prostitute

October 18, 2019 By Castimonia

Dissect Your Discouragement

Originally posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/dissect-your-discouragement/

Defeated. Deflated. Defunct. Discouraged.

We’ve all known times of discouragement in both its fleeting form and its stubborn, seasonal form.

As Christians, we’re invited and encouraged to honestly experience the full spectrum of human emotion; however, there is a point when choosing to dwell on and wallow in discouragement can become sin.

Discouragement is to be dealt with, not ignored, but it ought not dictate our behavior.

Facing Discouragement

Any emotion can be used as a diagnostic tool. Negative emotions, while uncomfortable and often unwelcome, can serve as instruments alerting us to what is going in on our souls, forcing us to slow down and deal with something gone awry within. As such, discouragement isn’t something to be ignored or squelched in a stiff-upper-lip way.

When my child comes home from school disgruntled and downcast, I don’t want him to harden his heart and just stoically move on. I want to hear what’s bothering him, even if it’s fairly petty in the grand scheme of things. If he lost at dodgeball or missed a spelling word, I care about those things, because I care about him. The wave of discouragement can become a window into his heart, and an avenue toward intimacy with him. To insist that he simply “get over it” would be to demand something less than human of him.

At the same time, it would be terribly unloving of me to allow my son to cry and pout all afternoon about the friend who snubbed him at lunch or the catch he missed in the game. As a parent who sees and knows more than he does, I must offer perspective and tell him what is true. He may not like it, but it will keep him from being swallowed by despondency.

Dissecting our discouragement paves a way to Christ that neither denies discouragement nor allows it to dictate.

It’s one thing to feel a wave of discouragement; it’s another to sit in a puddle of self-pity. Dissecting our discouragement paves a way to Christ that neither denies discouragement nor allows it to dictate.

When discouragement is dissected, three lies are often found wreaking havoc beneath the emotion.

1. God Promises Me a Comfortable Life

When interruptions or tragedies or discomforts pop up in our lives—and they will until Christ returns—they can expose the insidious lie that God exists to give us easy lives.

On the contrary, Christ promised his disciples they would have trouble. And yet, he accompanied this hard promise of an uncomfortable life with the soothing promise of a divine Comforter (John 14:16–18; 16:33).

2. God Should Do Things My Way

Waves of despondency have a way of shaking up the sinful silt that settles on the bottom of our souls. When we don’t get the job we’ve dreamed of, or when our family life looks different than we imagined, we often realize we’ve been bartering with heaven. While few of us would ever verbalize such a contractual approach to God, many of us say, in our hearts: Lord, I’ll do x and y; then you can give me z.

But God lovingly resists and redirects our plans, because, in his own words through the prophet Isaiah: “My thoughts are not your thoughts; neither are my ways your ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:8–9).

3. God Should Work According to My Timetable

Sometimes, discouragement results from gradual disappointments and hopes deferred. Long waits—whether for clarity, spouse, opportunity, children, or any other right desire—can make our souls irritable and sick. In Proverbs 13:12, Solomon observed that “hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire coming is a tree of life.” When God doesn’t work on the timetable we prefer, we do well to remember that he is the deepest desire of our hearts and that he has already come. And he will come again to set all things right and usher us into glory with him forever.

Moods and moments of discouragement can be opportunities to crawl into the loving lap of the Father. There we are invited to bring our tangled knots of disappointments under his loving scrutiny. We will be met by a Father who loves us enough to receive our emotions, while also exposing the lies that often hide under discouragement’s cloak.

Again and again, our patient Father invites us to exchange our lies for his truth—the truth that sets us free.

October 14, 2019 By Castimonia

This Man Deserves It

Originally posted at: https://promisedhopechurch.wordpress.com/2018/02/11/this-man-deserves-it/

For all his fornications, he is guilty. For his selfish manipulations and lusts, every teenage violation of his future wife, he is unquestionably guilty.

For all of his anger, his petty hatreds and grudges (which he so often carries deep under his skin, where he thinks no one can see), he is guilty. The thoughts he sometimes has about people, the nastiness he wages against his fellow humans right there inside his skull, is appalling.

For the thousands and thousands of lies he has told, too. Big ones as a child and a young man, lies so ridiculous they’d be laughable if lying weren’t a sin against the God who always tells the truth. And, as he’s gotten older, subtler ones. Exaggerations, and little expressions on the face which were calculated to get a response but made to look like genuine emotion.

And, oh, the pride. Deep, poisonous, nearly constant pride. Always believing he is more worthy of his needs being met than another. Always making allowances for himself that he would never make for someone else. The quiet belief he nurses in his heart that the reason the fallen brother or sister has tumbled is that he or she wasn’t quite enough like him. The self-centered, self-focused, self-righteous clamoring for his own reputation, his own pleasure, his own validation without half as much, a tenth as much regard for the well-being of others. Oh, believe me, this one is proud.

For the cowardice, the meanness, the vengefulness, this man is irrefutably guilty. No one, not even God Himself can deny that, on his own standing, this Wade Thomas Jr, born at Good Samaritan Hospital in the Year of Our Lord 1985 (and having sinned every year since) is guilty as (and of) sin.

There is no excuse. No justification. He had no valid reason for lust and brazen manipulation and gossip and deceit, he has no just cause for his anger and bitterness and idolatry of heart. His head is in his hands because he knows this. There is no defense he can mount. There is no mitigating factor that will justify his willful, ignorant, faithless, rebellious wickedness.

None. He is guilty.

Ahem.

And now let this one speak.

For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are of sound mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

2 Corinthians 5:13-21

Death is the sentence. The serpent knew it in the Garden, though of course he lied (he always does). Sin brings death, the only thing it can bring. And so death is the sentence for Wade. Shameful, inglorious, painful and God-forsaken death. God gave life, sin brings death. So Wade is owed it. He merits it. In at least one sense, he has asked for it.

The executioner is ready. The crowd is assembled.

But the guilty man is not the one to die.

When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Colossians 2:13-14

Every guilt the serpent lays on this man is valid. He sinned. He did. He did rage at his brethren and sin sexually and deceive people and play out his proud hypocrisy in the most sinister of ways. If he isn’t the chief of sinners, he is certainly a lieutenant. But here is where the serpent plays into his own undoing: Since he is the father of lies, he rarely expects the full, undiluted, 80-proof truth. When God says He loved this man, He really meant it. And when He pledged from love, right there in that sin-stained Garden, that a son of man would crush this ancient liar’s head, He wasn’t just talking to talk.

This love from God didn’t hinge on Wade’s faithfulness. It preceded his faithfulness. Beyond that, it superceded his unfaithfulness. This God slew the dragon by being slain, and He gave pardon by taking on punishment. He undid the sin and death Wade wrought by becoming sin and then dying.

This God made Wade, gave Him a Law, watched him break it, and then bore the punishment Himself. He is exactly who He has always claimed to be: Good, holy, loving, and just. And the truth will always undo a liar. And, as the saying goes, it is also quite likely to set free.

And so while Wade is, in at least one sense, guilty, the charge will not stand. You cannot punish two men for his crimes. The debt is real, but it is no longer his.

The criminal’s cross has already been stained with man’s blood. And the tomb has already had the body laid in it. Sin brings death, and death it has brought. Wade deserves to die, but in this great exchange called the Gospel, he gets to live. By the grace of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, he has been given unshakeable, eternal life.

And the guarantee of that gift is that his Jesus Himself did not stay dead. Look over there, on that hill.

Like the charges against this guilty man, both cross and tomb are by now quite empty.

October 10, 2019 By Castimonia

Adultery: Will You Cleave and Leave Your Man?

SOURCE: Noël Piper/Desiring God

Dear Wife,

Cleave is a strange word. It’s a contranym — a word that can have opposite meanings.

In an upper story of a concrete apartment block in a small Chinese city, I watched Rene wield her cleaver like a top chef, preparing vegetables for her family’s dinner. I was impressed how she positioned her fingers so they didn’t get chopped with the carrots. “Wow! I want some of those knives to take home as gifts,” I said. Rene pointed out the window toward a shop across the busy street. “You should be able to find them there.”

The name of one brand was Family Cleaver. It was easy to see how the difficulty of grasping a double meaning in English must have tripped up a Chinese translator. I was glad to discover a different brand with a happier name (that wouldn’t have implications of splitting a family apart).

On the opposite side of the word, there’s the other meaning of cleave, as it’s used in a time-honored wedding text: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24 KJV). Or as the ESV translates the same word, the husband shall “hold fast” to his wife.

Johnny Picked Me

At a small country church in middle Georgia, on a mild Saturday afternoon in December almost 49 years ago, we were married. We had waited two and a half years for this day. I still could hardly believe that Johnny Piper had chosen me, and that he wanted to spend his life with me just as much as I wanted to be with him.

I understood — as well as a person can at the beginning of the rest of her life — the happy, solemn weight of promising to be faithful to him until death parted us, no matter what challenges God might bring into our lives. It didn’t seem possible I would ever want anything else.

“Noël, do you take John to be your wedded husband to live together in holy matrimony? Do you promise to love him . . . and forsaking all others, be faithful only to him so long as you both shall live?” There was not a doubt in my mind or heart when I declared, “I do!”

How could I have known that the worse of “better or worse” would lead to a season of sleepless nights when I wondered how I could keep on? I felt desperate for something different. That’s the time in our marriage when I would have been most likely to turn to someone else. But thank God, it didn’t happen. He held us together. There were a few habits that helped.

Faithfulness to Johnny, through the years, from boyfriend to husband, meant:

Not flirting with other men.
Avoiding men who seemed too interested.
Not meeting alone with any other man.
Having regular devotions together with Johnny.

Faithfulness required more than four habits, but these four have been central and essential.

Hardest Habit

The last is the hardest, but most important. My appreciation for it began, as with many things, with my parents. It is amazing my parents stayed together. About twenty years into their marriage, their rampaging differences seemed about to rip them apart.

Through even the most difficult months — years, really — Daddy and Mother took us all to church every Sunday. And every evening of the week, one of us kids was sent to the front porch to holler down toward the pasture and out toward the woods, “Sto-o-ory and pra-a-yers ti-i-ime!”

After all nine of us kids (later we were ten) had tumbled into the living room from the barn and creek and kitchen, Daddy read the next passage in our years-long path through the whole Bible. Then we kneeled at our chairs and took turns praying.

I realize now how difficult that must have been for my parents. Often they must have felt like hypocrites, going through motions when they didn’t feel like worshiping or praying together.

Of course, it would have been ideal if they had come before God with whole and happy hearts. But it was better to come somehow than not at all. And God held them together until he brought their marriage through the tempest into peace, using his glue of faithfulness — his faithfulness to them, and their faithfulness to each other and to those family devotional traditions.

What Kind of Cleaver?

What did it boil down to during my darkest nights? I was saved from wandering by some form of this question: What kind of a cleaver am I? Am I the deadly implement who will split my family — with a husband and five children — into shreds? Because, with or without divorce, that is what unfaithfulness will do to us.

Or will I cleave to the husband God has given me? Will I cling to my marriage and pray desperately for something different? I chose to cling, and God is still proving his faithfulness. He will do the same for you.

October 2, 2019 By Castimonia

What To Do When You Want to Quit Marriage

SOURCE: Barbara Rainey/Family Life

Though most every spouse marries with stars in their eyes and expectations that scrape the Milky Way galaxy, there isn’t a spouse on earth, on any continent, in any country, who hasn’t experienced harsh unexpected disappointments.

Like piles of heavy wet snow on power lines and branches, accumulated hurts and disillusionment threaten to snap personal resolve as easily as limbs surrender to the overwhelming weight of winter’s crystals.

Have you too entertained the thought of quitting at some level?

My husband’s and my overarching marriage narrative is a wonderful one because it is a tale of redemption. But in those hard places, before the redemption came, before it was spring again, we both experienced the pain of disappointment and loss. I wondered if we’d ever see beauty once more, or if we’d have to settle for a long winter.

I wanted to quit my marriage, not end it entirely as in get a divorce, but I have wanted to stop trying so hard in the cold heavy parts of our relationship.

I have felt, This is too hard, we aren’t getting anywhere. I have been tempted, and it is a real temptation from the enemy of our souls, to

quit sex,
quit working so hard to understand and be understood
quit serving and giving myself
quit biting my tongue and watching my words
quit trying and settle into détente.

Quitting any area of marriage is slamming a door shut on intimacy. Like a thermometer, intimacy is the rising or falling temperature of your marital oneness and depth.

Intimacy is not just sex. It’s communication, sacrificial love, self-control, courage…and sex.

Why did we all expect marriage to be so happily ever after?

Ponder this question in reply: why do you think Jesus spent so much time with tax-gatherers and sinners as the Pharisees so sharply accused?

Quite simply because He knew that they knew their inadequacies and failures. Jesus saw hope for new life, new light in those men and women and children who understood they were broken needy sinners.

Jesus taught, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). Simply stated, we can’t receive the gifts of the kingdom unless we know we cannot attain them or buy them or earn them on our own.

We struggle and want to quit in our marriages because we underestimate the sinful natures of our spouse and ourselves. Marriage is hard because it’s the union of two sinners.

In my Bible study this year, our class is going through Romans which has reminded me afresh “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and “there is none righteous, no not one” (Romans 3:10). My wanting to quit has so often been because I expect too much of my spouse and myself and underestimate our depravity.

I still remember some of those crisis points in our marriage. I felt frightened a few times, fearing we’d never find common ground again. I felt lonely, knowing we weren’t operating out of oneness and because I didn’t have anyone I could talk to. I felt unappreciated that my efforts to love, serve and help weren’t met with the gratitude I had expected. To quit trying appeared like the relief of a desert mirage.

At the core, I wanted to quit because I wasn’t getting what I wanted. Life wasn’t working the way I thought it should. I wasn’t able to make it all work. Paul said basically the same thing when he wrote, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out” (Romans 7:18).

Though I felt emotions that scared me, God wasn’t bothered by my wanting to surrender and quit trying. In fact, He kinda liked me in that barren winter place…discovering that my expectations weren’t working…finding I wasn’t sufficient in myself to make everything work in my marriage. He knew I was disappointed with Him, too, and that too didn’t bother Him a bit.

True marriage is the union of three, not two.

In those alone moments when I had nothing else to try, no book with ten tips waiting on my nightstand, I prayed one of many desperate prayers over the years. I told God, I have no idea what to do next, no idea what to say or try. Will You show me? Will you guide me?

Never was there an immediate reply. I always wished for one, but learned to rest in His mysterious ways…to trust He could somehow break the ice…make a way…open our eyes to His beauty.

And that is what He wanted. “Come to Me,” Jesus said.

I was inadequate…my own attempts a failure…I needed Jesus and only Jesus.

So what do you do when you feel hope is lost and you want to quit?

Come to Jesus.

His strength will help you resist the darkness that threatens; the darkness of unbelief & resignation…the darkness of lost hope. IF you will ask and IF you really want to follow Him.
His light will shine on your heart to illumine false thinking, small and large steps of new understanding. IF you are willing to see your sin, If you are willing to change. (Is there that much sin in me? Oh yes there is.)

When you come to Jesus, the third Person in your marriage, remember:

He is always praying for you to choose His way. “He always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25).
He is your husband when yours fails, “For your Maker is your husband” (Isaiah 54:5).
He is your dearest Friend when you have no one, “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (John 15:14).
He is your Comforter when you feel all alone; “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me” (Psalm 23:4).
He waits to guide you by His Spirit; “When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13).

Your challenge and mine is to believe all this is true and walk by faith when our feelings tell us the opposite. It’s what Jesus did all His life, but especially on the cross. And because He did, He can help us follow His steps.

God’s greatest joy is to rescue, resurrect and restore. It’s His specialty. He LOVES to take broken hearts, fractured relationships, shattered hope, and restore it to better than it was before.

I pray you will make your marriage health your highest goal, seeking to grow your relationship with your husband and your Savior this year.

May you too be counted among those who didn’t quit and because you didn’t discovered the wonder of the resurrection!

September 24, 2019 By Castimonia

Reality! Who needs it?

Individuals in recovery have generally spent a lot of time avoiding their painful, shameful or fearful reality. Using chemicals, relationships, busyness, spending, eating, not eating, fantasy, gambling, sex, etc. to escape reality.

What is your reality anyway?

As a baby, your brain was in a receptive mode and you downloaded and duplicated everything around you. As you grew up, you kept imprinting within you, all of the thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and things that happened and you became you.

From Pia Mellody’s Model of Developmental Immaturity, we learn that this programming creates a belief system. You interpret everything that you perceive through your own belief system, particularly as you interact with others. That’s why people frequently disagree about a shared experience. For example, let’s say that Jason had a disagreement with his sister while they were at a social event and shared about it with several friends. Sara identifies with Jason’s sister, feels empathy, and defends her. Jennifer is reminded of being embarrassed by her mother in public and feels pain and shame. Mark feels annoyed about the very topic of conversation and thinks about something else. Everyone has his or her own reality.

In emotional recovery work, it is extremely helpful to understand your reality and how to work with it. First, your reality is your experience in the present moment and includes your body, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Think of a recent time when you felt reactive in an interaction with someone and experienced some strong feelings come up. Now, breathe, take a moment, and fully experience the sensations in your body. Those sensations inform you about your feelings. Identify what the feelings are. Is it pain, hurt or sadness, or is it fear or anger? If you are not used to identifying your feelings, it can take some practice. Truthfully, your feelings are generated by the thought you had. When you are reactive, it’s hard to think straight and it can take some time to identify what the actual thought was, or where in your history it originated.

The most helpful way to think about this is with curiosity and owning it rather than judging yourself or blaming someone else. You are in a disempowered victim mode when you blame someone else for your reaction and that keeps you stuck. When you own that your reaction came from your own programming, then you are empowered to understand yourself better and can change.

So how do we do that? How do we change our reactivity, our thoughts, and feelings, and why go through the trouble?

Scott Peck wrote, “Mental health is staying in REALITY at all costs.” You’ve had those experiences when you are fully present, connected with yourself, aware of your senses, and feeling alive. Joy, passion, love, and the sense of connection with yourself are present moment experiences. You miss out on life when you are not present. Everyone checks/spaces-out at times; it is the human condition. However, the more present you are, the happier and healthier you will be.

Here are the steps to working with your reality when you are triggered or become reactive:

Take slow deep breaths and be curious about what you are experiencing and why it is coming up.
Notice and describe to yourself the sensations you are feeling in your body and identify the emotional feeling word or words that fit. (Hurt, fear, anger, irritation, shame, guilt, for example.)
Stay present and curious about the feelings or issues that are underneath the surface feelings. It could be abandonment, feeling threatened or unsafe, used or manipulated, blamed, shame, guilt, or a memory of an incident from your past. You could discuss this with a therapist.
When appropriate, you can own your own experience in the present moment and share it with that person you were reactive to by using your talking boundary. For example, in the previous story, Jennifer becomes very quiet and moody. She might share with Jason, “When I heard you say that your sister made a scene at the family dinner, what came up for me was a time when my mother was embarrassingly loud and rude in public and I’m feeling some shame and pain.” In sharing her reality in this manner, Jennifer’s friends will understand her better and she will likely have a sense of relief from the pain and shame.

Only do this when you feel like a functional adult. Listen to the other person’s reality. Be open to getting to know them and to learn about yourself.

Practicing this will likely bring insight as to how the programming in your brain hijacked the situation and gave you a distorted reality. That insight creates a new reality, even a new neuropathway in your brain. This practice begins to create a new, healthier, happier reality, which makes it easier for you to be present. So who needs reality? We all do.

Content Source