Dangerous Information About Women

I got some chicken scratch on five pieces of paper that is burning a hole in my pocket.  It's dangerous, valuable information that came as a result of me getting in a fight with two women.  I had to ask really tough questions and be misunderstood and have misunderstanding.  I felt like Indiana Jones lifting off the golden monkey head only to see the temple start to shake. It was like going into a cavernous tunnel with snakes and spiders all around me, and almost getting stuck before God rescued me and delivered me back into the glorious sunlight. I asked the question with intensity, "what do women really want?"  You see, I've come to realize women struggle differently then men.  I would like someone to ask me what do men truly want without having to Jesus juke the answer.  So I gave them a chance to answer without Jesus juking.  Just straight up.  Here's what I found.

There are three big areas that I tried to split the information into, they are as follows:

1. Start Loving Me The Way I'm Wired Man
So before we can apply the top two answers I found, we need to be able to somewhat narrow down our lady's love language.  The following is an overview of the love languages taken from Gary Chapman and his book The 5 Love Languages.

• Words of Affirmation

  Actions don’t always speak louder than words. If this is your love language, unsolicited compliments mean the world to you. Hearing the words, “I love you,” are important—hearing the reasons behind that love sends your spirits skyward. Insults can leave you shattered and are not easily forgotten.

• Quality Time

  In the vernacular of Quality Time, nothing says, “I love you,” like full, undivided attention. Being there for this type of person is critical, but really being there—with the TV off, fork and knife down, and all chores and tasks on standby—makes your significant other feel truly special and loved. Distractions, postponed dates, or the failure to listen can be especially hurtful.

• Receiving Gifts

  Don’t mistake this love language for materialism; the receiver of gifts thrives on the love, thoughtfulness, and effort behind the gift. If you speak this language, the perfect gift or gesture shows that you are known, you are cared for, and you are prized above whatever was sacrificed to bring the gift to you. A missed birthday, anniversary, or a hasty, thoughtless gift would be disastrous—so would the absence of everyday gestures.

• Acts of Service

  Can vacuuming the floors really be an expression of love? Absolutely! Anything you do to ease the burden of responsibilities weighing on an “Acts of Service” person will speak volumes. The words he or she most want to hear: “Let me do that for you.” Laziness, broken commitments, and making more work for them tell speakers of this language their feelings don’t matter.

• Physical Touch

  This language isn’t all about the bedroom. A person whose primary language is Physical Touch is, not surprisingly, very touchy. Hugs, pats on the back, holding hands, and thoughtful touches on the arm, shoulder, or face—they can all be ways to show excitement, concern, care, and love. Physical presence and accessibility are crucial, while neglect or abuse can be unforgivable and destructive.
  
  Ok now that you might have discerned their love language, try applying it to these other two honest answers.

2. I Want Freedom To Be Creative And Pursue An Activity Without Kids And Not Feel Guilty.
Wifey gets a couple hours to herself, she comes home and husband sighs once and that's all it takes. Boom those two hours are meaningless to her, and you just scored negative points.  Husband's kill that sigh, it's going to rob you of everything you just worked so tremendously hard for.  Scripture declares "He who loves his wife loves himself" (Eph.5:28). I think God is really trying to give us a hint in that verse.  We leave a mess for them to clean up after watching the kids, and then expect special treatment for watching the kids.  They pray God would change our hearts in this area, and then they're bitter because of how long it took for us to figure this out and then on top of it all we want praise.  Apparently this is a big turn off they are afraid to talk about.  This is hard for the ladies to not feel resentment over this issue. 

3. Intentional Realistic Pursuit From Your Husband.
Turns out women want to be romanced.  They want to feel special no matter how ordinary they feel.  Thus the successful shiny vampire books that are like emotional porn for women.  God's answer to the problem of it "not good to be alone" was marriage.  Most marriages are either back to back, side to side, or face to face.  If your marriage is only held together by side to side (ministry, taking care of the kids, cleaning house etc) your marriage will really struggle and end up being back to back.  Healthy marriages require face to face time. Which means quantity time.  Your spouse should be your source of emotional enjoyment.  Many marriages get derailed because of emotional adultery. There is no such thing as jumping into quality time.  If you try and do a date night without first having a sync up time (go over calendars so you don't overbook, what are we doing for Thanksgiving type stuff etc)  your date nights will end up being sync up times.  Having face to face time takes some forethought.  Should we go on a date in the city or country, find a sitter ahead of time on facebook and not craigslist, help pick the house up, vocalize a willingness to help with the home and kids to make this happen.  It takes intentionality and premeditated thought to define and create a good date.

So that is what I discovered.  I know there will be far more to uncover as time goes on.  Treasure and guard your marriage because it has tremendous potential and reward.   Tend your own garden.

 I must carefully add here: I am just learning this and not very good at it either fellas, but I'm working towards this direction and I know it's a good path.  Hard work is rewarding in every area especially our marriages.

Also to the women: perhaps your man runs to bottomfeed on the things of the world because you don't understand his needs either.

Even so men: you are called to lead in rebuilding your marriage.

Ecclesiastes 9:9 states, "Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your short life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun." 

Life is a vapor and it's short, let's create a culture at West Valley where our marriages shine brightly the gospel of Jesus Christ and experience tremendous joy!  Let the men rise up and lead the way.

We Are Loved

Miranda and I are in Vail, CO at the Acts29 pastors and wives retreat. We are really thankful to A29 and West Valley for making it possible for us to go. It's really a pretty awesome vacation as we get to listen to guys like Ray Ortlund and Sam Storms remind us of God's love for us. We get plenty of free time as well. We were really blessed by what Ray and Sam shared last night. Ray shared out of Ephesians 3, and read Pauls prayer, "and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge" Vs 19. He reminded us that this is a prayer stamped with God's approval and that he doesn't pray that they will know God's love but that they will experience it. Sam storms shared 2 Thes. 3:5 which is another prayer of Paul's in which he says, "may the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ" The word "direct" means to overcome obstacles, the obstacles and war that rages within us causing us to doubt and not experience the love and steadfastness of God. We then got together with some of our friends here in Vail and simply prayed as Paul did and for the things that Paul prayed for. We are totally blessed to be here and thankful for this opportunity to rest and be refreshed and reminded we are loved.

Sunday's Message: Learning To Seek The Lord

Have you ever felt directionless as a dad? Have you ever found yourself in circumstances that only seem to get worse and more random?  Do you feel ashamed because your track record is not what you wish it would be and lose confidence in your calling and purpose?  So did king David. We have the benefit of looking at David’s life in retrospect and we see the scaffolding around his life while God is constructing and shaping David.  According to Ephesians 2 we are also under construction.  In this study we look at 1 Samuel 23 and the three psalms that David wrote during this gut-wrenching season of his life.  There are many jems to be had here if we will look.   Happy fathers day!  

Learning To Seek The Lord  Sunday June 19

My Resolve for Good--Miranda Johnston

I'm in the middle of a 30 day challenge with an accountability group. The challenge is to be up early each morning, before the rest of your family, so you have time for personal devotions and are ready to serve your family with a happy heart. Every day the ladies check in on facebook with an "up and in" if they did it or an honest confession if they didn't. The last few mornings my allergies glued my eyes shut, literally. So I have "in's" but hardly any "up's".  I feel like I'm trying really hard to be self disciplined, I desire to be closer to God and spend time in his Word, and I know that serving my family is something I am called to, and that fulfilling my calling is life giving. So I've been having a hard time understanding why these good things that I desire aren't playing out in my mornings. I'm looking for that thread that Russ is always talking about, the one that connects what your leaning in the Word with what Gods trying to teach you in your circumstances. And I think I found it.

2 Thess. 1:11&12 keeps popping up.

"To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of His calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by His power so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ."

This verse has been inspiring and comforting to me.

In His Power he will fulfill our resolve for good

• to spend time with Him
• to serve my family well
• to have victory over the things (sin) that keep me from Him
• to live a life that is to His glory

In His Power he will fulfill every work of faith

• to carry me every time I say "I can't, but You can"
• to give me boldness in obedience when every thing around me says its not right, not smart, or not worth it
• to be my courage and confidence when the road ahead looks dark and impossible to travel

By His Power He will make me worthy of His calling 

dictionary.com says the definition of worthy is:

• having adequate or great merit, character, or value

• of commendable excellence or merit; deserving

Deserving. By His power He will make me deserving of what He has called me to. Because I'm not deserving. On my own, in what I think is my own power but is really nothing more than my dressed up weakness, I am completely ineffective. Undeserving of the life he has called me to, unable to taste the fullness of life that He is offering me. A life of joy. A life worth living. A life that brings glory to Him. But by His power I can have all of those things, I can do all of those things! All I have to do is ask, and keep asking. Paul says in this verse that "to this end we always pray for you". What a comfort to know that I have a God who loves me and wants to give me this best life! But at the same time understands me, knowing that if I didn't have to keep asking I would forget Him. 

But there's more.

In His power He will fulfill our resolve for good. Ultimately, what I want is a life of obedience, a life that is satisfied by God. Piper says,

"God is most glorified by us when we are most satisfied by Him."

 But what I've been learning this week is that sometimes the obedience that he calls me to looks a lot different than I think it should. Sometimes my obedience is to resolve to do better, be more disciplined. And sometimes my obedience is to resolve to accept the circumstances He's allowed that are out of my control and not get hung up on what I think life's supposed to look like. Either way it only happens "by His Power". 

Its easy for me to look at my mornings and get discouraged and feel like a failure. A mood that would, no doubt, carry on through the day and make my whole family miserable. But sometimes that "best life" He has for me doesn't include my best intentions and good things. Sometimes the baby has been up all night. Sometimes I'm, or one, or all of my family is sick. Sometimes my plan, my schedule gets thrown off. Sometimes that's a good thing. Because sometimes God is teaching me a different kind of obedience. But even then the truth of all obedience remains the same, it can only be done in His Power.

  

And the best part is that it's all

"So that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ."

God Sings The Melody, We Sing The Harmony

God knows what he is doing, and he is making things.  He loves to create.  "For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (Eph.2:10).  This answers a lot of questions about life.  There are entire sections of Borders bookstores dedicated to trying to answer what the meaning of life is.  In fact the two largest sections in bookstores are "self-help" and "how to make money".  Apparently the books don't work because there is a never ending market for them.  I love the simplicity of the Bible; God made you, He sings the melody and we sing the harmony.  I all too often forget that I am His workmanship.  That word "workmanship" means "artwork".   I just started shaping a new surfboard.  It's going to be a 6"11 fish.  It's going to be thick because thick boards work best in Oregon waters.  This board is not being made for California, or Hawaii, it's being made for Oregon, and it's being made for me.   It will paddle like a longboard and move like a shortboard, move like a butterfly and sting like a bee. There are four main factors that come into play while you are planing a foam blank.  1. The angle of the planer in your hand.  2. The speed and which you move the planer.  3. The pressure you apply to the planer.  4. Your vision and intuition guiding these others.  I make mistakes while shaping.  I will apply too much pressure and speed and then catch an edge with the planer and leave a gouge in the foam.  Not so with God.  He is never-changing and perfect.  He knows exactly how to whip us into shape.  He applies perfect angle, speed, pressure, and vision.  Are things taking longer than you expected? His speed is perfect.  Do you feel heavy?  His pressure is perfect.  Do you feel things aren't going as you planned?  His angle is perfect.  Do you compare your artwork with others and wish you were them? His vision is perfect.  I am learning to go with the flow.  It's best to find His melody and sing along.

Here's Some Good News!

When I was five I got my first bee-sting. A honey bee was the culprit who landed on my ear. So I slapped him/her? It's stinger was left stuck in my chubby right hand and the bee died.  Honey bees usually sting only once because they have jagged barbs on the end of their stinger that get stuck in their victim, which happened to be a chubby five-year old.  In 1 Cor. 15: 54-57 Paul speaks of the victory we have in Jesus in similar language when he says,
"Death is swallowed up in victory, Oh death where is your victory, O death where is your sting?  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."


The law points out that we have sin, and sin leads to death.  The law condemns each of us.  That's the bad news.  The good news is that Jesus was pierced by the stinger of the law, and the law only has one stinger. All of it's venom was injected to Jesus as he took the wrath upon himself, "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me."  Colossians 2:13-14 states, "having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with it's legal demands.  This he set aside nailing it to the cross." 
The law has been fulfilled by Jesus.  He took the sting. Those who believe they are walking a tightrope of performance to secure their salvation or usefulness in the kingdom do not have a correct understanding of the gospel (good news).  "There is now therefore no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus"(Rom. 8:1).  What does it mean to be in Christ Jesus? It means to trust and believe in Him.  When this happens we are given the Holy Spirit who will begin to make us more like Jesus day by day(sanctification), by convincing us, convicting us, encouraging us, comforting us, and leading us into the truth.  Because of this truth you can leave what's in the past in the past and press into the never stopping grace of God.  Preach the gospel to yourself today and to others!

How to play "Holy Spirit Fall"

 I'll be posting "how to play" videos of other songs in the near future as well.  If you have any requests you can send me an email at westvalleyfellowship@gmail.com