Your Communication Methods

What are some of the ways you communicate with people? Think about your last argument or disagreement with someone. Was it verbal? Did it contain name calling or even cursing? Were there hurtful words flying around?  Was there screaming, ranting, raving, or threats? Was the phrase “I hate you” used? How about wishing them dead or in hell?

Was it non-verbal? Turning on the big freeze, refusing to talk at all, but thinking everything you really wanted to say. Door slamming, pot banging, foot stamping…? These are all non-verbal methods of communication.

We communicate with all parts of our bodies. The sayings, “If looks could kill I’d be dead,” he was “shooting daggers out of his eyes,” indicate that eyes are powerful non-verbal communicators.  All of these are effective in saying what we want to say. Sometimes, the nonverbal says much more than words ever could. Our verbal and non verbal means of communicating are revealing things about us to others all the time.

People can tell if we are happy or sad, if we are in physical pain and even in emotional pain.    What most do not understand, is that our communication is revealing something greater than what we might expect. Eye rolling indicates the “oh brother” thoughts going on in the mind, downcast eyes reveal shame and fear.  Overall our faces are great communicators.  Frowns, wrinkled foreheads, pressed and pinched lips tell you things about me and what is going on in my thoughts and heart.

How we dress also can communicate a message. When a guy shows up for a date in dirty jeans and tee-shirt it can be an indication of how much value he places on his date. Young ladies who dress in a provocative manner are sending clear non-verbal messages to everyone who looks at them as well.

How you sit or stand or carry yourself is also a revelation of what is going on in your heart.  Slumped shoulders, hands stuffed in pockets, shuffling down the street can be an indication that a person is burdened, despondent or sorrowful.

So what does God’s Word say about these types of communication? All these forms of communication come from somewhere. They have become patterns and habits of living that come from the internal, invisible part of each of us that the Bible refers to as the heart of a man. If you have followed this blog for any length of time you will remember that we teach that one of the things revealed in communication is what is going on in the heart of a person. Luke 6:45 says that the words you speak are evidence of what is within your heart.

Matt 15:18-19 says that the evil words we speak come from an evil heart, and if you read the passage you will see that Jesus goes on to define some of those for us.

Many people are shocked to realize that the foul stuff that comes out of their mouths is a reflection of what is going on inside of them.  That is not surprising to me because unless a person is brought up with a biblical view of themselves, they are trained to believe lies about themselves.  This is why many people struggle coming to Christ- they believe they are essentially good people. Even Christians have a wrong view of their heart, and reading verses like these and letting them sink in and coincide with their memory of the last fight they had with their kid or spouse makes a huge impact on them.

Communication Failures

Communication is one of the main reasons people wind up in counseling. Few people understand how to communicate, and even fewer understand how to communicate biblically. We want to help change that through education and training.

 We have to realize that as the Proverbs say, in our tongues we hold the power to build others up or to destroy them emotionally, socially, and professionally. Unfortunately, we often choose to tear down rather than build up. Some say it is because we lack "self-esteem" but the Bible says we do so because we a sinners. It does make some people feel better about themselves to injure others with their tongue. There are times we just talk too much and nothing good ever comes of that!

We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check. James 3:2 (NIV)

Speech impacts many aspects of our lives because once a word is spoken it can never be retracted. You cannot grab it and pull it back in and pretend it ever happened.  Many of those words bring heartache and pain into your relationships and even an apology does not erase their damage. This is why James warns us so clearly about controlling our tongues! 

And the tongue is a flame of fire. It is full of wickedness that can ruin your whole life. It can turn the entire course of your life into a blazing flame of destruction, for it is set on fire by hell itself.  James 3:6 (NLT)

Sin would be the overarching reason that we communicate in these ways and I maintain that selfishness is the specific reason. The "It's all about me" attitude that is so pervasive today. How did this get so messed up? It didn’t begin that way! When God specifically told Adam he could not eat from the tree in the center of the garden and he did anyway, it opened up the understanding of good and evil (Gen 3) and the perfect communication between them was severed. Adam and Eve became aware of good and evil after eating the fruit of the tree therefore they were afraid and hid. They desired to break communication with God out of fear of discovery. 

There is no one that is exempt from the results of the fall. Romans 3:10 reminds us that there is not one of us that is righteous. The sin of Adam has taken mankind, who was created to have a moral capacity and a spiritual resemblance to God, and brought us to a place of complete depravity. The Bible says things like we are lost, blind, without hope, completely depraved, walk in darkness, sons of disobedience, unrighteous, unprofitable, under the wrath of God, and uses other descriptive words to  describe our state.  From these descriptions it is suddenly easy to see why we have trouble communicating righteously with each other.

And every aspect of communication is affected.

Self-Injury and Self-Harm Part 2

The self-injurer is not usually suicidal and is careful about how they injure themselves so they do not require medical intervention. For instance, they will not intentionally cut over a major artery and will not cut too deeply. They typically do not want to end their lives; they just want to feel better.

The teenage years (when self-injurious behaviors commonly begin) can be traumatic times. Especially in our culture where they are presented with decisions and choices they are not mature enough nor equipped to handle.

Our teens have greater pressures than at any time in history; college preparation now begins in the 8th grade for many students as they have to make choices about advanced placement classes. Many high school students work 20 plus hours a week to save for college in addition to attending classes daily and doing homework for those AP classes; teens are given mixed messages about relationships and sexual orientation. Sexual behaviors are taught in school, and promoted in the popular media. In many cases they are pressured to be sexually active long before they are ready emotionally and physically ready.

Our teens are being put in situations they are not ready to deal with! They deal with broken homes, spending alternate weekends with each parent and the pressure that comes from being in the middle of divorce. These are only the “normal” stresses our children deal with! This does not even cover the extreme cases of sexual abuse by a parent or step parent, drug or alcohol use in the home by parents who encourage their children to join them in these behaviors, out of control siblings that raise tension in the home, same sex unions, sexually transmitted diseases or abortion.

They come to believe that there is little or nothing they can count on, that is stable and unchanging. Who can they talk to besides each other? Who can they really trust?

All this feeds into the world of self-injury. It is a method of dealing with indescribable pain and loneliness.

Self-injurers commonly report they feel empty inside, stressed, unable to express their feelings, lonely, not understood by others and fearful of intimate relationships and adult responsibilities. Self-injury is their way to cope with or relieve painful or hard-to-express feelings.

Self-Injury and Self-Harm Part 1

Today's posting will address the topic of self-injury and self-harm most commonly known as cutting. Self-injury or self-harm can be defined as an attempt to intentionally cause harm to one’s own body. The injury is usually severe enough to cause tissue damage to some degree; from superficial scarring to permanent major disfigurement including amputation or mangulation.

Cutting and burning appear to be the most common forms of self-injury we are seeing among teenagers in our counseling ministry. There are some common signs of self-injury you should be aware of:

• Wearing clothing that covers the arms, legs and trunk of the body when it seems inappropriate to do so. The self-injurer wants to hide the scars of their abuse.
• Having a razor blade, knife or lighter handy.
• Numerous “accidents”

Something you should be aware of is that cutting is always associated with a component of a larger problem. Unfortunately, there is no quick fix, no step by step formula to follow when dealing with this problem. You might think that anyone who would cut themselves with a razor blade is nuts. Psychology wants to label this behavior an illness or a mental disorder, but in reality it is truly a spiritual problem. It can most certainly have medical complications (infections etc) it is not a "medical problem."

I hope this is an encouragement to you if someone you love is a cutter. Often times underlying the cutting is a relationship problem with parents or boyfriend/girlfriend, siblings or peers. The good news is the troublesome aspects of these relationships must be examined and dealt with biblically. A good Biblical Counselor can help you learn how to do that.

Many teens are forced into counseling by because their parents and they don’t want to be there. They don’t know the counselor and have no established relationship with them. Those who are forced to come usually they have no desire to change and it usually doesn’t go well.

Honestly parents, the best people to help your child are YOU! God didn’t give them to you for you to have someone else raise or deal with their problems. He gave them to you to care for, teach, correct, and train in righteousness and even to rebuke when necessary.

Some ways you can help them are by learning to be a question asker rather than a statement maker. If you do not believe your teen will honestly share their burdens with you I would encourage you to develop a habit of asking questions. Questions that relate to what is going on in their thought life, aimed at things they believe (not feel) and find out what they want and desire.

If you are not sure how to do these things, can I urge you to take the time and learn how? Many churches are now equipped to help you in this way as Biblical Counseling is taking hold and reclaiming the ground of soul care once again. I would urge you to take advantage of biblically based training that will equip you to help and minister to your child.

I would encourage you to follow biblical principles when dealing with self-injury rather than going the route of psychotherapy and secular counseling. Secular reasoning is contrary to biblical methodology. Self- abusers don’t have an illness that can medically be diagnosed; what they do have is a faulty coping mechanism that is truly a sinful habit.

The Myth of Self-Esteem

A common theme in our world is the chanting of the modern self-esteem movement that blames every sinful and hideous deed on the supposed fact that the offender did not have enough self-esteem, so that is why he/she committed this action. This is an excuse and is not factual.

While there are certainly cases where a person has been so emotionally battered since childhood and has been given a constant message that they are "no good" or worthless that is rarely the case. These are the people who never heard a good word said about them their entire lives. They have truly come to believe that they are of no value to mankind and this is tragic and heartbreaking. I am not referring to those poor souls.

What I am referencing are those whose sinful actions and attitudes are blamed on a perception that they don't think well of themselves. The "troubled teen" or the eating disordered young woman, the adulteress or the promiscuous. The thinking seems to be that if he or she thought more about themselves they would not do the things they are doing! They would not be hurtful or hateful, they would not be a bully, or they would not sleep around.

With no thanks to the modern psychological movements, this sort of hogwash has been mainstreamed into the daily news and also into the school systems.  Sadly, even many churches are buying into the whole self-esteem movement by offering self-help groups during the week where all those "suffering from low self-esteem" can come and be soothed. Such rotten theology- coming from churches?! Yes indeed.

I realize this may be challenging your thinking, and perhaps I have even angered some of my readers with these truths. Hold on, it is about to get even better! Do you know that the Bible does not use terminology such as "self-esteem?" Do you know that nowhere in God's Word is it assumed that we need more of it? Do you know that in fact, the Bible tells us entirely the opposite of what the world tells us about ourselves and "self-esteem?"

The Bible does have a word to reference those with an abundance of self-esteem- it is the word prideful. Pride and self-love go hand in hand and are the antithesis of who we are to be in Christ. Jesus knows that our hearts are already exceedingly proud and haughty. We are so prideful and so in love with ourselves that we are told in the Scriptures that we must learn to love one another more than we already love ourselves! No less than 12 times are we told to love one another by the Apostle John in his Gospel and his Epistles. Paul also tells us to love one another both directly (Romans 13:8; 1 Thess 4:9) and indirectly, as does Peter (1 Pet. 1:22).

Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. Romans 13:8 (NASB)

When a person has too much self-love (self-esteem) they will reveal that the only person they truly care about is themselves. All of life revolves around self and there is no room and there is no time to be focused on anyone but self. You will recognize this by the overabundance of "I" statements they make. It is invariably about how they feel, what they think, what they want, how _____affects them and their plans or their time.

They may typically display selfish behaviors such as drunkenness (which is often excused since they are "sick"), eating disorder (because they have "low self-esteem"), disruptive or violent behavior (which is not their fault it is someone else's/society's fault) and so the people in their lives make it their goal to help that person get more self-esteem, "heal", or "get better." This involves months and sometimes years of weekly therapy where the person sits around and talks about.....you guessed it! They talk about themselves only adding to the problem.

A person who struggles with this kind of sin needs to be reminded of exactly who they are without the blood of Christ. While they have worth and value simply because God created them, their worth or value does not need to be and should not be propped up, and their sinful heart does not need to be massaged. They need some serious, realistic re-evaluation about who they are both in Christ and not in Christ. This re-evaluation of self must be undertaken from that perspective and accompany deep studies from the Word of God regarding our High and Holy God versus our low and lowly selves. 

Teaching about humility and considering other people better than self needs to take place, and it is not wrong to reveal how all their selfish acts have affected other family members. The hope is that these things will bring about conviction at the heart level and help the person to understand that life does not revolve around them. Emphasize a life of service to others, especially those they might consider "beneath them" or not worthy of their time or efforts. 

Because what is truly being dealt with is a gigantic head of pride, the Word of God must be brought to bear on the heart. It is only through the application of the Word to the heart that changes will be made in the life.

Righteous Living

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. (Deut 6:4-5)

When a was a child, I attended a Catholic School where we were taught many prayers for recitation. These prayers were ground into my brain through attending the daily Mass before school, and the catechism that I was taught to believe.

Although I have not practiced Catholicism for over 25 years these things have stuck in my brain. I know this because recently I had occasion to attend a Catholic church service and was quite surprised to find I could clearly and effortlessly recall the words I was to say along with the rest of the assembly. This got me to thinking....

Many of us struggle greatly (now) with behaviors that we have done since childhood. We learned a sinful habit way back then and have diligently tried to overcome it through prayer, Bible reading, and even counseling, but it still plagues us. This is of great discouragement to us because we think we would be moving along nicely if it only were not for that one little thing....that particular sin habit, those particular thoughts, that specific desire of the heart that cries out to be met...

These things have become very powerful in our heart and soul and have been completely integrated into our thought processes. These same sinful thoughts, beliefs, and desires have had such an impact on our heart that we have believed them, and obeyed them with all our strength! This has led many of us to heartache and painful things in our lives. We search for a way out and we desire the pain to stop. We feel helpless and we feel hopeless when we succumb once again to that same old sin habit, same old sinful pattern.

There is hope!

You can rewrite your thought patterns, beliefs, and desires based on the Word of God and in so doing you will be creating new "recitation" for your heart to meditate upon.  This is a process, and won't happen overnight but I can tell you that reading, meditating on, and memorizing Scripture will have a profound impact on your heart.

"Heart" is the biblical term for your thoughts, beliefs, emotions, desires, soul, will, essentially any immaterial part of you that cannot be touched. The Bible speaks of the heart over 700 times and it is almost exclusively with respect to the internal workings of the human soul.

As God's Word begins to permeate your heart you will notice that your thoughts flow in a different direction. You will begin to realize change is taking place in small ways at first, but as you continue to apply the truth you are reading and internalizing the greater and faster these changes will be!

I also want to stress the purpose for these changes is really to glorify God by how you are living your life.  The benefit to you personally is that you will sin less, and rejoice more! Your goal ought not be to stay out of trouble with someone, or to look good, or to get ahead in life but instead, the reason for all change should be to glorify God. That is the sole reason we are here!

Take some time today and sit down with your Bible and find verses that you can begin to meditate upon. Commit them to your heart and when you are tempted to sin recall them and speak them. Think on (as Phil 4:8 and following says) good things, true things, holy things, righteous things- Godly things! You will soon see that your mind cannot say on both sinful and righteous thoughts at the same time.

Righteous living, erasing the old tapes, all this comes with meditation and memorization of the Word of God and putting it into practice.

"A Journey in Search of Comfort..." Cont.

I have been posting from an article written by my friend and fellow discipler Howard Eames. He posted the article on Christian Communicators Worldwide a while back, and I thought you would benefit from reading portions of it. He read Jim Elliff's Comfort for Christian Parents and wrote an excellent article on it. I have posted much of it over this past week. If you are interested in reading the article in its entirety I invite you to click here to do so.


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Jim continues,

4. We may have hope because of God's election of those who will come to Him. Every child is on his way to hell unless God stops him. God's election is our friend. We would have no hope for our child's salvation without it, because no child would turn to Christ if left in the state of depravity (Romans 3: 9-11). But given God's election of people to Himself, we can be encouraged.

Charles Spurgeon was not born with the doctrines of God's sovereignty in grace prepackaged. He writes that he was meditating on his own conversion one day and stopped to consider, "If left to myself, I never would have come to Jesus Christ in saving faith." And so it is with you and me if we are honest before the Lord. God was able to stop my mad dash to destruction, my toboggan slide to eternal retribution, my wild flight from sanity and all that is true and good. Most surely He is able to arrest my son or daughter's equally madcap adventure in vanity and worldly pleasure.
There is no true joy apart from a biblical understanding and embracing of the absolute and exhaustive sovereignty of God. This is the clear message of the Book of Ecclesiastes. Joy comes "at the end of a tether."¹

That tether is the sovereignty of God. When you and I pray for our unbelieving children, let us pray that they would come to the end of their tether. In a state of what Charles Wesley so appropriately called "nature's night," they are in prison. It is a self-induced prison. God is in the business of setting prisoners free, is He not? His electing grace is our friend. In this history of redemption, God has worked wide and deep in Christian homes, in Christian families. We pray that God's eye will diffuse a quickening ray in the prison of our childrens' unsaved lives. May they awake, rise, and follow Him all their days.

Jim continues:

5. Your child has some clear knowledge of what it means to be a true Christian. The Spirit certainly may bring this to bear at any time if this is His chosen method. Though it is no less a miracle for a knowledgeable child to be converted than a child with little knowledge, God always uses the gospel seed in every conversion.

How often Donna and I have thought about all the "logs" we have laid in the fireplace of our children's hearts. God is able to set them ablaze. How many children have been raised in godly homes only to settle into a life of either respectable or defiant rebellion for a season of time. And then God, who is rich in mercy, opened their blind eyes, unstopped their deaf ears, and brought them back to the faith of their father and mother, perhaps the faith of many generations of true believers.

The lives of John Newton and Adoniram Judson are very instructive. It can be a healing experience to read of children who have wandered from parental instruction and Christian obedience only to be returned to the flock by a Sovereign God who is committed to "saving His people from their sins" (Matt. 1:21).

Pray that God will set the logs ablaze by His converting grace. Pray regularly, pray fervently, pray believingly. Immerse yourself (as we have) in biblical truth. Shift your mind to the promises of divine grace found in the Scriptures. As a parent, focus your faith by meditating on a passage like Luke 15, in which you see the great images of faith. You discover the Father's grace in action. Lost things do not remain lost; they are found. The dead come alive! The lost sheep is found by the shepherd, the lost coin by the housewife, and the lost son is welcomed home with almost scandalous warmth by a loving father.

These are images for your faith—images of a Heavenly Father's heart for lost souls. Pray that God will give you faith to believe, and to help you in your unbelief!

Jim continues:

6. Your own disobedience in the past will not ultimately keep your child from becoming a believer. It is pointless to berate yourself for any wrong behavior on your part as if it were the reason your child is without Christ. This does not mean that we as parents should not repent and do better, and even admit wrong to our children. But the reason your child is without Christ is related to his or her own sin. Every parent is sinful and inconsistent. This has never been a barrier to God if He desires to save your child. Illustrations abound of children who come from far less godly families who are nonetheless converted to Christ. In fact, this may have been the case in your own experience.

Well, it was the case in both of our experiences. Donna and I have come from very rebellious backgrounds. Neither of us were raised in a truly Christian home (in fact, I was raised a Mormon and became a proselytizing atheist until converted at age 28). Both of us are trophies of His amazing grace! And it pleased our sovereign Lord to draw us to Himself relatively late in life, and only after a great deal of deception and religious confusion. His electing love and grace shines very brightly in our lives. And now we are both warriors for His truth. That is what often happens to people who have been religiously deceived and then are brought to the truth. They become soldiers, just like "Valiant for the Truth" in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.

We have come to see that our sins and failures and inconsistencies have not been the reason for our children's unbelief. They were conceived in unbelief. They have responded poorly (at times) to our shaping influences, and their heart aversion to God's truth has taken form over many, many years. And now they have fallen into what we would consider Christian heresy (a contemporary form of Socinianism for the curious).

And yes, it is difficult to forgive oneself for failures and sins and inconsistencies and for saying those things to our defiant teens that should have never, never come out of our mouths. And yes, our children can be cruel and amazingly resourceful in their blame-shifting and fault-finding. I mean, it is never their fault, is it? Such is the fallen condition of man's heart. Sin has unhinged everything!
But Donna and I had absolutely no logs in the fireplace when God found us and set the fire in our hearts. Your children (and my children) have many, many fine logs on the heart. May God be pleased to light them on fire as we continue to pray. Confess your sins and failures, but remember, please remember, parents:

In the Gospel and for the sake of Jesus Christ, God deals with us as if we had never sinned. Equally glorious is that He deals with us as if we have always done the right thing. This is the meaning of justification, and this is to the praise of the glory of His grace. If you do not believe this, then you need to personally put the "amazing" back into grace for your own life as a parent.

"A Journey in Search of Comfort..." Cont.

from Jim Elliff's Comfort for Christian Parents. Commentary by Howard Eames who is guest posting over several days on parenting non-regenerate children.  
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Jim continues,

3. God does hear our prayers. Though God has taught us that He chooses all who are His before the foundation of the world, He has also taught us that we should pray, and not only pray, but expect the answers to our prayers. It is true that God is sovereign and it is just as true that He answers prayer. In fact, He could not answer prayer if He were not in control of all things.

Indeed, the sovereign Lord has woven our prayers for our children into the very fabric of His sovereign decree, and He has declared without equivocation that all events (the sovereignty of God in the seasons of life—Ecclesiastes 3) are most beautiful and appropriate in their time.

God does hear our prayers. We dishonor Him if we are not eagerly looking for the return of prayers. And yes, waiting on the Lord is one of the most difficult disciplines in the Christian life. But then the Psalms seem to teach that the entire Christian walk is one of waiting on the Lord. He works patience, trust, peace, humility, and true dependence into our hearts through our waiting.

We are waiting on His converting grace for our children. In God's providence, we may be parents faced with the bitter experience of a child's long-term betrayal. But then this very experience affords us an opportunity to learn new and wonderful things about God's approach to forgiveness. We may need to learn to forgive a self-righteous, blame-shifting, irresponsible, parent-dishonoring and unthankful child, over and over and over again. But then we are probably learning a Christ-like love that we so desperately need—a love that is able to look through the hard outer shell of our unbelieving child and see the desperately needy person inside! That is a great gift, is it not?

Do we really love our children, or do we simply love our ideal of what we wanted them to become? Anyone involved in Christian counseling for any season of time discovers that family members often don't love each other for who they really are. They love the ideal image they have created of the other person in their mind.

What our children need from parents, even if they are in pain, is the knowledge that they are loved unconditionally. This is the most powerful weapon in the parent's arsenal, and one that God often uses to touch the hardened conscience of a deeply rebellious spirit (i.e. a child that is running from God, playing games with God).

It has been our experience (often learned the hard way) that we have had to learn to stay out of the way of God's working, of God's answering prayer, and to put our lives at His disposal to be used in ways often contrary to our own instincts. We are committed to C. John Miller's proposal:

Jesus Christ will capture our children, He will free them from their own prison in a way that will most likely highlight their unwillingness to submit to Him and our helplessness in changing them. God will not share His glory with another!

This was what I didn't want to hear, but what has become a healing balm to my soul over time. Reproof and correction are like that, are they not?
The Lord is often graciously driving you and me to see our total need for Him! This has been so in my own life as a parent. You've reached your midnight hour and you are beginning to learn how to beg in prayer (see Luke 11: 5-8). But then God does promise to provide the bread of His Spirit, and He promises to supply that abundantly. That bread might consist of a new wisdom, a new ability to forgive your child, a new perspective on who your child truly is, a new ability to communicate with your child as a young adult, compassion, and desperately needed humility. Is this all bad? Let it never be! You may even be (as I have been) forced to approach your unbelieving child as they have grown into adult years as a non-Christian needing Christ's help rather than an offending son or daughter. But what growth in grace there is to be had! This is no small victory for a parent in pain. I can surely attest to that.

God may be weaving a web of love around you and your wayward child as we speak. He is answering your prayers, yet in ways that you may not have chosen. A significant part of that web of love may be your humbling as parents. But then this is most necessary, beloved. Repeatedly I have had to get the stuffing kicked out of me in my conflict with my sons. I have had to live year after year with the tension of the battle. But then I have concluded (as we stand on the brink of 2005) that much of that tension was only in my mind.

I have been just as much of a wayward father as my sons have been wayward sons. I have failed so many times. I have been so inconsistent. I have majored on the minors and minored on the majors, and my children have all been the sorry recipients of my botched attempts at parenting them in a godly way. But even if you and I have failed, the power of God's grace is so much stronger that neither you nor I ever need to despair.

God may be seeking the rebellious father and mother through the rebellious child. I am not saying that this is your case, but it could be, even as it was and is the case with me (I speak for myself and not for my wife). It has become more than obvious that God has wanted to change me right along with my sons. I needed to be rescued just as much as they have needed His rescuing grace! God has worked at this change by sending me a series of humbling defeats that have lasted these many years (about ten to be precise).

This is meant to encourage you! You may be blind to your failures even as I have been blind to mine. God is being gracious to you. He is committed to your being conformed to His image as expressed in perfected human nature, the Lord Jesus Christ.

"A Journey in Search of Comfort..." Cont.

from Jim Elliff's Comfort for Christian Parents. Commentary by Howard Eames who is guest posting over several days on parenting non-regenerate children.  
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Jim continues,

2. The miracle of the new birth is no less possible to God if your child is attentive to Him or running away from Him. Our child is like all other children when it comes to God's grace. He is dead spiritually whether he is in church or not, whether he listened well to the truths we tried to teach him or did not, whether he has some interest in God now or has none at all. He may be converted in the pigpen or the pew, and we do not know in this case what is preferred by God.

My wife and I have often marveled at how little our boys seemed to have learned from a classical & Christian education. I have personally wondered if either boy ever stayed awake in my logic class, considering the airy fairy reasoning that I hear coming from their hearts. But again, it is a fallen world. Sin has unhinged everything. Thomas Aquinas was wrong! The mind is fallen and in deep darkness apart from the saving grace of God.

In 1844, Archibald Alexander penned the following "thoughts on religious experience" that have proven true in our experience:

There is no necessity for any other proof of native depravity than the aversion which children early manifest to religious instruction and to spiritual exercises. From this cause it proceeds, that many children who have the opportunity of a good religious education learn scarcely anything of the most important truths of Christianity. If they are compelled to commit the catechism to memory, they are wont to do this without ever thinking of the doctrines contained in the words which they recite; so that, when the attention is at any time awakened to the subject of religion as a personal concern, they feel themselves to be completely ignorant of the system of divine truth taught in the Bible.

So writes Alexander. But then we have witnessed this very fact. At one time or another, I have echoed the words of the apostle to the Galatians, "Who has bewitched you" . . . how soon you have departed from the gospel of grace presented to you in your childhood. Unconverted children are "bad soil." They have no root in themselves. They are vulnerable to every wind of false doctrine that might come down the pike.

They listened poorly, and all that you have taught them seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. Now their poor listening skills have come home to roost and they have fallen prey to either false teachers within the pale of Christianity (broadly speaking) or something even more perverse. The sense of helplessness can be overwhelming. But then listen again to the wisdom of C. John Miller, a seasoned brother in this regard:

Your child may have presented for years an outward conformity to an orderly Christian family life. But a child can put on all the external forms of Christian life and behave in good order, and yet not be near God at all. This is perpetuated when parents fail to look below the surface and pass lightly over inner motivations. The result is often to let the child put a veneer over life. The inward person is left untouched, and when that happens the inward self can easily become hardened and embittered.
As parents, our grief can be intense when God strips away our façade of comfort and self-sufficiency. We had placed great confidence in moral Christian nurture in the home and in private Christian schools. But these means failed us. No one grows into grace through a Christianized environment alone. No one gets to God by moral self-improvement.

Donna and I had placed a great deal of confidence in having provided all of the supposedly required Christian tools for conversion. We had read the right books, taught the right doctrine, provided a Christian education and worldview. We had prayed fervently and frequently and had claimed the promises of God. And we had given our children to the Lord and asked that He work grace in their hearts. As Thomas Boston so ably wrote in his treatise on the sovereignty of God in the afflictions of men, "where you anticipated your greatest comfort in life, has now become your greatest source of personal grief."

Satan would insist that the situation is fixed; these children will not change. They are becoming mighty oak trees of unbelief before your very eyes. You are helpless to change them and the direction they are taking. Nothing can be more overwhelming to a parent than these sorts of thoughts. You and I have a fixed negative image of our children; they are seen as unchangeable. This image may be powerfully reinforced by the recollection of the adolescent's many failings: repeated acts of rebellion, words of rebellion, looks of rebellion and defiance. But allow me to reassert what Jim Elliff has said:

The miracle of the new birth is no less possible to God if our child is attentive to Him or running away from Him . . . he is dead spiritually whether he is in church or not.

God is able! God answers prayers! A true burden in prayer for your child is a gift of God. All true prayer finds its origin in the mind and will of the Lord Jesus Christ. Take heart! Be courageous in your prayers, beloved. There is great hope to be had. Our God is able to answer exceedingly and abundantly beyond all that you could hope for or even conjure up in your thoughts! Think for a moment about the quarry He found you in, and mined you from.

"A Journey in Search of Comfort..." Cont.

from Jim Elliff's Comfort for Christian Parents. Commentary by Howard Eames who is guest posting over several days on parenting non-regenerate children.  
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Jim continues, 
[ten points]:

1. A true burden in prayer for your child is a gift from God. A persistent burden may indicate that God intends to give your child eternal life because authentic prayer always begins with God. Though we cannot be absolutely certain that we know all that God is doing, we should be optimistic if the burden continues." 

As parents, we might all do well to consider the prayer lives of those behind-the-scenes parents whose children have become heroes of the faith. Monica prayed for 32 years for Augustine, and then died the year he was converted to Christ. Now that's a burden for prayer.

I have discovered the hard way that learning how to pray rightly for our children is not always easy. I have received great help from two sources:

I agree with John Piper when he says that we need to learn how to pray "in sync" with how God works. The most authoritative prayers are the most Scripturally-oriented prayers. I have prayed about my prayers for my children, and have made sincere efforts to conform to how the Bible teaches me to pray for others.

Here are some suggestions:
The first thing your children need is an inclination to God and His Word. Without that, nothing else of any real value will occur. Where does such an inclination come from? It comes from the Lord. Our children must want to know God. They must want to read His Word and draw near to Him. These desires come from God. He is the great Incliner of hearts (cf. Proverbs 21:1). Therefore, I pray Psalm 119.36 on behalf of my children: "Lord, incline their hearts to Your testimonies and not to (worldly) gain." The "pride of life" in a culture of affluence is overwhelming. To see a young person committed to Jesus Christ and His Word, and committed to seeking first His Kingdom, is a rarity. I pray that God would do this great work in their hearts.

Furthermore, my children need to have the eyes of their hearts opened so that when God graciously changes their inclinations from loving their own peculiar pigpen to loving His Word and truth, they might see what is really there, and not be deceived by their own secular or worldly presuppositions. And so I pray Psalm 119:18 for my children: "Lord, open their eyes. Open the very eyes of their hearts that they might behold wonderful and truthful things from your most blessed Word. Lord, lead them into truth and out of error. Reveal Your glory to their heart of hearts."

But even further, my children need for their hearts to be enlightened. They need to be able to see the glory of Biblical truth, not just interesting facts and stories reminiscent of their childhood days in Sunday School. Who is the great Enlightener of the hearts of men? God is! And so I pray with the Apostle Paul from Ephesians 1:18: "Lord, enlighten the very eyes of their hearts that they might behold the blessedness of Your truth, Your perspective, Your worldview, Your most blessed Person. Lord, give them the anointing you promise in John's first epistle! (see 1 John 2:27, referring to the Holy Spirit).

Of course what we really want for our children from all this engagement with His Word and the work of His Spirit is that their hearts will ultimately be satisfied with God and not with the world. Where does that satisfaction come from? Surely it comes from the great Satisfier of the eternal souls of men, the Lord Jesus. And so I pray Psalm 90:14, "Lord, satisfy my children with Yourself, satisfy them in the morning with Your steadfast love, that they may rejoice and be glad all their days."

To be sure, prayers like this from the Psalms and portions of the New Testament could be multiplied ad infinitum. But I trust that these few might be suggestive. I have prayed these prayers many times for my own children and have recently been told that one of my sons has begun to read the Bible again (after several years hiatus, and after he had personally told me he wouldn't read the Bible for ten years for one reason or another).

C. John Miller and his wife Rose Marie were led to pray for their daughter in the "far country" in a unique fashion. I have prayed similar prayers for my own prodigals. The next three paragraphs are a paraphrase of some of Miller's thoughts in his excellent book, Come Back Barbara (see bibliography):

We should pray for the tearing down of all the works of Satan in the lives of our children (especially those we know have come under evil influences), such as false doctrine, unbelief, atheistic teaching, and hatred which the enemy may have built up in their thinking. We must pray that their very thoughts will be brought into captivity to Christ.
Further, we should pray for those bonds of sin that hold our children prisoner. We might think of several areas of concern in this regard: deceiving and lying, dishonesty as a way of life, sensualism, excuse-making and blame-shifting (parents in pain often find that a significant part of that pain is their child's chronic blame-shifting, blaming the parents for all of their current problems). Of course, this is part and parcel of the fallen human heart. But this sinful excuse-making has been dramatically enhanced by a culture cursed with the therapeutic notions of Freud and Jung. We are a culture of victims! Pray for your child given their own peculiar sins and "characteristic flesh."

Pray that God might be pleased to arouse their consciences so that they might see the specific evils for what they truly are—sin against God (Psalm 51). Pray that they would not only recognize these sins, but learn to hate them and turn to Christ for cleansing from their guilt and power. And pray with Christ's authority (in His blessed Name) and with great boldness at the throne of grace. You are coming to a Great King—large petitions with you bring!!

 

"A Journey in Search of Comfort..."

For the next few posts I am reposting an article written by by friend and fellow Christian, Howard Eames. Howard is a Christian Educator in the Classical Tradition and the father of 3 children. He has a "trench view" on the important topic of parenting unregenerated children. I pray his words will encourage you, and help you struggling parents to see that you are truly not alone.

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There are few events in the Christian life that can be more disturbing and cause more anguish of heart than to see your children become young adults while continuing to evidence a spiritual disposition that seems to betray that these most precious gifts from God remain strangers to His grace. Yes, they may think that they are believers, but there is no love for His Word, no desire to be with His people, and no desire to live for the glory of God. The fixed disposition of a true believer in Jesus Christ simply is not there. And so the search for comfort begins—the journey begins in earnest.

Naturally, all believers are convinced that true comfort comes from God speaking through His Word, and through the perspective and worldview that can be inferred from Scripture. My wife and I have done a great deal of reading! We have three children, ages seventeen, twenty, and twenty-three. Only one of them has become "a joint heir of the grace of life." The other two remain in the "far country," although their journey as prodigal sons has not been quite as riotous as the one recorded for us in the Gospels.

Recently my wife Donna and I were greatly encouraged by reading Jim Elliff's Comfort for Christian Parents of Unconverted Children, a brief summary of biblical perspective predicated on biblical authority. What follows is my effort to expand what Jim related in ten concise points—the ten points of comfort for Christian parents of unconverted children, if you will. You might think of the commentary and exposition below like decorating a Christmas tree. What Jim wrote is the Christmas tree. The ornaments and decorations we supply come from our own reading, enhanced by our personal experience as parents seeking comfort.

Several years ago, my wife and I sought to provide a venue for parents of teenagers, having become parents of three teens ourselves, and having experienced both the joys and unbelievable difficulties of being parents. Paul David Tripp had adapted his most excellent book, Age of Opportunity: a Biblical Guide to Parenting Teens, for a nine-message video series. We have to this date had opportunity to screen this series for church and school parents (we are Christian educators) several times. These sessions never cease to be profitable.

While greatly profitable for others, the level of comfort I would personally receive from going through the videos and reacquainting myself with the written materials seemed to suffer from the law of diminishing returns. The measures I was attempting to implement in my own home were not achieving the results anticipated. Our boys were beginning to respond to our shaping influences in negative ways, and we began to see their hearts drift even farther into the "far country." Meanwhile, other seriously detrimental influences caught their attention, and we found ourselves in the same place with many others who have taught and shepherded and prayed—parents in pain. May God be pleased to bless Jim Elliff's Comfort for Christian Parents to the hearts of many. And may He also be pleased to somehow add His blessing to our efforts of enhancement and personalizing of his thoughts.

Jim writes:
"All Christian parents wish that God would show us something to do that would secure our child's salvation, and then 'we'd do it with all our might' because we love our child so much. Yet, God has not made salvation the effect of somebody else's faith; our son or daughter must come to Christ on his or her own. John shows us that all Christians are born into God's family, 'not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man (that is, somebody else's will) but of God.' (John 1:13). 

I have often thought about this. I have searched the Scriptures to see if I could find an ironclad promise from the Lord that I could claim. But then I always seem to return to the same conclusion. Even if there were a clear and unmistakable promise given to parents that their children would assuredly be converted if they would consistently do this or do that, and be sure to do it all in a particular fashion with prayers undergirding all of their efforts, I could never take personal comfort in such a promise. My inconsistencies and sinful failures as a parent would cause such a promise to fall to the ground.
Thankfully, the Bible does not reveal a doctrine of works righteousness in our parenting any more than it does concerning the remainder of our Christian walk. God is merciful to the most inconsistent and undeserving parents. He often blesses them in spite of sinful failures and inconsistencies in raising their children. We live in a fallen world where sin has unhinged everything, even our parenting.

Reality Shows

“If those whose lives are marked by quiet desperation, who are painfully aware of their trials and sufferings are going to seek out the Christian for help, it will not be because we appear to live lives that are free from trials but because we are honest about our own sufferings and difficulties.”

People helpers are often thought of as carefree, or even invincible. Those we help see us as able to handle most anything that happens in life, and mistakenly believe we “have all the answers.” While it is true that all our answers to the problems of life are found in His Word there is the human element to address as well.

I believe many people helpers in God’s service seem to have more than their share of problems in this life. How we handle them means everything to those who observe us.

I sure don’t claim to have all this figured out…I have had my share of sorrowful days and trials. I know I am sometimes sad, anxious, or upset, and I know my countenance reflects that at times. It is because I am human.

What I hope people see first of all is Christ. I hope they see the joy of the Lord living within me despite my own personal troubles. I hope they can see the love of Jesus emulating from me as I continue to serve others in spite of what I may be facing each day.

I also hope they can see “hope.” In spite of negative circumstances that surround me, I want them to see that my hope in Christ is secure and strong. While I may waver from time to time in my emotions my hope in that God is actively at work in my life and my heart does not change. I believe that He is bringing Romans 8:28-29 to life in me and that is extremely hopeful! I long to be like Christ and to be conformed to His image and I know the only way must be this way- otherwise He would not have chosen it for me.

I hope they can see joy and laughter, even through the tears I sometimes shed. Some of the stories springing out of the events of my life are too funny for words and one day may even be funny to me!  God has placed loving caring people around me and I am incredibly blessed!

I hope they will also see and hear that I am “real” and not be threatened by that. It is so sad that some people are threatened by the humanity of people they (for lack of a better way to say it) look up to, or consider a role model. Paul was real, Jesus was real, Peter was very real… They all spoke out of the humanity and frailty at times. Jesus even sweat great drops of blood in His humanity!

You see, I honestly believe we do each other a great disservice when we tell those who ask how we are that we are “fine” when we are not. For one that is a lie, and for two how can we help others to know how to handle times of discouragement and sorrow when we won’t admit we have them? I knew a woman once who believed that you always put on the happy Christian face no matter what you were going through. She was actually in the middle of a very difficult pregnancy in which she was told her baby girl would be born without a brain. She told no one and carried on as though nothing was happening. She wrongly believed that she was being a good soldier for Christ by pretending she was not terrified and hurting. She deprived others of the opportunity to pray for her and minister to her and to watch God be glorified in her life.

I have not made a practice of hiding my sorrows and struggles, and I freely share my trials and failures because I believe they are beneficial to those who hear. It is an encouragement to another person to watch a struggle and then to watch the person come out on the other side better, stronger in the Lord, like gold that is a little more refined. Those who have shared their thoughts with me about me have said they appreciate this, because it helps them to know I am real and can identify with them.

Please, let people know who you are- the good and bad. Let others see you struggle and rejoice. This brings 2 Corinthians 1 to life!

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer; and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort.

God’s Glorious Grace in Adoption

In our mid-week service, the Elder who delivered the message spoke to us on the importance of our adoption as children of God.  He reminded us that none of us did anything worthy of being adopted, we were not chosen because we were extra good or extra special. In fact, the opposite was true! We were chosen because we were hopeless, lost, dead in our transgressions and sins, and doomed (Eph 2:1-3).  The Bible describes us in those terms, and worse! 

Our adoption was determined before the beginning of time (Eph. 1:4), and was accomplished by God in Christ.  We were chosen, selected, and elected. We have been called out of the rest of mankind to belong in every way to our Father. We are entitled by virtue of the legal transaction that took place in the heavenly court to every spiritual blessing that belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. His Father is now our Father, and what is His is ours both in promise (future) and in the present.  

 In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will... In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.     Ephesians 1: 10b, 11, 13, 14

I have a special place in my heart for adoption, for my two older children are adopted. It is not something I often speak of but thought I would take this opportunity to do so. 

When my first husband left us (for someone else) and subsequently divorced me I was prepared to fill the role of both Mother and Father in function in the lives of my children.  I had accepted that the Lord God would be my Husband (Isa 54:5) and believed “great would be your (my) children’s peace.”(Isa 43:13)

When my old high school friend Larry came around purely as a friend my kids never knew he existed.  It was not until our friendship progressed to the point of a relationship that I allowed them to meet.  When we made plans to marry, we knew the boy’s father would remain a part of all of our lives but God had other plans. 

Through a series of what has to be called miraculous events my ex-husband offered to terminate his parental rights and allow Larry to adopt the kids.  This was something we had often wished for and prayed for, yet we were astonished when it came about.  The boys were very excited, as it was something they had both independently asked us about in their child-like ways.

It was amazing that he would even approach us and offer to do this! We watched God work out one detail after the next, as the funds we needed for the Home Study were supernaturally provided, as Larry passed through all the legal hoops of step-parent adoption, as my ex-husband actually completed the termination requirements…

When the day came for the court hearing, the judge made it very clear that my two little boys would be legally considered Larry’s children in every single sense of the law.  They would be entitled to every benefit of a natural born child, and entitled to inheritance, name, and status of the same.

As the gavel came down in the court room that day I was reminded of the heavenly transaction that took place in the past of every person who has been regenerated and is in Christ.  Just like my little boys didn’t “deserve” adoption, and did nothing to make it happen- we didn’t either.

They were spectators of the event, with the exception of answering one question- do you want this man to be your Father?  We are also essentially spectators as God chooses us, pays the ransom for our adoption, buying us back out of a desperate situation. All we say is, “Yes.”

They became full heirs of Larry; we became full heirs of God in Christ (Rom 8:17a).

All of this is totally amazing to me.  I have a real life earthly example of what was done in the courts of heaven!  And as my adoption as a child of God brings Him glory, the earthly adoption has also born much wonderful fruit in the lives of our children.

For all these things, we praise God.

How to Live Single in a Married Church

This is the last post on this important subject of biblical singleness. If you have been reading all week, you know that my fellow counselor Lorri Wenderski spoke on this topic at the IABC Conference in Denver, Colorado this past week. Her talk was thought provoking and contained some very good information for singles in our churches. I want to end this mini-series with some ideas about how to live biblical singleness in a married church.

Lorri made this important statement: "Singleness is not a problem, and the solution is not marriage."  Being single is an important gift given by God to those He chooses to bless in that way. If you are single today, and you don't view being single as a gift, you need to do a heart check. I would submit you are dealing with a stubborn and rebellious heart towards the will of God. 

If you are single, it is obviously the will of God that you are single. How do I know this? Because, right now you are single. You are exactly where God wants you to be. Some day in the future that may change as God continues to reveal His plan for your life but for the moment you must consider that you may be called to a life of singleness.

Because the goal of all Christians is to live our lives to glorify God, single persons need to devote themselves to pursuing godliness and developing the qualifications of godly men and woman as found in Titus 2, and Proverbs 31.  Accountability is an important piece of the equation because it is a part of our growing together in Christ as the Church. Surround yourself with godly women who are content in their singleness and learn from them, ask them to help you to mature into the calling God has placed on your life.  Give them permission to speak into your life and share your spiritual disciplines and struggles with them.

 Refuse to believe that the grass is greener on the other side of the aisle. Rejoice in the freedom to serve you have as a single woman. Make the most of every opportunity to serve the Lord and the Church. Include serving the unsaved by living an evangelistic lifestyle. I do not by any means intend for your to "missionary date" unregenerated men!

I also think you should include mature married women in your sphere of influence so you see biblical marriage modeled for you as well. Learn biblical submission, conflict resolution, and other skills you may need in the event God does bring someone into your life as a marriage partner.

There is no way I can comprehensively cover such a large topic in the context of this blog. My goal was to give you some things to think about and to suggest that you do some further reading on the subject. Nancy Leigh DeMoss has written several excellent works on this topic. Check them out, and determine to be content in the place God has you, rejoicing and serving Him.

Honoring God in Singleness Part 2

I am writing a few posts on the important subject of singleness. Fellow Biblical Counselor Lorri Wenderski presented a workshop on being single at the IABC Counseling Conference this past weekend and I am using many of her comments and conclusions here. This is a very important topic for us to examine, as many people in our churches are unmarried for any number of reasons.

It has been a good many years since I was a single woman, but I have several very good friends who are single and I both listen to and observe what church life is like for them. A few do the "Singles Ministry/Group" and would agree with Lorri's conclusion that too many of them are more of a dating service than a place where people meet to study and learn of God.

Lorri says, "Often the singles are on the periphery of church life, more on the outside looking in." An excellent point she made is that in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ and the early church the singles were not set apart, they were a vital part of serving Christ and in serving the church.  Their meetings were not scheduled or organized around mini-golf or social activities, they were constantly about the business of the church and the Kingdom of God. They were also not "segregated" or relegated to some obscure part of church life as can happen today.

Paul was a single man also, and wished all men could be as he was (1 Cor 7:7) so they they could be devoted to the service of the Lord. The single people in the early church were leaders, and they were committed to following Paul and promoting the ministry of Christ. They did not allow their singleness to limit their ministry, in fact their singleness enhanced their ministry opportunities!

I have a friend who is able to go on mission trips all over the world because she is unmarried and has no dependents. She has been to China several times and is now headed to Haiti to serve those still displaced and hurting from the earthquake. She does not spend her time in frivolity and silly entertainment, every aspect of her life is focused on how she can serve and glorify God by how she lives her life.


But I want you to be free from concern. One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and his interests are divided. The woman who is unmarried, and the virgin, is concerned about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit; but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. This I say for your own benefit; not to put a restraint upon you, but to promote what is appropriate and to secure undistracted devotion to the Lord.  1 Corinthians 7:32-35 (NASB)

Paul states that singleness is a gift. It enables you to focus on ministry as your first love.

Before Paul, there were women who followed Jesus and supported him and the disciples. They ministered to their needs of food and finances (Mary and Martha),  and women were there at not only the crucifixion but also tended to His body after death (Matthew 27:57). Jesus esteemed these women and appeared first to them when he was risen (John 20). They were in the upper room and joined the disciples in prayer (Acts 1:14).  At Pentecost they too were filled with the Holy Spirit as they were in the same room!

Singleness is not a curse and it is not a problem. Rejoice and be glad that God has called you to such a place of service. It is once again about your heart, beloved. If you view being single as a negative, ask yourself if you are being ungrateful to God. As yourself if you are currently fulfilling God's calling on your life. Are you living right now in a way that fulfills your present calling of singleness? If not, repentance is in order and a reorganization of your heart (first) and then your life.