All the Single Ladies

I have been a pastor now for close to 11 years. In that time, I've had my theology of sin regularly affirmed by both my own behavior and that of my parishioners. We truly are a depraved race of rebels, me included. But for whatever reason, there are some sins that I find more troubling than others. And one of the ones that bothers me a lot is the number of young Christian women I see who are willing to make serious compromises in their romantic lives for the sake of a relationship with a dude. I've dealt with this so often that I practically have a speech prepared. The speech itself doesn't usually work, since most people who are "in love" don't have ears to hear a rebuke, even if it is one delievered in love and with their long-term future in mind. But in the possibly vain hope that I will save someone a lifetime of heartache, here's the guts of "The Speech."

1. Don't date and don't marry a non-Christian. Despite clear Scriptural teaching, lots of Christian girls wind up married to non-Christian men. This is because they so deeply long for a man to pursue and love them that his faith, or lack thereof, is deemed a non-issue. They may rationalize dating him on the hope he will come to Christ later. Some do. But most don't. And a man who says he is a Christian but who doesn't go to church is simply a liar. So is a man who can't articulate his faith in Christ-what he believes about Jesus. If I had a dollar for every woman I know who married a man who wasn't a believer and who wasn't interested in church when they were dating who now comes to church alone, I might not be rich, but I could definitely take Karen to a very nice dinner. Ladies, don't underestimate the value of common faith. It's a Scriptural command and that should be sufficient to obey. But please consider this too: if you want a deep connection at the heart level, you won't have it with a man who doesn't share the deepest commitments of your heart. Instead you will be frustrated, sad, and continually praying for God to break through to the man you love while you try to raise your children to know the God their father rejects. It's painful and God wants to spare you from it because He loves you.
2. Don't date and don't marry a man who isn't a real man. I don't mean you need a guy who can rip a phone book in half with his bare hands or pull nails out of the wall with his fingers. I mean you want a man who is responsible, who can not only get, but also keep, a job and who works hard at the one he has. I mean you want a man who opens doors, pays his bills on time, doesn't live beyond his means, doesn't live with his mother beyond a year out of college, doesn't blame others for his failures, and who is a leader instead of a passive follower who lets you decide everthing. You want a man who treats you as a prize to be won and who will lay down his life for you, since daily doing that is what Scripture requires of him (Eph. 5:23). You want a man who has put away both childish things and immoral things. If some of these things aren't true, he isn't worth your time. You should walk away before you wind up married to a man who frustrates you for life.
3. Keep your sexuality pure. Perhaps no commitment is harder to keep than that of reserving sex for marriage, especially when you are deeply in love. But keeping sex (in all its forms!) out of the equation actually helps your relationship immeasurably. First and foremost, doing so honors God, who set it up and blesses marriage and marriage alone as the appropriate context for that fire to burn. Second, purity keeps you from thinking you have more than you've got, mistaking committed love for emotions, hormones, and temporary passion. Third, it also guards your heart, so that do you do not wind up feeling used when the relationship ends (as most will). Fourth, godly men aren't attracted to ungodly women. A man who is really following Christ with all his heart won't find appeal in a woman who is only following Him with half of hers. Finally, when saved for marriage, there is a security, a depth of passion, and a freedom that comes from sharing sex with just your spouse that the promiscuous will never know.
4. Be willing to wait. Lonely married is far lonelier than lonely single. Lonely single people have hope. Lonely married people are often hopeless, having long since resigned themselves to the idea that this is as good as it will ever be. Don't be one of them. Wait for the Christian man who truly is a Christian man.

The Mission Oak Inn

A post or two back, I mentioned that Karen and I had a belated anniversary celebration at the Mission Oak Inn. It's probably the loveliest B&B, with the best food and most beautiful setting, that we have ever stayed in. Plus, Denny and Jan, the proprietors, are some truly delightful Christian people. We are already making plans to go back there every year as a way to celebrate our marriage together. If you live in the area, it's well worth the money.

It's not the kissing, it's the fights....

...and what you do afterward, that makes a marriage. Obviously, love and sex are big parts of the equation, for no one would get or stay married without love, and sex is the great gift which not only bonds, but also heals wounds, protects, delights, and comforts in addition to producing children. But I think that at the center of God's purpose for a loving marriage is that it would serve as a tool to make us holy. And making us holy means love mixed in with fights. 

If you really think about it, the reason that we fight with our spouses is because of sin, either theirs or ours, and often some of both. Our wounds, inflicted by their sin, lead us into conflict, and seeing the hurt we inflicted on the one we love, when we are repentant, leads us to change so as not to hurt them in the same way again. Meanwhile, forgiveness and grace extended after the fight do their work to bring healing from pain and the elimination of the wall that would otherwise be built between husband and wife, so that further hurt is a possibility, but so is deeper love. Over time, repentance, healing, forgiveness, and love make us look more like Jesus than we would have if we had never loved, and fought with, our beloved. 

Thus I can truly say, with Martin Luther, "Marriage did for me what no monastery could."

The End of a Ministry

I got the official word today. The rumors are true. Another husband and wife team whose ministry I respected and from which I benefited greatly are separated and probably headed to divorce court. That theirs was a marriage and family ministry only makes it worse. And I am sad. I'm not shocked. It no longer surprises me when seemingly great marriages flame out or crash on the rocks of sin and rebellion. But I am still grieved. I am grieved because I hope that Spirit empowered love and romance will conquer sin, betrayal, lust, and foolishness. Yet more times than I'd like to count, seemingly "good examples" fall and fail. I can count the examples of people I personally know in the church and only have a couple fingers left. Among them are people who taught me, mentored me, and served as pastor to me.

Sadness therefore grips me again today, reminding me of old scars even as fresh ones are inflicted. Yet from these things, I also gain a warning and renewed commitment. The warning echoes back through time, from an older man who taught me about David (and later fell into David's sin) that "Satan is willing to wait 50 years if he has to, in order to take a man down." Our Enemy is indeed patient, and unrepentant, private, "little" sins and darkened corners of the heart have a way of revealing themselves publicly if the wait is long enough. I remember too what the Scriptures say: "Let him who thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall." And I tremble with fear, knowing that many better men than I have fallen victim to selfishness, pride, and sin. So I, like Billy Graham said, "run scared" and try never to put myself in a situation where temptation can run wildly into life destroying sin. And I also renew my commitment, both to my bride and my Lord and King. There is no greener grass, and I will rejoice in the wife of my youth until the day we die, till we are no longer young, till we can't see, hear, or eat with our own teeth. By God's power and through His great grace, we will make it, loving each other before the Lord until the last breath.

A woman like you...

This year marks 16 years of marriage to my favorite feisty redhead, and as this song says, "honestly I don't know what I'd do, if I'd never met a woman like you." I'd probably have a lot more guns and take a lot more out-of-state hunting trips, but my life would be immeasurably poorer in all the ways that matter. I'd have missed the joys of loving and being loved by the one person one earth who always "gets" me, to say nothing of the delights of being Dad to the four best kids that ever walked. I am blessed far beyond what I deserve:

Valentine's Celebration

So Karen and I have taken to celebrating Valentine's Day on virtually any day except the actual holiday. Who wants to fight that crowd? Yesterday was the harmonic convergence-our kids were at school, Karen didn't have any daycare kids, and it was my day off. So we went to Hobby Lobby and Michael's for knitting supplies for Karen and poked around the new Bass Pro in East Peoria for me. We ate at the bowling alley/restaurant at Bass Pro, because nothing says romance like a deep sea themed restaurant. The food was pretty good-I had a bacon cheeseburger and onion rings, Karen a barbequed chicken flatbread pizza, and we split an order of deep-fried crawfish. After 15 1/2 years of marriage, she's still the one who makes my heart beat fast, still the one person I'd rather spend a free day with, and still the biggest blessing God has given me as His adopted son.

Sun, Sand, and Celebration

As many you already know, Karen and I went to Florida to celebrate our 15-year anniversary. We left on June 2nd and returned home yesterday. It was a nice, long break, made even nicer by the fact that we didn't have to break the bank to go and by the fact that we were able to go just the two of us. We haven't had that sort of extended getaway in a long time, probably since before we had children. So it was nice to have time to really relax in an environment we love. We ate out, talked uninterrupted, watched American Choppers and Pawn Stars, shopped at Bass Pro and Bath and Body Works, walked for miles and miles in the surf, slept until we woke up (does 7:30 still count as "sleeping in"?), drank coffee, put shrimp in our salads, cooked frozen skillet meals, ate fresh mangoes and papayas, swam in the pool, did our devotions in a beach chair, read, napped, took a glass-bottomed boat ride over a reef, and in general reminded ourselves of all the reasons we got married in the first place. We simply love being together and can't imagine life apart. Life is hectic and harried sometimes, so it's good to go the beach to celebrate the other part.

We also spent all day going exploring in the Everglades and Big Cypress National Parks. And if anyone tells you that alligators are "endangered," don't you believe it. There were alligators in every pool and canal, lying in every culvert and under every bush. We saw over a hundred just in the little places that we walked through. Babies, adults, and great big monsters of the water. Gators were everywhere! I was amazed that the alligators would let me get as close as I did to them, and even more amazed that there aren't more rules, park rangers, and fences preventing such foolishness. We also saw hundreds of fish of every shape and size, turtles (including one immense snapping turtle), plus four varieties of herons, egrets, massive eagle nests, anhingas, black vultures, purple gallinules, giant grasshoppers, gumbo limbo and strangler fig trees, orchids, bromeliads, mango and papaya orchards (we stopped for a fresh papaya milkshake), and more gators. Overall, the area was much different than I expected. I was thinking giant live oaks and cypress trees, not mangrove swamps and oceans of sawgrass. But it was amazing, nonetheless. Oh, and in case you needed any reminders not to ever hang your feet off a dock in Florida, I hope you enjoy this photo.

We missed our kids like crazy by the week's end, so it was great to know that they weren't missing us overly much. They were too busy living it up at Grandma and Grandpa's house. They spent their days making banana splits, watching movies on a giant "screen" outside under the stars (with full surround sound, no less!), holding the various members of a new litter of puppies, swimming in the pond, having enough Nutella to affect the stock price, playing in the playhouse, riding the Mule (a 4x4 golf cart), and in general running amok. Still, when we got back, they remembered that they missed us, and were all happy to be headed home. At least, all except Ashley, who is happily spending "just a few more days" by herself at Chez Horn. (We agreed to let her do this because we are aware that in a family like ours, time for "just me" to do something is a rare occurrence. Nathan got his turn last summer. This is Ashley's year. Hopefully, we'll be able to do the same for Sara and John in years to come.)

So to sum up: We had a blast. We felt incredibly blessed. We are glad to have gone and glad to be home.

Loving My Valentine

Karen and I have gotten pretty adaptable in recent years about Valentine's Day. We like to celebrate our love for one another, but we hate trying to squeeze into an overcrowded restaurant on the actual day. So we usually celebrate either early or late, with a card and expressions of "Happy Valentine's Day!" on the 14th. This year, we stretched it out a bit, which was really fun. Before Valentine's Day, my bride kidnapped me for a late afternoon showing of True Grit (including popcorn!) and then dinner at Famous Dave's BBQ (my favorite Peoria restaurant). On the actual day, we had a quiet dinner at home (how that happened when all the kids were there can only be attributed to God's grace!). Then, nearly a week later, on the 19th, we celebrated together at the Aquila and Priscilla table at our church's first (hopefully annual) Sweetheart Dinner. I must say also that I was with the most beautiful woman there. Karen looked stunning. Dinner was delicious, the conversation around our table was hilarious, our speakers (Mark and Jill Savage) delivered practical, biblical reminders for keeping our marriages both faithful and fun, and we remembered again how much we enjoy each other.

A couple years ago, one of the old widows in our church, whom I deeply love and appreciate, told me that marriage only gets sweeter with time. I'd heard that before, but coming from her, it stuck with me, and now I'm sure that's true. We're a long way and a lot of years from those giddy kids who danced down the aisle together after the pastor's pronouncement. We're saggier, and grayer, and much, much more tired. But there is a richness, a sweetness, and a deeply contented joy that grows with time. I am so blessed.

Another Romantic Monday...

I know, those aren't the words to the old Bangles tune, and I'm not sure who Bruno Mars is since my knowledge of contemporary music, like my fashion sense, stopped right around the mid-90s. But if there is a gift that this husband wishes he had, the ability to write poetry and sing well for his lady love ranks right up there. Enjoy.

Anniversaries

I celebrated two anniversaries this month. On June 1st my lovely bride Karen and I celebrated 14 years of our committed love affair. I vowed to love her "for better of for worse" and being married to her has been consistently part of the "for better" half of that equation. (You'll have to ask her what being married to me is like!). Surely the Proverb is true that reads "a good wife is from the Lord." She is my treasure and the greatest gift God has given me after my relationship with Him. We celebrated our years together by taking the Herd on a two week trip out west-camping, showing the kids the snow-capped Rockies, the Grand Canyon, hiking in Zion National Park, seeing family, and generally having a ball together in spite of driving some 4600 miles. You can read about the whole trip and even see pictures at the DW's blog.

The other anniversary is much more melancholy. This month it is 20 years since I developed Crohn's Disease. I "celebrated" (if that is the right word) by having a colonoscopy yesterday. I should say that I'm fortunate as far as Crohn's patients go, in that I haven't had any surgeries on my colon yet, and that for most of the past 20 years, I've been able to stay in remission. But the upshot of yesterday's exam was the news that my Crohn's isn't quite in remission now, even if it isn't exactly raging. At my next appointment, the doc wants to talk treatment options, the remainder of which are semi-risky. I'm not sure how to go on this one. Do I stay on the meds I'm taking and risk surgery(ies)? Or do I take the newer meds and risk lymphoma? The Lady or the Tiger?

Anyway, all that has set me to thinking about life in a fallen world. I have more blessing and am more deeply loved than any man has a right to expect. God has sprinkled joy abundantly, yet He does not eliminate pain and suffering, even for His children, does He? C. S. Lewis, as so many times, says it better than I could:

The Christian doctrine of suffering explains, I believe, a very curious fact about the world we live in. The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment, He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bath or a football match, have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home. (The Problem of Pain)

"You ravish my heart with one glance of your eyes..."

Valentine's Day is fast approaching and it seems that people I know are of two minds about it. On the one hand are those whose general attitude is "A pox on Valentine's Day and all romantics!" while the rest are earnestly searching for a creative way to celebrate love and romance with their beloved. I place myself in the second group. After 14 blessed years of marriage, I am always hoping to find some way to show Karen just how much she means to me.

And it occurs to me that for Christians at least, marital romance is not supposed to be an ideal merely, but is actually depicted as normal, holy, and even commanded. So here's a few pastoral ideas for building up the romance quotient at your long past the newlywed stage house:

1. Study the Song of Solomon together, perhaps along with a good book which clarifies the poetic language, such as Intimacy Ignited.
2. Hold your marriage up to the light of God's Word and make changes as necessary. For help in this regard as a man, read Kevin DeYoung here. For help as woman, see Jean the Australian here and here.
   
3. Pick up a copy of Simply Romantic Nights and make a commitment to actually do the 12 months worth of dates together as a couple.
   
4. Register for a FamilyLife Weekend to Remember and go the whole route-the hotel room, the conference, dinner out, away from the kids. Maybe pick to go to one of their "destination locations" and make the conference part of a longer vacation at the beach or in the mountains.
   

Want a Weekend to Remember with your spouse?

Years ago, when I was going to seminary and Karen was working to support both of us, we went to a FamilyLife marriage conference near our home in Dallas. It was a great time for us to focus on our marriage, get reminded of some essential truths, and reconnect as a couple. It was called the Weekend to Remember, and WTR conferences are held in cities across the country, both Spring and Fall. The Peoria conference will be at the Hotel Pere Marquette, February 29th-March 2nd. Attendees at the conference receive a discounted rate to stay at the hotel (which I highly recommend!).

This would be a great Valentine's Day or anniversary present, and as it happens, I have one certificate entitling its possessor to a highly discounted conference registration ($35 per person vs. $129 per person). Any takers?

A little less talk and a lot more action...

For those who can't get enough teaching on the Song of Solomon, you can get a longer, DVD version of the series of Tommy's teaching on it at www.SongofSolomon.com. Might be the best $200 investment you could make for your marriage if you watch it with your spouse and apply what it teaches to your married life.

Looking for some HOT love baby?

It often comes as a surprise to people who are new to the Christian faith, but as our Creator, God is intensely interested in every aspect of our lives, even the most intimate. Since Valentine's Day is coming soon, I thought I'd follow my friend Bill's lead and post a link to the best practical biblical teaching on love, romance and sex that I have ever found.

Tommy Nelson, senior pastor of Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas (and my former pastor) is absolutely outstanding on the Song of Solomon. I believe that it should be required listening for every Christian single and every Christian married couple, because I believe that God wants each of us to have a marriage which does not begin with passion and end with boredom.

Caution: Listening to this might transform your marriage!