Anchored

By definition, an irony is a circumstance or result that is the opposite of what might be expected. Jesus says His kingdom is a lot like that: if you want to be first, choose to be last; if you want to be strong, choose to be weak. His kingdom is upside down and inside out. To the native eye, these truths are not self-evident.

The same thing could be said about Jesus’ Gospel. The Gospel of Christ has numerous ironies about it, and here are some more:

1.       Grace will decimate what you think of you, while it gives you a security of identity you’ve never had.

2.       Grace will expose your deepest sins of heart, while it covers every failure with the blood of Jesus.

3.       Grace will make you face how weak you are, while it blesses you with power beyond your ability to calculate.

4.       Grace will take control out of your hands, while it blesses you with the care of One whose plan is unshakable and perfect in every way.

To read a fuller explanation of these thoughts by Paul Tripp, go here.

Looking at life through the eyes of an economist can prove helpful and sometimes provocative, as the book Freakonomics demonstrated several years back. Now, in the June 19, 2010 issue of World magazine, Marvin Olasky interviews economist Jennifer Roback Morse to discuss some of the implications of the erosion of the institution of heterosexual marriage. The cost of deinstitutionalizing natural marriage is devastating on multiple levels, including financial and sociological. Here are several excerpts from the magazine article entitled, “Minimizing Marriage” (pp. 84, 86):

Are men becoming less willing to take on commitments?

 

Single motherhood is becoming more and more prevalent, because you can’t get men to commit. Why can’t you get men to commit? Number one, because they don’t have to; number two, it’s dangerous for them to, because the obligation level ratchets up but the benefits do not. The irony of the whole feminist movement, which started off being something to liberate women, is that now women feel like the only free thing they can do is have a child completely by themselves because there is no way of attaching a child to a father and to the family. The move towards same-sex marriage and artificial reproductive technology are accelerating that trend, and making it more likely that women are going to end up spending their lives alone and doing their child-bearing completely alone.

 

Now we have many more women than men going to college. What does that do to our society?

 

We’re gradually pushing the men outside of the family. Women’s marriage prospects are deteriorating. It’s harder and harder to find a suitable guy to marry, because women feel like they have to get educated because they have to take care of themselves, and men think, eh, maybe they have to get educated because they might be a father by the time they’re, say, 30. Fatherhood induces many changes of behavior in men, and not just random fatherhood—fathering children and never seeing them again—but married fatherhood. That induces more mature and economically productive behavior. If a man doesn’t see that coming at him until he’s 30 or 35, then his incentive to get educated goes down. We’ve put a lot of things into this equation that are really skewing things and making it harder for relationships to work farther down the line.

 

So we have many more single moms. So what?

 

Many questions are involved: While mom’s attaching to the baby, who’s taking care of mom? In the natural family, there is another person taking care of mom, and that’s dad. Why is dad doing that? Because that child’s as much his as it is hers, physiologically. Could the mom do it by herself? The answer is, not very well. We have a lot of data on that point, that mom by herself does not do nearly so well as mom with dad. There are a number of reasons: first of all, someone has to earn a living. There’s a whole body of things that she doesn’t have to think about. Even if she does have a job, she doesn’t have to face it alone. It’s pretty decisive that kids benefit from two parents.

 

And what about a same-sex couple?

 

The assumption and premise is that they’re committed to each other. We have some preliminary data that says that actually these relationships aren’t as stable as heterosexual married couples. And data actually shows that lesbian relationships break up sooner than gay male relationships.

 

Here’s a little sociological fact: between two-thirds to three-fourths of divorces are initiated by women. Why is that? Because women are looking for emotional fulfillment. When you get two women together looking for that from one another, you can get an element of instability ratcheted up rather than your partner being someone who calms things down. The preliminary data show that the least stable relationship is the lesbian couple.

 

Those who care more about pocketbooks than people should be concerned?

 

A person who does anything they can get away with is scary to their family members, and they have to be controlled by the state. And they have to be controlled in very expensive ways: The California Youth Authority spends enough on each child in its care to send three people to [the University of California at] Berkeley. The Institute for American Values recently did a study that looked at the taxpayer cost of out-of-wedlock childbearing. They came up with an annual figure of $112 billion per year. That is the GDP of New Zealand—not chump change.

 

Since most of the counseling I provide is to married couples, it only seems sensible for me to blog my way through a marriage book. I’ve decided to go through the newly released, What Did You Expect? Redeeming the Realities of Marriage, by Paul Tripp. I have found Paul to be a reliable source in the past, and I expect no less from this resource.

It’s actually quite a challenge to find good books on marriage: good meaning that it’s primarily grounded in Scripture (not with Scripture simply tacked on to make it “Christian”), that it clearly connects the work of Christ to our daily lives (answers what His life, death, and resurrection have to do with my stuff today), and that it provides plenty of application points for couples to process together (a lot more needs to happen than simply reading a book, and a book that provides good application questions serves as a catalyst for something bigger to happen beyond the reading stage). Two very good books on marriage that do this are Love That Lasts, (app questions in the back of the book) by Gary & Betsy Ricucci, and When Sinner’s Say “I Do”, (app questions provided in a separate study guide—an exasperating separate purchase that could have been spared by including it in the back of the book) by Dave Harvey.

For a brief start on What Did You Expect?, let me make some initial observations and overview of the book before jumping in with chapter 1. My copy is a hardback edition that is 287 pages, which will make this book a challenge for most men to read (by contrast, Love That Lasts is 168 pages—including 12 pages of app questions, and When Sinner’s Say “I Do” is 183 pages in length). From the table of contents, What Did You Expect? is organized around 6 commitments:

Commitment 1: We will give ourselves to a regular lifestyle of confession and forgiveness.

Commitment 2: We will make growth and change our daily agenda.

Commitment 3: We will work together to build a sturdy bond of trust.

Commitment 4: We will commit to building a relationship of love.

Commitment 5: We will deal with our differences with appreciation and grace.

Commitment 6: We will work to protect our marriage.

I note that with my initial scan of the book, I see only an occasional application question at the end of some of the chapters. I haven’t heard if this book will one day have a companion study guide, but if not then that is a disappointment (for the reasons I stated earlier on why a good “working book” will provide application questions).

For a taste of where this book intends to go, here is a section from the preface:

As long as we are two sinners living in a fallen world, there will be work to do. Sometimes that means being willing to serve when it’s the last thing we want to do. Sometimes it means being willing to listen when our instinct is to argue. Sometimes it means being willing to love, even in those moments when the other doesn’t seem deserving. Sometimes it means humbly asking for forgiveness when we are tempted to argue that we were right. Sometimes it means being willing to go through a moment of tension so that truth can get on the table. Sometimes it means being willing to overlook a minor offense. But there is one thing that we know for sure: as we rest in God’s grace, we are called to give grace to one another. And as we celebrate God’s wisdom, we must be willing to let that wisdom be our moment-by-moment guide as we relate and respond to each other.

Despite the absence of an abundance of application questions, I’m looking forward to getting into this book. Next up: chapter 1.

What follows is part of an email I sent earlier this week to the parents of the small group I lead at the church I attend:

Some of us met this past Sunday afternoon for the parenting class that our church has been offering. Before the class started, a young father approached me and asked my thoughts about sex education in the home. Then, during session 1, Paul Tripp (the instructor) said that the topic of sex ed is a topic that needs to “stay on the table” within family discussions. When session 1 was over, some of the guys were asking about materials that would help facilitate these discussions, and I shared with them what I’ve been doing in my own family. We live in a hyper-sexualized culture and I see the devastating effects of that in my office every week. Unfortunately, too many of these casualties are Christians. One recurring theme among them is that their parents never made sex a topic of ongoing conversation. Much of that, I’m sure, is based on fear, and other times it’s just the awkwardness of the topic. But since it came up Sunday afternoon, and since I’m an advocate of open dialogue on the subject among families, let me suggest a curriculum you might consider taking your children through for both your benefit and theirs.

For some time now, my family and I have been using a curriculum by Stan and Brenna Jones (Stan is a professor of psychology at Wheaton College). The parent’s text is entitled, How & When to Tell Your Children About Sex: A Lifelong Approach to Shaping Your Child’s Sexual Character. You can see it here.

Then there are four books that are categorized in age-appropriate divisions so that you can take your child through it at your own pace. Book 1 is, The Story of Me (ages 3-5); Book 2 is, Before I Was Born (ages 5-8); Book 3 is, What’s the Big Deal (ages 8-11); and Book 4 is, Facing the Facts (ages 11-14). You can see these books at these links:

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Book 4

Tamarah and I have decided the age recommendations on the books are a bit aggressive for us personally (we are just 2 chapters away from finishing book 3 and our boys are 12 and 14), so every family has to decide for themselves what and how and when to take this on. But one thing I would say you must not do is nothing. As someone once said, “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” Something is better than nothing. I also think the lifelong approach is far better than having “the talk” one time and never again (makes the topic into some anomaly, and that’s just weird). The subject and the reality are developmental, and our children will benefit far more if we bring them along as their lives mature and change.

There’s a lot more to say about all of this, but I wanted to at least get this much out based on the conversations some of us were having this past Sunday. Hope this helps. If you want or need anything more on this, or if this raises other questions, please feel free to ask away. I’m here to help.

The April 24, 2010 edition of World magazine offers a follow up feature on artist Makoto Fujimura. As a once-aspiring artist myself, the article’s subject matter caught my attention. I was pleased to see how Makoto’s work as an artist–particularly as a Christian–impacted his craft. One paragraph in the article stood out as I completely identified with his experience in my own work. When asked how creativity led him to Christ, Fujimura said,

If you are gifted in the area of the arts, you’re doing something very transcendent in your work. You’re creating works that may contain more beauty than you’re ready for. You might be an opera singer and you just did a performance that you knew you weren’t capable of. Those things can haunt you if you’re honest about it, because backstage, you sit there feeling empty, because you can’t account for the very transcendence that you possessed (p. 20).

Effective counseling also requires a degree of creativity in dealing with the particulars of individual cases. It’s been my personal experience as a Christian counselor that when I’m consciously depending on the Spirit of Christ to be present and working on behalf of counselees I often find myself conveying thoughts and concepts that I had not previously thought through or even considered in concrete form. Where the unbeliever that Makoto describes feels “empty” afterward because he cannot account for the “transcendence that [he] possessed,” the Christian feels humbled that a personal, transcendent God would stoop to help a creature in need. Despite all the years I spent in obtaining my education, and despite any creative giftedness I may (or may not) innately possess, it is the enabling of the Holy Spirit that allows the counselor to go beyond what is innate or learned in order to carry forward the work He desires to accomplish.  

As valuable as education may be, as helpful as personal gifts and abilities may be, the Holy Spirit’s work in counseling is the real difference maker. He takes the counselor and the counselee to places they hadn’t planned on going; He gives a wiser wisdom to the counselor so that the counselee might better see and comprehend both the nature of the problem as well as the Solution. My apsiration is to consciously depend on the Holy Spirit for each counseling session, and my expectation is to experience His presence at work in both my life and the life of those who come to me for help.

If you are in the process of becoming a Christian counselor, let me encourage you to pursue your formal education with zeal and enthusiasm; however, realize that even more important than the academics is a vital, growing relationship with Jesus Christ and His Spirit.

If you’re already working in the field and you call yourself a Christian counselor, then let me encourage you to make time in your day to feed your own soul with Christ. Knowledge, technique, and experience all have their place, but it’s the intervention of Christ’s Spirit that moves us to places we would not otherwise go. He alone is the agent of change. With that approach, God gets the glory and we get His grace. We should regularly have those experiences in our counseling sessions where we walk away asking, “Where did THAT come from?” The true Christian counselor knows the answer to that question and is quick to remind himself.

A young lady believes she is falling in love with a young man. As the relationship progresses, she has some questions she’d like answered before the relationship gets too serious. One of those questions has to do with how much she needs to know regarding her boyfriend’s sexual past. What if he’s been sexually active with other females in the past? What if he’s had past problems with pornography? If he has, should that be the end of the relationship for her? When should she ask these questions?

Dr. Russell Moore was asked these kind of questions by a young lady; to read her letter and then Dr. Moore’s carefully nuanced response, go here.

The work of counseling can prove to be a real problem for counselors. If we assume that the motive of a person to become a counselor is good (e.g., to help people), we should also assume that there can be some not so good reasons (e.g., achieve a stronger sense of identity–”I’m a counselor”; realizing the hope of solving one’s own issues by solving the problems of others; experiencing the feelings of power and influence and superiority over others who are looking to you for help; fulfillment of a messiah complex, etc.) running concurrently through the counselor’s heart. These ulterior motives are a constant threat to the interior life of the counselor. And how can that not then affect the counselor’s counsel? The Christian Scripture calls these ulterior motives idolatry, and these subtle, not-so-easily-detected desires can wreak all kinds of havoc in the life of the counselor.

For some very helpful thoughts on considering how idolatry might be at work in your own life, watch the video below and simply substitute the word counseling or counselor in the places where Mark uses the words ministry or pastor.

My two sons are currently ages 14 and 12, and I view these years as the early blossoming season for their faith and intellect (the heart cannot exult in what the mind rejects). My wife and I have tried in the early years of child rearing to instruct our boys in a sensible faith—a faith that has its reasons for believing in Jesus Christ as our King and Redeemer. The boys are now at an age when their questions about faith in Christ (or faith in anything) are taking on a more pronounced scientific and philosophical nature. This past Sunday evening we spent close to 90 minutes on the living room floor in a significant discussion about the crossroads of faith and life experience, about perspective and knowing, and how and why we believe what we believe. I was reminded once again how important it is for families to make the time to find out what our children are actually thinking and experiencing; responding with patience, empathy and clarity goes a long way toward furthering these conversations (toward the end of the conversation, my 14 year old said out of the blue, “I’m glad I’m a part of this family because we can talk about these things”). That can happen in your family too! You just have to want to, ask the Holy Spirit for enabling, and jump in.

I’m always on the lookout for tools I can use to nurture and strengthen faith in Christ for each member of my family (including my own faith). Let me encourage you to do the same. What follows is a series of 5 videos (about 10 minutes each) of R.C Sproul (pastor, professor, philosopher) interviewing Stephen Meyer (scientist, author of Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design). As I watched these videos, I found myself not only thinking of how I can use these for further instruction for my family but I also found myself in a state of worship as the scientific evidence (with philosophical arguments) for a Creator God was presented one proposition upon another. I pray these will serve you well as you work to have fruitful conversations with your family.

Here are some helpful thoughts on marriage from my friends at CCEF. I appreciate the idea that marriage is the sum of both parts, and that marriage is like a dance that involves two people. It’s another way of saying that while you cannot change your spouse, you can change your marriage by changing yourself.