What Do We Say in Suffering?

It's a week of suffering. Friends in our state and our county are emerging from the ravages of a hurricane -- a Category 1 storm with Category 4 storm surge, we're told. Some neighbors have lost everything they own. When you don't have money for next week's groceries, how do you rebuild? Where do you live while you rebuild? Who will help you?

This is the restaurant where Anna and Gramm had their rehearsal dinner.
Those are supposed to be roads all around.
(photo credit: Larry Summers)

But I'm in Mississippi, helping Anna. She and Gramm are tenderly caring for a beloved family member who is ill. They're both working too. I came to clean their home, do their laundry, clean out the refrigerator, feed them, love them. 

These are only two kinds of suffering; turn on the news and find more. You have your own suffering too. What do we say when we suffer?

We say, "Why?" Or if you're a person of faith, "Why God?" Or if you're a Christian, "Why, Jesus?" We may scream, "Help me!" or "Save me!" "Take me out of this horrible place in my life!"

I was up about 4:00 this morning. I've slept in five different beds in the past week, away from home. The morning's peaceful routine of reading my Bible is so calming, so I turned to today's chapter, John 12 ~~

Jesus knows He's about to be crucified, a horrific, degrading death in itself. On top of that, He'll have mountains of our sins piled onto Him, to bear into Hell on His shoulders so He can get rid of them once and for all. What a thing for a God to do! 

"Now My soul is troubled," He says. Of course.
"What shall I say?" Jesus asks.  In His suffering, what does He say?  What should we say when we suffer?

"Father, save Me from this hour"?
"Father, save me from this flooding and destruction."
"Father, save me from losing my home."
"Father, save me from cancer."
"Father, save me from watching my loved one die."

Jesus says no. In suffering, He refused to say, "Save me, Father," because He knew the Father would do it. Then we would all have been lost forever, banned from heaven. 

Instead, Jesus said, "Father, glorify Thy Name." 

It is so very hard to say anything other than "Save me!!" when we're going under. Peter yelled it, and Jesus saved him. Sometimes "Save me, Father!!" is the automatic distress call; we can't help it. But if we have time to think, it can be better to say, "Father, glorify yourself in my suffering. Use it to show who You are and what you can do. Use it to show other people your love. Use it to show how You can transform the human soul. Use it to show your power. Use it in ways I can't even imagine yet." 

Or like Jesus, "Use my suffering to save others into heaven."

Manna -- the Normative Situation

This morning I read this passage, regarding God's care of the Israelites who wandered in the wilderness forty years, "Thy manna Thou didst not withhold from their mouth." (Neh. 9:20)

Isn't that a funny way to say it? Wouldn't it make more sense to say, "Thy manna Thou didst give to their mouths"? The passage made me pause because it vaguely sounds as if Nehemiah is saying that the reason we don't have manna every day is because God withholds it. As if manna would like to fall, manna should fall, in the world's normal state manna would fall, but God withholds it.

It's not really strange to think of food this way. We think of water this way, our other sustenance. God lets it fall, and when He withholds it, we long for it.

This is the kind of idea that Adam and I talk about privately in our spare moments, all the time. These ideas -- especially about what the unfallen Earth might be like (and therefore what the New Earth might be like) occupy our minds and conversations almost every day at some point.  Is it wrong to be so fixed on eternity? I don't think so; it's just another way of saying that our minds are fixed on God's kingdom, and that's always good.

So, when you think of your eternal life on the New Earth and you imagine all the details of that life, just for fun, add in an early morning event: falling manna. That would be cool.

A Weekendful O' Fun!

On Friday, I picked up my cousin and life-long dear friend Tammy, at the local airport. Thus began a delightful weekend, the kind with an old cherished friend when you feel like you've never been apart. She is family.

 We toodled around Oriental and went to The Bean. She did some fun shopping. The weather's been lovely. Adam planned menus, and he's been cooking up a storm: Mexican dinner, cream biscuits, Alfredo, focaccia bread ... and more to come.

Twenty-nine years ago, around this time of year, Tammy came to Jackson, Mississippi to take my bridal portraits. It rained. We abandoned our plans to shoot in Mynelle Gardens, instead using my parents' living room.

No such weather impediments bothered us on Saturday, about two hours before sunset. She did a lovely job photographing Anna in her dress, in a pasture cloaked in buttercups and clover.

 I took photos of her taking photos :)  Of course, since Gramm can't see Anna's dress yet, I must be careful what pictures I share here ... sorry.

(OOPS -- I had to remove a photo of Anna and Tammy doing the photo shoot, even though it was from  V  E  R  Y    F  A  R    A  W  A  Y   , because Anna said you could zoom in and still see the dress. Sigh. Sorry.)

As she did 29 years ago, Tammy lovingly made a flower arrangement for Anna to use, since she obviously doesn't have her wedding flowers yet. Aren't they gorgeous?

 I knew just where my arrangement was still, in my closet. So Anna and I snapped a photo of us with our two Bridal Shoot Arrangements by Tammy.

Anna did her hair.

She hardly needs to do anything to it.

Anna's hair generally does itself.

 Since big farm dogs and wedding dresses don't mix, Adam and the puppies watched from the safety of the garden gate, poor things. They got bored.

 The chickens watched too.

(Maybe I should write a children's story about a Chicken Wedding? I can just see Punkin in a long veil trailing behind her, and the other hens eating all the rice that's supposed to be thrown ....)

Yesterday we went to church. Quite a few people were gone for various reasons, but we had some visitors, and it was a lovely service and fellowship. It was one of those worship services that somehow spiritually congeals, by the Holy Spirit's gentle work, and the sermon (about how Moses and Israel's leaders ascended the mountain, saw God, and then sat down and ate and drank -- they had probably the first "communion" with God), the music (which I chose without knowing about the sermon, but which God coordinated Himself: "Come ye thirsty, come and welcome, God's free bounty glorify"), and then the communion we took afterward ... they all came together to bring me nearly to tears. In such moments I become nearly desperate to be on the New Earth, having started my eternity with Jesus and with all of you on a perfect, peaceful planet. I become emotionally grateful for what Jesus endured for me -- a cruel, brutal death -- so I could look forward in eager anticipation to such a life. Would I ever have sacrificed in such a way for someone I didn't know? Ah, but He did know me, and loved me. There's the miracle.

Today Tammy, Anna, and I go to the beach! We'll eat lunch at the Royal James Cafe, look through the Maritime Museum in Beaufort, and then lay on the beach like slugs until we return for Adam's yummy Indian dinner this evening.  I'll post about all that later!

Justice vs. Sacrifice

An excellent article on marriage I'm reading just sparked an idea. (Here's the article.) The husband writes that we've all told ourselves, all our lives, that we must be true to ourselves, discover our own spiritual heights, be authentic to ourselves. As he says, "An authentic life means being true to ourselves, and there's nothing more inauthentic than doing something counter to our current emotional state. Basically, if I'm not feeling it, then I shouldn't have to do it."

That's a little crassly put, but we do all practice this principle. We teach it to our children and defend it in our culture: personal justice! Do not tolerate anyone treating you badly! Fight back and defend what's right! Push for personal justice and rights! Every group in the country (and the individuals within those groups) are encouraged to fight for personal justice. We tell ourselves that in fighting for me we are also fighting for others. Yeah.

And what's wrong with that?

If you're a Christian, I'll tell you what's wrong with that -- Jesus taught the opposite. He taught us not to seek our own good, our own way. He taught to present your second cheek to be slapped after your first is stinging. He taught us to absorb the wrong, and then forgive it. If you are His follower (in Scripture, the correct term is "bond-servant," i.e., slave) then you have given up your claim to personal justice for yourself. If you're not ready to at least make a half-hearted attempt at that, then reconsider your connections to the Man.

Seriously, people. Let everybody else hammer out how badly they've been treated. You should be busy with other things. The only justice Jesus ever told us to concern themselves with is justice for the truly oppressed -- the poor, the homeless, the abandoned, the orphans, the people whom organizations and institutions love to extort and use. We are to forget about rights and justice for ourselves, and seek it for them.

In Jesus's mind, the two are mutually exclusive.

I see this every day at the afterschool program where I work. Here's how it goes -- I call the 31 children to make a line so we can go inside to the restroom. Instantly I hear, "She broke in front of me!" "I carried that basketball outside and I'm supposed to carry it in!" "She stuck her tongue out at me!" And on and on. The 'breaking in line' complaint is my personal favorite. I ask the child, "Are you the line leader? Do you have a particular place in the line anyway? Does it really matter if she's in front of you? Will you get to the bathroom any later?" Of course there's absolutely no practical implication, no tangible wrong done, if someone steps in line in front of you when you're seven years old. Or when your 47, or 70 either. But, oh my, does it make us mad! We have been wronged! We have been ill-used and treated rudely. It's the principle of the thing! We must never tolerate injustice in any form!

I agree that rudeness and meanness and ill-treatment are offensive in our culture. But I wish that we would all adopt this attitude: Never try to address any injustice against self; always address injustice done to others.

If we all did that (an impossibility, I'm sure) what a different world we would live in.

If we ceased seeking our own rights and justice in our marriages, and instead began seeking it only for our partners.

If we stopped seeking our own rights and justice at our jobs, and instead began seeking it only for our co-workers.

If we stopped teaching our kids to look out for their own rights and justice and began teaching them to look out for others.

If we stopped, as a church, looking out for our church's rights and justice at the hands of our government or culture, and began seeking the rights and justice of the oppressed instead.

And, last but not least, if we stopped expecting those who don't profess any relationship with Jesus to behave in ways that we who do profess this relationship, won't behave. Fighting for one's own rights and personal justice is perfectly normal in the world. Let the world do its thing. Be different -- that's all Jesus asked us to do, just be different. He knew it would be nearly impossible to deny ourselves, to sacrifice that way. So He did it first to show us that it could be done.

Shakespeare addressed these thoughts in Hamlet. Polonius advises his son, Laertes, "This above all - to thy own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." The father dies at the hand of Hamlet, a man who struggled with this concept more deeply: "To be or not to be -- that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them." Laertes, in the end, murders Hamlet and then dies himself. What sad ends for men who found self-sacrifice so impossible!

Do we suffer wrongs? Do we rouse ourselves and fight against them? Are we true to self above all others? Look to Jesus. Be different.

"The Word of the Lord Tested Him"

Sometimes a passage of scripture sticks in my mind like a burr and bothers and bothers me until I dig it out. Psalm 105: 19 (and surrounding verses) did this to me this week. The passage is describing what God did in Joseph's lifetime. Here it is:

"And He called for a famine upon the land.
He broke the whole staff of bread.
He sent a man before them,
Joseph, who was sold as a slave.
They afflicted his feet with fetters,
He himself was laid in irons;
Until the time that his word came to pass.
The Word of the LORD tested him.
The king sent and released him,
The ruler of peoples, and set him free."

The passages goes on from there; it's a chronological account of important events in Joseph's life, a summary of sorts. You see the progress:

famine --> slavery --> imprisonment --> foretelling the future --> (the Word of the LORD tested him) --> release from prison

What in the world is that one sentence doing in the middle of all those other factual life events? What events in Joseph's life occur between his foretelling of the future (prophesying, if you will), and his release from prison? If we looked at Joseph's life, what years correspond to "the Word of the LORD tested him"?

Genesis 40:23 and 41:1 tell us.  Joseph waited.

Joseph was wrongfully imprisoned in a foreign country. Still, he rises to positions of responsibility. Then God gives him an amazing gift! He's able to interpret two men's dreams and predict their futures -- a baker and a cup-bearer. And his predictions come true! Joseph must've hoped this would produce his release. But it didn't happen. The cup-bearer, who returned to the king's house, forgot about Joseph and his accurate prediction of the man's release from prison.

And Joseph waited two whole years before anything happened.

And that's when scripture tells us that "the Word of the LORD tested him." While he felt forgotten and languished in prison in a strange land.

We can easily say, "Oh yeah. I understand that God often makes us wait for things in order to test us." But that's not exactly what it says. God's Word tests Joseph. What would that mean to Joseph? He didn't have a Bible. The Pentateuch hadn't been written yet. What Word of the LORD did Joseph know?

Joseph's ability to interpret dreams and predict men's futures is given to him by God; he says so. In some way, God speaks to Joseph. This is the Word that tested him. Joseph has an intimate relationship with God in spite of his many sorrows. He trusts what God says to him; he stakes his life on it. God gives him dream interpretations, and he in turn tells it to the interested parties. Then ... God's words seem to stop, come to a dead end.

Do you trust Me? God asks him. Do you still believe Me? Are you willing to wait? How long will you wait?

In our relationship with God, the one element we often fail to figure in, is time. The real test of our faith isn't always the injustice, oppression, poverty, sorrow, or grief we face. It's the How-Long. How Long will it last? We feel we could just bear up under the weight of trouble, if we know when it would be over!

Waiting is the test. Do you still believe what God's told you in the past? Do you still lean on that relationship even if everything else is stripped away? Why does God make us wait? What does He want to see in our hearts before He begins to act again?

If you've ever waited through a sorrow, you know what that agony is. God is testing the sterling qualities, the real gold, in you. He's burning off the extraneous matter. Waiting strips away the fluff of life and amazingly focuses the mind and eyes on what's straight ahead. At the right time, the Father says to His child, "Okay! That's enough waiting. Time to go." Your waiting, your testing, is over.

Why We Should Bury Our Hopes

"Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness."

Psalm 37:3

That phrase, "cultivate faithfulness," also means "feed on God's faithfulness" or "feed securely."

I ruminate on this idea, that God's faithfulness to me is something that's supposed to nourish and feed my soul. It's a food/farming metaphor, but David the poet loves metaphors, so I'm on safe ground. 

God's faithfulness to me is like soil, good garden soil. It's solid and you can stand on it, but it's also loamy and you can dig into it, examine it, and bury seeds into it. Like physical soil God's faithfulness is life-giving, so seeds that are buried into it will germinate, grow, flourish, and eventually feed me.

What kind of seed do I bury into God's faithfulness? What do I take of my own, and I give it to God, and I say, "Here, God, please do something with this. Make it grow."

I think the seeds are our hopes. We can't make them grow and feed us, but God can. On our knees we scoop up a handful of God's faithfulness to us, and we examine it. How do we know He is faithful? We think about our lives, the decades behind us, and remember how He has brought us out of many troubles, how He has guided us to make good decisions, how He has redeemed and transformed our bad decisions, how He has loved us anyway. That faithfulness is the soil to which we now take our tiny, last, precious seed of itty-bitty hope, and into which we bury that seed. Our last hope.

Then what? We wait. Seeds don't sprout immediately. Hopes don't mature today. But God is faithful, and His soil always brings life, and in time the hope will pop through into the daylight and grow and become beautiful.

But that's not the goal -- the goal, as Ps. 37:3 says, is to nourish and feed us. God's faithful soil isn't lawn grass, it's vegetables! It will enrich our souls and satisfy our spirits and make us trust Him more for the next round of troubles that will come.

Bury your hopes. Give them up. Hand them to God and He will hand them back to you -- better, bigger, satisfying, mature. As the very next verse says, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." If we delight in Him, of course, He is our desire. 

Many, many thanks to the dear friend who shared this psalm again with me this week. It has been a blessing over and over.

Daily Life

In spite of what our world and even our hearts tell us, God tells us repeatedly that we're to live today. Don't waste time rehearsing the sorrows of yesterday. Don't wallow in the glories or the regrets of youth. And don't wear yourself thin with anxiety about the future. Live -- and trust -- just for today.

Jesus said, "Therefore, do not be anxious for tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matt. 6:34

The Lord told Moses, "I will rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day .... Gather of it every man as much as he should eat ...." He who had gathered much had no excess, and he who had gathered little had no lack. Moses told them, "Let no man leave any of it until morning." But they did not listen to Moses, and some left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and became foul. Ex. 16

Jesus said, "Give us today our daily bread." Matt. 6:11

Jesus told a parable: The land of a certain rich man was very productive. And he began reasoning to himself, saying, "What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?" And he said, "This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.'" But God said to him, "You fool! This very night your soul is required of you." Luke 12:16-20

Our greatest saints, heroes, and martyrs lived one day at a time. How could they have faced the hard roads God took them down, if they'd lived any other way? It is crushing to the spirit to contemplate the possible sorrows of tomorrow. As Elisabeth Elliot told us, "Do the next thing." Don't try to fix yesterday or insure against tomorrow. Great peace is found in only doing the few things that today requires.

I'm preaching to myself, I hope you know.

When Love Fails

You can always tell when humans are behaving badly. You can tell because love fails.

What does it look like when love fails? You know -- well, you know what love looks like:

Love is patient

... kind

... thinks of others and not self

... brags about others, not self

... enjoys others' successes

... never dishonors other people

... is almost always gentle

... forgets and forgives all offenses

... is happy that truth will win

... can discern and reject evil

... is strong, trusting, optimistic, enduring

... is eternal.

It outlasts even other wonderful, miraculous, desirable things.

I've used this scripture as a litmus test this past year to evaluate myself and the interactions I see around me -- on social media or in person. Hold up LOVE, like a mirror, and see if you find yourself there. Usually I don't get past the first two criteria -- am I patient? am I kind? -- before realizing that I am not loving. I am hating. I'm not like Jesus; I'm like the devil. I need to change myself and stop worrying about anybody else changing.

It puts so much in perspective. It seems to me that there's not much in the Bible about bashing the world around us and forcing it to change. There's a lot in the Bible about beating my own heart into compliance and forcing it to soften. The only time I can think of  Jesus (my example, my mentor) exhibiting anger was in church. He didn't go to Rome and lose his temper, but he was upset when the His church was corrupt.

This post is not about any particular events happening now. It applies all the time. Followers of Jesus, we are called to love, and to be known as his followers because we love. Since love outlasts all other things, if we don't succeed with that assignment, nothing else much matters. I Cor. 13 makes that painfully clear. Let's ask ourselves honestly: "What is the loving thing to do, toward my neighbor?" And then, even if you have to change yourself, do it.

I Shall See God

Job, a very ancient man, said words that have been preying on my mind lately.
In the middle of crushing trouble and grief, attacked by God and deserted by men, Job cries out:

"Oh that my words were written ... engraved in the rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that He will stand afterward on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold and not another." 

(Job 19:23ff)

There's loads of interesting commentary on these words here.

And my favorite choral arrangement of the text below:

How I wish I could sit with Job for five minutes and ask him what prompted these words! Can you hear his anguish? His ten children all murdered in one day? All his worldly goods destroyed or stolen from him? Only his nagging wife left to him, to torment him? How many years will he languish in this misery? What did he DO to deserve this persecution from God? And at one (of many) moments of utter despair and frustration, Job says, "I want a permanent record of this! My life really needs to be in a book. Otherwise, nobody would ever believe that this could happen to a human!"

And he got his wish, didn't he?

Job is really saying this: "I want somebody, after I'm dead, to vindicate me. Somebody has to prove that I didn't do some evil thing to deserve such severe affliction." Job wants a vindicator. He doesn't assume anybody will come along and do this while he's still alive. Job long ago resolved himself to a horrible life and shameful death. His only hope is AFTER he's dead, that someone will clear his name.

The word "Redeemer" in the text is the same term found in the book of Ruth -- a near relative who comes into your life at a dark time and rescues you, saves you, vindicates any wrongs done you, reverses your bad fortunes. We think of a kinsman redeemer (in Ruth's case) as a man who comes along and marries you. But for Job, a redeemer is one who will stand on the earth (on Job's dust) and prove to everyone that Job really was an honorable man.

So far, that's a nice cultural concept from ancient Hebrew families. But what of the next words? Job has this insane, amazing, fabulous belief expressed concerning his own resurrection. After his body is dead and decomposed, he claims that -- someday -- he will be in his flesh again, and he will see God with his own eyes. He says it three times as if to aggressively affirm the incredulity of it! His own physical eyes will look on a physical God. Surely in his near history Job had heard of others who walked and talked with God. The Old Testament is chock full of instances of God in bodily form mingling with humans, visiting them. But that's not what Job means. Job means after he himself is dead, he will see God.

Where did he get such an idea? Why did Job so clearly understand his own resurrection?

I think people who suffer greatly must learn to let go of life on this planet, of hopes for happiness or relief. In exchange, they grasp elsewhere for their hope. Sufferers contemplate eternity. Those whose bodies are twisted by disease or age dream of a different body, a resurrected body.

The promise of resurrection is a powerful thing. Once you believe in it and allow that miracle to settle into your mind, life changes. If resurrection is true, this life is a mere prelude. If resurrection is coming, there's always hope. If resurrection is sure, one can tolerate anything here. One has only to wait.

Job's relief and vindication came much earlier than expected, I'm glad to say. God restored everything. But what the man said in his darkest hour, at the bottom of his pit, are the words that count most. "I know that my Redeemer lives." And "yet in my flesh I shall see God."

Simple Wisdom

At our early Sunday morning prayer time, a lady prayed this:
"Lord, thank you for giving me the ability, when I fall down, to crawl until I can get up again."

That may sound like a highly spiritual prayer by someone trying to cope with the trials of life, a fluffy, metaphorical prayer. However, it was prayed by a 98-year-old woman, and she meant it quite literally. She falls in her home, alone. And she crawls to a place where she can put her legs down on a step, get her legs under her again, and stand up. And she's so thankful ... for crawling.

When she prayed this, it took me aback. When one is young and proud, one shouts at God, "Why did you let me fall!?" Or worse, "How dare you let me fall!" Even when one is older, moderately humbled by troubles, one sighs after a fall, grumbles about falling, and rubs one's sore legs until one grunts to standing again. But one is not thankful, not thankful for the fall. And one is never thankful for crawling. The desired position is always to be standing on one's own two legs, upright.

Only a humble person can thank God for the ability to crawl. Crawl is humiliating, akin to groveling. Crawling is pitiful. Praise God for a woman who is thankful she can crawl! She didn't complain about falling. She had no complaint at all, only thanks.

Isn't that amazing?

Jesus Is the Tithe

I came across this verse this morning, Romans. 4:25:
"Jesus, who was delivered up because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification."

I began to ruminate on the cause-and-effect statements there:

We sinned ---->  Jesus was crucified.

Okay, I understand that cause-and-effect. Humanity sinned for thousands of years, and Jesus, God Himself, died instead of us, a death of cursing and judgment and condemnation from God. His death was a necessity, because we'd sinned.

But that second one?

We were justified --->  God resurrected Jesus.

Hmm. Trying to wrap my brain around the logic of that one, and it's hard. God justified humans for thousands of years, overlooking their sins, allowing them into heaven in spite of their sins. (As we learned in church youth groups, God looked at us and said, "It's just-as-if-you-never-sinned.") He justified us. He declared us to be righteous when all of heaven and hell knew we weren't. He applied Jesus's perfection to us, and he slapped our sin on Jesus. He did a swap.

And for that reason, it was necessary that Jesus be resurrected.

Umm ... Why? I still don't get it!

So I ask myself questions. What exactly happened when Jesus was resurrected? A huge miracle, an attesting sign to God's power. A physical, in-your-face miracle as proof to everyone who saw Jesus in the flesh that God was real, that resurrection was real. But they'd seen resurrections before -- Lazarus, and the son of the widow of Nain, even resurrections in their history. How was Jesus's resurrection unique?

Of course, because He did not die again. He wasn't resurrected for another 40 years on the planet. He was resurrected for eternity.

He was the first one to be resurrected for eternity, ever. Or as Paul says to the Corinthian church, "Jesus is the first fruits of them that slept" -- the very first eternally resurrected human, from all those that died.

So, why did Jesus have to be resurrected? Because He had to be the first one. The first one with an eternal, glorified body. Even Enoch, even Elijah, were not as He was.

But still ... why? Why did Jesus have to be the first one resurrected? Why is that important?

Paul said, "If the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins."

Did you know that your salvation is absolutely dependent, not only on Jesus's death, but also on His resurrection? Why?

Paul continues, "If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied." (Keep that verse handy if you ever hear a well-meaning Christian say some foolishness like Even if there is no heaven, and this earth is all there is, knowing Jesus here is enough. That's foolishness, I think.) We are not saved for this earth. We are saved for a new earth, later.

Paul continues about the resurrection, "But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ's at His coming."

So, what are first fruits? To give your first fruits to God is to give Him your tithe. If you're a farmer, you give the very first crops you harvest in any year to Him as an offering. Then you trust Him that the rest of the harvest will come in, to provide for your family. It's a faith thing.

So, Jesus is a tithe. He is God's tithe. When God resurrected Jesus's body, it was a gift in trust, a commitment that all the rest of His dead children would also be raised, have their bodies back, live on a new earth. The fact that Jesus has a physical, breathing body after resurrection is God's way of telling all of us: "Your physical eternity is secure. I'm making a brand-new, perfect Earth for my Son to live on, and you'll be there too."

Jesus's resurrected body is God's tithe to us, His promise, His down-payment ensuring the rest is coming.

This gives added meaning, I think, to our communion meals together. Each time we eat that bread and drink that wine, we do remember His death, His love. But we also remember that His resurrected body exists. And because His body exists already in its eternal glory, we can bank on the fact that our bodies will also. When I hold that bread and wine in my hands, I'm holding God's promise to me, of eternity.

... But What About Death?

Last night we attended our community Thanksgiving service at the local Catholic church. Hundreds of people from Oriental's Episcopalian, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Catholic, unaffiliated, and even Jewish places of worship, gathered there.

The altar arrangement at the community Thanksgiving service

The preacher this year was Baptist; he spoke on being thankful for the hardships of life. His text: Paul's thorn-in-the-flesh, a true, life-long torment. Even Paul, who could miraculously heal others, could not convince God to remove this plaguing affliction. But Paul eventually thanked God for the thing he first wanted removed from his life.  "Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest on me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

The Baptist preacher proceeded to list off some events we might initially loathe but later be thankful for: a traffic ticket, a bad grade in school, a broken engagement. Those are understandable. But does this principle apply for all things in life? Are there some heartaches that we can never become thankful for?

What about death?

Because if our faith in Jesus is only good for traffic tickets and romantic disappointments, it's not good for much.

It depends on what we do when trouble comes. How much does God have to do to you, before you grab hold of Him? Does He have to cut one leg out from under you, or two? Some of us are so stubborn, so independent, so self-sufficient, that when small- (or medium-) sized troubles come, we still don't think to turn to God. God's answer to Paul was that God had made Paul weak, so he would need God's strength. He would lean on God. He would be dependent.

It is an interesting mental exercise to recall all the greatest heartaches of life, and ponder why God brought them about, why He chose them for you, and what possible use they could be for your spiritual growth. What about death? What about the death of a dearly loved one, a child perhaps?

Even the worst of hardships should drive us weeping to the cross, to the One who suffered the most in death. And death can turn our hearts permanently toward heaven, as nothing else can. Can we be thankful for that?

I wrote a post this fall, but did not publish it, about dying, about particularly awful deaths, about why God (if it's someone's time to go) allows brutal, painful deaths. I wrote it after a local woman died in a boating accident, quite horribly. From our perspective, it was gruesome. Her husband was, I'm sure, numb with the pain of it. Why, God? Why not have her die in her sleep? Why are some deaths so appalling?

And I wonder if that kind of death is necessary to draw the person to God, in those final ten minutes of life. Because God is all about drawing us to Him, to heaven, by any means. What if our most wrenching heartaches are necessary because our hearts are hard? And like a lump of clay, like a cold mass of bread dough, our hearts must be worked and kneaded and ripped and contorted and squeezed until they are warm and malleable in God's hands.

I have great hardships in my past for which I am thankful now, but there were no deaths involved. I think this week of you whose lives have been shadowed with repeated deaths. Is Thanksgiving week a hollow time? May God work His strength into your hurting hearts and give you eyes to see His purposes. May He help you learn, like Job, to accept that He gives and He takes away, and His Name is blessed both ways.

The Joy of Home

I mentioned on the church blog that Adam preached about the Old Testament concept of "Jubilee." I'll give you the verses here, so you can understand what this event gave to ancient Israelites, practically:  "When you come into the land which I shall give you, then the land shall have a sabbath to the LORD. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its crop, but during the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath rest, a sabbath to the LORD; you shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyard."

Fascinating! My environmentally-conscious friends should like these verses! God's consideration for the land -- for its rest and its honor -- is significant, and the humans must concede to its need for rest from our constant use of it. In Biblical terms, the sabbath year is holy, the land is holy, and the heavenly land that it represents is very holy.

After seven sabbath years -- forty-nine years -- the Israelites had a year of Jubilee, a wonderful year. This 50th year could be defined by one exhilarating term:  Freedom!! If you were a slave, you were freed. If you had debts, they were forgiven. If you'd lost your family land, you got it back. In God's economy, everyone had a home. Everyone. And once again, you were free from doing any work on the land -- free from work, for an entire year!

Sounds a little bit like heaven, doesn't it?

Don't we all want the security of a home? I know I do. God's ideal for His people is to have a secure home, a home and land that cannot be taken away. (He made us humans, and He knows we're designed to live on soil, in houses.) Most of the people I know do own homes, or are well on their way to owning a home outright. It's odd ... but often people in full-time ministry do not have that simple blessing, that gift that was the right of every Israelite -- every child of God -- years ago. Missionaries, pastors, Christian school workers, Christian camp workers -- often they move from ministry to ministry, unable to purchase a home. Often housing is provided by the ministry (to have them live on the campus, or to keep costs down, or to help pad an otherwise low salary). A pastor who lives in a manse as part of his salary for decades will never be able to afford mortgage payments. A missionary who lives overseas is even less likely to afford a home in the U.S.

The Pope's home

What do we make of this? How do I struggle my way through the fact that I'm 51 years old, and will likely never own a home? Where will I live in old age? What security do I have? When you consider the Christian workers you know, think about these things. It's important. I used to grumble in myself over this situation, but lately I have taken great comfort in the words of Jesus, recorded three times in the gospels:

"Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel's sake, but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last, first." (Mark 10)

Jimmy Swaggart's home

Sobering words. Think of the missionaries who have left dear families, given up all hope of a home or property. Sent their children overseas for school, for years! Come home for a year of "furlough" (i.e., desperately traveling weeks on end, trying to raise more support) while living in people's basements or a spare rental house from a kind church. What goes through the minds of these men, these women? Did God's children in the Old Testament get a much better deal?

Billy Graham's home

There are greater rewards, as Jesus says. Jesus gave peace that the world does not understand. He gave food and water that the world cannot taste. He provides a host of family for the servant who has been deprived of family. He provides miraculously for the servant in need, while He need not do such miracles for the one who has provided for himself. The miracle itself is a more desirable commodity, is it not? When we hear stories of incredible provision, don't we sometimes say, "I wish He would do something like that in my life!" But do you need Him to, or just want Him to? Have you put yourself in such need? Have you taken the risk? When Jesus watched the tithers in the temple, he praised the widow as she gave her last 2 coins, giving from her need. Others gave from their wealth. Giving put no dent in their pockets; it didn't hurt. When they all left the temple, which one would experience a miracle of provision for dinner that night?

Mother Teresa's single room

These are thoughts that our church Jubilee has caused to rumble around in my mind.  The call to be a Christian is actually a rather radical call.

Jesus said, "Foxes have dens, and birds have nests,

but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

Luke 9:58

Being at Peace

"If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men." (Romans 12:18)

Adam said something so wise recently in a sermon that it sank straight in my ear, through my brain, and lodged permanently in my heart. He said, "Conflict avoidance is not the same thing as being at peace with people."

I knew immediately that he was talking about himself because he's one of those classic conflict-avoidance men. Many of us tiptoe around the world, hoping to avoid its fights. Then we have the audacity to claim we live at peace with people. Of course, it's  a self-deception.

You learn so much as you age. You learn that conflict avoidance brings no inner peace; it brings great stress. "Conflict avoidance" indicates that there's a big pile of conflict lying in front of you, but like a person walking in a doggie-park, you gingerly side-step it. The conflict is still there, stinking up everything. Pretending it's not there, not talking about it, living a life of shallow compliance, brings no peace for anyone. "Dealing with" the issue may bring peace; it may not. But avoiding it brings no peace.

You learn, sadly, that some people on this planet are not peaceable. This is why Paul says, "If possible, as far as it depends on you ...." Oh, he knows! He knows sometimes it's impossible, and sometimes it will not depend on you. Some people are peace-repellers and conflict-magnets. Some people cannot be happy unless they're producing a pile of drama everywhere they go. They may not be aware they do it; it feels normal to them.

These folks are little land-mines in the population. They foul up relationships. But what should we do? We try to be at peace with them, but they don't want peace. We then avoid them (if we can), but even that brings no peace to our hearts. Are we to give up?

We all end up with a few spots of permanent conflict. Hopefully they're not with close family members. (That's a killer.) Hopefully as you age, you're surrounded less and less with people who think they're still 13 and meaner-than-a-snake -- manipulators, narcissists, complainers. Distance yourself from such people. Wait ... did I really just say that? Is it okay to remove yourself from some types of people, to facilitate peace? I've been told to do it, but is it right? Philip's famous phrase is: "Avoid getting involved in the lives of crazy people." Isn't that cowardly? And why bother to avoid, if avoidance only brings a false peace?

You see my quandary? There is no perfect solution! Some people you simply cannot make peace with. Oh, that's a hard one to swallow, because some of us fools will keep trying! Have you ever tried to bring about resolution and peace by hashing something out, only to make it worse? Did you find people unreasonable, more angry than you thought? If involvement can't bring peace, and avoidance isn't the same as peace ... what's a person to do?

"If possible, as far as it depends on you ...."

Here are a few other marching orders Paul gives in that very same passage. After we've tried all these faithfully with the conflict-magnet drama-queen, then we may give up:

"Let love be without hypocrisy."
"Practicing hospitality"
"Bless those who persecute you."
"Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep."
"Do not be haughty in mind."
"Do not be wise in your own estimation."
"Never pay back evil for evil to anyone."
"Respect what is right in the sight of all men."
"Never take your own revenge."
"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

If we did all that, perhaps peace would reside deeply in our hearts, regardless of what is happening in the world.

What's New

Good days. Little troubles. (Is there such a thing? I guess so.) Here's some happy stuff. Bo-Beau, loving on his daddy.

He was staring intently at Adam, the kind of stare that says, "I'm really into you. Can we play?" As soon as I picked up the camera, he switched his gaze.

But soon they were back into deep daddy/doggie conversation.

A few nautical pics for you. A friendly dock welcome!

Boating brings lots of reflection.

On Saturday I met a friend-of-a-friend, Tom. He's a boatish type. Loved his cool sandals. He buys them at Renaissance Fairs. Did you know there's a whole swath of people out there who spend their lives traveling from one Renaissance Fair to the next, living a medieval life?

My friend Kip was sporting this fun t-shirt.

"You could get hit by the boom and die.
You could fall overboard and die.
You could capsize and die.
Or you could stay home and fall of the couch and die."

I'm well into a knitting project I've been anticipating since the spring -- making Adam a sweater vest. He's the dapper sort who likes sweater vests, bow ties, and old-guy hats. All his sweater vests are much too big now.

It's coming along nicely. I'm on the back panel. I'll keep you posted.
I took some sky shots this afternoon because the clouds were emotionally overwhelming for a tiny human.

Adam longs to make us "adult pizza," rather than the boring cheese or pepperoni we ask for. So he made this twice recently:

No red sauce -- it's a cream based sauce. Chopped basil (perfectly in season now) and various cheeses give it a delicious, mellow flavor. We're not missing the pepperoni.
(Okay, now I get wordy, and if you prefer a picture-blog, please click away now.)

The change of seasons, heavy in the air, produces in me a pensive spirit, an expectancy of leaden but cathartic thoughts. It's troubling, but it happens each year as my heart anticipates cooler, darker, melancholy days. I find summer wearying. I find winter invigorating. Autumn is winter's harbinger, and my soul longs for the spiritual sleep, the soul's still rest that winter offers.

I'm bemused lately about death. When we see death coming from afar, we brace ourselves, arm for the battle, and engage heartily. We think we look death in the face, but maybe we look only at the dying days, the process of dying. We cross swords using surgery, medicines, treatments, specialists, prayer, and optimism. We feel we've looked death in the eye and given our best fight.

But when death thunders in, unexpected? Recently I've heard of two sudden deaths by drowning. One was a boy, adopted after 17 horrible years in an Eastern European orphanage. At last, he was loved, nurtured, taught, cherished. God answered yes to the impossible for this child. He was brought halfway around the world to a new life. His parents, siblings, and caregivers were well-trained; there was no neglect. But in a matter of seconds, he drowned in a bath tub. Why?

A lovely Christian family, friends of friends, lost their husband and father in a shocking, bizarre drowning at the beach. My heart has ached for the wife who watched her life ebb away, knowing that God had planned this moment, planned it for her. Why? Why take him so suddenly? Why not allow them to say good-bye? It's the horror we all dread -- that death might snatch one away, not giving the usual warning. No battle. No crossed swords. We are fooling ourselves to think that we defeat death when we only extend our lives by a decade or two.

How do we mourn with hope? How can that grieving mother console herself, in spite of the horror of finding her precious gem of a son dead after all he'd been through before, that his death is only a comma in the ongoing story of his continuing life? That she simply watched a passing, a transition? That the moment which feels like a horrific mistake -- (Please! It's a mistake! Can we go back and relive those three minutes? Please!) -- is no mistake? That the moment of his death was set from before the foundation of God's world?

How have we defined death? It is the ultimate surprise. It's over before we are prepared. We don't face it at all. We try to face the process of dying. But death itself is always wrong. I'm ruminating about something I've had little experience in. I've skirted the edges of death several times. I try to remind myself what death is to God. He is never surprised by our deaths. Is it helpful to know, in the midst of chaos, grief, horror, agony, regret, and guilt, that one Person watches death every time and is neither surprised nor bemused? It is an essential part of His plan. How do we soothe the pain of that deliberate wounding?

I don't know. God is a surgeon, sure. He performs many repairs on our souls, and the death of a loved one is a cutting with inadequate anesthesia. But in His intricate system the pain itself is important for us somehow. We're horrified to watch death snatch someone. The boy, the husband ... is it a horror to them? I don't think so. For us who observe the flash of a soul's disappearance, the shattering loss and loneliness, our inner screams are evidence that we have insufficiently considered the transition from this brief world to the next. It's excruciating -- we know how long the years will feel -- like an eternity, we say. We struggle to consider this present trouble in balance with true eternal glory and being-together-forever. I'm not certain eternal life feels very real to those who mourn. I wonder if I will grasp it. Some have glowing faces that evidence they've seen a holy event. Some have the broken eyes of only grief. God help us all.

Growing a Heart of Thorns

I'm reading in the gospels right now, and today finished the parable of the sower, which parable appears in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Clearly, it made an impression!

This time, the third type of ground caught my attention. As the sower (Jesus) strews the seed (God's Word) into people's ears, apparently the seed falls on different types of hearts. The third heart is the heart full of thorns. The seed is heard, but it doesn't survive on this soil. Here's why:

"And the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful." (Mk. 4:19)

It's always bothered me that the seed does grow here, albeit temporarily. It bothers me that the Word of God could end up being "unfruitful." It bothers me that worry and riches and pleasures (as Luke says) are strong enough to kill God's Word. But Jesus tells it like it is.

Some people do respond to the gospel; it sparks something in them. They like what they hear. But ... look what kills it: worldly worries, deceitful riches, desires and pleasures. I have to admit, that list describes most people I know. Do you know anybody who is immune to the temptation of worldly worries? That category is as big as a house! We worry about politics. We worry about international affairs. We worry that we'll be victims of crime. We worry about our mortgages, our debt, our kids' educations, our car repairs, for goodness sakes! If there's a worldly care to lose sleep over, most of my friends will do it. How in the world do we get rid of worldly worries? By sharing them on facebook? Ha!

We're equally sucked in by the deceitfulness of riches here in the Western world. And the Eastern, Southern, and Northern worlds too. If you have riches, you're deceived into a false security, and if you don't have riches, you're equally deceived that they would provide the same. Beyond security, we truly believe that wealth gives us joy in our lives, better relationships, beauty in our days, better health, leisure time and ease.

We are utterly deceived.

I will not bore you with the many excuses I've heard from friends about how they are not sucked in by the lure of wealth. They can take money or leave it, they say. They're not worshiping money; they're merely being good stewards. They're not really attached to their money; God has merely blessed them. They cannot share as much as they otherwise might because they really need to keep it in the family and invest in their children's lives. (Sigh) I've heard all this and more. We are deceived.

And the third patch of thorns in these hearts? "Pleasures and desires." At least my non-believing friends are honest about pursuing their pleasures. My Christian friends often keep theirs under wraps, and if the pleasure is a sinful one, they really keep it hidden.

Let me put it bluntly, and you can take offense if you like. If you're a Christian man who spends more time fussing about the opposite political party than you do reading your Bible, who longs for the day when you can afford that sports car you clearly can never afford, and who has a porn issue -- you are nurturing a heart of thorns where Jesus's gospel can never reign.

If you're a Christian woman who spends hours fretting over the finances, the kids, the finances, the pets, the finances, and your own looks (!!), who solves these worries by shopping and piling on more debt, and whose favorite passtime is gossiping with buddies -- you are deliberately growing a heart of thorns where God's Word cannot transform you.

I didn't say it. Jesus said it. And I'll add that that woman is often me. I found this passage utterly convicting today. Me, who worries about everything and even a few things unworriable. Me, who scrambles for every last dollar I can get and clutches it like a miser. Me, whose secrets sins are worry and covetousness.

Your heart is a garden. Weed it.

The Uncomfortable Topic

I don't relish covering uncomfortable topics on my blog. Often I pass them by, letting other bloggers deal with the ugly side of life. Who wants to hear about ugly?
Then I read this article on facebook the other day. And I couldn't quite get it out of my head. It's an article about pedophiles and how they engage in church life and prey on children there. I post the link here for you to read it, but please -- the article does have descriptions that are uncomfortable, and I want to warn you before you click over.
I hesitated writing this post. Why write about something so ugly? Is there anything uglier than pedophilia? It feels filthy even to speak of it. Thus we are silent.
This silence is part of the secrecy that allows pedophilia to fester in the shadows. I read the statistics in that article:  25% of females were sexually abused as children. One in four! One in seven men were. The writer says these stats are consistent in all venues where he goes to speak. 50% of his audiences were either sexually abused themselves as children or knew of a close family member who was.

I asked myself: how many women do I know who were sexually abused as children? I wracked my brain and could come up with only four -- four, out of all the hundreds, perhaps a thousand women I've met and known in my fifty years. Only four? It's impossible. By the stats in the article, several hundred women I've known were molested. But I'm only aware of four, because abuse like that is horribly secret. It's the nasty thing you never tell. So I have friends, probably very good friends, who have this ugly, terrifying thing hidden inside all their lives, afraid to tell. Only four of my friends were bold enough to say anything, and even they did not all say it publicly, for everyone to hear. But they told me.
The secrecy is killing us. Sexual abuse is killing the church, ruining our witness of love and kindness, damaging Jesus's kingdom, and emotionally killing thousands of children who come to Jesus's church for care and protection. Instead they find a horror that engulfs and destroys them. What a lie!
Pedophiles are drawn to the church because they know it's an environment where children are taught to trust, where church members try to live dependently on one another, where volunteers are needed for kids' programs, where it's a sign of love and acceptance to trust another adult with your children. There are dozens of reasons why an average church is a perfect breeding ground for pedophilia to thrive. Even when reported and discovered, abuse is often hushed-up, and children are damaged more when they realize that telling someone only made it worse. Why aren't churches more vigilant?
This should be a zero-tolerance subject. As the article says, pedophiles should have absolutely no part in a church where any children are present. They should worship only with adults. Churches should do background checks diligently. It's horrible to have an attitude of distrust in the church, but more horrible still is the wrecking of children's hearts and lives that occurs when proper diligence is not exercised in their protection.
I'll end with one observation: sexual perversion and abuse is a direct result of pornography. We all know this is true. And if pedophilia is one topic no one cares to speak of in the church, porn addiction is the second. Satan knows exactly how to cause God's men to fall and destroy their lives; all it takes is temptation to this sin. It was true in the ancient times when Israelite men were lured away to sexual worship activities with pagan women. Israel's enemies were told this was the simplest way to defeat the nation. You don't need an army; you don't need a mighty prophet; all you need is sexual sin. It infiltrates like a disease and kills God's people from the inside. The men are ashamed, and the women (I'm sorry to say) are silent.
Until the church deals openly and aggressively with the porn issues among its men, its pastors, its elders, the sexual sins won't go away. The pedophilia won't go away. The scandals won't go away. I'm weary of the silence and the destruction is fosters.

Easter Praise!

"How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin." (Rom. 6) 

He is indeed risen, and because His dead body came to life,

I believe my dying body will be alive for eternity.

Thank you, Lord Jesus!

Those Vows We Took

I've ben teaching my way through Elisabeth Elliot's book, Keep a Quiet Heart, at a weekly ladies study group. A few weeks back the lesson fell on an uncomfortable topic: submission. Elliot asks, "What does submission mean?" "Seems kind of negative. Sounds as though women are not worth as much as men. Aren't women supposed to exercise their gifts? Can't they ever open their mouths?" Elliot states flatly that she's not comfortable with that kind of submission either! She says it is a topic "so often misunderstood and wrongly defined."

So for our lesson that week I turned to Ephesians 5 and decided to pick that passage apart with a fine-tooth comb and come to terms with exactly what God is requiring of us humans. Here's what I found.

First, it's shocking how many more commands are given to husbands than to wives. We focus on, "wives, be subject to your own husbands," and tend to stop in our tracks. That sentence finishes with, "as unto the Lord." Wives are not called upon to be submissive to their husbands in any form beyond what they offer to Jesus first. So I ask myself, what does submission to Jesus look like? Because that's exactly the kind of submission I'm supposed to give my husband.

We aren't left in any doubt, because the passage quickly becomes a fleshing-out of exactly how Jesus loves His bride. (The church, the collection of God's saved people throughout history, is Jesus's bride.)

* Jesus is the head of the church, which is a good thing, because a group of humans that big needs a leader, and I'd rather have Jesus than anybody else.
* He has this role because He did something for His bride that no one else did; He died for her sake, for her protection, to save her life. He sacrificed Himself for her. That's the kind of headship that a husband is supposed to demonstrate in order for his wife to look at him and say, "Oh! A husband like Jesus! Sacrificial love! Yes, I'll gladly submit to that!"
* A husband's total sacrifice for his wife has an astonishing effect on her ... and I do mean total sacrifice. I don't just mean going to work everyday and putting a roof over her head. I don't mean never cheating on her with another woman. I don't mean never hitting her, cursing her, belittling her. Those are the lowest standards. It's understood that even a pagan husband would do those things. Real husbandly sacrifice goes far beyond -- He must give up himself, what he wants for himself, his pride and arrogance in his manliness, his desire to have his own time for his own hobbies for his own satisfaction. He must make it his constant study to understand her thinking, her instincts, to love her ways and anticipate her desires. He must be willing at any moment and every moment, to concede to her needs and her wishes. Her wish must be his command.
And I can hear the howls out there now. The men are crying "foul!!" and the women are simply guffawing. But I am deadly serious, people. Men simply do not understand how much they have vowed to give up, when they stand before God and those witnesses, in church, and commit for a lifetime. They are signing their lives away, according to Ephesians 5! (As Jesus did when He left heaven.) They are placing their well-being in the hands of a woman! (As Jesus did when He came to love us.) Men don't really want to do that. But that's what sacrifice means, because we all know that the hardest thing for a man to give up is his own pride and his own preferences. They're the greatest sacrifices of all. Everything else is peanuts.
So ... what about that stunning transformation I referred to above? What astonishing effect does such total sacrifice have on the wife? Well, women? What would you do for a man who gave up everything for you, treated you like a queen, met your every need and wish, studied your mind and cared for you every waking minute? If you're a decent human, and have a woman's heart, you'll be all over him, making sure he feels loved and affirmed and adored. There is nearly no end to how much affection and care a woman will give to a man who has sacrificed himself for her. She will defend him and cheer for him against all enemies.
Paul says it this way: the husband's sacrifice makes the wife glorious, pure, beautiful, spotless and wrinkleless (take THAT, Oil of Olay!) ... holy. That's the transformation. The husband gives up a lot, but in return, he gets the woman of his dreams.

If we didn't get it the first time, Paul makes it painfully clear. "Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies." If he loves, pleases, coddles, cares for, or cherishes himself in any way more than he cherishes her, he's breaking his vows. He's not a husband. He's not emulating Jesus. And his behavior will damage his wife, stripping her of beauty, glory, purity, holiness. She will find it impossible to maintain herself in the face of such selfishness.

*The husband cherishes and nourishes his wife. It's not enough to just say, "I cherish you," or to pay for the food on the table. The verse means more than that. Cherishing is proved by sacrifice, by repeated acts of love, by obvious considerations for her that require the husband to get out of his comfort zone and embrace her world, her needs, her  delights. That's what Jesus did -- He came out of His heavenly comfort zone into our ugly world, and He met our needs and provided for our desires, right here.

We take marriage vows. If you take your vows in a church, a house of God, before a minister of God's kingdom, you'd better watch yourself. Husbands, the onus is on you -- the initiative is on you; you must begin the process of loving, cherishing, nourishing, sacrificing. Your wife is only called on to respond to it, not to initiate it. Your wedding vow includes all the points listed above -- it's a marriage before God, and you've promised Him to make a marriage conforming to His definition. A vow is a serious word, a bond, and its breaking has consequences -- that's part of what makes it serious.

If a husband rids himself of selfishness and arrogance, and works night and day for his wife's happiness, she will have little difficulty submitting to such a situation. Who wouldn't love such a life? A man who frees you to be yourself, pursues your interests and delights, cheers you along the way, gives you gentle advice and adores you -- you may call it submission, but I call it happiness.