Keeping a Record

Devotional Thoughts, Love, Marriage 0

If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?  But with you there is forgiveness, therefore you are feared. — Psalm 130: 3-4

Love keeps no record of wrongs. — I Corinthians 13:5

Praise God that He doesn’t keep track of my sins, or my failings.  How easy it is to keep track of how many times other people do us wrong, rather than how many times they do good things.  There’s a feeling that after someone does bad enough things, enough times, you are completely justified in cutting them out of your life.

You might say, “You said such and such a terrible thing three times.  I can never love you again.”

What if we stood that on its head?  What if we kept a record of goods instead of a record of wrongs?  What if we kept track of kindnesses instead of offenses?

I might say to my husband, “You told me you love me 3,473 times.  I can never hate you.”

You stood by me and helped me through the birth of our sons 2 times.  I can never forget you.

You asked me to marry you and shared your life and your income with me.  I can never despise you.

You soothed me when I was sick and in pain 1,023 times.  I can never stop caring about you.

You opened your heart to me 5,471 times.  I can never stop loving you.

You love our boys and take good care of them.  I can never stop respecting you.

…

My friend talks about a well of good will that her husband built up that couldn’t be emptied when he had an emotional affair.  The well was too deep.

It’s our choice.  We can let the bad outweigh all the good in our minds.  Or we can decide to let the good outweigh any bad that might come along.  It’s not like there isn’t a whole lot of good there to do the job.

And funny thing, keeping a record of the good and thinking about that is a far, far happier and more peaceful result than obsessing over wrongs done.

Praise God!  He looks at the good He placed in us and never, ever gives us up as failures or hopeless cases.

Faith

Devotional Thoughts, Marriage 3

Today I had an opportunity to tell someone that I believe God is asking me to pray for my husband and stand for my marriage.  And I believe that God is telling me my husband will come back to God and back to me and be a leader and a witness.

Why, when I tell someone about this, do people feel compelled to say something along the lines of, “You know that sometimes God doesn’t work in the way we expect Him to.”?

It’s as if people need to apologize for God.  They don’t want me angry with God if He doesn’t do what I expect.

Instead of making allowances for God, I need to make allowances for those well-meaning people.  God is speaking to me, not them.  I know what He has said to me, and I can’t expect to be able to explain it.  Even my stories of amazing ways God spoke to me through circumstances may not convince them — because they were not there in my heart.  They did not experience the question asked of God — which God immediately and clearly answered. 

When I tell someone about this, they probably don’t realize that the process has taken years.  One of the first clear answers was years ago, when my husband was first leaving, and I asked God, “Lord, can’t you change his heart and stop this situation NOW?”  From that day for the next full week, every time I picked up a Bible or Christian book, I’d read something about waiting on the Lord.

But God keeps speaking, and He keeps confirming that:

— God is going to do magnificent things in my husband’s heart and life.

— If I will wait for it, God will restore our marriage to something beautiful.

— There will be great joy.

All I need to do?  I need to be willing to forgive my husband and take him back freely when he is ready to come back.  I need to refuse to look for someone else to satisfy my desires while I am waiting.  I need to pray for him, as my wedding vows declared I would do.  And I need to seek the Lord to work on my character to be a better wife when that day comes.

Not that I am some wonderful, spiritual person.  But that God forgives us, and God loves us, and He can teach us to forgive each other.

Is God asking a great sacrifice of me?  Is God cruel to expect me to wait for this man?

Certainly not!  In the first place, I love this guy.  Yes, there have been some hard things, but there were so many wonderful things, over the years.  He’s the father of my sons.  There are too many good memories over too many years.  My heart still yearns for him.

But God is also giving me a chance to pursue some things I wouldn’t have time for if I were also trying to “please my husband.”  As Paul mentions in Corinthians, now I am free to focus on my relationship with God.  And some other things as well.  I was able to get a Master’s in Library Science.  I can work on my writing, my website, and my blogs.  I confess there are some nice things about not sharing my home with another adult!

We married right after college.  I never lived on my own as an adult.  There are some fun things about it.  This is only a stage in my life, but it can be a beautiful, vibrant, joyful one.  And I’m thankful for this stage, even if I wish it hadn’t happened.  God can bring great good out of anything.

At Christmas, the verse said of Mary comes frequently to mind:  “Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished.”  The Lord has spoken to me.  It’s my choice to believe that He will do what He has promised. 

Positive Deviance

Devotional Thoughts, Marriage 2

I’m taking a class this quarter called “Management of Information Services.”  In it, we have to do a group project and present a management tool.  My group chose Positive Deviance.

Positive Deviance focuses on people who act outside the norm–on the positive side.  “Deviance is generally viewed as a bad thing.  But on one end of the curve, we find deviance in the form of excellence, the very behavior we want to promote.”–Robert Quinn, interviewed by Dennis Sparks in “Change: It’s a Matter of Life or Slow Death,” Journal of Staff Development, 22 (4), p. 49.

As I was reading the article above for background material, it struck me that positive deviance applies to marriages!

That morning, I read a quotation that struck me in A New Kind of Normal, by Carole Kent:  Paul and Silas’s discipline of praying and praising not only broke their own chains, but it also broke the chains of every other inmate in the prison.”–quoting Karen Beck, p. 98.

I thought of that passage when I read this in the Quinn interview:  “When we have successfully experienced a deep change, it inspires us to encourage others to undergo a similar experience.  We are all potential change agents.  As we discipline our talents, we deepen our perceptions about what is possible. … We must continually choose between deep change or slow death.”

Continuing:  “So now when people say something can’t be done, I ask for examples of positive deviance.  But people are often uncomfortable with these notions because they suggest that we all have the potential to do things that many claim are impossible.

“To tie all of this together, if we are not growing, we are dying.  And if we are growing and pushing the edges of the system, we will meet great resistance.  And yet it is possible for us to be positive deviants, and positive deviants change the world.”

“When people become empowered, they realize that they had put constraints upon themselves.  Suddenly, they are able to do all kinds of things we previously thought were impossible.”

How does this relate to marriage?

Well, if I look around at the norm in America, a marriage as far gone as mine is surely doomed.

But why should I copy the norm?  Wouldn’t I rather imitate the positive deviants, the people who have succeeded in healing and restoring their marriages, with God’s help?  They have done exactly the thing that seems impossible.

Positive deviance tells us that if you want excellence, find those who are acting with excellence and imitate them.

That’s why I choose to follow the example of the good people at http://www.rejoiceministries.org/, and choose to stand for my marriage, and choose to trust God.  Truly, He can do the impossible.  As more and more of us choose to rise above the norm, this positive deviance can spread.  We can see the power of God to heal.

I know that marital healing after severe hurts is NOT impossible–because people like Bob and Charlyne Steinkamp have shown me what can happen when you put your marriage into God’s hands.  I’d rather imitate people like that.

God Doesn’t Give Us the Silent Treatment

Devotional Thoughts, Sunday's Sermon 0

I’ve been thinking lately that I should not be surprised when God specifically, pointedly, answers a specific question I ask him about what I should do or how I should act.

After all, he says in James 1:  “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all, without finding fault, and it will be given to him.”

There’s only one requirement.  We’ve got to believe that the advice God gives is worth following.  “But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt.  For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.  That man should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.  He is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.”

I’ve gotten a lot of answers to specific questions lately.  It continues to amaze me.  But perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised.

Sometimes I feel like I shouldn’t still have any questions.  God has told me what He wants me to do over and over again.  Why do I still get doubts and questions?  But that’s the beauty of the fact that God will give wisdom “without finding fault.”  He never lectures like an impatient parent, “Now, I’m only going to say this once!”

Recently, I found myself wondering if I was being “unrealistic” believing that God had told me to stand for my marriage.  With all the hurts behind us, it didn’t seem “realistic,” it didn’t seem “practical” to think that God could possibly restore our relationship.  I asked God, “Am I just having wishful thinking?”  “Am I being unrealistic?”

The very next day, Pastor Ed preached a sermon titled, “The Limitations of Common Sense” (http://www.gatewaychurch.org/content/view/526/85/) which directly and specifically answered my questions.  The example was Jeroboam, King of Israel.  God had promised to give him ten tribes of Israel, and even build him an everlasting dynasty if He would follow the Lord.  But that request did not seem practical….

When God gives you a plan of action coupled with a promise, it’s not about what’s realistic or practical.  It’s about what God can do.

The question is not:  Is this practical?  The question is:  Will I obey God?

Finish Well

Devotional Thoughts, Sunday's Sermon 0

As I travel on the journey of life, God keeps using Sunday’s sermons to touch my heart.

Here’s a link to last Sunday’s sermon:

http://www.gatewaychurch.org/content/view/525/85/

Pastor Ed Allen is starting a series from I and II Kings.

It has not escaped me that this tied in beautifully with some verses that had struck me a few days before the sermon:

Jeremiah 31:3-4, 16-20 (New International Version):

The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying:
“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
I have drawn you with loving-kindness.
I will build you up again
and you will be rebuilt, O Virgin Israel.
Again you will take up your tambourines
and go out to dance with the joyful….”

This is what the Lord says:
“Restrain your voice from weeping
and your eyes from tears,
for your work will be rewarded,” declares the Lord.
“They will return from the land of the enemy.
So there is hope for your future,” declares the Lord.
“Your children will return to their own land.

“I have surely heard Ephraim’s moaning:
‘You disciplined me like an unruly calf,
and I have been disciplined.
Restore me, and I will return,
because you are the Lord my God.
After I strayed, I repented;
after I came to understand,
I beat my breast.
I was ashamed and humiliated
because I bore the disgrace of my youth.’
Is not Ephraim my dear son
the child in whom I delight?
Though I often speak against him,
I still remember him.
Therefore my heart yearns for him;
I have great compassion for him.” declares the Lord.

With these verses, I was struck by how free God is to forgive and restore us.  We can blow it; we can reject Him completely.  But still He considers us His dear child; still He delights in us.

When Pastor Ed explained the overview of the sermon series in the books of Kings, he mentioned that these books, besides showing the downfall of Israel, also show how ready God is to forgive.  All He asks is–brokenness.  When Israel was broken and repentant, God freely forgave and restored them to His great love.

I thought that was a beautiful reference to the Jeremiah 31 passage–where Israel was actually broken and repentant, and God is freely restoring them, with no reproaches.

Brokenness–Not much fun.  But once we’ve gotten there, God can restore.

We talk about “broken homes.”  Well, if a marriage and family are broken, perhaps that puts them all the more in a position for God to restore.

God heals broken lives.  Can’t he also heal broken marriages?

Back to the sermon, the main point of the sermon was about Solomon.  He started out so well, and had so many things going for him.  But he did not finish well.

It’s rather ironic.  The man who penned the words, “Above all else guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” (Proverbs 4:23), was also the one of whom it was said, “As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been” (I Kings 11: 4).

We were reminded that the Christian life is an ongoing race.  It’s not time to sit back and rest on our laurels.  Wise Solomon was not wise in letting his wives turn him from God.

Good thoughts!