Girl Talk

For you ladies, there’s a good blog out there called “Girl Talk” that you ought to check out.  It’s authored by the four main women in CJ Mahaney’s life — his wife and his three married daughters. Here’s Carolyn Mahaney’s lowdown on the most recent series of posts:

“Over the next several days, each of the girls [the Mahaney daughters] will recount her personal journey of falling in love with the man who is now her husband… But first we thought it would be helpful to talk briefly about courtship; specifically, I want to answer the question of what we taught our daughters to look for in a husband…”

Be sure to check out the “Categories” list on the left side of their blog.  There you can quickly find topics that you’d like to hear their thoughts on.

My generation desperately needs young women to think biblically in all areas of life, and one of the most difficult areas for women to do that in is relationships.  So go enjoy some good, sanctified Girl Talk.

Be Careful Who You Believe

Be careful who you believe.  As the waters recede in New Orleans, people are beginning to realize that the media’s reports of the disaster were often far-fetched, exagerrated, and sensationalistic.  Not that the situation wasn’t dire.  It was.  And it is.  But the media is always looking for a story.  If they can’t find one, they’re often more than willing to make one up.  And if they do find one (like they did in New Orleans), they’ll be sure to amp it up expontentially so that the relentless titles “Headline News” and “Breaking Story” and “This Just In” will actually have some bite behind their bark.

I’m not trying to make light of the situation in New Orleans.  It was horrific, no doubt.  And the distress has just begun.  But there is definitely a point to be made here about the media, and a practical application for us.  Being sensationalistic in your coverage of even the most heart-wrenching of disasters is unacceptable.  And those of us who are exposed to this sort of coverage must be careful not to absorb the sort of flamboyancy that goes over-and-beyond the truth in order to make a buck, draw a tear, earn a rating, gain more viewers, get a laugh, or have the fleshly satisfaction of having heard or passed along a rumor.  It’s really easy to do.

Be careful how you read.  Be careful who you believe.  Take care how you tell stories.  Be pointed.  Be precise.  Be accurate.  Take care that you tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  Let reality speak for itself instead of touching it up.  Integrity matters.

Blessed Are the Pure in Heart

My friend Dan Watson, a fellow Okie (an “Okie” being someone from Oklahoma), has written a great post on the second half of Matthew 5:8: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”  Seeing God is the blessedness of the pure in heart, and it is therefore the motivation for pursuing heart-purity.

Dan wrote:

“If the heart is all about desires (think John Piper and “Christian Hedonism”) then the deepest desire defines identity. Identity defines lifestyle. So desiring to see God most deeply is the orientation that produces a pure heart (and, conversely, impurity in the heart is evidence of an insufficient or nonexistent desire to see God).”

You might want to read that twice.

This is huge.  Pleasures fuel priorities, and priorities drive pursuits.  It’s so easy to reverse this.  I do it every day of my life.  It’s so easy to think that what you externally pursue is what defines you.  To some extent, this is true.  “You will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:20).  But from another angle, it’s not true.  What you externally pursue is not what ultimately defines you.  You can be a whitewashed tomb with dead men’s bones inside (Matthew 23:27).  Your outside can be clean (good-looking pursuits) while your inside is scum and filth (selfish pleasures).

Rather, what you delight in defines you.  What you love is who you are.  Your deepest affections are your identity.  I can’t just say, “Once I re-prioritize the practical details of my life, I’ll really walk with God.”  What I have to do is re-orient my pleasures.  I have to cultivate God-centered and Christ-saturated desires and loves and hates and fears and hopes and affections.  Re-prioritization will flow from my re-pleasured heart.  And these new (or at least refreshed) pleasures and priorities will compel me to practically pursue different things.

Practically, this is important because you can’t really grow in Christlikeness if you’re not cultivating a pure, Christlike heart.  You can read your Bible more, you can go to church regularly, you can not cuss and not watch bad movies, but unless your heart is being purified, you won’t be being purified, no matter how good you may look on the outside.

The point is not to deemphasize external obedience.  The point is that the internal desires of your heart are what drive you to do what you do.  And even your most holy external actions can be merely an attempt to whitewash the pitch-black color of your heart.

So how do you know what your desires really are?  You have to examine yourself in the pure mirror of God’s Word and with a hair-trigger sensitivity to His Spirit’s conviction.  I can’t overemphasize to myself and to you the necessity of biblical self-examination.  Its neglect has left many “Christian” moralists in hell (Matthew 7:21-23), and its practice has led many children of God to full assurance and confidence (1 John 5:13-15).

A. W. Tozer once gave seven “Rules for Self-Discovery.”  They are ways to know yourself.  This list (with Tozer’s explanations) is pinned to the bulletin board in my study, three feet to my right as I type.  Tozer says that we can know ourselves — who we truly are — by:

1. What we want most.
2. What we think about most.
3. How we use our money.
4. What we do with our leisure time.
5. The company we enjoy.
6. Whom and what we admire.
7. What we laugh at.

After reading those “rules,” if you’re not alarmed at the ease with which you can be self-deceived, you probably didn’t read them closely enough.  Or you read them without thinking.  Or your concept of self-examination is lacking. 

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”  If I really want to see God, I will pursue heart-purity with every fiber of my being.  Not because I have to earn God’s favor — Christ did that for me in life and in death — but because I want to see God’s face.  How blessed are the pure in heart!

“Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be.  We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.  And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure” (1 John 3:2-3).

Towards Good Habits: A Meditation on Learning to Floss

A few years ago, my dentist discovered my first two cavities.  They’re very small, and they’re symmetrical — they’re located in the exact same tooth in opposite sides of my mouth.  I tend towards perfectionism (in things of my choosing — that’s how perfectionism works), so I had been faithful to brush my teeth throughout my growing-up years.  But I had never flossed.  My dentist told me that these two small cavities on the sides of these two particular teeth could never have been prevented by brushing.  Only flossing.  So he told me to begin flossing.  And I did.

I decided to floss at night, because that’s the one time I consistently brush my teeth.  Initially, I had to discipline myself to do it because I was always tired and just wanted to get in bed and fall asleep.  But I persevered, motivated by the desire to not have any more cavities and to maintain the dental health that God’s given me.  Not to mention stewardship of the money that, if not put into dental work, can be used to bless and provide for others.

Now it’s been a good 4-5 years since I started flossing.  Sometimes I still don’t feel like doing it.  But I always do.  I’ve probably not flossed about ten times in the last five years.  It’s simply a habit now.  I’m efficient at it, and it’s a normal, expected part of my life.

Now, those of you who know me know that this post is not about flossing.  Not in the least.  Rather, I firmly believe that God provides massive lessons, analogies, metaphors, and inspirations in the smallest things in life.  He provokes our thinking.  He humbles us.  He teaches us.  He draws pictures and gives object lessons.  He shows us how disciplined we can be in such an eternally insignificant thing like flossing while neglecting the weightier matters of spiritual discipline.  Oh, how I want eyes to see these lessons, a heart to learn them, and a will to apply them!

Habits are hard to form, especially at the beginning.  But they’re essential.  You have to set patterns in your life.  It’s actually impossible not to.  Everyone thinks and chooses and lives in patterns.  It just depends what those patterns are and what values and priorities drive them.  It took me awhile to form a habit — a pattern — of flossing.  But because I knew it was valuable, I did.  How much more then should I seek to cultivate non-negotiable spiritual habits in my soul and in my everyday life?

I’m not talking about mindless habits like thoughtlessly “saying grace” before meals (I think it’s good to pause, reflect, and give thanks for your meals; you just shouldn’t do it mindlessly).  I’m also not talking about heartless habits like coldly reading your Bible every morning (I think it’s healthy to saturate your soul with Scripture in the morning; you just shouldn’t do it heartlessly).  I’m talking about calculated, heartfelt, willful patterns of life that flow from a consistent spiritual walk.  Like cheerfully setting aside money each week to give to your local church.  Like carefully consecrating times during each week for solitary prayer.  Like tenaciously regimenting a Saturday night bedtime that you get used to following so that the battle for alertness on Sunday morning is lessened.

The fact that I now floss every night is encouraging to me as I consider what habits I currently want to continue, cultivate, or start.  It’s encouraging to me because I know that patterns of life can be set, no matter how hard they seem.  Yes, there is a massive difference between things like consistent flossing on the one hand and diligent Bible memorization on the other.  My flesh and the devil don’t oppose flossing with nearly the intensity with which they battle against my pursuit of having the Word of Christ dwell richly within me.  Nevertheless, both are habits that take labor to form but are possible to form.

I have no doubt that every single person who reads this post can think of habits that he or she would like to develop.  I am also certain that you’ve already tried to form many godly habits before, staggering along and finally falling with a discouraging sigh.  I sure have.  My encouragement to you is:  Get back up.  Ask God to revive your heart, resolve again in your soul to develop godly patterns of thinking and living, ask brothers and sisters in Christ to pray for you and encourage you, decide exactly what God would have your brand new or refreshed habits to be, and start hiking again.  And all with a determination not to let the next month pass without toiling at the sweaty, bloody work of biblical habit-building.

Remember, there was a time when all you could do was lie flat on your back.  Then you grew to be able to roll around a bit.  Your parents were mortified but excited when you finally figured out how to roll over, because they knew they couldn’t leave you alone on the bed for five minutes anymore.  Hands and knees were next, and soon you were crawling.  You had made it a long way at this point, but you weren’t nearly up to your full potential.  Standing was a massive accomplishment, even though you had to hold onto the big people (or the couch cushion or the coffee table).  Then you took your first step.  Next, the training wheels came off (i.e., your mom let go of you when you took steps).  You fell down a lot, but you knew you were learning, and you wouldn’t dare give up.  Walking was just too valuable to you.

That was a long, long time ago.  Now you don’t even think about walking.  You’re not shaky and unstable.  You cruise.  You go up stairs two at a time when you’re excited.  You go jogging for exercise.  You can sprint if you’re in a competition.  You can put wheels on your feet and skate if you feel like it.  Walking on your hands wouldn’t be that hard if you worked at it a bit.

Being good at walking was worth the years and years of hard work.  At least I think it was.  And if so, walking a consistent, enduring, blameless walk of faith is monumentally more worthwhile.  Does it take work?  Of course.  Everything worthwhile does.  And usually, the more valuable, the more work.  But the Christian life is not a Caribbean cruise.  It’s a death-march.  Get used to dying every day as you seek to live righteously and godly and consistently in this evil age.  Your own strong-willed heart will fight you.  The devil will attack you.  But you can learn to walk, and you can learn to run.  Set a Scripture memorization schedule and keep to it.  Set three academic study-times during the week and guard them.  Decide to be habitually early to your appointments.  Consecrate times for family devotions.  In whatever area God has for you to cultivate today, start today.  Continue today.  Press on today. 

Set a course.  Set a pattern.  Set a pace.