Proverbs 4:23?? Well, how on earth do you do THAT?!

An unguarded heart, to me, has always been one of the most obscure and nebulous concepts in the Bible. How does a heart remain vulnerable and moldable to that which is unseen AND remain protected against that which is seen? Oh, if I only knew the answer in my head, I would send tactical defense strategies to my heart--help it put up guard! I know the tell-tail signs of an unguarded heart (from intuition and personal experience). The heart is used to describe so many things, but for the sake of this list I will include things related to the heart that are exclusive to Eros, i.e. sexual love.

1. Unanswered questions, which perpetuate themselves.
2. Desire to better another individual for your sake with little of no intention of personal change.
3. Schemes; day dreaming; acting on desires, rather than values.
4. Unhealthy disregard of personal needs for the sake of other.

An unguarded heart can lead to other things. Unforgiveness and bitterness are often the result of an untended heart. Going to sleep with the manifestations of an unguarded heart can allow emotions to have their way in your heart (without you even realizing it) and set the stage for more brokenness, helplessness, and disparity… Really the answer (I’ve found) in guarding a heart lies in whom you are held accountable to. When you get married, you enact a covenant between you and your spouse; Christian should already have such a covenant to God. Eros love is something that is added to a pre-established relationship, which should already be founded in Philia, virtuous love.

One should be seeking virtue in his or her personal life, and the moment that virtue is made second priority in a relationship (as soon as the covenant he or she has made with God is downgraded to merely “something to consider”), you should seriously take a step back and evaluate your heart. Something to seriously consider is that marriage doesn’t change your individual covenant to God. It is for your own sake and the sake of your future family that you are first accountable to God---seriously, here’s the secret: If you are first accountable to God then HE INHABITS YOUR HEART. The Lord is a fortress and a shield and He protects you. It’s a hard lesson, but relationships should be founded in this truth.

self-counseling

Let's take a stroll. I want to look at myself from your shoes. I'm curious what you see.

Let's!

From the outside looking in, am I doing this right? Is the person I am around my guy friends the same when she walks by?
No.
Okay, well what's different? I am tense, or do I say things that show her I want her to see how talented and unique I am? Do I smile because she makes me feel good? I guess I wonder how she will recognize that she and I are perfect for one another unless she sees me at the top of my game. That must be why I act differently, but surely that can't be a bad thing, can it?
No, I suppose not.
I just want her to see the all of me, what everyone else sees when she's not there. I guess we spend such little time together that I get excited.
You mean you want her to see the things that I see?
I want it to be more intimate than that I guess. Maybe not. Eventually, I want it to be more intimate between the two of us.

Why her specifically?

I think it's about confidence: I am attracted to her because she makes me feel as though I have to earn the right to (1) be known by her and (2) as hers. I guess it may be a syndrome, but every guy puffs up his chest when an attractive girl walks by. That's just human nature. I have been going to the gym three times a week and I am in great physical shape. Beauty is fleeting, but while I'm in my youth I certainly am taking advantage of my strength.
What we had mentioned before is whether you are different or not when she was around; can we talk about that again?
Different, how so?
I mean in regard to your attention, and your mannerisms? You said you often talk more when she is around, why?
People do say I have a "mode." When she's around I fall into a trance and I won't miss a blink of her eye--sounds a little unhealthy now I think about it. But I guess I have a very real confidence when she's around. It's not much about her and not much about me. I think it's a connection.

But why?

I don't know, I suppose this is why I wonder if I am doing it right. (TBC)

modeling

Every person wants to do the right thing; at least a small part of them wants to do the right thing but they just don't know how. I'm convinced of this. I know that man is a fallen race, but I have utter confidence in the ingrained moral system that God created. I believe a man is made holy by the Spirit that he invites to live inside him.

However, wanting to do the right thing and actually doing it are two different stories. Most of the time when I have this decision to make, fear is the driving factor behind the "wrong" decision, whether it be avoiding confrontation, telling a white-lie, or simply avoiding inconvenience. Talking about relationships and purity, I've learned that the best way to learn is through example. Most things in life, I have learned through the correction of others. I have had to act humbly in order to accept reproof. However, for a while, I thought that relationships were different. I thought that two people had to learn how to love one another in spite of business and in spite of getting on the other's nerves (which is true but not the whole truth).

According to Jennifer Roback Morse, whom I heard speak today, someone who has grown up in a single parent household wishes for life-long marriage in his/her life, but simply doesn't know what it looks like. In the first sense, which I introduced in the last paragraph, when two people become parents, it's new and real for them and neither one is ever fully prepared for the change (but somehow they do just fine). Morse, taking this into account, says that you should still humble yourself and seek out guidance, a model...especially if you have not lived with/observed a functional marriage in your development. And it's true: sometimes you do just have to take the first step, but you should try to be as prepared as possible (cf. Proverbs 19:2). Also, you shouldn't try to make it on your own; in a business model, many hands make light work; in a familial model (or in a leading model, as parents are called to be), Proverbs 11:14 says, "For lack of guidance a nation falls, but many advisers make victory sure."

You gotta realize, a king has to humble himself to seek many advisers--so must we all. A couple shouldn't (though some do) learn how to interact with one another without the guidance of others. I believe it takes a community to "raise a family" (not just to raise a child, lol). A couple should seek mentors as individuals and together, and once married, only a fool would deny marriage counseling. Neither a man nor a woman are an island and I don't believe a marriage is an island and I don't believe a family is an island. It just takes humility and the willingness to realize you're not super(wo)man! To realize there are people that can help you do a better job; to be the BEST parent/spouse, you have to love the other party enough to dismiss your own pride completely, to open the door for God to change you! :)

Truth: an official introduction

Why is it wrong to lie? because God never lies. Yes, one reason why you shouldn't lie is because people don't trust a liar and don't confide in one who twists truth. BUT the latter is only so because lying is intrinsically wrong! Why would you love your neighbor as yourself and why would you forgive? because God loves His neighbors and He forgives. Yes, one reason you love others is because you want to be a healthy lover, receiving love and exercising the love onto others (as opposed to a fat lover that constantly takes and never exercises!). BUT the latter is only true because the former is true. God acts in truth; therefore, He is wise.

You see truth belongs to God. When you stumble upon truth, you have stumbled upon something that God has instituted because, by its very nature, it is fair and just and logical. A person cannot own truth/wisdom because she (wisdom) worked by God's side in the foundation of the world (read Proverbs 8). Not only should one do what is right because truth is absolute and uncompromising, one should do what is right because by being near to God, what is right permeates through the old self. A Christian saved by the glory of God should now echoes His characteristics (That's just how it works!).

One way we do this is to glorify God with the way we operate our bodies. Don’t think that once you’re married, the lust issue isn’t an issue any more. No, it is something that a person should seek to control because controlling our bodies is something that God instituted and is simply the correct way. The Bible wasn't givent to us so we could find loopholes--no! It was given to us so there would be no loopholes. A teacher gives a student a syllabus at the beginning of a course so there would be no question about what was to come, what was to be expected and so that a student may read it promptly, as he/she is responsible for the information presented in it. By the very nature of the Bible, it was created to make life easier. I think that if a person never lied, he/she would never have to free himself/herself from his/her neighbor's hands (Proverbs 6:1-5). The Bible both creates social order and a basis for unity among men, and between man and God.

It is for the glory of God that man trusts Him; it is for the glory of God that the house is not burnt down as we experiment in search for truth. Truth is basic and simple; man complicates it.

Purity: an official introduction

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him (James 1:5). And because wisdom is directly related to the situation in which one would show wisdom, wisdom can never arrive too late.

Knowledge is just wisdom removed from a situation; and there is a place for knowledge. But specifically with this verse, there is so much hope because so long as you are willing to do what is right at any cost, God will show you what to do before it is too late! How does this relate to purity? Here's how: if you ask God for wisdom, you have to be willing to act on that wisdom, else it is just more knowledge. You have to be willing to act in accordance with your beliefs. Same with purity, one who aspires for purity must do so in sound judgment, in full knowledge that purity isn't something you just stumble upon. It isn't something like innocence (or virginity) that you can lose, but rather it can be aspired for. You can't ask God to make you a virgin again; that's silly; but you can ask God to help you be pure and undefiled before Him. It's an ever striving task and one that deserves a commitment. If anyone desires purity, it takes planning and careful consideration to get there. It takes maxims and established "laws." In most senses laws are a good thing. They are definitive and promote "lines-in the-sand."

Qs

You cannot dedicate someone else, but you can dedicate yourself. Similarly, you cannot surrender another's will, but you can surrender your own. You cannot make another person serve you with kindness of heart: This is something that God Himself saw as unethical and ineffective.

What I can do is see you as the treasure of God's heart--a treasure already owned--nay, a treasure predestined to be one with the heart of God. Say I am never to own it, still I can defend such a treasure with the utmost diligence, for it takes more strength to say "no" than it does to say "yes." I have to learn to see the another person as a treasure, but a treasure that has been found and is already claimed by my Savior: the treasure is not mine to do as I please, but one thing I can do is defend the purity of this treasure. The Question is how...

Slow Commitments

In order to be where you want to be you have to make a commitment to get there. You get what you give and you reap what you sow. If you're doing something you don't like doing, it's because you are committed to something other than what you "do" like doing (perhaps committed to a lack of commitment). These are practical realities that are true in any relationship you will ever enter into.

If you want to be friends with someone, you have to make a commitment to be friends with him or her no matter what. Legitimately, there are some people that you will never commit themselves to friendship, but Romans 12:18 and Hebrews 12:14 suggests that we should still try to live at peace with all men.

Here's the thought: be careful what you commit yourself to and honor your commitments. When you make a commitment, you enter into a covenant of sorts. You have a responsibility to honor a commitment; for example, in OT covenants, blessings came to those who honored their vows and curses were pronounced on those who broke the covenant. Specifically, as a Christian, every commitment we make to another person should first be a commitment to God. A value system should be established long before a commitment is made (that's why a child is under his or her parents' protection until he or she can enter a covenant his or herself--this is also a law in America, not just ancient Israel). A commitment is a big deal! Taking it slow--it's also honoring to the person whom you're making the commitment with, because it shows that you care enough about the person to establish their worth in a strongly foundational bond.

i step left, you step right----practical

Earlier, I used the example again from dancing to explain how two people share a single life, a single dance. I talked about how God should be the one to define the steps you take. In dance class, I am a lousy leader without the instructor's guidance. They were the ones who told both my partner and me: "you step left and she'll step right." It was the most natural movement when eventually we got it down.

The reason I said, you shouldn't care about the “success” of a relationship is because when you do, you end up doing things that will manipulate him or her! In dancing, you cannot be five or six moves ahead mentally or you'll mix up the obvious steps to come. When you are thinking about the triple twirl you're going to lead her in at the refrain, you may pull her too hard, trip, and miss the refrain altogether.

I am thoroughly convinced that the only thing that must be done in any and every relationship is the cultivating of good soil so that God can cause growth (I'll explain what I mean by growth). Perhaps you are familiar with the parable of the sower found in Matthew 13. Seeds are planted but it's God who grows the plant (if the conditions for growth are right). It's the same here: if soil of tenderness, openness, honesty, compassion, selflessness, joy, and overall integrity (to name a few) are the ground in which you plant; if you carefully till the soil; and water the soil; then God will cause growth. But how do we know already what that growth should look like?

Here's my main point: you don't know if that seed will be friendship or marriage… or if you were just meant to help one another find new jobs! If you assume it's always romance, you'll miss out on friendship (which is also an institute of love, just a different kind of it).

You can take slow steps towards unity, but not irreversible ones; the irreversible ones exist under the covenant of marriage for a reason; one reason is because after an unhealthy relationship is terminated, there is heart break; in sex, you give away part of yourself; even after a simple kiss, you've become bonded to the other person in an emotional way that will be heart-wrenching if separated.

i step left, you step right

What does it truly mean to not care about the "success" of a relationship?

I don't think “dating” and “relationship” are synonymous. Two people are in a relationship simply by knowing and interacting with one another, wheras dating is more specific than that. Now to answer the question: let me explain just what I mean. I think it means that when you take things slow, the definition of “success” becomes redefined. It means that if you grant God the ability to grow the relationship, then the thing that He wants to happen will happen—and don't get confused into thinking that you want something that He doesn't want you to have (cf. Prov. 21:30).

To not care about the “success” of a relationship is not the same as "not wanting the best" for the relationship / other person; it's quite the opposite, actually. A "successful" relationship isn't one that plays out the way the two parties initially wanted or thought it would; it's the one that brings about the most growth in both parties, individually. In other words, it focuses less on the foreseen end (e.g. marriage, being parents, growing old together) and more on the means (i.e. making the relationship a growing experience).

Now to flip my example on its head: to care about the “success” of a relationship is, by very nature, to assume. It is to think you are the best thing in the world for the growth of the other (growth spiritually, characteristically, etc.), when in fact you could be robbing the other person of someone else or something else that God wants for him or her.

I'm learning not to be selfish and learning to think without bias. One reason that two people come together is so they can have a companion whom they can be fearlessly united to in confession and sacrifice. Think about that. It's less about "me" and more about "us." The sad fact is that most people come together because the other person makes him or her feel good in one way or another. That's not about growth; that's a stagnant, leisurely activity.

It is not good for man to be alone.... pt. 2

I've learned a few ultimate truths about what is necessary to consider before pursuing a relationship, and really that is the biggest thing going on right now in my thought. So due to many biological realities (Reticular Activating System, impact bios... to name a few) the reality of a relationship has crossed paths with me and I have naught to do but settle the tension (or more accurately, manage the tension). In Donald Miller's book Searching for God Knows What, there was a chapter that really ministered to me, speaking just what I needed to hear:


"Moses said God knew Adam was lonely or incomplete or however you want to say it, but God did not create Eve directly after He stated Adam was lonely.... a lot of times before the fall, I don't think of people going around lonely. But the thought also comforted me because I realized that loneliness in my own life doesn't mean I am a complete screw up, rather that God made me this way. You always picture the perfect human being as somebody who doesn't need anybody, like a guy on a horse out in Colorado or whatever. But here is Adam, the only perfect guy in the world, and he is going around wanting to be with somebody else, needing another person to fulfill a certain emptiness in his life. And as I said, when God saw this, He did not create Eve right away. He did not give Adam what he needed immediately. He waited. He told Adam to name the animals.
Now I had read this a thousand times, just glancing over it you know, but this time, reading it without looking for a magical formula , I actually thought about what would be involved in a job as big as naming the animals. In my mind this had been such an effortless action; Adam sits on a log with his land on his chin, God parades the animals by rather quickly, Adam calls out names under his breath: Buffalo, chimp, horse, mouse, lizard, buffalo... Uh, wait--did I already say buffalo? Um, well--how about cow; did I already say cow.
But could it really have been that effortless? .....I wondered how long it must have taken him to journey to the ocean to name the sea life, and whether God had them swim up close to the shore, so Adam only had to go in about waist-deep.
I looked up how many animals there are in the world, and it turns out there are between ten million and one hundred million different species around in the time of the Garden, and Adam, apparently, had to name all of them. And the entire time he was lonely.
I never thought of Adam the same again. The image of the man holding a fig leaf over his privates seemed nearly crude. Rather this was a man who, despite feeling a certain need for a companion, performed what must have been nearly one hundred years of work, naming and perhaps even categorizing the animals... The thing is when Adam had finished naming the animals, after all his work and effort, God put him to sleep, took a rib out of his side, and fashioned a woman. I had read that part a thousand times, too, but I don;t think I quite realized how beautiful this moment was....."


It continues on to talk about how in that hundred years (yes..... HUNDRED YEARS!) Adam could not communicate and exist like a companion with any of the animals he came into contact with. In these hundred years, families formed with the animals. The idea of another person never entered Adam's mind, but God surprised him with companion. They probably didn't fall in love right away, but in that moment, God had blessed his waiting and his faith. How often do we think of Adam as a man of faith? Never! I can't put words into that picture; it really speaks for itself. God is a good God and He blesses purity and entrusts his gifts to those who have remained pure. It's exciting!

It is not good for man to be alone.... pt. 1

Normally learned through my devotions, I've decided to share something I've thought about and reflected on each day in this blog (which I hope to be updated more often than my others). Some lessons are relearned over and over again and some may seem very obvious to you; however, these are the practical lessons, that is, things I'm putting into practice.


Here's an example: I was reading Proverbs 20 (because it's October 20th, lol) and a single verse stood out to me above the rest. It was v25, which reads, "It is a trap for a man to dedicate something rashly and only later to consider his vows." This connected to the verse I read Yesterday in ch19 v2, which states, "It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way."

As weird as this may seem, this verse really hit home while in Latin and Swing Dance Class. I noticed that it was only my poor leading that caused my partner to miss a step or have incorrect footing. It's really the guy's job/function in dancing to lead his partner. This is only to say how often we get excited about something and the excitement alone is enough to fuel us for a short period of time. For example, last year some students started a ministry called Consuming Fire Ministry on campus at my school. I was part of the worship and played guitar; I also prayed and came to some board meetings though I was never in a leadership position. We don't often realize what a commitment some things truly are, what it really means to lead and what it really means to be a leader who is not hasty in decision making (because so often I find that a leader is good at making rational decisions and it will satisfy his followers, but often people miss the way because they see an opportunity and jump on it). In reality the right decision is rarely missed because it is done prayerfully and carefully, weighing all options. Now, Consuming Fire is no more because it grew in way this board never anticipated.

It is a trap for a leader to dedicate something without being prepared to continue with the vow until its sanctions have dictated termination. e.g. marriage is until death do us part...


So, that middle section is really going to be how this blog is set up. It's just going to be filled with little truths that I can reflect on later, those who find can reflect on, etc. This blog really serves as a devotional journal for me. Thus I am not providing any links to this page due to its personal nature.