The Porn Post

The most obvious temptation for singles, especially guys, is pornography (and, oh how I wish it were limited to singles). “Pornography” has a certain connotation, i.e. Playboy, Larry Flynt, obscene websites, etc. These all produce media that depict erotic behavior with the intent of causing sexual excitement in those who consume them. But not all pornography is explicitly pornographic. Any input that you allow into your mind for the purpose of sexual excitement and fantasy is pornographic to you regardless of the intent behind the input.

Images in magazines, on TV or in movies may or may not have been created with the intent of eliciting a sexual response in the viewer, but if you dwell on those images for the purpose of experiencing a sexual response, guess what, they are porn to you. Friends and acquaintances, people you pass on the street, in the mall, in your school or in your church can all supply visual material for sexual imagination. It is possible to recognize, acknowledge, even enjoy and appreciate a girl’s beauty and attractiveness in an appropriate way. There are differences, and choices, between feeling sexual attraction for a girl and mentally undressing her, between feeling sexual desire for a girl and using her image to create sexual fantasies.

Not all pornography is visual. Stories, whether true or fictional, coarse conversation with friends, coworkers, teammates can also create powerful images and, even more damaging, can dramatically impact overall sexual attitudes. Whatever its form, pornography allows you to experience an illusion of sexual intimacy, whether vicariously or through fantasy. But, it is an illusion. It is a construct of your own imagination.

Taking in external input for the purpose of sexual fantasy has wide impact. Traditional pornography enables you to explicitly view someone’s sexuality with complete anonymity, but you are still a participant in her sexual debasement. The pornography industry thrives on flaunting every idea of sexual morality and it exists only through the exploitation and ultimate destruction of real people’s sexuality and purity. It is sexual objectification of another human being at its most extreme.

How many Christian men who view pornography would also enter into a real relationship and marry one of the girls they have used to form their sexual fantasies? She has displayed her sexuality for the purpose of allowing these men to fantasize about sexual intimacy with her, and the fact that she did so is exactly what makes her no longer desirable to them for true intimacy. They have used her sexuality in such a way that leaves it cheapened in their eyes.

But all forms of pornography, traditional or otherwise, are an objectification. Using someone else’s characteristics, whether physical or not, to create sexual fantasies for yourself, to imagine a false intimacy, is abusive. It is a sin against that other person. It is also a sin against all of your future sexual partners, especially your spouse, in that pornography creates sexual standards and expectations to which your partners do not deserve to be subjected. The practice of using pornography fosters a habit of objectification, of separating aspects of your partner’s sexuality from the whole person in order to satisfy your own sexual desires.

It may feel like avoiding pornography is simply a matter of not seeking it out. In our culture, however, mental sexual purity must be an active pursuit. Sexual stimuli surround us, explicit and implicit, physical and relational, in the media and real people we are exposed to on a daily basis. Not taking in traditional pornography is a very good choice to make, but it is not the only choice. How you receive all of the other potentially pornographic input available to you, even bombarding you, is a continuous stream of opportunities for choosing sexual morality or immorality.

As you are able to more consistently make appropriate decisions regarding the sexual stimuli you receive, an overall sexual attitude of respect towards yourself and towards others will develop. The more you are able to resist using another person’s sexuality, the more you see that person’s sexuality as something that should not be used. The more you are able to guard your own sexuality by not allowing in inappropriate images and attitudes, the more you see your sexuality as something that deserves to be guarded. Treating your own sexuality and the sexuality of others as qualities that demand respect and honor engenders a real attitude of respect and honor for sexuality. And, in turn, developing that attitude makes the appropriate choices and actions come more easily and naturally. It is important to make the right decisions even when the right attitude is not necessarily there. Attitude follows actions more readily than actions follow attitude.

Something Different… Poetry?

Yes, for the most part I’m going to write about sexuality and relationships on this blog. It is called “Sexual Chivalry” after all. The defining standard of chivalry (as I intend it) is living the kind of life that makes you worthy to be loved by an honorable woman. I believe that pursuing sexual purity is the most important and powerful way that a man can prepare himself for his Beloved (if he has not yet met her), and be worthy of his Beloved (whether he has met her yet or not). Sexual purity most demonstrates love and sexual immorality most demonstrates disregard.

But sexual purity is not the only way to demonstrate love, to prepare yourself, to make yourself worthy. So, every now and then we’re going to look at some of the extracurricular activities that you may consider pursuing as you seek your Beloved, or as you seek to be more worthy of the Beloved you already know…

Currently I’m working on the book A Lonely Man’s Guide to Being Single and I’ve been reminded how important it is for any man, let alone a lonely man, to have a healthy outlet for his emotions… Let me back up real quick and say that I believe a manly man has emotions, allows himself to feel things strongly and honestly, and is able to effectively communicate his emotions to his Beloved…

Emotional outlets are vital for me, whether through music, words, or just going a few rounds with the punching bag I have in the garage. I allow myself to feel, so I need to express my feelings in ways that are creative, or constructive, or at the very least not destructive. (That last part takes some effort as I have also expressed myself in some very unhealthy ways in the past, including self-injury.)

Re-immersing myself in the lonely man mindset brought to mind a journal of quotes that I kept for years. I was very lonely for most of that time, so many of the entries tie in to that feeling. I’ve never been a huge fan of poetry, as in I don’t think I could sit under a tree and read through a whole book of poems. But some poems have touched something inside of me at different times, as if I am vicariously expressing myself through the poets. I’ve written a poem or two, as well (mostly in the form of song lyrics, though). At the end of this post I’ll include the one that most captures my own time of loneliness.

But, I wanted to share just a few of the poems that once spoke to my lonely heart, that offered a sense of understanding and allowed others to express my feelings in ways that I could not:

I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

(TS Eliot)

Each sore defeat of my defeated life
Faced and outfaced me in that bitter hour;
And turned to yearning palsy all my power,
And all my peace to strife,
Self stabbing self with keen lack-pity knife.

Sweetness of beauty moved me to despair,
Stung me to anger by its mere content,
Made me all lonely on that way I went,
Piled care upon my care,
Brimmed full my cup, and stripped me empty and bare:

For all that was but showed what all was not,
But gave clear proof of what might never be;
Making more destitute my poverty,
And yet more blank my lot,
And me much sadder by its jubilee.

(Christina Rossetti)

Thou wouldst be loved? ­— then let thy heart
From its present pathway part not!
Being everything which now thou art,
Be nothing which thou art not.
So with the world thy gentle ways,
Thy grace, thy more than beauty,
Shall be an endless theme of praise,
And love — a simple duty.

(Edgar Allan Poe)

And my own poem, written years ago and yet eerily matches the themes and imagery I am using in A Lonely Man’s Guide:

White moon beneath
And the image wreath ‘round,
A naked face stands
The wind-blown sand’s sound.
Two shut eyes, breathe
Of desert’s breath weaved slow
By summer storm
And dark sky torn low.

Sweet wild’s perfume,
From the flashing doom spread,
And airy thunder’s wrath
Marks what haunted path tread:
From the Eastern way
Towards the fallen day, past
Red Western skies,
And his longing flies fast.

What art, whether poetry or not, has touched your life in times of need? How do you express your own emotions? What has your feelings inspired you to create?

Sexual Chivalry

(Excerpt from A Lonely Man’s Guide to Being Single)

Chivalry seems to have a pretty negative image today. If chivalry was a good thing, then it’s dead. If chivalry isn’t dead, then it’s sexist and chauvinist. Basically a no-win proposition. I think that the idea of chivalry has got a bum rap. Yeah, I’m sure a lot of people abused the concept for their own gain. I’m sure that a lot of people did a lot of bad things in the name of chivalry. But that doesn’t mean that the idea of chivalry itself is bad. How many Christians have abused the concept of Christianity for their own gain? How many people have done bad things in the name of the Church? Spanish Inquisition, anyone? Christianity is good despite Christians, and I think the concept of chivalry is good despite those who may use it, abuse it, misunderstand it, or deny it. It is good, and just as relevant now as it was in days of medieval knights.

The most powerful summary of medieval chivalry that I’ve come across could easily be the defining theme of this book: Chivalry was living the kind of life that made one worthy to be loved by an honorable woman. Simple as that, and that is my desire for us. I hope it is a desire for yourself as well—Living a life that makes you worthy of the love of an honorable woman, worthy of your Beloved. This concept can revolutionize the way we live in our loneliness.

I grew up in the Church and sat through countless youth group talks regarding sexuality, relationships, and purity. Almost universally these reinforced my feelings of loneliness. I wasn’t having sex; I hadn’t even had my first kiss. I wasn’t dating anyone. What was the relevance of a sermon telling me to not have sex, to be careful with physical intimacy, or to date responsibly? Many times I simply zoned out, or opened my Bible and read (Ecclesiastes, usually). I already felt lonely and these sermons made me feel even more alienated because they did not address sexual loneliness at all; they did not address me. I often left a service wanting to go have sex just so I could be included in the whole conversation.

I wanted to be affirmed, to be inspired. I wanted to hear about how I could honor God and my Beloved with my sexuality now, even in my loneliness. I didn’t want to be told over and over not to do things that I already wasn’t doing. It was like sitting through sermon after sermon telling me not to murder.

“Murder is bad.”

“Ok, great. I’m not murdering anyone, what’s next?”

“Stop murdering.”

“Like I said, I’m not murdering anybody. What should I do instead?”

“Don’t murder.”

“(Sigh…) Let me know when you’re done here. I’m going to go take a nap.”

A conversation about murder ought to come around, pretty quickly, to a conversation about love. But when it comes to sexuality and issues of purity and immorality, the Church has a hard time figuring out where to take the conversation, and how to make the conversation powerful and relevant to even the most lonely of believers.

The idea of Sexual Chivalry can fill this void of the teachings and encouragements that lonely men desperately need. It answers the question “Ok, what’s next?” and pushes the conversation to higher ground.

“Sexual immorality is bad.”

“Ok, great. I’m not doing those things, what’s next?”

“Be the kind of man who is worthy of an honorable woman.”

Quote from Prison

“But, to put it plainly, for a man in his wife’s arms to be hankering after the other world is, in mild terms, a piece of bad taste, and not God’s will. We ought to find and love God in what He actually gives us; if it pleases Him to allow us to enjoy some overwhelming earthly happiness, we mustn’t try to be more pious than God Himself and allow our happiness to be corrupted by presumption and arrogance, and by unbridled religious fantasy which is never satisfied with what God gives. God will see to it that the man who finds Him in his earthly happiness and thanks Him for it does not lack reminder that earthly things are transient, that it is good for him to attune his heart to what is eternal, and that sooner or later there will be times when he can say in all sincerity, ‘I wish I were home.’”

– Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It Only Takes One

When I began submitting proposals for my book to agents I spent a lot of time in prayer. I would say, “Lord, I give this project to You and I pray for the agent You would choose to represent it according to Your purposes.” I didn’t ask that every agent I sent it to fall in love with it. I didn’t even ask that it receive a generally positive reaction from professionals. It only takes one, so I prayed for the one. For me, I would have actually preferred that only one agent offered me representation, having faith that the one agent was the right agent. As it happened, I did need to make a choice between multiple offers, but I’m 100% confident that my choice was the right choice. The point is, whether you have 138 agents interested in your work or just one doesn’t matter a bit because you still need to choose only one. And if it’s the right one, it only takes one.

Now that I’m in the next phase of this process I have begun praying for the acquisitions editor, saying, “Lord, I give this project to you and I pray for the editor You would choose to purchase it according to Your purposes.” Of course I would love to hear that there are editors climbing all over each other to get the rights to publish my book. Honestly, that would be sweet. But what would it mean besides an ego massage (and possibly a larger advance)? Ultimately my agent and I would still need to choose one, so that is the one I pray for. I don’t daydream about dozens of publishers wanting to work with me. I daydream about the right publisher. It only takes one.

I had a friend in college whose dad told her over and over, “It only takes one.” He was trying to encourage her after a bad date, or even a bad relationship that had ended. Take care of yourself, walk by faith, do what you know is right. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t seem like anyone likes you. It doesn’t matter if rejection is all you’ve known. It only takes one. Getting a book published is not totally unlike finding a spouse. Stay true to yourself, know when to compromise and when not to. When you find the right one, all of those rejections melt away and are meaningless. Maybe you learned something from them, but they do not define you. The right one is worth waiting for.

Until I met my wife I had only experienced rejection. And even then not as much of it as I possibly could have. I was not interested in merely finding someone. I was interested in finding the right one, so I let a lot of experiences pass me by. Rejection, to me, simply meant that girl was not the right one and I would much rather the wrong girl say “No” than “Yes”. It might sting in the moment, but it’s actually a message you should be grateful for. That is a lesson I have carried over into this journey of publication. I would rather the wrong agent say “No” than “Yes”. I would rather the wrong editor say “No” than “Yes”. It only takes one and I want the right one.

You’re a WHAT?!

In one of my later high school semesters I found myself with a free period. “Great,” I thought, “I can find a secluded corner and just sit and read for a little while each day.” Apparently it doesn’t work quite like that. An assistant principal found me within a few minutes and refused for one second to believe that I wasn’t up to no good. He escorted me to a classroom and signed me up for study hall. Study hall. Maybe it varies from school to school, but where I come from the kids that end up in study hall usually have no intention of studying. Ever. This was the holding cell for everyone kicked out of class that period. I was now there at the same time every day and just like the assistant principal all of my new “classmates” assumed the worst about me. But in their case that actually meant a special level of respect.

Christina was one of the other study hall regulars. A proud chola, she wore baggy jeans with white t-shirts, an oversized Oakland Raiders jacket, and her make-up either extra dark or extra light, nothing in the middle. She was a little too big. Not overly fat. Not overly tall. She just gave the impression that she had somehow been Photoshop’d to appear larger than she naturally should have. She was loud and crass, very funny, but a little intimidating to a shy introvert like me. She liked me. No, she didn’t like me like me, she just thought that I was hilarious in my quiet comments and one-liners. I would mutter something under my breath in response to another student or the teacher lord-overseer and she would roar with laughter. She found me to be one very entertaining whetto (white boy). Did I mention that she was crass? She had no problem telling me who she was “doing”, who she would rather be “doing”, and that she thought I had a very admirable ass. Inevitably she asked me who I was “doing” at the time.

“Uh, no one.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. That sucks. How many chicks have you done before?”

“Um, none actually… [in barely a whisper] I’m a virgin.”

[Uncomfortably loud] “You’re a virgin?! But you’re a junior!”

[Looking around to see who had heard. Ah yes, everyone.] “Yeah, what difference does that make?”

“No one is still a virgin by the time they’re a junior!”

“I am.”

“You’re weird. But, you have a nice ass so I’m sure it will happen one day.”

“Thanks.”

This was a conversation that was to be repeated many, many times with different people over the following decade. It’s interesting looking back and realizing that almost every one of those conversations was with a girl. Guys are typically uncomfortable with that kind of conversation. I was a guy who was a virgin and didn’t lie about it or avoid the question. Many would tease me, giving up when they realized that it wasn’t something I was too ashamed of, but they never pursued a serious dialog. Girls, on the other hand, found me to be a curiosity. My sexuality and what I did with it was apparently an easy topic for them to discuss, probably because so few of them had a personal interest in it.

I worked in a wine shop with Brooke, who was one of my supervisors. She wore Iron Cross earrings and dated a guy with a shaved head, bomber jacket, Dickies, and steel-toed boots with white laces. I don’t think she was too fond of minorities, but she was okay with me. She used to schedule our break times together so that I could explain why I was a virgin (“on purpose?!”) and why sexual purity was important to me. She would close her eyes and rub her temples, repeating “I don’t get it.” Faith was meaningless to her as a motivation for life. Her two younger sisters had been actively involved in a church; they professed the Christian faith. But both of them gave up on the whole church thing once they got boyfriends to play around with. Faith was only something to pass the time before sex, and then possibly between sex. You only repent when the relationship ends and the repentance only lasts until the next relationship. That is a depressingly common cycle. Brooke could not fathom choosing faith over sex when sex was available. She wasn’t the only one.

“But, you do everything else, right? I mean, you’re just technically a virgin…”

“Sorry, no. I’m, like, really a virgin. I think all of that other stuff is almost as important as, you know… doing it.”

“You’re so weird.”

Kristan was my boss’s wife at a wine importing company. Her husband was a beast but we all liked her. When I first started dating the girl I would eventually marry, Kristan asked me if I had been sleeping better. She knew that I suffered from pretty extreme insomnia.

“No, not really. Why?”

“Well, I figured since you have a girlfriend now…”

“How would that make a difference?”

“You know… I just thought it would help.”

“…”

“Well, doesn’t having someone to cuddle with in bed help you sleep?”

“She doesn’t sleep over.”

“What? You just kick her out of the house after… ?”

“After what? Are you talking about sex? We’re not doing that.”

“Why not? What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing. Trust me, I really want to. But this is important. I’m actually a virgin.”

“You’re what? How old are you? You can’t be a virgin.”

“Yeah, I am. I’m a Christian and purity has always been a big deal for me.”

“Well, I grew up Catholic, but I sure as hell was never that Catholic. You’re weird.”

So I’ve heard.

Lessons Learned from Self-Injury

(I originally submitted these reflections to HeartSupport.com on 1/22/10. That post can be seen here.)

Cutting is interesting. Actually, all self-injury activities are interesting. They are a realm of sickness that I could not have begun to understand until I had pursued them myself. Even though I won’t claim that my experience mirrors that of everyone I believe there are probably important commonalities. I was intensely hurting on the inside; every non-physical part of who I am felt ripped to shreds. But physically I was fine. There was an incongruence. Causing myself physical pain seemed to restore some sense of balance, however false and temporarily. It made me feel like a whole person again and not some being split between two unconnected parts. It also provided some visible symbol of my internal wounds, even if only a token symbol. An accurate representation of how I felt inside would have been closer to a sucking chest wound and not the mere scratches on my arm or bruising on my hands, but it was something. I have not committed an act of self-harm for quite a while. I still have those impulses. I still, just for half a second, believe the lie that I will feel better, that it will bring some relief. It’s still a very real temptation, only one that I no longer surrender before. But my experiences in wrestling with these temptations helped shape two important thoughts regarding the role emotions play in our lives.

One, we were created to act as an integrated whole. We are not our bodies, but we are also not merely our souls. We are physical and spiritual in the same way that Jesus was both fully God and fully man. To deny one of these qualities is to reject who He claims to be; to deny either is to deny His identity. We as humans are at once both spiritual and physical and to deny one is to be no longer human. Our bodies distinguish us from angels and our souls distinguish us from animals. We are unique in all creation, each of us a nexus between two worlds. Our souls may be the greater of what makes us human, our souls may sometimes be able to rise above the sufferings of our bodies, but the body is not able to rise above the sufferings of the soul. When our souls are in turmoil our bodies suffer either automatically or by choice (self-injury), sometimes both. Self-injury is a terribly sick act, but I understand it because I’ve done it. It pulls the body down to join the soul in its suffering, thereby restoring some sense of integration between the two. That activity becomes an addiction when someone associates the soothing feelings of physical and spiritual integration with self-injury and comes to believe that it is the only way these feelings can be achieved. Like all addictions, it eventually becomes necessary to self-injure just to feel normal.

Two, we say we believe in a soul but usually don’t think of it as a real thing. The soul is not a metaphor for consciousness or feelings; it is not merely a way to conceptualize immaterial products of our physical brain. The soul is real. Our thoughts, our emotions, our joys, our grief, our sympathies, our sentiments, our wills all flow from a source that is not physical, but being nonphysical does not make it, well, immaterial or less real. Someone with a broken heart is just as in need of healing as someone with coronary heart disease, but do we think about ourselves and others that way? I have seen miraculous physical healings through prayer, literally the blind being given sight. But is it less of a miracle to be healed of grief, or shame, or anger? When someone is suffering from a physical malady, it is visible and verifiable. But when someone is suffering from a malady of the soul, he is alone in his knowledge of his pain. He can try to describe it, he can try to help others understand, but he is his own and only witness. So when the physical sufferer is prayed over and remains unhealed it is clearly seen and accepted as God’s will, but if the spiritual sufferer remains unhealed it is assumed that he is impeding God’s will. Do we assume God’s healing of the soul more than His healing of the body? Do we assume God’s healing of the soul more than we should? If we suffer a catastrophic physical injury that leaves us maimed and scarred, we must learn to accept it and learn how to pursue the best life possible despite it. Do we have the same patience with catastrophic spiritual injuries that leave our souls maimed and scarred? We rarely have that kind of patience for others, but how much do we really even have that patience for ourselves? I suffered a catastrophic spiritual injury. It has left me maimed and scarred. But I do not have patience for these consequences. I pursued self-injury in order to validate invisible suffering, but also out of self-hatred for the grief I continue to feel every day. Other people’s actions deeply, deeply injured my soul but I hated myself for the injuries.

Why not? May it never be!

The decision to not sin is often difficult, often contrary to desire, often unpopular, often painful, often lonely, often sacrificial, often thankless, often humbling, often devoid of immediate reward. If a believer has primarily heard about the eternal defeat of sin and very little about the damaging temporal consequences of sin, what motivation is there to make a difficult, potentially life-changing or even life-ending, decision to not sin?

There can be, and often are, grace and mercy in the midst of the destruction our sins cause in our lives and in the lives of those around us. There can be a forgiveness between a victim’s family and his murderer that exemplifies the forgiveness of Christ. There can be a renewal of friendships and family relationships that outlasts the initial shock and grief of losing a loved one. But there is no promise that the measures of grace God chooses to extend to those impacted by your sinful actions will outweigh the damage you caused them. And even if you knew for sure that each sinful action you committed would cause an abundance of grace, you are still commanded to not sin. Why? Because you are not the source of grace.

Imagine that your father is a kind, loving, compassionate and generous man. (Hopefully some of you will not need much imagination to conjure up this picture.) He is highly regarded within his family and his community for his goodness and one of his most well known qualities is the forgiveness he shows to anyone who wrongs him. He loves blessing those around him with gifts and meaningful acts of service and no one is exempt from his active love regardless of how seriously they may have hurt him. Many have hurt him very badly. You would be right to admire the grace your father exhibits in his life. It is a very good quality, but it is a response to something evil. Given that you know your father would continue to love and bless those around him regardless, would you wish that he endured increased evil just to elicit more of that good response? Grace ought to be received gratefully yet humbly. It is a bittersweet joy that should accompany God’s grace, joyous in God continuing to bless and interact with us despite our evil, but contrition in the knowledge that it is our evil that makes grace necessary in the first place. The existence of God’s grace should not be taken as license to continue in evil. The grace is His; the evil is ours.

The consequences for your sins are widespread and possibly far beyond what you may have anticipated before you acted both in terms of scope and severity to yourself and others. There is no victimless sin and every sin impacts others besides yourself. If you tell a lie, you betray another’s trust, damage that relationship, and make yourself a liar. If you gossip or slander, you tear down another person in the minds of others and damage multiple relationships. If you view pornography, you objectify others, you support perversion, you fill your mind with images that cannot be removed, and you set up obstacles for your spouse to face. The Christian life is one of relationships, your relationship with Christ and your relationship with other people. The commandments Christians are given to live by are relational. Your sins damage your relationships, which means that your sins hurt others around you, people that you love and care about. And the more you sin the more you compound the destruction. Your decisions and actions matter and immorality has real consequences, both natural  and punitive.

Sin has temporal consequences even if through Christ it need no longer be an eternal death sentence. God has promised salvation from sin in the life after death, but He has nowhere promised to protect you from the earthly consequences of sins committed in this life. God cannot change the past. God cannot make the world as if your sins had never been committed. The tragedy is that by the time we realize what evil we’ve caused it’s usually far, far too late to do anything about it. There is nothing so permanent and unchanging as an act completed.

A Real Dream

I had a dream recently. Like, a real dream. While asleep. Not the Martin Luther King Jr. version…

I was a child and on a school playground surrounded by other children, but we were interacting in an unexpected way. We all had a deep, deep sense of responsibility. We were still children, laughing and playing. We were not serious like grown-ups. There was an understanding of purpose that most children, while awake, rarely have because it is rarely taught. I and my playground friends knew that we were not our own; we knew that we each belonged to someone else. It did not hinder us from enjoying each other. It did not hinder us from loving each other. It actually increased joy and love. I knew that I loved each of my friends for their own sake, and also for the sake of the person to whom each of my friends belonged. “I love you, but I must also take care of you for the sake of the other. You love me and you also need to take care of me for the sake of the one to whom I belong.” We were kids, so obviously we wouldn’t have said it quite like that, but we felt it. We knew it. We couldn’t tell you why we knew it or where the knowledge came from. It was just there and it was understood. We knew that one day we would meet this special person, this person we belonged to and who belonged to us. We did not worry about when or where, however there was a fun sense of adventure and expectation, like the night before Christmas stretched over a young lifetime.

The marriage relationship is one of, if not the only human relationship that can be anticipated for decades. Friends come and go, largely by accident. Family is what it is. Marriage is something unique. Marriage is something that is expected, hoped for, sometimes dreaded and feared, and always possibly somewhere just over the horizon. But how well do we prepare ourselves for this one relationship? How can we be excused for not preparing ourselves for this most important relationship when it is one that can be anticipated? I knew a girl in high school who kept a binder on her dresser full of wedding plans, gowns and china patterns. She was preparing for her wedding, but I knew that she gave little thought to her groom and was not preparing for him and her marriage with him. How many other girls hope to marry an honorable man but do not live honorable lives in the meantime? How many guys hope to marry an honorable girl but do nothing to make themselves worthy of an honorable wife? How many of us dream, even if that dream feels merely like a fantasy, of a successful marriage but do little to develop the character that a successful marriage requires?

If we hope to belong to someone and to have someone give themselves to us, we must live in the acknowledgement that we are stewards of each other. We are responsible for the world’s beloveds and bad stewardship carries consequences, even if you may not always see them. Sometimes, however, you will see. One of my good friends dated a girl for a period of several months and in that course of time he took every scrap of her virginity. She had been dedicated to sexual purity before meeting him. They broke up eventually and a few years later she ended up marrying one of his closest friends. He hadn’t intended to at the time, the thought never even crossed his mind; he was just doing what felt right to him and she was a more than willing partner, but he was responsible for robbing his close friend of precious and irreplaceable experiences with his beloved. He was a bad steward of his girlfriend and his girlfriend was a bad steward of herself, resulting in broken friendships and lost intimacy in a marriage.

We are not our own and our actions impact those around us, people we love. And, possibly people we have not yet even met.

A Divine Set-Up

I mentioned earlier that my church has been working its way through the book of Matthew for quite some time. About a year and a half ago we were looking at chapter 14, which is where the story of Jesus walking on water appears (vs. 22-36). I wrote follow-up questions for this passage that our small groups and individuals then used to dig deeper into the scripture:

Matthew 14:22-36

This passage is one of the most famous stories in the Bible, even familiar to most non-believers. It is one of the most striking examples of Jesus’ authority over the natural world, and “walking on water” has become a cultural reference to deity, or perceived holiness. Let’s look at this passage apart from the miracle itself.

1. What is the significance of Jesus separating Himself in order to pray? Was He simply modeling a behavior that we are to imitate or did solitude serve a purpose even in the Christ’s prayer life? Consider the (subtle) difference between pursuing solitary prayer as a means of avoiding interference versus seeking intimacy. These are obviously not mutually exclusive, but reflect on what it meant for Jesus, who was Himself God, to desire to be alone to pray.

2. Consider the possibility that Jesus was preparing the stage intentionally to perform what would become such a famous miracle, sending His disciples in the boat without Him, not preventing the storm when He easily could have, etc. Have you ever experienced what could be called a divine set-up, a situation which seemed tailor-made to display God’s power, authority, love and deliverance?

3. What are we to make of such times when there is no deliverance, no miracle, no healing, etc, when we know that it is always within God’s power?

Question #1 is still a fascinating issue to me, but I have found myself more recently being forced to think about questions #2 & #3. Honestly I’m having to think about them more than I’m really comfortable with.

I lost my job just over a year ago. Unlike most people my job-loss was not due to the collapsing economy but rather to an amoral and embezzling boss. (He once, near the end, took nearly $20,000 of company money to go to Mexico and undergo an obesity surgery, and then returned and told us that he could not afford payroll that month.) For the first eight or nine months of last year I looked for a job for hours every day. I attended job fairs. I went to the offices of people I’d like to work with and introduced myself. I maintained regular email correspondence with potential employers. I did some freelance work and tried to start my own businesses. I spent quite a bit of money putting together portfolios and resumes. But none of my efforts paid off.

I have wanted to be a writer my whole life. In first grade we were assigned to write a one page story; I turned in nearly 20 pages of an Indiana Jones-like adventure. I’ve always had the desire, some have told me that I have the talent, but I always seemed to be lacking the necessary convergence of inspiration and time. Several months ago a light-bulb went off in my mind: I now had those two other necessities for the first time in my life.

I spent a long time in prayer, and I still do pray about it multiple times a day. I feel with a certainty that the desire that I’ve always had and the talent that I feel confident in have been leading to this moment in my life; they were preparing the way for the new inspiration and time that I now have. God shut every door I approached because this was the activity He intended for me to complete. This is the path He intended me to walk and I have been walking in it.

But now I find myself in the middle of stormy seas. I have gone where Jesus commanded, but it feels like He has drawn apart for His own purposes. And still the waves rise. They are pouring over the sides of the boat and I wait. I pray. I am where I’m supposed to be, but will Jesus allow me to sink? He might. He has led me to a situation where if He shows up it will be walking on the water, miraculously. But He needs to hurry. The thread that holds my home out of foreclosure grows thinner every passing month and it is already so terribly thin. I still feel sure that abandoning this calling would be abandoning the calling that God has given me. I cannot do that lightly.

Where have you experienced a Divine Set-Up? Did God arrive? Was it how you expected?