More Than Encouragement

If your husband or wife loves to play sports then find every way you can to get them out there playing their favorite sport. Writing - same thing. Serving the poor - same thing. Painting, acting, alone time for walks in the morning, cooking creatively, training dogs competitively. Whatever it is - deliberately get them out there to do what they love. Create space in your schedule, watch the kids, set aside money - do these things directly in open conversation. Don't just show a general sense of interest. Get active. Do it simply to do good to them. The stories to be told in such relationships are powerful and beautiful.

Community Based Weddings

My wife and I married each other four days ago, surrounded by family and friends, taking in every bit of it, on a peaceful, cool, late summer evening in Prescott Valley.  The honeymoon has taken place in Oak Creek Canyon and Flagstaff, and we are now rounding up the last, playful, financially carefree evening before rolling back down the hill to our Phoenix home.

There is something I want to tell you about our wedding.  Primarily, the wedding was born through a mixture of creativity, initiated among the dreams of my wife and God himself, culminating in a crisp, peaceful, early evening wedding.  Secondly, the wedding and honeymoon were produced through a collective outpouring of family, friends, church community, and even friends of friends.  

Our community delivered a cornucopia of talents, abilities, service, financial contributions, and guidance that culminated in a wedding we could not have construed on our own.  The financial aspect alone expresses our fortune due to services rendered by family, friends, and even friends of friends, the value of the wedding likely ten to twenty-thousand dollars higher than our budget.  Here are some of the flat-out pro bono services:  The venue was free.  The photography was free.  The sound equipment was free.  The musicians and singers were free.  The food was free.  The set-up was free.  These are just to mention a few.  In addition, people sacrificed their entire day to help set everything up, some experiencing dehydration and exhaustion.  Oh, and the wind kept busting lights and luminaries until the Lord told the winds to be still just prior to the wedding.

I simultaneously experience gratitude and sorrow as I reflect upon the fact that the cost of the average wedding puts so many engaged couples into debt even prior to being married.  Our silent culture of isolation, lacking clusters of networks of grace-giving communities, forces engaged couples to go-it-alone in their preparations.  Yet, the love of God is expressed in this - when we risk entering community and all of the hurt and pain that may ensue, we create a situation in which it is God's desire for us to experience their hearts as they help us.

The story of our wedding is a story about a divine interplay of the creator, community, and gratitude.  Our story prior to marriage already contains difficulties, and our marriage will contain even more difficulties and pain, yet the value and magnificence of the story is about faith, hope, and love which trump everything.  The story we write with God, the connection we feel to God in the midst of it, this kind of joy we experienced in the midst of the community that surrounded us.

Labyrinths Untangled

I desire you Lord

More than words can confess

Joy wells up in my soul

I can’t recount such a process

If I attempted to locate

Those deep rivers and powers inside

I’d be lost among the labyrinths

Those You’ve untangled and reconciled

To define such elusive mystery

Translates pride into utter travesty

On that day You dwelled in me

Forces trembled throughout eternity

You told me my name

And told us our name

You took on the enemy

And remove our shame

The Lord is a warrior

Fighting for us through the ages

The Lord is a warrior

Turning us into wise old sages

Melody Beattie on Letting Go

Letting go doesn't mean we don't care.  Letting go doesn't mean we shut down.  Letting go means we stop trying to force outcomes and make people behave.  It means we give up resistance to the way things are, for the moment.  It means we stop trying to do the impossible--controlling that which we cannot--and instead, focus on what is possible--which usually means taking care of ourselves.  And we do this in gentleness, kindness, and love, as much as possible. ~Melody Beattie

The Worst Form of Murder

I believe that self-protection is the worst form of murder.

• Isolation
• Aggression
• Manipulation
• Unwillingness to be wrong
• Unwillingness to be right
• Silence
• Wearing a mask that says "everything is okay"
• Avoidance 
• Abuse
• Perpetual analysis
• Being extremely "clingy"
• Being passive
• Lack of repentance 
• A lack of boundaries
• Too many boundaries that amount to walls
• Giving in all the time
• Never giving in
• Comparing one to another
• Critical spirit
• A constant desire for control
• An unwillingness to hear the other person's heart
• An unwillingness to forgive
• Rarely listening (ignoring or thinking about what to say next instead of listening)
• Rarely speaking up
• Complaining all the time
• Being on guard all the time

There are so many others, but these are big ones.  In each of these forms of self-protection, we raise up an invisible wall that prevents intimacy.  A marriage, family, or friendship that exists under any or a number of these types of self-protection turns into an utter and unwarranted type of loneliness over time.

This type of loneliness is a kind of death.  I believe it is the worst form of murder because it is so deceptive.  The perpetrator hasn't physically killed another, but he or she has emotionally murdered the other.  It is so subtle, but it is so devastating.  Sometimes the perpetrator and/or victim aren't even aware of doing these things and sometimes they are.  Often the perpetrator and the victim are interchangeable and harm one another.  No matter the pattern, these forms of self-protection essentially turn perpetrators and victims into a walking dead persons.

Mark Twain on Right Conduct

Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one. - Mark Twain

Doing Good
This quote from Twain reminds me of a change that occurred in my heart last year. When I started dating my fiancee, I asked God to help me to have a desire to do good to her.  This was different from my previous ways of thinking. I mainly used to try to keep away from bad stuff and try to do good stuff in order to make sure that no one was angry with me. That's what it means to "follow the law" as Twain speaks of.  But with my fiancee, something had changed. I asked God to help me to do good, simply for the sake of doing good.  Not to keep her happy, but to do good to her.  This is what Twain means by "right conduct".  I call it "doing-good".  Doing good simply to do good to your spouse or others is a change in mindset that can restore a marriage or keep a good marriage healthy.

Nice Guys and Bad Asses: The Search for Caring yet Effective Men
One point of clarification: doing good to someone doesn't mean they are always happy with you, especially in the short term. Nice guys finish last because they are ineffective, not because they are nice. Unfortunately, many women fall for bad asses, not because they truly want a bad ass, but because they are looking for men who are effective at loving them. Overly nice guys are ineffective yet caring.  Bad asses are effective, yet uncompassionate.  Men, what they are looking for is someone who is compassionate, yet effective. You need to stand your ground in your love. Giving in to what someone else wants isn't always the best way to love. Doing good is. Somehow, there is a balance between standing our ground by being our true selves and yet at the same time learning how to give up control and enter things we feel uncomfortable with at times. This interplay of holding boundaries at times and expanding them at times is messy and scary, but it is a road worth going down.  Doing-good requires both.  A man who does so is a caring, yet effective.

Results
I believe right-conduct or doing-good starts at the core with our spouse or partner, but it goes beyond that relationship into our lives with others and the community at large. We don't need the law to keep us in line. We want to do good to others simply for the sake of doing good to others. I actually have felt more close to God than ever before because I think that in doing-good for no other motivation than to do good is sort of what it is like to be God.  Thus, I believe He has helped me to identify more with Him as He has awakened me to emulating Him. 

Richard Gere on Bravery

I don't think that bravery is about skin. Bravery is about a willingness to show emotional need. - Richard Gere


This quotation is threatening to most men, and of course to a lot of women.  But, for men, to show emotional need is to allow someone to enter, which is scary because it is so vulnerable.  Admitting emotional need and allowing another to help meet that need means they might be able to harm you.  There is a willingness to give up control in order to risk love.  It is utterly scary.  This is exactly why it is called bravery.

Pema Chodron has a quote which I love.  It says, "Compassion is learning to relax and moving towards what scares us."  For men, allowing another person to come into contract with our emotions is terrifying.  We have a hard time relaxing.  To those of you who are women, my advice is to ask permission before offering to meet a man's emotional need.  Slowly, they might permit you to help and they will be imperfect at it even if they try.  But, permission is the key.

Story Elevates Success and Comfort

We all suffer and experience loss but at times during our suffering and loss, we experience success and comfort.  The person who is good at success and comfort is also the kind of person who recognizes the deeper story in the middle of it. This person is probably a good suffer as well. 

Upon their success or comfort they ask themselves: Did I see the deeper story?  Did I see the small and large acts of courage and love that happened in the middle of it?  Did I see courage and love and beauty and heart? When they choose to ask these quesitons and enter the deeper story, they experience feelings of gratitude and joy.

We embrace success, comfort, blessing, and honor well when we fully accept them and see the story for what it is.  C.S. Lewis explains this well when he talks about how a great architect can look at his or her own work and say "Wow!  This building and its design are awesome!"  The success itself isn't the ultimate goal.  It is the story behind the success or the enjoyment of a comfort earned or unearned that speaks of glory and grandeur. 

In this, success and comfort point to the divine and sucess and comfort are connected to intimacy rather than vanity and idolatry.  Success, comfort, suffering, and pain are connected when we realize that the deeper theme of story and where that story leads are more powerful and beauty than the success and suffering themselves.  It is always a way in which we are pointed to intimacy and the divine.

Story Trumps Everything

One thing I've recently become aware of is how story trumps everything. Story trumps success. Story trumps suffering. Story trumps comfort. Story trumps desired outcome. Story trumps loss.

What do I mean by this?

99% of us suffer and experience a tremendous amount of loss during our lifetimes. There aren't that many people who live with an easy spouse, wonderful children, experience very few losses, and then die peacefully in their sleep. Most of us experience health problems, lack of financial resources, children who go astray, untimely deaths in the family, loss of freedom,  the betrayal of a family member or friend, and die a somewhat drawn out and uncomfortable death.

Inside of these stories, however, lie the potential for love, compassion, and heroicism. Those who suffer well (since almost all suffer) ask God to help them find these themes in the middle of sorrow and pain. The good sufferer also chooses to enter community with his or her suffering instead of choosing to isolate out of shame and self pity. Love, compassion, and heroicism can only be experienced in community.

The courageous story of the sufferer is when they risk bringing their suffering into community. The courageous story of the community is when those in it risk loving the sufferer. These are the sorts of stories that trump all suffering and even all success. The good sufferer stays in the mix of never running from how much they hurt and never running away from the community which can meet them in their suffering. These sorts of stories bring some of the deepest feelings of intimacy and deepest connections with God that will ever exist. Our ship may have gone down and been senseless and untimely, but when it went down, there was a story and that story is the one that God and the heavens, and our future selves will know of and be told of.

Whether or not we succeed or fail, whether we live or die, and whether or not we experience justice or injustice is always penultimate. The ultimate or highest point is whether or not we live out the deeper story and the deeper themes of love, compassion, and heroicism.

The good sufferer honestly loathes suffering and embraces the power and beauty of the story all at the same time.  The good sufferer does it well and does it poorly and it is never done correctly.  They simply choose to enter instead of running away or harming self or others.  The good sufferer goes through grief and the story becomes powerful.  This story is what is told to the angels.  It is courageous and they know it.  The sufferer knows it and it evokes deep feelings of intimacy and connectedness with God and others.

Messed Up Repentance

Here are words and phrases that make me cringe when I hear the word "repentance".

*refrain
*more commitment
*I "repented" of that sin
*turn away from sin
*I need to learn to control my emotions and repent of my anger
*I shouldn't be thinking this way
*I gotta stop being so selfish

Oh, how I wish we could get our stupid little Christian ears to listen to the non-religious once in a while. I mean seriously. What does the word repentance mean anyway? To be honest, I had never even heard the term until I entered Christian religious circles. And don't tell me that the word repentance is in the Bible and that it isn't just a word based on culture. Yes, I know that it is in the Bible and I know that it means something along the lines of turning around. But, what I'm talking about here is the way in which it is often interpreted by us as religious persons.

I've heard somewhere that we make the mistake of backing up away from hell one step at a time instead of turning around and running towards heaven. To me, this is the essence of repentance.

However, this is where it gets tricky. The temptation is to beat ourselves up because we don't think that we are capable, deserving, or desirous of such actions. To run towards heaven and all that is good seems daunting and downright impossible.

But this is true repentance. First, we acknowledge that we are incapable of doing anything about our sin. We are incapable of backing away from hell. This idea I borrow directly from Bill Thrall. But, I think repentance goes further than this. I believe true repentance says that there is nothing we can do about our sin, AND that we have a desire to do good to others and to run to heaven.

Whoa. Wait a minute. What in the world does that mean? How can I simultaneously have both? The answer is that those who bear the Holy Spirit also bear God's very desires to do good to those around us. His heart lives inside us and we carry His heart. Repentance means we acknowledge that we carry these desires inside us but that we have no ability to carry them out. We simultaneously carry the desire to walk away from hell and run towards heaven, yet at the same time we simultaneously have the inability to back away from hell or run to heaven.

Yet, the desire is there.

This is where I want to point out something I believe is very crucial. I can't skip desire. I can't go to God in prayer and tell Him, "God, I desire to do good to my wife/supervisor/friend. Help me to love them more." We must step back even further in repentance.

We say, "God, where is my desire? I can't find it. God, please help me find this desire. I don't even know if its true that I have this desire. God, if you don't help me find this desire, then I am lost. I am going to hang on You on this one. Dear God, please help me find this desire. Where is it?" This question is really the next step in repentance after we've already admitted there's nothing we can do about our sin. Once we start by asking God to help us find our desire to do good, then we have already acknowledged that He put it there in the first place, apart from us. This is repentance. This is humility. This is a humble character. This turns our hearts into things that can fight for our spouses, loved ones, friends, and yea - even our enemies.

Thus, here are words or phrases I like that are associated with repentance:

*admission
*open hands
*taking a chance on God's protection
*admitting desire might be inside us
*asking to find that desire
*risking desire
*asking God to help us move towards our desire to do good
*trying to do good and seeing what happens

In repentance, we admit we can do nothing about our sin and we ask God to help us find our desire to do good to others and to ourselves. Once we catch a glimpse of the desire He has put into us, it is like a little bit of yeast that works itself through the whole dough; it is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of seeds, but one that grows into a large tree that shelters us from the sun; it is like a wellspring of water that wells up into eternal life; it is as if God lives inside us.

Hmm. Maybe He does.

Now that is powerful.

Grief vs. Condemnation

What happens when we name our emotions and name our desires, but our partner never seems to respond?

(BTW - I recommend reading the two blog entries before this one because this is the third in a series on naming emotions, naming desire, and entering faith and grief.)

First of all, we don't give up. All the data may point to the irrifutable conclusion that they will never change. But we have God.

I'm serious about this point. I'm not throwing out religious BS here. I am a man of such little faith, but time and time again I meet people who have stories which tell me God is true. These are stories of adultery, brokenness, forgiveness, and restoration. These are stories of passivity or aggressiveness that lead to distancing and isolation, but then have turned back towards mutual sadness, grief, forgiveness, and moving back towards one another. These are stories of all sorts of harm, brokenness, forgiveness, and the slow process of learning to trust again.

If it weren't for these stories, then I'd be shoveling a bunch of religious BS. But, I'm not.

Second, we become willing to enter grief and ask God to help us move away from condemnation and into that grief. Somewhere in grief, as opposed to condemnation, lies deep sorrow, pain, and anger - but somehow there is also peace, thankfulness, and joy. I don't know how it works, but I know I have seen it. I have seen the face of those who have entered grief and forgiveness willingly and come out on the other side with a deep, broken, thankful, open, and yes - even a heart that is capable of enjoying life in amazing ways.

So that's it. Somehow grief is where we must go when our desires are not met - either in the short term or in the long term. The loss is always there, but somehow much is gained that couldn't occur outside of staying with and going through our grief.

Naming Our Desires

We name our desires in the same way as we name our emotions.

(Note - I recommend reading the blog entry before this one because this is the second in a series on naming emotions, naming desire, and entering faith and grief.)

Fighting: All you ever do is spend money frivilously. You are wreckless and we aren't going to be able to buy a home because you keep buying stereo systems for your car or playing golf at private courses on the weekend.
Naming: I feel afraid. I feel insecure. I feel unsafe.

Naming our feelings already points to our desires, but we also need to move into conversations in which we name our desires without laying down our demands.

Demand: You need to stop spending all this money. You don't care about me or your children. We need a home and we're stuck in this apartment because of you. Don't you care about our future?

Desire: I don't want to try to take away the things that help you to relax like upgrading your car or playing golf, but I also have my own desires to have a home in a house we can call our own with a yard I can decorate and have for the children to play in. Could we talk about setting aside a certain amount of money each month to save up for a down payment, but also talk about setting aside a certain amount of money for you and the things you like to do to relax? Then, we can move towards both desires.

Now this is sort of a cookie-cutter conversation and things are much more messy than this sometimes, but the difference is that the person has named their desire without making demands. It is direct, goal orientated, is achievable, and isn't pointing the finger at the other person or trying to take something away from them.

In this way, the desire has been named. Now let the other person sit with it and digest it. This is what I belief is the difference between demand and desire. When we name desire, we name it and then we let the other person wrestle with it. We let them sit with it. We let them digest it. We don't know what they will do with it, but we have given up trying to manipulate them into doing it. It is utterly terrifying. In fact, they might refuse immediately. But, maybe they might wrestle with it and open up to it over time, even with their own desire to do good to you instead of simply trying to keep you happy. We don't know what they will do with it until we try. When we try, it is called bravery.

So, this is what I mean by naming desire vs. fighting/demanding.

How to Stop the Fighting

Okay. I'm going out on a limb here. I believe that what I'm about to say is correct, but it probably isn't the full answer. Nevertheless, I proceed. Here is a principle I believe worth considering.

When someone, such as your spouse, hurts you - name your feelings. Then leave space for them to digest.

I'm not saying that the conversation ends here; in fact, it is where the conversation begins. What I mean is that when we name our feelings, we name who we are and how we have been affected.

We don't run away. We don't get defensive. We don't try to correct the other person or try to get them to understand why they are wrong and we are right. We don't do any of that. We simply name our feelings. Our feelings themselves name the hurt and point towards our desire.

Here are some examples:

Fighting: All you ever do is spend money frivilously. You are wreckless and we aren't going to be able to buy a home because you keep buying stereo systems for your car or playing golf at private courses on the weekend.
Naming: I feel afraid. I feel insecure. I feel unsafe.

Fighting: You're never home. Don't you care about me? Do you love me or do you love your job?
Naming: I miss you.

Fighting: Stop trying to control me. I know how to fix the sink and if I don't know how to then I'll figure it out. Stop trying to micromanage me.
Naming: I feel unbelieved in.

Fighting: You don't care about our son. You never go to his baseball games because you're working "overtime" on another project. You aren't involved in his life. You are a horrible father.
Naming: I feel lonely. I feel isolated. I feel unsupported. I feel empty.

When we start from our feelings, then our partner has the opportunity to experience who we are and might be more open to our desires. They have opporunity to digest our feelings and experience how they have harmed us. In addition, I believe it gives the partner the opportunity and space to develop real desire to move towards us. A person who sits with our feelings of missing them, of feeling insecure, afraid, controlled, unsupported, empty, or unbelieved in, in due time may be more open to doing things to demonstrate security, support, involvement, and belief in us. This is because when we name our feelings and who we are, it isn't inherently offensive or demanding. When our partner doesn't feel our demands, then they are more open to listening to our desires. In fact, I believe that naming our feelings instead of going on the offensive disarms both us and our partner and our desires are more able to be expressed and received.

Initially, the other party might feel like we've gone on the offensive, but if we give them the space to digest our emotions, then they might begin to entertain the ways in which they can move towards us and enter these sorts of conversations with us. A desire might grow inside them to come home, let us fix the sink imperfectly, attend our son's baseball game with us, and work with us to put money towards a down payment on a home over time.

But...

If we fight, their desire will never change. If we name our emotions and who we are, then I believe it is more possible that they might move towards us and touch our desires.

Two Good Forgivers

"A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers." - Robert Quillen


When I look at this quote, I realize two things. First, two good forgivers means that there is actually the sin of harming one another that takes place. This magnifies the level of what is taking place. A forgiver doesn't minimize the harm that has been done to them. It is quite the opposite. Don't avoid. Don't harm back. Don't try to manipulate. Forgiveness is the direct act of engaging the harm that has been committed. Second, in two forgivers, I see that the value of the one who has harmed us is also elevated. We engage the offender because we see a high value in them. We choose not to hold the offense against them and so then we are able to address the offense directly. Thus, both the harm by the offender and the value of the offender are highly elevated. If both spouses choose to enter into this process, then I believe true intimacy is very possible.

More Powerful Than Any Screenplay Ever Written

Take a look at this video by Switchfoot.  They sing about children from England who are whisked away into the magical land of Narnia where they find their true home and their true selves.  When we watch these sorts of stories, we feel connected to something that we yearn for as well.  We yearn to find our true home and our true self - the dramatic, larger-than-life sorts of people we were meant to be. 

Once I realized that each moment in real life is more dramatic than any movie, play, or novel ever written, I finally realized that reality was worth engaging. So often we wonder if anyone notices the lives we lead, but I believe God travels great distances to gather angels who long to see our stories unfold. I believe He is like a director or writer who wants to show off His cast and characters.

Every time we choose to have an uncomfortable conversation with a spouse, an extended family member, or a friend, we enter the dramtic themes of the heavens.  These sorts of uncomfortable conversations include the following: admiting wrongdoing and asking forgiveness, addressing a wrong done to us, sharing with someone about how they made us feel uncomfortable, speaking words of affirmation and love which can feel so weird, setting a boundary as needed, sometimes extending a boundary, asking for help, or frankly any sort of way in which we move towards others emotionally, relationally, or intimately.  These are all situations in which we have to choose to move towards things that feel scary or at least uncomfortable.

When we move towards each other in these ways, we break all sorts of unwritten rules which try to convince us that we shouldn't take such risks.  This is called shame.  I love the Chronicles of Narnia, but every time we risk esposure, vulnerability, and potential harm, we enter something deeper and more powerful than the land of Narnia.  We enter the kingdom of God.  The stories of our lives are being viewed by the heavens themselves.  When we choose to lead sorts of lives, we finally connect with these Switchfoot lyrics and think to ourselves, "maybe this is home".

At least for now.

My Name Into You

You are one who carries the weight of God
I told you last summer in the coffee shop
You wrote with tears of joy the one thing I wanted you to know
That you are the one who carries the weight of God

Like a battleship rolling into a harbor
The waves of your wake turn over small boats and move mountains
Could you ever wonder how I move the world
Except through you and others like you?

One day, no one will ever contend with you again
The weight of wars fought and women rescued lies in your heart
It is unlike anything the world has ever known
See My heart written in the story of your life

You desire to do good
It is from Me
You carry emotions that level the Earth
It is from Me
You wash others clean with the stroke of forgiveness
It is from Me

Did you know that your mouth is an oracle of God?
Did you know that I sing your praises?
I put my trust in you and you trust me a little more each day
I announce your name to a congregation before Me

Faraway angels travel to see your story unfold
Like a grand opera sung in front of high officials
Your name precedes you in everything you do
Heaven knows the sorts of battles you’ve fought

You desire to do good
It is from Me
You carry emotions that level the Earth
It is from Me
You wash others clean with the stroke of forgiveness
It is from Me

Dear God
How could I ever have known
The types of desires you have for me
To move me and to move others?

Like a battleship rolling into a harbor
I feel the effects of your power within me
Turning small boats over and leveling mountains
I am unable to comprehend the battles in heaven

I desire to do good
It is from You
I carry emotions that level the earth
It is from You
I wash others clean with the stroke of forgiveness
It is from You

May I never leave this place
To stand next to you is to feel the warmth of your face

Doing the Impossible

In the past couple years I've asked God to help me in three key ways. Two years ago, I asked Him to help me get in touch with my feelings. Last year, I asked Him to help me have a desire to do good to others. In the past several months, I have asked God to help me move towards forgiveness.

In all three cases, when I began to ask God to help me move in these areas, things have begun to change. These three things above involve courage because they involve moving towards things that terrify us. When I look back on the steps of courage I've taken in the past couple years, I am filled with an immense sense of gratitude and awe.

But here is what is very cool and thought provoking. When I look back on the man who took the courage to do these things, I am amazed. I literally think to myself, "Who is this man who did these things?" It is sort of like I look back on myself and I wonder if I'd be able to do these things again because it almost seems like some of what I've done was impossible.

And this is exactly my point - I believe I feel gratitude and awe when I look back on my former-self because what I have done was impossible. This points me to the divine.

The Power of Small Moments

People watch movies that depict characters who overcome adversity or movies that display grand adventures and celebrations of accomplishments and heroic deeds. The feelings in these movies are powerful. We watch these movies to connect with perseverance, adventures, celebrations, and heroicism. The sad part is that many of us miss out on the ways in which our lives are much more beautiful and powerful than movies.

Just as an example, it could be that you and your partner decided to create an unusual and different meal together instead of going out to eat and it resulted in conversation about a troubling aspect of your relationship that needed addressing. Conflict occurred, but it was addressed, not run away from, and led to deeper intimacy. Later in the evening following dinner, the two of you looked at each other and experienced a sense of gratitude and joy for having chosen to enter relationship through a well-cooked meal and conflict. The issue was not fully resolved, but you realized you could trust your partner just a little bit more because he or she didn’t run away but chose to enter. Holding hands, you simply said, “Thank you for entering that. It means so much to me.”

In another example, it could be entering into conflict with someone at work whom you’ve chosen to forgive and approach as an equal. You enter the conversation already with a sense of peace because you’ve chosen to forgive them. By the end of the conversation, you realize they don’t understand you and you even realize nothing will change. Yet, you challenged the politics and you feel a sense of victory for having entered the conflict along with your fear. You tell about your experience to a good friend or your spouse of this mysterious mixture of forgiveness and confrontation you entered and they are able to participate in a small little celebration with you by affirming you. You can see the respect and admiration in the way they smile at you.

Do you see that when we take time to celebrate the courage required to live life to the full that we enter the script of a movie that is distributed to the angels? In these small moments of celebration, we experience feelings of power and beauty that go beyond any movie that has ever been filmed. That is because the real life movie we live is connected to the divine.

Falling in Love

“Falling in love in the Christian way is to say,'I am excited about your future and I want to be part of getting you there. I'm signing up for the journey with you. Would you sign up for the journey to my true self with me? It's going to be hard but I want to get there.”
― Tim Keller

Jesus and The Cross. Why?

In human relationships, forgiveness always is connected to equality. When I forgive someone, I choose to be equal with them. This is because I have decided that I will treat them as a fellow human being, who like me, is both truly sinful and truly valuable. They become my equal. When I forgive them, I have allowed them to have truly harm me - thus I take on their sin - revealing what remains - their value. It neither negates the sin, nor downplays the value of the offender. It minimizes nothing and it elevates everything. It elevates sin. It also elevates the courage, compassion, and pain of the one who forgives and it elevates the tremendous value of the one who has been forgiven.

This is the same with the cross. God never self-protects. He lets us wound Him. He takes on our sin and He sobs and carries deep pain. Do you really believe that when you harm someone in word or deed that it is really just him or her whom you harm? To harm a child is to harm their father or mother. To harm a human being is to harm the One who gave them life.

At the cross, God meets us as an equal. He has become every human being we have ever harmed in word or deed, because truly our harm went straight through them and directly to Him at the cross. God somehow entails every aspect of being human while retaining every aspect of being God. His perfect love brings Him to the point that He is unable to protect Himself from harm, and this is why at the cross He is completely and utterly wounded by us.

In this moment - he meets us as an equal - because although He is more than capable of protecting Himself from us, He allows Himself to be fully harmed by us. Yet, He declares our tremendous value to Him by saying, “I will not hold this against you, but you must realize it costs me everything. You have utterly harmed me. But, you must also understand, I truly I love you and I will never hold it against you.”

To the non-Christian, the cross might seem a little weird or metaphorical, but I don’t believe it can be anything but a “historically-true myth” as J.R.R. Tolkien once explained to his friend C.S. Lewis. I don’t believe it can be anything but true because in His humanity at the cross, God says, “I am your equal. I refuse to self-protect. I will let you wound me and suffer all the consequences of your sin to the fullest extent and it will be utterly painful, but in the end, after all the wounding and pain, I will look up at you and say ‘It is finished’. All the pain will die away and I will feel complete peace and know nothing but your value.”

There are more aspects to the cross, but this is one of them.

The Power of Equality and Forgiveness

Tim Keller -- I have counseled many people about forgiveness, and I have found that if they do this - if they simply refuse to take vengeance on the wrongdoer in action and even in their inner fantasies - the anger slowly begins to subside. You are not giving it any fuel and so the resentment burns lower and lower. "Shouldn't they be held accountable?" I usually respond 'Yes, but only if you forgive them.' There are many good reasons that we should want to confront wrongdoers. Wrongdoers have inflicted damage...we should confront wrongdoers - to wake them up to their real character, to move them to repair their relationships, or at least to constrain them and protect other from being harmed by them in the future. Notice however, that all those reasons for confrontation are reasons of love. ~Tim Keller

Steven's Response -- I know the difference between confronting someone with forgiveness and confronting someone with a desire for pay-back. Confronting someone with forgiveness feels powerful and yet has a sense of equality in confronting the offender. I do not feel above or below them. Confronting someone out of a desire for pay-back or trying to force them to "figure it out" feels absolutely unpeaceful, unrestful, and there is no equality in my pursuit of the offender. In this way, the offender will never listen. However, with equality and forgiveness, I believe that more often the offender will listen, even if it takes a long time to relent and open up to admission for what they have done. Many times, they will never relent or open up. In addition, I have also been the offender many times. I know that when someone confronts me out of forgiveness and equality that the person helps me in an amazing way to relent and open up. I believe forgiveness and equality is a way to help both the confronter and the offender.

Toward Desire

When I'm in a good place mentally, I do things out of a desire to love - to do good simply for the sake of doing good. When I do things in this way, without an agenda, I feel the power of God inside me.

When I feel stuck in fear, shame, and self-protect mode and I can't seem to find a single ounce of desire to love, I ask God to reveal it in different little places in my day to day life. Then, when the desire comes, I don't worry about what I did to that person yesterday or what I might do to that person tomorrow. I just go with the urge to do good and risk the consequences.

We are all a mixture of good and evil. Somewhere deep inside, we desire to do some of the most amazing feats of goodness that have ever been heard of. On the other hand, deep in our hearts we can also find some of the most horrifying desires to even include murdering our very own spouses with our silence, our resentments, or our manipulations and control. It's all there.

Since we are a mixture of the greatest goods and the greatest evils, we must rely on the grace of God. At the cross, He forgives everything. At the resurrection, He turns us into new creatures capable of being like Him. Despite the mixture, we take a chance - we ask God to help us find the desire inside us to do good. Then He helps us find it and sometimes we do things that are told of in the heavens.

Imperfection. Get some.

The fact that I can't finish everything, be everywhere, or say every word correctly to each friend and enemy is not only okay - it is something that can be turned into an outward form of love.

What I mean is that one thing I've experienced lately in my relationships is that if I embrace or value my imperfection, then I truly hold more concern for the person in front of me than when I strive to act perfectly towards them. On the other hand, if I value perfection, then I hold more concern for hiding my shame or feelings of inadequacy from my own heart or from the person in front of me. Thus, I actually care less about humanity by striving to be perfect. My focus is less on the person and more on hiding my shame.

Of course, we all have a mixture of motivations, but I think the God-given part of us desires to value our imperfection as a way to love those around us. We just have to ask God to help us find that desire which He has already put into us. So, what I see is that valuing or even treasuring my imperfection is a form of outward love. I also believe that the more we value our own imperfection, the more it helps us to connect with the imperfection of others in a more healthy way.

Gratitude and Power

A life of authenticity, vulnerability, and moving towards what we desperately want (i.e. relationship) and are completely terrified of (i.e. relationship) all at the same time brings about some of the deepest feelings of gratitude I've ever known. One of the reasons I believe in Jesus' teaching is because he doesn't sugar coat anything. We are capable of the greatest evils and we are capable of the greatest acts of love and miracles. At the cross and in real life, He engages us in the light and in the dark. What I also believe is that a person who carries God inside him or her is that he or she is capable of doing things in this life that might be spoken of for eternity. It might be as simple and unassuming as treating someone with kindness and equality without pretense.

Fighting to See if We Can Win

In this life, we avoid a lot of battles because we spend a lot of time trying to calculate wether or not we will win them. C.S. Lewis paints this picture very well in his children’s book called Prince Caspian. The boy-king Peter has challenged an enemy adult-king, named Miraz, in hand-to-hand combat. Just before entering the sword-fighting area, Peter’s brother Edmund has a short conversation with him.

“I say,” said Edmund as they walked, “I suppose it is all right. I mean, I suppose you can beat him?”

“That’s what I’m fighting to find out,” said Peter.

If Peter had tried to calculate whether or not he could win before fighting the adult-king Miraz, then he never would have entered the fight in the first place. C.S. Lewis is trying to point out that most often the only way we will know if we can win a battle is if we fight them to find out.

In my life, I’ve spent a lot of time fighting over who is right and who is wrong. I’ve fought for what I thought was justice, when in fact it has often been a fight to display my correctness and their wrongness.

Today, I still fall into this pattern; however, I know it isn’t what Lewis is really talking about here. Yes, we fight against injustices, true injustices to be sure, but these aren’t the greatest sorts of battles. The greatest sorts of battles are honesty, authenticity, vulnerability, repentance, knowing and being known by using our voice or by truly listening, setting or expanding boundaries where needed, communicating with loved ones and others in a direct manner, forgiveness, loving the unloveable, and entering into the unknowns of relationships both current ones and opportunities for new ones.

Our greatest fear in fighting these sorts of battles is the uncertainty of the future. What will happen? Will we be harmed? Will we lose what we have? Will we be overtaken? Will we be mocked or disrespected? Will we fail others or will they fail us?

The only way we can know if we can win these battles is to walk into them. It is completely counter-intuitive. To be vulnerable, repentant, or forgiving (among the others listed above) are some of scariest battles we can ever embark upon.

Nevertheless, I think I find out more and more that as I enter these battles, the fact that I have entered them is where I have already won. Had Peter entered this sword-fight with the adult-king and lost, he still would have won in a certain sort of way by virtue of the fact that he entered the fight in the first place.