Okay, so I'm going to be gone at camp for the next week- I'll get back to my post on rights. I think this is a really super important concept, the more I think about it the more all-encompasing it becomes.
In the mean time, though, you should all go and check out Danny's comments on my post about courtship. He's obviously put a lot of time and energy into the subject- it was his thoughts that sparked all the discussion at church and my questions, so it's well worth the read.
Crystal says hi. Well, she's in the shower right now, but I'm at her house and I'm sure if she were here she would say hi, because she's nice like that. :-)
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
it's chap sticks and chapped lips and things like chemestry
Here's a consistently re-occuring theme in my life right now: rights. As usual I'm in the middle of about ten different books, and in two days I came to the subject of rights in two of them.
Both were talking about the same thing. Their point was that when it comes to the way we think of ourselves and deal with other people, it's very important that we don't have the mindset of asserting our own rights. This is hugely counter cultural in America especially, I think. Most poignantly for women, with the feminist movement having become such a big deal. We're taught to stand up for ourselves and and never allow people to walk over us. I'm realizing how much I've bought into this myself. If people don't treat me the way I think I deserve to be treated, I can be very unforgiving about it.
So it's hitting me rather hard to think that I don't really deserve to be treated any certain way in the first place. And that even when all fairness would say that I do have certain rights, it's not my place to assert them. One of my books pointed to the story of Jonah as an example. Jonah was big on his own rights, not thinking he should have to go to a country he didn't like, or have to suffer harsh weather conditions, or have to forgive people who had done terrible things. Repeatedly God said to him, "What right do you have to be angry?" This just brought it home to me how little God values rights. He gives things as he chooses, not because we deserve them, but because He wants to. Not even being a Christian is enough to earn us any amount of rights before God.
This concept comes in especially handy when it comes to relationships (and I don't mean just with boys, I mean with everyone). Elisabeth Elliot points out that a marriage only works when each person is equally dedicated to surrendering their own rights and supporting the other persons. This means even when the other person, be that my mom, my boss, or my friend, is demanding their own rights and paying no attention to mine, I have to give in willingly. And without bitterness, without reminding myself that this isn't fair. I have to be so focused on the other person being happy and getting what they "deserve" that I don't even notice my own rights. That's what it means to really and trully love someone, and I've been missing it all this time.
Both were talking about the same thing. Their point was that when it comes to the way we think of ourselves and deal with other people, it's very important that we don't have the mindset of asserting our own rights. This is hugely counter cultural in America especially, I think. Most poignantly for women, with the feminist movement having become such a big deal. We're taught to stand up for ourselves and and never allow people to walk over us. I'm realizing how much I've bought into this myself. If people don't treat me the way I think I deserve to be treated, I can be very unforgiving about it.
So it's hitting me rather hard to think that I don't really deserve to be treated any certain way in the first place. And that even when all fairness would say that I do have certain rights, it's not my place to assert them. One of my books pointed to the story of Jonah as an example. Jonah was big on his own rights, not thinking he should have to go to a country he didn't like, or have to suffer harsh weather conditions, or have to forgive people who had done terrible things. Repeatedly God said to him, "What right do you have to be angry?" This just brought it home to me how little God values rights. He gives things as he chooses, not because we deserve them, but because He wants to. Not even being a Christian is enough to earn us any amount of rights before God.
This concept comes in especially handy when it comes to relationships (and I don't mean just with boys, I mean with everyone). Elisabeth Elliot points out that a marriage only works when each person is equally dedicated to surrendering their own rights and supporting the other persons. This means even when the other person, be that my mom, my boss, or my friend, is demanding their own rights and paying no attention to mine, I have to give in willingly. And without bitterness, without reminding myself that this isn't fair. I have to be so focused on the other person being happy and getting what they "deserve" that I don't even notice my own rights. That's what it means to really and trully love someone, and I've been missing it all this time.
Friday, July 10, 2009
say goodybe to courtship?
Alright, I'm really not trying to be all controversial and hip here, but the only good, thought-provoking subject I've been thinking about lately is dating. I guess I always kind of have this in the back of my mind, as I'm revising my standards and planning my future (if such things can be planned at all...) but it's been pushed to the front lately by discussions we've been having at church.
There is an opinion circulating that because neither dating or courting is in the Bible, it's kind of a bogus idea altogether. I think this is pretty radical and at first I was really turned off by it, but the more I think about it the more I see potential truth in it. Other than betrothal, there's never an example in the Bible of two people entering into any kind of a romantic relationship prior to marriage. The guys just go around choosing wives and marrying them.
So. The immeadiate question that pops into my head is this: can the marriage rituals of the Bible be merely a cultural thing, or are we to follow the example of the patriarchs as instruction intended for our benefit? Another example to play with in your head would be that of the roll of women in church- I had to do a speech on this one and it was very tough. Paul says women should be quiet in church and not take up any positions of leadership, but there are many Christians who argue that this was merely a cultural thing. (Verses would be helpfull here, I'll dig up my old paper if anyone gets hung up on this point.) I took the stance that Paul's instruction for women was God's instruction, not the culture's instruction.
But is there a difference between being specifically told something, like in Paul's instruction to women, and just seeing patterns of behavior, as in marriage customs? I know that we don't ONLY listen to direct commands in the Bible. When I hear a sermon on Joseph there's always application from his life. Something like, "Just as Joseph was bold here, so we ought to be bold in such and such situation."
On the other hand, there were lots of things done by people in the Bible that we don't even think twice about doing, such as washing one another's feet or... yeah, washing one another's feet. (Let me know if you can think of another example.) So perhaps more appropriately the question is how do you draw the line between cultural things and things we should embrace in our own lives? I'm sure this question could apply to much more than just dating.
I think this whole concept is interesting because the only way I've ever exaimened the issue before is by applying Biblical principles, never by looking to the Bible for the how-to instructions. (As Donald Miller says, there are how people and there are why people. I've always been a why person.)
The alternative to dating/courting would be to just be friends with a person, even if they have expressed interest in you, until the time when the guy is ready to propose. The idea is to avoid the expectations put on a couple who are in a relationship, the expectations to spend time alone, to treat one another in a special way, perhaps even to be physically involved to a certain degree (although I know many courtships have done without this just fine). Are these expectations necessarily a bad thing? I don't know. Sometimes they put pressure and sometimes they are harmful, but perhaps some of them are good. For example, the expectation to follow through, to either marry the girl or give her a full explanation for choosing to not marry her, gives the girl a ring of protection that enables her to trust the guy with her emotions.
Some would say that you should be able to get to know everything you need to know about a person just by being friends with them. I'm not exactly sure this is true, because I don't think it's wise to get super close to a guy you're only just friends with. Then again, how much to you really need to know about a person before you can safely marry them? Arranged marriages have worked out fine in more continents than not for centuries.
And one more question, if you've expressed interest in a person and vice versa, can you even say that you're not in a relationship? Is it a bogus point? What about Jacob and Rachel from Genesis? They loved one another, or at least he loved her, but was unable to marry her for fourteen years. All of that time, she had his heart- is this perhaps an example of what is essentially courtship? It seems that once you have declared your feelings for someone you have something of a commitment to them, if honesty is at all a virtue, to follow through. And I certainly don't think you can skip telling someone you like them until you're ready to propose- or can you?
There is an opinion circulating that because neither dating or courting is in the Bible, it's kind of a bogus idea altogether. I think this is pretty radical and at first I was really turned off by it, but the more I think about it the more I see potential truth in it. Other than betrothal, there's never an example in the Bible of two people entering into any kind of a romantic relationship prior to marriage. The guys just go around choosing wives and marrying them.
So. The immeadiate question that pops into my head is this: can the marriage rituals of the Bible be merely a cultural thing, or are we to follow the example of the patriarchs as instruction intended for our benefit? Another example to play with in your head would be that of the roll of women in church- I had to do a speech on this one and it was very tough. Paul says women should be quiet in church and not take up any positions of leadership, but there are many Christians who argue that this was merely a cultural thing. (Verses would be helpfull here, I'll dig up my old paper if anyone gets hung up on this point.) I took the stance that Paul's instruction for women was God's instruction, not the culture's instruction.
But is there a difference between being specifically told something, like in Paul's instruction to women, and just seeing patterns of behavior, as in marriage customs? I know that we don't ONLY listen to direct commands in the Bible. When I hear a sermon on Joseph there's always application from his life. Something like, "Just as Joseph was bold here, so we ought to be bold in such and such situation."
On the other hand, there were lots of things done by people in the Bible that we don't even think twice about doing, such as washing one another's feet or... yeah, washing one another's feet. (Let me know if you can think of another example.) So perhaps more appropriately the question is how do you draw the line between cultural things and things we should embrace in our own lives? I'm sure this question could apply to much more than just dating.
I think this whole concept is interesting because the only way I've ever exaimened the issue before is by applying Biblical principles, never by looking to the Bible for the how-to instructions. (As Donald Miller says, there are how people and there are why people. I've always been a why person.)
The alternative to dating/courting would be to just be friends with a person, even if they have expressed interest in you, until the time when the guy is ready to propose. The idea is to avoid the expectations put on a couple who are in a relationship, the expectations to spend time alone, to treat one another in a special way, perhaps even to be physically involved to a certain degree (although I know many courtships have done without this just fine). Are these expectations necessarily a bad thing? I don't know. Sometimes they put pressure and sometimes they are harmful, but perhaps some of them are good. For example, the expectation to follow through, to either marry the girl or give her a full explanation for choosing to not marry her, gives the girl a ring of protection that enables her to trust the guy with her emotions.
Some would say that you should be able to get to know everything you need to know about a person just by being friends with them. I'm not exactly sure this is true, because I don't think it's wise to get super close to a guy you're only just friends with. Then again, how much to you really need to know about a person before you can safely marry them? Arranged marriages have worked out fine in more continents than not for centuries.
And one more question, if you've expressed interest in a person and vice versa, can you even say that you're not in a relationship? Is it a bogus point? What about Jacob and Rachel from Genesis? They loved one another, or at least he loved her, but was unable to marry her for fourteen years. All of that time, she had his heart- is this perhaps an example of what is essentially courtship? It seems that once you have declared your feelings for someone you have something of a commitment to them, if honesty is at all a virtue, to follow through. And I certainly don't think you can skip telling someone you like them until you're ready to propose- or can you?
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
my blog belongs in the movie Transformers...
So I've been thinking, I've been blogging here for at least four years (although at one point I deleted several months worth of posts at the beginning for reasons I've yet to fathom), and for the most part it seems like I've just talked about myself this whole time. It's been one endless stream of self-discovery and self-expression- both of which are important to an extent, I suppose, but I just thought of that verse that goes, "for whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it." (Matthew 16:25)
It seems to me I would be much better off if I could submerse myself in things bigger and beyond me. And how cool would it be if I could use this blog to stimulate good conversations about things that really matter? It's been done before, but I just wish I could do it all the time instead of comming back to wallow in my little mud hole of self.
Plus by the time I get to my devotions at night I'm usually too tired to really think that hard about anything I'm reading. It's kind of a bummer. I think things would be really different if I was always discussing them on blog through the day.
I've also been thinking about opening this blog up and making it public so that people could read it without a super-special invitation... I think it would be awesome to have an open discussion forum that anyone could contribute to. Maybe post a link to it on Facebook or something... I guess I'd better get a few thought-provoking posts up there first, though. Let me know what you guys think about this idea.
It seems to me I would be much better off if I could submerse myself in things bigger and beyond me. And how cool would it be if I could use this blog to stimulate good conversations about things that really matter? It's been done before, but I just wish I could do it all the time instead of comming back to wallow in my little mud hole of self.
Plus by the time I get to my devotions at night I'm usually too tired to really think that hard about anything I'm reading. It's kind of a bummer. I think things would be really different if I was always discussing them on blog through the day.
I've also been thinking about opening this blog up and making it public so that people could read it without a super-special invitation... I think it would be awesome to have an open discussion forum that anyone could contribute to. Maybe post a link to it on Facebook or something... I guess I'd better get a few thought-provoking posts up there first, though. Let me know what you guys think about this idea.
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