All In (Bed)

On several talk shows and within a few commentaries, I've heard the institution of marriage be accused of being obsolete. For a handful of different reasons, but often revolving around monogamy: sex with only one person. Because it's hard, or unreasonable, or contrary to evolution, or someother reason. And in thinking about what other people I know experience in their marriages, I can understand that perspective.

Do I think it's obsolete? Not at all. But "it" - marriage - is a relationship that can operate in a great variety of ways. And a great many of those ways are, quite simply, obsolete. Outdated. Sad. Useless. Dead weight.

Am I suggesting that the bad ones end? Nope. I'd like to offer a picture that makes sense of how marriage can be undertood and approached with such a broad range of perspectives.

I imagine that what most people experience in marriage would be like how most children experience gardening. I don't mean to be patronizng by using children here, but just to give an understood example of people who don't understand gardening. I'll explain.

My son Micah, seed in hand, made his way to the backyard of his grandparents house to plant a tree. The seed was found in a pod that he collected while exploring the yard. He dug a hole barely an inch deep, dropped the seed inside, and got grandma to put a few sprinkles of water on it for him. All the right ingredients, right? But is he likely to come back next spring to find a tree? Not likely. Odds are stacked against him.  Similarly, I think many adults approach marrage with a bare-bones understanding of the ingredients of marriage - one man, one woman, one bed - and expect it to produce a fruitful relationship.

Obviously there's affections and many other shared and benefitial peices that are present, but most often the expectation of dying to yourself isn't part of the equation. I realize that's a term that needs unpacking, and an odd term with negative conotations at that, but the sense I'd like to give you understand what I mean is what poker players know as "all in": a total abandon of your chips for the bet that your hand is strong enough to take it all.

Sometimes this call is your only way to stay in the game. Sometimes this is not only your single option to survive, but may ultimately result in you taking the entire game: to win it all.  I propose that this is the same type of move that can make up for years of cashing in relational chips and get you out of the red. In fact, I believe going "all in" with your spouse is the way that marriages are intended to operate, and the only way that successful, life-giving, mutually benefitial ones do exist.

This can play out a number of different ways within a marriage, but one signficant, and cultuarally poinient, way that this is often overlooked is in regards to our sexuality. To go "all in" with your spouse sexually looks like fully relying on them to satify your sexuality. Not looking elsewhere with your eyes, or dreaming elsewhere in your mind, or taking things into your own hands. And it will involve being honest, and vulnerable, and generous, and patient - all of which feed into your marriage and built one another up.

Picking Your Team

This is me shooting from the hip, trying to unpack something that splashed in my face a few days ago. It had to do with the pattern I see in God "picking His team." Maybe it struck me when thinking about sports. Maybe when thinking about slavery. Maybe with the recent events in Egypt (i.e. Mubarak's displacement). But here's the punchline: God picks slaves, consistently, to showcase His agenda; to be His spokespeople. That's making a statement. Not only because it's a pattern we see throughout scripture, which alone would make it a worthwhile fire to stop and warm yourself by for a spell, but moreso because of how other it is from what I take to be the obvious approach.

Stop and warm yourself by this for a moment. How do we give our dreams a go? Dreams and visions bigger than ourselves; dreams that take a group of people to accomplish. We choose the best people for the job and equip them to do the work and cultivate an environment for them to flourish in. We pick an A-team. A dream team full of MVPs. Of course we do. I can't imagine doing anything else. Why would I? God chooses the slave, the weak, the persecuted. The underdog. Examples? To start with, humans aren't exactly the sharpest knives in the universal drawer: why not give the job to the angels right off the bat (the ones that are smarter and more powerful). Or how about Abraham: a man without a nation. A man and his children who aren't strangers to lying, cheating, and being strangers. The Hebrews: a nation of slaves in the hands of a more powerful and advanced civilization. Gideon, the lowest in his family, which was the lowest in the tribe, who led an army which time and time again got thinned down by God because it was "too big" and "too strong." Jesus, not a learned man, blue collar worker, dispised amung his people, a beaten and slain man. You get the picture.

Now either that's God using a different strategy than we do (by NOT picking the best people for the job), or that IS God picking the best people for the job (which begs the question, "what job are weak and bound the best for?"). And we're there. That's the rest stop. I don't know all of what we can learn about God through this, but it seems "characteristic."

Why through slaves? What do you see in this?

The Spirit

Hebrews 4:12

"For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart"

Just how many of our thoughts, what makes good sense to us, can make up for the wisdom that comes by The Spirit? 5? 28? 362? 1260? Seek more from The Spirit!

Covered with Courage

Here's another recently realized nugget: courage doesn't mean being without fear, it means being fearful and still walking. I've been learning how to live well with a heart whose bottom occasionally falls out (i.e. waves of fear and anxiety). My first preference and approach is to find a solution that eliminates the feeling. Obvious, right? I wouldn't want it any other way; for me or for others. And I'm finding some really great ways that are making a difference. Ways, like routes, that help me avoid encountering those rough, anxious obstacles along the road. BUT, I was reminded today in the midst of a wave of anxiety (and trying to combat it) that I can be courageous AND anxious. It may sound obvious, but it actual brought me comfort in the midst of this uncomfortable feeling. Even though I desperately wanted the feeling to go away, I felt like I could rest while carrying fear. Imagine a traveler who occasionally finds himself bothered by an unwelcome growling, barking mutt. Try as he may for methods of keeping this dog away, it occurs to him to put a leash on it and bring it along. The idea I had felt something like bagging my fear, covering it with courage, swinging it over my shoulder, and proceeding to walk into the woods. I can't always keep from feeling anxious waves crash on my shores, but I also don't have to let them keep me from being courageous and continuing to swim.

It's not earth-shattering, but it helps.

Nearness to God

Another moment of inspiring realization. During a short time of conversational prayer tonight I realized that I'm no closer to God, no more intimate with God, no more pleasing to God, with me feeling better. With me experiencing my gifts and operating in them, I'm no closer to God than I was in my time of dispair and confusion with what's going on. It's an astonishing and suprising idea to me, but strikes me as profoundly true: that though I feel better and more actuated in my operating from a designed place of living with God, I'm no more closer or pleasing to God than I was when I felt confused and uncomfortable with where I was. This is simple, yet profound. I wish I could unpack it more, but there it is.

We're no more closer and pleasing to our Father when we're convinced of it, than when we're scared and unsure of it. That's amazing.

May You continue to teach me and hold me.

(Post addition: So what's it worth to be aware of God's nearness? Is there, therefore, any nearness to or farness from God? I do think so, but not in the same way I previously imagined. The nearness of God I pursue is 1) that I am aware of God's nearness for my pleasure and comfort, and 2) that I am open and honest with God in a way that He takes pleasure in: as I take pleasure in the nearness of my son as he snuggles in my lap.)

Free to Love

This post, and probably many more fututure ones, will be more of a sharable diary entry. A way for me to record and remember parts of my journey. To testafy (insert southern accent).

It's been a very rough last several few months for more reasons than I care to now take the time to write. Suffice it to say, I've been questioning what difference I make. What difference church makes. What difference anyone can make. This has been one of my haunts during this season where the floor of my heart and head has fallen out from under my feet. I've lost a confidence I've had in many areas of my life. I think that's healthy in some ways, and not so much in others. Holding things lightly, with open hands so as to be teachable and gentle with others: good. Feeling like nothing I do matters and being paralized to move in any direction: not so good.

I've only got 5 minutes before getting the boys fed, so I'll try to fit this in quickly. Last night, through a sleepless time of prayer, I was intensely encouraged. I was praying for several people I hold in my heart. Picturing things for them, images I used to ask God to bless them by, and generally just desiring their encouragement and success. After about an hour of this for a few dozen people, I experienced my heart lightening and I myself was becoming intensely encouraged. It was a lightbulb momement for me realizing I could make people feel loved simply by thinking and praying for them. I didn't need to spend the face to face time that I wanted (and expected) inorder to love on them. I didn't need to fix and resolve everything I wanted to be fixed and resolved for them (which is something that I've been coming more to grips with lately: that I simply can't fix people like I can fix mechanisms or software). That partially sounds embarasing to admit that I even thought that. But there's a part of that motivation to heal, fix, resolve that I do think is good and right. The desire to see people healed: good. The expectation on yourself to heal them: not so good. I can't wait to pray for all the people I love more and I can't wait to let them know I'm praying for them. It's an outlet for me to make them feel loved cand cared for. I might not be solving their problems or spending time with them (both of which I would if I could), but I can make them feel loved and cared for simply by them knowing I'm thinking and praying for them often. That seems amazing to me right now. Like I was just given a present.

Another thing I feel like I learned through this experience is that I suspect this is part of what it means to not rely on my own flesh. To feel this encouragment and lifting of my heart come through time spent in prayer tells me something about the source of this strength I feel. The strength to love.

Wrapping Words Around "Righteousness"

The purpose of righteousness is to be in "good terms" with God. This is also the definition of righteouness. In wearing that lense, one can see how righteousness is completely enabled by God's choice for us to be in "good terms" with him, and at the same time constrained by our agreement and choice of him. Like the water well and the water valve, without the well's choice to provide water, no water would be possible, and without the valve's choice to allow water, no water would be actual.

Righteousness is not a matter of what good things one does or does not do in order to be on "good terms" with God. Righteousness is a matter of one communing with God, who is good. To commune with God is to live. This living is eternal living.

If you desire righteousness, let not your focus be on "what must I do?" Let your focus be on "with whom must I be?" Be with Jesus at all costs.