Into the deep

Remember swimming as a kid?  You stretched out your leg to touch bottom … and it wasn’t there!  Maybe your eyes got wide with fear and you felt that instant panic start to whirl in your gut!  It was terrifying, if only for a brief moment, until you regained your footing.

He said, Come! So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water, and he came toward Jesus. -Matthew 14:29

Jesus invited Peter to do what was impossible — walk on water.  Peter, a seasoned fisherman!  He’d just worked all night and came up empty – he knew that he knew that he knew, there just aren’t any fish there.  (Luke 5:4-5)

In both cases Jesus told Peter to do what seemed impossible and what was impossible.

Jesus invited Peter to trust.  Jesus invites us to trust.  Step into the unknown.  Step deep, where you don’t know what will happen.  Step deep, where there is nothing underneath you.  Step deep where your fear will well up in you.

REALITIES ABOUT STEPPING INTO THE DEEP

It’s Risky

So please tell them you are my sister.  Then they will spare my life and treat me well because of their interest in you. -Genesis 12:13

Sarah had a decision to make; a forced decision.  Not due to anything she had done, but because of how beautiful God had created her.  Abraham had enjoyed that beauty so long as it was good for him, but as soon as it became a liability, he sold her out.  Because of Abraham‘s fear and tendency to lie under pressure (it happened twice), he asked her to sacrifice herself rather than sacrificing himself.  Sarah chose to risk.  There will be risk when you put the needs of your spouse ahead of your own.

It’s Radical

Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone.  If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody.  Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do.  “I’ll do the judging,” says God.  “I’ll take care of it.”   Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink.  Your generosity will surprise him with goodness.  Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good. -Romans 12:17-21

We all know what Jesus is saying here, we just don’t like what it means and how it will make us look, especially when it‘s applied to marriage.

A deep step will cause you to appear different from those around you.  I don’t mean you’ll look like a religious ‘geek’ or a throw-back from the 1950/60s.  There is a love that the world won’t allow but it will show up in your relationships.  It will supernaturally funnel its way through you like it did with Jesus.  Radical mercy doesn’t fight for its own rights.  Radical grace is about others, not self.  Radical love doesn’t consider how it was wronged, only about how others are going to be hurt by God’s revenge, “Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they’re doing.” -Luke 23:34.  It will look radical when consider your spouse ahead of yourself.

It’s Counter-intuitive

And when those who belonged to Him (His kinsmen) heard it, they went out to take Him by force, for they kept saying, He is out of His mind (beside Himself, deranged)!   And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, He is possessed by Beelzebub, and, By [the help of] the prince of demons He is casting out demons. -Mark 3:21-22

The deep you step into will feel crazy and people will back up this notion.  To your human senses it’s unpreserved and unprotected.  The ones closest to you will appeal to your sense of self-protectiveness.  People will say you are crazy and not hearing from God; but Satan.  It’s the voice of the world, not the Spirit, that says choose self.  It will feel counter-intuitive to choose your spouse over yourself.

The Outcome is Unknown

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.  Hebrews 11:1

If we knew the outcome beforehand, we wouldn’t need faith.  The deep we step into will always be a weakness and that’s what scares us.  Like standing in a lit room when the lights go out; engulfed in darkness, there’s no way to tell what the outcome will be, only God knows.  Being blind in the natural strengthens your confidence in God.

God Knows What Your Deep is

The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience.  And God is faithful.  He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand.  When you are tempted, He will show you a way out so that you can endure.  -1 Corinthians 10:13

Everyone’s deep is different because we are all growing from different places in our relationship with God.  Our deep feels deep because it is weak.  Those particular faith muscles are small, but will be bigger and stronger after you step into the deep.  We miss-step and fall and God knows that, that’s why Jesus is there!  On the water with the waves that toss and threaten to overtake the boat.  See here where Peter was invited to walk!

Peter’s storm can be a metaphor of what it might feel like inside ourselves during a turbulent circumstance or relational crisis.  And the more chop there is, the greater the temptation is to try and escape.  To run back to the boat … away from Jesus.  If the choice is to leave the ’storm’ and run back to the boat of protection, a way to endure is not needed – God is not needed.

When troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.  For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.  So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. -James 1:2-4

 

 

2 little words

” I  do”

My secret idol

It was a good and righteous prayer; an honest prayer. “God please save my husband.”  But diligence and fervency turned my heart inward instead of outward.  I lost sight of why I was praying.  As the heart is turned more and more inward it fails to see the cosmic picture – God’s view.

~ To continue reading please follow me to The Peacefulwife‘s blog.

Whose love?

Was God invited to the wedding  …

photo credit

… and then uninvited to the marriage?

Human love is full of weakness and can’t sustain a healthy marriage; it will have a hard time staying committed.

In my marriage I knew when I had run out of human love with my husband, it was when I wanted to leave him.  My human love had an exit strategy; more commonly known as divorce.  Human love gives up, turns it’s back and abandons.  And why shouldn’t it?  Human love is temporary just like our lives here on earth and that‘s what makes human love risky and temperamental – not to be trusted.  Ahhh, but God’s love.  God’s love is trustworthy, steady and strong.

The presence of God’s love is so visible during the wedding ceremony.  But then a few years into a marriage there can be a shift to human love, the one that is largely based on the feelings from emotions.  Instead of the capacity of the heart growing to allow the bigness of God‘s love to flow through; it shrinks to that of a human love:  the love of self.

Yes, I had been loving self, for too long – not realizing what I had become.  But when I allowed God’s love through my heart, I saw much bigger dividends in my soul than the meagre ones I generated, that invariably diminished anyway.  Hard work?  Yes!  Humiliating work?  For sure!  But much more worth it in the long run.

God’s love in marriage

• Understands that love is a command. (John 13:34-35)
• Thinks of eternal life.  Continues to sows towards that end.
• Seeks unity.  Christ will never give up on the church and marriage is to mirror this mystery. (Eph 5:32)

Human love in marriage

• Thinks she can choose who to love, or stop showing love to.  Denies God’s choice as to who’s in His family.
• Thinks only of temporal life.  Stops sowing into her husband’s life because of concern for self. (Phil 2:3-4)
• Decides that he’s really not a brother after all, because if he was, he wouldn’t do the things that he does. (Rom 14:10)

Stripping It Back To Bare Bones

What kind of vessel are you?  When you are alone and it’s just you and God – What‘s the condition of your heart?  Has it atrophied from human love or is it swelling with God’s love pumping through?  Is it being stretched and expanded?

 

Intentions Don’t Count ’til “GO”

“It’s the thought that counts!”

Is it?  Really?

• I thought of getting you a card for your birthday.
• I thought of having sex with you.
• I thought of making supper for you.
• I thought of buying you a coffee.
• I thought of giving you a kiss.

When I think of an action and don’t follow through it leaves me feeling kind of hallow.  Also, left undone, intentions can ring of empty lip service as well as being contra to what James says:  Faith without works is dead. (2:17)  We deceive ourselves when we think that our good intentions are enough.

We easily understand this principle in the statement:  “I thought of allowing Christ to rule in my life.”  Yet if we only have the intention – well, we know what the result it is.

Just because I have the knowledge, of what God says, doesn’t mean I get the reward – the runner’s prize that we are encouraged to chase:  Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but [only] one receives the prize?  So run [your race] that you may lay hold [of the prize] and make it yours.  Now every athlete who goes into training conducts himself temperately and restricts himself in all things.  They do it to win a wreath that will soon wither, but we [do it to receive a crown of eternal blessedness] that cannot wither. (1 Cor 9:24-25) 

The accumulation of Biblical knowledge without practical application isn’t where revelation is found.  Simply reading 1 Corinthians 9 doesn’t mean that I am actually doing the work of training for a race.

It’s in the follow through that the proof is found.  I can study, learn and memorize all about love from 1 Corinthians 13 where I’m told to bear up, believe the best, hope and endure.  But if I don’t actually do the:  bearing up, believing the best, hoping and enduring – then it’s not love but mere intentions.

“on your marks”

Knowledge is the beginning of the race, “on your marks.”  This is the easy and painless part.  Sitting in the comfort of your home with your favourite hot beverage while reading and studying about … forgiveness.

“get set”

Then, conviction comes, “get set“:  Even though my husband had offended me, I shouldn‘t have responded that way.  Still sitting in that chair at home; alone with my thoughts – God doesn‘t require anything from me at this point (not too hard, yet).  That’s not to say that the knowledge we get from studying God’s Word isn’t worthwhile, it is – you get back what you put into studying it.  However, this isn’t the reward that Paul alludes to in 1 Corinthians 9.

“GO”

When I hear the crack of the starter’s pistol, this is when I move into revelation from God’s Word.  It’s not in the being on my mark and getting set that my works are seen and proved to myself; but in the “GO.”  When the mere academics of learning God’s Word morphs my heart into practical action.  How I respond to an offence from my brother is the “GO.”  This is the definer of growth. (James 1:22).

We’re all in a race.  I’ve found that the majority of my training for heaven (1 Corinthians 6:2) has been worked through the sphere of marriage.  Thinking and reading about how to have a great marriage through forgiveness is a great place to start.  But if you don’t leave the starter’s block of good intention – you’ll never get there.

 “Information is not transformation – Doing is”

 

Stand on this promise

There is an old hymn called Standing on the Promises of God.  You can find Alan Jackson’s version here.  After watching the link it’s easy to come away with a feeling of entitlement and that all of God’s promises are great and effortless.

We don’t sing about hard time promises.  Good grief when I used come across them in the Bible, I’d skim over them as quick as possible, barely giving them a second glance, the last thing I wanted to do was the kind of rumination it would take to write a song about them!  True fact:  When I was a new believer I thought that if you read the Book of Job, too often – you were just inviting trouble into your life.  So new and so naïve.

As much as we don’t like it, God does make us some promises we would rather not look at.  Here’s one from 1 Corinthians 7:28:  Yet those who marry will have physical and earthly troubles, and I would like to spare you that.

Notice Paul doesn’t say, Those who … :

• are good wives will be spared
• respect their husbands will be spared
• read the Bible enough, or memorize every verse, will be spared
• pray enough will be spared
• go to church every Sunday will be spared

On and on it goes.  No way around.  No ‘brown-nosing’ up to the Teacher with acts of kindness done elsewhere than marriage.  No way to avoid what God says.  This is how it spoke to me:  yet those WHO MARRY WILL HAVE  physical and earthly TROUBLES, and I would like to spare you that.

You don’t see this little nugget in the wedding vows do you?  It would have been nice if it had of been pointed out.

But since God spoke it in His Word – it becomes a promise.  I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s be better to see these Words for what they are and be ready accept trials, rather than looking like a deer caught in the headlights when it happens. (1 Peter 4:12)

Be honest about you – you are broken.  And about him – you married a broken man; a fallen son of God, and you both live in a broken world.  He is going to fall and sin … against you.  Handle him with care when he does.

Standing on this promise of earthly troubles in marriage might not bring a bunch of “amens” from people, but I guarantee it will bring blessings from God.

 It’s time to regard people less in the light of what they do and more in the light of what they suffer.

-Dietrich Bonheoffer

 

Judging

After reading this post at Practical Theology for Women on raising the bar on what it means to be a Christian it got me to thinking about focus, sin and judgment.  This was a great post!  It reminded me how important it is to remain non-judgmental from the sins of my spouse; yet at the same time not being blind to them either.  After all, we are called to help each other when we see attitudes or behaviours in our brothers and sisters that seem off-center. (Galatians 6:1)

However, in trying to help each other it’s important that vision doesn’t become inverted.  In the basic biology of the eye there’s a great lesson.  The eye sees with two types of vision at the same time:  Peripheral (side vision) and fovea centralis (central vision).

It’s much easier to “raise the bar” on what it means to be a Christian when it comes to a husband while, at the same time, lower it when it comes to ourselves.  When I focus on my man’s faults this means I’ve brought them (and him) into the central vision.  The vision that is sharp and intense – it sees all.  However with the peripheral, we do see it also – it’s just not as noticeable and lots of times we even miss things that happen there!

My favourite scene in the film The Silence of The Lambs is an exchange that takes place between Special Agent Clarice Starling and Dr. Hannibal Lecter.  He has just released a scathing synopsis of her life, in order to knock her off balance by offending her.  Her response is perfect:  “You see a lot, Doctor.  But are you strong enough to point that high-powered perception at yourself?  What about it?  Why don’t you look at yourself and write down what you see?  Or maybe you’re afraid to.”

How do I know if my vision has been inverted?  His faults will scream louder than my own.  I’ve put my husband’s actions in fovea centralis when I see only his negative behaviours rather than my own; his good behaviours fade into the peripheral – going unnoticed.

This is judgment

The longer I keep him in the center vision in this regard, the easier it becomes to see only how his actions affect me – not how my actions and behaviours effect him.

This is selfishness

If I keep my husband in the line of vision that is judgment and selfishness, I place myself in the state of perpetual unforgiveness, this isn’t safe – for either of us.  The safest place for his negative behaviours are in the side vision.  I can’t let my husband’s faults distract from my own spiritual maturity.

 

To borrow from Special Agent Clarice Starling, Let’s look at ourselves with the high powered precision and write down what we see.

The grass IS greener

We can look at our neighbour’s lovely flower garden and see it as such effortless beauty.  All the different varieties that blend perfectly together:  Pinks, oranges, blues and purples and the dark earth poking through intermittently; completely free of weeds, of course.  Then turn our gaze towards our pathetic attempt.  It’s already the end of July and you can count the number of times on one hand you’ve been down on all fours – tending to what needs tending.

It’s the same with developing a healthy lifestyle.  When I see a woman that has athletically shaped her body and wishing I had that shapely body.  Wanting to lose some extra weight and doing nothing that resembles eating healthy but instead, gingerly snacking as I watch a movie instead of doing the work of stocking the pantry with the proper goods to do the job and heading out to the gym – tending to what needs tending.

We want what we want – and we want it without the work, without the care and effort.  We want a better marriage to happen without the mess of conflict.  We want it easy so that we don’t have to deal with the reality of our own reactions towards our spouse when they sin against us.  We want it simple so we don’t have to go deeper and expose the flaws and weaknesses in ourselves.

We don’t want to prepare the earth, plant the seeds, and then continue in weeding and watering.  We are lazy and selfish.

We don’t want set aside the time it takes to actually build muscle to take care of that fat.  And we certainly don’t want to restrict our dietary intake – to put any limits on ourselves.  We are spoilt and selfish.

We make it about us and want it our way — the way that is most painless and convenient and quick.  We want our spouse to BE the image of Christ already formed – now.  Rather than deliver grace through the process of forgiveness as they become Christ like.

A couple that has been married for over 40 years, to us, is lucky, rather than possibly acknowledge that maybe – just maybe – it wasn’t luck … but rather:  Hard selfless work and diligence – tending to what needs tending.

 

The Zamboni

Frank Joseph Zamboni, Jr.  Now there’s a name that every hockey mom and rink rat knows.  I first learned of it when I was 9 years old while attending my brother’s hockey games and practices.

During the course of a hockey game (for those who don’t know) there are 3 twenty minute periods.  Between each period there is a break and this is when the ice gets cleaned for the next period.  We have Mr. Zamboni to thank for his invention that resurfaces the ice and brings it back to fresh and smooth again.

As I was reading a little about Frank’s life, a thought on marriage struck me.  (If you’re not familiar with my blog you’ll soon see that I have this strange way that I extrapolate from almost any experience or knowledge and it becomes applicable for my passion of marriage – some say it’s a blessing some say it’s curse)  Anyway, clean surfaces – fresh starts.

Just like in a hockey game, after each period the ice gets resurfaced — it gets cleaned.  All the mess from the previous period just disappears!  Gouges are filled and high spots are removed.

 Gouges are filled and high spots are removed

Messes just disappear

What if we can see love and forgiveness as the Zamboni in marriage for our husbands?  Doesn’t love cover?  Aren’t sins like gouges and high spots in our souls?  Can’t love (God’s love in us) do the work of cleaning and covering – resurfacing the relationship between a brother and sister in the faith — just like a Zamboni does for the ice?

Happily ever after VS earthly troubles

Marriage is work and we’re clearly told that it will be hard, so why does it surprise me when it happens!  That’s like failing to put gas in your car before a long trip then being shocked when it runs out of gas.  Or planning a picnic, bringing food and no utensils for eating and then sitting there speechless wondering who‘s fault it really was that they were forgotten.  It’s just plain stupid.

I was lead to believe a lie; I wonder if you were too?  It’s the “marriage is easy, happy ending” mindset found in the phrase happily ever after.  It’s not that there aren’t times of complete bliss and euphoric pleasure found in marriage; there are.  It’s just that I find the mindset itself unbalanced when you stack it up against the Bible:  Yet those who marry will have physical and earthy troubles (1 Cor 7:28).

“Happily ever after” is a neat and tidy box that doesn’t move.  There’s no elasticity in it for the deep transgressions that husbands and wives commit against each other.  Transgressions that cause us to suffer anguish or be burdened and afflicted.  These transgressions can rub and chafe our soul into a narrow rut. Transgressions of thlipsis.

 We plan to get married.  We get married.

Then when our marriage twists up on us we act like it’s something out of the ordinary or something bizarre, “I can’t believe this is happening to me.” (1 Peter 4:12)  Walt Disney and The Brothers Grimm start to show themselves and the thlipsis hammers away at our ’happily ever after’ and we realize, “Oops, we forgot to plan for the trouble.”

It’s not that we plan for problems to happen but this knowledge is power and when we use it to our advantage it can be powerFUL.  I don’t believe that Paul warned us about this so that we could try and circumvent the reality of earthly troubles in marriage, but to forewarn us on how to navigate through them.

 happily ever after VS earthly troubles

If I could choose, I would have the easy one 24/7 – but I’ve found it’s just not the reality of life here on earth.