Love on grumpy days

May 4, 2014

Maria Love, Marriage , , , , 2 Comments

First he was out of sorts and turned inward.  I’m not sure why.  It was probably a whole lot of little things. Isn’t it always?

Grumpy

When those moods hit, I’ve learned that choosing to show love outwardly is the best response I can offer.  I’m ashamed to admit that I used to show him annoyance.  Like: YOU DON’T HAVE THE RIGHT to be annoyed.  QUIT BEING ANNOYED!

Now that really helps, doesn’t it!  Someone is just going to snap out of a funk on command.

But on Tuesday when I did show outward love, He didn’t respond.  I couldn’t tell that it made any difference. It felt like my words and softness dissolved into the ether.  It reminded me of those times I offer a sincere compliment to certain family members and friends and they don’t acknowledge my words. My words just float away.  (I’ve since learned that ‘Words of Affirmation’ are NOT how they receive/perceive/feel love.)  However, my husband, on the other hand IS a man who feels loved when affirmed with words.  But on Tuesday, he just wasn’t showing it.  He couldn’t.

Here is where God came in (not that He is ever OUT of the picture).  The very next day, Mike felt better (some loose ends got pinned down).  But all of a sudden, the tables were reversed and I felt out of sorts.  Does that surprise you, that 2 selfish sinners can mope around at times?  That we LIKE moping around at times?  No need to pretend – not trying to impress anyone – we’re no different than you!out of sorts cat

 

 

Nonetheless, I think MY funk caught him by surprise.  But here is where his love kicked in.  By the end of the evening as I continued in my ‘blah-ness’, he started radiating soft words, a kind face and understanding gestures, all the while giving me space.  I didn’t sense any expectations, just love.  Despite how comforting it was,  I could not bring myself to communicate that it was helping, that it felt like soft rain on a parched ground.   All I could do was soak it in.

The next day I felt like my old self and could relate in my normal soft way to my husband and best friend.  My down day coming on the heels of his was valuable.   Here is what I learned:

  • Outward shows of love DO make a difference
  • It takes time to be able to let someone know that it has helped
  • Therefore, we should ‘love on’ even when there is no response or visible impact on the other
  • Love is never wasted
  • The energy sacrificed to be soft, especially when someone is hard and tight, is worth the expense
  • People who are cold and prickly are at those times most in need of love
  • Our normal reaction, if we let our selfish nature guide us, is to say: That’s it! I’ve given you a measure of gratuitous love.  If you’re not going to show any appreciation or reaction to my ‘gift’, then I’ll turn it off!
  • I’m so glad God doesn’t treat us that way!  He keeps loving us especially when we don’t deserve it.  (do we ever ‘deserve’ God’s love?)
  • They say the purpose of marriage is to make us more Christ-like.  I’m encouraged that after 34 years of sinning against each other in marriage, Mike and I can occasionally lurch forward in grace-filled moments.

These insights were worth 2 days of the dumps!

Despondant Cat

 

 

Could it be that bearing fruit is really about looking up?

November 24, 2013

Maria John, Love, Obedience, Sanctification , , , , , 2 Comments

John 14: 15  – 17 “If you love me, you WILL (emphasis mine)  keep my commandments.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper,  to be with you forever, (that is) the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.”

Do you know what happens to the ‘Dauphin’, the Heir Apparent, when his father the King dies and he is still too young to rule?  A wise, strong and capable regent is appointed to work with the young monarch.  This is what happened to the Sun King when his father, Louis XIII died.  Louis XIV was not quite 5 years old at the time that he assumed the reins with the Cardinal Mazarin at his side.

King Louis XIV as a boy

What does that have to do with us as believers obeying God and having the Holy Spirit as a counselor?

Today, I glimpsed a different way of looking at those verses in John 14.  I’ve always viewed them as an evaluative test of whether (or how well) I actually loved God.

  • You think you love God?
  • Then prove it!!!
  • Be obedient to all his commands.

Talk about discouragement!

I can’t even be ‘good’ for five minutes!

But what if we interpret the verse following the following logical flow of good news for believers in Christ

  • God loved us, so we are now capable of loving (1 John 4:19 – we love, because he first loved us)
  • If we love God, then we are guaranteed power to keep his commandments
  • Since once we are born again, we are babies in Christ.  It follows that we need a regent, a counselor
  • Jesus promised and then DID send the Holy Spirit to act as counselor
  • We look to King Jesus and we rely on our counselor’s prompting and we grow up in our faith.
  • We start to produce good fruit
  • But…if we take our eyes off of King Jesus and we look at the roiling waters, we sink at the impossibility of doing the very thing we are carrying out!

What good news!  We don’t have to prove something that we know for a fact is not true.  If you’re anything like me then you will probably agree that we don’t keep God’s laws and we don’t love him with a whole heart.  But we don’t have to – in our own strength.  We’re WELL encompassed by expert counsel and have the King’s favor.  He’s training you & me to be capable royal sons and daughters who will one day rule with Him.

What’s the take-away?  We WILL produce fruit to the extent that we keep looking at the King and relying on the Holy Spirit for wisdom, direction and power to grow into our role as a royal and holy priesthood.

Shoo away that horrid American philosophy, “If it’s to be, it’s gonna be up to me!” 

Love rolls downhill

June 30, 2013

Maria Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Love, Trinity, Uncategorized , , 1 Comment

“Love me, love my dog!” were words we often heard when we would have dinner with my dad.  He had 2 spoiled poodles that he adored.  And that love was definitely requited!

It seems to me that God, the Father exhorts us likewise:  “If you love me, then you’ll love my Son!”

I’ve been reading a book about the Trinity.

And already, having enjoyed my way through the introduction and into Chapter 1, I’m hooked!  Michael Reeves asserts straight away that a primary characteristic of God is His Fatherhood.  He’s always been Father. And for Him to BE Father requires God the Son to have eternally existed as well.

We know that for God to BE God means that He doesn’t change.  What follows then is this:  He couldn’t have been single God who created the Son, thus adding ‘Father’ to His résumé.  God as Father and God as Son have co-existed since eternity.  (I won’t expand this discussion today by delving into God the Holy Spirit)

Of course I pray most often to God as Father. Furthermore I know that the Bible is replete with references to God as Father.  Yet, I’m seeing divine Fatherhood in a wholly/holy different light.  I’m noticing how often God is really called Father in both the Old and the New Testament. Although more developed in the NT, the Fatherhood of God is nonetheless THERE – for example:

          “The LORD your God who goes before you will Himself fight on your behalf, just as He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you saw how the LORD your God carried you, just as a man carries his son, in all the way which you have walked until you came to this place.” (Deuteronomy 1:30-31)

          “But now, O LORD, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand.” (Isaiah 64:8)

So….you say, what’s new about that? Just that, Father-love is different than love between equals.  Hear me out…I’ll try not to be heretical or introduce the idea that God the Father and God the Son are not one.  They ARE one and they DO exhibit the same essence and same nature, BUT…their roles are different.

·         The Father loves the Son and the Son delights to obey the Father. But it doesn’t stop there.

·         The Son loves the Church and the Church is called to lovingly submit to/obey the Son.

·          Husbands love their wives and wives are called to delight in respectfully and lovingly helping (and submitting when necessary) their husbands.

·          Moms love their children and children are to respectfully and lovingly help and submit to their moms. (Dads are to train their kids)

·         Humans love their animals and their animals, if well trained, will devotedly and joyfully follow their masters.

In other words, love flows downhill.

I used to feel guilty because I sensed that I loved people unequally.  For example – I always knew my mom loved me with an intensity that I didn’t reciprocate. Yet when I became a parent, I understood that kind of love.  I think Mike and I love each other differently, too.  And we definitely love our cats MORE than they love us. (Think about our fears as our pets age!)

What does the fact that God loves us more and differently do for our security? (Take as a given that His love for us is qualitatively/quantitatively beyond our capacity to imagine.) For one thing, it lifts the guilt I have always felt?  And I feel more reassured and secure that God’s love won’t ever depart from me.  He can’t NOT love me;  it’s His nature to love His children.

I’ll leave you with this question– How do you see love between friends?

 PS:  I’ve just started a blog entitled about Logic for the ordinary person – in it I discuss in bite-sized measures what I have learned from teaching formal and informal logic to young teens.   Surprised by Logic

 

Best Book on Marriage

December 3, 2012

Maria Love, Marriage, Sanctification, Uncategorized , Leave a comment

I avoid most books on parenting.  They make me feel guilty.  They remind me of all the things I don’t do right. And as a parent of adult children, I still don’t read them.

I also never read any marriage books until our union showed signs of unraveling  at year 20.  Then I hungrily sought them out.  Christian girlfriends guided me toward Biblical books which protected me from the “You deserve better” pabulum.  Dipping into new paradigms for Christian marriage was eye-opening and gave me hope that I could perhaps help to heal our relationship. I learned to be gentler, to seek to please Mike and pray for him more effectively.

God’s grace, not any book or counseling brought Mike and me back together to grow stronger as ‘one flesh’ and we have enjoyed 12 sweet years since that painful upheaval.

Recently I started reading Tim Keller’s book The Meaning of Marriage.  We are fans of Keller’s clear exposition of biblical teachings both in sermon and other books.  So I knew I would enjoy reading what he & his wife Kathy had to say.   But I didn’t expect anything new or different than the other biblically-based treatments of Christian marriage.

*****Get ready for some über-gushing******

This is THE best book on marriage I have EVER read!!

What is startling is that TK throws on its head both the Western and Eastern views of marriage.

Western – romantic, physical, sexual optimization in a partner

Eastern – communal, economic and social optimization through the marriage

Instead he presents marriage as a signing on to a life-long journey with this other person toward Christ- likeness, via God’s sanctifying work.

From page 121 –

Within this Christian vision for marriage, here’s what it means to fall in love.  It is to look at another person and get a glimpse of the person God is creating, and to say, “I see who God is making you, and it excites me!  I want to be part of that.  I want to partner with you & God in the journey you are taking to his throne.  And when we get there, I will look at your magnificence and say, ‘I always knew you could be like this.  I got glimpses of it on earth, but now look at you!’”  Each spouse should see the great thing that Jesus is doing in the life of their mate through the Word, the gospel.  Each spouse then should give him-or herself to be a vehicle for that work and envision the day that you will stand together before God, seeing each other presented in spotless beauty and glory.

*

Now THAT’s an institution worth celebrating and promoting. Buy the book and enjoy the adventure.  It’s perfect for us already-marrieds, the newly-weds and those who are engaged.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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But it wasn’t until I started reading Tim Keller’s book on marriage that I felt excited about how great marriage can be.  My husband and I are long-time Keller fans and have read most of his books.  So when The Meaning of Marriage came out last year I bought it.  I just hadn’t gotten around to reading it until now.   Warming!  Get ready for some über-gushing:  this is THE best book on marriage.

Although I haven’t finished reading it, I am writing now, this first weekend in December, in case you haven’t completed your Christmas shopping and are looking around for a gift to give seasoned couples, newlyweds or the engaged.  This book provides a hope-filled vision of what Christian marriage is meant to be.  I am finding my joy and gladness in being married to Mike topped off and refreshed.  And what I sensed all along about the blessing of Christian marriage is being reinforced.

What makes Keller’s book different is that he turns on its head both

– the ‘old-world’/ Middle Eastern/ African view of 8/

nstead he describes the ideal mate/best friend as the one whose spiritual end-product you glimpse and are excited to be part of.  A kind of “ I see what God is doing in your life to sanctify you and I want to be part of that spiritual adventure.”

Both partners are looking to Jesus and being transformed into His every-increasing likeness.  Partners are NOT looking at each other to fulfill them.

Buy the book, read and discuss it together and be excited about the journey.

 

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