and said, "I am hungry.” So Rex gave the pat response, “We came with medical supplies.” The boy turned away but another boy came up to Rex and asked, “Did you see him, did you really see him?” He assured this second young boy that certainly he had seen the boy and heard his request. But then the young boy challenged him again, “but didn't you see in his eyes…he is starving.”

Hidden in Rex's pocket was a protein bar that he had brought in his week's supply of food and he wanted to give the child food. However, there were many people around and he knew that it would be chaotic. People would stampede toward him to get food, and he only had that one protein bar. Later, he was happy to see the boy alone who had challenged him about seeing the boy who was starving, and he quietly gave him the protein bar and told him to divide it 2 ways and give that boy the other half. The young boy said, “No, I will give him all of it.” Rex was skeptical that would happen, but a short time later the starving boy approached Rex with the entire bar and humbly thanked him.

That wasn't the only time he saw the children act in this unselfish way. There was a young girl standing nearby when he started eating from his meal supply, a package of peanut butter and crackers. He took out one of the crackers and gave to the little girl. As soon as she had taken it, she called the name of a young boy. He came to her and she divided the peanut butter cracker in half and shared with him. At that point, Rex gave the little girl the entire package, knowing that she would share it.

He would interject from time to time that he was so glad that he was there or that it was just great being there, so I finally got a chance to talk and asked if he was even going to come home. To that he started telling a little about how difficult the living situation is. But, he didn't dwell on that long. There was so much to share. For instance, there was a team member in their group who prayed for a blind man...at first he saw a bright light, they prayed again, he saw the shadows of people, they prayed again, he counted fingers of the man who held them up in front of him. Then Rex prayed for a deaf man. After the prayer he walked some distance behind the man so that he could not see him. He instructed the man to clap each time he heard a clap. He responded perfectly because the formerly deaf man HEARD Rex clapping his hands.

Finally he slowed down a little and explained that he had used too many of Julio's phone minutes and had to get off the phone. At that point I got the chance to say, “Happy Birthday Honey, or had you forgotten that it is your birthday?”

Well, he was quiet for a few seconds and he said with astonishment, “Is today the 26th?” And I assured him that it was. He had forgotten that today was his birthday. He closed out his conversation by saying with deep conviction, “We have to come back!!! Others from among us have to come and help.”

I wish everyone of you could have heard him...but you will soon. He won't be back at church on Sunday morning but should arrive back in S. California sometime later in the day on Sunday. Rex kept saying how he could feel so strongly the Lord's presence even amid the devastation and human suffering. Somehow, hearing about hungry children sharing, a blind man seeing, a deaf man hearing...affirmed why Rex feels so strongly the Lord's presence in Port au Prince and why even under such terrible conditions that he could be so joyful..."IN HIS PRESENCE IS FULLNESS OF JOY!!!"

Sherry

Right or Wrong?

2010-01-08T06:12:00.003-06:00

Beginning a new year causes me to reflect a lot. Lately I've been thinking about how much I've changed over the years.

I was raised close to my grandparents. They visited a lot and then lived on our property in a house back of us to help their daughter, my Mom, with raising her eleven children. My Dad traveled, and they apparently thought my Mom needed help. And they helped a lot. They raised chickens, milked cows, raised calves for beef, and pigs for meat. We also had a large garden we all worked in. My grandparents were very much a part of my growing up years.

My grandfather used to tell me that "blacks" did not have souls. That was my upbringing. Do you know how hard it is to change that thinking? I'm glad to report that I have made a total turnaround from that kind of terrible prejudicial old South thinking. Someone's nationality or race is to me now sort of like what color of eyes or hair does someone have. What does it matter? I look back now and shudder at how odd and full of hate that whole prejudice thing is and was. Totally wrong, totally bad.

Something else that's trivial compared to prejudice (which is horrible, especially when passed down) that I've changed about is that my parents taught us that it was wrong to dance. I took a strong "Christian" stand against dancing. I was a cheerleader and even, shock of all shocks, was voted Miss EHS (Edmond HS). It was hard to not dance when your sponsors and teachers would encourage you to at all the mixers and get-togethers. But I was a "good girl"!!

A few years ago I started clogging. I love it! Then as I reflected on things, I got a little angry (funny angry) at being taught that dancing was wrong. I'm not very good at it, but I love it!! Think of all the fun things I've missed over the years by thinking that dancing was wrong. I even tried to shame and guilt my own kids into not dancing. Can you believe it? Hard for me to believe now, but that's what happened.

Another odd no-no was that I should not go to movies. My Dad said to me one time, "What if Jesus returned while you were at the show?" When I started dating and going to drive-in movies, I would often look over my shoulder at the sky and hope that Jesus wouldn't return because I was sure He would be ashamed of my being at the movies. Huh? That is so funny to me now. I'm a "movie" person. I love movies, especially good movies, especially real-story movies. Think of all I missed thinking and being taught that it was "sin" to go to the movies. :-(

As I married and became a pastor's wife in the sixties, it was the teaching in our circles that it was definitely wrong for women to wear pants to church. I could even find some scriptures that seemed to say that. (Notice: seemed to say) Now, I wear pants all the time. It even feels funny to wear a dress, which I rarely do. Hmmm... I've really changed my thinking on this also.

I've been thinking recently about some of these things I've been pretty strong on in my beliefs in the past. Now I'm either changed or definitely questioning. It helps me to go back and realize how much my beliefs and thinking have changed over the years and where I am now.

I always want to be teachable and open and learning. It makes me wonder like the Cox commercial, "Wonder what else I don't know?" What other beliefs and thoughts do I have and hold to that need to be re-thought and considered in my understanding of grace as taught in the scriptures.

I'm on a quest! I want to know!!
I'll keep you posted.
MB

Who Told Me?

2009-12-30T08:54:00.006-06:00

Back, way back, at the end of October, I wrote on this blog that there were three things I would like to write about: dishonesty, "God told me," and negative testimonies. I've written about dishonesty and negative or balanced testimonies. Two months later and only two blogs later, I want to write my thoughts about the phrase, "God told me."

I could say, "God told me to write this blog." I prefer to say, "I've been thinking about what to write and I think now is the time."

A pastor in our area, wrote this comment on one of my previous blogs: Your post made me think of a recent experience with my oldest son which is along the same lines as your frustration. (He) recently told me about his former small group leader who went to a Slavic country this summer because "God told him to go". He was going to work with alchoholic guys on the street and planned on staying for a couple of years as "led by God". He was back in less than one month after experiencing the extreme discomfort. He now was saying that it was "God's will" for him to be in Colorado. (My son's) comment to me was: "Dad, next he is going to say that God wants him to get an XBox."

Perfect example of what I'm talking about!

Why do believers say, "God told me"? It's been my experience that often it seems that some people say this to lend veracity to what they're saying. Years ago there was a young man in our church who kept saying that God told him he was going to marry one of the young ladies in our church. She, however, did not have that same message from God. The young man insisted to the point of harassment. Truth be known, that young man just wanted to marry that young woman and was attracted to her. Thank goodness, she didn't believe the nonsense that God told him he was going to marry her.

Other examples I've had is to be in prayer groups or church leadership meetings and someone will propose something and introduce it with the phrase, "God told me" we are to do so and so. I've noticed how that kills all discussion. What can you say if you happen to disagree with the proposal without in essence calling that person a liar or to call into doubt their "message from God"?

My supreme or change-point experience was with a man who impressed me tremendously by telling of his life and ministry and saying he was in constant touch with God, even about little things like which way to turn on a road and what to wear for the day. He had life-saving experiences and testimonies and books. I was so impressed and so wanted to have that type of close relationship with God. However... !! When he left his wife and six children, one who is handicapped, to travel with and live with a younger, model-type woman, and was still proclaiming "God told me," was when I decided something's off here. That may have been the life-changing experience for me. I was so disillusioned and felt betrayed. I began to question all of this extra ordinary sharing of God's special leading to certain special individuals.

Saying so strongly "God told me" has definitely become one of my pet peeves. When I'm listening to a preacher who says that, I almost have to turn him off or get away. I experience anger that "God's shepherds" or pastors or leaders of people would use their position and this phrase to try to make people believe that they have a "hotline" to God. I do not believe that anyone has special privileges with God. We are all believer priests who can enter into God's presence.

What's wrong with saying something tentative like, "I think God would have me to..."? Or better yet, just saying "I think I would like to..." or "I've prayed about this and my impression is ..."

Preachers often say God is leading me to go to another church. I wish they would say I am going to investigate whether I will go to another church or stay where I am. Funny how going to another church always seems to be a bigger church and probably a better salary, etc. It just seems to me that God gets blamed for a lot of believers' decisions to do what they want to do. Then if it goes well, everyone is sure God led. But if things do not go well, then what? Well, maybe God had some experiences to teach and led in a different direction.

I do believe "all things work together for good." I really do. My discomfort and disagreement is with our trying to make God the decision maker in our lives when we really are. Often this phrase reminds me of the old Flip Wilson phrase, "The devil made me do it." To me it's quite similar. God told me to do it. Really? Hmmmm...

There are many preachers in my family so I do not speak as one distanced from that profession. My favorite type of message or sermon is one where the speaker often says that his belief or opinion is so and so, but encourages the audience or congregation to search the scriptures and come to their own conclusions. Sometimes a speaker will even give several opinions and then encourage listeners to compare scripture with scripture and let the Holy Spirit guide them to their own interpretations. How respectful and encouraging is that?

In conclusion, did God tell me to write this blog? No. Do I want to honor and please God with anything I write? Yes. The reality check is that I wanted to write my thoughts and opinions about this phrase and about people who use it. That's it.

I often wonder what God's response is to phrases like, God led me to... or God told me... If He has a sense of humor, I could speculate some responses. Whatever His response, this will be one of my questions for Him.

As we start a new year, I want to be sensitive to God's leadership and at the same time take complete responsibility for my decisions knowing that God is with me and loves me and will never leave me.
Mary B.

Balanced Testimonies

2009-11-27T05:49:00.002-06:00

I started to entitle this post Negative Testimonies, but decided that would be undermining the point I hoped to present.

For years I have experienced some frustration and disappointment when I hear people attempting to give God the glory when something good happened to them. The reason for my negative thoughts? Not because I don't like to hear people thanking God for what he has done for them, but because there are many more people who are believers and who have not experienced the same thing.

Here's an example: Say there's a car accident and only some survived and some died. The survivors might be heard to say, "God was with me, and I lived." That kind of statement bothers me. Are we to think that God was not with the ones who died? Hmm...

Another example: Say a woman's husband leaves her and she prays he will return. He does return and she says that God blessed her and had her husband return. Are we to think that a woman whose husband leaves and she prays and he doesn't return that God was not as good to her as He was to the other woman?

Final example: Say a child is ill. The parents pray and the child is healed. God is good. He healed their child. Another couple has an ill child, they are strong believers, they pray and their child dies. Are we to think that God heard one prayer and blessed and heard the other prayers and didn't bless?

These examples and the resulting attempt to give God the glory sometimes seem to me to do more damage than good. Here's what I mean.

What about in the first example having two people speak about the same experience, one about being a survivor and one about losing a loved one. Cannot both say God is good? Cannot both say God blessed them? Isn't that the God we serve?

Here's what I think is the best biblical example: Peter and James were in jail in the book of Acts. Peter was miraculously released. James was beheaded. The story told in Sunday School and in sermons seems to always be about Peter. But, what about James?

Another biblical example: Peter preached on the day of Pentecost and 3,000 souls were saved. God blessed! A few chapters over Stephen preached, maybe much the same sermon, and he was stoned to death by the religious leaders. Did God bless Stephen? Or...what?

What do we do with these two examples?

And a final point I want to make is the entire chapter in Hebrews 11. This chapter is commonly what is called the Hall of Faith Heroes. The summary towards the end of this chapter in the version, The Message, reads: We have stories of those who were stoned, sawed in two, murdered in cold blood; stories of vagrants wandering the earth in animal skins, homeless, friendless, powerless––the world didn't deserve them!––making their way as best they could on the cruel edges of the world. Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised.

So, now what? I think it's great to give God the glory when someone is healed, when someone survives, when someone returns. But wouldn't it be more biblical, more realistic, more accurate, to always have examples of both types when giving God the glory.

When we have someone passionately speak how God has blessed her because her husband returned, wouldn't it be real and honoring to God to have someone just as passionately speak about how good God is good and has blessed her and that her husband didn't return? Same thing with surviving and with healing.

Doesn't the unbalanced type of testimonies of hearing only positive and good things that have happened leave listening people thinking, well God didn't do that for me so He must not love me as much or He would have blessed me like that. My child died. Where was God? My husband divorced me and married a younger woman. Didn't God hear my prayers? Doesn't God love me?

We should always remember and speak of the balanced teachings in scripture. Where did we get that only good things and blessings happen to those whom God loves and cares for. Terribly misleading and wrong teaching. Would we have as many followers and as large churches if we preached balanced truth? Probably not, but we would have true, God-honoring believers, who really make a difference.

Thoughts to ponder. My opinion only.
MB

Good or Evil?

2009-10-29T05:03:00.003-05:00

There are three topics I was thinking about addressing in posts on this blog. The first was dishonesty. The second topic was spurred by Wade's blog post, how people say, "God told me," and how they use that. The third was prompted by a comment on this blog by Bobby about negative testimonies. All three of these are topics I like to wax eloquent on, as eloquent as I can be, which is questionable.

I think I'll tackle the first one right now and save the other two for future posts.

I watched Sixty Minutes on CBS last Sunday evening and saw a Miami man interviewed who said he had robbed the government of $20 million in Medicare payments and then he proceeded to tell how he did it. It was scary to realize there is a whole network of groups who cater to people to help them defraud the government in big ways.

Then I was watching the local morning news and saw a report about how large earth moving machines, large tractors and such, are being stolen and resold for a fraction of the cost. A farmer was interviewed and he said his $60,000 machine was stolen and when it was later found, it had been resold for $800. Drug users are usually the culprits.

Then at work I have been bombarded the last six months with spam e-mail. It seems a virus invaded our work intranet/internet via someone's personal download and despite all the firewalls and security, that worm or virus has invaded every part of our system. I daily get about ten spam e-mails telling me I'm eligible to receive millions because of some wonderful thing I have done. One I received yesterday started out saying how bad it is today how people try to scam others, but for sure this is legitimate. Hmmm...

As I was thinking on these, I'm still astounded at how basically evil human beings are. I'm rather Pollyanna-like wanting to believe that if given a chance, human beings are basically good. That's totally anti-scriptural. I know that. But, still...If you really think on this and take it all in and really listen to things going on around us, it would be much wiser for me if I accepted the fact that if given a chance, human beings as a whole are basically selfish and sinful or evil.

And then when I consider all the stuff I know that has gone on in the organized church, not necessarily the local churches I have belonged to but the bigger organizations, I realize that this basic evil bent permeates anything that human beings are a part of.

SO?

Makes a good case for the need of the true gospel. Isn't this what accepting Christ and living the Spirit-filled life is all about? Isn't this what we are saved from? Doesn't our "new nature" or our "default" change to basically good, as evidenced by our love for others instead of self?

So instead of being cynical about the evil of man, I have excitement and great hope that I (we) have the solution, the Person!
Enough to make us jump for joy. YES! Enough to make me want to spread the "good news."

Wonder if anyone will listen? I think they will only if my life causes them to ask me "a reason for the hope that is in me."
My thoughts.
MB

Payback or Freedom?

2009-10-12T05:11:00.003-05:00

Can it be? A month ago was my last blog post? Where does the time go?
Lots has happened, but obviously not blog posting. Think I'll write some thoughts today since I'm off work for Columbus Day.

Yesterday at church we had the privilege of being guests in a different Flock than the one where we're members. (Some of my friends chuckle every time I speak of attending Flock on Sunday. That's our church's version of Sunday School. When teased about being members of a Flock, I respond with something like isn't that what sheep are, members of flocks? Anyway...)

Paul was the guest speaker and the absent leader had earlier told Paul he had been addressing how Christians are changed when becoming believers. That is one of Paul's favorite subjects, and he gave a great talk. There were some questions at the end, and it was a great time of meeting new people, of being in a nice home, and of getting to hear the greatest communicator share.

One of the questions that was asked of Paul was how does or did this new-covenant living vs old-covenant living affect your ministry. The reason the question was asked was explained that a pastor acquaintance who had developed some physical problems was convinced that this was God's payback for his teenage sins.

This reminded me of some of my friends who have what they would call "moral" sins in their past and anything bad that happens to them or theirs later is immediately thought of as God's payback.

Where did we get that notion?

I think we got it from the old covenant or many scriptures in the Old Testament. If you will or if my people will...then I will (God speaking). We live by, we hear preached, and we base our Christian beliefs and living on performance based teachings.

Things like if you have a daily quiet time, God will bless you with a "victorious" day. This type of thinking leads to the opposite that if you don't, for some reason, have a quiet time, then bad things will happen. How sad! Or, if you've done some bad things, you will pay for it the rest of your life with guilt and shame.

Where is the freedom that's promised in the new covenant, in the New Testament? "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." Where is the living by the new laws that Christ gave? Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself and in doing that you will fulfill all the law. Doesn't that just smack of freedom and grace?

I hear comments like yesterday, and I long to "set people free" in the freedom that Christ bought and paid for in full. By accepting his offer of grace and love and freedom, we have changed lives set free to love others.

Isn't that the true Gospel?

Is that our main teaching to new Christians? Or, is it what they need to "do" in order to live out their new life in Christ? No wonder people are not being drawn to our message.
Just some thoughts.
MB

A Memorable Anniversary Today

2009-09-12T08:03:00.003-05:00

This morning we got a phone call from Tom, our brother-in-law, who wished Paul a Happy Anniversary.

Paul was puzzled until Tom said twenty-three years ago today you had triple bypass surgery.

That comment brought back a lot of memories. I immediately pulled my daily devotional book that I haven't read for awhile and turned to September 12.

I used to write important events that happened on the devotional page. Sure enough. I verified Tom's phone call info.

Twenty-three years! Unbelievable.

Since then Paul has had another heart attack in 1990, a stroke in 2005, carotid artery surgery in 2008, and knee surgery in 2009.

But for all that fixing of his physical body, that man has a great heart.

I don't know what condition his physical heart is in today (seems great), but his emotional and spiritual heart are quite healthy. I'm extremely grateful that we've had twenty-three years together since that day that was so scary twenty-three years ago. After that and being the obsessive, compulsive person that I am, I made him eat his three oat bran muffins every day. I even packed them in his suitcase for days he was traveling. We ate from the heart healthy recipe book. We did everything by the book for a solid year. At his next annual checkup, his blood work showed that all of our hard work did not one bit of good. His numbers were worse.

I'll never forget Paul's comment after that report: "You mean I've deprived myself of all the foods I love and it did no good?!!"
Needless to say, after that we were much more balanced.

Reality check: Our days and times are in God's hands. To each there is a season, a time to live and a time to die. We're enjoying the time we are given. We are grateful. Life is good and is a wonderful adventure. We're celebrating this anniversary today. Glad someone reminded us what it is. LOL
MB

Listening and Hearing

2009-08-19T05:09:00.009-05:00

EXPOSURE

PLUS ACCEPTANCE

EQUALS ENCOURAGEMENT

Years ago I ran across this definition of Encouragement.
Exposure plus Acceptance equals Encouragement!

I was recently part of a group in which people shared with others things that were important to them. I watched and listened as other members of that group quickly jumped in and offered words of advice and fixing words.

Phrases such as "Don't feel bad. You should ..." or "Don't worry about that. Just know that ..." or "I'm sure that will soon pass. Things will be better soon." And on and on.

I checked with two of those who shared and asked them later how the responses to their heartfelt sharing affected them. Both said no, they didn't feel heard, accepted, or encouraged. They felt like others were trying to fix them or make them feel better, and it didn't work.

The same thing happened to me. I answered a question that had been asked, and in context my answer exposed some mistakes I had made. Later two people came up to make sure that I knew that I had done much good, that I shouldn't think bad of myself for my mistakes. Hmmm... I stood there responding politely, but thinking I only answered a question. I wasn't saying my whole life was a failure. I'm not depressed or despondent. Whatever. I certainly did not feel heard or understood but definitely misunderstood and that they thought I needed fixing.

I'm amazed at how often we think it's our job to make sure people don't feel bad, thus totally missing the gift of themselves that they have shared with us.

I want to learn from this. I want to realize and always be alert that when someone is sharing something about themselves that they are sharing a gift with me, a very precious gift. They are exposing their vulnerability. They have opened themselves to me and are letting me share something that's very important to them and about them. Now what do I do?

I hope I can learn to receive that as a precious gift and hold it as very valuable. All I need to do is receive that gift, and in some way that's unique to me and to the one I'm with, show acceptance. Perhaps that just means saying something like, "Thanks for sharing with me." Or, perhaps just give a sincere hug, if appropriate.

I love the saying, perhaps by now a cliché, "People don't care what you know until they know you care." I don't want to 'act like' I care and learn a few 'tricks.' I want to learn to really care and show I care.

What a challenge! Life is a wonderful journey and adventure.
MB

Forgive and Forget, or Forgive and Remember?

2009-08-04T02:57:00.002-05:00

The old saying, forgive and forget, has been around a long time.

Is that a good thing? Is that the emotionally healthy thing to do?

I was thinking about this the other day, and I decided that forgive and remember is a better philosophy to live by. Why is that?

In a nutshell: if you forgive and forget, you might not learn all that could be learned from the situation.

But, if you forgive and remember, which is much harder, think of all you can learn.

If I encounter a hurtful situation and forgive the offender but remember, maybe I could learn:
• How not to be an offender in a similar situation
• Figure out why I was hurt by the offense and use it for growth
• Learn how to respond better when being hurt

These thoughts remind of a book I read years ago entitled Don't Waste Your Sorrows. I think that capsules what my thoughts are around this subject.

As I continue my journey through life, I want to forgive and remember. That's a very hard balancing act like walking a high wire. If I start leaning too heavily on the remembering side, I could fall into bitterness. If I start leaning too far on the forgiving side without remembering, I could fall into being gullible and deceived.

Isn't life a wonderful adventure? Learning and growing that keeps going, kind of like the pink bunny.
MB

Grandson Logan

2009-07-21T05:40:00.003-05:00

Isn't this a great picture?

Logan, one of our seven grandsons, has spent several weeks in Peru on a mission trip. He's heading home tonight.

Friends and relatives could follow the trip by reading the leaders' posts on a blog site, see pictures taken during each day, and then could write comments, which were read to the team each evening as they gathered.

This picture is one of the pictures that was posted.

I was quite taken with this picture. We see and hear so much about teens doing crazy and odd things and not being very serious about life or their faith. I thought this picture really captured a teen's heart and actions, at least for this day and this moment.

A comparable picture could probably be taken of any and all teens at a particular time or moment in their life, but this happened to be of Logan and proud Grams wanted to share.
MB

What? That's In Me? NO!

2009-06-17T05:07:00.004-05:00

My, my, where does the time go? I can't believe it's been almost a month since I wrote a post on this blog. I have been busy. Who isn't? And I have had lots of thoughts and ideas of things to write about, but just haven't.

Today in My Utmost for His Highest the reading is something that especially spoke to me because it speaks to a basic struggle of mine. I'm a perfectionist by nature and that is good for my job as an editor. That particular character quality however plays havoc with personal relationships. It's as natural to me to size up a situation or person and to make a snap judgment, which way too often leads to judgment and criticism. An editor is supposed to do that. A relational person cannot do that.

Thus, the reading for today speaks to me. Here it is:

"Judge not, that ye be not judged." Matthew 7:1

Jesus says regarding judging - Don't. The average Christian is the most penetratingly critical individual. Criticism is a part of the ordinary faculty of man; but in the spiritual domain nothing is accomplished by criticism. The effect of criticism is a dividing up of the powers of the one criticized; the Holy Ghost is the only One in the true position to criticize, He alone is able to show what is wrong without hurting and wounding. It is impossible to enter into communion with God when you are in a critical temper; it makes you hard and vindictive and cruel, and leaves you with the flattering unction that you are a superior person. Jesus says, as a disciple cultivate the uncritical temper. It is not done once and for all. Beware of anything that puts you in the superior person's place.

There is no getting away from the penetration of Jesus. If I see the mote in your eye, it means I have a beam in my own. Every wrong thing that I see in you, God locates in me. Every time I judge, I condemn myself (see Romans 2:17-20). Stop having a measuring rod for other people. There is always one fact more in every man's case about which we know nothing. The first thing God does is to give us a spiritual spring-cleaning; there is no possibility of pride left in a man after that. I have never met the man I could despair of after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God.

Is this not a great writing?

I have already discovered an interesting thing in others, which is probably as evident in me to others as theirs is to me. That "thing" is when I hear someone complain loudly or long about something or criticize another, I usually see that characteristic strongly in the one talking. Paul and I have had a good time discussing that fact.

Personal lesson in that for me is when I find myself criticizing or angry at another over a certain thing, I have learned to look at why that is so disturbing. Way too often I find that I have that very same thing within and to a larger degree, but unrecognized. It's been an interesting journey down this road. My unrecognized characteristics that I'm blind to are touched and make me angry and upset with someone else who shows those characteristics. Methinks this wouldn't happen if I didn't already have something similar in me to touch. Interesting, interesting.

Don't you think that's amazing? As I am open to letting myself think this through, I am learning a lot about myself. That's what most of Oswald Chamber's writings do for me. He puts into words what I'm already learning intuitively, so that when I read it, I say YES! That is so true!

Did you notice I used present tense in the previous paragraph? I wrote, "He puts" as if he's still alive. I think relational truth remains active and present no matter when it's written. With that, I close. MB

Tough Times

2009-05-21T06:15:00.003-05:00

The present economic crisis has hit home!

This last week I had to lay off three of the fifteen people under my supervision. Another was released but renewed for a short time to help us get through the summer.

This is one of the hardest parts of being a manager. I don't do this easily. And one of the ones I had to lay off was my own sister. Ouch! I know this is all just business, but for me it's hard to make these decisions and then let the people know that they no longer have a job. One of the team members I had to let go immediately made plans to sell her car and cancel their cable subscription. I have to distance just a bit and not feel so responsible. But, it's hard.

As I've said before, I read Oswald Chambers almost every morning, at least most mornings. This morning the subject was the verse about "seek ye first..." I've always read that verse like don't even think about the physical things of life, just be concerned about the spiritual and all will be taken care of.

Well, I've lived long enough to know I'm not reading that right. I've seen too many people abuse the interpretation of that scripture and literally become "spiritual" beggars. I watch that and think that something is wrong here. So I've hit the middle of the road on this one. My philosophy is to be very responsible and take care of yourself so you can be free to help others. BUT you must be personally responsible!! We're not to worry about our physical needs, but we are to be responsible.

Imagine my surprise when I reread this devotional. That's exactly how Oswald Chambers seems to be interpreting this verse. I think the point of my post this morning is to show how much our personal filter interprets for us what we're reading and hearing. I would have sworn that OC was saying don't even think about your personal needs, just let God take care of them. Put your mind on the things of God and don't even think about physical things. But that was how I was reading what he was saying through my own personal filter.

Today I read it quite differently. I read it the very same way I've grown to interpret that verse. Imagine that! OC didn't change; he's been dead a long time. So what changed? My whole way of thinking and living, and now I read what is really being said. May I remember this lesson for a very long time: I'm not to be anxious or to worry over the physical things, I'm to be very responsible about them as I put the things of God as a top priority.

Here's OC's devotional for today:

DIVINE REASONINGS OF FAITH
"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Matthew 6:33

Immediately we look at these words of Jesus, we find them the most revolutionary statement human ears ever listened to. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." We argue in exactly the opposite way, even the most spiritually-minded of us - "But I must live; I must make so much money; I must be clothed; I must be fed." The great concern of our lives is not the kingdom of God, but how we are to fit ourselves to live. Jesus reverses the order: Get rightly related to God first, maintain that as the great care of your life, and never put the concern of your care on the other things.

"Take no thought for your life. . . ." Our Lord points out the utter unreasonableness from His standpoint of being so anxious over the means of living. Jesus is not saying that the man who takes thought for nothing is blessed - that man is a fool. Jesus taught that a disciple has to make his relationship to God the dominating concentration of his life, and to be carefully careless about every thing else in comparison to that. Jesus is saying - "Don't make the ruling factor of your life what you shall eat and what you shall drink, but be concentrated absolutely on God." Some people are careless over what they eat and drink, and they suffer for it; they are careless about what they wear, and they look as they have no business to look; they are careless about their earthly affairs, and God holds them responsible. Jesus is saying that the great care of the life is to put the relationship to God first, and everything else second.

It is one of the severest disciplines of the Christian life to allow the Holy Spirit to bring us into harmony with the teaching of Jesus in these verses.

Today's reality check for me is that feeling responsible and being responsible is very much a part of a believer's life. I cannot take that lightly. But foundational is that God is in charge and I can be responsible and let go of the anxiety and worries about myself and others. It helps in these tough times!
MB

Intimacy: Discipline or Enjoyment

2009-05-12T06:35:00.003-05:00

I recently heard a sermon on intimacy with Christ, and it was all about the disciplines.

I've ruminated on the theme of that sermon. I remember when I thought the Christian life was all about the disciplines. I tried so hard. I had my checklist. I had my prayer list. I had my 2959 notebook. I did, I did, I did.

Then one day I realized that my Christian life was not about performing and doing. It was about being and enjoying.

As Paul and I were discussing this and expressing what we've come to understand and live, I used the illustration of a piece of chocolate pie. Do I have to discipline myself to enjoy that piece of pie? Do I have to learn about chocolate? Do I have to inspect the recipe? Do I have to question who made it? Do I need to talk about it? OR do I need to eat and enjoy? I love the verse, "O taste and see that the Lord is good."

My handsome feller, not to be outdone by my illustration, suggested that he thought of kissing his wife. That's me. (To be grammatically correct, That's I. Sorry, I do digress.)

His is a much better illustration because "intimacy" sometimes involves kissing the one you love. His questions: Do I time how long our kisses lasts? Do I study the anatomy of a kiss? Do I worry about if I'm doing it right? OR Do I just kiss and enjoy?

Both of us left a long time ago the thought that you meet God at church or you meet God in your closet. You might actually "meet" Him there. But you don't necessarily "enjoy" him there. We have learned that we meet God and enjoy Him every minute of every day in every activity we are involved in. There's no such thing to us as being disciplined to meet God. That's almost a foreign language to us any more. Our struggle is just forgetting to enjoy Him, always and forever.

So, whether Paul's riding his motorcycle or I'm busy at work editing math books, we're fellowshipping with Him and enjoying Him. Or whether we're at church or with our family, whatever we're involved in, He is with us and we are called to enjoy intimacy with Him without interruption. What could be better than that?

As I exit talks, sermons, and teachings on being with Christ our Saviour, I want to do the excitement dance and leap for joy. I don't want to go away shamed, sad, and sure I will never be able to perform or DO what's required. That's the gospel I've embraced and am enjoying living.

Eating chocolate pie, kissing my feller, intimacy with Christ––all enjoyable and exciting experiences in my life. Nothing I dread or have to discipline myself to do.

Give Me Liberty...

2009-05-06T05:10:00.003-05:00

For years I have read the daily devotionals of Oswald Chambers in his book My Utmost for His Highest. Now there's a Web site where the daily devotionals can be read online. My personal book is earmarked, dated, has notes in it, and a few pages are even a little tear stained.

I thought today's reading, May 6, is appropriate and timely because of some arguments and discussions making the rounds in some SBC circles. Interestingly Oswald Chambers died in 1917, so his devotionals were written a long time ago, but remain relevant.

LIBERTY ON THE ABYSS OF THE GOSPEL
"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free." Galatians 5:1

A spiritually minded man will never come to you with the demand - "Believe this and that;" but with the demand that you square your life with the standards of Jesus. We are not asked to believe the Bible, but to believe the One Whom the Bible reveals (cf. John 5:39-40). We are called to present liberty of conscience, not liberty of view. If we are free with the liberty of Christ, others will be brought into that same liberty - the liberty of realizing the dominance of Jesus Christ.

Always keep your life measured by the standards of Jesus. Bow your neck to His yoke alone, and to no other yoke whatever; and be careful to see that you never bind a yoke on others that is not placed by Jesus Christ. It takes God a long time to get us out of the way of thinking that unless everyone sees as we do, they must be wrong. That is never God's view. There is only one liberty, the liberty of Jesus at work in our conscience enabling us to do what is right.

Don't get impatient, remember how God dealt with you - with patience and with gentleness; but never water down the truth of God. Let it have its way and never apologize for it. Jesus said, "Go and make disciples," not "make converts to your opinions."

Here's what the Web site says about the author:
Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) was a Scottish minister and teacher whose teachings on the life of faith and abandonment to God have endured to this day.

Biblical Theology OR Relational Love??

2009-04-28T04:48:00.003-05:00

A couple of weeks ago Paul and I traveled to Jackson MS to attend a conference. We were drawn to the conference because Malcolm Smith was one of the speakers. We credit Malcolm Smith tapes with starting us on the grace vs performance journey way back in the late seventies and early eighties. We hadn't heard of him for a few years, so we made a spur of the moment decision to go. The conference was entitled "The Shack" and featured William Paul Young, the author of The Shack.

The conference was put on by a ministry that has an interesting name, Perichoresis. (I had to look that one up.) Seems the conference wanted to focus on the Trinity, one of the subjects that is causing many problems to theologians who read the book, The Shack.

I downloaded the audio book to my iPhone so we could listen again to The Shack as we made the long road trip to and from Jackson. I got a lot more out of the book listening than I did reading it. We also stopped the recording and had discussions along the way. Great way to get the most out of a book.

Some of my friends and family have been asking when am I going to write about our trip and the conference and about the book. I found this blog written by DeHaan, the organization that puts on Radio Bible Class and publishing Our Daily Bread. These have been staples in my life since I was a child. After reading this blog and the comments,
Mart DeHaan, I decided I could not improve on it. If you're interested, read the blog and the comments. It's a pretty thorough coverage of Mr. DeHaan's view of the book. His excerpts were some of the ones I would have chosen. He does a great job and then the comments have some good arguments. Why repeat something that's already been done so well? I'll just link to it. :-)

My question: The book and the author are about the love relationship of the Trinity with humans. My desire and longing is to encounter someone or a group who has good strong Biblical theology PLUS a good strong relational walk and talk. One could almost begin to believe these are mutually exclusive. I've seen so many who have sound theology but somehow that too often translates into critical, harsh, unloving, and sometimes downright mean ways of relating. Then on the other side of the coin, those who show love and have great relationships seem to be weak in sound Biblical theology, or at least I have some disagreements about some of the ways the Bible is interpreted and then set forth as teachings and theological stances.

All of this prompts me to question: Is there a group or a theological way of thinking that emphasizes both? I'm on a hunt!
MB

A View of The Shack

2009-04-11T21:49:00.004-05:00

I was surfing on YouTube and put in The Shack. Up popped many links and things to choose from. I watched a few and they were mostly saying to stay away from it, or as one put it, "Stay Out of The Shack."

I then found this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK8gm0C3MCU&feature=related

It's worth watching. The writer identifies himself or rather his credentials, and he talks about the strengths and weaknesses of the book. I was braced for another video that gave all the scriptures and the reasons one shouldn't read the book and should steer completely clear of it. Pleasant surprise.

I copied the link. Hope it works for you if you're interested.
Mary B.

Lessons from The Shack

2009-04-09T05:30:00.003-05:00

I've had an interesting few days.

Last Saturday and Sunday we drove to Enid to hear William Paul Young, author of The Shack, speak. It was an incredible experience. I was so touched and so moved and wanted to write about it, but I had to wait and absorb and think about it. I had to sort of analyze exactly what I had responded to. Was it the message? Was it the speaker? What was it? While I was thinking on this, Wade posted about the conference.

I couldn't wait, so I attempted to write something of what I felt and why.

Then one of the commenters posted a comment about what I had written:

He said: (quoting me) "I experienced love. I was immediately reminded of the verse, 'Did not our hearts burn within us?' I don't experience that very much." (He continued.) Oh, give me a break. The Christian faith may have subjective elements but we do not define what is true or false by some sort of "burning in the bosom" but rather we have an objective faith based on the word of God which the venerable Mr. Young derides as reducing the voice of God to mere words on paper. Besides, couldn't your burning heart have as much to do with that Nuclear sauce you had with your chicken at Zaxby's? You know it could. Don't front like you don't know.

Hmmm...My dear sweet handsome feller took great umbrage at these remarks and immediately wrote a strong response, which he didn't post. His mistake was waiting to tell me what he was going to do when he picked me up for lunch. I said, "No, not on my account, you're not. I don't need protecting, and I can take care of this myself." It took quite a bit of "funning" and strong argument to convince him that it was okay. He finally agreed to let it drop.

I must admit that at first I was a little taken aback that someone would write like that and make fun of something that was so meaningful for me. It's not easy for me to talk about my feelings in a public forum like that, but I thought it worth the risk. And then this comment appeared.

I went back and read what I wrote and actually thought that someone like the commenter could get the impression he did. He doesn't know me, he didn't experience the weekend, and he already has something against the book and the author. Understandable.

I kind of wanted to say "Touché."

The commenter exactly proved my point. Isn't that funny?

Now, I can truly say what happened to me last weekend. I'm not angry at the comments made to me and about me. It's okay. I think I'm experiencing love for others, even those who mistreat me, albeit just with words. I love this guy and honestly wonder what is "his story" that he could comment like that to someone he doesn't even know, and especially in this context.

Lessons learned: It's okay to expose my feelings to others, no matter their response. It's possible to love and not to get angry at someone who ridicules or treats harshly my tender feelings. Perhaps I had a change-point in my life last weekend. I met God and experienced His love in a new and fresh way. That's what happened to me last weekend.

Thanks to the blog commenter for helping me come to understanding. It helped me clarify what happened to me last weekend. And would I have known had this event not happened?

Best lesson learned: don't waste any of life's experiences to share the love I have been given and continually receive. How great is that?
MB

Teaching Socialism

2009-04-03T21:00:00.001-05:00

My brother in Austin sent me this article in an e-mail. I think the application is self-explanatory. MB

An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said ok, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism.

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great; but when government takes all the reward away; no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that....

NOT! I Beg To Differ!

2009-03-28T05:57:00.005-05:00

One of the comments in the comment section of Wade's blog recently read:

"At another point, Ware also said one reason men abuse their wives is because women rebel against their husband’s God-given authority."

And the writer was agreeing and proving a point. And the writer was a pastor.

I counseled a woman who drove to my home from her hometown to verify with me what her pastor told her. She was being physically abused by her husband and they were both members of the church where this man was the pastor. His advice to her was, "Didn't Jesus die for you? Why aren't you willing to die for your husband?"

I was aghast, but tried not to show my disgust at the pastor's advice to this woman.

What is wrong with people? What is wrong with some pastors and their advice?

I've also counseled a woman who discovered her husband was sexually molesting their child, and this wife was told that he sought tender care and love from someone who could give it to him since she wasn't.

WHAT??!!

I counseled this woman that no matter what she did or how she acted in her marriage, there is not a reason under heaven that allows this man to sexually abuse their daughter. NONE!

And to the woman above who had suffered severe injuries from her husband trying to make her "submissive" I carefully and quietly told her no one could die for another like Jesus did. Also, Jesus' death sufficed for all. That type of reasoning by the pastor is way off base.

Saying that sometimes a man abuses his wife because she is rebelling against his God-given authority is ludicrous. There is never any reason that excuses or allows a man to do this. I don't care if she's being the worst wife imaginable. NONE! No excuse and no reason. I think a man thought this up. Poor fellow. Don't you wonder sometimes what drives people?

I thought this type of thinking was changing over time and that no one seriously entertained these thoughts any more. Then I read the quote on Wade's blog of one pastor saying what another pastor had said, and they both truly believe it.

I guess you can tell, nothing riles me more than hearing statements like this. Even more galling is hearing or reading that spiritual leaders of people espouse this as Biblical truth.

Take the quoted statement above: "...one reason men abuse their wives is because women rebel against their husband's God-given authority." I would like to ask for Biblical exegesis to prove this statement. I would like to ask this man's family how he lives this belief. I would like to ask the community in which this man lives if they are drawn to this man to ask of him "a reason of the hope that is in him."

I work in corporate America and attending church and hearing "truths" like this makes me think I've stepped back fifty or more years. It's sad to me that being a professional woman I have to think that our "gospel" is presented in such a way and interpreted in such a way as to turn people away instead of drawing them in because of the true message.

Heaven help us! And I mean that literally.

Well, that's my sound-off for this writing.
Mary B.

Expressing Sympathy

2009-03-15T14:34:00.002-05:00

Many people have called and expressed sympathy about our losing our coworker in death last month.

Most have been genuine expressions of sympathy and were well given and gratefully received.

However, some expressions were attempts to help or to fix the grief-stricken, I being one.
One commenter said, "Well, God just needed Sherri more in heaven than on earth!" I reacted inwardly to that statement and wanted to (but didn't) say, "And how's that?" And also, "And how do you know that?"

Others, also meaning well, said don't dwell on missing her, just remember the good times!!

You know what? I want to cry. I want to grieve. I want to miss her. I need to feel the hurt and pain of losing someone very special!!

And, I don't want someone trying to fix me or to hurry up my personal process of letting my grief do its work and letting my memories and my feelings get into place, and I'll be okay. Let me be the judge of my own process, my own timing, and my own grief!

Do I sound a little angry and cynical? I probably am, but I've been through this before with other deaths in my family, and I'm not near as reactive as I used to be. Now I mostly just chuckle and shrug and pray that I'll remember how those comments made me feel and that I won't make the same mistake when I comment to someone in grief.

So, what is a good response?

My opinion is when you go to express sympathy to someone, just cry with the one in grief, give them a big hug, and say something simple like, "I know you'll miss them," or say nothing at all. Just feel with them and be there. That's the best possible response. IMHO

I received a long-distance phone call and the person said a few "right" phrases rather quickly and then was gone. My immediate thought was that she could now check that off her to-do list. That's what it felt like. Again, maybe nothing said is better than saying canned phrases.

Perhaps this post is really for me to remind myself anew about how to express sympathy to someone in grief. Maybe it's a good reminder for you if you've stopped by and read this.

Just thinking through some things...
MB

Truth and Freedom

2009-02-25T04:37:00.003-06:00

"You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free." I've always loved that verse. It's comforting and foundational to me.

But there is a point or process you have to go through to get to the truth.

Recently I got "taken" by an ad that said "get this free, only pay postage." I rarely order things like this, but I did. Here was the hook. This was guaranteed to help you lose that 10 or 20 pounds that is so hard to get rid of, and especially someone who's my age. And it's this wonderful discovery from an acai berry that has all of these benefits. It's natural and it will do wonders. Hooked!

But, my thinking was, how can I go wrong if it's free?!!

Here's how! The fine print.

The fine print said that you get the first two weeks free, but if you keep the bottle, that free bottle you ordered, then you will owe for the whole bottle. Not only that, but you have, unknown to you, signed up to receive every month another bottle for $44.95. Not only that, but you have now joined something called Fit-Fac online, which you are charged $29.95 a month every month. I've yet to figure out what this is.

Luckily I charged this to a credit card and not to my bank account. I returned the second bottle I received and I sent it through registered, certified mail where I get a receipt. The recipient is supposed to sign a card that they've received the bottle back and then I get the card back in the mail, as proof of returned merchandise. I've yet to receive that signed card, but I have my proof! I then called the Fit-Fac number to stop whatever that was, but I was always put on hold and had to listen to terrible static, skipping music. I never could get a person to talk to.

I then contacted my credit card company and talked to a very helpful customer service person. He was very familiar with the complaints I was making. It was almost funny how well he knew what I was going to say before I said it. He filled out the papers and said he was "contesting" the charges. I thanked him, and I said that no matter what happens with the charges already made, I want to file a "no-pay" to these two charges. Grrr....!!!

What a price of time, energy, and money to get out of something that was "free" and going to give me wonderful benefits.

Reality check: this lesson could be applied to many things in life. Much seems free and enjoyable. Are we always sure we know the fine print that comes with it and the hidden prices we will pay?

Reality check #2: Being "taken" once is just a mistake. If I get taken twice, I might be called stupid. Being open and sharing my mistake may make it possible for someone else to be spared. Hopefully you don't have to have a personal experience to learn this lesson; you can learn from mine.

Pulling myself out of a mess, but I have gotten to the "truth" and I'm being set free!! at least from products and charges I didn't knowingly agree to. Good lesson to translate into more important life experiences.
MB

A Good Sermon

2009-02-14T10:41:00.002-06:00

Being married to a preacher for many years, I've been exposed to many definitions of what is a preacher? what makes a good preacher? what constitutes a good sermon? and many more.

A friend of mine sent me this quote in an e-mail:

Preaching is the art of making a sermon and delivering it. Why no, that is not preaching. Preaching is the art of making a preacher, and delivering that. Preaching is the outrush of soul in speech. Therefore, the elemental business in preaching is not with the preaching but with the preacher. It is no trouble to preach, but a vast trouble to construct a preacher. What then, in the light of this is the task of a preacher? (or of anyone sharing his or her faith). Mainly this, the amassing of a great soul so as to have something worthwhile to give. The sermon is the preacher up to date.

Bishop Alfred Quayle
American Methodist Bishop (1860-1925)

I really like this quote.

Over the years the many compliments I've heard on my "preacher-man" have mostly been about how real he is, and how people forget they're hearing a sermon. They think he's speaking individually to them; others say they're amazed at how he shares who and where he is in life and how that pertains so much to their journey.

I'm married to a great sermon; i.e., a preacher who is up to date.
Guess that's why I liked this quote.
MB

True Love: Fruit of Eden

2009-01-27T06:48:00.002-06:00

The title of chapter 14 in the book, "Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart", is True Love Is the Apple of Eden.

That title fascinates me. First, we don't know that the fruit eaten by Adam and Eve was an apple, just a point to clarify.

As I read the chapter I laughingly agreed with what the author, Dr. Gordon Livingston, was saying.

In a nutshell, I interpret what he's saying is that we as human beings have such a desire and longing for true love that we will sacrifice everything in order to get it, even the anger of God by disobeying Him.

The author then proceeds to show how foolish we are. He doesn't say this, but he does ask in a way, "Is there such a thing?"

One of the paragraphs says: When I listen to comments from elderly people who have been married fifty, sixty, or more years answering the inevitable question about "the secret to a successful marriage," it seems to me that a high tolerance for boredom often heads the list. Such bromides as "We never went to bed angry" or "Moderation in all things" convey a philosophy more geared to survival than to pleasure. Where, one wonders, is the idea of endless, renewable love?

I've laughed and laughed at that paragraph. We will celebrate our fifty years of marriage in May. If we were asked that question, we could definitely not say we never went to bed angry or that we have been moderate in all things. We've been very angry many times with each other and sometimes it took days to resolve. These days it takes much less time. Progress. And moderation has rarely been our motto. We tend to go from one extreme to another, but we have fun. Eventually we sometimes come to a moderation type of thinking. Sometimes.

I think I would answer that "inevitable" question if asked on our fiftieth, that it was very, very hard work. We both decided to grow in healthy emotional ways on our own, and from that we hoped to grow healthy in our partnership.

I think either one of us could have probably made a good relationship with someone else. It so happens we chose each other and it's been an adventure. I look back at my early thoughts about finding the "right" person and finding "true love" that would last a lifetime, and chuckle at how silly that type of thinking is. I do think I have the "right" person and that we do have good, true love. However, I do believe that is the result of sticking with it, working hard, and always growing individually without blaming or depending on the other one.

The result of the hard work and staying with it has rewards and benefits too long to list. I highly recommend it. Enjoying a relationship is the result of staying with it and putting some work into it.

Bottomline: As long as one thinks that true love is some elusive thing to hunt for and if you're lucky, found and enjoyed and you'll live happily ever after, it will be to that one the fruit of Eden. Would that we could all learn this lesson early and well.
MB

Relationship Control

2009-01-18T06:17:00.002-06:00

No. 5 in the book, Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart, is "Any relationship is under the control of the person who cares the least."

Isn't that an interesting thought to think about. The author's comments on this concept are pretty negative. He brings out that when a couple marries, they have a fifty-fifty chance of making it. And his perspective is one of a counselor who sees people who are desperate and need help. He brings out that the one wanting the relationship to work is pushing the other less interested party. Thus the control issue.

After I read this, I've been ruminating on it. And I've decided I really agree with this. I don't think I would have ever phrased it this way, but it is so true. I mentioned in the comments section of the last post that usually when we hear something said or taught, it strikes us as real truth because we've already experienced it in our lives, but just haven't put it into a thought or expression. And our response in those situations is YES! And that's my response to this truth. Yes!

I've done some talks on the giver-taker relationship. And I end up saying that a true relationship is one where each person is giving at times and able to take at times. And it should be about equal with each person in the relationship.

My personal experience in this area has been one of usually giving and very uncomfortable with saying I needed help and taking help, advice, or comfort from others. My awakening experience in that area was a time in my life when I was hurting, more than I ever had. I needed someone.

But those I turned to ran from me because they weren't comfortable with a needy me. That was quite a learning experience. I changed gradually over time and took myself out of the always-advising role and made myself vulnerable in areas where I needed help.

Another relational area where I learned this is when my children became adults. I continued in the parental advising role even though they, especially my girls, had established their own families. I remember well the day I said to my oldest daughter that I had no words of advice, that I had confidence in her and her decisions, and I would be waiting to hear how she had resolved the situation. Her response to me was that she didn't like this new way of functioning. I held to my stance and we "untangled" an unhealthy way of relating that we had established. It wasn't easy, but I'm here to say, it's the very best and it works very well.

I guess that's why I knew intuitively that this concept that Dr. Livingston presents is true. I have already experienced it in different areas. I would have said it this way: work on your relationships so that you are a giver only fifty percent of the time and that you are a taker equally as long. Of course, someone who's a taker all the time needs to work on being a giver.

Hope you see how all of this relates. Makes sense to me. : )
MB

Courage of Laughter

2009-01-08T05:41:00.003-06:00

Of all the forms of courage, the ability to laugh is the most profoundly therapeutic.

This quote is Number 28 of 30 in the book, Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart.

Here are some of the ideas presented in this chapter:

People find it hard to entertain two emotions simultaneously.

What is important about laughter in our lives? If you ask people, even when they are depressed, if they have a good sense of humor, the answer is nearly uniformly "yes." ...even though ample evidence to the contrary.

What gives humor its power in our lives is that a capacity for laughter is one of the two characteristics that separate us from other animals. The other, as far as we know, is the ability to contemplate our own death. There is a connection between these two uniquely human attributes that cuts to the heart of the great paradox of life: It is possible to be happy in the face of our mortality.

To be able to experience fully the sadness and absurdity that life so often presents and still find reasons to go on is an act of courage abetted by our ability to both love and laugh.

Humor also is a form of sharing, an interpersonal exercise. To share laughter is a way of affirming that we are all in this lifeboat together. The sea surrounds us; rescue is uncertain; control is illusory. Still, we sail on--together.

Those are some of the high points in this chapter.

A personal word: We are finding in these our later years that as long as we can find humor in a situation, we are able to enjoy life. Interestingly, we laugh a lot. Everything seems funny, and it's mostly at ourselves. We often say, "As long as we can keep laughing, we will be okay."

Of course there are sad times and occasions, but we don't dwell there too long. We move on.

The other day we were watching TV and Paul made a comment of observation. We looked at each other and then started laughing and we couldn't stop. I couldn't catch my breath. It wasn't the words, it was the interaction and we both interpreted the same funny way. Quite enjoyable. And we missed a few minutes of the TV program until we could quit laughing.

I've often heard that growing old is only for the courageous. I agree with Dr. Livingston, this author, that the most profoundly therapeutic form of courage is laughter.
MB

Logic vs Emotion

2008-12-30T04:59:00.003-06:00

In recent days I received two gift cards to two different bookstores, and also a gift certificate from the publishing company where I work. I immediately used the gift cards and selected my company gift books. I'm overloaded with great books just waiting to be read and enjoyed.

One small book I chose is entitled Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart. The title caught my attention and then the thirty chapter titles clinched my decision to get that book. This is one book I have already read. It's great. Yes, I'm definitely too soon old and too late smart.

One of the best chapter titles is "It is difficult to remove by logic an idea not placed there by logic in the first place."

We couldn't quit laughing at that one. I'm well known for being a logical, practical thinker and speaker. When a problem arises, I immediately shift into the non-emotional, practical and logical way of looking at things. Drives the people close to me, who are more attuned to their emotional side, a little crazy.

The author of the book, Dr. Gordon Livingston, makes some interesting points and observations:

In fact, it sometimes seems that we are so trapped in ineffectual life patterns that we are playing out the old military adage: If it doesn't work, double it. The motivations and habit patterns that underlie most of our behavior are seldom logical; we are much more often driven by impulses, preconceptions, and emotions of which we are only dimly aware.

He ends the chapter with:
Finally, when struggling to overcome maladaptive behaviors by the use of logic, one is often confronted with the fact that some ignorance is invincible. People can become so wedded to their particular view of how things should work that they ignore all evidence that suggests that change is necessary.

So what is the reality check here? For me, a logical person, it helps me understand that I'm coming at things quite differently than other, more balanced friends and loved ones. I need to get more in touch with my emotional side, I need to listen and understand other's emotional viewpoints, and I am helped by understanding that logic sometimes leaves others feeling misunderstood and not heard.

It's true that others may need more logic in their outlook on life, but I'm realizing I need a more balanced approach to communication and connecting to the important people in my life. It's a great lesson and a fun one to learn and apply.

I want to share more fun things I'm reading in this book. Hopefully, it won't be so long in between posts. We'll see.
MB

The Big Three

2008-12-05T04:46:00.002-06:00

Have you ever heard in business that there are three basic things a business wants and needs as it produces products, but in actuality can only have two of those.

The three are: good quality, fast service, low cost.

It's common knowledge in business that you pick the two you can have because having three is impossible. You can get good quality and have it quickly, but it will cost you. If you want something quickly and cheap, you won't have good quality. And finally, if you want good quality but you don't want to pay so much, you'll have to wait for it because it will not be done quickly.

Then what happens when you're with a company is you soon learn what their emphasis is, or what their two choices are.

The company I worked for a few years ago obviously chose quality first and foremost and second they chose a good schedule or fast service no matter the cost. The founder had a story told about him that when one of his books was published and he found numerous mistakes in them that he built a big bonfire and burned them all. He then had the team start over and produce a quality book. At that time excellent quality was the one and only consideration.

I've worked for several different companies since then. Nowhere has quality been the number one priority since that first experience. That was quite a culture shock. I was continually called on the carpet because I was taking too long to make sure there were as few mistakes as possible. The transition was quite frustrating and actually somewhat painful.

I've now adjusted and I tell my work team: Let's do what we can the best we can within the time we have. We often have to let too much go by, and once a mistake is in the product it almost takes an act of Congress to get it corrected. It becomes extremely important to do excellent work from the get-go and then let it go.

How does this apply to a reality check? We are in relationship with a God who does all three. He is the epitome of quality, the very best. He always delivers on time, exactly on time. And do we even need to discuss the "cost"? Having this relationship as a foundation makes the rest of life, including the allowances that have to be made in other areas, acceptable because we know that the things that really matter are covered.

My thoughts at this time-
MB

Colorful Living

2008-11-10T05:49:00.002-06:00

We could learn a lot from crayons.

Some are sharp,
some are pretty,
and some are dull.

Some have weird names and all are different colours,
but they all have to live in the same box.

Just a thought.
MB

Look Alikes?

2008-10-16T04:16:00.005-05:00

Below are two baby pictures. The first is a picture of me as a baby. The second is a picture of my youngest granddaughter.

When I first saw this baby picture of Sierra, I was struck at how much it reminded me of mine. I quickly dug through the old pictures and found the one I was remembering.

Although we are 58 years apart in age, this little girl grabs my heart each time I am with her. She's very caring, and last Sunday we treated her to a banana split and a couple of presents celebrating her ninth birthday.

She had never noticed Paul's carotid artery surgery scars, and it was a movie in the making to watch her discover them. She did it all with looks, a look of discovery, then a look of questioning, and when explained, looks of loving and caring. She laid her head on Paul's chest and just loved on him. It was such a freeze frame moment. Paul was raw emotionally from having buried his Mom a few days before, and just watching the two of them was special!

My reality check was going to be that I hope I'm a good role model to this young girl. As I've written this I've changed my mind. My reality check is really that I hope I can be as transparent, as loving, and as caring as this little girl. One of my favorite sayings is "Love like you've never been hurt." That's so much harder to do than to say. Seeing that attitude in a young girl is a real challenge to me. I hope I can be like her.
MB

Fans and Family

2008-10-12T05:23:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, we attended the OU/TX football game at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. Our grandson bought the tickets and told us that he got tickets in the Texas section and he hoped that was okay. From our picture here, can you tell whom we are for? Pretty obvious, right?

Now, look at Ty's picture. Whom do you think he is for? We walked by one fan outside the stadium and he remarked when he saw Ty, "Now, there's an obviously neutral fan." Ty didn't have on the burnt orange of UT or the crimson red of OU.

Now, here's the "reality check" I want to write about in this post. Ty wasn't neutral, but I didn't catch on until well into the first quarter. He was yelling loudly for UT. OU made the best plays right at first, making a touchdown on their first possession, so I didn't realize that Ty was not for OU because I was so busy standing and yelling and yelling "Boomer-Sooner" at the top of my lungs that I didn't notice that Ty was calm and just watching. I think I thought he just wasn't going to be a loud fan, and than I had the thought I might be embarrassing him. But, I quickly dismissed that and went right on being a good OU fan. :)

Then a strange thing happened. When UT made a good play or stopped OU, Ty would stand and yell and give a loud "YEAH!" What? And then it dawned on me, he is for UT and maybe he purposely bought tickets smack dab in the middle of UT fans. Huh? How could this Grams be so dense? Ty lived almost all of his developmental years in Texas and was never very fond of Oklahoma. He's a die-hard UT fan! Well, duh!

Here's the point of this post: (finally :)

An interesting phenomenon took place in my thinking and feeling, although it took just a little transitional time. I began to laugh and enjoy the TX fans and didn't feel the previous animosity I had had toward them. Reason? Someone I loved was enjoying UT's successes. Completely changed my perspective. In the end when UT won, it was okay. I was glad for Ty. Do you find that as interesting as I do?

As all this was happening, I made the application to the SBC and all the fussing and differences within an organization that's supposed to be "family" and showing the world how to celebrate differences, rather than fighting about it. I think when your heart is really committed to the "brother" or grandson, as the case may be, that it's easy to accept and live with the differences.

Makes me wonder what's just lip service and what's real. Just a reality check taken from being football fans to other areas of life. Whether we wear our preferences out where others can see or whether we wear neutral so others have to guess, when our differences become apparent, how do we respond? I think I discovered my response shows my heart, my reality.

On Birthdays and Deathdays

2008-10-05T06:08:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, my mother-in-law, Paul's mother died. She had a peaceful death and as some would say, "a good death." I think what is meant by that is that there was not a lot of physical suffering at the end, but just more sleeping and finally a final breath.

Interestingly, the day Margaret died was also my 67th birthday. Some birthday present!! At first, I thought this is going to be bittersweet in the future, celebrating my birthday and always remembering that's the day Paul's Mom died.

But, on the other hand, it will be easy to remember what day she died, the anniversary of her death. For me, death days are hard to remember. I always have to go back and refigure or think of some signpost that helps me get the date right. That won't be true of Margaret's death date. I know!

This has caused me to wonder about something. Wonder why we don't celebrate deathdays as we do birthdays. Especially if our loved one was a believer, a Christian.

Think about it: we celebrate someone coming into this world with all its pain and suffering and we grieve when someone leaves this world to go to a better place, free of all tears and sorrow, pain and suffering. Now, how strange is this?

What would a "deathday" celebration look like? Perhaps on the death day each year later, the family would gather and reminisce about that loved one, looking at pictures and sharing memories. I know that when I go to the cemetery to the graves of my sister, my dad, my grandparents, and others, that's what I do somewhat. I think back to who they were and what they meant to me and how much I miss them.

Just a thought as I start the process of working through grief and sadness.

Friends vs Parents

2008-09-08T05:31:00.003-05:00

Recently at Paul's ministry board meeting, a board member asked our family members who were there to gather so she could take a picture. This picture was taken August 16. Front row: Melody (our daughter), yours truly, Paul, Cherri (our daughter). Back row l to r: Tony (Mel's husband), Wade (our son), Rachelle (Wade's wife), Kelly (Brett's wife), and Brett (our son). Mike (Cherri's husband) is not in the picture. He was with his mom in an unscheduled call for help she needed from him.

This picture is priceless to me as it represents people I love very much. It also prompted me to write another post regarding adult children and our relationship to them.

Early on when our children started marrying and establishing homes of their own, we began to experience something that was different for us. It didn't seem right to keep advising and treating our children as children and not as adults. It was awhile in coming, but we finally did get there.

Paul and I talked about it and realized our "parenting" days were over and had been for some time. We had done what we could, we had made many mistakes, we had done some things right, but all things considered, the time for that opportunity was over. We now wanted to be "friends" with our adult children and treat them as such, and not do the "parenting" tasks or talk any more.

So as much as we could, we then began treating our adult children as our adult friends. We didn't start out that way, especially I didn't. I was "Miss Advice-Giver." I knew how to do it all, and I was still very much in that mode. I gradually quit just giving advice and began waiting to be asked, but I was still quick-on-the-trigger with what should be done. I was going through many changes in my own life, one of which included attending a listening seminar where I learned a wonderful truth: "Don't should on people." I was such a you should person, that was a real change-point in my life. I also learned that listening was a learned relational skill that I needed to learn, to practice, and to incorporate into all my relationships. What a challenge!

Today, I think I can honestly say to and about all those other people in the above picture, these are all my adult friends. I love them very much and enjoy their friendship.

A serendipity of this is that I, the Mom, have had such a release of feeling responsible. I can truly enjoy the relationships, and I do.

Of course, we've had some criticism. Other parents and grandparents tell us and our friend-children that once a parent, always a parent. We agree with the distinction that we will always be our children's mother and father. We love that and are so glad that doesn't change. We view parenting as a role and responsibility. All we're saying is that parenting ends when the child leaves the parent's home. Relationships continue and roles change.

We love it and highly recommend this way of life. Just sharing...

On Being a Woman in Certain Circles

2008-08-30T05:47:00.003-05:00

How fun is this?

The Republican pick for VP is a woman!

Now, let's see what all the arguments will be against her. The glass ceiling is being challenged, with 18 million cracks no less.

The debate within religious circles about women leading is an interesting one. I'm a woman. I'm in the minority as far as this debate is concerned.

Speaking of minorities: We have traveled some outside the United States. Several years ago we went to Brazil on a mission trip, and we went by ourselves without a guide. We found ourselves several times in difficult situations because we did not speak Portugese. Our contact at the airport didn't make it, and we had to get to another airport without the benefit of knowing how or where and we couldn't speak the language. We made it, but I gained a new appreciation of what it means to be laughed at, to have the feeling of not belonging, and to be a minority. Not a good feeling or situation.

And being a woman in church, I've also experienced very much the same thing although under the guise of being Biblical and doing what God wants. Hmmmm.

But in the corporate world, it's very different. I'm an executive, I'm respected, I'm listened to, I'm asked for my opinion, I'm asked to lead teams and projects, and I find myself enjoying being a capable leader.

Then I go to church.

If a woman speaks up in the traditional Sunday School couples class, she's often only acknowledged and appeased, but not necessarily listened to or respected as being anyone with an opinion worth listening to. (Just my opinion.) The situation is quite different when a man might volunteer his opinion. All seem to listen with rapt attention. Hmmmmm.

Women are asked to cook and bring food. Women are asked to accompany their husbands. Women are pitied if they're left as widows.

Needless to say, it's an interesting contrast to be respected and listened to five days a week, and then go to a place where we're to relate in the deepest sense and minister and be ministered to, but to be treated like a minority person without the credentials necessary to be "someone" in this environment. And, we're supposed to invite others, our women friends, to come to this life-giving, life-changing, wonderful place? This causes me pause.

My thoughts on a woman being a leader in different settings.

A fun postscript: I have my "handsome feller" read my posts before I post them as fresh eyes to catch any mistakes and to see how the "spirit" of the writing comes across. He read this one and commented, "I hope they know you are respected and listened to at home." I can honestly and firmly say that is very true. I am respected as an equal and am a co-leader in our relationship. It's a change from how we started, and it's a place we've grown to. It's a good place!

Saddleback Debate

2008-08-21T05:19:00.002-05:00

Last Saturday night the two candidates for president answered questions on the Saddleback Civic Forum. I thought that was a very well done event. Personally, I was encouraged by both candidates' answers.

But I was really watching Rick Warren, the moderator. Years ago in Fort Worth, Rick was a seminary student at Southwestern and he was a member of the church where Paul was pastor.

I remember Rick as a slight, light-haired, rather timid young man. He was asked to sometimes play his guitar and help lead on Sunday nights. I remember he seemed shy and I often had a hard time hearing him. That's my memory.

When Rick finished seminary, he and his wife Kay packed all their belongings in their car (I think it was a Volkswagon) and headed for California. They said they felt God calling them to start a new church in CA.

Over the years we would hear how the church was growing. When it was just beginning, Rick and Kay encouraged casual dress and tried to invite each visitor and new member to their home to get better acquainted.

Once over the years, Kay called to ask me a question, and she started out saying you probably don't remember me. They were already getting famous. I quickly responded that of course I remembered her. I always think that's a funny memory.

Coming back to the present–Saturday night was an exciting time for me. It was great watching the presidential candidates, but it was extremely pleasing and satisfying to watch Rick and see what a wonderful pastor and person he has become. Time magazine called him the most influential religious man in America today, the next Billy Graham.

I remember when. . .

Just wanted to share a fun memory.

The Shack

2008-08-13T05:20:00.003-05:00

I've been reading comments and blogs criticizing people who are reading and enjoying The Shack. Mostly the critics are theologians or pastors who are trying to warn people about false theology.

I find this quite interesting. I do think it's wrong to create your theology from books like The Shack, but I also think it's wrong to condemn people for reading and enjoying these books.

Who's to say what different books, events, people speak of the love of God to different people?

I read one blog where the author wrote:

I will say that, as an allegory, it was brilliant. I don't imagine many people were too happy with Bunyan when he wrote Pilgrim's Progress either, but as an allegory, it was also brilliant for its time.

I do not read The Shack as a book on theology. I read it as fiction and as an attempt at allegory. Much like I do when I watch movies or listen to songs or anything else. Even in the most unexpected places, I am always looking for a glimpse of God; not a full description or manifesto of theology. I have seen things in Shawshank Redemption, Bruce Almighty, and Narnia that have served to bring me closer to the heart of God. I have heard songs by bands like The Brand New, Pedro the Lion, and various others that have served to help me recognize God's love and grace in new ways.

This book is no different. I wrote several quotes from the book in my journal, and this book, because of its vivid allegory has revived my spirit and soul in places that had felt stagnant and dry. It made God and his great love a step more tangible for me. . .

. . .even a book that is decent fiction and is only a story.

Where are all the haters for Narnia? Oh. . .but that's C.S. Lewis. . ."

This writer captured exactly what I think. Who can say what means God uses to speak to people? I know several people who had life-changing experiences from reading The Shack.

A couple of those people are very close to me and one has suffered extreme, unexplainable hurt in her life. This book helped. The other person suffers from performance pressure and guilt. Reading this book helped.

Who am I to say it's wrong to read this book? Or for that matter, who are these "shepherds" who are telling people, as if they're God's spokesmen and they alone speak the oracles of God, that we shouldn't read that book?

Sometimes it's difficult to control my gasping astonishment at the gall of certain leaders. I do believe there are things much more harmful in this world than reading a book that speaks to certain people of the love of God.

Seems like I read in the Bible that certain Pharisees criticized Jesus because he did things and said things that didn't correspond to their ideas of correct theology. Hmmm. . .

How about a reality check on this?

Truth or Consequences

2008-07-19T05:53:00.010-05:00

Remember that old TV show that broadcast out of New Mexico? That title reminds me of what I wanted to title this post, Changes and Consequences. Thought the old TV title might "grab" you.

Paul has been writing on his blog, vtmbottomline, about his old school/new school thinking on some subjects. One subject is the role of women in the church.

My reality check for today is to say I so agree with him and what he is saying. It's been a lifetime for me of coming to this viewpoint. I'm definitely an egalitarian. And I apply my way of thinking to every area of my life, not just the church.

In the past I've taught the total opposite and was all caught up in roles and a certain legalistic interpretation of scripture. I would often proof-text some verses, and in hindsight I see that I was making that verse say what I needed it to say.

I became aware of this change-point in my life when Paul had his first heart attack and bypass surgery. It was a scary time. I had built my life so much around him and "under" him that I remember that first night at the hospital thinking that if he died, half of me would be in the grave. What would I do?

Although as I look back now, this change had started many years before this hospital stay. I just wasn't as aware of what was happening, and it became very clear at that point.

That whole thought process of being dependent seemed to be so wrong, and it started my serious thinking about what I had believed, accepted, and taught. Nothing like a near-death experience to wake you up or make you aware of how much you, yourself, are changing and have changed.

From that point I became aware of changes I was already making in varying degrees:

Thinking for myself
Making my own decisions
Taking much more responsibility for my own life
Quit blaming him for my problems
Changing many of my ways of thinking and acting

As I have the time and opportunity, I plan to write more posts on some of my experiences and how some of these changes came about and the consequences resulting from the changes.

That's all for now.

Do I Like Me?

2008-07-13T05:04:00.007-05:00

Usually our thoughts go something like, "I wonder if others like me." I'm old enough (and wise enough ??) to know that if I don't like myself, others will find it difficult to like me. Usually that's because relating to others with the hope that they will like me makes one "leak" that "I'm needy," and that usually drives others away. I've learned if I like myself, I "leak" that. One of the things I've learned for sure: We all leak who we really are.

In John Powell's book, Happiness Is An Inside Job, the chapters are ten practices, and

Practice 1 is "We must accept ourselves as we are."

And at the beginning of each chapter he writes a summary, a looking forward to, what he will write in detail within the chapter. Here's the summary for the first chapter:

We tend to hold on to things, including ideas.

We are reluctant to give up ideas like who I am.

Yet giving up some old ideas is essential to growing.

I must learn how to let go of the static image of who I think I am.

If I am to grow, I must get unhooked from my past. I must come to realize that I am the one and only me, a person in process--always and forever learning, changing, growing.

The only important reality is who I am right now. I am not who I used to be. I am not yet who I will be. And above all I must know this: I am who I am supposed to be, and I am fully equipped to do whatever it is I am supposed to be doing with my life.

This sounds like some of that ya-da, ya-da stuff; you know yeah, yeah, we've heard this many times before, that self-acceptance stuff. But, for some reason, this really hits me as not the same ole', same ole'. Not sure if it's because I'm so familiar with the whole book or because I'm old enough to see and know the real thing when it crosses my path. I also like Powell's use of everyday language and not religious code talk that so often makes the writer sound spiritual, but too often also turns off many readers.

May I "chase a rabbit here?" But first, surely everyone knows what "chase a rabbit" means, right? Just in case: it means I'm going to go off subject here just a little and write/talk about something else. But, sometimes that rabbit is "juicy" and worth the rabbit-chase.

The rabbit: I read once that all the religious talk and all the religious rules that legalists tend to put on others produces one of two kinds: those who hear and then gladly accept all the rules and become proud that they can do this, or those who hear and know that they can't and don't want to keep all those rules and say, "I'm out of here." Results: Pharisees or rebels. The first time I read that, it gave me pause. Then I thought, that is so true! Too often people who talk or write in the religious-coded language are those who come across as not so real, at least to folks like me. I think I thought of this because the religious-talking crowd are the ones who tend to put the shoulds on others.

Anyway, Powell's short summary of the practice of self-acceptance is one of those summaries that was definitely one of the change-points in my life a few years ago. Worth sharing. May not mean much to others, but when something really grabs you and really means something to you personally, you just want to share and you hope others see it as you do. But obviously that doesn't always happen. Again, just sharing.

Happiness Is an Inside Job

2008-07-02T05:10:00.002-05:00

The title of this post is also the title of a book by John Powell. It's one of my favorite books, and it's one that I credit with having a major influence on the changes in my life.

Recently I read this quote:

"He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief which he purposes to remove." ~Samuel Johnson~

How many of us realize that our own happiness is our responsibility. We often blame our mate, our circumstances, our job, our church, and/or our friends for our lack of happiness. But, if happiness is really an inside job, then that means we have the key to our own happiness.

How revolutionary is that?

My absolutely favorite quote in Powell's book is, "Growth begins where blaming ends." So if I quit blaming others for my unhappiness, perhaps I can begin learning how to enjoy the happiness that's mine from the inside out.

I think I'll write about this concept in my next few posts.

Fun ideas to think about.

Real Talk or Religious Talk

2008-06-23T05:13:00.002-05:00

In recent days I've had several friends and family members who have faced sickness, surgeries, losing a loved one, and other life-changing events. As I have.

I've interestingly observed the differences in conversations and communication. A few fill their words with many religious phrases. Sometimes this just leaves me wondering, where's the grief? where's the natural fear? where's the sadness?

It often seems that the more religiously one talks, the less of real humanity is being experienced.

Rare is the believer I've encountered who seems real in his/her humanity and equally real in his/her God relationship. I have met a few, but not many.

Some years ago I became aware of this in my own life. I noticed that in some group meetings if someone said they had prayed about it and "God told me..." that immediately stopped all conversation and that person must be the "chosen one" because they had God's Word on it.

I also noticed that in other groups if there was a tough decision to make, someone would say let's just pray about it and let God speak. That ended it! If you had an opinion to offer, the obvious climate was, not now! I became cognizant of favorite phrases and religious talk that permeated Christian groups. I began to question, where is reality here? Can we not be who we really are, who God made us to be, and still be Christian? I sometimes wanted to scream, "Stop the canned talk! Just be real!!" But, of course, I didn't. I usually was the pastor's wife and I just kept the smile on and was questioning inside. However, I did make sure when I talked that I didn't go into that mode.

Some of my "Christian" friends would say, "Do you still believe the Bible?" I would laugh and say, of course. They had noticed my dropping and not using the language and phrases. On the contrary, non-believers would sometimes say, "You're really a different kind of Christian, not like those we can't stand to be around." Hmmm... Food for thought.

To the point I'm making today, too often (in my opinion) we as believers pull out this coded language that masks real human thoughts and feelings, and though we might think it's a testimony to how we're trusting God, it often comes across as nonsense and non-reality.

Are you now thinking I'm a heretic? I hope not, but I respect your opinion. =)

In these my latter, wisdom-filled years (JK) I have come to believe and experience that you can be fully human, fully alive, and fully Spirit-filled. You can weep and grieve and question and hurt and still know you are accepted and loved by God.

Of course, my recent experience of Paul facing two back-to-back surgeries has caused my rethinking this. Some said to me, "I know God won't let anything happen to Paul. Don't worry. He'll be okay." Oh, really?

Here's my thinking: I know Paul and I both are in God's hands. What He does and when He does it may be tough and it may not be what I would like, but it's okay. He's there. He loves both of us and He has a plan. If His plan is death, I'll hurt and grieve and cry and be sad. I'll feel my human-ness and let my humanity show. And at the exact same time, deep in my inner being I will know that I'm in His Hands!

Two examples come to mind: two sides of the same coin, and you cannot look at both sides at the same time, but you hold the entire coin.

Another example: two train tracks–one track is my humanity, the other track is God's sovereignty and control. You need both to carry your train of life, and you need both completely. If either track becomes more important than the other, the train of life is lopsided.

Well, enough of this. Those are my thoughts today and my reality check. Am I really real or religiously coated?

Question to Ponder

2008-06-16T05:10:00.002-05:00

Do I really believe what I say?

I hope so, but there come certain times and events in life where that is tested.

This is one of those times.

Today Paul, my soul mate for 49 years and counting, has surgery. The surgeon has given us the spiel including the risks. I've been here before. Paul had bypass surgery back in 1986. Since then he's had a heart attack and a stroke, both requiring hospital stays.

Each time these things happen, I'm face to face again with the question, Do I really believe what I say I believe? And I know the answer is, Yes, I do! I believe that death for the Christian is a rite of passage into a better place and a better life.

As I ponder, I realize that's not my real question. My real struggle is, Can I go on without him? If at any time Paul precedes me in death, I know I can go on, but it will be very different and not what I want to do. I jokingly tell him that if he kicks the bucket, I will kill him. He can't do that to me. We laugh, and I realize I really mean that.

My reality check today is that I have to face the small risk that something could happen. Yes, I can handle it. Death is a very real part of our lives. I don't want to, but I will and I can.

But, you know what? I hope that time is a little later for us. Whatever...

One thing I do know, that time is set. I don't know when that is, but thinking about it and realizing that is reality helps me to be prepared.

With that reality check, I'm now prepared to face what life brings for us this week. It is an adventure for sure!

Thoughts Following the Sermon

2008-05-26T05:58:00.003-05:00

Yesterday the morning sermon was from Romans 1. The subject was how does the Christian face the question of homosexuality. Is it an alternate lifestyle? Is it genetic? Can one change? What is to be our attitude?

Our pastor did a terrific job in handling this very sensitive issue. One statement he made was to "get rid of your repulsion." And he suggested that Christians pray for the people they know who are in this lifestyle.

I wrote in my notes an additional thought: we need to pray for ourselves that we will truly love all people as people and respect them and their choices.

Homosexuality in the scripture is noted as a sinful lifestyle, along with adultery, hatred, and many other sins. I do believe that homosexuality is a learned lifestyle through environment and personal tendencies. I do know a few who have been in this lifestyle and have changed. I also have several personal acquaintances who continue in this lifestyle.

I think the challenge for the Christian is to accept and love the person and at the same time hold to the truth that homosexuality is wrong. That's an almost impossible task. And one reason is that oftentimes the one living in this lifestyle insists that if you really love them, you will see and agree with their view that this is natural and is okay. They fight for acceptance.

I see a lot of the problem as the holier-than-thou attitude many Christians and whole denominations have toward people who say they are homosexuals or lesbians. Sometimes these same condemners are lenient toward heterosexual people who have affairs or who live together before marriage or who are married and have adulterous affairs. That's quite a double standard in my opinion.

In my world and my generation, the condemning of homosexually oriented people was hateful, repulsive, and filled with slurs and bad jokes.

The current generation seems to express total acceptance with no reference to a standard of morality.

The challenge to me and for me is to show grace and love to all (and not only "show," but to really BE loving and gracious from the inside out). And the second part of this challenge is learning how to hold a moral standard and to struggle with the pain of doing this as I also show love and acceptance to the person. Whew!

Is this possible?

"[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you–energizing and creating in you the power and desire–both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight." Philippians 2:13 Amplified

This, to me, is great food for thought and a true reality check.

Mother's Day 2008

2008-05-11T06:46:00.002-05:00

Today's a special day of the year, a day in which we honor our Moms. I'm always curious how things started and found the history of Mother's Day very interesting. If you're interested, check it out here: Mother's Day in the US

On this day every year I think of my parenting and ask myself if I did well as a Mom. If I look at my four children and evaluate that way, I would say I was a terrific Mom. Of course, the problem with that is that I don't think Mom's are responsible solely for how their children turn out. In fact, I think Moms do influence children, but there are so many other factors involved with how children end up that I think the kind of Mom you have plays a part, but not a huge part.

Anyway, I'm grateful for my four children of whom God allowed me to be their Mother. I'm glad they survived all my mistakes and hopefully used them to make better decisions and to become better adults.

This is a day to celebrate my Mom and to celebrate motherhood. I am a grateful child and a grateful Mom, counting my blessings.

Switching Themes

2008-05-05T05:53:00.002-05:00

I've decided to wind it up on writing about The Shack.

I've read some entries on the Internet that take to task many of the concepts and themes in The Shack.

I don't completely and wholeheartedly agree with the theology presented, but I learned a long time ago that I can glean much from many sources without requiring that the piece be 100% where I am in all areas. I think The Shack really hits readers in the emotional area of relating to God and how to do that in the midst of great heart pain and terrible events. Hopefully, we know how to read and enjoy and accept truths needed by us at that particular time, and sifting through what we might disagree with but not letting that affect our accepting wonderful insights and gaining from what we're reading.

I like to contrast doing that with thinking, praying, and relating to others with our coded "religious" language. I much prefer the first way, which is what works best for me.

As I end these posts on The Shack, it might be fun to hear from you your bottom-line statement of how reading this book has impacted you. Tell us if you have time and want to.

The Dance of Being

2008-04-24T04:17:00.004-05:00

Continuing on pulling concepts from The Shack to ruminate about. . .

I was struck by the words in Chapter 14, Verbs and Other Freedoms, especially on pages 204 and 205. Sarayu (personified wisdom) is speaking and says "For something to move from death to life you must introduce something living and moving into the mix. To move from something that is only a noun to something dynamic and unpredictable, to something living and present tense, is to move from law to grace. …"

The discussion in this chapter and on these two pages captured me. Since I work daily with words, grammar and parts of speech, I loved the truth presented in terms of nouns and verbs.

Sarayu shows that when nouns are used when referring to relationships, they are rules. Rules instead of living relationships (verbs). That made me think about how much of our teaching and practice in life are responsibilities and expectations. What a wonderful thought and realization!

The discussion goes on to point out that setting priorities is not what Papa wants. He doesn't want to be at the top of the list, or even "first among a list of values."

Do you know how much of what I've believed and taught is being challenged by this chapter? Intuitively, I know this to be true, but I haven't been able to put such words to my intuition. Every time I would try, it seemed wrong.

I have grabbed on to bits and pieces at various times. When I read a few years ago that religion makes us either Pharisees or rebels, I thought YES! Pharisees think, "Look at me. I can do all that is required of me. Why can't you?" Rebels say, "I can't do any of this. Who cares? Not me."

This chapter in The Shack says much the same thing, just in a different way.

I especially liked on page 206 when Mack says, "But if you don't have expectations and responsibilities, wouldn't everything just fall apart?"

Sarayu responds, "Only if you are of the world, apart from me and under the law. Responsibilities and expectations are the basis of guilt and shame and judgment, and they provide the essential framework that promotes performance as the basis for identity and value. You know well what it is like not to live up to someone's expectations."

I'll conclude my synopsis with what Jesus says on page 207, "Mack, I don't want to be first among a list of values. I want to be at the center of everything. … Rather than a pyramid, I want to be the center of a mobile, where everything in your life … is connected to me but moves with the wind, in and out and back and forth, in an incredible dance of being."

I love that phrase, an incredible dance of being. Who has ever described our Christian life in those terms? No one I've ever heard. But doesn't that draw you? It does me. Yes!

Am I there? Are you? I'm not. I'm far from it, but what an exciting, alluring invitation.

May I continually accept and never forget.

Fortress of Lies

2008-04-13T17:43:00.002-05:00

I want to write just a couple more blogs from quotes inside the book The Shack.

In the chapter, A Meeting of Hearts, Papa and Mack are talking about lies. Papa says, "… Lies are one of the easiest places for survivors to run. It gives you a sense of safety, a place where you only have to depend on yourself. But it's a dark place, isn't it?"

Papa continues, "Lies are a little fortress; inside them you can feel safe and powerful. Through your little fortress of lies you try to run your life and manipulate others. But the fortress needs walls, so you build some. These are the justifications for your lies. You know, like you are doing this to protect someone you love, to keep them from feeling pain. Whatever works, just so you feel okay about the lies."

I think the lies Christians tell themselves are the lies seasoned with all the religious talk that we've learned. And the sad thing is that we really believe that we are spiritual and believing the truth.

When you pull out of religion and decide to try to walk in grace and truth, you gradually begin to see how lie-covered most of what we say and do in the name of religion really is.

I've done a moderate amount of personality studies. I was drawn to the teaching that we build our personalities as a house around us to protect and to hide ourselves from others and from really living life. My personality type is perfectionistic and analytical. That works well for my profession, but plays havoc in relationships and life. I have to work at tearing down the walls of my protection of personality and seek to live life transparently and honestly. That is tough stuff. It feels exposed and uncomfortable.

I have family and friends who have other types of personalities or walls of protection such as being a helper, or being a controller, or being fun and funny, or being smart, or others. One writer said we're like bumper cars, bumping into each other's personalities and never really getting to know each other.

This paragraph in The Shack reminded me of some of my personality studies. Most people, and I for a long time, didn't consider personalities as something that could be changed or as lies we had built up around us for safety and protection. There has been a measure of freedom since embracing that idea. Food for thought.

Judging and The Judge

2008-04-02T04:16:00.002-05:00

Chapter 11 in The Shack is entitled Here Come Da Judge.

The two quotes preceding the chapter:

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods. Albert Einstein

and

Oh my soul, be prepared to meet Him who knows how to ask questions. T.S. Eliot

As I was reading The Shack, I kept wondering how the author would have the central character, Mackenzie, get unstuck. I think this chapter is the key. What a masterful way of handling the Biblical concepts that God is love and how evil is viewed and how God judges compared with how humans judge. Masterful!

Toward the bottom of page 155 –She sat back, beaming. "You are wise in the ways of real love, Mackenzie. So many believe that it is love that grows, but it is the knowing that grows and love simply expands to contain it. Love is just the skin of knowing."

To me, this really speaks to what I believe the Bible teaches, that when we accept Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Lord, that we are born anew, i.e., that all His attributes are supernaturally given to us and the rest of our life is spent in the exciting adventure of knowing and growing in discovering all that He is and all that He has given us. Yes! I loved that phrase: it is the knowing that grows and love simply expands to contain it.

Sophia, personified wisdom, was presented incredibly. She asked questions, but they were gentle questions, not probing I'll get you to see type of questions. Mackenzie, while answering her questions, came to his own conclusions. I have friends who think that asking questions is the way to communicate. It's mine. But I am learning that there are ways to ask and there are certain questions that are really caring questions and not judging questions. Quite a difference.

Mackenzie comes to realize through Sophia's gentle persuasion that "Papa (God) has never needed evil to accomplish His good purposes. It is you humans who have embraced evil and Papa has responded with goodness."

The paragraph in the middle of page 165 is perhaps wisdom's call to us all. "Return from your independence, Mackenzie. Give up being his judge and know Papa for who he is. Then you will be able to embrace his love in the midst of your pain, instead of pushing him away with your self-centered perception of how you think the universe should be."

When Mack came to the place he realized he was judging God and thereby was acting as God when he judged others, he says on page 165, "I don't want to be a judge any more. I really do want to trust Papa. ... But I'll need help."

Sophia's response: "Now that sounds like the start of the trip home."

Is that not wisdom beyond words?!

Stop judging and trust. Know that God loves me and will never leave me. Trust Him. Let go of all the judging that shows that I think I know better and how much better I would do it. This is an unbelievable foundation on which to live my life. It is changing me daily.

I was captured by the truths set forth in this chapter and the way in which they were presented. I realized that I don't often read the Bible, pray, or communicate with God with a soft, receiving heart, but perhaps with an anxious, judging spirit. What am I doing wrong? What more do I need to do? How can I be better? I thought the spirit of Mack's meeting with Sophia overall was a great dramatization and revelation of a very different sense of a human being's interaction with God, with Papa, with wisdom.

Forgiving God

2008-03-23T10:52:00.003-05:00

Does the title grab you? Forgiving God? Who in the world forgives God?

I'm continuing writing posts about some of the truths found in the book, The Shack. This isn't exactly a one-liner, but it's the text found on page 82 in Chapter 5. Mack is struggling with how to address God when he will meet him in the cabin. "No longer concerned or caring about what to call God and energized by his ire, he walked up to the door. Mack decided to bang loudly and see what happened, but just as he raised his fist to do so, the door flew open, ..."

This text reminded me of a time in my life when I was struggling with how God was showing Himself and how none of it seemed fair. Abusive people taking advantage of innocents was always so perplexing to me, and I was questioning God as to how He could let that happen. And, I had had some really troubling things happen in my life, things that I thought I was protected from because I was a believer and tried to honor God with my life.

I was waiting in a doctor's office and picked up a magazine, which had an article entitled, Have You Forgiven God? That caught my attention.

I learned from reading that article. It's not really that you forgive God, but it's a situation where you are angry at God and you can't figure out stuff. The essence of forgiving God is that you come to Him and discuss it with Him and it's actually that you listen to Him and get His perspective and in doing that, you have forgiven God. What you've really done is come to Him and opened yourself up to Him to receive what He has to say and to show you.

I was reminded of that in this section of The Shack. That was a change point or a turning point in my life. I didn't forgive God, but I was able to release my anger and open up to Him and receive His view of life and what He wants. That's a very different place to be.

Secrets

2008-03-17T04:54:00.003-05:00

Continuing with a few posts on some one-liners from The Shack...

On page 24 the quote that starts the chapter is, "Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets." by Paul Tournier

I remember a similar quote from John Powell, "We are as sick as we are secret." If I remember correctly, that's a quote from his book, Happiness Is an Inside Job.

Powell's quote is one of those one-liners that grabbed me a few years ago, and it's one of those I remember. It has served me well. Does this mean that I never keep anything to myself? I don't think so. Have you ever known someone who tells you absolutely everything, and you're pretty sure you didn't want to know about three-fourths of the info. I love the text-messaging abbreviation for too much information, TMI.

I think what's being referred to here are the secrets we keep so that others will think well of us, or so that our loved ones will continue to love us.

Some secrets that are very unhealthy to keep are:

Relational abuses
Actions that require cover-up or lying

Families and churches are full of these kinds of secrets.

The other day we were visiting with friends and we were discussing a movie where the star did what was right by the letter of the law but his action seemed to be harmful to some innocents. It was a disturbing end.

When I was asked what would I have done, I thought I would protect the innocents. But after some thought, I realized that I would have had to lie and have cover-up actions. With that incident I think there was a way to stay within the law and to follow-up to protect. There was a right way. That was a tough one. But it's a good example of what I'm speaking of here.

Of course, keeping relational abuse secrets is pretty obvious. This can sometimes be very hard, and it's in the secret keeping where the abuser gains power.

For years it was considered a "sin" by Christian conservatives for believers to take an anti-depressant. (That's hard to believe now, but it's true.) I have taken several counseling courses and that's how I unraveled that wrong concept. But I still watch others struggle with this.

One time in the beauty shop I was waiting my turn and the nail technician asked the customer what she thought the difference in Methodists and Baptists was. She said that was easy to answer. Both Methodists and Baptists drink a little, but Baptists say they don't and Methodists admit they do. Isn't that an interesting outsider's observation? I thought it was pretty funny.

I'm not saying anything about anti-depressants or drinking. I'm just using them as examples of how sometimes we box ourselves in to having to keep secrets to "belong." Pretty sad state of affairs, isn't it?

Harmful secrets that are kept inside are like mushrooms in a cave. They thrive on the darkness. Often bringing our harmful secrets out of our cave into the light can bring healing.

Lonely? Unhealthy?

Do you have secrets that need to be brought out of the cave and shared with discerning and loving friends (an appropriate audience)?

It's a fun thought to know that God knows our hearts. We have no secrets from Him, and since He loves us and will never leave us, I do believe He'll help us empty our "caves" if needed.

Inside Places

2008-03-11T04:50:00.002-05:00

The next phrase in The Shack that caught my attention enough to want to post about is toward the bottom of page 12. "I will tell you honestly that being a part of this story has affected me deep inside, in places I had never been before and didn't even know existed."

That phrase or sentence caught my attention and gave me pause.

Somebody famous, I can't remember who, said one time that the longest journey anyone will take is the journey inside and not too many choose to take that journey.

I like the quote from Young, the author of The Shack, because it reminds me of those deep inside places I have been. I was chatting with a very dear friend recently who was telling me that every time he's sure he's opened himself up to what he needs to learn and it's a deep lesson, soon thereafter he finds another entire room he didn't even know existed where the door needed to be opened. I liked that analogy.

Young's statement helped me rethink some of the very, very hard experiences in life that spurred me on my inside journey and helped me discover my own inside places or rooms. Some of those included:

Losing a sister to suicide
Having a granddaughter born severely handicapped
Acknowledging that my sixth grade male teacher molested the girl students and how that affected my psyche
Thinking I don't believe in divorce, but paying for my daughter's
Experiencing church leaders' rejection for standing for what's right
Having a sister turn against me because I set healthy boundaries

Okay. I'll stop there. This could get depressing. =)

Each one of these experiences caused me great distress and anguished questioning. But each one, when worked through opened me up to empathy, sympathy, and understanding of others who might be experiencing similar emotions and events.

For example, losing a sister to suicide was devastating, and I learned how hard it is for people to support and encourage the survivors. I now know how to hug and empathize with suicide surviving family members. That inside room was hard to acknowledge and then air out.

Having a handicapped granddaughter, as much as it hurt in the beginning, has brought unbelievably wonderful changes in me. That inside room was pretty tightly locked, even padlocked. I steered clear of handicapped people and unknowingly had prejudices. One cerebral palsied young man in one of our churches spotted that in me and worked on me and with me to help me overcome that, even though I was not very willing. I would actually start sweating when I would see him racing on his crutches to get to me. I couldn't understand his speech and it made me so uncomfortable. He helped me a lot. We even went on a "date" about which he bragged to everyone in the church.

But the life of our granddaughter has changed me major from the inside out. The way she's been treated and the way people stare and the way people avoid her really hurts. But can I blame them? That's the way I was before the gift of having her was given to me. That room inside me is open and full of sunshine!

I could easily take many experiences in my life and remember how hard that journey was and how difficult the bumps along the way. I did and do get sidetracked, but I do know that no matter the life experience, each is another opportunity for discovering an inside room or place that is ready to be enjoyed.

I'll close with this: I was walking with Sierra, one of our granddaughters, when she was about 5 or 6. We went to a nearby park and found a wooden bridge that took us back into some woods. There were high weeds and bugs and scary stuff to a little girl. She held my hand tighter and moved closer. I was trying to be positive and said the things you say as Grams. Sierra looked up at me and said, "Grams, this is an adventure, isn't it?"

I thought that was perfect. She was scared. She wasn't sure. But she had my hand and apparently she felt safe. She had picked up on my being positive and decided this could be an adventure.

My mantra since then has been, life is an adventure. And today I will add that discovering new places within, though they can be very scary, can add spice to our life adventure and our journey within.

Bon voyage.

Grace

2008-03-05T16:57:00.002-06:00

Okay, fellow on-line book clubbers. I want to write a few blogs just pulling some good one-liners from the book, The Shack. This may not interest you, and if it doesn't, you can of course surf on to other places. If it does interest you, I invite you to also share in the comments section.

One of the first phrases or one-liners I liked in The Shack is found on page 11, and the context starts on page 10. The author is speaking of Mack and his wife and how she's stuck with him even through some fierce hurts in the early years. Then he continues, "I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships so will our healing, and I know that grace rarely makes sense for those looking in from the outside."

It's the second clause in that sentence that grabs me, "…and I know that grace rarely makes sense for those looking in from the outside." So true. So true.

Have you ever found yourself in the position of trying to explain "grace" to someone? I mean what grace means to you and how you see it life-ing out in yourself and in others? I do not mean the old standbys which will suffice for a Sunday School lesson or even for a sermon. The acrostic God's Riches At Christ's Expense (taking the first letter of each word) is often quoted. Another definition, God's unmerited favor, is also a good one. These have great meaning, but to those of us who have grown up in church, these phrases almost become automatic and we say them easily. I did for years. And I think perhaps without realizing to any degree what I was saying.

Then I began to understand what grace really was for me, but it came in the back door.

I think my first step in that direction was learning the meaning of the word shame. I read a book, Parenting Without Shame, and it socked me between the eyes. It nailed me. I realized I had shamed my kids to obedience. I could almost shame anyone into responding or acting like I wanted them to act. I was a shame tyrant. But I didn't know that. I was raised that way and I just continued the shaming style. It seemed the natural way. Realizing how not loving that was, I began the long road to change. At first it was a sense of not even knowing how to act. I was shocked at how much of my relational style was shaming.

The second step for me was understanding what respecting the other person really meant. I can remember when I really began to get a glimpse of this. Paul and I and our two daughters were riding some place together and the girls started talking about how to get their kids to respect them. We ended our discussion realizing that you don't teach respect, you respect others and in doing that they learn respect. When they're respected, they will respect others, or at least will have a fighting chance to learn and do. That discussion was the start of another long road of relational style changing. Wow! What revelations!

Now what does this have to do with grace? Everything. At least for me. I began to realize how God loves me without shame and without dis-grace. Totally accepting and without shame. May I repeat that, without shame. Unbelievable! And then on the heels of that, learning respect. God respects my person. I learn to respect myself and I then give respect to others. In this process I also learned that I cannot give to someone else what I do not have. I must love myself without shame, and respect my person before I can give love to others or respect others. I learned this by trying to stop my bad relational styles and then realizing that's the way God loves me. It has been an incredible journey!

That's grace! At least to me! Love without shame and respect for the person no matter who the person is or what that person does. Grace, the gift! And I can give that when I've received it from God to me and for me and I realize, fully realize deep within my inner person, that God has that for me, then I have it for myself. Then, I'm a giver of that gift to others. What release! What freedom! But a hard road to travel and many the potholes along the way.

A few years ago we were with another couple that we had known years ago when they were seminary students. Her name was Mary like mine, and his name was Paul like Paul's, and their last name started with a B and we had the same wedding anniversary. We had a lot in common. Mary said that day, "How do you explain grace? It's unexplainable! You just recognize in another person that they know. And you know. You can't teach it. You can't write it down. You live it and you experience it." I looked at her and thought, yes, yes, yes. So true. That's one of those "freeze-frame" moments that I will never forget.

In these last few years since my style of life and belief system have changed so drastically, I've had people ask me: Are you still a Christian? Do you still believe the Bible? Are you one of those wishy-washy people with no convictions? Do you just speak of love and don't hold people accountable? I always say, yes, yes, no, maybe. The "maybe" is because it depends on who is accountable to me? Not too many I dare say.

That is why the phrase, "and I know that grace rarely makes sense for those looking in from the outside" rings so true with me. Grace-based living is the opposite of shame-based living and performance-based living. Totally opposite. Most religious people I know are married to performance, perhaps to prove something. Most preaching I hear is somewhat shame-based and usually performance oriented. Most of my friends who knew me then and who know me now perhaps think, she's lost it. Yeah! Yes, I've lost it. I've lost performance-based living and religion.

The truth of grace has been a truth that has set me free, and yet it's difficult to explain or outline or teach. But it's a wonderful way to live and it's wonderful to experience. I've still a long way to go to plumb the depths, but the journey is quite an adventure.

Memorable One-Liners: An Introduction

2008-03-02T06:30:00.003-06:00

I mentioned in an earlier blog that I thought I might write a few blogs on some of the really good one-liners in the book The Shack by William P. Young.

The author of The Shack is named William Paul Young and on his MySpace many refer to him as Paul. In the foreword of the book the author talks about the main character and says it's family tradition for all the men to have the same first name but to be commonly called by their middle name.

Oddly, this author has the same two names as my husband, William Paul. And just as interesting is the fact that it's family tradition in the Burleson family to name the first boy born to each family William (Something) Burleson. Thus, in our family we have William Paul and William Wade. Paul's Dad was named William Reed and his Dad was William Arthur and his Dad was William Painter, etc. Common things catch your attention and the thought "Well, look at that!" crosses your mind. Links you right off to what you're about to read.

In this post I want to tell how I came to hear about and to read this book.

Cherri, our oldest, called me one day and said something like, "Mom, stop what you're doing and go buy this book, The Shack, by William P. Young." I of course immediately say Why? Why do you like it?

Her response was that a friend with whom she had been sharing life experiences and who has gone through some recent tragic events, said he had a friend recommend this book and he wanted Cherri to read it. He wouldn't tell her why, he just said read it and then let's talk.

Cherri went to the bookstore that day and bought the book and read it that day and into the night. She said it captured her and she experienced many emotions as she read it. She even cried as she told me snippets from the book and how it touched her. She didn't even want to talk about the book until she was able to process what she had read and what it meant to her. When she saw her friend, she could only say, later. She just wasn't ready.

She then told me she told Mike, her husband, about the book, and as he was reading it, he was overcome with emotion and couldn't talk about it. He would just walk into the room and nod his head and give a motion that meant it was really touching him and then turn around and leave and continue reading.

I immediately bought the book, but it was on the table and I didn't get to read it that day. Paul picked it up and got to the sixth page of the foreword and said, "I can tell I'm really going to like this book." He then started to read me the phrase that caught his attention and couldn't finish because he was overcome with emotion. When he could finish, he said something like he thought this was such a true statement but he had never read it in print. The statement: I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships so will our healing.

One of the first statements that I want to write about in future posts is the one following that one: …and I know that grace rarely makes sense for those looking in from the outside.

I was telling Cherri what her Dad said about the statement he read, and she said to me, "Now Mom, don't let Dad read this book for you." I think she was afraid I was too busy and wouldn't get the full impact of reading it for myself. I promised her I wouldn't. She continued with what she had discovered, that each one who reads this book is touched in a different way, perhaps where their hurting points or needy areas are. She then shared with me what had spoken to her.

So, I then read the book.

I have been a part of book study groups before and I love them. It's so fun to read a book at the same time your friends are reading it, and then coming together to discuss what you've read and how it affected you. To me, that's so beneficial because we're all at different points in our journey of life and we learn from each other. Writing posts about the truths in this book and how they've affected me I hope will prompt any who are reading to share how they are affected. It will be my substitute for being able to participate in a book study group.

That's the intro to a new string of posts to come.

Guarantees Conclusion

2008-02-22T04:31:00.002-06:00

For the past twelve postings I have written about some common beliefs that many Christians, at least the ones in my circle of friends, hold to. They even claim them as promises saying that the Bible guarantees that God will do that certain thing for them. They even, very often aggressively, insist on saying they know what's best and claim promises for others.

I wrote my posts hoping to encourage the many who have been hurt and disillusioned by such teachings. It's difficult to make the case for the fact that there are no guarantees in scripture except the ones expressly stated. In my reading I can only find two that are stated clearly and repeated often in the New Testament, meaning in the new covenant under which we now live. Those two are simply that God loves us and God will never leave us.

Some people I've shared these truths with are adamantly opposed to my interpretations. Others are a little shocked since it's so different from what they're hearing from TV evangelists and from most pulpits. A few others are greatly encouraged. For the first time they are able to believe that what's happened to them is not because God is punishing them or because they're not one of God's favorites.

I'm currently reading The Shack by William P. Young and the author has this same premise. I'm going to finish reading this book and then go back and highlight the great one-liners I've read. I think this might be the subject of my writing on the next few posts, using the one-liners that are so good and that provoke my own thoughts and ruminations. We'll see.

Guarantee #12: Quiet Times

2008-02-18T05:25:00.002-06:00

Back in January on one of my posts I posted 12 guarantees that many people see in scripture. I have addressed eleven of those and today I'm writing about the last one which was listed as:

If I have a quiet time in the morning, I will have a good day.

This guarantee is held by many. They might not say they hold it as a guarantee but their many phrases would indicate that they do:

I wasn't surprised that happened to me today. I didn't have my quiet time.
It was such a bad day. I didn't have my quiet time.
The devil got to me today because I didn't put my armor on in my quiet time.
I goofed. I read the newspaper before I read the Bible. My bad.
God lets me know that He's disappointed in me when I don't have my quiet time.
If I don't have my quiet time in the morning, it doesn't count.
Oops. I forgot to pray for so-and-so in my quiet time. That wouldn't have happened if I had prayed. I've apologized.
If I don't spend at least thirty minutes in bible reading and prayer, I'm not spiritually ready to meet the day.

Those are just a few of the comments I've heard over and over and have had many of them said to me and taught to me as scriptural truths.

None of the above are guarantees. In fact, if you look closely at most of them, you will see that the emphasis is on what I do so that I can guarantee a result. That's just not true in scripture. The New Covenant teaches me that because Christ has done it all, I can be free and enjoy all the benefits.

The day that I realized that if I never have another quiet time the rest of my life that God will still love me and be close to me and never leave me and that was one of the most freeing days of my life. Then I could have a quiet time because I wanted to and enjoyed it and if I missed having one, nothing changed. Wow, what freedom is that?

There's a big difference in you have to or you are invited to. Another way to say this is this is an opportunity, not an obligation.

I use this often even in my business office. When we're gathering donations for something, I write the information and conclude it with: remember, this is an opportunity and not an obligation. You are invited to participate and you do not owe an explanation if you choose not to.

I suffer just a tad from ocd (obsessive compulsive disorder) in a casual way. If I hear I should do it, I will do it. If I start something, I have to finish it. I have to do the right thing. Are you surprised if I tell you Monk is one of my favorite TV shows? I laugh a lot at that because it's so funny and I so identify with the basic premise of that show.

My personal freedom comes from releasing myself from the have to's. One of the most freeing things in my Christian life is to realize God loves me and nothing I do will make Him love me more, and nothing I do will make Him love me less. It's settled: He is Love and He loves me and accepts me as I am.

I now think of a quiet time in my spiritual life as something like vitamins in my physical life. (I also take vitamins.) Do vitamins help me? I think so. Does taking vitamins guarantee that nothing bad healthwise will happen to me? No. Does taking vitamins guarantee that I will do better in my physical life? No guarantee, but maybe so.

No doubt that believers benefit from spending daily time in communication with God, through Bible reading and prayer. But to hold up that time as a guarantee that God has to honor and do what we think He should is to misuse and abuse the teaching of scripture. Of course, that's my opinion only. But, I think that's why you're reading this blog, right? You expected to see my opinion. ;-)

Guarantee #11: Pray Hard, Get Healing

2008-02-14T06:54:00.003-06:00

The next guarantee I posted earlier that people are taught and believe: If I pray hard enough and have enough faith, God will heal the one I'm praying for.

I've seen so many abuses of this teaching.

One I remember from back in the seventies. A well-loved believer died, even though large numbers of people were praying for his healing. Well, he couldn't die! That couldn't happen! So, they unlawfully kept his body in a home for many days, and prayed hard. They were sure he would be raised up. Yes, that's what I said. Raised up from the dead. He wasn't. And many disillusioned believers were discouraged.

The other example of the misuse and abuse of this teaching is quite personal with me. Our granddaughter was born in 1988 and was severely, physically handicapped. The attending pediatrician said she wasn't human, that she was a thing and to let her die. She is a wonderful human being and she turns 20 in a couple of weeks.

She had surgery at a hospital in Dallas and the part of her spine that was outside her skin had to be removed, so she is paralyzed from her mid-chest down.

Through this most difficult time for our daughter and our family, many well-meaning believers told us many lousy and religious (not scriptural) things, such as:

Your daughter didn't pray enough for her daughter prior to birth.
If you would get a lot of people to pray, your granddaughter could walk!
God never intended this. Sin made this happen
What sin did your daughter commit to make this happen? (They were serious!)
This is a wonderful opportunity for God to work a miracle. Just pray and believe!

This was not encouraging, but very discouraging.

We're all strong believers. We would not have wished this to happen. I don't believe we were sinful or that this is any kind of punishment from God. I don't really know why this happened, and it's very difficult to look into your granddaughter's eyes and answer her when she asks you why she can't walk like others. It's hard to help her know how much God loves her. This also brings up some hard questions from her hurting heart. Very hard to try to answer.

However, God is good and God works and God loves us and God never leaves us. We've never had a "word" that our granddaughter will be healed or will walk. What we have had are wonderful lessons on a whole new world of handicapped people. Are we better for having had this in our lives? Absolutely! Are we more loving? Yes. Are we more sensitive? Yes. Are we more accepting? Yes. Would we prefer a physically "perfect" granddaughter? That's hard to answer. I want to say no, but then I would love for her to know what it is to not be teased and pitied. That's difficult.

I now wonder if praying, believing, and getting healed isn't the easy way out. It's much more difficult to accept what is yours and to give God the glory through it all and still trust and believe that He loves and cares, which He does.

Does God heal? Yes, I know of instances where He has. Yes, current instances of this, not just long ago in the Bible. Should we expect it and should we claim physical healing as a guarantee in the scripture? I think not. Just some thoughts.

Guarantee #10: Because I Have, He Will

2008-02-09T06:44:00.000-06:00

The next guarantee that many believers read into scripture and claim: If I am a good Christian and do everything I think God wants me to, He will always take care of me and mine; I am safe and will not suffer.

Have you every heard questions like:

What is God trying to teach me?
Why is God letting this happen to me (or mine)?
Why do good people suffer?
Couldn't God have prevented this bad thing from happening to me?
Why should I serve God? Look what's happened to me.
I've been faithful to God all these years, and look what He's done to me.
I gave up everything to serve God. Why is He allowing these things?

Many teachers, preachers, and believers think, say, and teach that IF you do this, this, and/or this, GOD WILL (fill in the blank). And they quote many verses to prove this.

Two of my personal experiences helped me learn this from the inside out.

One was our experience at a church. We had always been fairly popular at our pastorates and enjoyed a wonderful ministry. We came to a very large, prestigious church and the ministry went well, but the leadership was antagonistic. This threw me for a loop. And I began to ask many of the questions listed above. How could this happen to us?

The second experience was a question asked me by a friend when a mutual friend's second wife died. My friend asked the above questions about our mutual friend. I was able to write back to him what I had learned.

Where in scripture are we promised health? Where are we promised wealth? Where are we promised anything except that God loves us and will not leave us? Where does it say that our mate will not die? Where are we promised our children will be healthy? God does provide and God does care for us and God does watch over us, but does He guarantee? Does it mean you are favored of God if nothing bad ever happens to you?

Seems like many believers have a really hard time realizing that there are no guarantees in scripture for believers other than the two basic ones that God loves us and will never leave us.

And one of the major shifts that many do not make is realizing that we are living under the New Covenant, not the Old. The Old Covenant (Old Testament) has many instances when God says." If you will, then I will." But the New Covenant emphasis is, "Because I (God) have, you can..." That's an entire paradigm shift.

I can what? I can love others, I can trust God, I can have confidence that God loves me, I can know that He will never leave me, I can do what He asks of me.

Many of the questions I listed above are on the basic premise of because I have, then God will. And how many times have we heard, "I've been faithful to God. I go to church every Sunday, I read the Bible, I pray. I'm a good, moral person. Why would He let this happen?" Or, how many times have we heard someone tell another, "If you would just get back in church, God would bring good things to you." Many parents longingly wish that for their children thinking that church attendance will guarantee good things in life for their loved ones.

Some might ask, "Why should I become a Christian or live to serve God if He's not going to do for me all the things I've been told He will do?" Good question. That brings to light why many people have confessed Christ, and then it also shows why many leave the faith. They become disappointed because they don't get what they expected.

I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, aren't I? Wonder what it would be like if we got back to the basics: share the simple gospel of Christ; i.e., God loved us and sent His Son to pay the price for our redemption, and He calls us to follow Him and tell others of His Gift of His Son. What else? Well, that He loves us with an everlasting love and that He will never leave us. Go forth with that knowledge and assurance to live your life. No more, no less.

Fun to think about. What an interesting group of believers that would be.

Guarantee #9: Ask and Get!

2008-02-02T04:50:00.000-06:00

The guarantee reads: If I can get another Christian to agree with me, then I know God will give what I ask.

There are many verses that would seemingly support this guarantee, two of the most popular are:

Matthew 18:19-20: Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

Matthew 7:7: Ask and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

Are these scriptures true? Yes. Are they guarantees? I don't think so, but they're often taught as such. What's the difference?

Might it be: Is the believer using these verses as some kind of magical formula to get what he or she wants? Or, are these verses part of the believer's belief system along with the entire teaching of scripture and the basis for his or her faith? It makes a real difference.

I've been in many church groups where the group is told that the leaders prayed about it and God told them (fill in the blank), and that ends it. Again, it seems this truth might be being used to control a group or to get what is wanted. How often have I heard "God told me…" and anyone who speaks after that is going against God's Word (so it seems).

I ask myself why am I writing this post? My answer (to myself ;-) is to address the misuses and abuses of promises in the scripture that are true.

Yes, these scriptures are promises, but they need to be taken in context and applied within the scope of the entire scripture revelation. Many say to just believe the promises, have faith. But the scripture says that faith is the victory; i.e., faith itself, not what belief brings. I don't hear that quoted or taught very often.

There are books and pamphlets that list all the promises of scripture and it seems you can use these references as you would a dictionary. Just look up your need, find the promise, claim it, find someone to pray it for you, and you have it. Voilá! Who wouldn't buy into this? Is this really the teaching of scripture?

I close with the verses in Hebrews 11 that I've quoted before–at the beginning of the chapter of the heroes of faith verse 13 "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, …" and then again at the end of the chapter verse 39 "And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:…" But, remember these people are listed as heroes of faith.

Our heroes of faith did not receive what had been promised, but they are known for their faith.

So what does this mean for us? Am I to have faith? Am I to claim promises? Am I to trust God? Am I to pray believing God hears and answers? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Just don't say it is a guarantee that God will deliver.

What the scriptures seem to teach overall is that God is in charge and He knows what's best for us and He is with us and He loves us. Trust Him and live your life with that knowledge as foundational.

Guarantee #8: Pastors and Churches

2008-01-29T04:12:00.000-06:00

If the preacher preaches the Word of God and his family is halfway decent, the church will love him and cherish him. Is this guaranteed?

I found this belief system in many of the pastors' wives attending the Pastors and Wives Seminars that Paul and I have led.

And I found that the older ones had pretty much left this belief, the younger ones still held to it, and then there was a group who were still struggling with it. This is an interesting discussion. The bottom line is that this is not a guarantee. And a quick reality check shows that in the majority of pastors' experiences just the opposite is true. There is a lot of hurt out there among pastors and pastors' families.

I could share many experiences I've heard and empathized with, but I'll limit my sharing to my personal experience. I was a pastor's wife when I married at age 17, so I just grew up thinking this was a normal life experience. I loved being a pastor's wife, and overall our experiences were generally positive. There was always the criticism and people leaving the church because they didn't like something; but that was offset by others joining and many successful endeavors.

One of our best learning experiences, and one I wouldn't wish anyone else to have to endure, was when we were at one of our churches. The previous pastor had moral problems and had left the church in disarray. Paul is a great preacher (of course I would say that, he's my man). He's been my pastor most of my married life, and I think he's the very best preacher I've ever heard. Okay, okay, I'll quit.

I say that to make a point. Paul's a good preacher and a good pastor. Our family had its issues, but we were okay, nothing to be ashamed of, just regular parenting and kid issues. Overall, a good family.

Now for the guarantee: Why didn't the church just love having us as did our previous pastorates? Reality: Paul was criticized because he wasn't the people person that the former pastor was; i.e., the one who had slept with three women in the church, one a staff member. Hmmm...

Paul was criticized because of his preaching. Everyone had an opinion and let him know what he should preach. He chose to do what he had always done up to that point, not be a crowd pleaser but be a Bible expositor, letting the chips fall where they might. Hmmm...

All this time people were joining the church. The church was growing, but the personal attacks were tremendous. Our young son had to listen to criticism of his Dad in the Sunday School class. It really hurt him. Hmmm...

My learning process through this was first confusion, then anger, then searching the scriptures why these things were so. Oddly, the church loved me and I could do no wrong. Now isn't that a fine set of circumstances? Not one to be cherished.

However...

This time in my life was one of the richest learning times I've ever had. I learned firsthand that there are no guarantees in scripture except that God loves me and will never leave me. It was at this time that Hebrews 11 came alive to me, and I discovered things in scripture like Peter and James in prison, one was beheaded, the other experienced a miracle. And the experiences of Peter and Stephen compared; one preached and 3,000 were saved, and the other preached much the same sermon and he was stoned to death. Huh?

Why had I not seen these things before? I probably had, but had skimmed them because I wasn't ready to receive them. Now that I was hurting and looking, I was ready and these examples in scripture were of great comfort to me, showing me that there are no guarantees as I had thought there were. In fact, quite the opposite seemed to be the teaching of the scripture. Hmmm...

I came through this experience greatly enriched. Prior to this, I'm afraid I had the attitude that if you had problems, you either created them yourself or God allowed them and he was seeing you through. Now that might sound good, but it's quite arrogant. And because of this belief system, I had answers for you if you came to me with a problem. Hey, girl, just trust God to get you out of this and try to find out what He's teaching you, or if you're sinning, quit. That's it! What's so hard about counseling? (Isn't that unbelievable? But that was me. (oops, That was I. And I'm an editor.) A very arrogant and not very empathetic counselor.

Okay, to wind up this long post, let me say that bottom line is that God loves me and is with me. He will never, never, never leave me. That's it! My experiences in life may be rough and hard but these two promises are my foundation and I can stand strong and have confidence.

These guarantees are mine whether I'm a pastor's wife, in the corporate world, or wherever I am in my life. That's a message worth sharing.

Guarantee #7 of 12: Promised Job

2008-01-25T03:47:00.000-06:00

Guarantee #7 I posted in the list of guarantees people claim from scripture on my post when I started this little mini-series was: God promised me that job.

Here's another example of the phrase, "God promised…"

As I'm thinking about what to write here, there are many directions I could go. I could go down the road of any of the following:

preachers who use phrases such as If you will…, I guarantee you God will…
teachers who teach the claiming-promises guarantees
the art of prooftexting any scripture for personal purposes
the interesting practice of closing your eyes and pointing to a scripture and claiming that God said specifically to me for this situation…
gullible listeners who follow false teachings and then give up

All of these would be good solid roads to travel with a good destination reached at the end. However, I think I'll traverse this road: What's more important? What job I have or what kind of worker I am? I believe it's the way we think that's the root problem.

We look at what we want and think if we can find a scripture or some spiritual guru who will tell us we can claim a scripture and have faith and God will give it, then we will be spiritual, faith-practicing servants of God.

Quite heavily missing in today's theology, preaching, teaching, and practice is the saturated teaching in the New Testament that no matter who we are, where we are, or what we are doing, we are to be the redeemed being God paid the highest price for us to be able to be.

Basic to my belief system is to realize I am living under the New Covenant not the Old Covenant. I understand the Old Covenant to teach that if I will, then God will. That is throughout. Conditional.

But the New Covenant is radically different. The new way is to enjoy what God has already done. There is no if. He already has, and because He has, then I can. I don't do or ask things hoping that because I have, He will. I know that He has already given me all I need, even above what I could ever ask or think, and I am to enjoy and BE the redeemed paid-for believer, no matter what my circumstance.

Back to the subject lest you think I have strayed. God promised me that job. Guarantee? I wonder. I believe God promised me and any believer that we are His and He has given us the ability to be His representative in any job, in any circumstance.

Maybe instead of spending all my energies and prayers claiming God's supposed promise of that job, making sure I am true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report (Phil. 4:8) and a worker worthy of my hire in my present job. Or, if I'm without a job, making sure I have my eyes wide open to all the opportunities afforded rather than tunnel vision to the one supposedly-promised job. Different attitude entirely.

You may think I haven't really answered or addressed the subject. I think I covered it well. I guess it might be perspective.

If you've read this, I welcome your comments.

Guarantee #6: Promise of a Mate

2008-01-20T17:42:00.000-06:00

The sixth guarantee that I listed on a previous blog was "God told me that she will be my wife." I'm addressing each one of these supposed guarantees in separate postings.

We've had this situation many times throughout our years of ministry. One particular situation became problematic. The young man had heard others give testimony to the fact that God told them who their mate would be and it happened.

He just knew that he had heard from God about who his wife would be. He told her. She had not had the same word from God, and let him know emphatically that wasn't going to happen.

He became obnoxious and somewhat of a pest to the young woman. The whole situation ended up in a counselor's office. In fact, the young man had to be told very clearly by others that he needed to back off and give it up. He did, and later moved and met someone else and married and now has a family.

Years later we had a similar situation where a young lady married her sweetheart and they went on an extended honeymoon. She had previously been stalked by a young man who insisted God told him that she was to be his. There was a very tragic ending to this story, great pain for all involved.

Where do young people get this idea, that God has promised them who their mate will be? Could it be that in our zeal to tell and show how God has led us and promised to be with us and give us good things that we inadvertently give the message that God promises things like this and if we just claim the promises and faith it, the guarantee is there that it will happen?

Again, I would challenge each of us to find in the scriptures anywhere that anything like this is even hinted at, much less promised. Some might say the promise was personal and spoken to the heart by God. Might be. But, sharing that as a teaching or as a promise for others to pick up and claim as a promise becomes a stumbling block to others.

I've also counseled women who say that they missed God when they married their husband, and many have suffered their entire married lives thinking they are outside the will of God. Sometimes I marvel at how far afield we get from the actual gospel and what's written in the scriptures. I enjoy trying to bring women back to actual truth and reality.

Reality check: My calling and my assignment is to be a godly person and a godly mate, be it husband or wife. (I reread that and laughed and wanted you to know that I've never thought I was called to be a godly husband, just a wife.) We can sure mess ourselves up by listening to well meaning testimonies and trying to apply those principles in our lives rather than searching the scriptures as Bereans whether these things are so.

God Promised He Would Come Back!

2008-01-17T04:49:00.000-06:00

Yes, God did promise that He would return, but the title of this post is referring to the next guarantee I listed in an earlier post: If my husband leaves, I will claim God's promise that he will return.

The last guarantee I addressed was that if a wife remains submissive, her husband will not leave. I tried to put that supposed guarantee and this one together, but as I wrote I realized they were two very different events, and I chose to write about them separately.

So, I'm not referring to the second coming of Christ here; I'm referring to a wife who says that God promised her that her husband, who has left, will return.

I do believe that God sometimes makes a scripture come alive to an individual and that individual has faith and believes that God has personally promised that to them. I have no problem with that type of testimony. My problem is when that is given as a testimony and then the teaching follows that if you will...God has promised that He will... .

My pet peeve with Christian testimony services is that the testimonies are always success stories, success as defined by modern-day believers. Examples:

I tithed the first dollar I made and gave a dime to the church. Now I'm a millionaire.
I lost my job. I prayed and believed and God gave me an even better job immediately.
My husband left me for another woman. I remained submissive and claimed God's promises and my husband repented and came back. He's now a better husband.

Great testimonies. Anything wrong with them? Doesn't God get the glory and we're so happy for these believers? Hmmm...

Here's my reality check. For every testimony I've listed above, I suspect there are dozens who would have to testify just the opposite. Examples:

I tithed the first dollar I ever made and gave a dime to the church. I still have a lower paying job, but God has blessed and I'm grateful for all He's done for me.
I lost my job. It's been tough. I have many friends who have lost their jobs. It gets pretty discouraging sometimes, but I know God loves me and He has provided. It might not be what I expected, but I am grateful for His presence and care.
My husband left me for another woman. I was deeply grieved. I don't think that's what God wanted him to do. However, God has strengthened me and enabled me to go forward with my life and to honor Him in what I do. My husband may not return; it's his decision. I am responsible to God for my life and my decisions. God loves me and is with me. I trust Him with my life, which cannot depend on another person to make me happy.

Which set of these testimonies is harder to give and to hear? Which set is reality? Which set is reality as presented in scripture?

Isn't it much harder to give glory and honor to God when He isn't blessing with material blessings? (Note: I use the word blessing loosely here.) I'm afraid we have been infiltrated with the health and wealth gospel, which to me is a distortion of the reality of scripture.

Back to the original guarantee that a husband will return if the wife is just faithful, believing, and submissive. There is no such guarantee in scripture. And maybe a speaker or a testimony giver doesn't mean to convey that message; maybe they just mean to give God the glory.

My challenge: If God really is to get the glory, we need to have real testimonies. Can we not trust and believe in a God who is not a modern-day Santa Claus, giving us everything on our wish list? Sometimes I wonder.

My scriptural basis for my thoughts is again verses in Hebrews 11:

All the heroes of faith in this chapter, it is said of them: Not one received the promise...
God said of these faith heroes that He was not ashamed to be called their God.
God promised that His heroes didn't expect to receive their reward here, but looked forward to the heavenly city.

Claiming a promise and having that fulfilled is a real blessing and faith builder. Claiming a promise as we think it is promised and it is not fulfilled is an even stronger faith builder and a true blessing of learning to trust God no matter the results. May we all be believers of whom God brags and is not ashamed.

Guarantee: Wife Submissive; Husband Stays

2008-01-12T05:40:00.000-06:00

The next guarantee to address: If I'm a submissive wife, my husband will never leave.

This was a very popular belief and teaching in certain Christian circles a few years back. I was a believer and a teacher of this so-called truth; I don't think I did, and I hope I didn't present it as a guarantee. But I realize how it could have been heard and could have easily been taken as God's promise or God's guarantee.

I could write volumes of examples of how I began to question what I was reading and interpreting from scripture. My earliest remembrance of a hard-to-answer counseling question was back in the seventies when two women came to my home and said their husbands were insisting they go to wife-swapping parties, which was the craze at the time. All four were believers and the husbands were demanding submission. That was a hard one!

Another example that stands out was when a youth minister's wife from another church came to my home for counseling. She threw three seminar notebooks on my dining room table, a blue one, a red one, and a brown one. I had attended each of those seminars. This young mother's youth minister husband had just run away with one of the girls in the youth group. This wife/mother yelled at me that she had done everything those notebooks had told her to do and asked how could this happen. This also was a very hard one!

Does the Bible say that if I as a wife am submissive that my husband will be faithful to me and never leave me for another woman?

The short answer is no.

The long answer is hard to concisely state. Perhaps summarizing some truths I've learned along the way will help convey my changed view of what the Bible is saying:

Each person, male or female, husband or wife, will answer to God for his/her individual life. One will not answer for another.
As I wrote in an earlier post, a goal of a godly marriage should be a desire; my attainable goal must be to be a godly wife because that doesn't depend on someone else to achieve.
My mate's choices are his alone. He will answer and be responsible, as I will for mine.
Each in the marriage must respect himself/herself and be responsible. Then show respect to the other.

Granted, these bulleted statements are randomly listed and in no order, but they all played a part in my changed understanding.

Reality check: I am told in scripture, Ephesians 5:33, to respect or reverence my husband. What I've learned is that I cannot give what I do not have. I must first respect myself before I can give respect. That one principle of life is a changer. If a person learns to respect himself/herself even as God respects their person, thought patterns and behavior will almost always change. Respect for myself and seeing myself as God sees me enables me to live in grace and truth with a partner, respecting and loving him.

Nowhere in scripture can one find a guarantee that if a wife is submissive, her husband will never leave.

Husbands leave. Wives leave. No guarantees do we have about our marriage partner.

Guarantees we do have: As a believer I know God loves me and He will never leave me. Hebrews 13:5, Amplified: …for He (God) Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not, [I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless, nor forsake nor let [you] down, [relax My hold on you].–Assuredly not!

Guaranteed: How to Stop an Attack

2008-01-10T04:44:00.000-06:00

The third guarantee I listed two posts ago was: If you're being attacked, rebuke the devil and claim God's presence, and the attacker will flee.

Is this true? Is this a guarantee?

James 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Yes, I believe this verse is true. It is teaching a way of life. But is it a guarantee that you can claim and teach like it's a magical formula or chant that you use when you're in trouble? I don't think so. Why? That's not the purpose of scripture; i.e., a magic wand that you wave to get what you want or to get desired results.

How many times have you heard testimonies of someone who was being attacked and out came the claiming of God's presence and the attacker fled or some miracle happened? I've heard it countless times. And I've read of miracles in the Bible exactly along these lines.

So, what's the problem?

My problem is for every single testimony like that above I know of a dozen or more testimonies that have the opposite result.

Example: In two or three different seminars I attended years ago, I was given formulas for what to do when attacked, especially if you're a woman. Thousands were attending these seminars.

Later I counseled a young woman who one day returned home from buying groceries and she had her young baby in the car. She took the groceries into her apartment and a man was in the process of robbing them. He attacked her and raped her. She immediately did everything she had learned in the seminar. Nothing worked. The man continued and did not leave. She was brutalized.

She was devastated. Apparently she didn't do it right. Hadn't God promised He would? This is very difficult. The God who had been presented to her had failed her. What happened? I believe it's false teaching.

I do believe God has performed miracles for people; I believe He has delivered believers from imminent danger. The problem arises when how God worked in one person's life becomes the rule or standard or guarantee for everyone. Teaching if you will do this and this, then I guarantee God will do this and this, to me is false teaching not backed by scripture.

I could continue with numerous examples of believers who have been devastated because the guarantees they were taught were in scripture didn't work for them.

My reality check for today calls for this: Every time we are at a gathering and we hear a wonderful testimony of deliverance by God, we should have one or two testimonies where God did not choose to deliver in the same way, but the believer still loves and trusts God and honors Him for loving him/her and being with him/her no matter what happens. That's reality and that's the true gospel. Remember Hebrews 11!

Final thought: years ago at another church an old believer in her eighties told me that she believes God performs miracles for the new believers because they don't have a lot of faith and they need help. She continued that she believes God refrains from miracles with the strong and seasoned believers and is delighted by their faith in Him regardless of circumstances.

That was one of those freeze frame moments for me, something I will never forget, and as time has gone by, I know so much better what she was referring to and I agree.

May God help us be trusting and seasoned believers who know Him as He really is in grace and truth.

Claiming Promises

2008-01-08T04:27:00.000-06:00

The next guarantee many believe and teach that they say is in scripture is: if you claim a promise and have faith, God keeps His Word.

Of course, God always keeps His Word.

Does the problem then lie in how or what we interpret God's Word to be saying?

Haven't you heard some of these stories or testimonies?

She said she had a promise from God that she would not die of cancer. She is believing him for healing. But, she died!
God told her to just keep believing him and her husband would return to her because God hates divorce and he promised he would restore her marriage. But, he didn't.
I have a promise that girl will marry me. But, she didn't.

I could add pages of true stories of people who have become disillusioned because they thought they had a specific promise from God. They believed with all their heart, they prayed faithfully, and trusted Him to keep His Word. But the result as promised didn't happen.

As a pastor's wife, I was called on to talk with many about their problems and struggles in life. There was a time that I was talking to several who were struggling with what I described above. I needed to find some answers.

With that mindset I began reading many familiar scriptures, the usual ones that prompted people to claim promises.

Two truths I think I saw from that special time stand out from these accounts in scripture:

Looking at and comparing Peter and Stephen.
The story of James and Peter in Acts 12.
The last few verses of Hebrews 11.

In Acts 2 Peter preaches a sermon and thousands believe. A little later Stephen preaches a similar sermon and he's stoned to death.

In Acts 12 Herod went after James and Peter. Peter was imprisoned, but what happened to James? (I love asking this question when I'm presenting this. Everyone knows the story of Peter being miraculously released from prison and all the surrounding circumstances. We love that story.) But, Acts 12:2 says Herod killed James the brother of John with the sword. Everyone conveniently forgets that. Hmmm...

Now come the hard questions:

Did God love Peter more than he loved Stephen or James?
Why was Peter spared but Stephen was stoned and James was killed?
Do you think Peter claimed more promises than Stephen or James?
Do you think Peter had more faith than James or Stephen?

Or, could the answers really be, God was glorified and honored in both Stephen's and James' deaths and Peter's deliverance?

Could it be that God has purposes beyond what He reveals to His children?

So, what about claiming promises and having faith? As I read and study and look desperately for guarantees in Scripture, I seem to truly find only two that stand out and are really guaranteed:

God loves me as He does each of His children and nothing can separate us from His love. Romans 8:35
God will never leave me. Hebrews 13:5

God has definitely promised and guaranteed that He loves me and that He is always with me. What more could I possibly want? With those two guarantees in my heart and soul my real faith shows and my trust in Him is evident because I know that whatever happens I am guaranteed these two absolutes. Yeah!!

To conclude: During the above mentioned study time, I came across an odd scripture in Hebrews 11. This is the chapter that lists all the heroes of faith and what they endured, and verse 39 says: And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise. And the reading continues, (of whom the world was not worthy).

And then early on in that chapter, verse 16, is a phrase that's worthy of meditation, and God was not ashamed to be called their God.

Okay, here's today's reality check. Our true gospel is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to earth as a human, lived, died, and arose, and returned to the Father. He did this for us. And He guarantees us believers that He will always and forever love us and will never, ever leave us.

Fabulous guarantees. With those in heart and hand, I can walk this earth as a stranger and look forward to the heavenly city where all the promises are fulfilled and will be received.

I'll leave you with this final thought that I ask myself: Is God ashamed to be called my God? Do I present Him as a heavenly Santa Claus type that just hands out goodies (claiming promises), or do I know Him and present Him as Who He really is, the Son of God who loves me and is ever with me? My calling is to believe Him and to trust Him in reality.

Then, no matter what happens, these guarantees of His presence and His love carry me through life and enable me to help anyone who has been deceived by believing the name it and claim it false gospel.

Godly Children Guarantee? Yes or No?

2008-01-05T06:01:00.000-06:00

I said I would address each of the guarantees that people say they see in scripture in subsequent posts. Here's the first. Others will follow.

Guarantee #1: If you raise your kids right, they will always follow God.

How many times have we heard quoted and have we quoted: Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

I've heard this quoted in seminars on how to raise children. I've heard parents weepingly quote this verse in despair because they "trained" but the child "departed."

The question then arises: is this a promise? is this a guarantee? Or, is this verse a proverb, which is a wise saying that generally holds true for life?

Remember, this scripture is in the book of Proverbs. It is a proverb and cannot be translated as an absolute promise or guarantee, which some people erroneously say it is.

Claiming this scripture as a guarantee in life has other major problems, one problem being we can't claim promises for other people. Along this line of thinking I would like to delineate between a goal and a desire.

A goal is something I can accomplish by myself with God's help.
A desire is something I would like to accomplish, but cannot by myself because another person is involved.

I am to work toward meeting my goal, but I am to realize my desires depend on another person's decision and go on my prayer list but off of my responsibility and action lists.

From these definitions, let me ask you two questions:

Is it okay to have as a goal to have a godly marriage?
Is it okay to have as a goal to raise godly children?

The answer to both is: no!

I cannot have as a goal to have a godly marriage because that depends on another person, my husband. The goal I can have and accomplish is to be a godly wife. I can have as a desire to have a godly marriage, but my actions and responsibilities are toward my goal of being a godly wife, no matter who or what my husband is. God and I can meet that goal.

Now, let's apply that same principle to having godly children. No, I cannot have as a goal to have godly children because it depends on my unique children and their choices. I may have a sincere and strong desire to have godly children, but my goal has to be that I am a godly mother, no matter who or what my children choose to be and to do.

Now, why is this so important? Because we work to accomplish our goals and one of the greatest causes of anger is a blocked goal. Think about it. Are you angry because your children are not your trophies of meeting your goal of raising godly children? Have they or are they disappointing you?

Many parents quote Proverbs 22:6 incessantly to their children and use this as pressure to try and make them shape up and become godly children. Don't we all run from outside pressure that others put on us to make us into something they think we should be? I do!

I taught this at a seminar and afterward a mother came up to me crying and said I had helped her immensely. Her story: years ago she had heard a radio sermon on how to raise godly children and from that day forward that was her goal. Her daughter was now in complete rebellion, and no matter what she did, the daughter continued in anger and rebellion.

The principles above, when presented, opened her eyes and she was broken, yet excited to change her goal to being a godly mother and let her daughter make the decision whether she would be a godly person or not. She realized that much of her anger toward her daughter was her blocking the mom's goal of raising a godly daughter, which she had promised God she would do.

I have been amazed at how a simple thought process of separating goals from desires (using the definitions above) has changed my thoughts, actions, and feelings. The phrase that emanates over and over is, you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. Free indeed!

To conclude: I do not believe Proverbs 22:6 is a guarantee in scripture. It's a wise saying that's generally true, a proverb, but the final verdict lies with the individual (the child) whether or not he or she will be a godly person. I hope these thoughts will help us not misuse or abuse scripture, but hold and practice all scripture in grace and truth.

Guarantees in Scripture

2008-01-03T05:23:00.000-06:00

What guarantees do you find in scripture?

Here are some I've heard:

If you raise your kids right, they'll always follow God.
If you claim a promise and have faith, God keeps His Word.
If you're being attacked, rebuke the devil and claim God's presence, and the attacker will flee.
If I'm a submissive wife, my husband will never leave.
If my husband leaves, I will claim God's promise that he will return.
God told me that she will be my wife.
God promised me that job.
If the preacher preaches the Word of God and his family is halfway decent, the church will love him and cherish him.
If I can get another Christian to agree with me, then I know God will give what I ask.
If I am a good Christian and do everything I think God wants me to, he will always take care of me and mine; I am safe and will not suffer.
If I pray hard enough and have enough faith, God will heal the one I'm praying for.
If I have a quiet time in the morning, I will have a good day.

You could probably add many more.

Question: Are each or any of these guaranteed in the scripture?

My thoughts in the next post.

What is Reality?

2008-01-01T07:09:00.000-06:00

I've started this blog to write about my pet peeve and my favorite find. They're one and the same, in a sense.

My pet peeve is people who are relationally fake. Do you know what I mean? Have you ever met someone and after conversing for awhile, you realize you're talking to an image of the person and you're not talking to the real person at all?

On the other hand, have you related to someone that you knew was sharing from the inside out? I'm not talking about sharing deep and dark secrets or all of one's past, but I'm referring to that intuitive sense you have when you meet someone and converse and you know that person is "real," whatever that means to you. You just know!

That's what I hope to make the theme of this blog, realness in relationships. Also, I want to address realness in religion, although that's almost an oxymoron. Religion by definition could be classified as unreal. But to many people religion encompasses their belief system, so it's in that sense that I use the word religion. My belief system is a relationship with God, and the man-made systems to me are religion. That may be as clear as mud, but it makes sense to me.

Thanks for reading this and I invite you to comment and go with me on the quest for reality.