Moved By The Spirit....Or????????

A Keeper

Their marriage was good, their dreams focused. Their best friends lived barely a wave away. I can see them now, Dad in trousers, tee shirt and a hat and Mom in a housedress, lawn mower in one hand, and dish-towel in the other. It was the time for fixing things. A curtain rod, the kitchen radio, screen door, the oven door, the hem in a dress. Things we keep.

It was a way of life, and sometimes it made me crazy. All that re-fixing, eating, renewing, I wanted just once to be wasteful. Waste meant affluence. Throwing things away meant you knew there'd always be more.

But then my mother died, and on that clear summer's night, in the warmth of the hospital room, I was struck with the pain of learning that sometimes there isn't any more.

Sometimes, what we care about most gets all used up and goes away....never to return. So... While we have it... it's best we love it... And care for it.... And fix it when it's broken.... And heal it when it's sick.


This is true.. For marriage.... And old cars.... And children with bad report cards.... Dogs and cats with bad hips... And aging parents.... And grandparents. We keep them because they are worth it, because we are worth it. Some things we keep.. Like a best friend that moved away or a classmate we grew up with.


There are just some things that make life important, like people we know who are special.... And so, we keep them close!

Coverted...Transformed

As I was reading this morning I came across a very interesting question. Do you really want to be converted? Are you willing to be transformed? These questions are at the heart of who we are and what we really want out of life. I have always said that if you want to see where a persons heart is look at their calendar and their checkbook. If you see where they spend their time and their money you will see what they value the most. Are we trying to be converted by God yet still holding onto what everyone else thinks with our other hand? Are we fearful of transformation because of fear of the unknown? Many people that I talk with aren't totally satisfied with their lives yet when asked about changing then they totally refuse. I firmly believe no matter how good the unknown might be many will hold onto their old lives simply because we know what we get with them. No matter how bad our lives might be we hold onto them because we know what we will get with that life style. Maybe it's time to start letting go of our lives? Maybe it's time to let go and Let God!

Let Go...Let God

I am a people pleaser. I know. It starts off like an AA meeting doesn't it? But the fact remains that I am and always have been a people pleaser. One of the things that I have really been working on here lately is the simply fact that we can't please everyone. In fact the only two people that I should consider pleasing all the time are God and my wife. If I can get those two down it is amazing how the rest of life works for the better. When I realize that I can't do it myself and that only God can I start letting go of things like my self esteem, my control, and my inner struggles. God is designed to handle these things not me. It is when I let go and let God that my life's struggles seem all the easier.

Are We Clinging To The Right Things

Yesterday we talked about the abyss. Today we need to talk about who or what we are clinging to while we are in our abyss. Some tend to tell everyone their story hoping to find someone anyone to reassure them in the process. Unfortunately what they find is a lot more ridicule and pain along the way. We live in a "Me" society. A society where we are told that we don't need anyone or anything. But, we are also told that we are social creatures. So how do these two things mesh? They don't. We crave and long to be understood and accepted by others, that is simply who we are. So what we must do is with our abyss is withdraw our hurt and pain and only seek God's love and tender heart. I know, I can hear you say, but I want human friendship and togetherness. What we have to understand is that if we tell everyone our hurts and pains then we have opened up to a world of hurt, but if we simply turn to God, He will bring those few into our lives with whom we can share our feelings, hurts, and pains. God will provide. He will bring those whom we need into our lives, but we have to turn to Him first.

Right Or Married?

One thing that I have noticed in counseling couples is that a majority of them are more concerned with being right than they are with being married. A long time ago I was presented with the question; "Do you want to be right or do you want to be married?" This struck me as funny in that I like many others felt that I could have both. But, as I started researching this question what I found out is that we can't have both. Usually, once a couple starts arguing they stop seeking a comprimise, something to unifiy them, and they start looking to win. One party is talking and all the other party is doing is waiting for their chance to pounce on their opponent. Many couples even take this a step further. They seek to hurt or enrage their partner thinking that it might make them feel better if their partner feels worse. Must we down others to feel better about ourselves? A great question to ask your self when you feel yourself starting to head down this dark and narrow path might be, "six weeks from now is this really going to matter?" Many people can't tell you what the argument was about six days later much less six weeks. So the next time you are having a disagreement with your sponse start asking yourself, "do I want to be right (win the argument), or do I want to be married?"

Two Becoming One

It seems like in marriage we try and get the other person to complete us. When we look at Genesis it talks about two fleshes becoming one, not two halves making a whole, but two wholes making one flesh. Now this is a strange concept for us to understand but it is very similar to our understanding of God. The wording used to describe God is three entities ONE God. What is funny about this is that the word used for ONE God is the exact same word used for ONE flesh. So what we start to see is that God intends for us to become two people one flesh.

Anchors Away

The Abyss

Many of us have a huge hole deep down in our lives. The problem with our abyss is simply that we can never fill that huge of a whole. Why can't we ever fill the abyss? Simply because our needs are inexhaustible. So no matter how hard we try we will never be able to fill the voids and holes of our lives. And since the hole is so enormous and so deep we will always be tempted to flee from it. That isn't the correct answer either. Because soon we will be walking and fall into our abyss again. So we have to learn how to avoid these two extremes.

Today pray that God help you work with your two extremes and that He leads you to working on your abyss.

What Language Are You Speaking?

As we are looking for love in marriage and what love truly means it might be a good idea to look at some things that love can't do. In Gary Chapman's book, The Five Love Languages, he talks about how we send and receive love. We each have a love language and that is how we let others know we love them, but that is also how we feel love from others. Meaning if my love language is Quality Time then I so Heather that I love her by spending time with her. But what if her love language is Words of Affirmation? She is thinking man Pete spends a lot of time with me but he never tells me he loves me, he never tells me that he likes me, and he never tells me how beautiful I am. Pete on the other hand is thinking man Heather tells me all the time how much she cares but if she really cares then she would spend more time with me, I mean how can you love someone that you don't want to spend time with? See, they both love each other but they are communicating it in very different ways. Kinda like speaking totally different languages. And as you see love can't cross every language barrier. We have to learn to speak our spouses love language. And yes I changed mine and Heathers love language. Or did I?!?!?!

Marriage and Love

Love

Have you ever wondered about that word?

Pretty much we’ve all heard the I Corinthians 13 passage on love.

--1 Corinthians 13
Love
1If I speak in the tongues[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Or as the Message puts it:

--1 Corinthians 13
The Way of Love
1 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. 2If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. 3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love. Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn't want what it doesn't have. Love doesn't strut, Doesn't have a swelled head, Doesn't force itself on others, Isn't always "me first," Doesn't fly off the handle, Doesn't keep score of the sins of others, Doesn't revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.
8-10Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
11When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
12We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

I have always believed that at times a non-action is actually an action. Look at the beginning of verse 8, “Love never fails…” Promising to keep on keeping on, to work through anything is an action. We have been duped in today’s society that love is merely a feeling, an attraction that will overcome any of life’s difficulties. The problem with that is when we don’t feel like we love the other person (which will happen), we cut and run. We aren’t taught to stay and show the true actions of love. I know that there are days when I just don’t want to do certain things. Like playing golf. There are certain days that I just don’t want to go out and play hide-and-seek with a little white ball. So does that mean that I never want to play golf again? Nope, I will want to play in a day or two. I can remember being in school and running after basketball practice. We would run suicides until it seemed like my legs were going to fall off. I can remember as I would cross that finish line thinking one more of these and I’m going to have to kill someone. But, when we were done with our running, I would always walk over and get a basketball and shoot free-throws. Making my game better was always paramount in my life. It is the same with marriage.

When we hit those areas in our marriage where we feel like our wheels are about to fall off and we start thinking, “one more of these stupid little arguments and I’m gonna leave.” That is where we have to stop, take our spouse and head to a hotel or bed-room and lock the door and don’t come out until both parties have decided to make it work. And yes, it will take both parties. But, remember it will be hard, it will be a decision that both will have to make, and it will require the action of love.

The Simple Life

Bad Facts

These responses actually appeared on real science tests:

"The pistol of a flower is its only protection against insects."

"Mushrooms always grow in damp places and so they look like umbrellas."

"H20 is hot water, and CO2 is cold water."

"To collect fumes of sulfur, hold a deacon over a flame in a test tube."

"Three kinds of blood vessels are arteries, vanes and caterpillars."

"To remove dust from the eye, pull the eye down over the nose."

"The alimentary canal is located in the northern part of Indiana."

Gary Chapman

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From Gary Chapman's A Marriage Vine

Today's Focus: What Happens to Love After the Wedding?

At 30,000 feet, somewhere between Buffalo and Dallas, he put his magazine down, turned to me and asked, "What kind of work do you do?"
"I do marriage counseling and lead marriage enrichment seminars," I said.
"I've been wanting to ask someone this for a long time," he said. "What happens to the love after you get married?"
Relinquishing my hopes of getting a nap, I asked, "What do you mean?"
"Well," he said, "I've been married three times, and each time, it was wonderful before we got married, but somehow after the wedding it all fell apart. All the love I thought I had for her and the love she seemed to have for me evaporated. I am a fairly intelligent person. I operate a successful business, but I don’t understand love."
It was obvious, he had joined the ranks of the confused.
This week, I want to stand up and speak boldly in answering the question: What happens to love after the wedding?