Category: Psychology

Mar
02
2011

To end this series on unfaith­ful­ness, I want to add some per­sonal thoughts.

Recently, I read that an infa­mous actor (who starred in a NBC series on Thurs­day nights in the 80’s and iron­i­cally, played the char­ac­ter of a psy­chol­o­gist) left his wife for a woman 26 years his junior. He said this about his unfaithfulness— ‘I needed more love in my life.’

I read that and thought, you have to be kid­ding me…does he really believe his own words? You need “more love” in your life?!

But in truth, I can’t tell you how often I have heard that same sen­ti­ment from oth­ers who have found “some­one else.” When some­one is leav­ing their spouse, they invari­ably say some of the cra­zi­est things.

One of the best ones I heard was this; a woman I  had met with had the audac­ity to tell me, But God just wants me to be happy. This was a woman who was sleep­ing with her next-door neigh­bor while her hus­band of over 30 years was recov­er­ing from a seri­ous surgery.

One final story. In my early years as a psy­chol­o­gist, I can remem­ber I met with this cou­ple in which the hus­band had left his wife for another woman, but he kept on chang­ing his mind whether or not he was going to return to the mar­riage. I remem­ber one March evening he finally made up his mind and he told me this, I love my wife, but I just don’t have the same feel­ings that I have for her (refer­ring to his mis­tress).

I sim­ply tried to explain this to him, that the love he “felt” for his wife really rested on his shoul­ders. If he didn’t feel it, he was the one who wasn’t mak­ing it hap­pen. It was his prob­lem, not hers. He didn’t buy it and even­tu­ally left his wife. He just didn’t get it—love is not a feeling—love is a willed action. He didn’t under­stand this: If I don’t “love” some­body, it’s not their fault.  It’s mine. Just for the record, that con­cept is kind of biblical—the feel­ings of love occur first and fore­most because of what we do.

But in all this, I have an admis­sion. I have very lit­tle judg­ment when it comes to those who have been unfaith­ful. No dif­fer­ent than what Paul said in the New Testament—I too am the “worst of sin­ners” (1 Tim­o­thy 1:15–16) and if I am not actively pro­tect­ing myself and my mar­riage, I also could eas­ily fall. As the life of David shows (2 Samuel 11), nobody is immune to mak­ing really bad choices. If for even a minute I think that I am beyond any type of sin, I then become its eas­i­est prey.

On a final note, I am now near­ing my 18th year of mar­riage, and God has been teach­ing me prob­a­bly the most impor­tant les­son of my life. He is teach­ing me this, and I hope I can con­tinue to apply this truth until the day I die:

As I am faith­ful to you, Kelly, I want you also to truly expe­ri­ence what it means to be a faith­ful per­son. To one woman. To two sons. To me.

So far so good. In these last few years, God has been teach­ing me that as I am faith­ful to Julie—even when I don’t want to, even when things aren’t going my way, even when she isn’t “there for me”—in this act of being faith­ful, I am just a lit­tle bit under­stand­ing how faith­ful Jesus is to me.

I am learn­ing this—his faith­ful­ness to me is pretty incred­i­ble. He has never wavered and he has always been there for me no mat­ter what. And with that, I’m pretty grateful.

In: Marriage, Psychology
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Feb
03
2011

If you recall, in the last post that I wrote about moti­va­tions and affairs, I men­tioned that I had worked with a cou­ple that had been impacted because of infi­delity. In this sit­u­a­tion, sadly this affair had great con­se­quence for this woman and her hus­band. After con­fess­ing to her hus­band what had hap­pened, they both sought help for their mar­riage. Just as they were mak­ing some sig­nif­i­cant progress in coun­sel­ing, they learned that she had become preg­nant and the child was not her husband’s. As you can imag­ine, this became a daunt­ing obsta­cle to face for them as a cou­ple. When God directs, “You shall not com­mit adul­tery” (Exo­dus 20:14), He does so for good rea­sons. There are sig­nif­i­cant social, psy­cho­log­i­cal, phys­i­cal and spir­i­tual con­se­quences to hav­ing an affair. We will look at a few of these.

Per­haps the great­est cost to hav­ing an affair is a divorce. An affair that is dis­cov­ered does not have to lead to a divorce, but too often it does. Lis­ten to this sta­tis­tic: About two-thirds of cou­ples in which an affair occurred usu­ally divorce. That is a sober­ing sta­tis­tic and when you con­sider the costs of divorce to indi­vid­u­als, fam­i­lies and chil­dren, there is great dam­age left in the wake of an affair.

With this aspect of divorce, a sad fact is that too often once an affair occurs, with one of the spouses, there is a slow ero­sion with their rela­tion­ship with their chil­dren. Whether or not there has been infi­delity, when chil­dren expe­ri­ence divorce, they often feel like they have to choose between their two par­ents. If the child knows about the infi­delity, this is exac­er­bated with regards to the rela­tion­ship with their par­ents. Over time, chil­dren in these cir­cum­stances often begin to dis­tance them­selves from the par­ent who had the affair.

Often the impulse for a per­son purs­ing an affair is that they believe that the grass is greener on the other side. How­ever, a recent study found that the divorce rate among those who mar­ried those with whom they were unfaith­ful was 75 per­cent! When an affair occurs, you are found­ing a rela­tion­ship in which both indi­vid­u­als are in unhealthy places in their lives. This, of course, is not how you want to begin a com­mit­ted relationship.

Also for those who think affairs are going to be “fun and excit­ing,” here are some of the sto­ries I have heard:

  • One man who left his wife got involved with a woman who was very vio­lent. She would some­times go into rages and one time, broke a beer bot­tle over his head. On many occa­sions, she threat­ened to hurt his wife and daugh­ter. When he ini­tially met this woman, he recalled to me that she seemed “very kind and sweet.”
  • This has been a com­mon story I have heard: a woman becomes involved with another man. After she leaves her hus­band, and moves in with him, he becomes phys­i­cally abu­sive to her on a reg­u­lar basis.
  • Here is the most recent one that I heard: a man had an affair and after a cer­tain point wanted to break things off and work on his mar­riage. After this, the woman would often con­tact him say­ing that she was going to com­mit sui­cide if he didn’t return to her. Con­fused, he sought advice from her coun­selor. The coun­selor pro­ceeded to tell him that he should stay in rela­tion­ship with her for her safety. Thank­fully, he was not swayed by both of their manip­u­la­tions and pur­sued restor­ing his rela­tion­ship with his wife and family.

The psy­cho­log­i­cal con­se­quences are sig­nif­i­cant to hav­ing an affair and we often don’t think of this cost. Peo­ple who pur­sue an affair, whether mar­ried or not, often do so for self-esteem needs, and often these peo­ple come from very bro­ken places in their lives. Here is a truth I have seen time and time again in my work with those who got caught up in an affair: If you pur­sue another per­son, you never really know who they are, but over­time you real­ize that this new per­son you are in rela­tion­ship with has some sig­nif­i­cant psy­cho­log­i­cal prob­lems. Again, I can­not tell you how many times I have met with a man or woman and the per­son they had an affair with will not leave them alone even though they want to save their mar­riage. This extra per­son in the mix is often the one who brings the mar­riage to a break­ing point. Too often we can for­get the truth that hav­ing an affair is never a “fun and excit­ing” rela­tion­ship in the long run.

To end, there are, of course, spir­i­tual con­se­quences to affairs. We grieve God by our actions when we are unfaith­ful. Just as he is faith­ful to us; he desires that we learn what it means to be com­mit­ted as well.  One of God’s great­est direc­tives to us is that we be faith­ful in our sacred com­mit­ment of mar­riage. Mar­riage, in a cer­tain sense, is a micro­cosm of our rela­tion­ship to him. He says, As I am faith­ful to you in every cir­cum­stance, be faith­ful to the one you have made that pledge to be faith­ful.

By doing so, in my pur­suit to be faith­ful, I learn through expe­ri­ence just how com­mit­ted He is to me.

In: Psychology
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Jan
26
2011

Of course, there are many rea­sons why peo­ple have affairs. By look­ing at some of the moti­va­tions of hav­ing an affair, some cou­ples might be able to see the tell-tale signs and there­fore, be able to get help before it is too late.

First, some­times in the con­ver­sa­tions that cou­ples have with one another, you can hear the hints of some­one who is think­ing of “some­one else.” Often the words such as these below are hints that some­thing might not be right:

  • Please, will you go to coun­sel­ing with me.
  • Some­thing needs to change with our sex life.
  • I really enjoy hang­ing out with Kathryn.
  • You never talk to me anymore.
  • I don’t love you any­more.
  • I am not happy at all with my life.

Usu­ally men and women have affairs for very dif­fer­ent rea­sons. Women seek an affair most often for friend­ship and to feel emo­tion­ally needed. For men, it is fairly sim­plis­tic in that they are look­ing for some­thing sex­ual and what they think will be a spon­ta­neous and fun relationship.

So when men and women have an affair what do they think they are going to get out of it?

Women desire the feel­ing of being thrilled by their lover’s inter­est in them phys­i­cally, emo­tion­ally, and intel­lec­tu­ally. They are hop­ing for an emo­tional con­nec­tion, and feel­ing loved is a deep moti­va­tion for a woman in hav­ing an affair.

As said before, a man is seek­ing sex­ual vari­ety when he pur­sues some­one. What is it like to be with another woman sexually—this is a core moti­va­tion. How­ever, unlike a woman, typ­i­cally a man tries to con­trol his feel­ings in the rela­tion­ship, and will not try to form a deep emo­tional bond with the other woman.

Here is a major dif­fer­ence in the moti­va­tion of men ver­sus women in seek­ing an affair—when women have affairs, it almost invari­ably means that they are deeply dis­sat­is­fied with their mar­riage. This is not a typ­i­cal moti­va­tion for a man. Nearly 60% of men who have an affair respond that they are happy in their marriages.

How­ever, some­times peo­ple end up in an affair and there is lit­tle moti­va­tion behind it. Some­times peo­ple just fall into an affair because they did not pro­tect their mar­riage and guard their rela­tion­ships. Some years ago, I worked with a doc­tor who had an affair with a co-worker and when she retold the story of how the affair hap­pened, the rela­tion­ship evolved almost like clock­work. I have heard this story count­less times.

  • She began hav­ing per­sonal con­ver­sa­tions with him on the same floor that they worked.
  • The con­ver­sa­tions moved to hav­ing lunch reg­u­larly at the hospital.
  • Even­tu­ally, they began to meet for lunch or cof­fee off-site. More and more, a sex­ual theme cov­ered their conversation.
  • She ulti­mately ended up at his apart­ment con­tin­u­ing these “conversations.”

No mat­ter what moti­vates a per­son to be unfaith­ful, an affair in every case reveals a bro­ken­ness in the unfaith­ful per­son, and a bro­ken­ness in their mar­riage. Some­times affairs are founded on secret moti­va­tions and other times, they seem­ingly occur out of thin air because the unfaith­ful per­son did not pro­tect their mar­riage in con­crete ways.  Moti­vated or not, affairs often have dire con­se­quences. Next time, we will look at the costs of hav­ing an affair.

In: Psychology
Tags: , , , , , , ,
Jan
21
2011

Often in my work here at Ada Bible Chuch, I hear sto­ries of those who have fallen to unfaith­ful­ness. In a four part series, I will be writ­ing about some dif­fer­ent aspects of adul­tery: the sta­tis­tics, the moti­va­tions behind an affair, the con­se­quences of hav­ing an affair, and finally, ways to pro­tect your mar­riage. I would love to hear your sto­ries in how you have helped some­one, how you have pro­tected your mar­riage, or how you have been impacted because of unfaithfulness.

Some of the Statistics

First, in a recent Barna study, 4 out of 10 Amer­i­cans believe that adul­tery is morally accept­able. For Chris­tians, that num­ber was 1 out of 10. Per­haps there is no rea­son to won­der why adul­tery is on the rise?

When read­ing research about those who have affairs, the sta­tis­tics can vary greatly. Most researchers come to this gen­eral conclusion:

That over a third of mar­ried men will cheat on their wives;

That nearly a quar­ter of all mar­ried women will cheat on their husbands;

And that more than 50% of all mar­riages will be impacted by one of the spouses being unfaith­ful. Grim sta­tis­tics if you think about them.

Here are some other inter­est­ing facts that we know:

Back in the 1960’s it was usu­ally the hus­band who was unfaith­ful. Today, researchers are find­ing that women are just as likely as men to have an affair.

As a way of com­par­i­son to how adul­tery has become more preva­lent: a 1983 study found that 29 per­cent of mar­ried peo­ple under twenty-five had had an affair. By com­par­i­son, only 9 per­cent of spouses in the 1950s under the age of 25 had been involved in extra­mar­i­tal sex.

Ten per­cent of extra­mar­i­tal affairs are “one night stands;” ten per­cent last more than one day, but less than a month; half of all affairs last more than a month but less than a year; and 40 per­cent last two or more years (Lampe, 2000).

Per­haps you are think­ing, “This  can’t be a prob­lem in the church. Cer­tainly the moral stan­dards of Chris­tians are higher.” There is grow­ing evi­dence that adul­tery is also a tremen­dous prob­lem in Chris­t­ian cir­cles. One could site many studies—the most recent from Chris­tian­ity Today shows that 45 per­cent of Chris­tians indi­cate hav­ing done some­thing sex­u­ally inap­pro­pri­ate, and 23 per­cent hav­ing extra­mar­i­tal inter­course (Ander­son, 2000). These num­bers pretty much mir­ror the national averages.

There is grow­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal evi­dence that adul­ter­ous behav­ior in par­ents dra­mat­i­cally affects chil­dren when they reach adult­hood. Research also tells us that just as divorce in a fam­ily influ­ences the like­li­hood of the adult chil­dren to con­sider divorce, adul­ter­ous behav­ior by par­ents seems to beget sim­i­lar behav­ior by their children.

Here is maybe the most impor­tant statistic—a recent Uni­ver­sity of Chicago study dis­cov­ered that a third of all mar­riages end in divorce because of an affair.

It is vital that we under­stand how adul­tery hap­pens and effects indi­vid­u­als, mar­riages and fam­i­lies. Count­less times I have sat with cou­ples or indi­vid­u­als who been swayed into being unfaith­ful to their spouse and then have to face the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of those choices. And I am not immune; in my own life, I have seen this same strug­gle and temp­ta­tion. I too am bom­barded by the mes­sage of my cul­ture, “You are your own. You don’t have to answer to any­one. Go ahead…No one will know.” While I have been faith­ful up to this point in my mar­riage, I know that with­out being inten­tional and walk­ing a nar­row path, I too, could just become another statistic.

In: Psychology
Tags: , , , , , ,
Jan
11
2011

Just in the last three months, I have heard of two indi­vid­u­als who have com­mit­ted sui­cide. In each of these instances, the fam­i­lies and friends of these indi­vid­u­als were shocked that their loved one took their life. Whether it is the econ­omy or because we are deep in the win­ter months, it is impor­tant to have our eyes open to those who are around us who might want to harm them­selves in some way. Per­haps with a lit­tle inter­ven­tion and lis­ten­ing, we can help some­one who is mov­ing toward hope­less­ness and despair. There are many steps we can take to improve how we respond to those who are feel­ing sui­ci­dal and make it eas­ier for them to seek help. Below are some thoughts on how you might be able to help.

First, it can be help­ful to know who is most sus­cep­ti­ble to tak­ing their life. Research has shown that over 2/3rds of those that com­mit sui­cide meet clin­i­cal cri­te­ria for an affec­tive dis­or­der, such as major depres­sion or bipo­lar dis­or­der. Sim­i­larly, sub­stance abuse also increases the like­li­hood of suicide.

With this, you also have to deter­mine the cir­cum­stance of the per­son who you think might be sus­cep­ti­ble to sui­cide. Here are some points to be mind­ful of:

  • Has the per­son attempted sui­cide before? If so, how did they attempt suicide?
  • Is there a means to com­mit suicide?
  • Is there family/relational his­tory in the case of suicide?
  • Has there been a sig­nif­i­cant life change for the per­son? (Death or ter­mi­nal ill­ness of rel­a­tive or friend, divorce or sep­a­ra­tion, a bro­ken rela­tion­ship, sig­nif­i­cant health prob­lem, loss of job)
  • If the per­son is acutely sui­ci­dal, never leave them alone.

In the above ques­tions, if the per­son does have a means to com­mit sui­cide, you or some­one close to the per­son may need to inter­vene in the sit­u­a­tion to remove any means they may have in com­mit­ting sui­cide (e.g., remov­ing firearms from the home or detox­i­fy­ing their home). Like­wise, in the ques­tions you ask of the per­son, if the per­son has a fam­ily his­tory in terms of sui­cide (i.e., a fam­ily mem­ber such as a mother or sib­ling com­mit­ted sui­cide), sta­tis­tics increase dra­mat­i­cally that that per­son could be very sus­cep­ti­ble to tak­ing their own lives. The oper­a­tive words here are to keep your eyes and ears open to those around you, espe­cially for those who have a his­tory with these issues.

If some­one has con­fided in you that they are con­sid­er­ing sui­cide, here are some issues to be mind­ful of as you speak with them. First, offer space to the per­son and give them every oppor­tu­nity to unbur­den their trou­bles and voice their feel­ings. This is not a time to argue with them or attempt to give them advice (e.g., “But you have so much to live for!”). It’s a rar­ity that you can “talk some­one out of” com­mit­ting sui­cide. In these instances, you don’t need to say much. Again, you sim­ply need to lis­ten. Most impor­tantly, let the per­son know that you are glad they turned to you. Attempt to cre­ate trust. If the per­son ever does come to a place where they are about to take their life, they may at the last minute reach out to you, because they trust you.

With this, one of the myths con­cern­ing sui­cide is that if you feel like some­one might be sus­cep­ti­ble, you shouldn’t bring the mat­ter up, because it might put an idea in their head about com­mit­ting sui­cide. If you do have sus­pi­cions, the best thing you can do is bring the topic up. In the end, you are show­ing the per­son that you care about them, even so much that you are will­ing to ask dif­fi­cult ques­tions. When I was a coun­selor, I always wanted to be more safe than sorry, and I have asked many clients and a hand­ful of friends if they were cur­rently think­ing seri­ously about sui­cide. All you have to do is gen­tly ask, “Hey, are you think­ing of harm­ing your­self in any way?” This sim­ple ques­tion can maybe save someone’s life. On one occa­sion some years ago, I was sur­prised by one friend who answered that ques­tion pos­i­tively. By open­ing up to me, it gave him an oppor­tu­nity to tell me what was really going on in his life and this bur­den was lifted from him over time.

These are just some thoughts on the issue of sui­cide. With the cur­rent state of our econ­omy and now the sea­son of win­ter, we may know some­one who is at a point of despair so large that they may think that tak­ing their own life is the only answer. Again, keep your eyes open to those around you and don’t be afraid to ask that dif­fi­cult question.

If you are cur­rently strug­gling with sui­ci­dal thoughts, get help now. Don’t wait.


In: Psychology
Tags: , , , , , , ,
Jan
04
2011



I had a cool thing hap­pen last year that I want to share with you.

I have known a cou­ple for quite some time and to put it lightly, they have strug­gled a lot in their mar­riage of eigh­teen years.

As an anal­ogy, help­ing some­one in their mar­riage is as if you are in a boat and you are attempt­ing to have both indi­vid­u­als “stay in the safety of the boat” so that they can move for­ward in their rela­tion­ship. How­ever, the prob­lem arises that what too often hap­pens is that just as you are about to get both of them in the boat, you turn your back, and then the other per­son gives up and has jumped back into the water! A rela­tion­ship is made up of two peo­ple and if you don’t’ have them both on board, lit­tle good can happen.

Any­way, the wife in this sit­u­a­tion came to me and strongly stated that she was going to seek a divorce. She had given up. She couldn’t take it any­more. He wasn’t going to change any­way. I met with her at church and I think that when she showed up she thought I was going to have my Bible in hand and make sure she knew all of Bible verses that states how “God hates divorce.” When she sat down and explained her sit­u­a­tion and her resolve, I began by sim­ply say­ing, “You have to do what you have to do.” She looked at me astounded; she must have thought, wasn’t I going to admon­ish her! And then after a pause, I said this, “All I ask is this, do me one favor, ask God if he wants you to divorce your hus­band. Can you do that?” She nod­ded, we con­cluded our con­ver­sa­tion and we said our good-byes. As I walked back up to my office, sadly, I thought, Well, that’s prob­a­bly the last I will see of her…

The next day as I came to the office I opened up my email and viola, there was an email from her. Kind of sur­prised, I opened it up and the writ­ing sim­ply said this:

I want to thank you for your advice and your sug­ges­tion to pray. I did as you asked and prayed about divorce. I came across an on-line Bible study about mar­riage, stud­ied this and prayed some more. I decided you were right; I was shap­ing things to my will instead of God’s will. I expressed my thoughts to my hus­band and I will not be bring­ing up divorce again.

Isn’t that amazing…if we would sim­ply go ask God what he wants us to do, our lives can be shaped by his will and not our own. I think often when we are help­ing some­one, this is all we have to do—point them back to the One who has all the right answers (and ques­tions). Some­times, we don’t have to get out the Bible; some­times we don’t have to give them our best advice; some­times we sim­ply have to say, Would you talk to God about this? What does He want you to do?

By the way, as an update: that cou­ple a year later is doing great. Actu­ally, bet­ter than ever before…


In: Faith, Psychology
Tags: , , , , ,
Jan
01
2011

Father & Daugh­ter, Enigma Photos

Early in my mar­riage, my life changed dra­mat­i­cally. We were a small fam­ily of three, and our two year old was about to have a baby brother. Liv­ing in a large city like Chicago was dif­fi­cult as a fam­ily and so we decided to move to the more man­age­able city of Grand Rapids. We were hop­ing to have Julie stay home full-time and this was a major moti­va­tion in mov­ing. How­ever, before I had one inter­view, she had two great job offers. We were pressed into decid­ing what to do, espe­cially since we had a baby on the way in just three months. Should Julie work full-time and I become a stay-at-home dad? Even­tu­ally, we decided to try it as a trial-run. That deci­sion dra­mat­i­cally changed my life. Even though I was only a stay-at-home dad dur­ing my years in sem­i­nary, we would not have changed that deci­sion look­ing back. That deci­sion threw me into many days and nights of wrestling with what it meant to be a man and a father. It also chal­lenged me to look at God as a father and how he related to me in that way. But there are many views out there who want to sell you on what it means to be a father. With all this, we are thrown into a quag­mire of ques­tions: what is a father to be? Is he the leader? Is he a bread­win­ner? How is he there to sup­port his fam­ily? Is he to be the patri­arch? What exactly is he to be?

It is not sim­ply the loss of fathers, but the loss of the idea of father­hood and of our belief in the impor­tance of fathers. We no longer have a dis­tinc­tive “cul­tural script” for father­hood. When I become a father, what have I become? What am I to do in that pater­nal role? How should it alter my life and habits? A soci­ety in which there are no cul­tur­ally given answers to such ques­tions is one that may expe­ri­ence grave dif­fi­culty draw­ing men into the role of father­hood and its accom­pa­ny­ing tasks and burdens.

–Gilbert Meilaen­der, The Eclipse of Fatherhood

When it comes to this ques­tion of father­hood, we have a two pronged prob­lem in our cul­ture. The first is this—our cul­ture offers the coun­sel that fathers are unnec­es­sary. There is a view that is largely preva­lent that it is not impor­tant to be a father. As an exam­ple, did you know that in the U.S. that nearly 40% of all chil­dren do not live with their bio­log­i­cal dad? The sec­ond prob­lem is that many in our cul­ture sim­ply do not know how to “dad.” We have grown up with a vision of father­hood that our cul­ture has given us that is false. We need to move away from these ideas and dis­cover what the bib­li­cal vision for father­hood is.

So what is it like to be a father bib­li­cally speak­ing? Scrip­ture has a tremen­dous amount of ref­er­ences to father­hood. First, Proverbs 1:8 says, “My son, lis­ten to your father’s instruc­tion, And don’t for­sake your mother’s teach­ing.” This is a verse that is spo­ken over and over in this book of wis­dom and through­out the Bible. Fathers, as well as moth­ers, are to instruct their chil­dren about every avenue of life: prac­ti­cal, spir­i­tual, emo­tional, sex­ual, finan­cial, phys­i­cal. Because this theme is repeated over and over; the Scrip­tures lead us to believe that this is a top pri­or­ity for fathers. One of the main traits one would think of as father­hood is one of dis­ci­pli­nar­ian. This is a half-truth and is a word that can be fraught with prob­lems and mis­con­cep­tions. The Bible actu­ally prefers the label teacher. Fathers are to teach their chil­dren about all of life and in this it is essen­tial that they are around and avail­able to give their chil­dren prac­ti­cal as well as spir­i­tual instruction.

In the New Tes­ta­ment, we also find instruc­tion in what view we need to take of father­hood. Even though this pas­sage is speak­ing of the lead­er­ship of Paul toward the Thes­sa­lon­ian church, implicit in these verses is the roles inher­ent in being a father.

You are wit­nesses with God, how holy, right­eously, and blame­lessly we behaved our­selves toward you who believe. As you know how we exhorted, com­forted, and implored every one of you, as a father does his own chil­dren, to the end that you should walk worthily of God, who calls you into his own king­dom and glory. (I Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 2:10–12)

By dis­sect­ing the verse, first, fathers are to exhort their chil­dren. From the Latin hor­tari, we are to encour­age our chil­dren. Fathers need to press their chil­dren into great­ness, to reach beyond them­selves for some­thing more in their lives. With this, we become are our children’s loud­est cheer­lead­ers. Like­wise, we need to attempt to mold our chil­dren into who they are to become. These verses show us a God who gives us good things. We need to pro­vide for our chil­dren in the abun­dance that we our­selves have been given. A good father is a “blesser,” sanc­ti­fy­ing his chil­dren with a gen­er­ous spir­i­tual inheritance.

Next, fathers bring com­fort to their chil­dren when they are wounded or have failed. When our chil­dren fal­ter, we need to show empa­thy and patience, because just like them we also fail in great measure. Along these lines, as it relates to com­fort, an inter­est­ing twist is found in the book of Eph­esians, “You fathers, don’t pro­voke your chil­dren to wrath, but nur­ture them in the dis­ci­pline and instruc­tion of the Lord.” We are not to be too rough; we are not to inten­sify an already dif­fi­cult chal­lenge for them. Obvi­ously, God in his fore­knowl­edge knows the emo­tional com­po­si­tion of many fathers and under­stands that some­times we can be too demand­ing. He instructs us to lead, but to not push so hard that we shove our chil­dren away. The use of ‘nur­ture’ here is an inter­est­ing word. One typ­i­cally thinks of this being a moth­erly trait, and yet God instructs fathers to do the same, just as he nur­tures us.

Lastly, we are to implore. Again, it is help­ful to look at the root of the word. The word is taken from the Latin implo­rare, which means to do some­thing in weep­ing. We need to be on our knees for our chil­dren call­ing out to our great God for help. Our hearts need to be bro­ken for our chil­dren, pray­ing with­out ceas­ing for them. As a way of relat­ing this, often, my best times with God are when I am by myself on a golf course. This is eas­ily one of my best times for prayer where there is lots of alone time and silence. One July evening, I remem­ber walk­ing down a fair­way and cry­ing out to God for my sons.I sim­ply implored him, “You need to be their Father, because I am not doing a very good job!” Remem­ber to implore God to help you be a father.

Whether you are a father or mother, these are dif­fi­cult times to fig­ure out what you are sup­posed to be in terms of being a par­ent. Our cul­ture is such an amal­ga­ma­tion of ideas con­cern­ing what is the best way to raise our chil­dren. In the 20th cen­tury, we went through a string of ide­o­log­i­cal, cul­tural changes that has shaped and con­fused us. What it means to be a mother or father is very dif­fer­ent from just thirty years ago. Today, we live in a vastly dif­fer­ent envi­ron­ment in being a par­ent. Class rooms today are filled with latch-key chil­dren who go home to one par­ent. In many homes, chil­dren are rais­ing them­selves, because of a lack of parental lead­ing. Today, media and enter­tain­ment shape are chil­dren like never before. The sig­nif­i­cance of the inter­net is unend­ing, and as we know, can be dan­ger­ous. But there is hope. Most impor­tantly, we have a Father, who we can imi­tate, and who can teach us how to lead our fam­i­lies in a way that brings about  some­thing spe­cial and long-lasting. Make no mis­take about it, hus­bands and fathers have tremen­dous respon­si­bil­i­ties. Sim­ply put, there is no higher call­ing for a man and is one we need to pur­sue like noth­ing else in our lives.

In: Psychology
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Dec
21
2010

Last night, my son Josiah and I headed over to the golf range to hit some golf balls and just hang out. This has been a tra­di­tion for us for some­time as we both love golf and even at a golf range can find a way to com­pete with one another for fun.

On the drive home, over an ice cream cone from McDonald’s (another more recent tra­di­tion that we prob­a­bly should dis­con­tinue), we just talked and it was another one of those moments that I am pretty sure I will remem­ber for a long time and one that I will cher­ish. We just talked about life in gen­eral: about his friends, about the rest of our sum­mer plans as a fam­ily, a lit­tle bit about his future and the next year. On paper it was an insignif­i­cant cou­ple of hours; in the test of time, it was an eter­nal moment.

As I came into work this morn­ing, Matt Bell, one of our pas­tors came in and told me a great story. A cou­ple of weeks ago, a fourth grade boy from our con­gre­ga­tion had a blood cot in his brain and had to have it sur­gi­cally removed in an emer­gency pro­ce­dure. The doc­tors didn’t think he would be the same boy he was a week ear­lier. The doc­tors had a grim out­look for the fam­ily. At that point, Matt went and vis­ited the fam­ily and tried to offer some com­fort in a dire time.

How things have changed as of today. Matt told me he vis­ited the fam­ily this morn­ing at the hos­pi­tal and voilà, he was speak­ing to the lit­tle boy and now this young boy is in the process of a full-recovery! This morn­ing the father of this lit­tle guy spoke to Matt and con­veyed to him that he is basi­cally in the process of learn­ing this truth — our days are num­bered and we must take full advan­tage of them, espe­cially with those we love. Because of this major chal­lenge for a fam­ily, this father is re-learning in a unique way the impor­tance of being a father. On some level, with the near loss of his son, he is learn­ing to never take his lit­tle life for granted.

This story Matt told me is again remind­ing me of some­thing that God con­tin­ues to ingrain into my life at this time in my life. The thing I am really learn­ing over these last cou­ple of years is the priv­i­lege it is to be a father. Even though there are many chal­lenges in being a par­ent, there are so many things that I have learned in these past fif­teen years. My sons have taught me more than maybe any­one else has — about myself, about oth­ers and most impor­tantly, about my own Father who con­tin­u­ally seeks to care for me.

As many of you know first hand, our chil­dren grow up with a speed which we some­times fail to take into account. As I sit here and write, I still can’t believe my first born, Josiah, will be off to col­lege in three short years, and then two years later, my youngest will do the same. With this fleet­ing aspect of life, it again reminds me how each moment counts, whether it is just hav­ing fun on a golf range in the humid July air or when I am hav­ing a semi-serious con­ver­sa­tion with my son over an ice cream cone.

“Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be.
Remind me that my days are num­bered—
how fleet­ing my life is.
You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand.
My entire life­time is just a moment to you;
at best, each of us is but a breath.”

We are merely mov­ing shad­ows,
and all our busy rush­ing ends in noth­ing.
We heap up wealth,
not know­ing who will spend it.
And so, Lord, where do I put my hope?
My only hope is in you.

Psalm 39: 4–7

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In: Psychology
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