Wordliness

I agree. I being up God a lot too. But I also try to listen to the Holy spirit when it nudges me to not say anything. Sometimes I have to wait for another time to address something. It is frustrating though.

Mary I had a similar conversation with my mom a few weeks ago when I was telling her I have faith that God would provide money for us and I wasn't going to worry about it. She said "Sharon can you just take God out of this for a minute and use your logical brain?!" And I almost laughed because it didn't make sense even logically to me. I told her "God created this world and everything in it for His purposes. How could I possibly take God out of this?!" I think of it like a man who builds a Lego city and puts all his characters in their place and makes them do what he wants. The characters and the Lego world would not be there if not for that creator and the only reason they are there is for that creators purposes. How can one of the characters dip out and say "I don't want to include you in my world today?" They would go nowhere if the creator wasn't letting them go and they wouldn't live in the world if it was not for him. They wouldn't exist. None of the world would. It makes no sense at all to try to take God out of our lives. Our lives are nothing at all and we go nowhere without him. You can't take him out of his own world.

Mary, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say some things that might possibly come off as controversial (at least at first, hopefully with my explanation they’ll make sense!). But I promise that I have a point! (Please forgive me that it takes me as many words as it does to make that point!! I’ve never been known for being concise!)

First off, I’m going to say this: I agree with Tony. TO AN EXTENT. In some ways, he’s right. You don’t *have* to read the Bible every day to be a good person. Moses didn’t have a Bible… (mainly because he was the one writing several books at the beginning of it, hehehe), and I think we can all agree that Moses was a great person.

The reason that I feel like it is important to express this about reading the Bible daily is that it is easy to fall into the trap of the “Good Christian rule list.” We start to see our relationship with God as a checklist that we have to make sure we complete each day. One of the first things that goes on that checklist is reading the Bible.

But we should never approach God as a checklist type of dude! We want to have an active relationship with Him, a beautiful friendship! (So there’s an important perspective shift: We don’t *have* to read the Bible; we *get* to read it!)

As more mature believers, we treasure our time in the word because we know that is how we get to know our best friend God better, and also because we get advice from the Bible and guidance on how to live. We see the word as a beautiful GIFT to us… BUT, people who are struggling in their belief or have reluctance about forming a relationship with God might see reading the word as a CHORE.

So if we then tell them that reading the Bible is a mandatory daily task, we are setting up the situation for the enemy to easily continue whispering poison into their ear about how boring and requirement-oriented Christianity is. Does that make sense?

So, in my own case, I try not to pressure G at all about reading the Bible. Instead, I try to show him how valuable my time in the word is to me personally. I try to demonstrate that I choose to prioritize that time – not by saying anything out loud, but by quietly picking up my Bible and reading a bit before bed even when it’s 11:30 at night and I got up at 6am. And I try to share the beautiful things I learn from the Bible – you know what I mean: that delightful surprising moment when you have gotten a message in the word that corresponds to something that happened in your day and God spoke to you so clearly; that verse that was so amazing and spoke to your heart; that story that really interested you…

So, rather than TELLING a prodigal that reading the Bible (or in my own situation, going to church!) is a mandatory TASK, I try to MODEL the fact that doing so is a special GIFT.

This takes me to the second point… “Stop being my therapist.”

Again, I tend to agree. We shouldn’t be our spouses’ therapists. If anyone needs to tell them what to do to have a better life, it’s GOD!

So here again, we have to be very careful with our words. I have learned with G that he resists when I tell him what to do… Instead, I again try to model what I think is a good (and godly) lifestyle as best as I can. And when he *asks* for advice, I gladly (and lovingly) give it!

I think that our prodigals have to have space to make their own decisions. Sometimes those decisions will be bad. But they will (eventually) learn from the consequences. We love them through all their decisions, but perhaps we can’t live together with them through all of them. That is something we must ask God in prayer and decide very carefully with the Spirit’s guidance.

So I think it’s important to remember that it’s not our job to tell these men (or women) what to do… they have to learn that on their own. And if they choose to learn by asking us or following our example to come to Christ, amazing! But we can’t force them to listen to us… even in the Bible it says to evangelize but then if they don’t follow the path, it’s on their own heads and not ours. (Read Ezekiel 33:1-9).

So I can give the example of my own case, regarding G and his love of going to the club drinking and dancing. I explained one time why I didn’t agree with it. Since then, I have tried to only offer my opinion upon his request. Simultaneously, however, I model what I think is a godly mode of “entertainment” and “community” – going to church and getting my praise on! I don’t tell him not to go, because I know that will only make him want to go more (it opens another easy door for the enemy to get in and attack him!). But my opinion is clear, and I show him love and grace by not badgering him every time he chooses to go.

So, here again, we have to seek to model behavior rather than instruct it…

“Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over WITHOUT WORDS by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.” (1 Peter 3:1-2)

Now.

Alllllll that being said, I do agree with our brothers and sisters who have already commented. (I especially appreciated Sharon’s comment!) How can we not talk about God when He is GOD? When He is everything?

This bit is truly the enemy’s influence, wanting to separate Tony from anything godly. My husband has said the same to me. He actually told me once that I was going straight crazy from reading the Bible so much!!

But have I stopped talking about God? No way! Instead, I tried to make the same shift I explained above. Rather than focusing on “rules,” I started to try and instead talk about God’s great love. And rather than trying to instruct G with God’s word/law, I instead started to talk more about how God’s word continually moves ME to change my OWN lifestyle.

Again, I apologize for the book I just wrote here… But I saw this last night and have been thinking about it ever since, and this is what I feel God has put on my heart to respond. I hope it helps. I will continue in prayer for you both with this in mind!