"It is the cross that gives God his credibility"

Great stuff yesterday from the "Of First Importance" blog, and I leave this with you as I leave town for the weekend:

“It is the cross that gives God his credibility. The only God I believe in is the one Nietzsche (the nineteenth-century German philosopher) ridiculed as ‘God on the cross.’ In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?

In the course of my travels I have entered a number of Buddhist temples in different Asian countries. I have stood respectfully before a statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing around his mouth, serene and silent, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time, after a while, I have had to turn away. And in my imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in Godforsaken darkness.

The crucified one is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us, dying in our place in order that we might be forgiven. Our sufferings become more manageable in light of his. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross, which symbolizes divine suffering.”

- John Stott, Why I Am a Christian, 63

God says to the________, "I am your _______"

I've been working my way through Exodus today for some teaching that I'm (hopefully) doing in India next week (if I get my visa, for which I have one more day to hold out hope, and then somebody else will be doing that teaching, boo).

Anyway, the subject I'm working on is a challenging one, it's how to counsel or encourage someone who isn't right now experiencing reconciliation of their conflicts. What do you do if the other person never owns up to their wrongs? If you're not forgiven? If you're the victim of serious social injustice or other vicimization?

My goal is to help the sufferer see his or her story as part of God's bigger redemptive story, that some day all of our suffering will be redeemed, even if there is no earthly reconciliation. How do we help people nurture their pain in such a way that God gets glory? How does God's grace continue to hold us in those times? How do we help people live contentedly, mercifully, etc, in the middle of the story?

I decided to take a cue from Ed Welch, who seems to use the wilderness theme in his writing/teaching/counseling very frequently. When I was sitting under him in class, it seemed like no matter the subject (depression, paranoia, anger, discontent), Welch could masterfully help the counselee see him or herself in the experience of the Israelites as they wantered in the desert.

So, I decided to do a quick survey of some of the major vignettes in Exodus, asking two questions: "What is the emotion of the people in this story?" and "What aspect of his character does God reveal to his people in the midst of those emotions?"

Here's some of what I came up with:

• To the captives, God says, "I am your deliverer" (Exod 1-13, esp chapter 6)
• To the slaves, God says, "I am your freedom" (Exod 1-13 again)
• To the prideful and doubtful, God says, "I am your confidence" (Exod 3)
• To the fearful, God says, "I am your salvation" (Exod 14:10-14)
• To the hungry, God says, "I am your provider" (Exod 16)
• To the grumbling, God says, "I am your satisfaction" (Exod 16)
• To the confused, God says, "I am your LORD, and your standard" (Exod 17)
• To the defeated, God says, "I am your banner" (Exod 17-8-16)
• To the discouraged, God says, "You are my treasured possession" (Exod 19:5)
• To the sinful and disobedient, God says, "I am your Holy God" (Exod 19)
• To the uncertain, God says, "I am your covenant keeper" (Exod 24:8, 38:12-19)
• To the idolaters, God says, "I am your atonement" (Exod 32:30)
• To the stiff-necked, God says, "I am your merciful one" (Exod 33:5)
• To the tempted, God says, "I am your better option" (Exod 34:10-16)
• To the lost and wandering, God says, "I am always with you, by day or by night, shining a light for your path and resting my glory over you" (Exod 40:34-38)
• 
  

My Deliverer

This is a follow-up to the above post (Exodus characteristics of God)-- I meant to post it at the same time but forgot. Anyway, this is a Rich Mullins song that I was humming all day; it talks about God in both the OT and the NT as our deliverer.

(and, sorry, this is the best quality version I could find that I could embed...)

When My Identity is in Christ

I loved this quote that I came across yesterday evening; apparently it is from a new book called Fight Clubs: Gospel-Centered Discipleship. Take some time to think about this; this sort of perspective -- rooting our identity in Christ rather than in what other people think of us -- can have a profound identity on how we live in so many spheres of life, especially in our relationships.

Living for Approval

When our identity is hung up on what people think of us, it becomes difficult to be honest with them. Some of us approach others from below, fearing their rejection or disapproval. In order to keep their approval intact, we refrain from allowing them to see the real, broken us. We may not lie to them (though we probably do), but we certainly don't confess our sin to them. Why? Because we treasure their approval more than we treasure Christ. We are afraid that, if they know the real us, then they will disapprove. We lose face and friendship when we confess our sin.

Living for Applause

Others of us approach others from above, not fearing their rejection but expecting their applause. In order to keep their applause, we refrain from showing any weakness or sin. We want to be perceived as a mature Christian, a strong leader. Therefore, we do not share our sin and brokenness with others. Our identity is bound up with the applause and opinions of others. We tell white lies to keep them thinking we are mature, intelligent, etc. We say we have read a book, seen a movie, or know a person that we have not read, seen or known. We continue to build our identity, not only on the applause of others, but on what we "think" they will clap for. We get further and further from our true identity in Jesus.

Living in Christ

However, if we stake our identity in the acceptance of Jesus, this frees us to be honest about who we are, about our sin and failure. The more I rest in Jesus perfect death and resurrection for me, to make me right, loved, and accepted by the perfect Father, the less I need to appease or impress others. Chasing the approval and applause of others takes a backseat to the vastly superior love and acceptance of God in Christ. As a result, we share our real selves more. We confess sin more. Not haphazardly but earnestly. We call others to fight sin and treasure Christ. Our identity goes deeper into Christ and further away from what others think of us. this is freeing. This is the gospel.

Ooh, ooh, ooh -- it's a free ebook. Fantastic!

HT: Boundless

The Paradox of Self-Esteem

I was contemplating yesterday evening how some of the most shy people I know also sometimes come across as being some of the most deeply prideful. I say this knowing that when I point a finger at someone else, I have 4 fingers pointed back at myself -- I *used* to be deeply, unabashedly and obliviously prideful and (oddly!) had great difficulty creating close relationships for much longer than I would care to admit. (I'm still deeply prideful, I'm just better at a) recognizing it in myself yea?), b) hiding it from others (boo), and c) hopefully growing in sanctification and concomitant humility.)

Thinking about these things, I was reminded of Ed Welch's comments on the fear of man, and how amazingly creative this issue can be in manifesting itself in our lives. As the back cover says, fear of man can control us in the form of "pride, oversensitivity, defensiveness, avoidance of others, easy embarrassment, people pleasing, needing approval..."

Which made me open up the ol' book this morning and find this quote:

That's the paradox of self-esteem: Low self-esteem usually means that I think too highly of myself. I'm too self-involved, I feel I deserve better than what I have. The reason I feel bad about myself is that I aspire to something more. I want just a few minutes of greatness. I am a peasant who wants to be king. When you are in the grips of low self-esteem, it's painful, and it certainly doesn't feel like pride. But I believe that this is the dark, quieter side of pride - thwarted pride. When People are Big and God is Small, 32.

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Can God Make a Rock So Heavy He Can't Lift It?

At the Jollyblogger's recommendation, I subscribed today to Jared Wilson's blog, the Gospel-Driven Church. Beyond noticing that he was the one who had earlier posted 25 myths evangelicals persist in believing (which I would have posted a link to, but I got lazy), and a string of really complimentary comments about his new book, I was blown away by his post this evening with the best-ever answer to the age-old nonsense question, "Can God make a rock so heavy he can't lift it?"

It's short, so here is Jared's post in its entirety. Expect to see this again at Easter :)

I remember when I first heard this bit of immature atheistic reductio ad absurdum. I was in high school, and I didn't respond to it because the Nirvana-shirted, long-banged drama stud who said it didn't say it to me. He was laying it on his friend like it was theist's kryptonite.

My answer then, steeped in C.S. Lewis as I was, would have been along the lines of the nonsense of the question as framed. It is a rhetorical and hypothetical "gotcha" with no sincerity behind it, and in any event, it is sort of like asking, "Does the number nine smell red or yellow?"

My answer today is different. My answer today would not be to skewer the nature of the question but to inject its insincerity with the sincerity of God and all the weight of the gospel.

The truth is that God did make a weight so heavy he couldn't lift it. He did so not by building an immovable force -- we did that with our sin -- but by incarnating the frailty of humanity and willingly subjecting himself to the force. As one of us, yet still himself, he created the conundrum of the incarnate God, bearing a cross he both ordained yet could not carry by himself, becoming condemned in death and also victorious. And God was crushed according to the plan he himself projected from the foundation of the world.

So, can God make a rock so heavy even he can't lift it?

Yes. And he did. For three days only. And then he drop kicked it out of the mouth of the tomb.

The Paradox of Repentance

Cornelius Platinga:

It’s hard to repent. And while it’s hard enough to repent before a perfect God, it’s even harder to repent before an imperfect human being. To admit that you have injured or neglected another person, then to go the person and say, “I’m sorry. I’m ashamed. Will you forgive me?”—to do this is mortifying. It kills us to do it. You need to be a big person to give it a serious try. That’s the paradox of repentance, says, C.S. Lewis. Only a bad person needs to repent. Only a good person can do it. (Beyond Doubt: Faith-Building Devotions on Questions Christians Ask, 242).

HT: Chris Brauns

My Self-Righteousness-ometer is Off the Charts

"I'll take that bet
you're gonna regret
'cause I'm the best that's ever been."
(Charlie Daniels, The Devil Went Down to Georgia)

I've been convicted a lot lately about how my self-righteousness-ometer is off the charts. In the red zone. The problem is that, no matter how I try to articulate it nicely, how I try to hide it, I have a fundamental belief deep in my heart that I am better than you.

It really hurts to admit that, but if it's comforting to you, think of me as standing at the top of a rock pillar, and God keeps pulling rocks out. It's getting precarious up here.

Another blow yesterday in Sunday School, when a church-planter-hopeful to the Native American population in our city challenged our perceptions of that people group within our community. He didn't challenge our stereotypes per se, but rather, he challenged us to see ourselves in that stereotype: our sinfulness, our need for grace, our need for a Savior.

"When you see that drunk Indian on the news getting put in the back of a police car, see yourself."

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (Rom. 7:14)

Is my heart good soil for a relationship?

The latest CCEF newsletter linked to part of a new booklet by David Powlison called "Renewing Intimacy in Marriage," and I thought it was so good that I've now read through it several times.

Even the first time I was reading it, I was struck by how appropriate this material is for any marriage, not just a marriage that has grown distant. In fact, since an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, I'd venture to say that this would provide a great outline for a wedding shower devotion, and I'm going to keep that idea in my back pocket in case I ever get asked to do one again.

Or, also, these principles apply to any relationship, as a friend pointed out when I posted a quote on my facebook wall; the basic premise is that rightly-ordered worship produces strong, rightly-ordered relationships.

Here's the basic outline:

1. Distance in marriage is the result of the fall. "When you think about it, you’ll notice that the way you treat your spouse reflects the way you treat God. The same things that cause distance in your relationship with God cause distance in your relationship with your spouse." WOW.

2. If how we receive God and his Word can be described by the parable of the Sower and the four kinds of soil, and if #1 above is true, then those soils as a description of our hearts in relationship to God also applies to our hearts in relationship to others.

• The hard soil is a hard heart that doesn' t know how to love. "When you have a hard heart, your relationship with God and your spouse is all about getting your own needs met."
  
  
• The rocky soil is a disappointed heart that gives up on love. "When trouble comes to your marriage—your spouse isn’t perfect and your life together isn’t perfect either—your love wilts away. Romance is replaced by disappointment with life and each other. You may think, I just don’t love my spouse anymore. Our culture accepts that at face value, but God doesn’t. He has a different way of looking at your disappointment. God says, 'You’re discovering for the first time that you don’t know how to love. You enjoyed affection and romance, but love is hard and hard-won. Romance is a wonderful gift, but love endures through the hard times; it endures when the heat comes.'" Now isn't THAT quote just worth the price of admission?!?
  
  
• The thorny soil is a distracted heart that is too busy to love. "When worries grab all of your attention, they choke the vitality out of your relationship with God. A preoccupation with material things will also choke your marriage—your life together can become all about managing what you own or getting new stuff."
  
  
• The good soil is a fruitful heart that perseveres in love. "The person with the fruitful heart has an intimate relationship with God, and she relies on that relationship for the power and perseverance she needs to love for the long haul."

3. The "First Things First Principle." Here's the quote that I shared on my facebook and share again now:

If you seek intimacy with your spouse, you’ll always be disappointed. If you seek to love your spouse the way God loves you, you’ll never be disappointed. You will fail. You’ll still be hurt by your spouse’s sins. You’ll still get preoccupied by other desires. But in the long run there will be change. Intimacy will come your way—not always the way you’d like it or at the exact time you’d like it—but learning to love God will change your relationship with your spouse.

4. How does God love us? What BEAUTIFUL truths to be reminded of...

• You are never out of sight or out of mind to God (Psalm 139:7–10).
• He creates intimacy with you by the way he treats you (Isaiah 42:3).
• He notices and cares about everything that happens to you (Luke 12:6–7).
• He speaks openly about himself (John 15:15).
• He listens to you (Psalm 6:8–9).
• He is a refuge in the midst of your sufferings (Psalm 46).
• He hangs in there over the long haul (Isaiah 49:14–16).
• He laid down his life for you (John 3:16; Romans 5:6–8).
• He forgives all of your sins (Psalm 103:1–5).
• His mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:21–24).

The closing reminder: our God "is a God who keeps his promises, a God of kindness, a God who forgives. [These] are also the attributes you need to make your marriage deeply joyous and intimate."

Binoculars vs. mirrors

I keep trying to look at others' sin through binoculars, but God keeps (graciously) replacing them with a mirror.

Zen-Calvinism

A very timely link from Michael McKinley at the 9Marks blog, an article by Carl Trueman called Zen Calvinism.

I was going to link to some quotes from it, but for some reason I'm not able to copy text from the site, and seeing as how I'm at the tail end of a two week vacation, I'm not about to spoil it by typing several paragraphs when I can just link to them :)

Instead, I'll give you a bonus and after exhorting you to read the article, I'll share a great song from the ever-amazing Alison Kraus.

Unbelief, or something else?

I was thinking this morning ...

Do I sometimes disguise a desire to stay in my sin (whether by laziness, preferring my sin, or something else) as unbelief (specifically, not believing that God is powerful enough to change me)?

Maybe that's just a different kind of unbelief ... not believing that God is better than whatever I'm clinging to.

I guess I need both in order to make that 180 turn -- believing that God can and believing that he is worth it.

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!!

I came across a quote yesterday that positively made my skin crawl:

"In my study of success and successful people, I have noticed that most of them have strong faith in God and study the Bible: In seeking self-improvement, expose yourself to religious philosophy and go the Bible--the self-help book that has inspired more persons to desirable action than any book written."

Excerpt from "The Success System That Never Fails" by W Clement Stone

I don't know what's more sad, that this guy recommends familiarizing oneself with the Bible as a key to self-help, or the fact that his contact with the Christian faith has commended the Bible as one of the most inspirational self-help books of all time.

This morning, a breath of fresh, pure air from Andree Seu, who's quoting Martin Lloyd-Jones:

“The fundamental thing is that Christianity is about Jesus. . . . Christianity is not a teaching—it is a person. . . . The Lord Jesus Christ was the theme of the preaching of the early church. . . . This is the tragic thing that has been forgotten at the present time. ‘What we need,’ people say, ‘is the application of his teaching.’ But it is not. What you need is to know him and to come into relationship with him. . . .”

On Love, for real this time

First of all, can I just say how great life feels right now? I'm sitting with my feet up, a grapefruit cake in the oven, about to enjoy my mom's amazing halibut tacos at my parents' house with some in-laws as well, I'm sipping a glass of wine, looking out at the world -- as far as the Beartooth Mountains -- that has that certain beauty that it only has just after the rain, appreciating the fact that I wasn't IN the rain, which we narrowly avoided because we were biking home and got inside just as it started to pour. Upon further reflection, I'm even more thankful that I have a husband who basically built me a commuter bike (based on one he bought at Goodwill for $10) and who is loving enough to challenge me to do the riding, but patient enough to go my (slow) pace and just smile warmly at all my whining! And all that exercise feels so good.

But that's not what this post is about.

What I've been thinking about is actually from a conversation that HH and I had a few weekends ago. It was prompted by a devotional book that we were given for our wedding. It's a decent book, but there are just enough pop-psychology and man-centered views in it that the great conversations we have as a result of the devo aren't generally prompted by his discussion questions but rather by our critiques of his theology.

In this particular devotion, he was talking about how our spouses need to feel needed. So I need to know that HH needs me in this relationship and appreciates what I contribute without placing conditions on me. If I don't feel adequately needed, then something is missing from the equation in our marriage.

To a certain extent, this is true. It's not going to be much of a relationship if we're not taking the time to acknowledge one anothers' contributions and to be vulnerable enough to be reliant on the other person.

But, as Ed Welch has so brilliantly pointed out, this can be a flawed and dangerous mindset if we're depending on the other person to fill our proverbial love cup. Because my love cup leaks, and HH will never be able to do enough to fill my cup. (As an aside, we like to joke that Migo has a leaky love cup, but since he's a labrador retriever whose sole purpose in life is basically to love and be love, I think that's okay. He's more like a love pool, where everyone's just supposed to jump in and get soaked.)

So we had a great conversation about where finding security and strength in one another needs to end, and where finding our ultimate strength and security in God needs to begin. It's going to create problems for even the best of relationships if I'm trying to root my identity in the fact that my husband needs or wants me.

A few days ago, this theme was revived when I was reading Tullian Tchividjian's blog, a post called Loved Forevermore. He also raised the point that when we look at our homes as a place of finding love, we are always going to be disappointed, not to mention protective, defensive and bitter. But when we see our homes as an opportunity to extend love to others, that's when we can have a joyous relationship that doesn't even necessarily *need* to be reciprocal.

And where do we get this love that we share in our homes? That's what the gospel is all about -- God, in his boundless love, has loved us forevermore. And because of his love, we are able to freely love others. Without condition, without needing anything in return.

I'd so much rather feel a desperate dependence on God's love than on my husbands; and I'll be better at loving both of them for it.

Top 10 Things I Still Think About from my Classes at CCEF

So, the workweek is over, but I'm still sitting in my office, waiting for HH to wrap up HIS workweek so we can go home together (I LOVE being able to commute with him and I actually miss that time together when he has other meetings or he rides his bike to work). But that's not what's really on my mind right now; we were talking a little bit about the Christian Counseling & Education Foundation, and so I decided to see if I could make an "off the top of my head" list of the top 10 things I still think about consistently from the classes I took while I was at WTS from 2002-2005.

Here they are, in no particular order:

1. The whole root/fruit, heart idols thing. Yeah, I know, yadda yadda yadda, we talk about it ALL the time in my church, home, work, everywhere. But it is SO influential in the way I process the world. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out Peacemaker Ministries' article "Getting to the Heart of Conflict," and this will give you a pretty good idea (yep, they got it from CCEF).

2. Where is the Mango Princess. This is a book I read for one of Mike Emlet's classes, Counseling and Physiology. We read the book to get an autobiographical feel for what it's like to live with someone who has experienced brain damage -- the challenges of navigating the medical world, the initial trauma, and the long-term adjustments. It was particularly powerful to see her struggle with the personality changes; her husband had survived, but he was a different husband. I loaned the book to someone who was going through a similar struggle and haven't seen it since; I think that makes the book worth the price of admission.

3. David Powlison talking about prayer requests -- challenging us to get to the heart in our prayer requests and not just pray for arthritic knees and surgeries. I also clearly remember singing "Come Thou Fount" in class (a personal favorite anyway) and listening to Powlison "exegete" that song.

4. Ed Welch talking about addictions. I seem to remember him talking about craving Butterfingers, and how that gave him a point of identification for people who struggled with "less sanctified" addictions. Sounds crazy, but it's profound. He also brought in a former addict (cocaine, I think), who shared with the class about his journey. If Welch could "successfully" counsel a cocaine addict, it makes that butterfinger thing seem less crazy by the minute.

5. Ed Welch on how Scripture tells stories of unclean people being made clean -- even holy. This means that all Scripture can speak even to sexual abuse. In the Old Testament, unclean always "trumped" clean when they came into contact -- that is why someone who had touched a dead person was unclean, or a menstruating woman couldn't touch other people. When clean came into contact with unclean, they both came away unclean. Until Jesus. He walks around come into contact with sinners left and right -- touching dead bodies, being touched by sick and bleeding women. And an amazing thing happens: he is not made unclean, but they are made clean. Now, holiness trumps uncleanness.

6. Okay, almost anything Ed Welch said. Or, at least I *wish* I could remember it all.

[INTERMISSION -- we went home, went to a baseball game, watched a movie, slept, and now I'm finishing this post with coffee in my hand and sitting in front of the fireplace.]

7. Joni Eareckson Tada speaking at the Living Faith conference, and reading her book When God Weeps. I was profoundly impacted by this book and was reading it at a time of life when it really struck home for me. Here's a passage that I think about regularly, which I quoted on my blog about 2 years ago, and on another blog right when I read it. I still revisit the book and recommend it to people regularly.

8. Mike Emlet teaching on s*x in counseling and physiology (the * is so I don't get weird searches arriving here). The more I've thought about it over the last 4 years, the more I believe that the way Dr. Emlet taught this -- he is both a Medical Doctor and a counselor -- was SO helpful. He was practical, he was thorough, he was not embarrassed and he made a point of telling us that no matter our stage in life (single, married, male, female), we would need to be able to unabashedly approach the subject with counselees, and we would also need to understand the many physical and emotional dynamics at play.

9. Learning about autism from Mike Emlet. I'd never really encountered autism or Aspergers, so I found it really helpful to get a biblical introduction and perspective on a topic that is so widely discussed, diagnosed and speculated on. I actually did a mediation in the last year where one of the parties, who had never met the other party but had spoken to him on the phone ONCE, was diagnosing this other party with Aspergers. It was incredibly helpful to have Dr. Emlet's teaching in the back of my mind so I could a) understand what she thought she was talking about, and b) explain some of it to my co-mediator.

10. Tim Lane on building a church-based structure for long-term care of difficult cases. An example of this would be the person who has a long-term physical ailment, joins the church and somebody takes them on as a "project" (consciously or not). The person turns out to be pretty demanding and not particularly grateful for all of the other person's efforts, so the person gets burned out, sooner or later. Then somebody else happens upon the sufferer, takes up the project, goes strong for a few months, gets burned out. Our sufferer -- whose attitude is clearly contributing to at least some of the "problem" -- is going to feel used and burned. Tim proposed a different approach to serving people like this, one that essentially grew out of small groups/care groups, that didn't rely on one person taking up the project, and that was mroe viable for genuinely loving and serving that person over the long term. He should write an article on this, too (imho).

Okay, breakfast time! I'm going to make toasted almond and pear waffles with maple whipped cream, if I can pull it off, because I'll be making it all up.

Broken Down House

Paul Tripp is such a master of imagery, and this video is no exception:



Here's my favorite quote:

"As Christians, we ought to be the saddest community on earth because we should know how broken we are and how broken our world is. But that sadness is harmonized by notes of celebration because although we know that we're terribly broken and our world is terribly broken, we know that the divine contractor, the divine carpenter, has entered the house with his tools of restoration and there's hope for us and there's hope for our world."

We worry because it gives us the illusion of control

Great thoughts the other day from Salem Alliance pastor John Stumbo, who was stricken with a mysterious illness last fall that nearly killed him and is now on a looooong road to recovery. He blogged on Thursday about a colonoscopy/throat scan that he had to have. He admits later to having been quite worried about it and then adds these profound thoughts:

Worry is one of those vices that we know has no value, but some of us resort to it habitually. Why? There must be some reason that we would choose to go to a place that is unhelpful and unhealthy.

As I've reflected on this in recent days, I'm concluding that the reason I accept worry as a legitimate tool is because it gives me a sense of control. There is no truth in it of course--I had no control of the procedure or its findings--unless I bailed out completely. Although inaccurate, this is what worry convinces me of--if I stew over the issue, I haven't lost control. It is somehow in my grasp. Dumb, but powerful.

Delight -- Andree Seu

"Delight is the most useless of things. It doesn't get the house clean or the bills paid. Useless - like rainbows. Like Beethoven's Ninth.

Delight covers a multitude of parenting shortcomings. You may be too strict or too lenient and still come out all right, if you delight in your children. They will know it, for delight cannot be hidden. It finds excuse to ooze all over the place. It seeks a getaway vacation with the beloved when it's not convenient. It asks different questions than duty. Duty says, 'I should.' Delight says, 'I want to.' Duty is efficient. Delight tends to anything but.

What is less efficient than the story of mankind? If it were about efficiency, God would have wiped the plate clean and commenced with more promising subjects. The Bible in its entirety is a love story, a tale of unquenchable delight -- His for us, finally ours for him. No sound rule of parenting is modeled in the sprint of an old man down the road to meet his prodigal. Only delight. No royal protocol is modeled in the dance of a half-naked king before his subjects and the Lord with all his might. Only delight. What is more useless than hymns?

'Let the mind for an instant consider the history of the Redeemer's love, and a thousand enchanting acts of affection will suggest themselves ... Our souls may well faint for joy ... for our loving benefactor Jesus Christ our Lord, whose love is wonderful, passing the love of women' (C.H. Spurgeon)."

-- Andree Seu, We Shall Have Spring Again

More on "The Punishment Game"

Remember my post on playing the punishment game? I read an article yesterday that I thought complemented my point very nicely.

In "Louis Vuitton does not spell forgiveness," Debra D. Bass explores how men -- particularly abusive men -- manipulate women by buying them gifts. I obviously wasn't talking about abusive men, but just the general belief in our society and human nature that gifts (tangible or by doing favors/chores) can/should buy forgiveness (or at least softness that leads to easier forgiveness). And Ms. Bass makes this same point -- that a gift is no substitute for true reconciliation.

Here's the opening few paragraphs of her article.

married friend once joked that if her husband weren't such a screw up, she wouldn't have any nice jewelry. She's told this joke many times in response to a compliment about something she was wearing, and it never fails to elicit laughs.

Socially, we are taught that gifts are selfless, thoughtful and virtuous expressions of love, friendship or respect. We are also taught that a gift is a "get out of trouble" card. And the more expensive or rare or sentimental the gift, the more forgiveness it can barter.

People who screw up are taught that gifts can be traded or at least leveraged for forgiveness.

How many women might instinctively soften after a quarrel if their husband or boyfriend brought home a shiny necklace or stylish watch the next day? How many would take the gift without an explicit admission of guilt? And would that be wrong?

The tricky part of this equation is that gifts can be really nice to get. A gift is a tangible object that says, "I was thinking about you." But it doesn't mean "I acknowledge, understand and take responsibility for what I've done."

(by the way, as far as I know, this article wasn't written by a Christian, just an observer of human nature)

Hopefully not too many people who read my blog are in abusive relationships, but I'll say again what I said before about subscribing to this false view of "reconciliation:"

The scary thing is the same question I asked someone in a mediation a few weeks ago -- "How much is enough?" At some point, he's not going to be able to do enough for me to forgive him. We've got to find another way to be restored to each other.

Also scary is how remarkably similar this "theology" is to our natural tendency to believe that we need to work our way back into God's favor. Does God insist that we pay penance before being restored to him? No! And since God does not treat us in this way, we have no right to treat our spouses in this way.

Avoiding "the punishment game" in this way is a great way to live out our identity as forgiven people.

Compelled by Love - link

I gave a devotion last Friday at the Conflict Coaching & Mediation Training I helped at, and I just posted the text of it on the PM blog. Hop on over and take a look, if you're interested; the topic was how Christ's love compels us in our ministry of reconciliation.