How Hot Is Your Relationship?

Don't worry. This isn't one of those Cosmopolitan quizzes that promises to out you as a hopeless fuddy-duddy.

In fact, it's not a survey at all. It's a quote from an older gentleman named Vernon, whose short piece, "By the Fire", is in Philip Yancey's book, Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?

     We shouldn't expect a relationship with God to remain on a constant plane all the time. Not long ago I celebrated my sixty-fifth wedding anniversary. Believe me, when you've been married that long, you don't stay on a plane of ecstasy all the time. Romance starts as a blazing bonfire  -  you know, "You light up my life." After a few decades it settles into something more like a heap of glowing coals. Sure, some of the heat dissipates, but coals are good, too: you can roast marshmallows, or warm your feet. A different level of companionship opens up.

     For as long as I can remember I've spent at least a half-hour daily in prayer. There have been experiences when, as the old hymn puts it, "heaven came down and glory filled my soul." Those are rare. Most of the time I persist because I value the relationship with God, just as I value my marriage relationship. I gratefully warm my feet by the fire.

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Truth is...the comparison of a marriage and a relationship with God is apt. In both, what matters is not the intensity but the integrity.

Loving Like Jesus...Yikes: Top 25 Jesus Quotes: #8

I'm not sure what I expected when I started writing about the top 25 quotes about Jesus as listed at azquotes.com, but I certainly didn't expect to be challenged to the extent that these words of Ravi Zacharias challenge me.

"Love is a commitment that will be tested in the most vulnerable areas of spirituality, a commitment that will force you to make some very difficult choices. It is a commitment that demands that you deal with your lust, your greed, your pride, your power, your desire to control, your temper, your patience, and every area of temptation that the Bible clearly talks about. It demands the quality of commitment that Jesus demonstrates in His relationship to us."

You might read that and think that Jesus has an easy job of loving us. He doesn't HAVE any lust or greed or pride that he has to deal with.

Think again.

He has to deal with OUR lust and greed and pride and, and, and....

And that can be a pretty tough row to hoe.

Let's put it in terms you can relate to: What if your special someone came and admitted that they have been cheating on you? How easy would it be for you to forgive? How easy would it be for you to swallow your pride and your sense of being betrayed? How easily could you die to all those feelings of hurt and keep on loving them?

Not easy...but worth it.

Worth it because the alternative would be to continue living in a stagnate pool of low self-esteem and high expectations; wallowing in the muddy sludge of holding a grudge; drinking rat poison and waiting for the rat to die.

Truth is...Jesus loves us in spite of how we treat him. His commitment to desiring what's best for us never wavers. And we are called to love each other the same way. Paul wrote Ephesians 5:25 to husbands, but it can certainly apply to wives as well:

Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

Eleven Things I've Learned About Love By Listening To Music

I've learned a few things about love by listening to songs on the radio.

Love will find a way.
Love will keep us together.
Love is all you need.
Love isn't always on time.
Love is an open door.
You've got to hide your love away.
Can't buy me love.
Only love can break your heart.
Love is a battlefield.

When a man loves a woman, he can't keep his mind on nothin' else. He'd change the world for the good thing he's found.

According to Johnny Cash, love is a burning thing, and it makes a fiery ring. A ring of fire into which one can fall.

More than anything else, we hear about falling in love. Like it’s something that uncontrollably happens to you.

Yes, there is a certain level of the unexplainable that happens when you find yourself being attracted to one person instead of all the other people you’ve met, but the love that Paul wrote about in First Corinthians isn’t a lacy, fuzzy-focused thing like an emotion. The love that couples say “I do” to isn’t as flimsy as a feeling.

Brides and grooms promise to love each other as long as they both shall live, but that's not a feeling or an emotion. You can’t promise to feel a certain way for the rest of your life.

“I will always like Frosted Flakes more than any other cereal! The Beatles will always be my favorite band!”

You can’t do that, but you can promise to behave a certain way. You can commit to being patient. You can promise to be kind. You can devote yourself to humbly putting the other person’s needs first and to always protect, always trust, always hope and persevere.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Truth is...Love hurts, but I don't care what they say, I won't stay in a world without love.

Dating the Gospel

Have you ever been socially/romantically involved with someone and then not been involved and not really know why either the involvement or non-involvement happened?

As part of my personal faith journey toward Easter, I am reading a book by Brant Pitre, The Case for Jesus. I'm only five chapters in, and I'm already pleased with the thoroughness of Pitre's examination of evidence and honesty in saying what can and cannot be concluded from the evidence at hand.

But that's not what this post is about.

What this post is about is where my train of thought went when I saw the title of an upcoming chapter in Pitre's book: "The Dating of the Gospels".

I'm certain the chapter is about determining when the four gospels in the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) were written. And that's important because it helps a person make judgments about their trustworthiness.

But my train of thought? Well, it immediately dropped the "s" from "Gospels" and got me to thinking about the concept of dating the Gospel...being socially/romantically involved with the Good News that Jesus is God-in-the-flesh and his death and resurrection paid the debt of our sins and freed us to a new kind of life where we are no longer slaves to the sin nature.

What does it mean to "date" someone? What's going on in a dating relationship?

• There's definitely an attraction, but not really a commitment.
• It's kind of trying on the idea of monogamy. "What would it be like to be with this person and nobody else for the rest of my life? Would I enjoy that?"
• Depending on a person's moral convictions about sexuality, there might even be physical involvement that is associated with a marriage commitment.
• Breaking off the relationship if it gets difficult or doesn't go the way you thought it would is always an option.

Methinks that some of us actually do relate to the Gospel in the same ways.

• We like the idea of not being condemned and that Jesus loves us, but not all that sure about having anything expected of us.
• We toy with the concept of dedication and allowing Jesus to call the shots. "How will my life improve if I decide to follow Jesus?"
• We maybe even attend church services if we like the musical style and the sermons aren't too long.
• Spirituality is something we practice or something we do; not necessarily the core of who we are. We can put it on or take it off however the mood strikes us.

Truth is...I have personally found marriage to be far more deeply satisfying than dating ever was. 

How to Build a Balance in Your Emotional Piggy Bank

Though the following excerpt is from a book titled Awkward (by Ty Tashiro, PhD), it's truth can be some good advice and an encouragement to us all.

John Gottman of the University of Washington and his colleagues have conducted observational studies of positive and negative behaviors with married couples and grade-school children for decades. The focus of many relationship scientists has been on negative behaviors such as resentment or withdrawing from con­flict, but the trick to understanding interpersonal behavior is about the ratio of negative to positive behaviors. It turns out that positive behaviors can be as small as telling someone he looks handsome, attentively listening to a friend's small triumph of the day, or sur­prising a coworker with her favorite cupcakes.

Gottman has found that people keep an informal count of be­haviors. He calls this ratio of positive to negative behaviors an emo­tional bank account. To stay in good standing with others, people need to keep a balance of about four or five positive behaviors to every one negative behavior. Imagine that you do four good things during an interaction with a friend: give an enthusiastic greeting, compliment his outfit, share some french fries, and respond empathically to a concern. Then you inadvertently insult this friend by forgetting that today is his birthday. You would probably come out of this interaction with $0.00 in your emotional bank account with him, which is not bad considering that you could have left the interaction in the red had you not been so nice at the start of the interaction. It's good to think about leaving interactions with­out a negative balance because people's emotional bank accounts charge interest.

Gottman finds that negative balances are not wiped from other people's minds at the end of the day, but instead carry over to your next interaction. This is bad news if you end the day in the red with someone, but good news if you end the day with money in the bank. When people leave interactions with a negative balance, it has a way of building corrosive resentment in others' minds, which essentially adds interest to their emotional debt. The good news is that leaving interactions with a positive balance tends to build trust, which is like gaining interest on your deposit.

One strategy is to avoid mistakes, but a focus on trying not to make a mistake has a way of creating persistent anxiety, which is both unpleasant and unhelpful. The best way to leverage the con­cept of the emotional bank account is to commit to making small deposits of positive behaviors on a consistent basis. Instead of viewing the dozens of social situations and hundreds of cues that one encounters every day as an opportunity for failure, the mind­set shifts to capitalizing on routine situations by contributing a little more than expected. Sometimes others view heroic efforts as a disproportionately large contribution, but typically positive efforts both big and small have about the same effect.

When you become the kind of person who first thinks about how to help people rather than how to get something from people, it builds a positive balance in your emotional bank account with others. Over time, that positive balance begins to build trust and eventually faith that you are a good-natured person. The key is to be subtle about your contributions. Most people feel tremen­dous gratitude when their grandparents slip a ten-dollar bill into their birthday card, but if their grandparents slipped a check for $10,000 into their birthday card, it would actually feel awkward for most people. Subtle deposits could be as small as being more specific when you say thank you or letting others go first when a line forms at a buffet. As a supplement to face-to-face deposits, it's easier than ever to make 'mobile deposits' through a kind text the day of someone's big test or a follow-up message after dinner to say, 'That was fun, thanks for getting together.'

The reality is that awkward people are more likely to make small withdrawals from their emotional bank accounts with others because they are prone to mishandling minor social expectations. Awkward people may not notice that their large backpack swung into their friend's head as they turned to sit down on the bus or they may accidentally disclose the surprise birthday party to the birthday boy. These awkward moments are done without premed­itation or malice, but they are still negative and even if people do not say anything, their automated mental accounting system deducts a little bit from the emotional bank account.

These unexpected or accidental withdrawals make it impera­tive that awkward individuals make a concerted effort to maintain a positive balance through consistently making small deposits that move their balance farther to the positive side in others' minds. It's like contributing a little bit every month for social insurance.


Awkward individuals should not let their clumsiness with minor social expectations define them. As both awkward and non­awkward people get older, most of them will care less about surface qualities and instead evaluate people on their willingness to be fair, be kind, and be loyal. So long as good people feel as if you are trying your best to consistently contribute, then they are willing to overlook a little awkwardness. Whether it's a commitment to a familial relationship, friendship, or romantic relationship, when awkward people make sure that they find a way to contribute to the broader good, it is the best strategy for creating sustainable social capital.

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Truth is...seems that whole "do unto others" Golden Rule thing is a pretty good idea, eh?

Chris Rock On Marriage

If you know ANYthing about Chris Rock's standup comedy, you know I can't post a clip for you to see him in action and maintain the purity standards I've set for this blog. That's right, he allows words to flow from his mouth that are not suitable for the audience that has been established here.

What you may NOT know is that he's got a few excellent words of advice on relationships tucked away inside his current comedy special streaming on Netflix, Tambourine.

Allow me to clean things up a bit and pass on some truth:

You got somebody you love? Hold tight. Commit. And don't be the one always threatening to leave. If you're gonna leave, leave now. That's right, now. During the show. But before you leave, you better make sure you got some options. Some of y'all been in relationships so long, you don't know how ugly you are! [Okay, don't include the "leave now" stuff as part of the truth I'm wanting to pass on to you. I just thought it was funny.]

People say, "Oh, relationships are tough." No they not. They only tough when one person's workin' on it. That's right. Two people can move a couch real easy. One person can't move it at all.

If you're in a relationship, let me try to help you right now.

Rule One: Stop competing. It's not a competition. Her success is your success, and your success is her success.

Number Two: There is no equality in a relationship. You're like, "We equals." No, you're not. You're both there to serve. You are in the service industry.

When you're in a relationship, you're in a band. And when you're in a band, you have roles that you play in the band. Sometimes you sing lead, and sometimes you're on tambourine. And if you're on tambourine, play it right! Play it with a smile, 'cause nobody wants to see a mad tambourine player.

It's like Hall and Oates. I don't know WHAT Oates does, but Hall never had a hit record without him.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Truth is...I cannot recommend much of the rest of this particular piece of comedy, but I can meditate on the truth of these particular thoughts.

Pearls Before Swine On Marriage

The following panels from Stephan Pastis' comic strip, Pearls Before Swine, are certainly not Scripture, but they are certainly overflowing with Truth.

Pastis calls this The Six Stages of Marriage.

The relationship starts off full of idealism, but then reality begins to creep in.

It shouldn't be surprising, then, that things get worse before they get better.

But they do, indeed, get better.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Truth is...Stephan Pastis isn't generally considered a sentimental kind of guy, nor a deep-thinking philosopher, but he certainly hit the nail on the head here. If you're married, may you reach stages five and six before there's a stone and six feet of dirt between you.

Taking a Knee

According to every sports-related movie I've ever seen  -  and when it comes to sports, watching movies is the only experience I have to go on  -  to "take a knee" means to gather around the coach and listen up because he's about to lay some important words on you.

Of course, for the past several weeks, the idea of football players taking a knee carries a totally different meaning.

For those on one side, it is a form of silent protest against the inequality and injustice that exists within the borders of "the land of the free and the home of the brave". For those on another side, it is a disgusting show of disrespect for those who have fought and died for the star-spangled banner that is our nation's flag.

For me, taking a knee is something completely different.

• It is the first step in retrieving one of Beloved's earrings from under the bedroom dresser.
• It is a necessary posture to get eye-to-eye with my grandchildren; either to let them know I love them or to let them climb onto my back.
• It is a sign of humility before the almighty Creator God.

If I were to kneel in protest of anything it would also be completely different.

• I would kneel to protest my lack of kneeling to pray.
• I would bend my knee to protest the bending of my will toward the things of this world instead of the things of God.
• I would collapse in grief to protest the sickness of human hearts and the greatness of my own selfishness, greed, and gluttony.
• I would lay spread eagle on the ground in utter amazement at the One who sacrificed all so I could be free from sin's stranglehold.

Truth is...my life could do with a little more of that kind of humility, amazement, and life-changing grief.

Sacrificial Love

Mark 14:3-9 (The Message)
Jesus was at Bethany, a guest of Simon the Leper. While he was eating dinner, a woman came up carrying a bottle of very expensive perfume. Opening the bottle, she poured it on his head. Some of the guests became furious among themselves. “That’s criminal! A sheer waste! This perfume could have been sold for well over a year’s wages and handed out to the poor.” They swelled up in anger, nearly bursting with indignation over her.


But Jesus said, “Let her alone. Why are you giving her a hard time? She has just done something wonderfully significant for me. You will have the poor with you every day for the rest of your lives. Whenever you feel like it, you can do something for them. Not so with me. She did what she could when she could — she pre-anointed my body for burial. And you can be sure that wherever in the whole world the Message is preached, what she just did is going to be talked about admiringly.”

From My Journal: February 1, 2001
I ought to be able to relate to this woman. I know what it's like to spend what you can't afford in order to express love. I've done it with Beloved more than once.

Lord, have I done it with You? Have I truly sacrificed in order to say, "I love You, Lord"? Have I been lavishly extravagant in my devotion to You?

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Truth is...He has been more than lavish showing His love to me. "See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" (I John 3:1)

Valentine's-Day-A-Phobia

Ah...Valentine's Day...chalk-like hearts with two-word phrases, boxes of chocolates, bouquets of flowers, infinite opportunities to disappoint...

Yes, there are a lot of traditions associated with today's festivities. And if a fellow feels like he has to live up to expectations, there's a lot of pressure.

Well, here's a little more.

What does or doesn't happen today...or on ANY single day...is not nearly as important as how you treat your spouse throughout the whole year. Which is why I've chosen today to direct you to a post from July 8, 2013 titled Homo Sapien Husbandry.

It started like this:
You've heard of animal husbandry, I'm sure. Well, this is like that, only specifically about being a human husband. There are certain things that I think every man who is married ought to know and do. Just in case you were wondering, here they are:

To read the rest, CLICK HERE.

Truth is...perfect love casts out all fear (I John 4:18), but only God's love is perfect. I still have to work on mine and how I show it.

Day By Day

I am currently in Month Six of a 9-month contract, working as a Technical Writer for a large, multi-national corporation. The project I'm working on involves the company analyzing its sales data, coming up with a set of business solutions that works for at least 80% of its customers, and packaging those solutions so they get installed and configured the same way, with the same quality, each and every time.

It's all meant to increase consistency, assure quality, and drive down costs.

In the course of writing up release announcements and internal promotional pieces for the whole shebang, I've been looking at quotes about standardization, excellence, and consistency. In that context, I became enamored with something attributed to Aristotle.

Add to that a major point in the teaching series I recently began going through with the Senior Highers at my church about how the whole world can be made a better place by each of us making the part of the world we touch a little better, one day at a time.

Which brought to mind a quote from Rich Mullins:

I would like to encourage you to...start realizing that your ministry is how much of a tip you leave when you eat in a restaurant; when you leave a hotel room whether you leave it all messed up or not; whether you flush your own toilet or not. Your ministry is the way that you love people. And you love people when you write something that is encouraging to them, something challenging. You love people when you call your wife and say, "I'm going to be late for dinner," instead of letting her burn the meal. You love people when maybe you cook a meal for your wife sometime, because you know she's really tired. Loving people - being respectful toward them - is much more important than writing or doing music.

And then the cherry on top is when my friend Shonda Judy posted this on her Facebook page:

Truth is...It seems God is using the very method He's talking about to try to get a message through to me.

ABCs of Thankfulness

Angel - Our first child, who has proven over and over that we picked the perfect name for her
Bounty - What I've been blessed with, just by virtue of being born in the USA. Compared to over 75% of the world, I am rich.
Curtis - Our only son, who fell in love with Jesus all over again after a few years in the wilderness
Dogs - Shining examples of unconditional love and loyalty
Evangelism - Throughout history, one person telling another led to me finding out about God's love for me
Forgiveness - God's initiative, my benefit
Grace - Getting what I don't deserve (See Mercy)
Holiness - I've got none of my own, but all of God's.
Incarnation - The strange miracle of God becoming flesh, experiencing temptation as we do (yet without sin)
Jesus - The name above all names, because He is the person above all persons
Kelly Jo - Our youngest child, full of beauty, grace, and creativity
Love - The greatest of these
Mercy - Not getting what I deserve (See Grace)
Nails - Instruments of death that led to my Life

Order - One piece of evidence in favor of the existence of God
Parents - When church was happening, we were there ("Seven people jammed into a car that seated five"). And no, that didn't turn me off...it taught me how important it is.
Quiet - I don't enjoy it nearly often enough, but it serves to facilitate both relaxation and rejuvenation.
Rich Mullins - The source of the quote (above) about too many people in a car, and the ragamuffin singer-songwriter closest to my heart.
Shonda - Our second child, whose heart is more tender than the rest of us combined. Her picture is next to "empathy" in the dictionary.
Thanksgiving - A yearly reminder to count my many blessings
Unemployment, The End of My - Last year at this time, I was in Month Two of a 10-month job search.
Victory - In Jesus, my savior forever; He sought me and bought me with his redeeming blood
Wife - I could have listed her as Debbie or Beloved, but I could never find enough words to describe her influence on me and how much of my heart she absolutely owns.
X-rays - Seriously, this is the outcome of God giving us brains and expecting us to use them. What an excellent healthcare tool.
Yesterday - The part of my life that doesn't matter when it comes to how God feels about me; "Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future."
Zebras - God could have just made more horses or mules, but no...He refused to hold back His creative artistry.

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Truth is...26 words on one day out of the year is only scratching the surface. I am indeed a blessed man.

To Beloved

The sun was strong
Matched only by the emotions
The small-town church had no AC
And the place was packed to the rafters

No, really
The balcony was full
And so were the steps leading up to it

The heat was
Well
Hot
That wasn't a tear trickling down my nose
But our friends still thought it sweet
When you reached up to brush away the sweat

We would have worn the dress
And the tux
To the same building on the next day
But they were sweat-soaked
And decidedly not nose-pleasing

Your smile
As you walked up the aisle
Reflected more joy and hope
Than one heart could hold

So we joined our hearts
To see if we could do it together

Thirty-six years

We've done it together
For thirty-six years
Not all of them happy
Or sunny
Or sweat-soaked

But none of them alone
None of them hopeless
None of them lacking joy

The Son was strong
Unmatched
And that has been enough

Truth is...the fairy-tale expectations of any wedding day will all surely fade away, but something much stronger, deeper, and truer remains.

Going Public

Soul Pancake's YouTube channel is full of encouraging, amazing, beautiful, daring things.

For instance...

What kind of things do you think would happen if you set up a live microphone on a city street with an encouragement for people to give a shout-out to someone who changed their life?

According to the following video, beautiful things...

This brought tears to my eyes and a desire to let the important people in my life KNOW they are important to me.

Truth is...there's no need to wait for a giant microphone to show up on the local sidewalk. Debbie Ann Brewer Roth, aka Beloved, you are making me a better person, even after 34 years of marriage.

Homo Sapien Husbandry

You've heard of animal husbandry, I'm sure. Well, this is like that, only specifically about being a human husband. There are certain things that I think every man who is married ought to know and do. Just in case you were wondering, here they are:

- Husbands, love your wives (Ephesians 5:25). And by that, I don't mean "I love the way she makes me feel. I love it when we have sex. I love what she does for me." Loving someone "as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her" is putting the other person's needs and best interests before your own. It's pulling off the highway without complaint because she needs a bathroom break. It's taking time off work to play nursemaid when she's sick. It's going without a new cell phone or other electronic gadget so she can have shoes that aren't falling apart.

- Honor one another above yourselves (Romans 12:10). You've heard about a guy putting a gal on a pedestal...this is kinda like that. This is refraining from public sarcasm at her expense, no matter how funny it is. This is going to the chick flick. This is giving birthday and Valentines and Christmas presents, even when she doesn't need anything. This is letting other people know that you love her. (FYI: When somebody else tells her "it's so obvious that he loves you," you'll be glad you did this.)

- Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength (Mark 12:30). You might be thinking, "What does this have to do with being a good husband?" My answer...there are few things in this world that will foster within your wife such a deep sense of security and safety as when she knows that her husband is a man of conviction and integrity who has his priorities absolutely straight.

- Be considerate as you live with your wife, and treat her with respect...so that nothing will hinder your prayers (I Peter 3:7). You see? There is a connection between your relationship with your wife and your relationship with God. How you treat your mate has a direct influence on how God listens to your prayers. 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Truth is...We should continue to date our wives, treating them the way we did when we were trying to win them. This will convince them that you still consider her a prize...and it might fool her into thinking you're one, too.

Maawidg...Maawidg is What Bwings Us Togedder Today

A. J. Jacobs has made a name for himself by writing about his social experiments wherein he subjects himself to a set of rules (like, for instance, living up to the Old Testament law, which he wrote about in The Year of Living Biblically).

In The Guinea Pig Diaries, he set out to spend a month doing everything his wife said...to be The Perfect Husband. In one short passage, he comes up with a pretty good word picture for what a good marriage should be like: 

This is something I notice throughout the day. Whenever Julie says something, my default setting is to argue with her. It's (usually) not overtly hostile bickering. It's just affectionate parrying. Verbal jujitsu.

I also know it's not good. You playfully bicker enough, and after a few years, it stops being playful. 

I've got to reboot my brain. Marriage doesn't have to be boxing. Maybe it can be two people with badminton rackets trying to keep the birdie in the air.

Truth is...a guy (like A. J.) doesn't have to be a marriage counselor to give some good counsel about marriage.