New Years' Resolution (As Such)

I'm not much for New Years' resolutions.  If I were, I'd be failing already because this first post of 2015 concerning New Years' resolutions is coming a half-month late.

However, I do have a Biblical passage/ideology that I intend to apply this year -- an easy-to-miss verse in an easy-to-gloss-over passage that has some hugely significant application.

The prophet Jonah's story is known even outside the realm of Biblical study.  Critics of biblical inerrancy make much of the miraculous "delivery system" God employs in this short book, but the focal point of the text actually has very little to do with giant sea creatures.  What's truly remarkable about the book of Jonah -- aside from the fact that an entire populace unanimously renounce their wicked ways (though they would eventually return to them, prompting the prophecy of Nahum a century later) -- is the fact that God once again employs a disagreeable person to accomplish His purposes.  Of course, that doesn't give us an excuse to be disagreeable, but it is encouraging to know that I'm not the only one who struggles to be compassionate or to follow the route God is clearly laying before me.

As a political zealot, Jonah had pressured King Jeroboam II into expanding Israel's northern borders against the encroaching Assyrian empire -- restoring them to the point at which they had been in the days of David and Solomon (2 Kin 14.23-27).  Like his fellow Israelites, Jonah knew well the atypical propensity for cruelty and bloodlust that characterized the Assyrian nation, and seems to have been a man who seemed to need little provocation to become resentful.  Ninevah, possibly the largest city in the world at that time, found its home on the Tigris River 500 miles northeast of Israel.  It was one of Assyria's royal cities, served as its capital for many years, and was a center for idolatrous worship.

Because he knew God was "gracious and merciful," "slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness," and "One who relents from doing harm," (4.2) Jonah at first refused to go to Ninevah -- because he feared -- at best -- that they might brutally murder him, or -- at worst -- the people might actually repent and that God might actually forgive them.  Strange priorities, sure.  The notion of his people's oppressors walking away scot-free for saying they were sorry didn't sit well with the prophet.  And so, because Jonah refused to go, God was forced to deliver him directly to Ninevah by some fairly unconventional means.

In the wake of Jonah's message, accompanied by the Spirit's convicting presence and prompted by the occurrence of two plagues (765 and 759 BC) and a solar eclipse (763 BC), the entire population of Ninevah turned out in simultaneous repentance.  Such a wide-spread scale of earnest confession the world has perhaps never seen since.  However, despite the fact that any missionary would have considered it a rousing success, Jonah parked himself on a hill outside the city to watch, wait, and feel sorry for himself.  Maybe he thought God would take pity and decide to smite a few Assyrians, if only to lessen His servant's stinging pride.

It was here, seated in his place of judgment, that Jonah accused the Lord of being too kind and too generous.  Jonah appreciated God's grace and forgiveness when it came to himself and to his people.  Historically, they were no strangers to the kindness and patience of the Almighty.  When it came to the Assyrians, however, Jonah couldn't fathom why God would extend mercy.  This was a people who could barely define the concept.

And then, as Jonah moped on his little throne on the hillside, God asked him the question.

"Do you do well to be angry?"

This simple query reveals so much about the patient, inviting nature of our Father -- the One who is "gracious and merciful," "slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness."  Instead of rebuking the wayward prophet -- who, by virtue of his calling, was held to a greater standard of obedience than was the pagan city below him -- God extended to Jonah the opportunity for humble self-evaluation.

The question wasn't, "Who do you think you are?"

The question was, "Is it justified for you to withhold compassion?"

In his analysis of the ministry of the prophet Jonah, H. A. Ironside observed the following:

[Those who have a special ministry to the people of God] are judged of the Lord, not merely as saints, but as servants.  Nor does failure relieve them of responsibility to serve, but calls all the louder for self-judgment, that they may be in a right state of soul to minister in holy things.

Here's what I know.  Like Jonah, I am a failure of a servant.  I am a man who is abysmally selfish.  I wrestle with pride and a quick temper that no one but me ever sees.  Were I to list all of my faults, not only would you stop reading (probably more due to boredom than disgust), but I'd also be defeating the purpose of this post.

Instead of dwelling on my flaws and becoming discouraged, or instead of assuming my actions to be justified, what if I stopped to evaluate my actions with that simple question -- "Do I do well?"  In any given scenario, instead of defaulting to my normal mode of operation, what if I paused and considered whether or not the choice (conscious or otherwise) I'm making is really the best, most rightful option?  Maybe it's not always my anger that needs to be evaluated.  Maybe it's not always a deliberate sin.  Maybe the question could be, "Do I do well to be comfortable?" -- do I have a good reason for sitting on the couch tonight?  Is my sense of contentment the gateway for sin to enter?

We're all failures, but failure doesn't make us unusable.  Failure unaddressed -- failure to "self-judge" as Ironside put it -- makes us unusable.  But the fact that we have failed and will fail does not mean we are no longer fit for service.  Even Jonah was useful to God.  Though his account ends abruptly, the fact that Jonah himself is attributed as the writer of the book would imply that he eventually learned his lesson.  However, to truly minister effectively, we must not fall into Jonah's trap -- thinking we're better off than we are, assuming our selfish reservations are justified, withholding compassion from the lost.

Earnest self-evaluation and regular repentance keeps us from wandering into the types of sins we never thought ourselves capable of committing.  Earnest self-evaluation and regular repentance keeps us from parking ourselves on hillsides of self-righteousness and deeming sorrowful sinners unworthy of God's grace.

"Do I do well?"

It's not really a New Years' Resolution, but it is something I want to try this year.  If I'm faithful, I'll come out of 2015 a little closer to bringing every thought into captivity for the sake of obedience (2 Cor 10.5).

Marital Coasting

I like to think of myself as an uncommonly thoughtful and considerate person.  At the same time, I also know that self-perceptions are more often than not ignorant of their own gaping holes.

This morning, Tara and I had a conversation about where we were a few years ago and how far we've come.  It's a conversation that comes up on occasion, and always seems burdened by the same concerns: we talk, but do we talk?  We love each other, but do we truly cherish?

Part of me resents these questions.  For the same reasons that I like to think I'm thoughtful and considerate, I also want to think that I'm doing everything my wife could possibly want and need.  Maybe that's just masculine arrogance speaking, but the truth is that I want to think I'm a better-than-average husband, because whenever someone posts an obnoxious article with a title like "10 things husbands are incapable of doing," I can check off every item on the list.  That's because I'm a doer.  I see a problem and try to fix it.  I see a need and try to fill it.  I'm not above helping my wife with mundane tasks.  However, doing things for Tara is a self-fulfilling type of love, simply because it feels sacrificial.  That awareness of my own time commitment often makes it more self-fulfilling than selfless.  I feel like I'm loving Tara well when I devote an afternoon to cleaning the house so she doesn't have to.  In itself, it's not a bad thing.  However, the problem with this prideful sense of "sacrifice" is that it often keeps me from doing for her what she really needs because I feel like I've already checked the box of what was required.  It keeps me operating merely at the point of optimum relational efficiency, and not striving to serve her more.

If I truly were the considerate person that I like to think I am, I would not only welcome the "check-up" conversation, but I would also be willing to meet my wife where she is.  Tara is an encourager.  She is deeply thoughtful, a generous giver, a hard worker.  For those reasons and more, she deserves more than my merely "sufficient" effort.  While she appreciates my help, she needs more than just someone tall enough to reach the top shelf.  She needs a leader and an encourager.  She needs me to disciple her and build her up in love.  She desires me to communicate my needs, my thoughts, my fears -- so that she can meet the ones she is able and pray for me in the ones she isn't.  And she needs my help, of course, but I can't just stop at the thing I'm comfortable doing.

That's really the problem.  Comfort.  Husbands (and wives too, for that matter, but husbands especially) deviate toward the most comfortable mode of operation and nest there.  We're like a grumpy cat sleeping in a sunbeam: every time the warmth recedes further into the dining room, we crawl resentfully back toward it, annoyed that it moved away from the carpet and onto the hardwood.  We don't want anything challenging because we just want to punch a relationship time card and exist in the place of contentment.  We hit a plateau where everything seems good and we're getting along with our spouse and decide to pitch our tent there, calling it marital unity when really we're settling for a comfortable façade.

I saw a t-shirt on the internet called the 1st Law of Relationship Inertia.  It read: "After 6 weeks a relationship will continue unless acted upon by an outside force."  That's the picture -- a self-sustaining momentum, a downhill coast that doesn't require any work to keep it going.

We don't want to strive in our marriages.  We want to coast.

Perhaps anticipating this, Paul recorded the following admonition in Ephesians 5:

Husbands, love your wives [in the same way that] Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 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.

In the light of that Spirit-given insight, my idolatrous desire for marital coasting seems awfully stale and empty.  My responsibility as a husband isn't to love my wife in such a way that merely facilitates her existence alongside mine.  It's not about keeping a checklist and completing chores so that we can fall asleep on the couch each night watching TV together.

My responsibility as a husband, throughout the remainder of my lifetime, is to prepare Tara to meet her Savior face-to-face.  My principle value should be her spiritual maturity, because I get to play an instrumental role in her sanctification.  That means I should be doing everything I can to avoid the comfort of coasting.  It means I'm invested in my wife, willing to roll up my sleeves -- willing to do and say the hard things.  Loving and cherishing my wife should not be chore.  It should be a privilege.

The bottom line is that, if I truly value Tara -- if I truly want to be an uncommonly thoughtful and considerate husband -- then I'm going to put my desire for marital comfort at the bottom of my list of priorities, elevating instead my bride's need for Christ-like love, encouragement, and intimacy.  I will willingly transform the question "What do I have to give to this marriage?" into "What more can I give to this marriage?"