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Readers of our newsletter probably believe we get together with Mikal and say "We're planning an issue on X subject. Could you write on Y aspect of the subject while we address Z." It doesn't happen that way. We've never assigned Mikal a topic and yet when she send us her copy it looks like we did. This month both feature articles touch on the subject of self-centeredness.

As I read over Mikal's essay, by attention was drawn to The Screwtape Letters. Screwtape, who is the demonic mentor to his nephew Wormwood offers this commentary on human nature. "Men are not angered by mere misfortune, but by misfortune conceived as injury. And the sense of injury depends on the feeling that a legitimate claim has been denied." Mikal agrees and exposes that demonic plot against us.

Norman

Is there any hope for Phil and Nancy? They've been married for fifteen years. They have two children, Erica and Matthew. Phil has been steadily moving up the ladder in a small engineering firm, while Nancy has works as a physical therapist. They are both active in church work. Phil heads up the building and grounds ministry, and Nancy teaches a children's Sunday school class. On the surface their relationship appears to be stable to all their church friends.

Unfortunately, their friends only see the surface. Their marriage relationship has been deteriorating over a period of several years. When Phil and Nancy try to talk about their problems, the conversation usually degenerates into name-calling, accusations, exaggerated rhetoric, and language that would shock their church friends. They both tend to be self-centered, materialistic, and unwilling to compromise or forgive. When they clash, its as if an irresistible force has collided with an irresistible object. They do agree on one thing, however. Their marriage is going nowhere. The only thread that holds it together is their mutual concern for Erica and Matthew. At times they think Erica and Matthew would be better of if they were not exposed to the constant bickering of their parents. Lately, they've been looking through the yellow pages to find the names of divorce lawyers. Phil and Nancy aren't real people. They exist only in our imagination, but their story is not unusual in today's world.

If Phil and Nancy came to us, we would probably recommend that they see a therapist. We know a number of qualified therapists whose values we respect. They will work hard to save Phil and Nancy's marriage. But is that enough?

An increasing body of evidence suggests that it is not. According to Susan Gilbert, "Two years after ending counseling studies find that 25 percent of couples are worse off than they were when they started, and after four years, up to 38 percent are divorced" (New York Times Science Section. April 19, 2005). Unfortunately, she did not cite her source. Furthermore nothing is said about the quality of the counseling, which varies greatly from one therapist to another. For the sake of argument, however, let's suppose she's right.

Her numbers may be off, but her thesis is probably correct. Several factors work against couples therapy.

• incompetent counselors. Sometimes therapists have more problems than the people they are trying to help. A license to counsel does not guarantee competence.

• waiting too long to seek help. The best therapist in the world may not be able to help Phil and Nancy. Over a period of years the web of conflict becomes to tangled that some couples cannot break free from it.

• refusing to cooperate. It doesn't do any good to seek the advice of a medical doctor if you're not going to take the medicine he prescribes. A good therapist may be able to teach communication skills, but the couple has to use them if their relationship is going to improve.

• limiting assistance to short term needs. Some experts in the therapy field have noticed that couples, who receive counseling, may be helped in the short term only to find their relationship continuing on a downhill slide after a couple of years. This may suggest that counseling doesn't always get to the root of a problem.

We believe that therapy is an important component in bringing about relational healing. However Phil and Nancy's marriage may not survive if they do no more than attend counseling sessions.

Numerous seminars, Sunday school classes, workshops, and marriage communication programs are available. While they lack the advantage of being able to address Phil and Nancy's specific issues, they have the advantage of protecting them from potential embarrassment. Many people want to work on their marriages, but they don't want to "put their problems on the street." Besides that, troubled marriage partners are likely to think they admit failure when they see a therapist. Some think therapists work with crazy people, and who wants to admit they are crazy? Educational approaches provide couples an opportunity to deal with threatening issues in a non-threatening environment. But there's a third component to healing and it's the most important of all.

We need therapists, marriage enrichment opportunities, books, and many other resources, but there is still a missing ingredient. If Phil and Nancy don't include this ingredient in their plans for recovery, they are likely to fail. We are talking about a committed relationship to Jesus.

We are well aware of the fact that churchgoers, and even evangelical Christians have abot the same divorce rate as the general public. Let's make absolutely certain we have a good understanding about what is meant by "a committed relationship to Jesus."

We're NOT Talking about

• church attendance
  
• involvement in church ministries and programs
  
• daily Bible reading
  
• prayers at mealtime and bedtime.
  
• attending church sponsored marriage enrichment programs
  
• legalistic rule keeping

Phil and Nancy's marriage may well spiral downward even though they are both involved in religious activities. They may even argue over which one is the best Christian.

If Phil and Nancy want their marriage to succeed, they must yield themselves to Jesus without any reservations, contingencies, or hesitation. The basic problem in all human relationships is self. That's the genius of the Christian faith. It teaches us to get out of ourselves. The apostle Paul put it this way, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). If Christians experience a divorce rate equal to that of the secular world, we are short sighted if we tell troubled couples, "You just need to 'get back in church, read the Bible and pray.'"

It's sort of like trying to fix a knock in your car's engine. You hear the knock, so you try gasoline with a higher octane rating, or different weight of oil, or maybe one of those miracle engine additives you've seen advertised on television. If you want the car fixed, you're going to have to believe your mechanic when he says, "the main bearing is going out."

Therapy often doesn't get to the "main bearing" of a marriage. Neither does education, nor church involvement, though there is a place for all these things. The basic problem in human relations is buried deep within our souls and nothing short of "I no longer live here" will ever make things better.

One of the problems we face in the Christian community is our inability to know the difference between nominal involvement and total commitment. If Phil and Nancy's crisis lead them to realize their lives have to center in something beside themselves, their crisis will prove to be a beneficial experience. Tim Kimmel suggests, "God does some of his finest work in our worst crises" (Why Christian Kids Rebel. p. 21).

Our failure to take God seriously accounts for many of our problems. Kimmel suggests that the children of Christian parents often rebel because their parents have treated their Christian lives as a hobby. When they are old enough to make decisions on their own, they may or may not choose to take up Mom and Dad's hobby. There's a world of difference in viewing the faith as a hobby, as opposed to viewing it as a passion. If Phil and Nancy continue to treat their faith as a hobby, we don't see much change for the survival of their marriage. If they both view it as a passion, their chances of recovery are actually quite bright.

Satan has fed us such a bill of goods. And we have bought it. Everyday I see people performing behaviors that hurt and devalue others. These people believe they are being powerful and exerting their "rights." They believe that by putting others down, by devaluing others, by winning a fights - physically or otherwise -, by blaming loved ones, they have won. Nothing could be further from the truth. These people have traded a very shallow, fake and frail feeling of power for what they really want. Each of us wants to feel that we are valuable. We want very deep down to KNOW it.

It is from our feeling of being valuable that we can share true compassion. We can have compassion for ourselves and for others. It is from this place of value that we can produce the fruit of the spirit. We must genuinely be in our place of value to be able to do this. Friends, this is for the hard times. Anyone can appear to be at peace when things are going their way. What strength or value does that exhibit? Even Saddam Hussein looked to be full of joy when he was traumatizing others, building his castles and stocking away stolen millions. Things were going his way. Our God-given value and our relationship with Jesus Christ, besides leading us to heaven, are for the tough times here.

We can all produce love and joy and peace during the good times, but it is for the tough times that Jesus wants us to be filled with his spirit. James says in chapter 1, verse 2, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

"Mature and complete, not lacking anything" seems like a definition of value to me. But there are other verses that tell us of our value. 1 Corinthians 6:19,20, tells us we "were bought with a price." That price was the blood of Jesus. Is there anything more precious? No! There is no greater price in heaven or on earth than the one paid for us.

The Holy Spirit dwells within us. Galatians 4: 6,7, tells us that we are children of God, sons of God. And since we are his children God has made us also an heir. Can anyone have more value than that?

When we are truly in our place of value we will be able to submit to others. We will be able to consider their needs before our own. We will harbor no resentment. Such has no place in the heart that knows its value. We will stop our critical and sarcastic natures. We will be ready to forgive at the first sign of an offense. We will be building one another up rather than tearing one another down.

Friends, we cannot devalue another, someone our creator has created, without devaluing ourselves. When we choose to have compassion for another, for one who has hurt us, then we increase in compassion for ourselves.

Recently I heard a well-known religious leader being discussed. The story was told of a woman who came to him who believed she was hearing God speak to her. The one relating the story said that though the religious leader gave no credibility to the woman's story that she was hearing God speak, "He dealt with her with charity." He dealt with her with value.

When you last disagreed with a brother, did that brother leave the disagreement feeling valued by you?

When you last corrected your child, did your child feel valued by you before the correction, during the correction, and after the correction?

When you last disagreed with your spouse, did you do it while also giving your spouse a message of value?

When someone hurt you, did you stop to think that his hurting you was from his pain and from his lack of feeling valuable? Did you confront him with his sin while also giving him a message of value?

Galatians 5:6, states: "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love." That is value.