Marriage Lessons

In light of getting married in a couple of weeks, I found a very helpful article from Mark and Grace Driscoll on their 18th wedding anniversary. They simply listed the lessons they have learned during their marriage so far, but it's always great to see advice from people you admire and who are further along the road of married life than you.

Check it out at:

http://blog.marshillchurch.org/2010/08/15/18-lessons-from-18-years-of-marriage/

A Great Book

Today I went to a little pub for lunch with my mum and dad in a village by the sea, and I started reading a book called Practical Theology for Women: How knowing God Makes a Difference in Our Daily Lives by Wendy Horger Alsup. It is such an excellent book! I have never read anything for women that is so packed with foundational theology, and it isn't intimidating, but it's real theology not the kind of light theology that books for women sometimes use.

I just love this author, Wendy Horger Alsup, she tells her powerful testimony about how theology impacted her life during unemployment, a miscarriage, and her husband having to go for emergency heart surgery. Nothing speaks more clearly than someone who has been through incredibly difficult circumstances and found that studying the Bible and the truth of God's character changes everything. She writes;

"How can you explain to someone that you would not trade your year of unemployment and financial concerns for anything in the world because the beauty of God's provision so richly outweighed the struggle? Who would believe that your young husband's heart surgery was worth it - truly worth every ounce of pain - because God opened your eyes to something so incredibly beautiful about himself that it defies explanation?" (p. 35)

I was inspired by her faith, and challenged to let theology shape my life, particularly when the circumstances seem worrying, hopeless, or out of my control. I don't want to throw out my faith in God every time I find life difficult. Get the book if you can!x

Why a night out can let you down!

I was listening to the build up for Friday night on Radio 1 and remembered the anticipation I used to feel. The lyrics and the beat of the music suggest that tonight is going to change your life. Going out is hyped up to be this transcendent experience, where you can throw off all constraints, where true freedom is found, where fun happens. People go through a whole week waiting for the weekend so that they can go out. The ritual of getting ready, having a couple of drinks first, going to a club with your girl friends, seems to hold some kind of magic.

This is not me saying that going out is bad, I love to have a good dance with the girls, but I am saying that a night out can sometimes offer you a lie. The lie is that the experience will be transcendent. It might even feel spiritual when you are in a club, ancient religious cults used the combination of music and alcohol to gain an ecstatic state, so this is nothing new. But it is a deception, and when all is quiet in the taxi home at 4am, you might just wonder why your night out was worth all that expectation.

Being a Christian is about a shift from darkness to light. A bright torch beam (the good news of Jesus) is shone in to the darkness of your life, and then you become a light in the world. Paul says in his letter to the church in Ephesus:

"For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)." Ephesians 5:8-9

The cocktail of drunkenness, dancing, and sexual encounters created by clubbing happens in the dark and is an expression of moral darkness. Paul says:

"Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them." Ephesians 5:11

Somehow we have been conned into thinking that jumping up and down in a dark room and rubbing up against each other is what it takes to have fun, and is worthy of devoting our time and money to. As Paul says, this is fruitless, totally foolish.

In his letter Paul goes on to explain that living in the light requires discernment about these things:

"Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery (*debauchery -a strange word basically referring to wild partying with lots of alchohol and sex). Instead, be filled with the Spirit." Ephesians 5:15-18

There is nothing transcendent about the shameful things that go on in the dark at clubs and house parties. If we are wise we will see this. Following Jesus and being filled with the Holy Spirit (*Filled with the Holy Spirit - the experience of Christians that the Holy Spirit has come into their heart, enabling transformation. Also refers to a regular filling with peace, strength, and power from the Holy Spirit to help us in our lives.) is the only good and true spiritual and transcendent experience. That's why if you expect this from your night out, it will inevitably fail you.

I know this is a strange thing for me to be reflecting on when I'm about to get married, but I really feel that I don't want us to see going out in the wrong way because it's a massive part of student life. I think developing a theology for going out is very important. Hope this helps, x

Thoughts on Becoming a Wife 1: Submission

So, I said I would be coming back to the whole subject of 'submission' at some point, and now I'm getting married in less than a month it seems as good a time as any! 'Sumission' means very little in our generation. In fact, it is entirely misunderstood. Whenever I talk to women about it, you can see their eyes narrowing with suspicion, thinking that I'm trying to do some twisted imitation of a 1950s housewife. This is not what submission looks like.

I wanted to get a dictionary definition for you, to make it really clear. But my dictionary only said that to submit means yielding to a superior force or stronger person. This just shows how little the world knows about Biblical submission I guess. So we are going to go straight to the Bible, and to the main passage quoted/debated over on this subject, which is in Paul's letter to the church in a city called Ephesus.

"Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything." (Ephesians 5:22-24)

If possible, as we try to make sense of this, lets put down our natural tendency to react in anger against anything that might suggest that a woman isn't self-sufficient and fully independent and in control. Because this concept is in the Bible it means that God wants us to learn it, and it will be for our good. Remember that God doesn't want to condemn us to misery, he knows us inside out, and if He tells us to do something, it will be best for us. This is foundational to how we read any command in the Bible.

So, in context, Paul is talking about how he wants the Christians to treat each other. Chapter 4 ends with: "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ". This is a principle that applies to everyone, but Paul then goes on to apply it in more detail to specific relationships, starting with husband and wife.

There is this profound parallel between the husband/wife relationship and the Jesus/ the Church relationship. Wives are compared to the church, and husbands compared to Jesus as the head of the church. Jesus provides the vision for the church, and He also oversees it, directs it, guides it. He has divine authority over the church, which means that the church honours Him, adores Him, and needs Him. In some small way a husband takes this kind of role with his wife. His role as head of the marriage is God-given so should be treated with reverence by his wife.

Obviously there are circumstances in which a wife cannot and should not obey her husband. But more commonly this is brought up as an excuse because we don't like being under any kind of authority or leadership. Submission is God's calling for married women, and it is such a beautiful thing. Even from my limited experience (as I'm not married yet!) I notice how freeing it is for my fiance when I honour him and respect his decisions for us. It is wonderful for me because I am protected from the things I wasn't designed to handle, and the burden of final responsibility and leadership is lifted from my shoulders.

Submission is not to be taken as an opportunity to be lazy, or seen as a command to be a passive woman. I am totally involved with the direction of our lives, but if my fiance says that we are going to do something and I don't want to, then I have to trust him and submit to his decision. This is so good for both of us. I can respectfully disagree, I can gently explain if he is doing something I believe to be wrong, there is room for debate. But we often treat our husbands (in my case, fiance for a couple more weeks!) in a disrespectful way which paralyses their ability to lead us.

It must be noted that this is not about him being more valuable to God (men and women are equally precious to God), or even necessarily more capable in every situation. It is good and right for us to submit because God says so, and there isn't a get-out clause such as...
"I don't need him to lead me"
"I'm actually more capable"
"I don't trust him to make decisions"

Submission is not conditional. In the same way that the command for husbands to love their wives is not conditional. There is a role for both the husband and wife. Submission is designed to work best when the husband loves his wife, not when he feels love towards her, but when he lays his life down for her in love (v 25 "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her").

This is a difficult thing that we are called to. Submission goes against every natural inclination we have to control our lives, protect ourselves, and take authority from no one. But how glorious marriages are when both partners are laying down their lives in the way God has commanded. My constant prayer is that submission to my fiance will characterise our marriage. I've had a glimpse of it, and I want more!