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Be Close And Feel No Shame

Be Close And Feel No Shame

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Reading time: 4 minutes

To be close to someone requires that you reveal who you are. Unfortunately, because of the fall, we can experience shame by believing that we are ugly (deformed) in some way, even though God never intended us to experience this.

Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.

Genesis 2:25 NLT

That sums up the primary goal of marriage. Can you reveal who you are and what you really want, without hesitation or embarrassment? Can you do it with someone of the opposite sex who might not understand you so well?

You can be rejected and feel ashamed at the same time, but you don’t have to. If someone chooses to reject you, your response might range from indifference to depressed, to feeling deeply ashamed.

There’s no greater stress on your soul than feeling ashamed. To feel humiliated is to believe that your greatest desire will never be fulfilled. It happens when you honestly admit what you want more than anything while simultaneously accepting that the culmination of your desire is impossible, and therefore, something must be hopelessly wrong with who you are.

Freedom Enables Closeness

Freedom allows for longing to grow. When you have freedom, you can be aware of what you want and be allowed to pursue it.

Control is the opposite of freedom. It has to do with insecurity which can originate from the belief I am not worth being pursued. When you feel unattractive (whether by physical appearance or within your being), it’s tempting to force closeness (to prove worth) or distance (to avoid feeling worthless) in relationships.

So you can see how togetherness and separateness can be in conflict in marriage. Freedom allows your spouse to feel their desire to be with you. It allows both of you to be who God created you to be.

Love and Respect Enable Closeness

The desire for acceptance and the likelihood of experiencing shame promote defensiveness. But the resulting distance produces loneliness which isn’t good either (Genesis 2:18).

Love and respect affirm a person’s identity. They are the antidote to shame, so without them, shame is certain. Love and respect can’t be faked, so you must cultivate them genuinely.

Genuine togetherness occurs when both husband and wife desire to be together. You can encourage a desire for closeness by focusing on the positive qualities of both you and your spouse. You are both made in God’s image, so even when you might not be able to see positives qualities, they exist.

Separateness Enables Closeness

God didn’t make a husband and wife to be together 100% of the time. To be literally one would make the need for two obsolete. Instead, “one” means to function as one–to be on the same team. Members of a volleyball team would be much less effective if they were joined at the hip (too close) or if they played independently of each other (too separate). Their effectiveness increases as they cooperate but perform distinct functions. The strongest team will have diversified (not redundant) members who function together to achieve a purpose greater than they can achieve apart.

Marriage is more challenging than volleyball. It’s easier to be on the same team in volleyball because the skills required are fewer and simpler. The playing field is divided into two parts. The opponents are clearly visible. The objective is in plain sight.

When you lose sight of the purpose of marriage the team analogy becomes less understandable, but it’s no less valid. Conflict in marriage will increase to the degree the team objective is lost. The conflict often results from one or both people wanting too much closeness or too much separateness. A person’s expectations can become not only unhealthy but also impossible to fulfill.

Every relationship has an optimal amount of closeness which can vary depending on the season of life. Paradoxically, knowing how to be skillfully distinct (separate) allows for being the closest possible without feeling ashamed.

You can live knowing you are beautiful today for two reasons:

  1. You are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27).
  2. God reformed you into a new creation without sin (2 Corinthians 5:17, Ephesians 4:24).

For these reasons, you can draw close to God without experiencing shame (Hebrews 4:16) and then also draw close as husband and wife.

For further learning, consider what is the objective of your marriage. How can you support each other on the same team? Ask God to help to see and affirm the positives in your spouse.

Read more about what it means to be a new creation.
Read more about being separate and together.
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Build A Better Marriage With 3 Skills

Build A Better Marriage With 3 Skills

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Reading time: 5 minutes

Marriage is a high potential relationship. With its high reward comes a high risk of making a mess of it. Even though an awesome relationship is hard work, there are a few skills that will help you succeed.

Marriage requires many skills but the three I want to share encompass them all. The three skills are developmental. Meaning, being skilled at #1 makes #2 easier, and being skilled at #2 makes #3 easier. These skills are overlapping in the sense it is possible to be working on all three skills at the same time.

Marriage Skill #1: Thriving As An Individual

The prerequisite for a healthy marriage is to be a healthy individual. This skill prepares a single person to be a married person.

When just beginning to learn this skill, two individuals are not mature enough to sustain a healthy relationship. After all, if you can’t manage yourself, how are you going to take care of someone else?

Each person needs to be able to function as a whole person even when their partner isn’t functioning well. If too much pressure (the expectation that needs will be met) is applied to a spouse, the resulting conflict can be explosive enough to destroy the relationship. This collision is set on a course when two people meet, fall in love instantly, only to find out later they didn’t know what they want in life.

The more you know who you are and what you want from life, the easier it is to be happily married. The one exception to this rule might be that you must want to be married more than you want to live like you are single.

When you are secure enough in who you are, you can be flexible enough to find a way to stay married and pursue something that fulfills you as an individual.

Marriage Skill #2: Cooperating As A Team

The prerequisite for fruitful marriage is to be a team player. This skill prepares a married person to accomplish more with their partner than they can accomplish alone.

When just beginning to learn this skill, a couple cannot work well together. To cooperate as a team requires developing a high level of intimacy. To build this skill, the couple must learn how to be close without losing all they gained as individuals. This involves knowing how to communicate and resolve conflict while maintaining individual boundaries.

Functioning as an individual is different than as a team. Teamwork requires knowing how to work together with different personalities and abilities. The overall marriage objective might not be clear. This will take time to define and negotiate.

Marriage Skill #3: Accomplishing A Mission

As you become proficient in skills #1 and #2, you are more ready to pursue objectives together. With less energy needed to be a healthy individual or couple, you can devote your energy reserves to pursue a purpose that requires two people.

While there are many ways to complete a mission together, a popular one suited for marriage is raising children. If you find your relationship struggling since you started having children, chances are you need to become more experienced at the first two skills.

By now you might have realized that all three skills compete for attention. To build a better marriage requires investing in the right skills, in the right balance, at the right time. Following are some examples to help you understand how this can be challenging, but not impossible.

Tom and Sarah are 16 years old. When they become pregnant, they must devote an enormous amount of energy to their child (#3). While a baby is a high priority, for their relationship to work, they must also build in time to continue growing into adults (#1) and time learning to manage stress and having fun as a couple (#2). At this young age, they experience tension between all three skills, which makes success less likely but still possible.

Steve and Amy are 29 years old. They both work and support themselves without help from their parents. They are used to spending large amounts of time socializing with friends (#1). They don’t have any children, but for their relationship to work, they must make time to learn how to be a couple apart from their friends (#2). Their need for developing couple skills applies pressure on their individual pursuits.

Mark and Mary are 35 years old. Mark wants to spend his free time going on adventures with his male friends (#1). Mary wants to spend time together exclusively with Mark at home (#2). They experience tension in their relationship because they desire different ways to focus their energies.

Becky is 40 years old. She has been divorced 2 times and has 2 children. She has been seriously dating a man for a year. She works and takes care of her children as a single mom. But most of her free time goes to her relationship. Her desire to not be alone, along with her responsibilities as a mom, gets in the way of her need to grow up (#1).

Bob and Lucy are 55 years old. They have spent the last 25 years raising their kids together (#3). Both have dreams to finally be able to put more effort into their careers. Their need to learn how to be a couple again applies pressure to their desire to feel fulfilled as individuals.

See how these 3 skills expand into 7 principles.
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Consider This Confident Attitude

Consider This Confident Attitude

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Reading time: 4 minutes

Think about something discouraging that has happened recently. Be confident and say, “I don’t care.” Can you say it like you really mean it?

What does this accomplish? Discouragement doesn’t come from God. You don’t have to make room for it in your life.

Of course, I’m not promoting an irresponsible attitude. There are good and bad ways to care.

Good Care Encourages Confident Living

Good care is focused on what is best for a person, even when that person is you. The care you provide, or the care your receive, is based on a genuine need.

When someone provides their input into your life, do you find it refreshing or oppressive? If you care what God says about you and you interpret it the right way, then you’ll feel encouraged. But, if you care indiscriminately and catch the opinion of someone who distorts the truth, you’ll feel hopeless.

Because God cares, He works to fulfill His desires. When you care like God, you can work to fulfill your desires too.

Bad Care Encourages Fearful Living

You can’t be fearful and confident at the same time. You can’t be loyal to the truth and to what is untrue at the same time. Bad care is focused on others’ opinions of you at the expense of truth. In this case, your motive for your behavior is too tightly bound to what others think you should do.

It’s like tolerating an uncomfortable hug. It’s an invasion of your personal space. You honestly don’t want that kind of hug. But it’s like you are lying when you accept the hug you don’t want. Then you’re left to feel icky about what you did, instead of making others aware of your preferences.

Try The Confident “I Don’t Care”

We are constantly evaluating everything that we experience. If you are used to caring too much about what others think, you might not even realize how you truly feel.

Try this: during the next 2-hours be hyper-aware of every decision you make. Pay attention to what motivates you to reach your conclusion. How much are you choosing because of an outside influence (what they want or tell you is best)? How much are you choosing because of internal prompting (what you want or believe is best)?

It’s okay to consider outside influences if you don’t let them run your life. God made you to be free. He made you unique. If you don’t express who He really made you to be, then the world is missing out on what God deems important.

This attitude might not make you a very popular person. That’s when “I don’t care” becomes such a life-saver. You can only attain true freedom when you live for an audience of one. It’s not that other people don’t matter. However, they must always come in second to God. That’s what makes staying focused on God challenging. It’s an underdeveloped muscle. But it is essential.

Jesus lived only to please God. Despite numerous distractions and painful outcomes, He stayed the course God set before him.

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

Though he was God,
    he did not think of equality with God
    as something to cling to.
Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
    he took the humble position of a slave
    and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
     he humbled himself in obedience to God
    and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

Phillipians 2:5-8 NLT

To accomplish this Jesus had to “not care” about the opinions of the Jewish leaders. He had to “not care” about the opinion of Satan. He didn’t consider whether He was going to hurt the feelings of false teachers. Instead, He had to care about what God says. He was humble and confident at the same time.

During that time the devil came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.” But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Matthew 4:3-4 NLT

Realize that what might seem like the right answer, might originate from the wrong outside influence (it might only be politically correct, not biblically correct). You must be merciless in your resolve to not care about what is wrong and determined to care about what matters to God. If necessary, hide what others care about so you can see what God cares about.

So then, in every situation, ask yourself, what does God require of me? What will please Him? What did He create me to achieve at this moment? If you can live this way, you might be surprised at how much you enjoy living.

Read more about confident choices.
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Rejuvenate Your Marriage By Comparing It To A Game

Rejuvenate Your Marriage By Comparing It To A Game

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Reading time: 4 minutes

If I told you to stop playing games with your husband or wife, would that be helpful or unhelpful? It all depends on what “playing games” means.

It might mean toying with your partner. This has the negative connotation of exploiting them for your own benefit. This could mean misleading them through deceitful communication. It’s passive-aggressive at best.

However, it might mean enjoying a pleasurable activity together. This would strengthen your relationship.

As it turns out, marriage and games have much in common. Looking at marriage as a game could help you see it from a fresh perspective. You might even become more excited to play it rather than leaving it untouched on your shelf.

Following are nine qualities that games have (based on the book, The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell). See how many of them could also describe your relationship.

1-Games Are Entered Willfully

You chose to marry your partner. No one should have to say that they were forced against their will to get married. Relationships thrive on freedom and they break down when one or both people exert unwanted control over the other.

2-Games Have Goals

Just about everything you can do has some sort of a goal. If it has a goal, it has a purpose. You might think that laying mindlessly on the beach has no purpose. But resting and relaxing are beneficial purposes. Games are fun because there is a specific goal to achieve. Who can reach the highest score before time runs out?

Marriage has goals some of which include: developing closeness and intimacy, creating and raising children, enjoying all life has to offer together, and portraying the church and the image of God.

3-Games Have Conflict

Conflict helps determine what is possible and impossible as well as what is helpful and unhelpful. Conflict is an obstacle to overcome so you can claim victory. In marriage, you can receive the fruit of victory when you resolve conflict by playing well together. Fighting fair results in resolving conflict and retaining friendship.

4-Games Have Rules

No rules or spontaneous rule-making breeds chaos. Everyone loses and everybody wins. Life is meaningless without structure and rules. Imagine running a race where each person can declare theirself the winner.

Marriage has rules that define its success or failure. It’s cooperative rather than competitive. You are supposed to seek the best for the other and for yourself. Marriage is the combination of one male and one female.

5-Games Can Be Won and Lost

Games are usually competitive, pitting one player against another. When husband and wife compete with each other, both lose. Divorce is the inevitable outcome of a competitive relationship. Show me a marriage that ends in divorce and I’ll show you a couple that excelled at opposing each other. When a couple stays together to the end, both win.

6-Games Are Interactive

The more interactive you are, the more you open yourself up to change. Just like anything you do has a goal, anything you do changes you. God made us to be always changing. Some experiences are more intense than others, allow for more exchanging of ideas, and therefore produce more change.

Marriage isn’t played alone. Husband and wife are meant to influence each other for the good. God designed each person to be attractive in their own way. Marriage encourages husband and wife to engage with each other.

7-Games Have Challenge

Humans become bored fairly easily. Once we master something, we’re ready to move on to the next challenge. God made us capable of solving challenging problems.

Marriage both has the greatest potential and the greatest challenge of all relationships. This makes marriage a high calling.

8-Games Can Create Their own Internal Value

The resources within a game are valuable while you are playing. For example, once Monopoly is over, the money is no longer worth anything.

In marriage, husband and wife develop their own sense of personal value. They can decide what is important to them. It might not be meaningful to anyone else. They might even develop their own language for communicating that no one else will understand.

9-Games are Time-Limited

People play a game usually for a relatively short period of time. The score is counted. Then the game is declared over. Marriage is time-limited too. It lasts until one person dies and moves on to the afterlife. There won’t be any marriage in heaven.

Based on Jesse Schell’s book I, I came up with my own definition of a game:

A game is a problem-solving activity that allows learning without real-world consequences.

Even though marriages and games have much in common, the above definition provides a clear distinction.

A marriage is a problem-solving activity that allows learning with real-world consequences.

This definition of marriage is general but true. If you find yourself thinking your marriage has become stale try playing games with your partner.

Read The 7 Principles To Grow Your Marriage
Image colored by Matt Pavlik

Increase Your Motivation Just In Time

Increase Your Motivation Just In Time

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Reading time: 4 minutes

Who couldn’t use more energy in their life? If you are lacking motivation, how can you become motivated to be more motivated? Becoming undepressed often requires a substantial amount of energy–an amount in short supply for the depressed person.

Just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing started to become popular in the USA in the 1980s. This method attempts to reduce waste by only adding to inventory as it is needed to meet demand. If a manufacturer creates more units than customers want to buy, they will need someplace to store the excess. JIT can eliminate the need to move surplus inventory at a reduced price.

What does JIT have to do with your motivation and your ability to overcome depression?

Increase Motivation With Just-In-Time Prioritization

What happens if you work extra to save extra but die extra early? You have too much supply. In this case, you waste your life working for something that never happens. That sounds depressing. Jesus calls such a person a fool.

Then someone called from the crowd, “Teacher, please tell my brother to divide our father’s estate with me.” Jesus replied, “Friend, who made me a judge over you to decide such things as that?” Then he said, “Beware! Guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own.”

Then he told them a story: “A rich man had a fertile farm that produced fine crops. He said to himself, ‘What should I do? I don’t have room for all my crops.’ Then he said, ‘I know! I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I’ll have room enough to store all my wheat and other goods. And I’ll sit back and say to myself, “My friend, you have enough stored away for years to come. Now take it easy! Eat, drink, and be merry!”’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! You will die this very night. Then who will get everything you worked for?’

“Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.”

Luke 12:13-21 NLT

A rich relationship with God is one based upon faith, not upon the accumulation of material goods (consider also Proverbs 23:4).

Now, you might be thinking, certainly, the Bible doesn’t teach that we should live in poverty and beg for food. And you would be right. The Bible often teaches a principle by providing guard rails to prevent you from drifting too far one way or the other.

Just like a factory produces enough products to sell, so you should work hard to provide for your needs without losing focus on what it means to prosper. Spiritual prosperity should take precedence over material prosperity.

Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity,
    but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.

A hard worker has plenty of food,
but a person who chases fantasies has no sense.

Lazy people want much but get little,
but those who work hard will prosper.

It is good for workers to have an appetite;
    an empty stomach drives them on.

Proverbs 21:5, 12:11, 13:4, 16:26 NLT

In Proverbs 16:26 you can see the benefit of an empty stomach: motivation. If you want to increase motivation, you need to first be aware of your poverty and have hope that you can satisfy your appetite with fruit from your labor.

Increase Motivation With Just-In-Time Spirituality

If you struggle to read the Bible every day, you might be lacking an appropriate appetite for it. The Bible is practical. God means for us to apply it to our lives immediately, not let it sit around in our heads collecting dust.

If you’re lacking the motivation to read the Bible, try to balance out the supply with more demand. Attempt to fully apply what you’ve already read before you read more. Ask the Spirit to help you apply what you already know.

If life has become too demanding and you’re worn out, try to balance out the demand with more supply. Attempt to rest more as you take in more truth from more Bible reading.

Spending your whole life making money leaves no time to enjoy it. But if you attempt to spend all of your time enjoying life, you won’t have any money to spend.

Spending your whole life reading the Bible leaves no time to apply it. But if you attempt to live without God’s wisdom, you will be bankrupt spiritually.

Work hard, but leave form for God to show up and take care of you … just in time.

More about interpreting the Bible.
Info of Just-In-Time (JIT)
More about working hard.
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