Trouble came to my life.

I hurt without mitigation.

In time the hurt was so bad that I really didn’t care if God killed me.

I despaired of life.

For I was so utterly burdened beyond my strength that I despaired of life itself. – 2 Corinthians 1:8 (ESV) Slightly Paraphrased

Sometimes you can become so focused on the pain that the removal of the pain is the only thing that matters, even if death seems to be a viable option.

It was during this season that I received counsel, some good and some bad. Whether good or bad, all of my counselors desired to help me. They were acting out of love even though I was not receptive to their love. One of the more difficult pieces of advice to bring to bear during times of suffering is what Paul told the Romans:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. – Romans 8:28 (ESV)

This is a good verse, but it is also one of those hard verses. A hard verse is a verse that you intuitively know that you’re going to have to change if you’re going to enjoy the full benefit of the verse.

It’s kinda like John 3:16. You’re not going to fully benefit from that verse unless you change. I remember before God regenerated me that that verse was a hard verse. It was not going to budge, but I was afraid to embrace it.

Mercifully God gave me the grace to interact with John 3:16 and I have been benefiting from it for nearly 30 years. Some years later Romans 8:28 came into my life and I had to deal with it similarly.

When you don’t want what God wants

I knew that it was not going to accommodate me. It was not going to change. I had to change and I did not want to. To accommodate Romans 8:28 into your life means you’re going to have to give up some of your rights–remember John 3:16? You gave up all of your rights when you accepted Christ.

Though I knew God was calling me to a different kind of life through this text in Romans, I did not want to do what was necessary in order to fully live in the goodness of what Paul was teaching.

I even knew that what God had in store for me was “good,” but I was not sure if I wanted to do what it took to get there. It’s kinda like when the alarm goes off in the morning. I know what I need to do, but the doing of it is a whole different matter.

During the season that I have termed as the crucible of suffering a friend came to me and said, “Hey brother, the Bible says that all things work together for good.”

I knew he was right. I also knew that he loved me and wanted to help me move forward in my sanctification. The sad thing for me was that the rightness of his counsel or the text was not the issue. The issue was that I did not want the good that he was sharing with me.

Because of where I was at the time, I responded to him like this: “Hey friend, has it ever occurred to you that I might not want things to work together for good?”

How can good come out of evil?

The bottom line was that I wanted my life back. It did not matter if my old life was for my good or for my bad–I wanted it back. I wanted out of my hurt. I did not want to live in or experience what I was going through. I’m sure you can relate.

Sometimes pain can become so deep and profound that it does not matter if what God has is good, better, or best. In the moment you just want things put back together the way they have always been.

This makes Romans 8:28 one of those frustrating texts that every soul must engage and interact with. It is also imperative that this verse is interpreted correctly in order for the sufferer to understand it, own it, and be changed by it.

The misfortune of this text is that it has not only been frustrating and misinterpreted, but it has been misapplied too. Sometimes it can be used as a simplistic counseling approach. It is anything but that.

During the season of your deepest hurt, you need to not only know what this verse means, but you need to know how to navigate through the challenge that it confronts you with.

This brings us to the heart of the matter. The real issue in this verse is around what the word good means. There is no doubt that all things work together for good for the Christian. But whether things turn out good is not the question.

We know that things are going to turn out good because God is good. Can the life of the Christian turn out any other way? I believe not. The better question to ask is, “What does ‘good’ mean?”

What was Paul thinking when he said “all things work together for good?” How would Paul want us to interpret and think about the word good? How can good come out of evil?

Most certainly the good Paul is talking about does not necessarily mean I will live a healthy, wealthy, and peaceful life. We all know better than this. Christians embrace a Thorns & Thistles Theology (Genesis 3:18).^[1]

But man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. – Job 5:7 (ESV)

It also does not mean that when trouble inevitably comes, that God is about to turn this tragedy or disappointment into some kind of prosperity or preferred outcome for me. This is a man-centered interpretation of the text. Let me illustrate.

The wrong good

Debra was in an automobile accident and her car was totaled. Through the ordeal, she received an incredible insurance claim that allowed her to buy a car that was far better than her previous aging vehicle.

No doubt God was working these things into her life and she received a brand new vehicle. However, it can be misleading to bring Romans 8:28 to bear on this situation.

For some, it might imply that God is our Divine Dreamweaver and that He is working hard to bring us many good amenities in life, like a brand new car. This is not the good that Paul was talking about.

It also does not take into account the other person in the wreck, who was at fault. It does not take into account the insurance company, rising premiums, and other collateral issues that would not be perceived as good according to this interpretation of the text.

The point of the text has nothing to do with whether your life and circumstances unfold to your liking. Giving you the life you’ve always wanted or your preferred best life now is not at the top of God’s “to do” list.

Here is a quick list of our brothers who did not get what our world would call their “best life now,” but it was without a doubt the good that God was working into their lives for His glory:

• Jesus’ life ended in death so God could bring about good.
• Joseph’s life landed him in a pit & prison in order to bring about good.
• Judah offered to give his life up for Benjamin’s life to bring about good.
• Moses spent 40 years of his life in the desert to bring about good.
• Naomi was willing to give up her daughters-in-law to bring about good.
• Esther was willing to lay her life down to bring about good.
• Job lost everything, but from his horrible experience came good.
• John was boiled in oil, but he, too, was used to bring about good.
• John Bunyan spent over a decade in jail to bring about good.

My idea of good and God’s idea of good might not be the same idea. I must know this. You must know this too. It is very possible that God and I are not on the same page. It is very important when we think about the good of Romans 8:28 that we interpret it through a Gospel filter.

The right good

During my season of despair, I think I knew that my good and His good were two different things. That is why I said, “Hey friend, has it ever occurred to you that I might not want things to work together for good?”

Though I did not know exactly what good God was trying to work out in my life, I did not really care. I just wanted my life back. But it does raise a question: what is the good that God is trying to workout in our lives?

Here’s the short answer: the good that God is working in me and you is to make us more like His Son–Jesus Christ. He wants us to be Christlike. Isn’t that the essence of the Christian journey? Isn’t that the reason He saved us, to make us like Christ?

If my circumstances and my world are not transforming me into the person of Jesus Christ, then I’m missing the point of what is going on in the circumstances of my life.

The point of the Bible is transformation. It is not about your best life now or how to learn and maintain seven habits for highly effective people, or any other man-centered approach to life.

The point of the Bible is not my personal success or happiness as defined by our culture. The point is transformation into the image of his Son. If I gain personal property, acclaim, or significant monetary worth in this life, then praise God.

But I better make sure that I do more than praise God. I must runs these earthly advantages through the filter of Romans 8:28 and pray to God that terrestrial prosperity becomes a means of grace to conform me to the image of his Son.

If I do not see this truth and actively live it out, then I will miss the good that God hoped to work into my life. The good in this text and the point of this passage is for me to be changed into the image of Christ, not necessarily to grow healthy, wealthy, and wise.

As you already know, the undesirable things that come into our lives are also meant to transform us into the image of the Son. In one sense, this is very releasing from the perspective that a person could be tempted to think that hardship has come to them because God is angry with them.

This is not true. This kind of thinking flies into the face of God’s goodness. It also negates the power that is found in this verse. If you are a Christian, God is not angry with you, but seeking to make you look like Jesus.

Friends, God is working good into our life, whether the circumstances that come to you are to your liking or not. It’s not about the circumstances, but the grace that He is asking you to appropriate to your life so you can experience the good that is on the other side of the crucible of suffering.

Do you believe this? “We look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” – 2 Corinthians 4:18 (ESV)

Application Questions

1. When undesirable things come into your life, how do you respond to them?
2. Do you believe that God is working good into your life through your desirable as well as undesirable circumstances?
3. How are the desirable circumstances conforming you into the image of His Son?
4. How are the undesirable circumstances conforming you into the image of His Son?
5. Will you share these truths today with someone who needs a word of encouragement?

Don’t back down from this hard verse when sharing with others. Only make sure you understand it and that you can carefully walk them through a God-centered perspective regarding their trouble.

1. ^[1] I don’t think this is a term used by the church historically. It came to me as a way of describing the curse that God placed on man and man’s world. We are born in sin and trouble is our constant antagonist until Jesus returns or until we go to see Him. ↩

What would you do if you had the opportunity to get even with someone who hurt you?

What if the hurt was irrevocable…meaning that what they did to you changed you forever?

What would you do?

Maybe it would be better to ask it this way:

How do you respond when you don’t get your way?

How do you respond when disappointment happens to you?

Think about it for a moment.

Spend a second or two reflecting on how you think about those who have hurt you or are hurting you.

Now let’s change the direction a bit

What if I told you that God was in what happened or is happening to you.

That God is writing His story of redemption and your particular circumstances are part of the role He has decided you will play in His story?

How about this–not only is God working in your life through the horrible circumstance, but He does not want you to despair, but to draw you closer to Him.

Let’s not stop there, but press a little more. How about this: the bad circumstances that He is writing into your life are for your good and for His glory. But more than that, they are something that He can use as a beacon to draw others to Him.

1. You benefit from the bad.
2. He is glorified by the bad.
3. Others find Him through the bad.

If these thoughts cause you to biblically process your hurt in a Christ-exalting and God-honoring way, then you will possibly achieved what some believe to be the height of Christian maturity as well as inestimable usefulness in God’s kingdom.

When something that you desire or love is stripped away from you and you come through that crucible of suffering loving God and others with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength, then you are in a special place regarding your relationship with God and others

Contrariwise, if you are led into the crucible of suffering by our loving Father and you become bitter, angry, demanding, cynical, or discouraged, then you’re in a dangerous place in your relationship with God as well as others.

I have spent many hours thinking about all of these things because I had to. I was not given an option. Evil came to me one day and there was nothing I could do about it. I was confronted with evil by God.

When evil came

On April 18, 1997 my brother’s wife shot my brother five times with a gun. He died that night on the floor of his garage. He was forty-two years old. After I received the phone call and before we made the long and silent trip back to our hometown, I said this to God:

Lord, I know You are in this. This murder did not happen outside of Your awareness and allowance. My soul is ripped apart right now and I need You like no other time in my life.

I need to know that You are with me and that Your purposes are coming to pass, even in this situation. Help me to see it. Help me to know it. Guard my heart from the many temptations that are coming at me right now. Lord help me!

As you would expect, God did help me that day. He has never stopped helping me. This is because He is a merciful God who loves His children deeply–so deeply that He would execute His own Son in order to help us (Isaiah 53:10).

My brother was regenerated 10-years earlier. I do believe that my brother was born again. Shortly after he was saved, his life was radically changed. These were good years for us. We spent many hours talking about God and how kind it was of Him to regenerate two rebellious Thomas boys.

I had for the first time in my life a brother who was my brother–my biological brother was my spiritual brother. It was a rare and precious thing for me to have a brother who was my brother. We cherished our moments together.

However, on that terrible day for reasons that I do not completely understand he was taken from me in a most tragic way. In that moment, I pled with God that I might understand what He was writing into my life.

I asked Him to give me a peace that would override and profoundly affect how I would respond to the brokenness that came to my family.

What controls you: God or your troubles?

I theoretically knew that I was not promised a free pass through this life unscathed. I knew that no person would enter into heaven without experiencing their version brokenness.

Though I knew these things, it was an altogether different experience to live it out up close and personal. It was in that moment of brokenness that I most assuredly needed to know that God was with me. I needed to know God in a fresh and new way.

Without this understanding of “God is with me” and “God is writing His story into my life” I knew I would inevitably sink into despair. I knew that I had to reorient my mind around God. If I did not, I would soon be overcome by the brokenness.

Which would be greater in my life: God or my troubles? If you are going to persevere in this life, you must have a firm conviction that God is greater than all your grief.

One of the bigger questions that I had to ask myself was why this was happening to me. My soul was troubled and I did not have all the answers as to why. God had to realign my thinking regarding the mysteries of His will.

Here were some of my mysterious thoughts:

1. My sister-in-law was fully responsible for her actions.
2. She chose to kill my brother.
3. God was and is fully sovereign and in control of all things.
4. God did not cause this murder, for that would make Him the author of evil.
5. God was not off in the distance wringing His hands, as though He was not in control of the situation.
6. And the hardest thought of all: why didn’t God stop this evil?

God’s secrets are your blessings

While all of my questions were not answered, God did give me the grace to trust Him in what He was writing. If I could trust Him with the eternal direction of my soul, then I knew that I could trust Him with the death of my brother. This trust did not come easy, but it did come.

I also came to believe that God chose to temporarily accommodate the evil of this world in order to work in and through and around the broken events of this world, so He could fulfill His purposes.

Make no mistake, God is a hands-on God, who is at work in the lives of the people of this world. While God is in control of all things, He does not negate the reality of free-will.

God is in total control, even while we are choosing to make decisions in this life. This is mystery and I have to be comfortable with mystery. God will reveal some things, but He will not reveal all things. We are called to trust Him even if we do not know all of the answers.

The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. – Deuteronomy 29:29 (ESV)

When evil came to me, which it did, I had to ask God the obvious question: what are You up to? I knew that God had more than me on His mind. I knew that He loved me, but He also loves the entire world. It became clear that He was working His plans through me in order to help other people.

I did not understand this completely, but I trusted God. I knew that my desires in life could not revolve around me and what I wanted. This would not be a struggle as long as I wanted what God wanted, even if it caused me to lose some things.

However, if I was more concerned about my life, what happened to me, what goes on in my world, then there would be a good chance that I would miss out on what God was trying to do through me.

Isn’t it true that sometimes we can get so stuck on what has happened to us that we do not see what God is seeking to do through us? In such cases, our impact and influence is shrunken down to our thoughts, our hurts, our disappointments, and the hope of getting our way.

God is “with you”

If a person understands that God is with them, for them, and working through them, even in the most painful of circumstances of their lives, then that person is positioned to experience God in incredible ways, while being an incalculable blessing to others (Genesis 39:2).

Joseph was such a person. In his story–Genesis 37-50–we see that he was the one who was hurt. He was kidnapped, imprisoned and many hardships were heaped upon him. If ever a person seemingly had a right to take revenge on someone, it was Joseph.

But Joseph did not do this. He had a better understanding of what was happening to him. He was controlled by God. He got it. He saw Him who is invisible (Hebrews 11:27).

He knew that God was writing a particular and painful story into his life. It was not about him or what he got or what he did not get. It was about God and how God wanted to use Joseph.

Ironically, his brothers, who were not in prison, were ensnared by their own manipulations, lies, and attempted murder. Though they were not hurting the way Joseph was hurting, they were the ones bound by their sin.

1. When you are hurt by others, are you able to live in the freedom of God’s grace?
2. Can you find hope in God, even when you are not experiencing all you expected from God?
3. Are you able to see evil for good, even when others meant it for evil?

Only God can use sin sinlessly

God is a counter-intuitive God. He does things that we cannot do. For example, He can use sin sinlessly. The greatest and most profound crime ever perpetrated on humanity was the execution of his Son on the cross.

However, it was our great God, using sin sinlessly, who accomplished His greater purposes through this heinous crime. And the Savior was willing to sacrifice His life for the greater good of others.

If I think this life is about me and for me, then I will be whittled down to a prison of hurt that will eventually reduce me to something that God will not use.

However, if I see that my path has to be at times a path of suffering, though I do not look for it or desire it, then I can rest assured that God will be working His plan through me, for the greater purposes of the many (1 Peter 2:21).

Here’s the truth: at times He will allow pain in our lives.

We must know that He is not as concerned about getting us through a broken world with no experience of brokenness, suffering, or pain. God has higher goals than to get us through life without scratches.

He is working in a broken world with broken people to accomplish His redemptive purposes. Sometimes He will choose to bring brokenness to you in order to accomplish those purposes. That should not trip us up because we’re not living for this life anyway.

We have a higher vision and higher calling. Eventually He will bring us to a place that is not broken or temporary. That is not earth, but heaven. Paul said it this way:

For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. – 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 (ESV)

How you think about God and how you think about your pain must be rewritten and filtered through a Gospel-shaped crucible. If you do not take your thoughts captive and bring them to the obedience of Christ, then you will very likely become a bitter, sad, and angry person (2 Corinthians 10:5).

Am I controlled by the Gospel?

As a Christian, to be controlled by someone or something other than the Gospel is not a viable option for me. In the case of the death of my brother, I could either subject my thoughts and obedience to the loving care of my sovereign God or allow the circumstances of my life to take control of my thinking and responses.

It is a choice.

By the grace of God, I experienced His mercy. He led me to Himself and gave me a peace that passed my human comprehension as well as my personal sorrow and discontent.

This released me from the desire to go eye-to-eye with my sister-in-law. God did not go eye-to-eye with me though He had every right to do so. Instead, He showed mercy on someone who did not deserve mercy (Romans 5:8).

Because of the Gospel I was free in my prison of hurt. Similar to Joseph, I experienced a greater power. It was not a desire for revenge. It was quite the opposite. It was a desire for her to get what I got–grace and mercy.

Since 1997 I have been praying for my sister-in-law, that God would mercifully save her. I do not know if this has happened. If it does happen to her, then she will have the privilege of being in heaven forever, standing beside my brother and me, as the three of us worship the One we killed.

Think about this with me. Paul is worshipping the Savior with those he consented to put to death. Only the amazing power of the Gospel can be that redemptive.

I do not know what has happened to you or how badly you have been hurt. If you have been hurt by others, then my prayer is that you will be able to come to that place of showing them the same mercy that has been shown to you (Matthew 18:33).

Bobby and Billie Jean have been struggling for a long time.

Bobby gets quiet and Billie Jean gets loud.

The quieter Bobby gets, the louder Billie Jean gets.

The louder Billie Jean gets, the quieter Bobby gets.

It’s a vicious cycle.

It’s an unending vicious cycle and that is not all of the story.

There is chaos everywhere.

The home is loud, the marriage is on the brink of completely falling apart, and the kids are selfishly doing their own thing.

The shalom that the Gospel brings seems like an impossible mountain to scale.

It’s hopeless.

Bobby and Billie Jean have nearly given up. They have lost heart. As a last ditch effort they came to counseling. They see no way out of the unceasing, dysfunctional chaos in their home, but they are willing to give it one last try.

It’s kinda like standing in the middle of the messiest home you can image and the mother is in tears, not knowing where to start. Rather than making any kind of forward progress, she just stands there and cries.

Should she pick up the socks and the underwear or start folding the clothes? Should she pick up a toy or grab a broom? Should she begin with the living room or the bedroom? The phone is ringing, the kids are yelling, and the dad is digging for the remote control. She decides to step outside to count to ten and take a smoke.

Though that is not Bobby and Billie Jean’s actual life, it is a close parallel of their hopelessness. Bobby wants Billie Jean to change, while Billie Jean is frustrated that Bobby is somewhere between the speed of a rock and a tortoise. What are they to do? She gets mad. He mentally checks out. The beat goes on.

I hear the train a coming

After listening to them talk, argue, vie for personal rights, and critique each other for awhile, I finally told Billie Jean that her plan was not working and she needs a new one.

I described her plan to her as something like two trains headed toward each other at full throttle. They collide. This is what metaphorically happens when she gets mad and he gets quiet–or he gets quiet and she gets mad.

I don’t want you to think that she is more of the blame than he is. It really doesn’t matter who is the most blame. What matters at this point is that both of them are too stubborn and too angry to change.

After the train collision, they go to their separate corners for awhile and then in a day or two they crank their engines and run full throttle into each other again. They have been going through this routine for over a decade.

Interestingly Billie Jean has read a half-dozen books on overcoming anger while Bobby hasn’t done much of anything to change the spiritual climate of the home.

I told Billie Jean that the first place she needs to start is to stop reading all of those how to overcome anger books. They will not work for her. The problem is not so much about her anger as it is about her expectation that her situation will change.

As long as she thinks her situation should change, the more she will build up a head of steam and run full throttle into her husband. Then he will sulk, she will stew, and they will do it all over again in a few days.

Whenever a person is doggedly determine to change their circumstance and believes they should change even if they have to go through hell or high water to do it, they will set themselves up for ever-mounting and unceasing conflict in their lives.

This is what Billie Jean is doing. Her plan is not working, but she keeps doing the same old thing expecting things to change.

Your problems are not going to change

I told her that it would be easier to understand and accept if she was in a car wreck and was relegated to a wheel chair for the rest of her life. A person living in that kind of bad news should eventually realize that she is in an unchangeable situation.

The problem with Billie Jean is that she actually expects her husband to be a spiritual leader. She expects him to be nice, to love her like Christ, to rear her children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. She expects him to set the spiritual pace in the home by fighting sin and modeling Jesus. She wants a Christ-centered home.

Can’t you see how she has set herself up for failure? The longer she clings to these ideas, the deeper she will find herself in the slough of despond. It is kinda like Paul “counseling” the Corinthian church.

He knew that he could not over-focus on what they were not doing or how they were screwing up, while doggedly expecting no other end result but their change into God-centered Christians.

It’s kinda like some of my counseling sessions. If I get bogged down into expecting them to change, grow in Christ, become more than what they presently are, then I’m out-of-focus. I’m looking at the wrong thing.

I’m not called to change people. I’m called to trust God regardless if they change. I’m God’s water boy and seed thrower, not the changer of lives (1 Corinthians 3:6).

Furthermore, God did not promise me that I was going to get everything I wanted, when I wanted it, and how I wanted it. In fact, He promised something quite the opposite. He promised a boatload of problems in this life and not just one boatload, but many boatloads.

• The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you – Genesis 3:14 (ESV)
• To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. – Genesis 3:16 (ESV)
• And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife …you shall eat of [the tree] all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. – Genesis 3:17-18 (ESV)

You will know real quick if you have drifted from the truth of God’s un-altering thorns and thistles theology by how you respond to the thorns and thistles that come into your life. Both Bobby and Billie Jean are refusing to embrace what God is writing into their lives.

If God would write into the story of His Son’s life to execute Him on a cruel cross, do you think it is out of the realm of possibility that He might write something into your life that you might not like (Isaiah 53:10)? And that He would do this for your good, the good of others, and for His glory?

Whenever you sin, whether it is the anger of silent treatment (Bobby) or the anger of loudness (Billie Jean), you are revealing your idolatry in two very clear ways:

1. You are overly focused on the things that can be seen.
2. You are not focused on the things that cannot be seen.

Bobby and Billie Jean are eaten up by what they can see and they are ticked off by it. Bobby has lost hope that things will change, so he keeps to himself. Billie Jean has lost hope that things will change, so she yells a lot.

Think again about the two trains on a clear course to a head-on collision. Now think about it happening repeatedly for over a decade. Wouldn’t you lose hope too? I know I would.

Have you lost heart?

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.

For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.

For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. – 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (ESV)

Bobby and Billie Jean have lost heart. They are looking at their outer nature–the things that they can see, the things that are unchangeable, the things that are wasting away.

For them, it is not so much about their bodies as Paul was referring to, as it is about their family dynamic–their marriage and their children. They take a quick survey of their home life and lose heart.

At this point it is automatic: just one look at what they can see and the two trains take off toward each other. They are out-of-focus. They should be looking at the things that they cannot see. They are overly-focused on what they want and will not be satisfied until they get what they want.

Those who saw the unseeable

Think through some of the Bible characters and re-imagine what their life would have been like if they responded to their problems like Bobby and Billie Jean.

There are so many of them that time does not allow me to share all their stories. At least that is what the Hebrew writer said. Read this slowly, prayerfully, and reflectively:

For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.

Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword.

They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. – Hebrews 11:32-38 (ESV)

Oh my goodness. How did they do this? If you back up a few verses, you’ll see. Take a look at how Moses pulled this off:

By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. – Hebrews 11:27 (ESV)

The only way Bobby and Billie Jean are going to endure is if they will make a real, volitional, and practical decision to take their eyes off what they can see and choose to keep their gaze on what they cannot see.

They are like a person who drives a car while staring at the hood ornament–or the very front of the car, just over the hood. That is not how you drive a car. You drive a car by looking off into the distance.

If Bobby and Billie Jean do not realign their sight to something more eternal–the great invisible God, they are going to virtually kill each other. Personally, I don’t think their marriage can sustain too many more train collisions.

One simple way to see the invisible

I asked Bobby how often he takes his wife by the hand and leads her to God through the door of prayer. I asked, “How often do you pray with your wife?” I already knew the answer to that question, but I wanted to hear him say it out loud.

As you probably already assume, he said that he did not pray with his wife. His hope is for her to change with virtually no spiritual input or guidance from him. He does want her to change, but he won’t lead her to the only One who can change her.

His methodology of change is the checking out method. I made a strong appeal for him to lead her spiritually. I did not give him a lot of things to do. In fact, I gave him only one thing to do. Remember the lady standing knee-deep in the messy living room?

Let me state it this way: how do you climb a mountain? You begin at base camp. Don’t look at the whole mountain–or the whole living room. There is too much that is wrong. You’ll lose heart.

Begin by doing one good thing. I told him to take his wife by the hand, hold her in his arms, and to pray with her. That’s it. That’s all I asked him to do. Here is a corny, but helpful saying: The journey of a thousand miles is begun by taking that first step.

I told him that it may feel weird, awkward, and mechanical. The reason for this is because what I am asking cuts across the grain of the proud heart. However, if he will humble himself under the mighty hand of God, then it will soon become not hard at all. It’s a choice.

Bobby has an incredibly powerful opportunity right in front of him. He could humble himself and pray to God, with his wife at his side. Or he could choose to crank up the train and run headlong into her again by his deadly silence.

If he chooses to lead his wife in just this one way, who knows–maybe his unchangeable situation will change. I don’t know. But I do know this: God gives grace to the humble and He opposes the proud.

That collision that he keeps having with the other train is not really another train at all. It is the hand of God that he keeps running into. His wife is not his main opposition. God is.

If there is any hope of his unchangeable situation to change, both of them are going to have to change tracks by doing it God’s way. And if their unchangeable situation does not change, it won’t control them because they will have their eye on Him who cannot be seen.

The following are the actual counseling notes from a friend I met with for counseling.^[1]

Because I get many requests for counseling related issues and equipping, I thought this might serve many in a small way.^[2]

Before you read the actual notes, here are a few things to think about:

Counseling “notes” miss a lot of data.

For example, all the stuff we talked about does not come through in these notes.

Therefore, these notes do not accurately reflect all of the give-and-take of the session.

Counseling is not meant to be a monologue, but a dialogue and we had an amazing dialogue. In fact, the session lasted three hours. It was an in process session, which means it was the sixth or seventh session I had with my friend.

If you consider our actual sessions, as well as numerous emails, and phone calls, this would be the equivalent of nearly 25 hours of conversation. I say this so you know that some of the things discussed in this session are said in the context of an established friendship.

As with any discipleship situation, once the relationship is more established you can interact and engage more deeply with the real idolatry of a person’s heart. You build bridges to carry truth over. By the time we got to this session, the bridge was established.

The name and the situations have been changed in this study to flatten it out in order to keep it anonymous. The historical data is not really important, but the truth is. You will soon see that you can apply the truths conveyed to most any discipleship situation.

I conducted this session with a counselor-in-training sitting in. My counselor-in-training took the notes, wrote this summary you are about to read, and then emailed it to all three of us.^[3]

Lastly, what made this session successful was the humility and repentance of my friend. Without God’s grace intervening there would be no success in counseling. My friend was walking in God’s grace, which was modeled by her humility and on-going repentance.

Here are the session notes that were sent to “Cheryl”

Cheryl, you recapped some of what has been happening in your life since the last meeting. After describing some of the events of the last couple weeks you asked Rick, “What do you think is the weirdest part of what I did?”

Rick responded that your behavior seemed erratic and then he drew a zig-zag diagram, up and down on a piece of paper. It represented good to bad and bad back to good. This was reflective of your behavior.

When he asked you why that might be. You responded that you are often unsure of what to think or how to respond to people.

After Rick spent some time exploring your response, he asked if you struggled more with guilt or fear. You answered guilt and that is where we spent the rest of the counseling session–explaining a biblical view of guilt.

Guilt

The Bible gives us an accurate picture of how to live. When we live within what the Bible teaches, we do not experience guilt. The Spirit is not quenched or grieved and all is well in our relationship with God.

However, if we don’t live within the clear teaching of Scripture, we do experience guilt. This is a good thing. Guilt is one of God’s many kindnesses to us.

When we do wrong, the Spirit of God convicts us of the wrong we did so we will be guided to repentance. We then repent and all of our guilt is removed. This happens because of the wondrous power of the Gospel.

Your understanding of right and wrong is much different than what the Bible teaches. In fact, you place burdens on yourself that are beyond what the Bible would teach as right and wrong. Therefore, you have a lot of unnecessary guilt, unbiblical guilt or what some call false guilt.

At this point Rick drew another diagram on a piece of paper with a lot of rocks on it and called them your guilt rocks. Some of these rocks you believe are from God. But others you believe are from friends, children, extended family, Rick, me, people in your church, and co-workers.

The reason Rick drew them looking like rocks was to show how heavy they are and how they weigh you down. Ultimately this can cause depression. You even acknowledged that depression is something you struggle with.

He explained that these “rocks” become your authorities–if you allow them to be. They are like voices that tell you when you’re doing right or wrong. You then either validate or invalidate whether they are right or wrong and then you are guilty or not guilty based on your conclusion.

This is a messy cycle. It is unbiblical and it does not have God in the center of it. It is a self-centered interpretative grid, based on a wrong understanding of how things ought to be.

Guilt and fear

Because you allow yourself to be controlled by these voices, you live in guilt that is not always legitimate. This overhanging cloud of guilt in your life fosters insecurity in your heart. Biblically this is called fear of man (Proverbs 29:25).

You end up with this unbiblical process of producing guilt that causes a deep-seated and controlling fear of man. These convoluted heart idolatries lead to the erratic behavior that is determined by a person’s approval or disapproval of you.

You are like a pinball that moves and responds according to who is blaming you, telling you how you should do this or that. Rather than being exclusively controlled by God alone, according to a clear understanding of Him through the lens of Scripture, you allow yourself to be controlled by others.

The solution to illegitimate guilt is to listen to the one and only Voice that has all authority in a person’s life. That is the voice of God. He is the one who defines what is right and what is wrong.

As your thinking lines up with His thinking, you will be able to discern what you are responsible for and what you’re not responsible for. In time, this will not only eliminate your insecurity, but it will greatly reduce and possibly remove your erratic behavior.

Insecurity

At this juncture Rick drew another line on a piece of paper. It looked something like this:

Insecurity:  —-X————————————————— GOD.

You are the “X” on the page. God is the goal, the Person you are heading toward. There are hindrances between you and God, which are represented by the dotted lines.

There are things that are keeping you from enjoying God the way He wants to be enjoyed. Guilt is one of those hindrances. Insecurity is another one. As Rick explained, insecurity is a kissing cousin to guilt. They typically always go hand-in-hand.

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. – James 1:5-6 (ESV)

Insecurity, guilt, fear and doubt are some of the sins that you need to repent of in order to be fully restored to God. From here, you remember that Rick began to unpack fear of man or what you understood to be insecurity.

Insecurity defined

Insecurity is placing your faith, hope, confidence, trust, or belief in something or someone that can be taken away.

We learned from our time together that there is at least one big thing in your life that you place hope in or the one thing that can be taken away. That is your desire for acceptance or approval. You are very much aware that any of your friend’s approval can be taken away. You fear rejection.

They can love you or not love you and you’re acutely aware that what they do will have an all-controlling impact on your soul. This causes you to measure or over-interpret what they say.

Typically this kind of thinking is born out of your insecurity, which inevitably gives them ultimate control over you. If they accept you, then you are golden. If they reject you, you are erratic.

Inconsistent insecurity

One of the things Rick noted was how your insecurity is not consistent because there are some contexts where you feel a sense of security. These are typically contexts where you excel and are able to rely on your own strength or personal gifting.

You are insecure in other contexts that are new to you or you don’t excel in or you’re not assured you will be accepted. An example of a context where you excel and are therefore secure is in your work. This is because you are working within your strength–relying on yourself.

Contrariwise, you are insecure with people out of your class or who you think have it more together or who you believe are more spiritual or more of whatever you wish you had and perceive them to have.

Because your confidence is in yourself, it is a sin. This is a self-centered worldview that is opposed to a God-centered way of thinking and living. This self-centered faith in yourself is the specific thing you need to repent of.

As long as your confidence is in yourself you are going to be insecure. Ultimately security in yourself is not security at all. It is a mirage, illogical, and unbiblical. God’s desire is for you to rely on Him alone.

For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.

Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. – 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 (ESV)

Security Defined

Security is placing your faith, hope, confidence, trust, belief in something or someone that cannot be taken away.

As you can see, there is only one little, but earth shattering difference in the two definitions. It all rests on what can or cannot be taken away. People’s approval can be taken away, which makes you insecure.

This begs the question: what cannot be taken away? As you think about this question, eventually you will come to the conclusion that there are only two things that can never be taken away:

1. The Written Logos, God’s Word
2. The Living Logos, God Himself

The written Word and the living Word are eternal. Both will last forever. Everything else can be destroyed and is unworthy to place your trust. In Christ alone, as the song says.

Whenever you go into new situations you will always be concerned as to whether you might not get it right. That is okay and should not be problem. The answer to that dilemma is to put your confidence (security) in the only One who cannot be taken away.

If you will do this, then it doesn’t matter if you mess up, don’t get it right, or don’t meet perceived expectations. Your faith is not in what man can do to you, but in what God has done for you by His Gospel.

Security illustrated

Then Rick took you to Matthew 14:29-33, the story of Jesus calling Peter out of the boat to walk on the wavy water. You remember that His command to Peter was one simple mono-syllabic word. He said, “Come.” That was it. No explanation and no more information. Just “Come.

You noted that if you were Peter, you would find a lot of security in your boat. This is true. This is what self-reliance looks like. But God is calling you to have faith in Him and to walk out onto the water because of Him.

This is not about acceptance or rejection. This is about faith–faith in God alone.

Even when you begin to sink, which you will because of your temptations to rely in your own strength, you must cry out to Him. If you will do this, then be assured that God will immediately come to your aid. He gives grace to the humble (James 4:6).

Peter cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him. – Matthew 14:30-31 (ESV)

As Rick mentioned, this story was not primarily about Peter or about Peter’s faith. It was about God and His faithfulness to His children. The reason for this was because it was God’s reputation that was on the line.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.” – Psalm 23:3 (ESV)

God takes care of us in order to make His name great. And when He does help us we magnify His name, which is what Peter and the boys did when they got back on the boat (Matthew 14:32-33). Our responsibility is to trust Him, watch Him work in our lives, and then praise Him for what He has done.

In God we must trust

You have been unwilling to do this. You have been relying mostly on yourself. To trust in yourself is to put yourself in direct opposition to God. He is a jealous God. He will not allow His children to set-up other objects, concepts, people, or even ourselves as the primary thing we trust.

This begs a few questions that must be asked. Even you have rolled these questions over and over in your mind to varying degrees. Though you may not have asked them with such clarity, your behavior tells us that you have some sort of issue with God because you will not trust Him explicitly.

Here are a few questions we explored. Your mouth answered them one way, but your behavior answered them another way, which is the true reflection of your heart.

• Is God good?
• Will He save me?
• Will He take care of me?
• Can I trust Him?
• Is He trustworthy?

Your answer to all of these questions should be the same. God is God and He is good, faithful, just and fully worthy of your trust. These are easy questions to answer.

How do we know this? Well, there is only one place we have to look to learn this. That place is His Gospel or more profoundly as Rick talked about, the cross of Christ.

The cross is the centerpiece of His Gospel and if nothing else, it informs and proves God’s goodness to us forevermore. As you grow in your understanding of His goodness as understood through the Gospel, then you will begin to grow more secure in Him.

Over the next few sessions Rick wants to begin unpacking the Gospel as it pertains to your salvation, but also to your sanctification. The more you grow in your understanding of who God is, as viewed through the lens of the cross, the more you will find rest in Him.

Believe it, Cheryl: you can totally fling yourself on God. If you begin to do this, you will also begin to mature in the one and only authoritative Voice in your life. And you will not be so easily swayed by what others say.

We will begin our journey through the Gospel the next time we meet. In the meantime, Rick needs for you to continue the momentum of what was gained through this session by doing the things he asked you to do.

Let me know that you have received this and please share any questions, comments, concerns, or anything else that needs to be clarified.

You may also be interested in

The Danger of Trying to Please God as you think through people-pleasing, fear of man, insecurity, and the performance-driven lifestyle.

1. ^[1] She gave permission to share these notes. ↩
2. ^[2] If you are interested in growing as a discipler, then consider becoming a member of our site for the low subscription fee of $4.95 per month. You can learn more about that here. ↩
3. ^[3] The notes have been altered slightly for the purpose of this article. ↩

Everything is an opportunity for the Christian.

All of life is one big opportunity to put God’s name on display.

In one sense it does not matter what you do, as much as it matters why you do it.

I’m assuming you understand that when I say “What you do,” that I am talking about things that are morally right, correct?

For example, in our small group we like to ask this question:

If your wife asks you to go to the store to get a gallon of milk, what would be your main reason for going to the store?

The answer to that question should not be, “To get a carton of milk.” That would be a secondary reason for going to the store. The primary reason for going to the store is to seek God’s kingdom. You could say it this way: to glorify Him.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. – Matthew 6:33 (ESV)

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. – 1 Corinthians 10:31 (ESV)

Jesus told us not to think so much about what we eat, what we drink, or what we put on our bodies (Matthew 6:25). Those are the things the Gentiles spend their time thinking about and pursuing.

He said that our heavenly Father will take care of those things for us (Matthew 6:32). While we have a personal responsibility to go and get the milk, it is not something that we should spend a lot of time thinking about. Those are things of this world. We have an eternal perspective.

As we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. – 1 Corinthians 4:18 (ESV)

The thing He wants us to think about is how to seek His kingdom while we are living here on earth–how to push the Gospel forward in our sphere of influence. He says that if we will spend our time thinking about those kinds of things, then He will make sure we have our milk.

As you head off to the store to serve your wife, be sure to make it your aim to be on the lookout for what God is writing into your story. Who knows, God may have you at that store because He has somebody else at that store who needs to hear a word from Him.

• Your job: seek His kingdom.
• His job: provide you milk.

In a few days many of us will have another opportunity to spread the Gospel around in our sphere of influence as we gather to watch the Super Bowl. For our family we have an annual Super Bowl party, which is part of how we do life in our small group.

Each year we gather in one of our member’s homes and enjoy each other, as some of us watch the game. For the Christian the Super Bowl is not about a game as much as it is about an opportunity.

The opportunity is to put God’s name on display. To do this is the grand privilege for the Christian. It does not matter if we are sitting at a congested traffic light, visiting the home where death has come, or watching the Super Bowl, our primary aim in life is to make God’s name great.

With this Christ-exalting, Gospel-centered thought in mind, here are a few helpful tips as you prepare your heart, your family, and your friends for a Super Bowl bash.

Enjoy it

Nobody should enjoy the Super Bowl more than a Christian and the Christian community. If it is okay to do, then there is nothing in this world that the world should enjoy more than the Christian–even watching a TV show.

The reason for this is because the Christian is the only truly free and joy-filled person in the world. The Christian’s greatest problem in life has been resolved at the cross and because of this he/she is free to enjoy life more than anyone else.

Isn’t it kinda sad when the world is louder than we are? What do they have to shout about? What do they have to laugh about? Terry Lindvall said it this way, when he quoted C. S. Lewis from the book, Surprised by Laughter:

Laughter is a divine gift to the human who is humble. A proud man cannot laugh because he must watch his dignity; he cannot give himself over to the rocking and rolling of his belly. But a poor and happy man laughs heartily because he gives no serious attention to his ego….

Only the truly humble belong to this kingdom of divine laughter…Humor and humility should keep good company. Self-deprecating humor can be a healthy reminder that we are not the center of the universe, that humility is our proper posture before our fellow humans as well as before almighty God. -Terry Lindvall (Surprised by Laughter: The Comic World of C. S. Lewis)

Christians should be the happiest and the loudest people in the restaurant, at the ball game, or any other place where laughter and joy is appropriate. I’m not making a case for being loud for the sake of being loud.

I’m making a case for living in the on-going awareness of the pleasure that God has in us because of the Gospel. We are truly forgiven and free because of the Savior’s work on His cross. His finished work gives any believer an unsurpassed and unspeakable joy.

It does not matter what you are doing, there should be the freeing, guiltless, unashamed, contented victory that only Christ can bring to a person. The Super Bowl is one of those places where that freedom in Christ can be on full display.

Watch with discernment

As you know we are not entirely sanctified and our world is not sin-free. Therefore we are not allowed to dismiss discernment while basking in the merriment of being free in Christ. Being happy and loud does not mean being foolish and simple.

While it would be wrong to think that foolish people are genuinely happy, it would be just as wrong to think that highly moral people are not happy. Just the opposite is true. As I have already stated, the most free and untethered people in the world–Christians–should be the happiest.

However, that does not negate the need to steward wisdom and discernment. For example, the athletes in our country are often given the center stage to proudly brag on themselves.

They do their shuffles, dances, fist pumps, and other forms of self-glorifying, attention-drawing antics. This does not glorify God by putting His name on display. It glorifies the athlete.

Sports, like all of life, is an opportunity. The Super Bowl will be one of those opportunities to draw attention to what is good, while helping others to discern what does not make God’s name great.

For the first time in my son’s life he has taken an interest in football this year. It has been the joy of my life to snuggle with him on Sunday nights to watch a football game.

He has a zillion questions about the game. Earlier this season, as he was learning the game, he asked, “Daddy, why are they all cuddling together?” He was referring to a pile of men who were trying to tackle a running back.

While I laughed to myself at how he interpreted what he was observing, the Spirit also illuminated me to help him understand what was going on.

One of the things I have been able to point out to him is how some men brag, while others simply play the game without having to showboat–think Tim Tebow.

It is in these moments, when character and humility have been put on display, that we need to draw attention to such things. These are the things I want to emulate in my life and I hope that he will want to do that also.

Modeling precedes teaching

You are an example–even at the Super Bowl. No Christian gets time off from being like Christ. For some, there may be no more important time this year for them to exercise self-control than during the Super Bowl.

Recently I took my family to watch a college basketball game. It was kinda humorous, but mostly sad to hear and see some of the expressions of anger that were displayed by the coaches, teams, and some of the fans.

The game is not worth a hill of beans, as we say down here in the southern part of the United States. That means, it is a worthless event, as far as an event is concerned. The only thing that brings value to any event is if we put Christ on display by our attitude and actions while at the event.

You and I are open letters that our friends will be able to read. And a picture is worth a thousand words. Model Christ. What you say about Christ will be marginalized and possibly ignored if the life you put on display does not back it up.

Guard thy heart when you watch the game. It’s just a game.

The remote

As you know, Christians do not run the Super Bowl. Wisdom, discernment, and discretion will have to be ready and on demand. We have found it to be helpful to designate someone to control the remote control.

This will serve many parents of little ones as well as friends if you predetermine to guard the hearts of those attending your event. Our culture has a darker and twisted perspective on humor and discretion.

Be prepared. This is a distinctly cultural event that we will be enjoying. Do not be surprised with what they present as funny or acceptable.

Gospel opportunities

The Gospel is about going–leaving your place, to go to their place, in order to redeem a person. That is what Christ did (Philippians 2:5-11). And He is calling us to do the same–to have the mind of Christ.

Let me appeal to you to “scan the room.” Look for someone who could use some encouragement, a friend, or a kind word fitly spoken. Be a friend. Be Jesus to them. Don’t forget the Gospel. Look for those opportunities to practically live out the Gospel in the lives of other people.

Keep your eye on the ball

Most Super Bowl Games are overrated. Some are good, while others are good for only a little while. Most of them are just average. Out of the forty or so that I have watched, I can hardly remember any of them.

Fortunately, the quality of the game is not what determines the quality of your time together with friends. The best part of the Super Bowl is the opportunity you will have to make memories with your friends.

• Your team may not be in the Super Bowl. Does it really matter?
• Maybe your team is in the Super Bowl. Does it really matter?
• Maybe you couldn’t care less about the Super Bowl. It doesn’t matter.

The Gospel it what really matters. The most important part of the party will be the relationships you build or continue to maintain. Don’t go away with just a memory of the game. Make a Gospel-centered investment in the life of another.

The worst player in the game

Perhaps a player does something that you do not like. Perhaps you seek to bring attention to what that player did. As you bring your observation to the bad behavior or if you are tempted to respond in anger to what you are looking at, please guard your heart against any hint of self-righteousness.

I am the worst sinner I know–at least that was Paul’s assessment of himself and I embrace a similar assessment of myself (1 Timothy 1:15). Therefore, whatever I view on “Super Sunday” will not compare to what I have done on the crucifixion day of my Savior. This Gospel-centered thinking may serve you as you watch the game with humility.

It does not matter

The game is irrelevant. Our culture makes it relevant because that is all they have for today. They live for today. Therefore, they create the buzz and sustain the buzz. They have no choice. That is who they are.

We are different. While we are in the world, we are not like the world. We have a higher calling. Enjoy the game, make a memory, and be alert for what the Father may want to do through you.

My friend Luke Gilkerson with Covenant Eyes interviewed me regarding how to respond to a parent who just caught his/her son in porn.

Luke’s questions are in italics, with my responses underneath:

Let’s say a dad came to see you for advice about his teenage son.

He tells you his son has been sneaking out of bed late at night looking at porn on the computer.

He’s put filters in place but his son seems to be able to get around them.

How might you start advising this father?

Start with hope

The first thing the parent needs to know is that God’s grace is sufficient for this.

The starting point when dealing with personal challenges must be in the hope we have in God. While we may not be able to understand everything that is going on in our lives, we can understand, know, and trust in God’s goodness even in our darkest hours.

I would want to make sure the parents are rooting their hearts and minds in God alone. God is writing His story in their lives. God is in control. God is working His plan.

And most importantly they need to know that God is good. These should be fixed anchor points in their hearts. My first goal would be to make sure the parents are rooted in these truths.

The second thing I would want to do is make sure the parents understand that the real issue is in the kid’s heart, not on his computer. While the parent can use technology to guard the computer, he will need to take another approach to guard the child’s heart.

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. – James 1:14-15 (ESV)

Sometimes a dad or a mom can have a hard time accepting what they are seeing in their children. While they can understand why other children mess up, it can be hard to receive and accept the truth about their own children.

If a child, like the one you’re asking about, goes to these lengths to get to porn, then you are more than likely talking about what our culture calls an addiction. Paul frames it better by calling it being “caught” in a transgression.

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. – Galatians 6:1 (ESV)

It may be helpful for them to reframe what is happening in their family another way. For example, if you think about an alcoholic or crack addict who was circumventing sound advice and obstacles to drink or use, then it may be easier for the parent to see the depth and severity of the problem.

This kid is not a victim to his culture or to technology. He is premeditating how he can get to porn. He is a user. According to James, porn is in his heart. He is being lured away by evil desires that he fosters in his heart.

End with hope

This may be a good time to re-remind the parents of the grace and mercy of God. God is working His plan in their lives and now they have a great opportunity to cooperate with what God desires to do for their child.

With that in mind, part of God’s mercy could be His desire to blow this thing up while the child is young. This would be a mercy from the Lord. Dealing with this problem today is far better than finding out about it when he is 40-years old, married to a bitter wife, and his own kids are in rebellion.

Rather than the parents getting lost in the discouragement of what is going on I would want to motivate them to think and respond biblically, while implementing a biblical plan to help their son. As you counsel them, be sure to situate the parent’s hope in God.

Parents need to lead

What are some first steps of protection you would recommend to parents to prevent future porn-surfing?

The parents should do the most obvious things like Covenant Eyes. I would also recommend that they call Covenant Eyes to make sure they have all the blocks that are possible on their computers–all of their computers.

This kind of protection would also apply to cell phones, iPads, and any other form of technology that allows the child to access pornography. While there are no foolproof ways to stop a guy if he wants to get porn, it would be good to do as much as possible.

Additionally, I would remove or reduce his accessibility to technology. Does he have to have technology? What is the purpose for him having a computer and other devices?

Cell phones are a desire, not a need. Most people do not need a cell phone. Our culture tells us we need one while enticing us to have them. Facebook is similar. Nobody needs to be on Facebook. Though this flies in the face of our technology gods, the truth is that we don’t need all that we have.

I have counseled many parents who are afraid of their children, as shown by their acquiescing to the demands of their children. I would want to carefully walk the parents through the “needs vs. desires” tension when it comes to technology.

If there are times when the child needs to be on the computer, then I would move his computer to a central, highly visible, and public place in the home. If your son struggled with drinking, I don’t think you would put a mini-fridge full of beer in his room and give him a stern warning about what you’ll do to him if he takes a sip.

Model, serve, and protect

How should a parent talk to their teen about the details of what they have seen? Should a parent probe into specific questions about what kind of porn was viewed?

The parents should talk to their child the way they would want to be talked to if they were found out. Yelling and screaming at a child would not be a good idea. The parents should seek to model what they want their child to be. This was the advice of Paul in several places in his writings (1 Corinthians 11:1; Ephesians 5:1; Philippians 4:9).

• If they want their child to be humble, then they should model humility.
• If they want their child to be kind, then they should model kindness.
• If they want their child to be honest, then they should model honesty.

As far as the actual content, it would depend on the situation, the content viewed, and the parents. For example, the dad has a responsibility to protect, lead, and shepherd his wife. Sometimes the role of a shepherd-husband is to protect his wife.

• Will it serve her to know what was viewed?
• What would be the point of her knowing all the details?

I deal with these kinds of things all the time. My wife’s position is that she trusts me and she does not want to know all the gory details. She does not want her mind polluted with some of the things I hear through my counseling opportunities. It is my job to serve my wife, to help her in her growth in Christ.

It may not serve the wife to know the severity or the explicit nature of the porn her son was viewing. It is enough to know that her son was in porn and that he needs help.

From the husband’s perspective, it would not be wise for him to view the porn–nothing more than what he has discovered. Men are affected differently than women. While the wife is generally nurturing and would be tempted to lose hope by what she sees, the husband would be tempted to be lured in by what he views.

In either case, porn takes no prisoners. It is violence to the soul. All parties involved should be extremely circumspect when dealing with it. More porn knowledge or more visuals are not helpful.

It’s not important to count how many beer bottles were on the wall. Just knowing there were some up there, some were taken down, and your son did it should be enough.

Matters of the heart

How should parents be discipling their children to help them understand why pornography is wrong? 

This is an interesting question. While I would want to disciple my children on the sin of pornography–if they were into porn, I would want to disciple them through the deeper and more insidious problems that are going on–the things that feed the porn.

I cannot over-emphasize this: our behaviors flow from our hearts and if our hearts are not shepherded toward Christ, then the kid does not have a chance.

The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. – Luke 6:43-45 (ESV)

Some of the more insidious issues of the heart are the following:

Slothfulness - the child is lazy, meaning that he is using sex to satisfy himself rather than sex being a beautiful thing that God designed. Sex is not primarily for him, but for his future wife. He is lazy. He is not interested in what God says.

You will find laziness at the root of a lot of what the child does. Laziness is not a singular tributary out of the soul. Laziness will touch many things in this child’s life. Begin to carefully examine his whole life and you’ll find pockets of laziness in other places, not just how he thinks about and behaves toward sex.

Dishonoring - More than likely the child knows he is dishonoring his parents, but he does not care. He wants what he wants. Like laziness, you’ll also find this “dishonoring worldview” popping up in other areas of his life.

If his dishonoring attitude is not taken care of now, there will be many other repercussions in his future, e.g. how he thinks about and works for his future employer and how he loves and serves his future wife are just two examples.

Deceit/lying - He is lying and living in a lie. This is one of the more heinous sins. When a person lives a lie, then it is difficult to know if anything he says or does is the truth. Lying and deceit in a relationship will destroy a relationship.

One of the reasons we love God so much is because He always tells the truth. We can assuredly know where we stand with Him. You cannot ever be sure where you stand with a person who lies.

Self-righteousness - Porn is a form of self-righteousness. The self-righteous person has a greater than/better than attitude. Porn is the devaluing of women. The porn user is “using” women to satisfy his own selfish cravings.

Self-centeredness - As you might deduce, self-centeredness is the center of the porn users worldview. Whatever is in the center of his life is what defines him. This is who the son really is. Being self-centered will creep into every single facet of this person’s life.

Ignorance - Part of why he is not trusting God, choosing rather to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, is because there is something he does not understand about God. There is a level of ignorance working in his life. You can find this kind of life portrayed by the life of the fool in Proverbs.

These are merely a sample of some of the things that have been going on in the kid’s heart–things that have led to his pornography use. As the parents insightfully talk to him, they will find other sinful categories working in his heart too. They will need to carefully unpack him so the roots of porn can be eliminated.

Sober self-assessment

One of the more challenging things to walk the parents through is a sober self-assessment of their marriage and how they have parented their child. In more cases than not, it has been my experience to find that there are problems between the parents, as well as how they parent when it comes to the sin of porn.

Though the kid is personally responsible for what he did, if the parents are humble they will want to know how they may have contributed and how they can change in order to serve him (Matthew 7:3-5).

It may be that the parents need to go to their child and confess their sins, whatever they may be. I have seen many parents humble themselves through the years and it went a long way in restoring what was broken in their family, the porn being just the tip of the iceberg.

Community

Finally, everybody involved needs to understand that what was born in isolation will be overcome in community. Porn is a secret sin. It lives undercover and in the dark.

The parents and the child need to pursue the care and accountability of their community–their local church. While Covenant Eyes can help, the family needs more. They need the family of God.

The parents and the child will be embarrassed. Everybody understands this. Exposure cuts against the grain of a proud heart. If they will humble themselves to the help of God’s people, they will soon experience a new and refreshing kind of grace from God.

When trouble comes, what do you do?

When conflict happens, how do you respond?

Let’s face it, conflict is part of all our lives.

Though it’s possible to go a day or two or a week or so without having any conflict in your life, it is not possible to avert all conflict.

Conflict is everybody’s regular recurring antagonist.

It’s a promise from God (Genesis 3:18).

Only when the Savior returns will conflict go away.

Three options

Though conflict is not an option, how we choose to respond to conflict is an option. Everybody responds to conflict, one way or another. Passive Paul who tries to avoid all conflict at all costs is responding to the conflict in his life. His response is a passive response.

He does this because he hates conflict. The truth about Paul is that he is insecure and it makes him nauseous to know that someone is displeased with him. Unfortunately his people-pleasing, be-friendly-to-everyone style does not insulate him from conflict.

As much as he tries to bury his head in the sand, those who are around him generally stay annoyed because he responds to conflict by ignoring, hiding, dismissing, or putting a positive spin on things.

According to his wife Paul is “mushy.” Alice should know because she has lived with him for 31 years. As you might surmise, the main conflict in his life is with his wife. She maintains a low-grade frustration because of Paul’s passivity. This is something she no longer seeks to mask.

It is kinda ironic that for a guy who seeks to avoid conflict at all costs, he seems to find himself in conflict often–especially with Alice. A passive response to conflict is not wise or effective.

Ranting Ronnie on the other hand is very condescending when it comes to people pleasers like Paul. As Alexander Pope once said, “Fools rush in where angels dare to tread.” That’s Ronnie.

His approach has a sandpaper quality to it. “I just speak the truth. That’s what Jesus would do. The truth is the truth. It’s not my fault if they can’t handle it. No need to pussy-foot around. That’s my motto.”

While I agree with Ronnie that Jesus was the ultimate truth-teller, Jesus was also mature, wise, discerning, compassionate, patient, and forgiving. I could go on and on talking about the Savior, but you get the idea–He knew how to biblically relate to others.

It should be noted that Paul and Ronnie are seeking some good things. The problem is that their methods lack sound judgment. Paul wants peace and Ronnie wants to communicate truth. That is good and they are to be commended for these good desires.

However, what both of them do not understand is how the doctrine of sin intersects relationships and how the Gospel could bring redemption to their relationships.

If the Gospel and the doctrine of sin is not factored into how we think about ourselves and others, it won’t take long before we’re in one of the ditches that Paul and Ronnie are in. On the one side is the ditch of passivity and insecurity. On the other side is the ditch of unkindness and uncharitable judging.

When a spouse or a friend sins against you, how do you handle it? How do you respond? How does the Gospel bring redemption to the conflict? Are you tempted to take Paul’s approach of passivity? Are you tempted to take Ronnie’s approach, which creates more conflict?

What about a Gospel-centered approach? What about an approach that cherishes and implements the point and the purpose of the Gospel? To no one’s surprise, God does have one right answer for relational conflict.

The point of the Gospel

The reason Christ came to our earth was to resolve our conflict. There was enmity between us and God. There was strife between us and others. We were broken and separated from God and each other. The Gospel’s solution was not a path of passivity or harshness, but a path of redemption.

Though He was in the form of God, He took on the form of a servant in order to rescue us from ourselves (Philippians 2:6-7). This kind of humble obedience is what God is calling us to. If we will humble ourselves the way the Savior did, then sin can be defeated in our lives and our relationships can be redeemed.

Being passive or harsh in a relationship is not serving. It will not restore. It will divide. It is not the Gospel. Paul and Ronnie are choosing their preferred forms of unkindness. We are either actively loving or we are actively un-loving. They are actively un-loving, one through passivity and the other through harshness.

The power of the Gospel

The Gospel is the power of God (Romans 1:16). That means the Gospel is transformative. The Gospel (Christ) can change your life. It is our job as Christians to spread the transformative Gospel near and far, praying that God would be pleased to change lives.

What better place to see the power of the Gospel unleashed than in the life of a spouse or close friend? If your spouse rubs you the wrong way, then you have the privilege and the opportunity to activate the Gospel into his/her life.

If you’re having conflict with a friend you can choose to “open the Gospel can” and let it do its thing. Don’t hide the Gospel in the ditch of shyness and passivity. Don’t rely on your own strength by using anger and other manipulative means to change people.

It will change them, but not in the way you hope. Choose to be humbly courageous by submitting your yourself to the point and the power of the Gospel. Let it redeem its way rather than your way.

A Gospel-centered template for arguing well

Lucia and I have been married for a long time. As you should rightly assume we both have angered, frustrated, and annoyed each other more times than we can count. The doctrine of sin has been alive and well in our home.

We both have resorted to many different sinful means to hurt each other, to make our points, to posture for superiority, to mask our fears, and to maintain our preferred self-righteous positions.

After we were married we began to realize that there was a problem in how we handled conflict. We both were selfish and demanding in our own way. After many arguments and through a lot of frustration we began to grow in our understanding of what it meant to live out the life of Christ–the Gospel.

Part of this meant that we needed to learn how to argue well and work through conflict. In time God gave us a Gospel-centered template for conflict resolution. The ten steps below is the process for how we typically work through our conflict.^[1]

It is not something we have to think about any more. It is just what we have learned to do over time. When sin is in play, we sooner than later–though it used to be much later–reorient our minds and lives around the Gospel. Typically this is how it starts:

#1 – I was angry with you - Typically I’m the one in our home who will do something unkind, dumb, sinful, or just me being unwittingly detached. I have a level of thickness that sometimes tempts Lucia to sin. We like to use the metaphor of the American bison (buffalo). This means I can be thick-headed.

At some point during any given day Lucia will come to me and say that she is angry with me. The provocation for this is because I did something either dumb or sinful. My action tempted her to sin and she did sin.

What I am saying here is a hugely important point. If you miss this then the probability of your conflict ending well is low. This first point is trajectory setting. How you begin your conflict resolution will determine how you will end it–or not ever end it if you don’t begin right.

Yes, I sinned first. I am aware of this. We will deal with my sin later. As you can see, this speaks volumes to her humility. Though my sin initiated the problem, Lucia sinned in response to my sin. Though I was oblivious to what I did, she was stewing. At this point she has three options:

1. She could take passive Paul’s approach and bury it in her heart, thinking it will be out of her mind. This never works. Eventually she would turn into a critical, cynical, and somewhat bitter woman.
2. She could blow-up and let me have it like ranting Ronnie. This also will not work. If she does this there will be no real reconciliation in our marriage. In fact, this will push me further away from her.
3. She could humble herself by recognizing her sin (Matthew 7:3-5). If she will do this, then she will experience the grace of God that He will activate in her life (James 4:6).

Don’t think that you can fake God out. If you play 1 or 2 above, you will activate the opposition of God in your life as well as invite division into your relationship. No matter how justified you may think you are, God will not bless you if you do not humble yourself–even when you are sinned against.

#2 – God has forgiven me - By the time she gets to me, she has already done business with God. She has humbled herself before the mighty hand of the Lord and He did what He said He would do–He forgave her (1 John 1:9).

Now with God’s power and grace propelling her, she is able to come to me and confess her sin against me. It’s a twofer: she sinned against God and me. The sphere of confession and the sphere of the offense should be the same. You confess to those you sin against.

#3 – Will you forgive me? – She let’s me know that she was angry with me and she wants my forgiveness and will not be satisfied until I forgive her. Yes, I sinned first. I have not forgotten this. My sin is still alive.

Do not miss this: you should never deal with another person’s sin when there is sin in your heart, even if they sinned first. If you do, it will probably not go well for you. Lucia’s main desire was to make sure her heart was right with God and me.

#4 – Yes, I forgive you – I forgave her. Done! My wife is now forgiven and she can live in the freedom and power of this forgiveness. Her sin has been neutralized, killed, and removed. Her sin is now a non-issue.

Because she has properly dealt with the log in her eye, she can move to the next order of business–taking care of this speck in my eye. She is amazing to me. My humble wife is a humble servant to the resident buffalo.

#5 – What did I do - At this point it now becomes evident that I have done something wrong–think buffalo here. You may be surprised to know at how many times I have sinned against my wife and I did not realize the depth or severity of my actions.

Because she comes to me the way she does, I am not tempted to focus on her anger, her sin, or anything else that she has done wrong.  The reason for this is because there is no sin from her. She has been forgiven. It’s my time now. It’s all about me and what I did.

#6 – We talk about it - We can now talk about what I did to her and how I hurt her. We can also talk about how she processed what I did and how I could have done it better.

Here is another key point: because the sin has been neutralized, it’s like a normal, non-emotional conversation. It is not a big deal in the sense that we are controlled by what happened.

Once the power of the Gospel kills the sin, it should not be a problem to enter into a discussion about it. The Gospel frees us from the temptation to protect ourselves or defend ourselves.

#7 – Will you forgive me? – The more we humbly talk the more I understand what I did. This is very important to me–that we talk about what I did. I want to change. I want to grow in Christ. I don’t want to continue to sin against my wife. I don’t want to hurt her.

I praise God that she is not passive when it comes to helping me in my sanctification–like Paul. And I praise God that she does not bludgeon me with harsh tones, a cynical spirit, or condescending speech–like Ronnie.

Because of her ever-present awareness that she put Christ on the cross, her heart is governed and her temptations to be self-righteous are mitigated. Her humility is a means of grace that frees me from the temptation to take a defensive posture.

#8 – Yes, I forgive you – At this point she forgives me. She releases me from the bondage of my sin through the power of forgiveness. This is amazing. There is no people group on the planet who possess what Christians possess. We are a forgiven people, who can continue to be forgiven over and over again and we can also forgive others.

#9 – Let’s talk about it – Now that her sin has been neutralized and my sin has been neutralized by the power of the Gospel, we can enter into a full discussion about all the elements of what we did and how we both can best serve each other so we don’t do it again.

Again, it’s like talking about mowing the lawn or running an errand or some other non-controlling discussion point. It is just a discussion, that’s all. The difference being that this discussion is restorative–redemptive.

The power of the Gospel has trumped the power of the offense and the thing that was between us has been removed. She is not stewing and I am not oblivious. We both have matured in Christ.

#10 – Our relationship is strengthened – Two forgiven sinners can embrace, hug, and kiss, which is what we do. There is no stain left on our relationship and no future accumulative negative impact. She learns more about the Gospel and grace. She is embolden to approach me more often. I learn more about her. I learn more about myself. We both learn from God and are mutually edified by His Spirit.

1. We sinned
2. We forgave
3. We learned
4. We loved
5. We matured

What about me?

Perhaps you’re in a relationship where the other person is unwilling to walk in step or in line with the Gospel (Galatians 2:11-14). I have a couple of those people in my life too.

You’re right to assume that it takes two to do what I have outlined above. You’re right to assume that everyone will not humble themselves before the empowering grace that allows us to live out the Gospel. In such cases I will give you the same advice I give myself:

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be conceited. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. – Romans 12:14-18 (ESV)

There is nothing that should prohibit or hinder the Gospel in your life. Minimally, you can confess your sin to God. You may also be able to do more, but nothing should keep you from going to your heavenly Father, seeking His forgiveness and appropriating His grace.

If you will do this, then you will at least be able to live out an attitude of forgiveness toward those who are currently unwilling to change. Who knows, maybe God will use your humility as a means to bring the change you hope to see in their lives.

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?”Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven. – Matthew 18:21-22 (ESV)

1. ^[1] I dislike 10-Step plans of any kind. We did not sit around thinking about how we could get 10-Steps. This just happens to be how we work through conflict. It’s not so much about the steps as it is about the Gospel. ↩

There are few things that will happen to a person that is more perplexing and painful than finding out that your spouse committed adultery.

Let’s start with the bad news.

There is nothing you can do to make the pain go away.

It is frustrating.

It is surreal.

It is a helpless feeling.

It is despairing.

God said that a man and a woman should come together and form one flesh (Genesis 2:24-25). If they covenant together the way He said they should, then they are no longer two people, but one. The only thing that should separate them is death.

Death is like an amputation or the radical division of two people. It reminds me of an amputee who reaches down to scratch his leg, only to be reminded he has no leg. It is frustratingly awful.

Death is real. It says something is broken. Things will never be the same again. This is why the grief of the surviving spouse can be so great. He mourns the radical separation of their one flesh union that was caused by death.

This is also what causes the intricated complicatedness of adultery. It is not supposed to be this way. Adultery is not God’s plan as far as His moral will is concerned. One of the differences between separation by death and separation by adultery is the lack of finality regarding the adultery.

A spouse may die, but an adulterer has not died. The adulterer radically separates by joining himself or herself to another “flesh.” The pain of this reality is seemingly unbearable. The dawning experience of this new event will change your life forever.

Guard thy heart

It is imperative that the victim of adultery guards his/her heart. The mind can go places that it was not meant to go. The thoughts can run wild and even more so because there is mystery in play–your questions are many and your answers are few.

Whenever there is mystery, the heart is prone to wonder about what is not known. A person can over-speculate and lay awake at night over-thinking and over-worrying about what happened.

What did they do? Where did they go? When did it start? Where was I? Why didn’t I know? And probably the most hurtful question of all, “Did my wife enjoy having sex with him?”

A person will suffer through adultery in proportion to their temptations toward insecurity and fear. The more insecure you are, the more frantic, anxious, and inconsolable you will be. Conversely, the more stable you are with the Lord, the more trusting you will be for what God is writing into your life.

Adultery will bring you the starkest contrasts between fear and faith. It will pull your heart toward the pit of fear or you’ll lean more into God than ever before. Do not be mistaken: it will be your faith in God that will determine how you “survive adultery.”

God is in the crucible with you

The truth is that God is in your situation. He was not “out of action” or preoccupied with other things. God is never preoccupied with other things. That kind of thinking flies in the face of sound theology.

The one thing you don’t want to do is to separate from God during the one time in your life when you need Him the most. Adultery will tempt you to do that. For reasons that you will never know in this life, God has allowed you to go through adultery.

I can’t explain that to you and God will not explain it to you either. He is not obligated to explain what He allows. The real truth is that He can’t explain what He is allowing to happen in your life.

If He explained Himself, then you could possibly rest in the explanation and known outcomes of your suffering. In such cases, your faith would not be in Him, but in the explanation of things and the known outcomes and answers that He provided.

Your faith must be in Him alone. Christ called Peter off a boat, to walk on water (Matthew 14:29). Christ did not tell him how it would go or even why He was asking him to walk on water. He called him to walk by faith and later rebuked him because he did not do it well (Matthew 14:31).

Christ is calling you to walk by faith too. Yes, He’s calling you to do the impossible. The reason He is calling you to do this is because He wants to prove to you that He is the only one worthy of worship. He wants you to know Him for who He really is–the Son of God (Matthew 14:33).

Like Peter, walk toward Him rather than away from Him in your time of need. Though you did not cause this, you are in this and you must walk toward the Lord. Let Him take you by the hand. Let Him restore your soul.

How to survive

Below are a few things I have experienced or observed when helping those who are trying to survive adultery. None of these things will be complete or totally satisfying to you. I’m writing an article, not a book. However, I trust the Father will use these rambling thoughts to help you to press on in Christ.

Will you trust God? – Don’t lightly skim through what I have previously said about faith in God. I cannot overemphasize your need to trust God in this moment…and a thousand other moments that will present themselves in your future.

You may feel good today, but tomorrow you’ll be in the tank of despair again. You will need fresh faith for each day. Your heart needs to be buoyed by daily reminders of God’s active goodness and help in your life. You will not be able to predict or plan when moments of despair shall inevitably come.

• You’ll ride by a restaurant where your wife met the other man and your soul will be troubled.
• Someone will mention his name, though it is not him, but just that name is all you need to go down for the count.
• You’ll be working on a project and it will not go well. In that moment you will be tempted to go into self-pity and then you’ll start dredging up what your wife did, heaping more sorrow, guilt, and shame on yourself.
• You’ll see a happy couple at your local church, only to be reminded of what you lost.

It will be in these spontaneous, unsuspecting moments that you will be caught off guard. Suddenly, without warning, you’ll need the empowering grace of God that can reorient your mind around the hope that is found in Him alone.

My appeal to you is to renew your faith in God each day. Ask Him to help you to trust Him. Ask others to help you to trust Him.

You can’t make it end – No matter how hard you try or how hard you cry, the pain of this will not go away anytime soon. Adultery does not work that way. One of your enemies will be time and time will move slower than you ever imagined.

Do not despair in these moments. God will give you sustaining grace. If there was ever a moment when this old adage applied–time heals all wounds–this is one of those moments.

When the soul is in the depths of despair, time stands still. It is in this moment that you must believe that God is working for His glory and your benefit. Will you believe? Will you trust Him right now?

I did not ask, “Will you stop hurting if you believe?” I asked if you would merely believe. The pain will continue, but your believing must not stop. You do not want your believing to stop, especially at this crucial time of unmitigated pain.

Adultery does not mean a ticket to ride – Yes, there is an adultery clause (Matthew 19:3-9). That does not mean you are supposed to use it. Divorce will not necessarily change anything. Be very careful before you go there.

It’s rarely wise for a person to make a life-altering decision while in the midst of a traumatic event. Though there is a clause, that clause is a fragment in a book about reconciliation.

The Bible is a reconciliation book. That is what the Bible is about. From Genesis to Revelation, God is presenting to us a plan for redemption. I suppose He too could have taken an escape clause and started over. He did not.

He began to implement a plan of redemption. Before you play the divorce card, give it some time, and seek wise counsel. See what else God has in mind. You may be surprised at what He may be thinking (Job 23:13-14).

Don’t seek comparable revenge – I’ve seen too many times where divorce is more about punishing the guilty spouse than seeking the mind of God and what He might want to do in the marriage. Sometimes you just want to hurt the other person, whether it be by sinful anger or other means.

One of those means could be to go out and have sex with someone. Why not, she did it. I’ll do it back. This kind of thinking is graceless and God-less. It completely misses a very real and practical application of the Gospel (Philippians 2:3-5).

Guard against seeking revenge, which could truncate what God desires to do in your marriage. Extend practical grace to a guilty sinner. Remember, you were one who received God’s amazing and practical grace too (Romans 5:8).

Don’t ask for details – Sometimes a spouse will begin drilling their adulterous mate, seeking details about what he/she did with the other person. While there are some things you will have to know, there are other things that you do not need to know.

If you choose self-control by not asking too many questions, it will prove beneficial. Later you will not have to forget what you did not know. If you don’t know certain facts, then you’ll never struggle trying to forget them. It may seem wise in the moment to know all the details.

That is not true. As hard as it is to believe there is coming a day when all of this will pass. You’ll be blessed to know less and you can resist by God’s grace and with the future in view.

Your marriage is not what defines you – Don’t make marriage an idol. You’ll know if you have made it an idol by the proportion of struggle you have in reorienting your mind and life back to the Lord.

If you lose your spiritual balance and cannot recover, then your marriage or loss of marriage, has more power over you than God. That is a definition of idolatry. Though adultery may feel like the end of the world, it is not the end.

Find a community of faith - Adultery is a call to action from the community of faith. You are not meant to go through this alone. That is not God’s way. The things I am calling you to do cannot be accomplished by going out and shaking yourself or by chest-bumping like football players in order to Go-Fight-Win.

You will fail. Nobody gets up from adultery and walks a straight line by themselves. It’s not humanly possible. You need friends. You need help. You need God. The temptations are too many and the pain is too deep.

Don’t miss what God is doing – In 1988 I experienced the immeasurable pain of adultery. My soul was stretched in places that I never thought possible. What I have written here are some of the things I learned during that dark season of my life. I understood David when he asked:

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. – Psalm 42:5-6 (ESV)

To be “cast down” is to be turned upside down, possibly in a slight hole. Cast is the term a shepherd uses who finds a sheep in an upside down condition. Because of the sheep’s high center of gravity, he cannot turn himself back over. Think of a turtle on its back and you’ll get the idea.

I found myself cast down and I could not get back to my feet. But God was there. He was working. He brought me through the long nightmare of my soul. I did not come through perfectly. I stumbled all over the place as my Father persevered for me.

• Under no circumstances do I ever want to go back to that place again.
• Under no circumstances would I trade what the Father taught me during those dark days.

If you have read, watched, or listened to any of my materials and benefited from them, I will tell you that it was because those resources were born out of the crucible of suffering. My Father gave me a snippet of what He called His Son to.

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. – 1 Peter 2:21 (ESV)

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. – 2 Corinthians 4:7-10 (ESV)

I realize this article will not be enough for you if you have experienced adultery. It can’t. I have written over 1000 articles on my Membership Site about adultery, anger, forgiveness, divorce, reconciliation, sovereignty of God, suffering, revenge, and many other topics. If you think they will serve you, then please subscribe.

You can also purchase my small booklet called Help! My Marriage Has Grown Cold or Suffering: how to steward God’s most feared blessing. Or if you would like to meet for counseling, that can be arranged here.

Whichever path you take, make sure you choose a path that has a God-centered community who can practically speak into your life. My prayer is that you will be amazed as you continue to press into God and watch Him turn your ashes to beauty.

If you are thinking about having an affair

…please listen to this podcast from Andree Seu from World Magazine – The Affair

Sandra has struggled all her life with people pleasing.

She said she could not remember a time when she was free from thinking about what others thought about her.

The way she dresses, the car she drives, the technology she carries, and the house she owns are all controlled to some degree by what others think of her.

A peek into her life

• She is fanatical about working out because of her keen awareness of what a “nice looking body” should look like.
• On a few occasions she has caught herself stretching the truth. She says she spins her stories because the real story doesn’t seem as interesting.
• She is fearful of bringing a bag lunch to the office because everyone else goes out to a local restaurant to eat. She’d rather go into debt than feeling like the odd man out.
• She has a low-grade anger toward her boyfriend because he pressured her to have sex with him. She believed he would leave her if she didn’t have sex. She needs to be loved by someone. Having a boyfriend is one of her ways of feeling significant.

Her biblical counselor quickly discerned that her problem was fear of man (Proverbs 29:25). The counselor told her she needed to be more concerned with pleasing God rather than others.

From there, the counselor laid out a plan of prayer, Bible study, and service oriented activities in order for her to practice a lifestyle of pleasing God.

The mistake the counselor made was not carefully unpacking what pleasing God meant to an idolator like Sandra. Sandra is an idolator who has been living a performance-driven, people pleasing lifestyle.

When she was told that she needed to be more willing to please God than man, it was not a difficult thing for her to do. People pleasing was what she knew best. Unfortunately, she was not told what pleases God so she did what she has always done–she ratcheted up her obedience.

Who can please God?

And a voice came from heaven, You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased. – Mark 1:11 (ESV)

Christ pleases God. Anything the Son does pleases the Father. Jesus came to do the will of the Father and He completed that task perfectly. The Father received the finished work of the Son and now a way has been made for us to please the Father by accepting the Son’s work.

Without faith it is impossible to please him. – Hebrews 11:6 (ESV)

A Christian, who is living by faith in the works of the Son, is pleasing God. Pleasing God is not about what we do, but about believing in the only One who could authentically please the Father. Even on our best day, with our best works, we would not be acceptable to God.

We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. – Isaiah 64:6 (ESV)

Sandra is a Christian. However, she is not seeking to please God by trusting (faith) in Him. She is still performing, but this time she is performing for the Father, hoping to get a good grade.

Rather than accepting what is pleasing to God–the works of the Son, she tries to please Him by her obedience. For example, she says she feels more spiritual by going to church. She believes her activity for God gives her more of God. She feels more spiritual when she is doing.

She also says that if she misses her prayer time, Bible reading, or a church meeting she feels less spiritual. She will read her 4.25 chapters each day, even while brushing her teeth so she can check it off.

Sandra is convinced that if she has her morning prayer time and things go well for her during the day, then she will partially contribute God’s favor on her based on her prayer-time-obedience.

As you might imagine, if she does not have her prayer time and things do not go well for her during the day, she feels as though her lack of prayer (disobedience) caused her day to go bad. Sometimes her friends affirm her theology of legalism when they observe her bad day and say, “You must not be prayed-up today.”

As you can see, when her biblical counselor gave her a list of things to do in order to please God, Sandra initially was excited about the list. Any people pleasing, self-reliant, performance-driven person would be.

However, as time went by, she could not juggle her list of spiritual disciplines with the rest of her life. Eventually discouragement and depression set in–she could not keep up. From her perspective, God was not pleased with her–basing this on her poor performance.

According to Sandra’s functional theology she could control God’s pleasure by what she did rather than what the Son did. Her understanding of Christ’s work was limited. She believed the Gospel was for her salvation, while her obedience was the primary thing needed for her sanctification.

What about obedience?

Obedience is obviously hugely important to any Christian. However, the key is to make sure that your obedience is not an effort to please God, but a response to your faith in God. This is the context when Paul told the Corinthians that:

We make it our aim to please him. – 2 Corinthians 5:9 (ESV)

Paul was trying to get the Corinthians to understand that pleasing God was a walk by faith rather than by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). The context for the passage was Paul’s appeal to get them to trust Christ rather than the things that they could see. (See 2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

If the Corinthians were trusting Christ in the way that Paul was outlining, then they would be pleasing God too. Pleasing God is about faith. Obedience is another matter. Obedience is the biblical response from a person who is trusting Christ.

Don’t you think it pleases God when you trust (faith) Him? And because you trust Him, you obey Him. The logic would flow like this:

1. I trust God.
2. God is pleased that I trust Him.
3. Because I trust Him, I obey Him.

Sandra needs to start over. She needs to understand what pleasing God means. It means to trust Him, which she is not doing. If she trusted Him she would not be trying to please Him. Contrariwise, she is trusting her works and if her works are satisfactory, according to her estimation, then God is pleased with her.

God has a good opinion of her if she is trusting His Son for salvation. This truth must be inculcated into her brain. Because she is a Christian she is in Christ and she cannot be any more in Christ.

Being more obedient does not make her more in Christ. When she was regenerated God was pleased with her and His pleasure in her does not ebb and flow.

She must guard her heart from the subtle deception that what she does through obedience can merit a better standing before God. For Sandra this is amazingly huge. She is an insecure, people pleasing, co-dependent, performance-driven person.

Warning: If you are not daily affected by Christ’s finished work on the cross you can subtly slip into an obedience lifestyle thinking that what you do pleases God as though there is some kind of merit you can achieve through your obedience.

Obedience is born out of faith in Christ

As Paul was teaching us in Corinthians, obedience is what a person does who is trusting Christ. Obedience is not something you work at as though you need a list. Obedience comes from the ontological realities of the heart. It is the logical and expected life of a person who is born again.^[1]

James teaches us this in chapter two of his book. If you are a Christian the fruit will grow. Faith without works is dead (James 2:17). Works is an assumption and expected response for the believer.

Some may argue that this is quietism or passive obedience. If that is the argument, then the point has been missed entirely. That would be like saying because I am a human I will passively grow. That is silly.

You will not passively grow. You must make real obedient choices to eat if you want to grow. You must decide what to eat with discernment and wisdom if you want to grow healthy. The reason you make those real choices is because you are a human rather than a chair or stump or some other inanimate object.

The reason you choose obedience is because you are a Christian. Obedience is what Christians do, but to frame it as pleasing God is not in line with the Gospel. Paul had strong words for that when he wrote to the churches of Galatia (Galatians 1:6-9).

Gospel-motivated obedience

I like the term Gospel-motivated works as a way to define obedience. I would want to direct Sandra regarding her motive for obedience rather than merely trying to get her to be obedient.

Her counselor did not do this. She was attempting to get Sandra to switch the object of her obedience from man to God–rather than pleasing man, she needed to please God. She should have sought to help her to switch her motive for obedience.

Jesus would say, If you love me, you will keep my commandments (John 14:15). Of course you would. That is an assumption. The operative phrase is if you love me. The reason we love Christ is because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). It would breakdown like this:

1. Christ loved us
2. Therefore we love Him
3. Out of that love we obey

If you have been affected by Christ’s obedience on your behalf, then you will love Him, and because you love Him you will keep His commandments.

Sandra was relieved and encouraged to know that she did not have to please God to gain His good opinion. She began to understand that her standing before God was as secure today as it was when He first acted upon her.

However, because her life had always been wrapped up in people pleasing, she was unclear as to what Gospel-motivated obedience looked like. This kind of thinking was a complete paradigm shift for her. Her legalism lulled her into rote behavior.

Sandra was trying to break the mold, but still perplexed as to how to practically obey God just for the joy of it. This is where her new counselor began to teach her about Gospel-motiavated obedience.

That was done by looking at how the Bible writers connected practical obedience to the Gospel. Here is a short list:

Gospel Motivated Mercy - Then his master summoned him and said to him, You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you? - Matthew 18:32-33 (ESV)

There is an assumption from the Master that this guy should have remembered what happened to him in the courtroom. If he had remembered the Gospel, he would have gone out and modeled (obedience) that same kind of Gospel-mercy to the man who owed far less than what he owed. The Master was asking him a rhetorical question that could be paraphrased this way:

Because I had mercy on you through the Gospel, you should have done the same to your friend. You should have been obedient. That is what I would expect from any of my children and that kind of obedience born out of faith would please me.

Gospel-Motivated Forgiveness - Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. – Ephesians 4:31-32 (ESV)

Here Paul is teaching us that our motive for obedience is tied to the Gospel. We should not be bitter or angry or slandering because of the model we see through Christ who forgave us (the Gospel). A person who understands the Gospel rightly will forgive–a proper act of obedience.

Gospel-Motivated Love - Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her… – Ephesians 5:25 (ESV)

A husband who understands the Gospel will love his wife sacrificially. He will learn her, love her, and then properly lead her. His sacrifice (obedience to God) for her would be unending and his affection for her would be unceasing. In short, he would be like our dying Savior.

Gospel-Motivated Humility - Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy. – 1 Timothy 1:15-16 (ESV)

Paul considered himself to be the chief of sinners. He was #1 in his book. He who is forgiven much is thankful much. The most thankful Christians are those who never forget that God did not get a good deal when He got them. Humility is an act of obedience, born out of a right understanding of the Gospel.

Gospel-Motivated Suffering - For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. – 1 Peter 2:21 (ESV)

Peter connected personal suffering as a thing that brings pleasure to God, particularly when our suffering is not because of our sin. It is the Christian’s privilege and opportunity to share (obedience) in the sufferings of Christ. The more we understand the Gospel, particularly the suffering aspect of the Gospel, the more we will be motivated to glorify God while we suffer.

Connecting the Gospel to obedience

For the first time in Sandra’s life she was beginning to make Gospel-connections to her practical life. She was understanding that the Gospel was not just for salvation (Justification), but the Gospel was the power she needed to live for Christ (Sanctification).

Today, she reads her Bible with a new pair of glasses as she recently said. Sometimes she gets frustrated when she thinks of all the years of cross-less Bible reading and cross-less living, but she quickly recovers by reorienting her heart back to the finished work of Christ. Sandra is free in Christ!

1. ^[1] Ontological means “state of being,” or who I really am. Because I am a Christian, I obey. ↩

Sometime un-forgiveness can be used as a weapon in a relationship.

Did you know this?

I have seen it before.

It usually happens when a person has been hurting for a long time or has been significantly hurt in some way.

The hurt person chooses to hold on to anger and un-forgiveness as a way of punishing the perpetrator, while protecting themselves from future hurt.

What the anger-holder-onto-person does not realize is that sin is cancerous and that no one can hold on to any sin no matter how justified or insecure they feel.

Have you ever been tempted to do this? I have.

If you have, then please know that your anger and un-forgiveness will take its revenge out on you and you will be entrapped by your own desire to punish.

The best thing to do is to get help so you can let it go. No matter what has happened to you, a sinful response like holding on to anger or un-forgiveness will wear you down to a moral nub. It’s unwise and un-Gospel.

This is what happened to Bill and Mary. Their marriage was your typical looks okay on the outside, but the inside was full of loneliness and low-grade hostility…until the day all hell broke loose. That was the day the tables were turned and Mary became empowered. It was the power of un-forgiveness.

The drama in the home

Bill was a likable guy. Every time they went to counseling the counselors liked Bill. Everybody liked Bill. This would infuriate Mary and it was one of the reasons why she stopped going to counseling.

She later said, “Why go? He would go in, put on his people-pleasing smile and within 20 minutes the counselor would be wondering what my problem was. They liked Bill because everybody likes Bill. They figured he was married to a nagging discontent. So why bother?”

The general consensus was that his perceived spiritual maturity and humble servant’s heart was something that others should emulate. When he wasn’t running his moderately successful business, he volunteered at his local church by leading not one, but two Bible studies for men.

The pastors loved him not only because he was free labor, but because they saw Bill as a “model citizen.” It didn’t help that they were so busy that looking beyond the surface was not a possibility. The squeaky wheel got the grease and Bill never squeaked.

All appeared to be well except there was one glaring, but mostly unnoticed problem: Mary could not stand Bill. No one knew this, but Bill…and Mary. She had been living with a low-grade animosity toward her husband for nearly 20 years.

The only reason she did not leave was because of the stigma of divorce and what it would do to their children. God hates divorce, you know.

Mary’s issue with Bill was pretty much straightforward: he was a hypocrite. Bill was a self-absorbed people-pleaser, who had learned how to manage the gap between who he really was and the person he presented himself to be.

The problem for Bill and Mary was that he could not maintain his hypocrisy consistently. And, as these things tend to go, the one place where he could not keep up a front was in his home.

At home he was known for what he really was. For the most part that was okay with Bill. He counted on Mary not to spill the beans. Mary acquiesced simply because it was the path of least resistance.

With no public chink in his spiritual armor, Mary silently suffered through it all, though she had a very short fuse. In the depths of her soul she knew that there was something more sinister in play. The problem was that she could not put her finger on it.

Coupled with this low-grade anger toward Bill, was her fear that whatever he was into would devastate her should the truth come out. This was another reason she did not want to know the real Bill. For her, ignorance was bliss.

The nightmare revealed

It was late on a Monday afternoon when Mary was emptying the home office trashcan that she noticed a receipt from a strip club. It was unmistakable. Her heart beat furiously and her mouth went dry. Ignorance was no longer bliss.

She was temporarily torn between walking out the door for good and confronting her husband with the truth that she found in the can. She chose to confront.

Not surprisingly Bill was shocked, but quickly gained his equilibrium and went into his people-pleasing routine. Mary was not impressed. She had seen his schtick too many times. She stood firm.

After a week of arguments, denials, confrontations, and threats, Bill finally came clean. He told Mary what she later said was the worst news of her life. He was into porn. She was devastated.

In time Bill went to counseling and came clean of his sin. It was not his per usual people-pleasing routine. It was real grace from the Father that helped him walk through repentance.

Though he did not act like it in the beginning, he always wanted to be free from his sin. He later said that he was glad he got caught. He did not have the integrity or the courage to tell on himself.

Mary, on the other hand, was struggling. Even a year later she was unwilling to forgive Bill. She was angry, critical, bitter, self-justifying, and self-righteous. She would not let it go.

The weapon of the wounded

Mary had been hurting for two decades. Twenty years! She also had been stewing in anger during most of that time. From her perspective, forgiveness seemed too easy for Bill. Even when others made heartfelt appeals for her to let it go, she would not.

She knew she was right–or at least wanted others to believe that she was, though she was not really convinced in her own heart. She felt that people did not understand. How could they? They did not live with Bill.

She saw Bill for what he was–a hypocritical fool. She would not believe his repentance. As she said, “He did not willingly confess. He was caught!” She believed that if she had not found the strip club receipt, he probably would never have confessed his sin.

She was more than likely right. Bill even said as much. Though he wanted to get help, he was too weak in his faith to trust God enough with this big dark secret that he had been harboring for two decades.

Mary said she had forgiven him, but there was nothing in her attitude or actions that would support her claim. During counseling, Mary’s counselor confronted her about her unwillingness to forgive Bill.

The real truth that eventually came out was her belief that she had been living alone her entire marriage and God never intervened in the nightmare. Mary was hurt and felt it was proportionally inequitable for her to forgive after a year, when she was repeatedly persecuted by her husband for over twenty years.

The more sinister side of Mary believed that if she forgave Bill for his sin, then it would be like he never sinned. From her perspective he would get off free and clear and the door of her nightmare would be closed, as though it never happened. This was not tenable for Mary. She was bitter and not ready to forget her hurt.

In some ways her hurt was a form of security. After awhile a person like Mary does not know how to live any other way but in the pain that they have been living. It’s like an institutionalized convict who can’t live any other place but his prison.

The power of un-forgiveness

Yes, Bill repented of his sin though he did not initially confess his sin. Once it was brought to the light, he admitted to everything. I told him that if he ever wanted to restore his marriage, then his confession must be more than what Mary knew. He could not hold back.

Too many times when a person is caught in sin he will only admit what has been found out. In most cases there is more than what has been discovered. I appealed to Bill to not keep any secrets.

It would not be wise to try to restore the marriage and then six months down the road more things come out. Bill understood. He told it all. Mary was not impressed and was clearly not willing to let him off the hook by freely forgiving him. She knew that to forgive someone of their sin was to say,

I will be obedient to God and release you from your sin regardless of what you have done to me. What I have done to my Savior is far worse than what you have done to me or could ever do to me.

I will not hold this over your head anymore, but will make myself vulnerable to the possibility of you hurting me again. In essence, I trust God’s method in this matter and I will be obedient to Him.

I forgive you.

Mary’s unwillingness to forgive Bill was her man-centered way of protecting herself from ever being hurt again. I truly understand the temptation. She believed, though she would not say it like this, that as long as she could hold Bill’s sin over his head she would not be vulnerable or hurt.

Grace is freely extending your arms while welcoming the person into your arms. Un-forgiveness is like crossing your arms, one over the other, and out in front of you like a shield to protect you from being hurt again.

The deeper and core belief for Mary was more subtle than she was willing to admit or see. It went like this: since God did not come through for me for 20 years, I am going to make sure I’m not hurt again.

To forgive Bill would say, “It’s over; let’s move on.” To maintain her self-protective shield of un-forgiveness accomplished at least three goals:

1. She was punishing Bill for all the years he punished her.
2. She was protecting herself from ever being hurt again.
3. She was perverting the Gospel.

The power of the Gospel

Sin disorients our thinking and it had disoriented Mary’s thinking. Sin does not let God be God, but entices us to assume the role of “god-ness.” Mary was playing god. She was holding Bill’s sin over him while making a mockery of the cross.

The Father’s punishment of His Son on the cross was not enough for Mary. While she genuinely believed in the Gospel and the power of the cross, she could not fully embrace its cleansing and freeing power. Grace seemed too easy.

What Mary did not understand was that grace was not easy and its never been easy. In order for her to have grace, it cost Jesus Christ His life on a cruel tree. Jesus took Bill’s punishment–and hers too.

• The infinite Father punished the infinite Son for an infinite crime.
• The infinite Savior paid an infinite price for the infinite crime.

From Mary’s chair the death of Christ was not enough for what Bill did. Christ can pay for the sins of others, but He needs help to pay for this one sin against her. Mary had a high view of herself.

In essence, she would not accept the death of Christ as a sufficient payment to cover what was done to her. In her world, Bill’s sin against her was greater than her sin against the Savior. She was treating her husband in a way that God did not treat her when she came asking for forgiveness for her many sins.

• The Father forgave Mary for her sins against his Son.
• Mary will not forgive Bill for his sins against her.

Bill is now free, but Mary is not. Mary will need to repent of her self-righteous attitude by humbling herself at the foot of the cross. She will have to accept the death of the Son as payment in full for what Bill did. The Father put the Son on the cross. Mary needs to take her husband off the cross.

Are you holding onto any un-forgiveness toward anyone?