Marriage – Page 11 – Growing 4 Life

Don’t Believe Everything You Hear

2 Comments / February 3, 2011 August 30, 2014

A long time ago, a young man and a young woman fell in love and decided to get married. Several months before their wedding day, they decided to attend some marriage counseling sessions, knowing that this would help them to identify any future problem areas on which they may have disagreements– such as how many kids, financial issues, and how to handle the in-laws.

The pastor with whom they were meeting gave the engaged couple an “official” personality test, designed to determine any possible problem areas in their new life together. The young woman eagerly filled it out, wondering what wonderful things she would find out about her and her future husband’s relationship when the results came back. She was in for a big surprise!

When the next week’s marriage counseling session came around, the young couple sat before the pastor and were told that the test showed that the two of them should not even get married. Should not get married! The test showed that they were quite incompatible. This was certainly not the report that either of them was expecting to hear.

Obviously, my husband and I did not listen to what a test had to say about us and we continued on our path to wedded bliss. 23 years later, here we are–still best friends, more in love now than we were then. Hopefully, we are a bright and shining testimony that, with God at the helm, any relationship can work.

But as I remembered this incident many years ago, I started thinking about we should never take anything at face value. We have to be very careful to not believe everything we hear. Just because it is on the 6pm news or your pastor said it does not mean it is true. There is only one place we can find the Truth and that is in God’s Word. Any thought, philosophy, or science that disagrees with scripture is a lie.

Here are a few popular lies that we hear today:

-The world took billions of years to create/form.

The Bible says God created the world in 7 days (Genesis 1). If God didn’t create the world in seven literal days then death entered the world before sin. That changes everything.

-Listen to your heart.

The Bible says the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). Listening (and obeying) our hearts is the cause of a lot of heartache in this world.

–Live your best life now!

Really? That is not what I read in the Bible (John 16:33, I Peter 1:6-7). II Timothy says it best: “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” It can’t be any more clear than that. I wonder what a Christian facing great persecution would have to say about living his best life now?

–Make your dreams come true at all costs.

Make your dreams come true. Your dreams. There is the problem. When we turn to God, we give up our dreams. When we choose to follow Jesus, we also choose to deny ourselves (Mark 8:34). This is not a popular philosophy today, is it? DENYING ourselves and laying our dreams at the foot of the cross, living to glorify our heavenly Father instead of ourselves. Even as I write that sentence, I almost cringe knowing that even most fellow Christians do not ascribe to this “sold out” Christianity.

When we received the discouraging results of the personality test, I admit I did really have to struggle through that, worrying about that “nugget” of man’s wisdom for a day or two. But I knew that my fiance loved me. And I knew that I loved him. And, most importantly, I knew that we both loved God and were headed the same direction in our goals for our faith, family, and finances. What more could you ask than that?

And so, I am glad I chose not to believe that particular lie. It is almost daunting to think of the life I would have missed, had I backed away in fear! Not everything we hear is true or has merit.

How important it is that we put everything through the grid of the Bible. Satan is like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour and, while the test we took as a young engaged couple didn’t really fly in the face of scripture, there are many things we are told today that do. Let’s pay attention so that we are not deceived.

Expectations

Leave a Comment / August 1, 2010 October 29, 2014

Expectations. Expectations that someone has for who they think you should be. But it doesn’t mesh with who you really are. I am not talking about sin issues here but opinion issues. Choices people make differently because God made them differently. And yet, because you might not make a choice the way someone else makes it, you are judged.

I have struggled through this recently with someone in my life who wants me to be someone I just am NOT. And I have struggled greatly with how to handle this (just for clarity’s sake, I am not talking about my husband here although we both do sometimes expect things of each other that we shouldn’t).

My first reaction was the desire to just start yelling at them. I mean HOW DARE THEY criticize ME? Don’t I have the right to be the person God made me? Fortunately, I did not choose to follow through with the yelling! But bitterness and frustration did start to grow in my very soul. My next reaction was to write a letter and yes, I did write it–with full intention of giving it. Thankfully, I did not follow through with that, either.

But then I went running. It helps me release my frustration and it helps me to think. And, as I was enjoying the beautiful day, my thoughts turned to this situation. I started thinking about how I should respond to this situation in a godly way. How would God want me to react?

First, I have to turn away from bitterness. When the thoughts come that cause anger and bitterness and the thoughts start spiraling downward (you know what I mean) I have got to stop them. I need to conscientiously choose to think godly thoughts. Sure, it’s hard. It’s hard like getting a root canal is hard. But if you don’t do it, you pay serious consequences later. I don’t want to have rotten teeth OR grow into a bitter old woman. And that is what happens when you get angry and dwell on things that seem unfair (or when you don’t fix your teeth!)

Second, I have to take an honest look at myself and really determine if the comments have truth to them. Would I be a better person if I did “A, B, or C”? If I would be, then I need to swallow my pride and take some steps to improve some things (and, yes, in this case, there are some things I need to work on). And then, I need to just let the other things roll off my back. Just roll away, never to be thought about again. Okay, that might be pushing it. Memories have a tricky way of remembering unkind things people have said about you. But I at least need to make the effort not to dwell on them.

Jesus makes it clear that we are to love our enemies (Matthew 5:43-44). Now if I am supposed to love my enemies and bless those who curse me then how can I grow bitter against this person who is truly not my enemy but just someone who thinks they should decide who I am supposed to be?

Sometimes the Bible is like a surgeon’s knife in my soul cutting away diseased tissue. I guess there is a verse about that, isn’t there? (Hebrews 4:12) Oh, how far I have to go yet in this spiritual walk. Always learning and mostly I am learning that there is a lot I haven’t learned!