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Anyone who knows anything about me probably knows that I have been a fan of old-school Smashing Pumpkins music for a long time. Recently, while listening to one of my favorite songs, a lyric sung by Billy Corgan stood out to me. In the song “Soma”, he makes the statement, “The opiate of blame…is your broken heart”. While I think Corgan was pointing towards something else entirely, I began pondering something about the “opiate of blame” part.

Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart. (Proverbs 21:2, ESV)

Taking time to examine our hearts is a crucial yet underused discipline. Much of the time, we can look at the fruit in our lives, or lack of it, and be clued into what is going on with our hearts. However, although our hearts always reveal themselves eventually, sometimes, the true evidence is not seen at first. It is possible for us to put on a good act. And when what we are doing looks good to us, and especially to others, then we are typically satisfied not to investigate why we are doing what we are doing. We often fail to appreciate the importance of the motivation behind our actions.

For instance…when we decide to “kill someone with kindness”, we must be careful not to think too much of ourselves. Our intent is still to “kill”, even if the weapon of choice makes our actions appear more acceptable to ourselves and others. Although our actions may make it look like we are doing the right thing, our heart is still bent towards overpowering or hurting, not loving, the other person. When we don’t take the time to honestly look at what is motivating us, we blind ourselves to the truth and our wayward hearts eventually do some damage. Unfortunately, the damage is usually what it takes to finally bring us around so that we decide we MUST take a look at our hearts to see what’s wrong.

Several years ago a good friend of mine turned me on to an awesome singer/songwriter by the name of Derek Webb. I love many of his songs, but a line from one song in particular jumped out at me as I was writing this post:

“…you can make your life look good
You can do what Jesus would
But you’d be surprised what you can do with a hard heart”
(lyrics from the song, Ballad in Plain Red, by Derek Webb)

These lyrics say, more eloquently than I can, how easy it is for us to get caught up in doing what looks good, while losing sight of what really matters. If our motivation is off, everything is off, no matter how great the performance is. And there is only One who can straighten out a heart issue…and He loves for us to open up our hearts to Him to do so.

Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and my mind. (Psalm 26:2, ESV)

I know I have touched on the subject of “fruit of the spirit” here several times. Paul coins this phrase in Galatians 5:22. Although the exact phrase is not always used, this idea of “fruit of the spirit” is discussed other times in Scripture as well (for example, Colossians 3). Jesus, Himself, talks about fruit. Fruit of the spirit is, quite simply, evidence in our lives that we are walking by the spirit. It is not strenuous effort on our part to do what is right. Fruit shows up when we are believing truth. When we actually take God’s truth to heart, our actions and even out emotional state are affected in an awesome way. Fruit is the product of truly trusting God, made possible only through a relationship with Christ. 

Several years ago, as some of you reading this may know about me, I began a tremendous struggle with anxiety. This included panic attacks (night and day), as well as a general sense of anxiety that plagued me almost continuously throughout each day. It was debilitating. One of the key truths that I encountered that changed my life during that time was a better understanding of God’s sovereignty (there is nothing outside of His influence and authority). When I truly realized His infinite love for me and how it was coupled with Him reigning supreme over all things, I also realized that there was nothing to worry about.

Now, I am not saying that I would always believe this, 100% of the time, but it became a common thread in my outlook on life, and, over time, that was enough to relinquish the control that the anxiety and panic had over me. Please understand that I am not implying this as a “quick fix” for any of you struggling with anxiety and/or panic attacks. Much interaction between God and I took place for this kind of truth to take hold in my life.

I had learned incorrectly through life that God was not a safe God. For instance, where was He in the midst of hardship? Experiences in this world had sent messages about Him that were not true, and I eventually bought into them enough that in my twenties, the dam broke and all the fears and anxiety became overwhelming. Of course, at the time, I did not see it this clearly and simply thought I was losing my mind. It’s not a pleasant experience to think such as this.

But back to my main point here, the revelation in my life of God’s loving, sovereign rule made a huge difference. It was miraculously soothing to me. I was so thankful for His rule and control.

Fast forward to recent months…

I have been noticing some things about myself lately with which I am not content. There has been more anger and definitely more of a tendency for me to try to control things…and of course anxiety. Peace has been evasive. It’s hard to explain, but I have noticed many seemingly small things going wrong in my life to the point that it almost felt like something was out to get me. I found my anger progressing past me getting frustrated with people in my life, and becoming more obvious that my anger was towards God. What was He doing with all this control He has over things? Obviously not watching out for me! It sounds ridiculous, knowing what I know about Him, but something had happened to my view of Him that had changed my emotional state and actions. But what?

Yesterday, God made it abundantly clear to me through the story of Joseph being sold into slavery in Genesis 37. His own brothers sold him into slavery, but later in the book of Genesis Joseph was able to see how God was in control, not his brothers, when they sold him into slavery. He had become an authority figure in Egypt and was instrumental in saving many lives, including those of his family, from starvation during a famine. It hit me hard that Joseph was not controlled by his brothers, the circumstances, or anything else. No one or nothing could steal God’s authority.

The one thing that was so soothing, so precious to me, I had come to reject. A rebellious spirit had come up in me that was not accepting God’s sovereignty. The key, though, to this deception in my life, was that I was still believing in His sovereignty, but leaving out His love for me. It’s all too easy to lose sight of His love when I get focused on things of this world. Without love, authority is just cold and I don’t want it. I don’t think anyone truly desires that kind of authority. How can you trust someone over you that doesn’t care about you? Our faith in Him slips when we don’t believe in His unconditional love and acceptance of us. Without love backing it, authority can be downright scary. God’s huge reminder to me yesterday was to remember His love for me, first and foremost. When that is a reality to me, I am able to accept His sovereignty…and the peace comes with it.

Recently, I was honored to be invited to speak to the “Men of Courage” at Mt. Elam Baptist Church. I shared with them from Ephesians 5:22-27. I thought it would be nice to put my notes together in “blog-form” and post them here. Seeing how I have not posted in a while, I figure it’s about time I do something! So here it is…

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²² Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. ²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, ²⁶ that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷ so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. [Ephesians 5:22-27 (ESV)]

It is very easy to read Scripture and find examples of people we know that are good examples of “what not to do”. We will read about how someone was dishonest, and immediately, someone comes to mind. We have no problem at all applying Scriptures to others. And that’s a big problem. When we are focused on others, we are not focused on our own hearts. It’s a sneaky way to play the blame game. If we stay focused on how others are messing up, we don’t have to look at ourselves.

In reading the words of Paul from Ephesians 5:22-27, I believe it is all-important for us to make it personal. For instance…men, we need to pay much more attention to the “Husbands…” part. Paul did not say, “Husbands, see to it that your wives respect you and submit to you”. Nor did he say, “Husbands, make sure you keep your wives happy”. 

Instead, Paul focused on personal responsibility for men. He stressed “loving our wives”. But we need to really take a look at what he meant by “love your wives, as Christ loved the Church”. It’s far too easy to gloss over this and not take it the way he meant it. This verse is VERY heavy with responsibility for us. If it doesn’t strike us that way, we aren’t taking it seriously. “Love”, in this passage, is the word “Agape” in the original Greek. This is much different than the “phileo” type of love mentioned in other Scriptures. It’s not just a friendly, warm affection.

This “agape-love” is the kind of love Christ has for His bride, the whole body of believers, the Church. Agape-love is unconditional, steadfast, protective, forgiving, patient, gentle at times, aggressive when appropriate, and safe. For guys like me who struggle and have struggled with behaviors such as withdrawing, holding grudges, losing my temper, and dealing out the silent treatment, this type of love sounds impossible, particularly at certain times in my life.

But then comes the most important thing that we need to know about this agape-love (above all the things I listed previously). This kind of love mentioned in Ephesians 5 is also mentioned in Galatians 5:22. There it is described as fruit of the spirit. This is all-important because it is the key to how this kind of love is possible.

Paul ordered his letters in a certain way. He would begin with important doctrine, or truths that we need to believe. He would follow with important notes on the kind of behaviors that we could expect from believing those truths (fruit of the spirit). He really grasped the importance of our relationship with God and how we need to really put our trust in Him and believe that what He says is actually true. When we take these steps of faith (believing the truth), we act on them and then the behaviors flow from Him, through us, to others. As I have stated in this blog many times, our behaviors are motivated by believing or not believing God’s Truth. Our relationships with others are directly affected by our relationship with God.

The portion of Scripture we are focusing on here (Ephesians 5:22-27) is actually from the “behavior-section” of Paul’s letter. We often jump to this section, attempt to do all these good behaviors, and then wonder why we fail. Loving our wives is actually evidence of our trust in our Heavenly Father. If we don’t address this first and foremost, we are lost when it comes to seeing fruit in our lives. This is good and bad news. It’s bad because this is hard to hear sometimes. We often want to blame someone else for our bad behavior. This requires us to look at our own hearts. However, it is good news because we cannot possibly overcome the bad behavior and love our wives the way Paul is calling us to…so we need help…and we have it! 

But then we need to take another huge step out of a bad box we get into a lot as Christians. We often make faith this mystical thing that we talk about, but have very little working knowledge of how to apply it in our lives. We must take the mystery out of it and find ways to make it practical for our everyday walk. 

First of all, it is not nearly enough to know truth. Knowledge without acting on that knowledge is worthless. Knowing the truth and not acting on it is an excellent way to define “dead faith”, as James puts it in his book. God’s Truth has to be so real to us that we act on it. That is when we see the fruit, such as loving our wives.

Experience helps His Truth to become more real to us. We must act on what we know is true, which is taking steps of faith. If we act on ANYTHING other than truth, we subsequently fail to receive and offer His love.

EXAMPLES:

At this point, I want to offer some personal examples of what it might look like to take steps of faith the way I am attempting to describe here.

Years ago, I remember my wife and I were sitting at home. She had something to do outside and went to take care of that. While she was gone, I decided to vacuum the house. Well, when I finished, I realized she had not come back in yet. I really wanted her to notice what I had done, so I contemplated leaving out a piece of the vacuum cleaner in order to make her aware of my “good deed” without having to say a word to her. In a situation like this, a step of faith might look like putting the vacuum away and saying nothing. Instead of looking for my wife’s approval or attention (or whatever it is I’m after), I can choose to seek God’s approval (which is readily available because He DOES approve of me in Christ). The fact is, when I was thinking through this, my struggle was that I wasn’t trusting fully in God’s acceptance of me and was seeking it elsewhere (my wife, through my completion of a chore). Steps of faith like this are not easy, but they are necessary in order to truly love my wife instead of looking to her to make me feel better about myself. And she might not even know what happened!

Another quick example is how I used to, regretfully, make my wife the brunt of my jokes. When in the presence of others, I would make jokes pertaining to her and she would laugh along (sometimes not). I realized years into my marriage to her that this was extremely hurtful, although she had said nothing to me about it. How could I be protecting her, being an advocate for her (as Christ has been for me), and valuing her as the precious gift that she is when I am making jokes about her? Often, I found that I was being critical of her actions and the jokes were subliminal messages that I wanted her to change something. How manipulative! And manipulation is not love. Anyway, my step of faith was giving up this terrible habit by giving her the freedom to be her and shedding some light on my despicable behavior despite the fact that no one really knew how bad it truly was. I had to make a choice to trust God’s Truth that giving my wife freedom to be herself in our relationship (not manipulating her to be what I wanted her to be) would produce what I was really after. Building her up and protecting her is far more enjoyable than trying to change her.

I know these examples may seem small and inconsequential, but the reality is that they are real examples of everyday struggles I believe many of us share. If we aren’t taking the seemingly small steps of faith, then we certainly are not taking the big ones.

Some men struggle with choosing work first over relationship, others with being passive when they need to be more of a leader, and others with being abusive and controlling. Many other examples could be given here, but I will stop there. There are many works of the flesh that show up when we are not walking by faith. As husbands, our relationship with God is central to everything, including being able to love our wives, and the ability to love our wives comes from faith. When we fail to trust God’s Truth (even in the little things), we fail to love. If we catch ourselves without fruit such as “loving our wives as Christ loves the Church”, instead of beating ourselves up or trying harder to do what is right, we need to focus on going back to the drawing board: “By Grace Through Faith”. The fruit will follow. 

Recently, in a conversation I had with several others, it was suggested that “people never change”. Having counseled many people over the past five years, I admit, I was rather annoyed by this comment. However, after some thought, I realized what this person may have been attempting to convey to the rest of us. In that person’s experience, there had been little evidence of lasting change in people who try to change themselves. That’s something I can agree with. Attempting to modify our behaviors is fruitless because we are incapable of changing ourselves. For behaviors to change consistently, there must be a deeper change that takes place, and that change must be instigated from something outside of us. There must be a change in the heart, and only God can do this. It does require steps of faith on our part, though. True change does not come about from a passive stance. It is a difficult road to take. Sometimes it’s a choice one makes to face the reality of where they are at in life despite the temptation to keep hiding and acting like everything is okay.
Sometimes it’s a choice one makes to surrender things to God that they really would like to hold onto due to fear of what may happen if they truly let go. Sometimes it’s a choice to take a risk at losing relationships with others by setting up healthy boundaries.

I have had the privilege of counseling many awesome people while serving full-time as a minister/counselor. I have also had the awesome privilege of being invited to come alongside these friends and watch them bravely work through tremendous hardships. I have had the incredible opportunity to watch these people make the choice to trust the Lord and then to watch our Heavenly Father do His work in these people’s lives. People may never change…themselves, but God definitely responds to their willingness to surrender to Him…and He definitely changes the hearts of people. I have seen it.

“I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 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. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.” (Romans 7:15-20, ESV)

There’s a huge difference between God working on my sin with me by His Grace through Faith and working on my sin myself. The first is full of healing and moving forward. It’s completely dependent upon Him. It requires that I surrender my own efforts with the full understanding that the other option is hopeless. The other option, working on my sin, is full of failure and more heartache. I am completely incapable of any success when I set out to work on it. It’s a completely ridiculous notion that comes from my desire to accomplish something in my own power. It’s what all religion outside of Christ is based on. Sometimes it comes from a seemingly goodhearted desire to “do what’s right” and to “avoid doing what’s wrong”. Maybe I tell myself I need to set out on this mission to please others or God. One major falsehood here is in telling myself that I can please God with my actions. Without faith, it is impossible to please Him (Hebrews 11:6), and when I set out to please Him by working on my sin, I have left Him out of the process. I have foregone trusting Him with any of it, and chosen to trust in my own efforts. I think this is a major issue amongst most Christians, including myself. I write about it a lot here because I face it a lot. Part of accepting Christ is accepting my need to completely rely on Him, and that includes relying on Him to deal with my everyday sin problem.

Paul alludes to another major truth in the above passage in Romans 7. He makes the statement that if he does what he does not want to do, he agrees with the law. What I see here is that Paul is highlighting his desire to do what is right and to not do what is wrong. Although he is incapable of doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong, his desire is to do those very things. His HEART is in the right place. Our hearts get into this condition that Paul is describing through faith. We are not saved through striving to change our behaviors, so we certainly do not grow in Christ through striving to change our behaviors (See Galatians 3). God’s main focus is our heart condition. Therefore, we should make it ours as well. Again, this is not only pertaining to what we refer to as our salvation, but also in sanctification, or our daily growth. Only by Grace through Faith do we stand a chance against sin because only by Grace through Faith do we connect with a Savior that has power over sin. When we ask God to help us take a look at our hearts, then we may begin to see our motivations, what drives us, our core beliefs, or what really is leading to the sin that we see in our lives. But I cannot help but notice that even though Paul’s heart is in the right place at the the writing of Romans 7, he is still struggling with sin. He obviously was not immediately “fixed”. When this happens to us, the struggle to trust in and rely upon God’s Grace in the presence of imperfections begins. Fortunately, we are forced to rely on Him even more. If not for this, I think we would revert right back to relying on ourselves.

I sat down this morning to read some Scripture and, honestly, to force myself to spend some time with God. Being still is such a hard thing to do, and I quickly remembered this truth as I struggled to put everything aside this morning, sitting in the den by myself. For me, it is not always a matter of putting aside things to do, but also putting aside the never-ending thoughts running through my head. Both busywork and a busy mind contribute to my neglect of solitude. It took a conscious effort and determination to overcome the onslaught of urges to get up and do something, to take note of reminders on my cellphone, and to acknowledge my brain telling me things for which “I needed to plan ahead”. The more I attempted to remain there, seated, the more things seemed to pop up to distract me. Instead of mulling over each thing that popped up, I chose to put them aside, or to hand them over to God (an unfortunately overused phrase that has lost its meaning due to its overuse). If I choose to try to take care of those things as they pop up, I lose the battle to be still. The act of entertaining any of the endless thoughts that come to my mind, in and of itself, deters me from my goal to be focused on listening for my Heavenly Father’s voice. Sometimes this fight lasts 45 minutes. This morning it lasted about 20 minutes. And then the peace came. At that point, finally, the reproves, the exhortations, and even the godly rebukes I am so desperately needing overtake all the busyness that I have allowed to overshadow them.

Being still is a necessity, not a nice thing to do from time to time. It’s not a nap or vegging out in front of the TV. Psalm 46:10 boldly states “Be still, and know that I am God”. Being still is a clearly defined way of relating to God: getting to know Him, hearing from Him, and being reminded of His truths that guide us and ultimately set us free. Being still ought not to be categorized as simply an obligation. Obligation deters from real relationships with God or anyone else. God desires “love, not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6 and Matthew 9:13). Relationship is a choice. It is something we choose to do because we recognize our need for it and, therefore, we want to do it. Being a major part of our relationship with God, being still must be engaged in out of desire, not out of a sense of obligation to do “what I am supposed to do”. But as I was reminded this morning, sometimes that desire must be uncovered once I have allowed other things to overtake it. Being still is a choice, but it is also an intense battle against everything that would keep us busy with anything other than interacting with God.      

Having counseled now for close to four years, I have been blessed to meet several hundred people that I would have never known otherwise. For a person like myself who has always been prone to stay more to himself and only a few close friends and family, this has been an awesome experience. You could say it has really stretched me, in a good way. God has taught me so much through those that have come into my office. Much of what He has taught me about has to do with relationships. I can say I have truly enjoyed the relationships that have developed, although the circumstances that bring many people to me are hardly enjoyable.

In counseling others, I see the development of a relationship as essential. Without this, it is so cold and callous that nothing special happens. I believe God designed us in such a way that we require relationship, with Him and others. I have seen Him, time and time again, truly work through trusting relationships that have been engaged in by myself and those who come in to talk with me. Relationships are not all about identifying problems and fixing them, in a counseling office or otherwise. Sometimes we experience things that no one can do anything about. Sometimes we simply do not want or need someone to do anything other than be present and hear our story. With others, there are times when I need to speak, and there are times when I need to shut up and listen. We all need to be known, and someone who is just focused on fixing often misses the intricate details that make up the person that they are attempting to fix. The fixer becomes a know-it-all that really knows nothing at all because the process of getting to know the other person was skipped. Yes, there is a time for more than sitting and listening, but even then it is not about pushing the other person around with bold steps or rules on what to do. Rather than driving someone like a cowboy drives a heard of cattle, it should look a lot more like walking with the person as they move forward, taking steps together and sharing the personal experiences along the way.

Of course, authenticity is required in the development of a good relationship. Without it, the relationship is faulty. Any trust that is developed on a bad foundation will eventually crumble, and being fake is a bad foundation. But authenticity takes courage. It is a risk to open up with someone and be real. It’s much easier to put on a mask at times when I do not know how the other person will respond to the “real me”. However, the rewards of being real with trustworthy people are great.

Let me steal a quote from a favorite book of mine, Truefaced…we must “trust God and others with who (we) really are” in order to have meaningful relationships. Trusting the Lord with ourselves, the good and the bad, is necessary for us to be able to truly receive all the gifts He is showering us with…things like forgiveness, love, acceptance, and healing. If we close ourselves off to Him, we do not receive those wonderful things that we need so desperately. God loves to work through the relationships we have with each other. We cannot separate how we interact with others and how we interact with God. If we have closed ourselves off to Him, we’ve done the same with others, and vice versa. When we are intimate with and love Him, we are intimate with and love others.