God Wants to Kill You

It is amazing how often Jesus spoke of our need to die to our selfish nature:  “Pick up your cross . . . “ “Lay down your life . . . “ “If you lose your life for my sake, you’ll find it . . . “  He even gave us a simple parable about it:  “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.  But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”  Jesus taught that the one way we could guarantee we would be alone is to refuse to die to our selfish nature, but if we willingly set selfishness aside, we would experience new life.

God wants to kill you….. Not the physical you, but the selfish you.  Jesus taught us that if we don’t die to our selfish nature, we will never be able to experience all of the blessings that God wants to bestow on us.  Talk about a paradox!  Everyone wants to live, but Jesus taught us that the only way we can truly live is if we die.  Well, if there was ever an institution designed to kill the selfish you, it’s marriage.  In fact, it is virtually impossible to succeed ant marriage if you don’t learn how to let the selfish part of you die.

It is not unusual for me to hear a frustrated spouse cry out, “I feel like I’m dying!” “Yep,” I reply, “you probably are.”  The answer, however, is not to fight death to the self, but to embrace it.  Remember, Jesus said if the grain of wheat fails to die, it remains alone, and that is precisely what we have today: millions of married people who refuse to die to self and become one with their spouse.  The result is a state of profound loneliness. (Let me clarify that I am speaking of dying to selfishness.  I am not advocating that one should die emotionally or physically due to neglect or abuse.)

Attention all Worship Leaders, Musicians and Singers!

Allow me to begin by saying that I am a musician.  I have played music since I was 13 years old.  I have played around the world in Christian bands and worship services for over 30 years.  I was part of one of the first Christian rock bands in the 70’s. I know what it means to play in church services, both traditional and contemporary. I have written and produced music for radio and television for almost 20 years.  I was even the producer of a recording used in the sound track of the hit movie The Bucket List.

So let it be clear: I am not against music or musicians when it comes to the Christian experience.  Quite the contrary; music can be a powerful part of the worship experience.  But, I believe we have some big problems when it comes to music in many churches today.

PROBLEM #1: We have defined singing as worship.
Look up the word worship and you will find definitions like this:
to show devotion or reverence; adore or venerate; to have intense love or admiration for; to offer prayers; etc…

Interesting that there is no mention of music.  Oh, don’t get me wrong.  One can surely use music to adore or show reverence, but one does not need music to do that.  In other words: Singing is not, in and of itself, worship.

Commodity Marriages

In the last post, I spoke about living in a “throwaway” world and suggested that if we are not careful, we can end up thinking that way about our marriages too.  We live in a culture that is very consumer based and the consumerist mind-set runs deep.  Many people build their identities around the stuff they have…or it may be more apt to say, by what has them. If I run to the store to buy some simple dish soap, I can buy the inexpensive brand that sports the name “Dish Soap” on the front of the bottle.  But just looking at the label Dish Soap makes me feel flat, empty, nondescript.  So for some reason, I can’t settle for that.  As a consumer, what I buy defines who I am, and I have no idea who I am if I buy something labeled “Dish Soap.”  I need something more.

Then I see it!  Right next to the unsophisticated Dish Soap is a product called “Dawn.”  My heart lights up—now we’re talking.  Who wants to wash their dishes with Dish Soap when you can wash them with morning-fresh, bright sunshine?  Presumably with Dawn, a person can do the dishes and dispel the darkness in life at the same time.

 

But just before I make my all-important decision, I look to the other side of the imagine-less, unfulfilling, chore-oriented Dish Soap.  Alas, there is yet another amazing product possibility: “Joy.”  Wow.  Who would have thought that a person could experience joy while doing the dishes?  And couldn’t all of us use just a little more joy? The Joy has it, hands-down. So what if it costs a little more, I muse.  After all, aren’t I worth it?

Cloth Diaper Marriages

When my kids were babies, we had cloth diapers.  Disposable diapers were available at the time; we just couldn’t afford them.  No, we did not indulge in those fancy throwaway diapers; we had the good ol’mess’em and clean’em later diapers.  You put them in a diaper pail, a delightful little plastic container where a lovely, pungent brew of baby poopies would slowly stew until you got around to washing them so they could be reused.  Now, don’t misunderstand me, I do not miss cloth diapers. God bless the person who invented the disposable diaper! (I know, I know, they are bad for the environment—landfills and all that—but cloth diapers were bad for the environment where I lived, so I welcomed the invention of throwaway diapers.)  But I do have a problem with throwaway marriages—relationships that are tossed aside because they get some “poo” in them.

We need to develop some “cloth diaper” marriages—marriages that you stick with no matter how crappy they get.  Relationships that you hold on to—yes, you need to learn how to wash and dry them, and maybe use some fabric softener to make them nicer to touch and smell—but you don’t toss them away.  Sadly, what we have instead is a culture of quick, no-fault divorce that fosters throwaway marriages—disposable love.  It’s amazing, but some folks hold on to their underwear longer than their sacred vows of matrimony, and they didn’t even pledge to the underwear, “Till death do us part.”

We live in a throwaway world.  We throw away everything.  When I was growing up, repair shops were not hard to find.  Shoe repair, television repair, appliance repair, and watch repair ships were commonplace.  Today that isn’t true.  When was the last time you had a pair of shoes fixed?  Who repairs torn socks anymore?  Unless you have an expensive watch, you just throw away the one you have when it quits working.  We throw away everything today—even the things that should never be thrown away, things that are designed to last for a lifetime, like marriages.

Men Don’t Like to Work on Relationships

When a man falls in love with a woman, his thoughts go something like this: I love her, she’s great—in fact, she is perfect.  I love her just the way she is and I hope she never changes.  It was this thinking that inspired Billy Joel to write the song “I Love You Just the Way You Are.”  On the other hand, when a woman falls in love with a man, her thoughts are generally something like this: I love him, he’s great, but he really needs some work.  This is a disaster in the making.  Divergent expectations always lead to conflict.

When a woman thinks a man needs work, she is not trying to be negative or demeaning.  In fact, she rather enjoys the thought.  Do you know why?  Because women like to work on relationships, and because marriage represents her greatest relationship, she enjoys working on it.  But the thought of working on any relationship makes most men feel ill.  You see, to a man, work is something you do to earn money.  Relationships don’t fit into a man’s definition of work.  We think relationships are the one class of things we should never have to work on.

So when a woman wants to work on the marriage relationship, the husband usually gets nervous and uncomfortable.  The reason is simple: She says she wants to work on “the relationship,” but men view that as code for she wants me to change.  And men don’t want to change.  To a man, “change” is a four-letter word. This is primarily because we men have fragile egos.  We don’t you handle there is something wrong with very well.

Disappointment

At the beginning of every relationship, there is a high level of hope and desire that causes it to run on autopilot.  But over time hope and desire begin to erode when disappointment enters.

There are dozens of ways we can disappoint one another in a relationship as close and intimate as marriage.  From I thought it would be different to actual differences in upbringing, values, habits about money, personality, motivation, work ethic, and sex drives, we have the makings of marriage wars.  Sometimes people come across offensively because they are reacting to pain from the hurts that they have experienced in the past, and they are just trying to protect themselves from being injured again.  Wounded animals do not act predictably when you approach them; neither do emotionally wounded humans.

When Jim and Laurie walked into my office, I was shocked to discover they were about to call it quits.  From the outside, they looked like a great couple. Fun. Social. They were active in church.  But secretly they were at war with each other.  A lot of it had to do with the way each had grown up.

Jim grew up in a home where both his parents were quiet and seldom, if ever, raised their voices.  In Jim’s home, raising your voice meant you were extremely angry.  Laurie, on the other hand, grew up in a larger family, where you had to yell or you lost your opportunity to get the food at the other end of the dinner table.  The only time her family got quiet was when they were really, really mad.

Idol of Happiness – Part 2

Last time we began looking at the Idol of Happiness in Part 1.  I discussed how often people won’t do the right things in life simply because those things don’t make them happy. It’s common in our culture for believers to mistakenly believe the notion that “God doesn’t want me to be unhappy.” This is especially true in marriage. For many Christians, marriage has some kind of get-out-of-jail-free card attached to it.  They seem to think the radical, difficult parts of Christianity (to love, to serve, to forgive, or to sacrifice, pertain only to those outside of one’s marriage.  Loving, suffering, turning the other cheek, forgiving are all wonderful Christian concepts, but one shouldn’t have to do that in our own marriage.  That would be way too much work.

“But stay in an unhappy marriage!?” you protest. I’ve had people try to reason and argue with me about why they were bailing on their wives or husbands and justify it one way or the other based on the presupposition that God would not want them to suffer. “Come on,” they’ve said to me incredulously.  “Are you actually saying God would ask someone to stick in a marriage that makes them unhappy?’

I grant you that the idea of staying in an unhappy marriage is a completely foreign concept to most folks, and it’s one that is not readily received. (You may as well be speaking Swahili to non-Swahilis.)  But have you ever considered that the reason the Scriptures call us to live by faith is to empower us to do what’s right even when it’s hard to do—whether or not we suffer while doing it?  What if faith was designed by God to give us the courage to choose what’s right though it makes us unhappy, though it means losing everything we have, though it means laying down our very lives? Whoa, this sounds so—Jesus-like.

Idol of Happiness – Part 1

Many Christians have turned happiness into an idol.  I’m not suggesting God is against us being happy.  The Scriptures say, “Happy are the people whose God is the Lord.”  So when does happiness become an idol?  It happens when we exalt our concern to be happy above the very concerns of God himself. We live in a culture that says, “Above all else be happy; do what you want to do; satisfy yourself; look out for number one; do your own thing.”  The Bible teaches that the husband should love his wife.  We reason, No problem—as long as it doesn’t interfere with my golf game, my fishing time, or my hunting trip. Because I need that.  After all, God wants me to be happy, right?

The bible teaches that wives should meet the sexual needs of their husbands.  But what if the wife is not happy with her husband?  Shouldn’t she reason, God wouldn’t ask me to do that, would He?  Certainly, God wants me happy.  That’s most important, right?

The point is, we willingly do “good” up to a point.  We honor God, but only up to a point.  We’ll obey Jesus, but only to a certain point.  And what is that point?  Our personal happiness.  There is no other place, no other area that so dramatically demonstrates this problem among Christians than in the way they approach their wedding vows.  I know this will sound harsh to many, but the truth is, our wedding vows aren’t really seen as vows anymore.  A vow is a solemn promise, something that binds a person for life.  Sadly, our marriage vows have been domesticated into pretty words spoken in a lovely ceremony, apparently more for substance.  For many people, they mean absolutely nothing.  Pretty words are easily discarded when things get ugly and life is no longer pretty.

The Divorce Myth Part 1

by Mark Gungor

There is a great joy to the early struggles of marriage.  When people who “make it” talk about the early days of their marriage, they admit it was bittersweet but they say the sweet ended up outweighing the bitter.  Researchers agree.  In a recent study conducted by a team of leading family scholars headed by University of Chicago sociologist Linda Waite, researchers found that “two-thirds of unhappily married spouses who stayed married reported that their marriages were happy five years later.  In addition, the most unhappy in their marriages reported the most dramatic turnarounds: Among those who rated their marriages as very unhappy, almost eight out of ten who avoided divorce were happily married five years later.

The study went on to say that there is a kind of “divorce assumption” in America.  People assume that they will either stay in a bad marriage and continue to be miserable or get a divorce and become happier.  But the social science data challenge that assumption.  Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is no evidence that unhappily married people who divorced were any happier that unhappily married people who stayed married!  In no way does divorce reduce symptoms of depression, raise self-esteem, increase one’s sense of mastery, or generally improve any of the twelve separate measures of psychological well-being.  Even the unhappy spouses who divorced and remarried generally were no happier than the unhappy ones who stayed married.  In fact, the evidence seems to suggest that unhappy people are unhappy, period—married or not.

Selling Divorce

For many severely conflicted couples, divorce seems to promise peace from the infighting, a fresh start, the hope of new love, and a kind of “reset button” for life. Many buy into the idea that ending a marriage is a viable way to solve relationship problems.

Besides, you reason, it will ultimately be better for all, and the kids will make it—kids are resilient.  And you won’t have to look for to find voices to side with you.  People who love you will give you a biased shoulder to cry on; they want you to feel loved and supported. But don’t be quick to listen to your personal fan club.  They are not objective; they are out to protect and rescue you. People like this will always urge you to divorce if they believe you are suffering emotionally in your marriage.

But divorce has been oversold. What most fail to acknowledge is the longstanding pain created by a divorce.  Contrary to popular belief, statistics show that after divorce children are not okay.  The ‘trickle-down effect” causes them emotional trauma that stays with them throughout life. Also, divorced people are less healthy and less happy, and have a higher risk of substance abuse.  Depression is three times greater in women who divorce than in those who do not.  And divorce severely lowers one’s standard of living.  In fact, if statistics are to be believed, the one sure way you can guarantee that you, your children, and your grandchildren will live at or below the poverty level for their entire lives is simply to get a divorce.

Marriage is a Marathon

Sprints and marathons are two distinctly different races.  In a sprint, one of the most critical elements is the start.  Runners practice for hours on end getting into those little blocks and bursting out the very nanosecond the gun goes off.  Why?  Because if you falter in the start, you don’t stand a chance of winning the race.

On the other hand, the starts of marathons are not that important at all.  Most runners are just standing around waiting for the gun to go off.  Truth is, you could fall down, have three guys run over you, get up, and still win the race.  It’s not the start that is so important; it is the endurance.

Today, many believe marriage is like a sprint, that the start is what is critical.  I never cease to be amazed at how many struggling couples point to the start as the reason for their struggles.  “We were too young.”  “We didn’t know each other for very long.”  “We didn’t have enough money.”  They are convinced that the poor start is the reason for their troubles, but they are wrong.  Marriage is not a sprint; it is a marathon.  It is not the start that leads to a failed marriage, but the unwillingness to endure the race.

You don’t do marathons quickly.  You have to spread out your energy over time.  Endurance is what empowers a couple over the long haul.  It will enable you to push through old familiar conflict zones for the ten-thousandth time without quitting; you just keep going and going. . . Scripture urges, “Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in.  Study how He did it.  Because He never lost sight of where He was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—He could put up with anything along the way:  Cross, shame, whatever.”   That’s endurance.  It makes marriages last.

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

Whether you marriage is good, bad, or just plain ugly, there is always hope to make it great.  But great does not come easily.

Great marriages take courage.  When we think of courage, we generally think of the policemen and firemen who ran into the Twin Towers, or of a person diving into an icy pond to save a friend, or of a soldier on the front lines of battle.  Most of us don’t think of courage when it comes to facing our everyday stuff, such as our marriage or raising kids.  But it takes great courage to build relational intimacy, which is the oxygen of a marriage.  It takes an enormous amount of courage to say, “This marriage is in trouble and we need to do something about it.”  It’s much easier to put your troubles on the back burner, engage in the rough-and-tumble of life, and hope things will sort of work themselves out.  Running from problems is always easier than solving them.  But courage is willing to put on the gloves and say, “Let’s fight for this marriage.”

Great marriages take discipline.  When you look at successful people you will find one thing in every case: It takes discipline to become successful at anything.  Failure, for the most part, is due to people letting things slide.  There is a lack of discipline.

In his book the Road Less Traveled, Scott Peck writes, “Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with.”  Discipline is simply a commitment to get the pain out of the way first.

Love, Marriage, and Stinkin...: Sex Makes You Stupid

For more information on the show and more of Mark Gungor, check out our website, http://www.stinkingthinking.tv

Today's program is an important one for parents of teens and anyone who is single or in a dating relationship. Mark and Debbie take on the issues of dating including staying sexually pure until the wedding night, why it is important to do a good job in the dating process, and the important question every girl should ask any guy she is dating.

Find out what Mark means when he says, "Sex makes you stupid!" and why living together isn't such a great idea.

Is Marriage a 50/50 Proposition?

Mark discusses the idea of marriage being a 50/50 proposition.
This is bonus content related to Mark Gungor's Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage seminar, to purchase the complete seminar please visit http://shopping.laughyourway.com/

Mark Gungor - # 1 Key to Incredible Sex

*within the context of marriage

Mark Gungor speaks on : Exclusivity (one man + one woman) & the Effects of Masturbation

Why Can't My Spouse Say What They Mean?

Mark discusses the common question people ask about their spouses.

This is bonus content from Mark Gungor's Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage seminar, to purchase the complete seminar please visit http://shopping.laughyourway.com/

The Reset Button

Mark discusses the idea of the reset button, apologizing to your spouse and others and asking for forgiveness.

This is bonus content from Mark Gungor's Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage seminar, to purchase the complete seminar please visit http://shopping.laughyourway.com/

I Tried More than Once!

Mark addresses the common complaint he hears that someone has already tried asking their spouse more than once and it doesn't work.

This is bonus content from Mark Gungor's Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage seminar, to purchase the complete seminar please visit http://shopping.laughyourway.com/

How Can I Change My Husband?

Mark addresses the common question from wives of "How can I get my husband to be like everybody else's husbands who are so nice, kind, and considerate?"

Expectations for Marriage

Mark Gungor answers your questions!

This video covers if it's okay to have expectations for marriage. Nobody goes to the altar hoping they'll have an average life, or that they'll fail. Expectations are normal.

Watch the video for more of Mark's insights on this topic. This is bonus content from Mark Gungor's Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage seminar, to purchase the complete seminar please visit http://shopping.laughyourway.com/