Carolyn Arends Worship Webinar

Carolyn Arends answered questions about worship in a one-hour live webinar held on August 26th. She was interviewed by Kyria Editor, Ginger Kolbaba. Carolyn Arends is the author of Wrestling with Angels, as well as a singer/songwriter. Check out her new album, Love Was Here First, or visit her website.

(Please note that you must have Adobe Flash installed to be able to view the webinar, and the file cannot be downloaded to be viewed later.)

Marriage in Real Life

I recently started watching Friday Night Lights, a show about the inner workings of a small Texas town and its obsession with football. The show centers on the high school football coach, Eric Taylor and his wife, Tami, as they—sometimes unknowingly—disciple the inhabitants of this small town in football and in life.

I’m only on the first season, but I’m already struck by Eric and Tami’s marriage. In fact, it might be the healthiest portrayal of marriage I’ve seen on TV . . . ever. In a sitcom world of oblivious, lazy husbands and manipulative wives, it’s refreshing to see a marriage in which husband and wife are equally supportive and kind toward each other.

I also appreciate that this fictional couple isn’t romanticized, but they’re healthy. Eric and Tami grapple through issues together. They unpack these worries at the end of the day, giving each other advice and grace as they go. And even in the thick drama of a television show, their lives aren’t flashy. In fact, sometimes the occasional mundane doldrums of marriage are so realistic that I wonder if I’m watching a real couple.

Sometimes a real, working marriage seems boring to an outsider, or even to us. And so many weeks in my own marriage, I find myself saying, “Wow, this is harder than I expected.” The tedious ins-and-outs and the difficulties of life together can be grating unless we realize this truth: It’s not all about us.

This stark concept, so utterly simple, is one of the hardest for us to grasp as individuals and as a culture. For example, I just finished reading Eat, Pray, Love, in which the author, Elizabeth Gilbert, becomes unhappy in her marriage . . . and leaves her husband. Wait, I must have missed something. When has marriage only been about personal fulfillment?

Marriage is not about the way of happiness, it’s about the Way of the Cross. This really shakes things up for us. Living in the shadow of the Cross, especially in the context of marital love, involves a daily dying to self, a constant sense of living for the other person, even when they’re annoying, thoughtless, or distant.

And this union, which the media fails to capture well, is built on a lifetime of sacrifice for the sake of Christ, for the sake of each other. Sometimes the sacrifice even means loving through the mundane moments, when we’d rather be flitting around Italy, eating copious amounts of pasta, and finding spiritual enlightenment. But marriage certainly isn't joyless, even with its sacrifices. Beauty and laughter also fill the cracks of the day-to-day, where we catch glimpses of heaven.

Real marriage, a far cry from even the best fictional portrayals, is a crucible, a vessel that can stand high stress and ultimately alter its contents, husband and wife. Through its joys and trials we are sanctified in order that we may love more fully.

What have you found to be untrue of our culture's perception or the media's portrayal of marriage? How does a true understanding of marriage combat those false messages?

Years of Confusion

The ground starts to shake; parts of the earth are shifting. An earthquake begins to separate the land around you. Bits of the earth are crumbling into the depths of the ground. To the left to the right, behind you, and in front of you is sinking ground. Chaos and destruction is destroying everything around you . . . but the land directly below your feet remains unshaken.

There was a point in my life where I felt like I was the person on that small piece of land watching everything fall apart around me. Around 2006, my time was spent between hospitals as I watched two people very close to me battle life-threatening diseases.

I watched my aunt struggle with the fiercest and fastest form of lung cancer I’ve ever seen. Within six weeks, I saw a life so full of love and joy reduced to painful chemo treatments and breathing tubes. I sat helpless until the last day when she couldn’t fight anymore and lost her battle to cancer.

A few weeks later I found myself back in the hospital trying to muster up strength for a friend who was undergoing multiple brain surgeries. After six attempts, he was finally released from the hospital.

Around this same time, I struggled to find a job. Fresh out of college, I thought I had a safety net: a diploma from a private university. That turned out to be just a piece of paper with a lot student loans attached to it. Months turned into years as I had plenty of interviews but no job offers.

I did what every other degree-holding, job-seeking post graduate would do: I took a job at Starbucks. Over-caffeinated I was; happy I was not. I was an eager young person ready and willing to make my mark in the world and definitely ready for a life of independence.

Frustration, depression, and anger were slowly creeping into my soul. To say I was confused about my life would be an understatement. I began to doubt the very character of God and his promises.

But God, I prayed, I’m doing everything in my life to glorify and serve you. Bible studies, prayer meetings, helping out with the children’s ministry, singing on the worship team. How could I be doing everything right and still have no blessings, no provisions?

Where are you, Lord? I wondered, frustrated. My wait continued, with silence from God.

During one of my darkest days, a friend gave me some encouragement, which changed my whole outlook and understanding. She told me to remember that no matter what, we must continue to follow our great Shepherd. We must trust and believe that he hasn’t turned his back on us. But sometimes all we can see is his back because we’re following him so closely.

And the land directly below your feet remains unshaken . . .

This is the imagery I think of when I read Hebrews 12:26–28 when God says he will shake up the heavens and earth so that what cannot be shaken will remain. Slowly, I came to realize that even when everything around me was swirling out of control, when I chose to trust him, I was on solid ground. Everything may have been shaken, but what would remain was a deeply rooted faith in Christ Jesus and his sovereignty.

While I still don’t understand why I had to wait and struggle through that period of waiting, I’ve realized ultimately it doesn’t matter. Because God is in control.

I couldn’t control those circumstances, but I could focus on the things I could control. I could control my faith. So instead of doubting, I began to offer God a sacrifice of praise, just as David commanded in Psalm 27:6: “At his tabernacle will I sacrifice with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the LORD” (NIV, emphasis mine).

When we struggle, we can praise God—even if there’s nothing inside of us that wants to. Praise will be our biggest weapon. Keeping our eyes focused on what’s holy, and seeking to praise him because he’s good will ensure that we will collide with our destiny.

Parable of the Runner

Before I registered three months ago for the Chicago Marathon, I could only run 3 miles. This weekend I ran 20! Jesus would have loved marathon training. It’s ripe with potential parables. For instance, if Jesus had been running with us on Saturday, he could have told this story:

A woman named Rachel struggled with muscle cramps that forced her to slow her pace. Although her three running mates were eager to finish the last 5 miles of their 20 mile run, they knew that Rachel’s struggle could easily be their own. The group slowed to match Rachel’s pace to insure that she made it the whole distance, even though this would mean their own running time would be compromised. In the end, Rachel ran the full 20 miles, crossing the finish line with her running mates alongside her.

If a 20 mile run has taught me anything it’s that human beings are not designed to go the distance alone. The apostle Paul exhorts us to run the race laid out before us and to finish well. The surest way to accomplish this is to run with others. Whether you’re trying to run a 26.2 mile race or make it through the next 26.2 minutes, having a friend to encourage you can mean the difference between calling it quits and finishing well.

On October 10, I'll be running the Chicago Marathon on behalf of World Vision. I'm running the race to raise money for wells and water filtration systems for people in Africa who have never had access to clean water. You can help me finish well by contributing to this worthwhile cause. To learn more about my marathon run with World Vision, go to http://twv.convio.net/goto/marianliautaud

What about you? When have friends helped you finish well?

An Hour with J.I. Packer

Theologian and author J.I. Packer answered questions in a one-hour live webinar held on August 4th. Dr. Packer was interviewed by Kyria contributing editor, JoHannah Reardon.

(Please note that you must have Adobe Flash installed to be able to view the webinar, and the file cannot be downloaded to be viewed later.)

The Good Old Days

On a visit to the St. Louis Gateway Arch this summer, I bought a copy of a book I couldn’t help noticing in the gift shop: The Good Old Days—They Were Terrible! This book, written by Otto L. Bettmann and published in 1974, contains photographs and written descriptions of life in the “Gilded Age” in the United States, during the years 1870–1889. This was a post-Civil War period of rapid change, growth, and increasing wealth in this country, and an age for which we sometimes have a collective and nonsensical yearning.

The nonsense of this yearning is the main point of this book. As the author says in his introduction, “I have always felt that our times have overrated and unduly overplayed the fun aspects of the past. What we have forgotten are the hunger of the unemployed, crime, corruption, the despair of the aged, the insane, and the crippled. The world now gone was in no way spared the problems we consider horrendously our own, such as pollution, addition, urban plight or education turmoil.” The author goes on to encourage us toward greater optimism about our own age and about our future, knowing we have made real advances and will continue to move forward.

He then illustrates his point with 200 pages of images and descriptions of nuisances we no longer face—pigs roaming city streets, sidewalks filled with trash, and manure-laced traffic jams born of complete and unmitigated chaos. He shows the horrors of life for the mentally ill, addicted, poor, and naïve. And he uncovers the spreading roots in this period of some of our modern social problems, from alcoholism and drug addiction to street gangs and corruption.

So along with gratitude for indoor plumbing and the Food and Drug Administration, I felt a little disenchantment as I read this book. It’s funny, because I already knew most of the broad facts. I knew about child labor, poor hygiene, Yellow Fever, mortality rates, corrupt public officials, unfair employment practices, and pronounced and visible class distinctions. But learning some of the details—and especially seeing pictures—made it all more real. And apparently this reality crushed my own unrecognized and irrational ideals about the “good old days.”

So if I knew that life was—in so many ways—rougher back then, why did I still idealize those times without even realizing I was doing so? Why do any of us look back with fondness on times we didn’t see, or worse, with whitewashed views of times we did see? Some of us even long for and idealize the future, beyond our own lifetimes, imagining that so many of our problems will be solved by future generations and ignoring the certainty that our descendents will also discover and invent new problems we can’t foresee.

I think such longing is less about “things” or “days” and more about people. I think we want to believe that people are better than they (we) are, and lacking such evidence in the world around us, we look to the past or the future, where we have the luxury of selective vision. But sadly, people are not and were not better than what we experience every day in ourselves and with others. We’re all fearfully and wonderfully made, and deeply flawed and disfigured by the sin we choose, relish, and treasure.

We work to improve ourselves, our lives, and the lives of those who will come after us, and we succeed. And then we discover that we didn’t quite get it right. We eradicate diseases only to find ourselves fighting new ones—and resistant strains of old ones. We prolong life and then find ourselves fighting over the right to die. We develop the ability to produce enough healthy food for everyone . . . and find we can’t stop eating junk. We fight the war to end all wars and two decades later end a world war with the weapon that threatens to end the world for the next 60 years and beyond. And no matter how hard we try, we can’t eradicate our sin nature and the consequences of our Fall, our desperate clawing after godlikeness, after power and self-rule.

So what’s my point? Simple: We desperately need God, and salvation through Jesus. Every single one of us and all of us together. May we never stop trying to do better with what he’s given us. But may our failures and our “almosts” remind us where hope really lives. Not in our own abilities or the goodness of others, hope always lives in the grace of the God over and above all time, who says, “Listen to me, you who know right from wrong, you who cherish my law in your hearts. Do not be afraid of people’s scorn, nor fear their insults. For the moth will devour them as it devours clothing. The worm will eat at them as it eats wool. But my righteousness will last forever. My salvation will continue from generation to generation” (Isaiah 51:7–8).