Devotional - 073109

Most of the insights were taking from Walter Brueggemann's commentary, "Exile and Homecoming"

23 Thus says the Lord, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; 24 but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord.
Jeremiah 9:23-24 NASB


I finished graduate school almost three years ago. During that time my primary responsibility was learning. That’s a pretty sweet gig! I was truly blessed by the Lord through the support of my mother (and financial aid) to focus on my studies. Now that I have a career and a wife, I find myself worried about things that I never worried about. How will I take care of my wife? When are we going to have children? Are we going to buy a house or should we wait? How am I going to pay for the expenses of daily life now?

As a result, I see myself getting choked out by the cares of this world. I struggle between being wise, responsible, and prudent or having faith that the Lord will take care of everything and that He has me where He wants me to be. I don’t want to be a middle school teacher all of my life, but that’s where God has me at the moment, although it’s difficult to be content. I feel the pressure and responsibilities of everyday life. It’s a lot more difficult to get in the Word and have a consistent prayer life than when I was back in college. Sometimes I even wish that I majored in something more lucrative instead of Bible. I constantly daydream that I have trillions of dollars, and that I’m the owner of the Los Angeles Lakers. I daydream of all the good I would do with that money.

Then the other day I ran across the verses above (Jeremiah 9:23-24). The two ways of life are articulated in contrasting triads. The first triad is the way of this world, the way of wisdom, might, and riches. These are the things about which the world boasts. Personal intelligence, health, and self-sufficiency are the new virtues that need to be pursued and quite frankly, are attractive.

Brueggemann points out the contrasting triad of “lovingkindness, justice and righteousness” reflects a wholly different orientation, congruent with the character of God who delights in these qualities and insists upon them. Therein lies the struggle for me. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want some type of worldly security? We’d like to know we have a job to go to so that we can pay our bills, right? Wouldn’t it be nice to completely pay off a house and have most of your income become disposable?

These things in and of themselves are not evil. It’s when they take priority over Yahweh that they lead to death and judgment. Jeremiah is contrasting the social values of this world and with the community of life found in Yahweh. "In critiquing the practice of Corinthian church, the apostle Paul also contrasts the wisdom and power of the world with the weakness and foolishness of the Cross. As with Jeremiah and Paul, the issues in our own time have not changed."

It truly comes down to trusting what the Lord has said to be true. Namely, that the Lord is good and the cost of pursuing Him over and above everything else is worth the eternal weight of glory that He promises. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t struggle with this at times. I’ve often wondered why He leaves so much mystery in the ways he deals with us. But in the end, “It is better to trust a God whose mysteries we cannot understand when He has given us the grounds to trust Him when we do not understand than a God whose adequacies we cannot rely on or whose interest we cannot be sure of.”

Monterey July 2009

Katie and I decided to take a trip to Monterey to visit her brother PJ and help him out with the kids while his wife, Allison, was attending a wedding out of state for the weekend. Dom and Jess have family in Monterey as well so we met up with them and had a jolly-old-time.

The drive up there was interesting. I got a chance to try out my father-in-law’s GPS (Global Positioning System). I was thinking about getting one myself. Katie typed in the address and it gave the directions, the mileage of the trip, and the ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival). In addition, it even talked to us and told us when to turn or what off-ramp to take. It did, however, speak in a geeky white dude’s voice. Isn’t there a model or feature where the GPS could talk to you in Angelina Jolie’s voice? How about Angelina speaking in French? I wouldn’t know what she’s saying but I also wouldn’t care. Is there a way I could copyright this idea?

Regarding the ETA, every time we got stuck in traffic the time would increase. Going through L.A. I thought I was stuck in freeway purgatory because the ETA remained four hours ahead of the current time for about two hours straight. Why do people have to use the freeway the same time I do? To compound the matter, there were three accidents on the way to extend the drive an additional three hours. Great. You might be saying, “What a jerk!” “What about the people involved in the accident?” Fair question- the first two accidences were fender-benders. Only the third accident might have been a serious one so I decided to make a compromise and only get mad at the first two. Fair? Fair. Moving on then.

Being in Monterey, CA for the weekend with friends and family certainly was quite the highlight of the summer. Any time I can get out of L.A. and appreciate God’s creation and simply sit back and take in all the beauty, I take the opportunity. I knew that in going to Monterey, that would be a given because I was well aware that it was a beautiful place. In fact, the first night we were there PJ and I drove to Kinko’s, and there was a deer there. How often could you say that happens in L.A.?

Our trip included a variety of activities- having breakfast in Carmel, sampling clam chowder on the wharf, and driving through Pebble Beach with Dom, Jess, and Laura and hiking Point Lobos and watching fireworks with PJ and the kids (Maddie and Grant).

To give you an idea of how the kids are here's Allison posted on my facebook page:

Ally: This morning....
(a few days before our trip)

Me: Hey, are you excited for Aunt Kate and Uncle Junior to come and spend time with you while Mom is gone this weekend?


Maddie: Wait Mom, wait.....Uncle Junior is going to take care of ME?


Me: Well, yeah-he and Aunt Kate and Dad.


Maddie: OH, so Aunt Kate will take care of us and Uncle Junior will play with us.


Me: I think you are right.



Meanwhile in the background...
Grant : (running around and yelling at the top of his lungs) Uncle Dunior! Uncle Dunior! Uncle Dunior!

I'm glad that they know my role in the family. Lets continue . . .

In hanging out with my brother-in-law PJ, I was surprised by something I wasn’t expecting to see, and no, it wasn’t the fact that he actually won a game of Settlers of Catan. It was his parenting skills. PJ’s kids, Maddie (4) and Grant (2), are wonderful children. But they’re still kids. What I mean by this is that no matter how wonderful kids may be you’re still going to have kids type of issues. For example, Grant blew up in the middle of the night both nights Katie and I were there. At those moments I said to myself, “I don’t want kids.” But of course I’m a jerk.

Both times, PJ patiently got out of bed and handled the “crisis” with care and grace. I’m not so sure I would’ve done the same thing. PJ would be firm and constant with both his kids making a clear line that they are not allowed to cross. Being a public school teacher I see the results of parenting everyday and lemma tell ya, it doesn’t always look great to say the least. Firmness and consistency coupled with gentleness and grace are things that parents struggle with whether they know it or not. PJ has a good grip on things.

At the end of each night, PJ would read a passage in the Bible and help his kids memorize a verse. He would also frequently ask questions pertaining to the passage to make sure the kids comprehended what was going on. I’ll have to try and top this with my own kid and have Junior Jr. memorize Greek paradigms and quote the Ten Commandments in the original Hebrew. Top THAT PJ!!!!

The nice example of parenting set by PJ was a nice surprise. I can only infer that he has learned these things from his father and is now passing down his godly heritage to his own children. Of course if you ask PJ himself he would admit that parenting isn’t always easy and that at times he struggles with the lack of time and freedom. What parent doesn’t struggle with that every so often? I struggle with the mere thought of that and I don’t have any kids yet.

The Story Part 2 - Almost Too Late

Original Post: July 8, 2008

Some say that love is blind. That’s just a nice way to say that, at times, love is stupid. My roommates, Aaron, Chris, and Jordan were tired of listening to my confusion and tired of seeing me led like a lost puppy dog. Jordan even once told me to at least change it up and have someone different rip my heart out for a while. He went on to say, “There is no category for this level of stupidity of allowing the same girl to kick your teeth in over and over again. With that being said, I have nothing left to say to you.” Ouch! And this was from a friend.

I felt alone and stupid, wondering what to do. I guess the must logical thing to do was just to let it go and move on. I consider myself to be a rational person, although you couldn’t tell with how I was approaching this situation. There was a reason why I wanted to keep giving it a try (we’ll get to that in a moment).

Round 4 – The Direct Approach

So where was I? Oh yeah, Round 4. Yes, there is a Round 4. I can’t believe it either. I just told her directly that I wanted to be more than friends. She replied, “As long as you know where I stand (meaning that I don’t have feelings for you but I like you enough just to hang out).” My reply was “sure, sounds good” in hopes that she would see the light. (Katie: This proves that guys usually do have ulterior motives- which worked well in my case but does help to prove that the female gender is not completely crazy when we make this claim.J JR: Whatever! Everyone has a “motive” for what they do. That’s just human nature. Think of the alternative. Would you like a guy to spend time with you knowing that it will never go anywhere because he has no “motive?” I think not).

We went on one breakfast date and she was awkward the moment I picked her up. (Katie: He left out the fact that I had burnt half of my face at the beach the day before and literally had only half of my face that looked normal while the other half looked like a bright red cherry tomato. I would argue that that situation would make any girl feel awkward. J: But did you notice that I didn’t treat you any different? How noble of me). I said to myself that I would just make the best of the date although I knew she was going to tank it like an NBA team at the end of the season trying to improve their draft position. After I dropped her off she began to play with her dog Murphy again. Not a good sign. Later that night, she emailed me saying that she didn’t feel comfortable with me anymore. Just lovely. (Katie: I believe my words were something to do with the fact that I didn’t feel comfortable with the situation- going out on dates knowing that he was interested in something more and I wasn’t. I think I should get props here for actually caring enough to want to protect the guy J JR: You call that protection? That’s like saying, instead of allowing you to live we should just kill you now because you’re going to die anyway. Where’s the gun?)

Round 5 – My Mother’s Death

Months passed by and I effectively got her out of my mind and moved on with my life, although I felt like a loser for subjecting myself to such an unnecessary emotional beating. Sadly, my mom passed away unexpectedly (refer to Mom’s Eulogy) and the news got out. Katie emailed me and told me that she was sorry to hear the news and gave me kind and encouraging words. I thank her for that. This leads to some more small talk and you guessed it – Round 5.

(Katie: Jr left out my favorite part of this “round.” On the day that his mom passed away, I went for an evening run after I was done teaching over at the track at Biola. As I began to run, Jr came to my mind which I found weird because we hadn’t talked in quite a while. I kept thinking about a time when we were first getting to know each other that we had run out on the track together. So, I just started praying for him, not really knowing why I was doing so. When I got home from my run, it was not 5 minutes after I walked in my door that my mom called. She “just wanted me to know” that Alan, my brother, had told her that Jr’s mom had had a stroke that day. I told her how crazy it was that she called me with that news because he had come to mind over at the track. She was the one that encouraged me to email him. So… yeah for God’s providence and yeah for Mom. J JR: And yet, you still kicked me in the teeth)

I told her that I appreciated that we could still be brothers and sisters in Christ despite the fact that things became awkward (or at least when she made things awkward). She went on to apologize for that and said that she was working through some issues. You think! The strange thing was that she continued to say that it was never about “not liking you but just personal issues I had to work through.” Interesting, I just thought that she was crazy or evil. I tried the direct approach again so as not to make any mistake about my intentions of wanting a romantic relationship with her. This was her response through email:

“There are a lot of things that I see in you that I have no doubt will make a wonderful, godly husband. You obviously love the Lord, are compassionate towards others, and do an awesome job at making a woman feel special. My only experience in seeing you around kids has been with Bryan and Shannon's kids, but you seemed to be comfortable with them, and it seems like you see kids as a possibility in your future. The way that you have responded to your mom's death has also demonstrated the deep commitment that you have to Christ. With that said, there are still a lot of things that I don't know about you - questions that I have that I would want to find out before committing to a romantic relationship.”

I guess hanging out for almost 3 years doesn’t answer some of her questions. This was harder than the LAPD background check. (Of course it was. You don’t commit to LAPD for a lifetime, and they can fire you if you don’t match up. It doesn’t work the same way in marriage. J) What else could she want to know? She already knew enough to at least make a decision. But here’s the kicker email shortly after:

“I enjoy you a lot as a friend, and I know beyond a doubt that you are a very godly, quality guy. However, I am fairly certain that that's all it will be for me.” ( Good thing I wrote fairly certain or I never would have been able to redeem myself.)

Once I heard the “you are a quality guy” speech I knew my teeth were about to get kicked in. And yes, they were – extremely hard. Well I’ve had it! This was it! I’d had it and was never going to talk to her again- and I really meant it this time!

You can be angry at her for kicking my teeth in over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, but I was upset that I allowed it to happen over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. (Katie: If you count up the amount of “over again” listed above they don’t match up with the number of rounds he has described, so I think its safe to say that this part is somewhat of an exaggeration for effect- just so you know. J J: You just have to get technical)

Round 6 – Final Round

After about a month of not talking to her I thought I was over her. But one day after church I was on my way home, and I saw her walking to her car. I just couldn’t get over how hot she looked. My rationality went out the window, and I u-turned to meet her in the parking lot to talk to her. I approached her and asked if we could talk. We decided to meet the next week.

The week went by, and I once again used the direct approach. I told her that if she were not attracted to me to just let me know and I would leave her alone. I didn’t think that this was the case but rather that she simply had some insecurity because she was hurt from a past relationship and as a result was a little gun-shy. Sure enough, that was the case. I saw right through her insecurities like x-ray vision. There was no way in Hades I was going to let that prevent something special from happening between us. She just needed to get over her issues and that’s what I demanded, I repeat – demanded! No more Mr. Nice Guy (Remember guys, women will have coffee with a nice guy but will never bring them home to the family or eventually call them “big poppa.” (Katie: For the record, I still have never called him “big poppa.” This must be a secret male lingo because I have no idea what that means. JR: I’ll tell you after we get married) Women like nice guys but they will never fall in love with them because they’re boring and predictable. When I pulled out all the stops, she was taken by it. There was an unpredictable, mysterious side that finally hooked her. So let that be a lesson for you guys that are constantly being rejected like I was. You need to stop being too nice. Give your opinion or disagree with her on something (even though you secretly do agree with her) just for the sake of argument. Be strong, make decisions, and take initiative. Be confident and have a vision for your life that doesn’t have her in the center of it. Don’t tell her you could live without her but act like it. Conduct yourself in a way that if she rejects you, later she will feel like she missed out on something special. Let her know that you’re grabbing life by the horns and wresting it to the ground and making it submit to your will – if she would like, she can come along for the ride. Reach deep down and find your inner “Bad @$$” and she will love you for it.

(Katie: This whole section sounds like a “male chest thumping.” I won’t attempt to edit it, but I’m sure the ladies reading this will be well aware that although we may let guys think that it works this way, it really doesn’t. If I didn’t believe that Jr was a nice guy, I would never have agreed to date him. If I didn’t think that I could eventually become a part of the “center of his life,” I would also never have dated him. What actually won me over is when he sat in front of me, directly addressed some of the concerns that I had, and then told me that he had been around for 2 ½ years, and that if I was even partially interested, he wasn’t going anywhere. How could I resist that? J JR: Don’t believe it guys. This is just a lie to throw us men off. Don’t fall for it.)

Katie was taken by the direct approach. She had to give it some more thought – 3 years and counting. But I was generous and gave her more time. I must have lost my mind. It was completely the hotness factor. If you’re wondering what happens next you’ll have to wait for Part 3 – I know, I know- I’m a complete jerk. I didn’t even realize how long the story was until I started writing it, but I did write 3 blogs in June. Cut me some slack.

"Knowing" Movies

Warning spoiling: although that’s probably a good thing.

The other night I decided to rent Knowing starring Nicolas Cage because I thought that the premise was interesting, and I remembered one of my friends from Biola read the script well before it went into production. So I said to myself, “Why not?” Well, it turned out to be a big mistake. No, make that a BIG mistake.

Since I had a fairly hard workout in the morning, I decided to skip basketball in the evening and stay at home with the wife so we could watch a movie together. It sounded like a good idea at the time- until Knowing happened! The movie was so terrible it absolutely ruined my evening with my wife.

The problem with the movie was that it had an interesting premise and the potential to be a decent movie. Sadly, nowadays a “decent” movie is a rarity and most people, myself included, will even settle for an “okay” movie. It’s truly a sad state that Hollywood is in. What I find most frustrating is that a lot of movies have the potential to be really good movies, but for whatever reason producers are hell-bent on running them through the mud.

The plot of Knowing begins in 1959 at William Dawes Elementary School in Lexington, Massachusetts. A time capsule containing students' drawings of their ideas of the future is buried and set to be ceremoniously opened 50 years later. A girl named Lucinda Embry contributes a page full of seemingly random digits. She never actually finishes her work because she is stopped from completing the page by her teacher who thinks that Lucinda has wasted time on her contribution but feels compelled to put it into the capsule anyways. That night Lucinda is found in a school closet. Her fingers are bloodied from scratching at the door, and she complains about hearing voices.

These “random” numbers find their way to Nicolas Cage’s character, John Koestler, a professor of astrophysics at MIT who takes interest in them and realizes the numbers represent the dates and death tolls of every major disaster over the past fifty years, and suggest three disasters still to come.

Now that’s pretty interesting. You would think this movie might at least be decent, but let me go further. There is a scene where Koestler is giving a lecture on astrophysics and in doing so presents the two opposing views of the origin or the genetic make-up of the universe: 1) random chance and 2) intelligent design with a purpose. The interesting thing was that while he is presenting the idea of random chance, Koestler realizes in the middle of his lecture the logical conclusion of this worldview, namely, that if things happen simply because of random chance then life is completely meaningless.

That was a powerful scene. That is until the next couple of lines. When Koestler has this amazing epiphany and looks like he is about to jump off of a bridge because of it, a student interrupts him and asks, “What do you believe professor?” I thought to myself, “This is a perfect opportunity to say something profound that would add depth and character to the movie.” Instead, Koestler replies, “Sh** happens.” Are you kidding me!?! A bunch of punk teenagers smoking pot in their basement could have come up with that line. Did the Wayne brothers write the script? 50 cent? Forrest Gump? Someone was actually paid to write that line!?

Why am I even mentioning any of this? Is it because I don’t want you to rent this movie. True, I don’t want you to rent this movie, but that’s not the reason. The reason is that it kills me is that the writer had a compelling storyline with the potential to explore a serious life question in which anyone would be interested. The question is “What is the meaning of life?” (Do we have any purpose?) One’s worldview and belief system determines that question. People often don’t think about the ramifications of where their beliefs will lead. In much the same that Koestler realized where his belief system led him, the writer could have had a profound effort on his viewers if he guided them the same way. He had an opportunity to wrestle with that question in an entertaining manner but all we got was “Sh** happens,”- which is a good description of this movie.

Some of my suggestions for the movie: 1) Lose the alien bit. The whole alien from other plants with supernatural or superhuman abilities is a cheap cop-out (Unless the aliens are giant robots that transform into cool vehicles and use big guns to fight each other with Megan Fox as one of the characters, I don’t want to see aliens anymore, at least for a very long time). Why couldn’t the writer just leave the little girl (Lucinda Embry) at the beginning of the movie with the gift of prophecy instead of aliens (the whispers) whispering in her head?

2) Allow Koestler to make a difference. After Koestler finds out the nature of the “random” numbers, he intervenes on the projected next event and actually saves some lives. As a result, the death toll numbers on the paper “magically” change right on the page. Take out the solar flare that wipes out the entire earth at the end of the movie and replace it with a much smaller scale catastrophe that Koestler again intervenes but this time he saves Rose Byrne’s character, Diana Wayland (the daughter of Lucinda Embry and a single mother herself. Once Diana is saved, ALL the numbers of the page disappear entirely. This is a symbol of their fate not yet known. Koestler’s only conclusion is that although things may seem determined, their decisions do matter in the end and that life does have meaning and purpose. Part of life is figuring out what that purpose is. Koestler and Wayland fall in love and begin a new life together with their kids. At the same time, the ending of the movie shows another kid on the opposite coast writing down some “random” numbers at her elementary school. Then, the scene fades out.

3) Think about the character development of Koestler. At the beginning of the movie he is clearly still bothered by the loss of his wife. His sister, Allison Koestler (Adrienne Pickering), hints at his broken relationship with his father, who happens to be a pastor. At the end of the movie, Koestler returns home after watching his son (and a couple of bubby rabbits) get taken away by aliens to a safe place. There, at his parent’s house, he looks at his father and simply says “hello” and they all embrace into oblivion. How touching.

Instead of that non-since, how about all the supernatural events and “random” numbers written by a crazy elementary girl: A) Koestler changes to a semi-determinist/intelligent design/purpose from “Sh** happens” guy, realizing that there is purpose in life and what brings meaning is figuring that out and pursuing it. B) Koestler moves on with his life with a new woman believing it’s okay to be happy in a new relationship and even his son benefits from this, C) there is also reconciliation with his father when he realizes that all he’s been preaching throughout the years might be true and that it’s silly to hold grudges when life has meaning, D) and there are no freaking aliens to take his son away. Tell me that wouldn’t be 100 times better than the actual movie. And I just made that up in the time I wrote this blog!

Now do I really care that much about this movie. No. But it bothers me when there are the components to making a good movie and “professional” can’t get it right. Where time and time again I get disappointed in Hollywood. I remember days where quality movies were being pumped out like Hannah Montana CDs. I understand the process from script to screen is a long tedious one where a 100 different people have to get their hands all over it so by the time it gets to the end product, it looks nothing like the original idea. I guess I’ll have to become a Harry Potter fan. Wait, … I’m just not there yet. Let me see the second Chipmunks movie first.

“How’s the married life?”

I’ve been married for about six months now, so you can imagine that I get the question “How’s the married life?” quite a bit. I’ll go ahead and answer that question. It’s been great! Don’t worry I’ll elaborate. Any time a person is going to get married or is recently married a lot of people offer advice at an astonishing rate. I’m going to address the most common things I’ve heard regarding marriage. I realize that my experience will be different than others but I can only speak from my perspective. Maybe those of you who aspire to be married someday (or even those of you who are already married) will find this helpful. If not, I hope that at least it’s entertaining.

The first year is the hardest:

I understand that there are a lot of adjustments to be made when you get married. Especially when it comes to certain living habits. The whole where to squeeze the tooth paste, leaving the toilet seat up, and which way to hang the toilet paper sounds so cliché. Consequently, to prepare for these types of situations as a single person, I would alternate squeezing the toothpaste from the top and then once finished I would start a new tube squeezing from the bottom. I would do the same with hanging the toilet paper. The idea is that when I got married, I would be prepared for anything; so far, so good.

I know that it hasn’t been a full year yet, but I have to say that it’s been extremely easy. One of the many things that sold me on Katie was that she had a “laid-back” attitude. Now don’t mistake this for apathy because she is a very passionate person. What I mean is that Katie is very flexible and doesn’t need to have things a certain way. She’s not anal about trivial things. I’m not either.

While working out at the gym the other day I ran into a friend. We got into a conversation about our first year of marriage (he’s been married for three years). Both of us noticed that our first years were relatively easy. However, he mentioned that it was his second that was difficult because his wife was expecting certain parts of his behavior to change but they didn’t (i.e., leaving socks on the floor). This leads me to my next point.

Roommates help:

When I was living with Jordan, Chris, Aaron, Steve, and Rory during graduate school I learned quite a few things about adjusting to living with other people (to say the least). For example, Jordan wasn’t the neatest person to put it kindly. Although he has improved in this area, during his time as my roommate I’ve came to learn that I was going to do the majority of the cleaning. As a result, I don’t mind making the bed, vacuuming the carpet, taking out the trash, and washing the dishes.

Keeping things clean and neat were things I did as a single man, and now that I’m married my wife loves me for it, truly an unexpected perk (there is another perk in marriage but lets keep this blog G-rated). It communicates to her that I love her and that I enjoy taking care of her, where in reality I just like things clean. But I’m not going to argue with her. So I guess I should be thanking Jordan for all those years of not taking out the trash. Of course it’ll be interesting when he gets married, but that’s another story entirely.

Is marriage worth it?

I’ve had some single guys ask me this a couple of times and my reply is always, “If you marry the right person, then yes it is.” I know that it could be frustrating figuring that out but since I don’t have to worry about it any more lets move on.

Katie is no doubt the right person for me. She is strong in areas that I am weak. For example, she’s good with details and filling out paper work, like our taxes. She also enjoys cooking. That works out well for me because I enjoy eating. As a single person, when I would get hungry I would either look in the fridge and see there was nothing to eat and just go hungry because I was too lazy to make anything, or I would go through a late-night drive-thru. I realize that that situation was leading to two extremes- I was either going to die from hunger or get fat.

Katie brings things into balance. Not only do I get a meal every night but I also get a healthy one. There have been times when she has made amazing meals and I have felt so loved because of the effort she put into dinner.

Furthermore, she doesn’t demand all of my time. Although I love to spend time with her, she doesn’t get upset when I would go play ball or hang out with the guys. My friends like her, which is a big deal. If your friends don’t like the person you’re thinking about marrying that is a bad sign. I would go as far as to not marry them. Think about all the conflict you’ll have throughout your marriage defending your spouse to your friends when you know deep down you shouldn’t have married them in the first place. Who wants that?

My wife has an amazing servant’s heart. Almost as amazing as mine. Now that’s saying something. I truly feel like we’re a team doing life together and striving to do it better. As I look back with alllllllllllllllllllllllllll the girls that have rejected me in the past, I can’t believe I was so heartbroken over some of them.

(Side Note: For you single guys, if a girl rejects you don’t act like you just got eliminated from The Bachelorette. Those guys look lame when they’re devastated when a girl they don’t even know, who-has-been-making-out-with-twenty-other-dudes, doesn’t give them a rose to go to the next round. Really?? What does the application say for the show, “wusses and pansies only?” Do guys turn in their Man Card when they walk on the show? I’m waiting for the genuine guy who doesn’t care about winning the hand of an egocentric self-indulging insecure girl, who-has-been-making-out-with-twenty-other-dudes, and is only there because he lost a bet to some friends. He would be smooth and confident and have an “I can’t believe I lost that bet” look on his face the entire time. He would be having more fun hanging out with the guys talking about sports, movies, and the new Megan Fox article on Entertainment Weekly. This would be in complete contrast of the typical show when the “men” start acting like a bunch of catty women fighting over a man. When he gets eliminated [and yes, a guy like this will get eliminated because genuine people don’t belong on this type of show] he would have the look of “I’m glad I won’t be spending more time with that self- indulging egocentric insecure girl, who-has-been-making-out-with-twenty-other-dudes, anymore.” Now if the show threw in a guy like that they would widen the demographics of the show to at least five other guys. Did I just spend all that time talking about The Bachelorette? Crap!)

What in the world was I talking about? Oh yeah, I can’t believe how heartbroken I was over some of the girls from my past that didn’t give a rip about me. Now I have a woman who loves and cherishes me with everything in her. I feel supported and extremely blessed. Above all, her care, compassion, and character point me to Christ knowing that I do not deserve such a blessing but it is the love and grace of God who has given me an astonishing prize. So yes, marriage is worth it.

Marriage is Community

The married life has been nothing short of wonderful. But I can’t take the credit for it. We received outstanding biblical pre-martial counsel with our pastor and his wife, have the support of our friends, great examples within our church, and wonderful in-laws as a resource for wisdom and experience. Most important, we have the Word of God and so often times when things become complex, it simply comes down to being the man that God wants you to be. Now, for me, it’s being the husband that God wants me to be and doing whatever it takes to get there.

Loving my wife just as Christ loves the church is a responsibility I approach with fear and trembling. It gives me a clear picture of what to do but also terrifies me because of the weight of responsibility. Of course God is the God of hope and will not leave me to my own fragile and frail strength. He has given me a wonderful community that provides encouragement, comfort and accountability with the empowering of the Holy Spirit in each one of those categories and the power of the Holy Spirit within me. I have an army to fight with for the cause of a godly marriage. Yes, it’s only been six months but what a six months indeed.