Basic Training Notice

Starting Monday, October 20, my wife and I are going to post a collaborative series of messages that address the basics of being a married Christian.  While this blog is specifically addressed to men, the content of these posts apply to both men and women. 

There will be 4 posts dealing with what happens when you become a Christian, the power of the Holy Spirit inside us, the gift of Grace and how it gives us freedom from sin, and how we live having won the battle over sin.  I'll put up a new post each monday starting Oct 20 with the last post on Nov 10.  This series is intended to be a check-up, putting us all on the same page as I go forward with the mission of supporting Christian married men.  

If you receive 4BetterOr4Worse posts through an RSS feed you'll want to actually go to the site and bookmark it.   The RSS feed will not bring over the visual aids that go along with this series that will really help you understand how to apply this information.  

I want to thank my wife Jann for helping me put these things together.   She has received formal training on all of the information covered and she's helping me condense a huge amount of information into 4 posts. 

See you next week!

Grace and Peace

I've been doing some work in the Bible - specifically First Peter.  For those of you not as familiar with the Bible as others - a lot of the books in the New Testament are letters written to groups of people - most often churches.  Each letter starts out with a greeting.  When I read these letters i tend to blow through the greetings and get to the heart of the letter.  But when I started it this time I was stopped short by a very small sentence at the end of the greeting.  

"Grace and Peace be with you in abundance."  

I thought about this for a while and wondered how that fits in marriage relationships.  I've decided that, in a marriage, grace and peace isn't something that appears with the wave of a magic wand.  It isn't a supernatural state of being that you pray for and, through an act of God, appears in your home.  Grace and peace is something you work for.   It's a practice - a lifestyle choice, if you will.  

Grace is defined as the gift from God.  The gift is forgiveness of sins.  Because through the gift of grace our sins are forgiven, we are held up as perfect and so we have eternal life.  Grace was made possible ONLY through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  You can't buy it.  You can't earn it like a paycheck.  Once you accept the the gift of grace you can't lose it.  Claim it as your own and it's yours - it's that simple.  Okay - end of Bible school.

In a marriage, peace follows grace.  Grace is when you've been wronged by your spouse, but you realize the goodness in them as a whole and make the decision to forgive.  Through open communication and forgiveness peace happens.  Forgiveness and humility go hand in hand.  Nothing diffuses a tension and brings about peace faster than an apology made with sincerity and a soft heart.  This I know from experience.  

Now, I can hear you sound off with two objections.  First, "If I tell her that she's hurt me and I forgive her, I'll come off as condescending and she'll snap!"  My response to you is that, if your marriage is like mine, there's enough hurt to go around.  So put the two together.  Diffuse the situation with the "I'm sorry" (sincerely and with a soft heart).   Then you can open up the communication and talk about your hurts and offer your own grace to the situation.  The second objection I hear is "I don't want to say I'm sorry!  I didn't start this!"  The truth is that if grace needs to be restored to your relationship and "she's lost that lovin' feelin", you need to set your pride aside and get over yourself.  After all - do you want to be right -  or do you want the grace and peace?

Don't get discouraged if you try this and it doesn't work the first time.  Grace and peace in your marriage is like your golf swing.  It takes practice - effort - you have to "work" at it.  What's more, don't do this on your own.  Share the concept with your spouse so they know what's going on.  It works better if both of you know what's going on.  

One last point.  What this does NOT say is that you need to become a doormat and be taken advantage of or be abused.  If that's happening to you, get some help.  Talk to your pastor, see a counselor, or start with a note here for a second opinion.  

Thanks for stopping by.

Men and Purity! Wait - What?

I recently had a chat with a very good friend about the divorce he's going through.  It's getting ugly and he's concerned about a number of things, most important are his children.  I've recently re-established connection with him after losing touch for a few years.  Our discussion went back and forth and the threads of our dialog were woven in and out of the divorce, catching up on things, and reminiscing about old times.   

In this time of great uncertainty in his life, it seems he's found some ground to make a stand on some principles.  I was pleased to see that he's making a great effort to give the whole thing up to God.  I say great effort because I know that's a very difficult thing to do.  He and I are wired a lot the same way and it's instinctive with guys like us to take the ol' bull by the horns and go after it with our own strength, our own plan, and our own will.  Being able to admit that we can't handle this and looking to God for ALL the answers is a tough thing to do.  I admire him for making the fight to keep God at the center of all the crap he has going on.  

Another thing really stood out to me in our time together.   At a time where it would be very easy for a man to grasp at just about anything to replace the intimacy he once had in his life, he's committed himself to purity.  Purity?  Isn't that for girls?  Purity is such a feminine word.  When I think of purity I think of a virginal expression, pale soft skin, and a white dress.  The truth is that I - and I suspect a lot of others - don't include men when they think or speak of purity.  It used to be that men were associated with rough and rugged attitudes - the Marlboro Man, Jack Palance, John Wayne, and Sylvester Stalone.  Purity was MaryAnn on Gilligan's Island, and Cindy Brady.  In today's popular culture with men getting manicures and facials I'm not sure what attitudes are conjured up when thinking of men.   Still, purity is probably not one of them.   

The truth is that my old friend is exactly right.  If the old boy chooses to marry again some day (which I'm sure he will), what better gift to give his new spouse than a man who's kept his mind and his body free from the garbage and baggage that comes from casual sex and a habit of pornography?  

What's more, I took a lesson from this as a married man in a mostly stable relationship.   Purity applies just as much to the married man as the single man.  Keeping my own thoughts, attitudes, and actions directed solely and specifically toward my wife is marital purity.  The pretty face smiling at me in the other traffic lane isn't mine - she doesn't belong to me.  Entertaining even the smallest thought about her is out of bounds.  The one that belongs to me is at home helping with homework, at work helping to pay the bills, or out on the road getting little people where they need to go.  My wife is the one God gave to me - that one is mine to smile at, wink at, lust after, and have desire for.  

Remember - you promised.   "In sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer - 4BetterOr4Worse.

Thanks for taking the time.

Waiting on God

I don't wait well.  I want what I want - and I want it right now.  After all, I have a plan and it's a good one.  In fact, I think it's best.  

I'm waiting on God right now.  I'm waiting for an answer on a job interview.  Well, in the bigger picture - I'm waiting for a job.  Not just any job, I suppose.   I'm waiting for the opportunity that God makes for me.  And - I'm going absolutely insane - waiting.  

My painter friend Donnie and I were having  beer the other night and kvetching over our lack of income and our frustrations with all things that have to do with money - including God.   He pointed out to me that in Proverbs 3:5 it says "Trust in the Lord and lean not on your own understanding".  

Now, I don't know what you're waiting on.  You could be waiting on the right woman to come along so you can get married, or you're waiting for the pregnancy test to say you're going to be a daddy.  You could be waiting for this tormenting legal battle to finally end, or for some medical problem to run it's course and finally be in the rear view mirror.  Maybe you're in my boat and you're just waiting for a job.

Whatever the case may be and no matter how frustrating it is to sit and look at the clock and wait for God to make his move - we have to remember that He holds the entire universe in his hands.   He set the stars in the night sky and makes the sun come up every day and go down every night.  What's more, He knows your thoughts and the desires of your heart.  He's got it covered.

I may be watching the clock, waiting for the phone to ring - and the call may never come.  I know that.  But it's really difficult to trust God to take care of me when I don't have a job, I have $2 in my pocket, the kids are asking what's for dinner, and the utility bills are all overdue. 

I don't get it.   I don't understand.  But it's not my understanding that counts - as much as I'd like to think it is.  Trust - and don't count on what you know.  God has the master plan.  

One more parting thought from the pastor of my church.   God is at his best when I am at my worst.  If you need some company while you wait - leave a comment.  We can keep you company and - just maybe - help you with a little different perspective.  

Thanks for stopping by.

Sex and Bicycling

Hi gang. 

It would seem that I had a real problem communicating with that last post.  So I removed it.  My wife said that she really had a hard time understanding what I was trying to say and one of my very good male friends said that the subject has too much personal interpretation from the readers to be as simplistic as I was trying to make it.  So, I'll go back to the drawing board and re-think the whole thing.  

Stay tuned and thanks for stopping by.

A Blacksmith Speaks

Hi gang.  What follows is something I read this past week and it really stopped and made me think about some things.  I don't normally post other people's work, but this is really cool

A number of years ago a Christian blacksmith, whose life was full of suffering and pain, was challenged by an unbeliever to account for all the suffering God had allowed in his life.   His response to the challenge went something like this:

"As a blacksmith, I often take a piece of iron and put it into the fire to bring it to a white heat.  Then I put it on the anvil an strike it hard a few times to see if it can be tempered.  If I think it can, i plunge it into cold water, suddenly changing the temperature.  

I repeat this heating and quenching process several times.  Then I put the iron on the anvil and ham mer it and bend it.  After it cools, I rasp it and file it, turning it into some useful article which will serve for many years.  If, however, when I first strike it on the anvil, I see that it cannot be tempered, I throw it onto the scrap pile and sell it for a few pennies.  

I believe that God and Father has been testing me to see if I can be tempered.  He has repeatedly put me into the fire and into the water.  I have tried to bear it patiently and quietly, and my daily prayer has been: 'Lord, put me into the fire if You will.  Put me into the water if You think I need it.  Do anything you please, Lord - only don't throw me onto the scrap pile.'"

Do anything you please - just don't throw my in the scrap pile.   Man, what a great analogy for our lives.  

I know you're going through some stuff.  But don't lose sight of the fact that you're being tested, tempered, hammered, quenched, rasped, and filed into something God can use for many years.  

Keep the Faith and thanks for stopping by.

Ride it out? Or keep on pulling?

I have a few friends right now that are going through some tough stuff in their lives.  When we experience crisis in our lives we react somewhat instinctively.  As men, I think we're conditioned to kind of hunker down in the storm and just ride it out.  I have certainly done that a lot in my life.

I believe that the danger in "hunkering down"  is that it leaves each of us isolated - and that's where we're vulnerable to attacks from satan.  He wants us to pull back, sort of retreat to ourselves, and tend to our wounds on our own.  In fact, I believe that he puts thoughts in our heads like - "I hate sharing the same story over and over.  These people all hear it for the first time - but I'm sick of telling it.  It makes me feel like I'm some kind of needy freak or something".  I know this first hand because I've had to tell people over and over about how I lost my job and how I'm looking for something else.  

I think the answer to this dilemma is to find one or two strong guys who can walk you through these experiences.  They've already heard you story, they know what you're all about, and they can continue to help you grow and make it through the storm.  Everyone else you can just smile and tell them you're doing fine.  I can be one of those guys for you - but it's okay if you choose someone else.  I won't be offended or put out.  I just want the best for you in your situation. 

Let me share a little story with you.  I know a family who farmed exclusively with horses.  The raised hay and wheat and planted/harvested all with horses.  I was helping them one day with a 4-horse hitch.  They had two old seasoned draft horses and two colts that they were training. They put the two seasoned veterans in the middle and a colt on either side.  If the younger horse decided to go his own way in the hitch he'd have to pull against both of the veteran horses.  After a few tries at being willful and selfish, the younger horses came in line and learned from the older ones how to pull together as a team.   The point here isn't that we're unruly and selfish.  The point is that we need to get through the hard stuff as a team - not as the Lone Ranger.

You can't go it alone.  Hunkering down to weather the storm seems like a natural instinct.  But the real answer is to hitch yourself to some seasoned Christians and learn how to pull.  Someday God will hitch you in the middle.