Christian Living

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You truly cannot judge a book by its cover or its title. In John Ensor’s book, Doing Things Right in Matters of the Heart, I would suggest that neither the cover nor the title do justice to this outstanding book. Neither does the title fully relay its critical contents. Based upon the title, I assumed that this book was another nouthetic counseling book about the heart. Instead, I found a profoundly well-written “heart surgery” book on the roles of men and women as it relates to real life, both before marriage and in marriage. In his book, Ensor declares that his objective “is to provide a winsomely radical alternative to the prevailing ideas, almost absolute doctrines, that guide our current thinking about manhood and womanhood and define our actions and expectations when pursuing matters of the heart.” (p. 15). In a footnote, he likens his book to a user-friendly, basic version of Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood by Piper and Grudem (p. 20).

Ensor approaches this with a somewhat unique background of twenty five years of pastoral counseling, including twelve years as a pastor, and fifteen helping to establish pregnancy help centers in the Boston area, and at the time of publishing, he was helping to start five pregnancy centers in the neediest neighborhoods in Miami. Repeatedly he has seen the results of lives pursuing what the world demanded they pursue, only to come up empty-handed, hurt, diseased, ashamed, broken, and unfulfilled. He is not writing from theory. Ensor’s approach examines Scripture as it clashes with the heart of culture today from a firsthand experience.

In the first section of the book, Ensor attempts “to get to the heart of manhood and womanhood according to the Bible. What does it mean to be a man and not a woman? What is distinctively meaningful about being a woman and not a man? What marks the mature man? What does it mean to be, dare I say, a godly man? What marks the mature and godly woman and makes her attractive and fulfilled? How do we complement and fit together?” (p. 20-21) He offers that our culture’s “forced upon” solution to its underlying thirst is precisely opposite to what the Creator actually designed. Further, what the Creator designed is ultimately what the world craves after its solutions leave it broken and shattered.

Reprinted with permission from Dan Miller’s book Spiritual Reflections. First posted at SharperIron Nov. 26, 2008.

My foibles as a father are numerous and varied. My intuitive responses to the rapid-fire ordeal of parental decision-making routinely unveil my native blockheadedness.

With this disclaimer firmly staked, I nonetheless testify to the remarkable benefit I gain from imitating my heavenly Father’s example as He nurtures His children. I am discovering that such imitation provides not only wisdom for parenting, but also becomes itself a means by which to better understand my Father.

For instance, by following God as parental exemplar, I am learning that skillful parenting occasionally commends the discipline of choosing our children’s pain over their pleasure. Living in an affluent, fun-at-any-cost culture, our default modus operandi as parents is to remove every pain as quickly as possible, or at least to reduce it as far as is feasible. But I find that God’s parental instincts flow much deeper and commend to us the capacity of permitting our children to suffer for their good (2 Cor. 1:3-9; 12:1-10; Heb. 12:4-13).

To illustrate, I once picked up my eight-year-old son from school over the lunch hour for a special father-son excursion to a local sporting goods store. I purchased a junior size basketball for him, and we dribbled and bounce-passed the new ball on the sidewalk in front of the store for several minutes (just to make sure it worked, of course) before I took him back to school. From that day forward, my son and that ball were virtually inseparable partners.

If you are a typical, suburban American, you ride a wooden horse on the “consumer carousel.” And on this economic joy-ride, there is a place where we grip the pole with our left hand and reach out with our right to grasp a brass ring. Then, as our painted horse proceeds in a lazy circle to the accompaniment of festive music, we get another chance to grab another ring. And on this particular ride, the rings get bigger and better with each pass.

On our first circuit we sign a lease on a modest apartment. The carousel slowly turns and with great excitement we return to the ring post and hook a starter home. On the next pass, we hope to grasp a bigger house in a better location.

On round one we dine at McDonalds and Dairy Queen. But as the carousel completes another revolution, we upgrade to Red Lobster and Olive Garden. On the next round we reach for a yet bigger and better brass ring, hoping to dine at exclusive restaurants with story-book names, opulent décor and white-capped chefs.

On our first pass we secure a used car. On the next round we get something “more reliable.” Another pass or two and we are reaching for that car or truck (or tank) of our dreams.

Life on the consumer carousel is all about upgrading. Each circuitous pass provides fresh opportunity to secure a bigger and/or better replacement of what we already have. Bigger and better shelter, higher quality food, more expensive clothes, better transportation, entertainment, appliances, furnishings, vacations, and on and on it goes.

Economic conditions among suburbanites in this country vary considerably. But we all have a horse on this ride. Admit it, there is something right now that you are hoping to replace with something more costly in the near future.

We are into the thick of the baseball season; teams compete in their divisions. Some will meet expectations, some will exceed them, while others will disappoint. We are used to competition in sports, business, and even regarding military preparedness.

We rarely think of virtues as competing with one another; instead, we prefer to think of them as complementing one another. Paul lists the three great virtues, “faith, hope and love” in 1 Corinthians 13:13, yet he informs us that “love” is the greatest of the three. This does not mean that faith, hope, and love are mutually exclusive. They work together.

Two books of the Bible are devoted to the virtue of wisdom: Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. How can anyone underestimate the importance of wisdom in light of this? The fruit of the Spirit (Gal.5:22-23) and the armor of God (Eph. 6:14-18) are two more examples of the many “virtue lists” found in God’s Word.

With all these virtue lists floating around, we can end up dizzy. What do I pursue: love, faith, holiness, graciousness, zeal, knowledge, joy, peace, goodness, gentleness, or self-control? The answer is “yes.” These attributes are complementary, but they can be examined individually. After examining them, we need to integrate them into the whole package of who we are. In a sense, being a balanced Christian means being a complete Christian; we attain balance by including all these virtues and excluding none. None of us attains this perfect balance; indeed, we probably cannot even agree as to what that perfect balance should be.