The Down-to-Earth Gospel for Parenting

It all led up to this moment. The endless, wearisome job of training, nurturing and love called parenting is often wrought with little fruit. Discouraged, bone-tired parents look through bloodshot eyes for scraps of evidence in their kids that all of this exhausting work actually accomplished something… anything! As sibling fights continue to rage, attitudes flare up like gas in flames, after you have spoken the same guiding words more times than you can count, you wonder if you have utterly and irreversibly failed as a parent to your poor children.

But then, this night! It all seemed worth it after this night. What happened on this glorious night? My oldest, teenage son confessed to some sin he had willingly engaged in. Why would I consider this night, this moment of confession, a groundbreaking moment in our parenting journey? Just this....he did not get caught, but rather freely confessed.

He walked sheepishly into our bedroom and timidly asked, "Mom and Dad, can we talk?" He proceeded to openly confess his sins, speak frankly about his conviction and inform us regarding the steps he had taken to make things right in his life. As we asked probing questions, he spoke about his distaste for sin and his realization that he cares far too much about what people think about him. He talked, with joy, about His relationship with Jesus being restored as the burden of guilt and shame had been lifted through confession and forgiveness. We discussed strategies to help him fight sin in the future.

We talked much about the gospel, reminding him of how it frees us to live honestly before God and others. We told him, as we often have in the past, that we need Christ’s forgiveness just as much as he does. He thanked us after we prayed together. He walked out of our bedroom unaware that this mother’s heart was about to burst with gratitude to God for this beautiful moment.

Providing A Context for Confession

News flash!  Our kids are sinners. This may seem so elementary to the mature Christian ear that we rush past it as we hunt for more useful bits of parenting advice to help us along the way. Interestingly, it is often the first bit of theology that we inadvertently kick to the curb in our parenting endeavors. How else do you account for the disbelief that many parents express when sin rears its ugly head in the lives of their children? “We didn’t raise her this way!” or “He knows better!” often comes from the lips of shocked parents who are thrown off of their game when sin leaks from their children’s hearts. Maybe we ought to don some rubber gloves to rummage through the seemingly impractical bits of theology that is collecting dust at the curb.

In embracing a robust theology of sin in our homes, we provide a context for gospel fruit to flourish: honest confession, forgiveness through the blood of Christ, heartfelt repentance, peaceable reconciliation, re-stabilizing restoration, repeat. This gospel cycle starts with having something to confess. However, there are several temptations parents will face in exchange for the cold, hard truth that sin is alive and kicking in our children’s fallen hearts.

It’s Tempting to Believe…

• “Our family does not do that!” Many parents fall prey to the lie that we can discipline the sin right out of our children. Of course, we have a call to teach our children about the evils of sin, to warn them about its consequences, and to guide them away from its luring temptations. Children can and do learn to avoid sin for many different motives. However, we must parent realistically and Biblically regarding the depths of their fallenness and its ramifications. Rather than unintentionally presenting the unbiblical fallacy of perfectionism with self-righteous declarations about how our family does not do (fill in the blank), we ought to wisely take advantage of sinful moments to present a gospel sufficient enough to cover every sin they will face. We ought to talk frankly about how deceitful sin is as it presents to us alternatives to Jesus for our happiness. We ought to be honest about how easy it can be to fall prey to sin’s lies. We ought to assume that our children will lose some of their battles, given their fallenness and immaturity. Though we may fear a fatalism that seems to expect or give license to sin; instead we are providing a context for authentic gospel transformation. If we treat sin like something that "this family does not do," our kids will have no category for the sins they will inevitably face in themselves. Worse, we are limiting their opportunities to bask in the transforming forgiveness and grace that the gospel offers.

• “I would never do that!” With good desires that our children look to us for guidance through life’s obstacles, we may be tempted to hide our own weakness and sin. Rather than celebrating God’s grace toward sinners, we may fear that our children will abuse such grace as they see the outpouring of the mercy of God in our lives despite our sin. Juxtaposing our children’s failures, we choose to present ourselves as ever-the-strong conquerors of sin as guiding models. Unfortunately, this often results in our children walking away from us rather than toward us when they begin to intelligently struggle with sin. Feeling weak and unsuccessful, they wonder what went wrong with them. Conditioned to view us not as understanding allies who comprehend the bloody battle with sin, they struggle to relate to us. Worse, they may learn to simply hide their sin and weakness behind a self-righteous, unstable façade of strength. Though it may seem counter-intuitive to let down your guard to reveal personal sin to your children, in doing so you’re teaching them not to depend on themselves, you, or any man as their example. Rather, you are pointing your children toward the sturdy, robust, never-failing resources of Christ when weak.

• It’s not my child’s fault!” Desperate to believe our children are innocent victims of sinful outside influences, it’s easier to play the blame game when our children get caught up in sin. The alternative business of facing their sinful hearts head-on seems much more risky and daunting. Blaming outside influences stunts our children’s opportunities to deal honestly with their own corrupt hearts in a gospel context. It allows their sins to fester and grow unfettered, while also allowing our stubborn, parental pride to stay rooted in place as well. Because we have the all-sufficient, strong gospel that provides a remedy for such sin, we need not be lazy or afraid to face what comes from their hearts. Rather than blame-shifting, let’s give them the opportunity to be humbled by their sin in order to be amazed by the lavish mercy of Jesus that covers their sin with His own blood. 

Preparation for Life

What do our kids need from us in preparation for the journey of life? There are so many things that I aim to impart to my children before they venture off on their own. Yet, I am convinced what they most need is the full-bodied gospel, which includes a down-to-earth theology of sin. They need to learn to travel often down the gospel road of confession, forgiveness and freedom in Christ. The night my son confessed, I felt as though he was one step closer to being truly prepared for living a gospel-dependent life in this broken world.

The Many Hats Women Wear

The coach section of airplanes level the playing field with people. We are all in the back together, almost indistinguishable. Our attire, bags and gadgets are all that remain to set us apart from one another in our perspective identities.

On a recent trip to New York, I sat beside a youngish woman who appeared to have her proverbial act together. Her crisp, yet stylish suit, perfect hair and nails, and Louis Vitton briefcase gave her away as a savvy, Manhattan businesswoman. My yoga pants likely gave me away as well. Without words, this woman let me know very quickly and coolly that she was not in the mood for chit-chat. Her identity as “successful career woman” must have hinged upon her maintaining clear focus and seriousness, sparing no time for idle frivolity.

I saw a ring on her left ring finger. The ring indicated that this woman was capable of intimate relationship. Though she did not see the value of engaging with a stranger, she did have one person with whom she shared herself and her life with. I wondered how differently she may have reacted toward me if she were traveling with her spouse in flip flops and shorts en route to Hawaii. Would her relational identity bring a lightness to her step and spirit, allowing her to engage in her world differently?

We wear many different hats as women. Each hat requires something different from us and impacts how we interact in our world with other people. Each has its own set of expectations and obligations. Each represents a piece of our divided self, with our many identities, which is often sliced up neatly like a Thanksgiving pie. We may be friend, daughter, girlfriend, sister, mother, wife, grandmother, counselor, career woman, pastor’s wife, student, coach, homemaker. With the endless possibilities of the many hats we wear, the Mad Hatter has got nothing on some of us!

Living for the Double-Take
If it weren’t enough to carefully balance these many hats, we often add to the difficulty by “bedazzling” them. We are not content with plain hats. We want impressive, flashy hats that cause double takes from people around us.

Simple, seemingly lackluster faithfulness in our roles seems a tad uninspiring and so we labor with messy hot glue guns, cheap rhinestones and gaudy gems to give our hats some pizzazz. Nurturing mother. Pink rhinestone. Devoted friend. Gaudy trinket. Inspirational homemaker. Purple gem. The bedazzling and the problems come with the adjectives.

Starting out as harmless, fitting descriptions of our intentions to love others and serve well within our roles, these adjectives have the potential to enslave us when they become self-oriented. Loving others gets replaced with loving ourselves when we begin to live for the adjectives from a desire to standout and be noticed.

Longing to be eye-catching, self-oriented excellence in our roles can drive us tirelessly to do more and more. Rarely are we satisfied with our best efforts. We may alternately swing between pride and despair as we compare ourselves to other’s failures or achievements. Rest and contentment are always on the agenda for tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes.

What does inevitably come, with time and failure, is exhaustion, disillusionment, confusion and even anger. When good desires morph into enslaving lusts for recognition, we inevitably buckle under the burden of our blinged-out hats and wonder where things went so wrong.

A Closer Look at Our Hats
What did go wrong? Where did we lose our balance? Do we need to kick all of our hats to the curb and start over? Probably not. Most are representative of identities and roles that we cannot change. We may not be able to take off many of the hats we wear, but we can remove the embellishments that weigh them down.

Yet their removal may be harder than we think because our own glory, which we unfortunately love, is at stake. We have trusted in these adornments to give us the attention-grabbing luster we were after. Does the removal of the embellishments mean that we must cease from any action within our roles that might bring us attention? Again, probably not. We will still have certain duties and actions to perform as mother, friend, homemaker, etc.

The problem is often not in the act itself, but in the motive for doing it.

The external actions of glorifying God in our duties and grasping for our own glory can be nearly identical. For example, we can clean our house to love others and glorify Him by stewarding well the house that He has provided, or we can clean our house to impress the neighbors who are coming for dinner. The action may be the same, but there is a world of difference in the inward motivation.

We act from our motives, which in turn affect the fruit that the actions produce. If we are cleaning with selfish motives to impress, we may exhaust ourselves and our family as we harshly drive them to tirelessly perfect the home. We feel let down if the neighbors never notice or comment. We may resort to fishing for our own compliments to get what we are after. Disordered emotions and bad fruit often accompany actions done from self-interested motives of grandeur.

Grasping for glory requires a disorienting mental commitment to suppressing what is true. As believers, we must orient our lives with God’s revealed truth found within the pages of Scripture. We must believe what the Bible says about us is true. It unflinchingly declares us to be fallen, finite people who are limited and broken in our capacities and abilities. It also says we think far too highly of ourselves than we ought. When we choose to live under the unrealistic demands of our own delusional, idealistic fantasies about ourselves, we must also deny the truth of our fallenness.

Maybe we are more like that Mad Hatter than we realize—we are either passively being deceived or stubbornly believing lies and fantasy. We are grasping for perfection in ourselves which will forever elude fallen people.

Grace for Glory Seekers
True greatness came only once—in the person and work of Jesus Christ. He alone lived the perfectly righteous life that we could never live. Within the gospel message lies our liberation from the slavery of elusive self-glory seeking. Jesus offers us the glory of His own perfect record! Ours only in Christ!

We must forsake the sham of our own glory (which is no glory at all) and rather glory in the One who laid aside His glory to free us from our self-glory. Liberation comes when we rest in His record rather than our own achievements. True glory is found when we glorify Him.

Glorying in Christ alone frees us for love. No longer grasping for glory for ourselves, we can again approach the many hats we wear as opportunities to bring glory to Him through our dependent love and humble service to God and others. We can reflect in our roles the love and glory of the One who gave up His royal crown to wear a crown of thorns. This is grace –the weightiest of all glory! A glory that He invites us to share in.

Shame and the Stubborn Stains of Sin

What in the world do you say to those who have been through evil circumstances that are so horrendous you can barely wrap your mind around them? What do you say that will touch hurts that run so deep?

I recently was asked to speak to a group of girls in a children's home while in El Salvador for a missions trip. These precious girls had all been victims of unthinkable evil in their short lives. Their stories are so incredible that my mind, while hearing them, began to process them as fiction to buffer the effects of coming face-to-face with unadulterated evil at it worst. But these stories are not fiction. They are all tragically true. They include elements like kidnapping, rape, beheadings, abuse, children being sold as prostitutes by their own family members, familial sexual abuse, hunger, squaller, beatings, neglect, and the like. These girls had all been sinned against grievously! And sin always leaves it mark.

I wondered what to say. I asked God for the words. I was desperate to be used by Him to say something that could bring some measure of healing to the hurts they had endured. He not only gave me words, but many tears as well. My heart broke for them as I prepared to speak to them. This is a portion of the words that He gave...

If God were to walk through the doors of your home and look right at you, do you think he would be smiling? Or do you think He would be frowning or have an angry look on His face?

How do you think you would feel when He looks right at you? Do you think you would run to Him or away from Him? Do you think you would want to hide? Is it often hard to believe that He loves you? I have struggled with these thoughts.

Do you know what the word shame means?  Shame is that feeling that we have when we believe that we are bad, or dirty, or worthless. Shame makes us feel like outcasts who can't be included in on the good things in life. It makes us want to hide and not be seen. It makes us feel like we have stains on us that won't come clean no matter how hard we try to scrub them away. We are afraid that everyone can see them on us. We are afraid that God sees them too. We just want to hide. Have you ever felt that way? I have.

We feel shame for many reasons. We feel shame for the sins we have committed. We know that the Bible says that if we confess these things, we can experience the forgiveness that Christ offers. Yet, we may continue to wallow in shame because we cannot believe the relief and comfort of forgiveness is possible for us because of the terrible things we have done. We feel so ashamed of ourselves.

We also feel shame for the things that have been done to us, for the sins that were committed against us. Maybe we have been violated, abused, criticized, attacked or rejected. We can't confess these sins because they were not our sins to confess. Yet, they still leave a mark. They make us feel dirty, used and worthless. These sins committed against us make us feel the same sense of shame as though they were our own sins. What do we do with these feelings? Can we come out of hiding? Is there any hope?

Our hope is not found in ourselves. We may try to clean ourselves up to make these feelings of shame go away. We may follow all of the rules perfectly in our attempt to cover our shame with our own good works. But it doesn't work. We always end up believing that the bad stuff that we have done or that has been done to us is just too bad.  We could never do enough. The good will never overtake the bad. If we can't make ourselves clean enough, where do we turn?

Lets look at a man in the Bible who felt shame. He was a leper. He had a disease that made him untouchable. No one would come near him or touch him for fear that he would taint them. People had to call out, "Unclean!" when he passed by.

The leper had a disease that brought him shame, but there are others in the Bible who felt shame for other reasons. There was a Samaritan woman who felt ashamed of her nationality because some thought that her people were dirty and unclean. There was a sinful woman who had a sexual past that she was ashamed of. She felt so dirty she could not even look into the faces of people because of her shame. She may have thought that if she looked at them, they would be able to see all that she had done. There were tax collectors who were despised because of the jobs they did. There is a woman in the Bible named Tamar who was sexually abused and then mistreated and shamed by the very one who sinned against her. There are many examples in the Bible of people who lived with shame for different reasons. 

Let's look at the story of the leper from Matthew 8:1-3.

When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And behold, a leper came to him, saying, "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean."  And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, "I will; be clean." And immediately the leprosy was cleansed.

What do we see here that could help us?

• Jesus came toward the people. He didn't stay away. He came toward the outcasts and the lepers and all those who live with shame.  He comes near to us too.

• The leper responded to Christ in faith (Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.) We too must cry out in faith to the only One who has the power to make us clean. We must believe that He has the power to forgive the sins we have committed. But we also must believe that He has the power to make us clean from the things that have be done to us that make us feel dirty.

• Jesus touched the untouchable leper and healed him. Though others may have touched us to harm us, Jesus touches us to forgive us, heal us and make us clean.

• We must believe that he is willing to make us clean. We must believe Him when He says, "I will; be clean." We must believe that when he does make us clean, we are truly and thoroughly washed as white as snow.

When we trust Jesus and put our hope in Him, He takes away all of our sin, shame and dirtiness. He takes it all and gives us forgiveness of our sins, healing for our hurts and cleansing for our shame.

Cry out to Him and trust in Him like the leper did. He knows you by name. He sees you. He will forgive you. He will make you clean. He will accept you. He will love you. He won't reject you. He won't mistreat you. He will include you in His family and tenderly call you His precious, loved child. He will take away your shame. You can believe that when God sees you, He is smiling. It's not too good to be true. You don't need to hide from Him, or anyone else, when you have been made clean and new in Christ.

Do you believe this?

I am praying that the beautiful girls that I met in El Salvador would believe. I am praying that we all would believe, and be transformed by, the forgiveness and cleansing that Christ purchased for us when He took our sins and bore our shame on the cross.

Mingling of Les Mis with Ministry Grief

Unexpected Dealings in Unexpected Places for one Pastor's Wife

Les Miserables held much more for me than simply a lovely Sunday afternoon shared with my husband and daughter.  I did not anticipate that God would use the musical to help me face the grief that difficult years of ministry can bring.

The song “I Dreamed a Dream” began the flood of emotion.  Fantine, the character broken by life’s hard journey sings her account of her progression from youthful, naive optimism to the harsh realities of living in a broken world.  I too had started ministry with ideals and expectations 20 years ago.  Kingdom work would be exciting. Love would conquer all.

As I sat in that movie theater and took in Fantine’s haunting words from her bleeding heart of crushed hopes, my whole being resonated with her as I reflected on my expectations for ministry.  Her words were my words, “There was a time when love was blind; and the world was a song; and the song was exciting; I dreamed a dream in times gone by; when hope was high; and life worth living; I dreamed that love would never die; I dreamed that God would be forgiving; then I was young and unafraid; and dreams were made and used and wasted; there was no ransom to be paid.”

Ransoms To Be Paid

There is always a ransom to be paid. Fantine had surrendered her idealism as she sang from her despair, “Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.” Her hopes and dreams were as sullied as her dress as she paid her high ransom.

After a few long, hard years of ministry, I felt like I had been paying the ransom too. There are seemingly unavoidable relational ransoms to be paid in ministry. These costs have been the cause of indescribable grief for me through the years. Young Marius, of Les Mis, describes this well in his song, “There's a grief that can't be spoken; there's a pain goes on and on; phantom faces at the window; phantom shadows on the floor; empty chairs at empty tables; where my friends will meet no more. “ Those words sting.

Relational Ransoms in Ministry

I have attempted (at times failing) to love people well in ministry. In spite of my effort, I have lost many friends over the years. Some have gone simply because they have left our church. Many feel better completely cutting ties when they leave, and so leaving the church means leaving the relationship with the pastor and his wife. Others have chosen to make sinful choices and they knew I, their pastor’s wife and friend, would attempt to hold them accountable for those choices. In choosing the path of sin, they chose to remove all of the obstacles. I was an obstacle. I have also borne relational losses over the years from misunderstandings, theological differences, false accusations, speaking the truth in love, to name a few.  Sadly, there are many friends through the years that are now “empty chairs at empty tables where my friends will meet no more.”

I, with Fantine and Marius, cannot deny the impact and hurt of these losses. I have to fight a grueling battle with cynicism. I wholeheartedly believe that we were created for relationships and are meant to experience the blessings and beauty of true fellowship. In this, we reflect the relational beauty of the Trinitarian love of God (John 17). But often, the brutal realities of relational losses in ministry overshadow what I profess to believe. 

The Calling that Keeps

It is an understatement to say that these losses are painful; it can feel like one “death” after another. However, ministry is a calling and that calling does not allow those who are called to forsake it even if given the option to do so. We could not, because at some point, ministry truly became our life. Life without ministry would not be life at all. As a missionary friend put it, “There is no other life for us. There is no option. We can have the easy way, it's there for the taking but by the amazing grace of God, we won't.” She is right.

What keeps me pressing on even when I feel like running for the hills? Jesus Christ is the only One who has truly comforted me in all of my afflictions and given me the grace I need to persevere in love. I would have thrown in the towel years ago and begged my husband to do anything else were it not for Jesus.

Jesus Gives Greater Graces

There is no experience in ministry that Jesus has not already known in deeper ways. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15) He knows the pain of searing loss in ways I will never know or endure. He poured his life out in love for his friends and was rejected, despised, forsaken, discarded, falsely accused, mistreated, and finally killed in response.  I must “consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that {I} may not grow weary or fainthearted.” (Hebrews 12:3)

The ultimate ransom must be paid and “Jesus paid it all”. He understands deep suffering in the path of love;  “but for the joy set before him, he endured, though he despised the shame” (Hebrews 12:2). My suffering is light in comparison. Because of his endurance through suffering, I can draw comfort from him and endure. I can “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace” to receive “mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16)

These losses have been a means of transformation in my life as God has faithfully and gently used my grief to show me my own sin. “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” (Hebrews 12:6) He has not allowed my pain to be wasted; rather, he has used it to conform me into His image from one degree of glory to the next (2 Corinthians 3:18) by allowing me to see how much hope I put in created things for ultimate happiness. I am grateful that he has used ministry disappointments to “discipline {me} for {my} good, that {I} may share in his holiness.” (Hebrews 12:10)

There are times in the crucible of ministry that I have felt like I can’t do what I know I must. Everything in me cries, “I can’t!” These are the moments that I have truly learned that apart from him I can do nothing (John 15:5). Yet I have also experienced his strength buttress that weakness. “He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,’” and I can be “”content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10) There has been nothing like ministry that has caused me to acknowledge, accept and own my utter inability, cling to his strength, and say, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)

Jesus has faithfully comforted, changed, and strengthened me through every excruciating ministry loss, He has met me with more grace, encouraging me to “lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees” (Hebrews 12:12), to “not grow weary or fainthearted” (Hebrews 12:3), but  rather to “run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).

Will You Give All You Can Give?

With every experience of loss from the brokenness that results from sin, let us be emboldened to speak louder and bolder about the liberating gospel that frees us from the slavery of sin. Let all who are angered by this brokenness sing the closing song of Les Mis together:  “Do you hear the people sing; singing the song of angry men; it is the music of a people; who will not be slaves again; will you give all you can give; so that our banner may advance; some will fall and some will live; will you stand up and take your chance?”

At the end of the day, it’s worth it because He is worth it!

Why Bother? He'll Never Change!

Thoughts on Submission, Passivity and Vigilant Love in Marriage

“I just can’t do this anymore!” said a hopeless and exasperated Gina, following yet another relational bomb that had gone off over the weekend with her husband Mark. Gina and Mark have been married for 26 years. They are both believers who are active in church and ministry.

Mark is a very structured man who is always in control. He lives life on his own terms, managing his life to the minute. When his scheduled plans fall into place like clockwork which they often do, Mark is easy to get along with. Yet when people or circumstances impact his rigid schedule, sinful anger is quick to flow which leaves a  wake of relational damage in its trails.

Gina is normally an easy-going person who does not like conflict. Overlooking Mark’s anger has often come easy for her. Lately, however, she has been finding it harder to forgive and move on, simmering over past events, stewing in her own frustration. She feels powerless  to control her own angry eruptions. She is desperate for help and prayer.

While I agreed that change is needed in how she responds to Mark, she gave a shocked look when I asked her if she planned to speak to Mark about his sin and how it impacts relationships. She quickly dismissed the thought and retorted, “Why bother? He is so set in his ways. He will never change!”

The Perils of Passivity in Marriage

Unfortunately I have seen in many broken marriages the damaging results that years of passivity toward sin can bring. Frustration, disappointment, apathy, and hopelessness are often the result. This passivity essentially chips away at the foundations of love and respect in the marriage and weakens its structure. When life in a fallen world has finally applied enough pressure, the weakened structure may begin to crumble as the sin that has been ignored for years often becomes the sin that we can no longer tolerate.

Exasperated wives are often confused, shocked or even angry at the suggestion that they may be just as responsible for the current condition of their struggling marriage due to their passivity and unwillingness to speak the truth in love regarding sin. Confusion regarding submission is often a culprit.

What’s a Submissive Christian Wife To Do?

With a biblical understanding of complementarian roles, submission, and the Genesis 3 curse, are Christian wives limited to merely “submit, pray ,and get out of God’s way” when faced with our spouse’s sin? Though widely misunderstood and attacked in our culture today, biblical submission is undoubtedly a powerful means of grace in any marriage. It is a beautiful, God-honoring, divine calling of a wife to honor, respect, and uphold her husband’s God-given leadership in the home.

However, does the call to submission negate a wife from lovingly speaking the truth to her husband when he is either blind or stubborn toward the destructive patterns of sin in his life? Would confrontation violate the call to submission?

John Piper has said: “Submission…does not mean that a wife cannot seek the transformation of her husband, even while respecting him as her head—her leader, protector, and provider… Wives are not only submissive wives. They are also loving sisters. There is a unique way for a submissive wife to be a caring sister toward her imperfect brother-husband. She will, from time to time, follow Galatians 6:1 in his case: ‘If anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.’ She will do that for him.” Love for our husbands would move us to these measures.

The Call to Vigilant Love

Dan Allender and Tremper Longman III define love well in their book Bold Love. “Bold love is courageously setting aside our personal agenda to move humbly into the world of others with their well-being in view, willing to risk further pain in our souls, in order to be an aroma of life to some and an aroma of death to others.”

Genuine love for our husband would compel us to not only “cover a multitude of sins” by extending grace (1 Peter 4:8), but also, when appropriate, courageously stand against the sin that mars the beauty and grace that God desires (and purchased through Christ) for our husband.

Standing against sin because we love requires sober conviction regarding the bondage and evil of sin and its devastating consequences. It is motivated by a deep longing for, and envisioning of, the beautiful freedom from sin that the application of the gospel would bring to our husband. Loving desires would compel the pushback, yet self-interested fears may keep us from it.

The Obstacles to Overcome

There are many obstacles that may need to be overcome in order for us to love boldly. The love of comfort and/or the desire for peace at any cost may keep us from “rocking the boat” through humble confrontation. Nevertheless, resting in the unshakable peace with God that we have through Christ may free us to risk discomfort for the sake of the one we love.

Fear of man may also keep us ensnared and be a barrier to love when we hang our hope for happiness and meaning in life on the approval we are after from our husband (Proverbs 29:25). However, understanding that we already have the approval from God that we most need because of Christ’s atonement, we can be liberated to love our husband well for his ultimate good.

Fear of our husband’s rejection or retaliation may also paralyze us from engaging in truthful love toward him. Yet, marinating in the perfect love of God through Christ and the resulting fear (awe) of the Lord casts out immobilizing fears regarding the consequences of this bold love (1 John 4:18). The perfect love of Christ in the gospel both sets us free us from our fears as well as informs the manner in which we love.

Jesus’ Valliant Love

Rather than remaining passive toward our sin and the devastating consequences of wrath incurred by it, Jesus’ fierce love compelled Him to act valiantly on our behalf! Throwing off comfort and forsaking all fears, He loved sacrificially and intentionally by atoning for sin by His own death, thereby purchasing our eternal acceptance before God. Though God accepts us solely and fully on the merits of Christ’s death, it is also true that He accepts us with an agenda to change us.

God’s love for us motivates Him to continue to mercifully confront the sins that beset us with the gracious goal of transforming us into the image of Christ from one degree of glory to the next (2 Corinthians 3:18). This process involves ongoing sight, confession, and repentance of our sin alongside the forgiveness and grace that our Savior purchased for it. Sight of sin, Lord-willing, leads to gospel gratitude and grace-empowered change. Sight often comes by way of loving, gospel-soaked, grace-filled confrontation. Wives, are you willing to love your husband in this way?

15 Hours of Blindness & The Snare of Worry

I was convinced  I was going blind and would face my future confined to a lonely world of darkness, no longer able see the beautiful faces of those I loved.

Would I forget what they looked like? Would I have to assume that my daughter looks lovely, or my sons handsome, on their wedding days? Would I have to tenaciously hang onto fading memories of the glories I had seen in watching the sun rise and descend in its daily march?

There is a brutal torture in having seen and loved what will never be seen again. I would now have to adapt to life in the shadows with large, looming realities and dangers that exist to be painfully reckoned with, but without the sight to avoid. What would I become? Why would God let this happen to me?

To make a torturously long story short, I was convinced for credible reasons that I would be diagnosed  Monday morning with glaucoma. Glaucoma is a serious, incurable eye condition that eventuates in blindness as a cruel blackness creeps from the fray of peripheral vision to the center until the blackness closes in completely. I had the symptoms, according to that devious and debilitating online tool of the devil, WebMD. For those who already struggle with worry and see in their mind’s eye vividly clear visions of the worst case scenario, WebMD is faithful to fill in the gloomy details of your “sure” future life of suffering.

Fifteen hours would pass from the point that I went offline with WebMD and my dreaded ophthalmology appointment on Monday morning. I was convinced that I was going blind. I may as well have been blind in those fifteen hours.

The Epicenter of Worry

Worry is torment. I do not consider myself a worrier by nature. It doesn’t make the cut of my top 5 list of besetting sins. Yet, I believe that everyone falls on the spectrum of worry somewhere.

We all, under the right circumstances, will worry about something because  there is so much to worry about in this fragile and fallen world. Will my kids make it? What kind of world will they face? Will we have enough money to retire? Will I ever feel better? Will the chemo work? Will this conflict ever end in reconciliation? Will my spouse change? Will I change? Will God be faithful? I could go on.

To live in the epicenter of worry is to feel like you have fallen into a trap that has both enclosed you and is continuing to close in on you, with no exit signs posted. It feels inescapable whether we try to claw our way out, or simply sink down in defeat.

The things that we obsess, lose sleep, and wring our hands over always seem so plausible and certain to us. We attempt to alleviate our worst fears by reminding ourselves that it is only possible that they be realized; but then again, they may not come to pass. This kind of rationalizing rarely works because the nature of worry hedges it bets on the worst case scenario!

Our emotions may spin out of control as our minds race to formulate plans to counter this dreaded future we are certain we face. We have fallen into the trap of worry, and the details of our future are closing in on us. Hope is as thin as the air in this claustrophobic trap. How do we fight our way out?

The Missing Person

The  problem with this tragic tale of woe that we are embracing is the missing person in our fateful futures. God is never there with us! It is only me/us inescapably contending with the brutal realities of our impossible circumstances, without support, without resources and without hope. Yet, can this reality ever be true for the believer? When God said, “I will never leave you or forsake you,” did He really mean what He said?

Some of the most comforting,  perspective-gaining, endurance-producing words in Scripture are the words, “I will be with you.” God, the all-powerful, sovereign, Lord of all, who unquestionably maintains, sustains and controls every last thing in this entire universe is speaking. And what does He say? He says, as a promise, from a God who cannot lie or change His mind, that He will be (not might be, not conditioned upon our meeting certain criterion) with us. He covenants to be with us, His very own, dearly loved children whom He loves with an everlasting love.

How can we be sure of His love and watchful care over us in the futures we face? We can look to the cross for assurance. Romans 8:32 says, “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” If He gave His very own Son, will He not continue to be faithful in whatever future He has prepared for us? He will be with us in that future, giving all that is necessary for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). This is bedrock, unchanging, hope-filled truth to cling to as you fight your way out of the trap of worry.

“I will be with you.” As I faced my ophthalmology appointment on Monday morning, those were my “fighting words” in my battle with worry. Faith is never an easy fight. As it turns out, I am not going blind. I have chronic dry eye disease from making too few of my apparently handicapped tears. I left with a small bottle of artificial tears and a large gift of faith from my larger-than-life God who will always be with me.

“I will be with you.” He meant what He said.  What do those words do to your worry? How do  they change your outlook on the future?

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This blog was first posted at http://biblicalcounselingcoalition.org/blogs/2012/11/14/15-hours-of-blindness-the-snare-of-worry/

Book Review of Defiant Grace: The Surprising Message and Mission of Jesus

• Author:  Dane Ortlund
• Publication Date: 2012
• Publisher: EP Books (Evangelical Press)
• Retail Price: $11.99
• Page Count: 139 

Gospel-centeredness: Coherent or just cool

The gospel is all the rage these days in Christian circles. It’s trendy to frequently drop the phrase ‘gospel-centeredness’ in our conversations as we sip on our skinny no-foam latte while peering over our cool glasses that we don’t really need to wear. There are many great books surfacing on the gospel and its efficacy in the lives of believers, stimulating fruitful conversations on the blogosphere regarding the gospel and sanctification. While the average Christian understands the bare facts of the incarnation, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ for sin, many of us do not know how to articulate the implications of the gospel of grace for our own lives.  Dane Ortlund’s book, Defiant Grace: The Surprising Message and Mission of Jesus, written for “fellow everyday believers” may be the means of refreshing grace that they are seeking.  Ortlund states boldly, “It’s time to enjoy grace anew- not the decaffeinated grace that pats us on the hand, ignores our deepest rebellions and doesn’t change us, but the high-octance grace that takes our conscience by the scruff of the neck and breathes new life into us with a pardon so scandalous that we cannot help but be changed.” (page 13) Ortlund’s  creative and seemingly effortless use of vivid, metaphorical language alone makes the book a pleasurable read.

Surprised by Grace
Ortlund presumes that our understanding of who Jesus is needs repeated tweaking, so he takes us on a journey through the four gospels in search of the surprising message and mission of Jesus.  His premise is that Jesus is surprising and grace is shocking. The surprises he shares may seem scandalous and counterintuitive to our law-addicted hearts, so Ortlund anchors his summary statements for each gospel narrative in portions of Scripture from that same gospel. He adeptly uses these anchors to give evidence for the unanticipated, astounding message or mission of Jesus as well as show its thematic continuity within the book as a whole.

Chapter 1 begins with Matthew where we see the surprise of disobedient obedience.  The main point of this chapter answers the question of qualification for the Kingdom of God. Using Matthew 18-20, Ortlund shows that Peter, the Pharisees and the rich young ruler all ask the same question that many others have asked through the ages, “What is the least that I must do to get God off my back?” Treating obedience as something that earns points and qualifies us for the Kingdom, we deny the “inadequacy of our own moral resources (as a result of our sin) and the adequacy of God’s divine provision (on account of Christ’s work).” As a result of these false beliefs, our rule-keeping can be evil, our obedience disobedience. In the end, only those who realize their disqualification, manifested in rule-breaking and rule-keeping, are truly qualified to receive Christ’s grace.  

In Mark, we see the surprise of the King undergoing the fate of a criminal, underscoring triumphant brokenness. Christ the King came to die. Masterfully using Jesus’ dealings with James and John and blind Bartimaeus from Mark 8-10, Ortlund unpacks our spiritual and moral blindness, evidenced in our natural, prideful grasping for glory in ourselves. We, like blind Bartimaeus, need mercy from the King who died the death of a criminal to secure mercy and glory for those who admit their blindness and cling to Christ.

In Luke, we see the surprise of the insiders becoming outsiders and the outsiders becoming insiders as Jesus reveals the stunning reality of those included in his community. Luke highlights the radical social inversion of the gospel call: Jesus came for sinners and social outcasts. Those who believed themselves to be on the outside were welcomed, and those who believed themselves to be on the inside were excluded.  “Hell is filled with people who believe they deserve to be outside hell and inside heaven. Heaven is filled with people who believe they deserve to be outside heaven and inside hell. Such grace defies our sense of fair play.” (page 92) Those invited into community with Christ are those who grasp the truth that the ultimate insider became the outcast to secure inclusion for outsiders to be brought in.

In John, we see the surprise of the Creator of the universe becoming one of his own creatures, emphasizing the shocking identity of Jesus. Through consideration of the magnitude of the incarnation account in John 1, Ortlund draws attention to the uniqueness of Christianity in the weighty reality that the transcendent, holy God came to us, as us. Scandalous to the deeply held beliefs of both Jews and Greeks regarding the nature of God is this notion that God became man. “This is the surprise of John. The Creator became a creature so that we creatures can be restored to our Creator. Such grace defies our categories.” (page 105)

Wonder to Worship
By the end of the book, the reader is left freshly stunned by Jesus and his radical grace, marveling at his counter-intuitive message, amazed at his counter-cultural mission. These surprising realities make quick application for the reader, forcing us to think about the motivations of our obedience and giving insight into the desires of our heart and our need for mercy. They navigate us towards the broken and marginalized, reminding us of the beauty and grandeur of the welcome and acceptance of gospel grace. Dane Ortlund invites and impels worship of the Giver of grace, gratitude because of the receiving of it, and a deep desire to be transformed into the image of this One who would come to give such radical, defiant grace!  The only weakness found in Ortlund’s book is its brevity. 119 pages whets the appetite for grace and leaves you wanting more!