A Psalm about Relationships

A sample of the powerful daily devotional thoughts available in this book...A full Review of the book will be available on Friday, November 9, 2012.  Free Book Giveaway on Friday

Psalm 146

Why doesn’t God just make your relationships better overnight? We often think that if God really cared for us, he would make our relationships easier. In reality, a difficult relationship is a mark of his love and care.

We would prefer that God would just change the relationship, but he won’t be content until the relationship changes us too. This is how God created relationships to function.

What happens in the messiness of relationships is that our hearts are revealed, our weaknesses are exposed, and we start coming to the end of ourselves. Only when this happens do we reach out for the help God alone can provide. Weak and needy people finding their hope in Christ’s grace are what mark a mature relationship.

The most dangerous aspect of your relationships is not your weakness, but your delusions of strength. Self-reliance is almost always a component of a bad relationship.

While we would like to avoid the mess and enjoy deep and intimate community, God says that it is in the very process of working through the mess that intimacy is found.

On January 16 Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp writes in Heart of the Matter (p 16).  

Resting Contently

A sample of the powerful daily devotional thoughts available in this book...A full Review of the book will be available on Friday, November 9, 2012.  Free Book Giveaway on Friday

Philippians 4:4–13

God wants you to be content. True contentment is usually learned on the down cycle—in loss, deprivation, and financial need. As your own dreams of financial security are shaken by your circumstances, you have the opportunity to turn from trusting and hoping in material things to trusting and hoping in God. This might not seem so great right now, but think about it: if your contentment is based on what you have or own, it can be easily lost. But contentment based on your relationship with God is on the unshakeable ground of God’s unfailing love.

In Philippians 4:11–13 Paul is saying that true contentment (or lack of it) doesn’t come from our circumstances; true contentment comes from “him who gives me strength.” Because he trusted Jesus, he was at peace in all kinds of material circumstances. He knew that even in times of financial stress he was not missing out on anything essential to life. His identity, hope, and wellbeing did not come from what he owned or what goal he achieved. Rather, it rested on his relationship with his heavenly Father, who loved him and gave his Son for him.

On May 26 Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp writes in Heart of the Matter (p 147).  

What Did You Expect? Redeeming the Realities of Marriage

What Did You Expect?: Redeeming The Realities Of Marriage by Paul David Tripp
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I started reading What Did You Expect, I did not know what to expect. For someone who doesn't like the typical marriage books that are out there, I found that Tripp's message of getting to the heart to be very refreshing. When I was younger, it would always bother me that typical sermons on marriage, and preparation for marriage centred on the premise that we should be looking for a set of characteristics in the opposite sex, rather than focusing on one's own heart. Marriage problems start inside of me.

Tripp's book structures around a set of 5 commitments, which begin with humility, personal accountability and confession, and then leads to pulling the weeds of our own hearts, taking the beam out of our eyes, and getting read to forgive. All the commitments are based on the grace of God, and God's forgiveness as the standard for forgiving others. This book is not a series of 'steps' so that you will get 'this'; rather, it is written on the premise of God's Amazing Grace, which transcends all our sinful shortcomings, and is the real power to wage war against our sin nature.

I thought that the book might mirror the conference, and it does, but there is sufficiently different, more, and additionally helpful material that it is not a duplication of the conference DVDs. There are a lot of anecdotes that can help you visualize the concrete help that is available in the gospel. I gave it 4 stars out of 5, not because of content. I just think that Paul is a better public speaker than a writer.

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