Toward Spiritual Health

We hear a lot about God's love in our day and age. But what is His love and how does He act it out? Where does our response to His love play a part? How responsible are we for what we do? Won't God just forgive us if we stray? His love is boundless, right?

Listen to what God told one of His messengerss to relay to Israel:

Turn back, fickle Israel. I'm not just hanging back to punish you. I'm committed in love to you. My anger doesn't seethe nonstop. Just admit your guilt. Admit your God-defiance. Admit to your promiscuous life with casual partners, pulling strangers into the sex-and-religion groves...If you want to come back, you must really come back to me. You must get rid of your stinking sin paraphernalia and not wander away from me anymore. Then you can say words like "As God lives..." and have them mean something true and just and right. And the godless nations will get caught up in the blessing and find something in Israel to write home about. (Jeremiah 3-4).

First, I want to emphasize that God's love is boundless. However, we may not understand His love and we may not feel loved even when God is demonstrating His love toward us. Second, we do have a responsibility to get our lives back in order. This is practical obedience and there just isn't a substitute. No one else can obey God for you. This is one of those places where God looks at us as individuals who have the freedom to exercise choice. We can choose to hold on to sin paraphernalia, but in doing so we cannot come back to God. Third, God has conditions that we must meet if we are going to be with Him. We don't hear much about this, but if we're going to be part of God's family, we have to abide by His rules in the same way that we have to have a healthy diet and exercise if we are to be physically fit. Sound harsh? I'm not talking about gaining God's acceptance or earning His love. His love and acceptance are givens. However, we have to respond to His love and acceptance - an active response, not simply a passive acknowledgment. The consequences of doing our own thing are deleterious, individually and corporately. Practically speaking, when we don't follow God's guidelines, we suffer physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. We are designed by Him and for Him. When we set out to live for ourselves, we begin the journey toward self-destruction.

Finally, the effect of coming back to God is that others around us will get caught up in the blessing! God wants us to admit where we are, leave the things that keep us from being present with Him, and join Him in living the abundant life we were created for. As we do this, the quality and overall health of our lives will attract those who are living for less. They will be drawn to God and get caught up in His blessings simply through their relationships with us. Love it!! Too often we think of evangelism as some separate compartment of our lives, but evangelism begins with living healthy lives - on God's terms!    

Cultural Pulse

Have you read through Jeremiah, lately? Wow! Why is it that the only verses quoted out of Jeremiah are the positive ones, like, "I know the plans I have for you...Plans to give you a future and a hope"? That's not exactly where God started with his message to his people!

Reading through the text, I am finding many parallels between our culture and the culture that God was condemning - yes, condemning. I'm all for being positive, but I'm equally "all" for being honest. See if these words ring a bell:

A long time ago you broke out of the harness. You shook off all restraints.

You said, "I will not serve!"

And off you went, visiting every sex-and-religion shrine on the way, like a common whore. You were a select vine when I planted you from completely reliable stock. And look how you've turned out - a tangle of rancide growth, a poor excuse for a vine. Scrub, using the strongest soaps. Scour your skin raw. The sin-grease won't come out. I can't stand to even look at you!

How dare you tell me, "I'm not stained by sin. I've never chased after Baal sex gods!"

Well, look at the tracks you've left behind in the valley. How do you account for what is written in the desert dust - tracks of a camel in heat, running this way and that, tracks of a wild donkey in rut, sniffing the wind for the slightest scent of sex. Who could possibly corral her! On the hunt for sex, sex, and more sex - insatiable, indiscriminate, promiscuous.

Slow down. Take a deep breath. What's the hurry? Why wear yourself out? Just what are you after anyway?

But you say, "I can't help it. I'm addicted to alien gods. I can't quit."

Just what are we after anyway?

Last night, Emily and I went to Barnes & Noble to do a little Christmas shopping, part of which included checking out periodicals. If you want to get a feel for the climate of our culture, as portrayed by the media, head to the periodicals section. But warning! Men, do this with your wife or, if you're single, take a bro with you. It's kind of crazy what has crept into mainstream society as "acceptable" and "normal". Don't get me wrong, I don't think our culture is more depraved than cultures concurrent with or preceding our own. Mankind keeps making the same mistakes and falling into the same deadly traps.

However, because of man's aptitude for making a mess out of even the best of situations, I believe that we must fight against desensitization. One of the ways to do that is learning from the past. What did the Israelites do that was so wrong? Can we avoid making the same mistakes? Are we now making the same mistakes? If so, what can we do to make amends? What has God done in our behalf that we need to respond to?

These are helpful questions to ask not only on a cultural level, but on an individual level. God referred to Jeremiah as a "one man defense system against [Israel's] culture". Why not join Jeremiah in our day? It might help to remember some of God's promises to Jeremiah from the first chapter of the book:

I'll tell you where...
I'll tell you what...
I'll be right there...
I'll back you up...

Love it!

I truly believe God is calling each one of us to defend our hearts and the hearts of his people against cultural influences that are toxic. And I truly believe that we must understand the culture and be "culturally relevant" if we are to be heard. God had his finger on the pulse of Israel's culture. He knew where they went, what they listened to, what they said, how they spent their time, how they thought. And he helped Jeremiah put his own culture in perspective, seeing it through God's eyes.

Father, help us see our culture, our lives, through your eyes. And remind us to fight for the hearts of the captives.

Freedom from Causality

Causality is defined in three ways: 1) the relationship of a cause to its effect; 2) the principle that everything that happens must have a cause; and 3) the action that causes an effect. As humans, especially those in the helping profession, we are very interested in causality, believing that if we can determine what is causing negative effects, we can work to prevent the causes. However, causality can become a trap, especially for those of us who only know enough to be dangerous.

For example, I am currently working through some research on Parental Acceptance and Rejection Theory (PARTheory) and child abuse. Initially, I set out to show that parental rejection increases the risk of child abuse. However, there is absolutely no research that shows causality. Parental rejection is related to depression, behavior problems, and substance abuse. In turn, behavior problems, depression, and substance abuse are risk factors for child abuse and neglect. So, there may be some connection, but not necessarily.

It is the ability to say that "such and such may have something to do with such and such" that brings freedom to the researcher. In addition, being willing to allow for some ambiguity takes intellectual honesty and a certain amount of humility. We most often go wrong when we're sure we've got it right. In fact, the National Research Council's Panel on Research on Child Abuse and Neglect has gone away from simple cause-effect models because of the limitations of such models (Bethea, 1999). The models limit themselves by asking too few questions about personal characteristics of parental abusers. The models also fail to account for the occurence of different forms of abuse in one child. Lastly, the models do not explain how to weigh the value of various risk factors in child abuse and, as a result, they were not very accurate in predicting future cases of child abuse. Now the panel is replacing the old static model with an "ecologic" model that considers the origin of all forms of child abuse to be a complex interactive process.

Isn't that what we are all about? Humans are simple, on the one hand, but absolutely complex on the other. We have to be honest and humble enough to admit that we're never going to completely figure out who we are and why we do what we do. Seems to me all the more reason to be in contact with the Designer in whose image we are made. As someone entering the helping profession, I need all the help I can get! He knows us better than we know ourselves, and He knows the way out of the mazes of the mind.

I'm back...

After a multi-month hiatus, I'm stepping back into the blog cosmos, but with more of a purpose. I want to use this blog to chronicle my journey as a counseling student, consultant, and husband: three threads that I'm currently trying to weave together. That being said, I want to share some dreams I have that encompass my various roles - dreams that I scripted the other day while I was feeling particularly inspired.

1) To have four children (I will now note that these are my dreams, not necessarily those of my wife) :)
2) To work alongside Emily (my wife)
3) To share passions with Emily
4) To be surrogate parents to kids who need us
5) To start my own counseling clinic for the underserved
6) To teach at a university and train counselors in the university/clinical setting
7) To write books that help people
8) To start a consulting firm that specializes in training consultants
9) To watch our families love on our kids (no kids, yet - these are dreams)
10) To be present for our families. To share birthdays, holidays, etc. with them
11) To buy a ranch for my dad
12) To be part of the Jones family revival - it's coming!
13) To coach basketball - high school and even college
14) To leave a godly legacy
15) To train missionaries in cross-cultural counseling
16) To work internationally to train others how to counsel those in need
17) To believe God for anything - anything!!
18) To be Emily's biggest fan and advocate. To help her thrive
19) To nurture our marriage so that it might be worthy of imitation and give others a glimpse of God's love for his people
20) To open a retreat center for underserved families