Category Archives: Blog

Marriage Matters—Stop Apologizing

Have you ever been in a relationship with someone who apologizes for the same thing umpteen times? (Umpteen is just shy of a gazillion, in case you were wondering.) After a while, their apology just doesn’t mean anything anymore.

I leave lights on. I enter a room, flip on the light, and for the life of me cannot remember to turn it off when I leave the room. So my husband, who pays the electric bill every month, is constantly asking me to turn off the light, which is my cue to say “Oh. Sorry.” and then go turn the light off. It may seem like the cute routine of an old married couple, but it occurred to me just recently (hours ago) how flippant my “Oh sorry” must seem to him. Like just words I say on cue, but don’t really mean.

Because if I really was sorry, I’d start turning the lights off.

Lights are a small thing in light (no pun intended) of some of the issues that many couples deal with. Someone somewhere has apologized to their spouse one too many times for their infidelity. For their wild spending habits. For their inattention. For their hurtful words, bad temper, yelling, or too much drinking. For leaving the lights on again. But an apology that is given on cue, no matter what it’s for, still rings hollow after a while.

So, stop apologizing. Instead, do something about the behavior that you keep apologizing about. Make what is important to your spouse important enough to you to stop giving them hollow apologies.

And for crying out loud, turn the lights off.

Marriage Matters—What Are You Thinking?

A woman kissed her husband as he left for work, and then went about her day. As she did, her thoughts began to wander, and before she knew it she was thinking about something hurtful he had done last week. She replayed the incident in her mind throughout the day, and by the time her husband came home from work, her mood was very different than when he left that morning.  She was irritable, and eventually, it turned to anger. And neither of them understood what had happened.

Sound familiar? It does to me. For years I allowed my thought life to run the show, and not only did it make me miserable, it brought misery to my marriage.

 “You cannot have a positive life and a negative mind.” –  Joyce Meyer, Battlefield of the Mind: Winning the Battle in Your Mind

We cannot spend our day thinking negative thoughts about our spouse without it affecting how we treat them. Allowing our mind to dwell on all the reasons they are unlovable will not result in actions that display unconditional love. Our thoughts can lead us to be for our spouse, or against them. Much is won or lost in the place of our thought life.

Part of my problem all those years was that I was often unaware of my own thought life, unaware really, that my thoughts mattered all that much. And like many people, I was ignorant of the fact that my thoughts were something I could actually have control over.

But our thoughts do matter, and we can control them.

“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God,

and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 2Corinthians 10:5

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure,

whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.” Philippians 4:8

 We have the ability to take control of our thoughts, or God would not have instructed us to do so. It takes awareness. It takes practice. It takes effort. It takes making a choice.

Today, choose to think about whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–whatever is excellent or praiseworthy about your spouse. Take every other thought captive.

Your thoughts matter. Think the ones worth thinking.

Marriage Matters—When I Am The Why

I had been asking God for so many years to change my husband. Begging God, really. But I saw little to no movement over almost two decades. Makes a girl weary, you know? Finally, God made a change, and that change was in me.

During the very difficult beginning of our restoration season, God allowed me to see things through a very different lens. It was the lens of heaven, seeing my husband with eyes of love and compassion over his brokenness. Seeing him as God sees him…as a child of God, hurting, and in great need of the Father’s healing. For his sake, not mine. And that is where the change came. In the motive of my prayer.

I realized that all those years I wanted my husband to change so that my life would be easier, so that I wouldn’t have to deal with his anger, and his verbal abuse. I wanted him to change so that I could relax and maybe be happy for a change.

You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. (James 4:3)

This was the verse that God first used to address my prayer life, specifically my prayers for my husband. This is where I began to learn that motives matter to God, and my motive in prayer was me, more often than not.

As my view of my husband changed, so did my motives. As I saw what God saw, my heart broke for my husband more than it broke for me. And when I began to pray out of a genuine desire to see him free, to see him know the deep love of His Father, to know his worth – the changes I had prayed for began to happen. Little bits at a time for sure, but they were there.

Discovering that God is my source of happiness and peace, not my husband, was a shift I needed that enabled me to begin to pray with Godly motives rather than selfish ones.

If you are weary in prayer for your spouse, let God call out your motives. It will be hard, but so very worth it.

Follow Jesus: Covered in dust

“After coming down with them, He stood on a level place with a large crowd of His disciples and a great number of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon. They came to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases; and those tormented by unclean spirits were made well. The whole crowd was trying to touch Him, because power was coming out from Him and healing them all.”

Luke 6:17-19

There is a distinction made in this set of verses that we might easily miss.

A large crowd of His disciples.

A great number of people.

Jesus was a rabbi (teacher / master). A rabbi’s talmidim (disciples) followed him everywhere, learning everything they could from him, and serving him. They hung on his every word, and it is said that they followed so closely, they would become covered in the dust of their rabbi’s feet. They imitated him in everything, and then, when ready, they became a rabbi and had their own disciples. Jesus had a large crowd of disciples – some who would walk away when He said hard things. Those who remained were scattered at His crucifixion, and were perhaps all present in the upper room at Pentecost. But I wonder if only twelve of them had His dust on them.

And then, there was the great number of people who came to hear Him speak, and receive healing and deliverance from Him. They came to get something they desperately needed, from a man who had power coming out of Him, and who can blame them? But the same crowds who gathered to get what He had to give, are the same one who later called for His crucifixion.

A great number of people will walk away from Jesus when they realize He doesn’t just give them something they were looking for, but He requires something of them.

You may think the question all of this poses is, which are you – are you in the large crowd of His disciples, or the great number of people? That is not my question, but you are free to search your heart for an answer anyway.

The real question that this creates for me is this: Am I still learning from Jesus? Is He still the one teaching me to walk in His ways, to trust Him above all others, including myself, to believe for things others have stopped believing for? Do I follow Him, or do I follow the crowd who follows Him?

I believe that many, if not most, of those in the large crowd of disciples were saved. I also believe its possible that many who were in the great number of people were also saved. I think some people follow from a distance, and some follow closer.

I just want to be covered in His dust, day in and day out.

Marriage Matters—Choose Your Battles

Very few battles are worth fighting or even winning. Stop and think about the last real argument you had with your spouse. I mean the argument that caused one of you to get hurt or brought a cold silence that lasted for at least a day. Do you even remember what it was about? Was it worth it?

After almost 40 years, many of which were lived at war with my husband, I have learned a few hard lessons:

♥ Very few arguments are worth the price of peace that is paid to win them.

♥ Being right is a small consolation when it damages my friendship with my spouse.

♥ Winning an argument is a much smaller victory than the victory of giving up my need to win it.

♥ Not every battlefield needs to have my flag on it.

♥ It’s harder to stop a battle in motion than it is to walk away before it begins.

♥ Marriage battles are generally fought with words, and our tongues are hard to control once they are loaded for battle. Our words used to win an argument often lead us to long-term regret and not much else.

So what are the battles worth fighting? First, I think that question needs to be posed to God. He alone knows. The best I can do is give you my opinion on two good questions to ask yourself and the Holy Spirit.

? Will someone else be harmed if I don’t fight this particular battle, especially someone in my family?

? Will not engaging in this conflict result in my disobedience to God’s word, or compromise my walk with Christ in any way?

Hopefully, your answers to those questions will serve as guardrails in your decisions in conflict. I absolutely believe there are times when we should dig in our heels, but when we do, we should be quite certain that God is dug in with us. But most of the time, we should back down. If my husband is asking me to rob a bank with him, that will be a hard no from me, and I will not be moved from that position. But if I think we need to have a go ’round because he won’t do his fair share around the house, even after numerous “discussions”, then I’m gonna have to count the actual cost of going to battle over it rather than just letting it go.

Those are simple and easy scenarios, and not based on real events, but our lives are much more complicated than that, I know. So please allow me to submit this for your consideration:

Most of our battles are fought to the death because we are prideful, not because we are right.

Choose your battles well, my friend, and remember that more often than not, no battle at all is the best choice.

Follow Jesus: With Open Eyes

“Don’t you have a saying, ‘Four more months and then the harvest’? Well, what I say to you is: open your eyes and look at the fields! They’re already ripe for harvest! “

John 4:35 (CJB)

Jesus said this to His disciples right after His encounter with the woman at the well. In fact, they were still at the well, in Samaria, when He said it. To catch the impact of His statement, we have to know the relationship between Jews and Samaritans.

Jews hated Samaritans. Samaritans hated Jews. Jews would cross the Jordan river to avoid going through Samaria.

And this was the harvest field Jesus told His disciples to open their eyes to see. What caught my eye (no pun intended, but yay me for making one), is that Jesus didn’t open their eyes, He told them to open their own eyes. To stop looking at things from an earthly perspective, and look at it from heaven’s viewpoint.

We will only see a spiritual harvest if we open our eyes to see what heaven sees.

There is a harvest in front of us that is ripe, but it is not just among the people we like, the people that are basically like us, but unsaved. It is a harvest made up of the people we avoid. The people we judge. The ones we don’t want anything to do with. I don’t need to name them, I think we all know who we go out of our way to avoid coming in contact with.

“Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.“

2 Kings 6:17 (CSB)

Elisha’s servant had looked out his window in the morning, and saw the King of Aram’s massive army surrounding them. In fear, he asked Elisha, “what are we going to do?”.

Have you looked out your window lately? Sometimes, it seems like the army of darkness that has been amassing grows with each passing day. Somedays, I have Elisha’s faith. Other days, I have his servant’s fear. And no matter how hard that servant may have tried, he couldn’t open his own eyes wide enough to see what was really there.

Sometimes, we will see what’s really going on, only if God opens our eyes.

 “I pray that He will give light to the eyes of your hearts, so that you will understand the hope to which He has called you…

Ephesians 1:18 (CJB)

I think the early disciples, including (and especially) Paul, had the eyes of their hearts open and full of light. Why do I think that? Because they were all-in, to the death. Earth had nothing for them.

I wonder if earth still has too much for us. Too many things to distract us, to compete for our affections and our allegience. Things that block our view of eternity.

Some things can only be seen with the heart that has been made full of light.

“For you used to be darkness; but now, united with the Lord, you are light. Live like children of light…” (Ephesians 5:8)

I pray that we, the Church (mostly me tho), will open our eyes and see the harvest that we avoid.

I pray He will open our eyes to see who is with us, when all we can see is what is standing against us.

And I pray that we will live with nothing blocking our view of eternity; as those for whom earth has no hold, because He has brought His light to the eyes of our heart, and now we understand the hope that is ours in Christ.

May we follow Jesus with open eyes.

Follow Jesus: See & Tell

The Gospel of John.

John the Baptist: I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God. (1:34)

Andrew: The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus. (1:41)

Philip: Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. (1:45)

Samaritan woman: “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” (4:29)

Man at the Pool: The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well. (5:15)

Those living in darkness were seeing a great light, and their response was to tell others, and bring others to that light.

Sometimes we complicate things, you know? We make Christianity about us and ours. Our church. Our doctrine. Our style of music. Our programs. Our ministry. Our ideas and preferences and need to do things our way.

I think some of us just need to tell someone about Jesus.

Do we still believe that there is power in the gospel? That the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God? (1 Corinthians 1:18) 

Do I believe it? Do I believe that the gospel that comes forth as I share my testimony has the power of God on it? Or have I, we, become far more comfortable inviting people to church, or to an outreach event, than we are inviting them to know Jesus through our own story?

Bringing someone to church isn’t bringing them to Jesus. I will stand by that statement, as offensive as it may sound. Inviting people to come to church isn’t wrong, or a bad thing. But it isn’t the model we have been given in the scriptures. The picture we have is that people encountered the Messiah, and then went to tell someone what they had seen, often bringing them back to Jesus. And when Jesus left the earth, we see the disciples going out and doing the “greater things than these” that Jesus spoke of in John 14:12-14. And all those people who believed in the Jesus they were being told about, became the Church. Today, those who believe in the Jesus we’ve seen and tell them about, become the Church.

People were seeing and telling long before Jesus told them to go make disciples of all nations. But we’ve made that great commission our flagship scripture for so long that “missions” is now where people are told about Jesus. Why tell my neighbor about the life changing encounter I had with Jesus, when I can invite them to an outreach event at church instead. Something safe. Unintrusive. Non-threatening. I wonder. If we truly believed our theology of heaven and hell, would we care about being unintrusive? I wonder if it’s time for the Church to get intrusive. Become threatening to the schemes of the devil. Walk in the power of the Holy Spirit to be His witness as we go, everywhere we go.

We have seen. We have seen Him in our lives. So let’s be followers of Jesus and tell someone. Let’s invite them to Jesus before we invite them to church.