In step

[RiverOL]

[td] Building New Gauges​ ​ ​

[td] Do not be conformed to this world—Romans 12:2​ ​ ​

[td] We men love to measure things. And we have, at our disposal, highly accurate gauges for measuring just about anything, including the progress of our lives. I mean, we never have to wonder which careers are most prestigious; which jobs are most coveted; which neighborhoods are most exclusive; which vacations are most glamorous; which cars are most luxurious. Our culture makes sure its gauges remain well calibrated. “Listen carefully . . . and be wary of the shrewd advice that tells you how to get ahead in the world . . .” (Mark 4:24 MSG). The problem is, such things are not proper for measuring the progress of any life. There’s nothing wrong with careers or communities or cars, in-and-of themselves. They’re just not appropriate gauges in this context. Using them is like using a thermometer to measure the weight of a steel beam. It doesn’t work. Likewise, improper gauges won’t work for us, for measuring our lives as men. We must create and calibrate new gauges, ones that can properly measure our lives, because they measure the right stuff—like how we’re doing as husbands, as fathers, as friends, as neighbors; and how we’re doing toward becoming the men God intends us to become.​ ​ ​

[td] Okay, so what do we do? Build new gauges for yourself, brother, ones that measure things like . . . how many nights you are home for dinner; or how often you sit down and pray with your wife or girlfriend; or how often you have conversations with your sons or daughters about their dreams or their fears; or how often you meet with brothers in community; or how often you drop what you’re doing to spend time with friends in need. Get practical. Build a simple spreadsheet, for example. Or create a calendar. Do what makes sense for you, but start measuring, today.​ ​ ​

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[RiverOL]

What Does Reproach Mean? A Biblical Definition of Reproach and Above Reproach​

What does the word reproach mean when used in the biblical context and what is the biblical definition of reproach?

Reproach is…​

Someone who is above reproach is said to be not deserving of blame or criticism for something they said or did but someone who is being reproached is someone who has received criticism, disproval, or disappointed others that is justified by their actions. In other words, they have done things or something that deserved condemnation and rebuke or blame. The biblical definition of the word reproach is not unlike the secular definition as we shall see.

The Reproach of Childlessness​

When Jacob’s wife Rachael couldn’t conceive children, she became a reproach to those who knew her. In the Jewish culture, to be childless was thought to be under a curse from God Who alone opens the womb. This was a very difficult thing to endure but “Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb. She conceived and bore a son and said, “God has taken away my reproach.” And she called his name Joseph, saying, “May the Lord add to me another son” (Gen 30:22-24). Joseph’s name means to “may he add” but in the Hebrew sounds like “take away.” In the New Testament, Elizabeth in her later years conceived a child and would be called John the Baptist and she declared “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people” (Luke 1:25).

The Reproach of Israel​

When the Philistine’s Goliath was hurling insults at Israel and against God, David was outraged and so David asked “What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God” (1st Sam 17:26). The same type of reproach was endured, unjustly, by Job who’s friends had turned on him after first coming to console him in his afflictions so Job said “These ten times you have cast reproach upon me; are you not ashamed to wrong me” (Job 19:3) and Job concluded, “I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go; my heart does not reproach me for any of my days” (Job 17:6).

Sin as a Reproach​

The psalmist asked the question “Who can dwell on your holy hill” (Psalm 15:1) and that would be he or she “who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend” (Psalm 15:3). The fact is that “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Prov 14:34) and “He who does violence to his father and chases away his mother is a son who brings shame and reproach” (Prov 19:36). In Psalm 69, which is a Messianic psalm, the psalmist writes “For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me” (Psalm 69:9) which was fulfilled when Jesus cleansed the temple of the unrighteous money changers (John 2:17).

Reproached by God​

When God disciplined Judah for her idolatry, Jeremiah wrote as God speaking, “And I will bring upon you everlasting reproach and perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten” (Jer 23:40) and “I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a reproach, a byword, a taunt, and a curse in all the places where I shall drive them” (Jer 23:40) and because of their idolatry God says “I will pursue them with sword, famine, and pestilence, and will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, a terror, a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them” (Jer 29:18) but someday God “will gather those of you who mourn for the festival, so that you will no longer suffer reproach” (Zeph 3:18). The purpose of making Israel a reproach was that they would repent and turn again to Him.

Being Above Reproach​

Among the qualifications of being a deacon, elder, or pastor, is that the man must be living a life above reproach or be living a blameless life. In Paul’s writing to Timothy about the qualifications for being an elder he wrote “if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination” (Titus 1:6) because “an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain” (Titus 1:7). Paul writes much the same thing to Timothy as he said that “an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach” (1st Tim 3:2).

The Reproach of Christ​

Believers suffer the reproach of non-believers as the author of Hebrews wrote that they were “sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated” (Heb 10:33) but we should think about Moses who “considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward” (Heb 11:26) so just as Christ endured reproach for our sake, “let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured” (Heb 13:13).

Conclusion​

To live a life that is free from reproach, a believer must live a holy life and a life that when others accuse them, will have no substantial evidence that the man or woman of God is living in sin and bringing shame to the cause of Christ. To be a reproach for Christ is good but to be a reproach for living a lifestyle that justifies that accusation is not.

 

[RiverOL]

7 Signs That You Need Better Boundaries in Relationships​

After years of helping clients with boundary issues, I began researching the topic to gain clarity and information. Many of my clients need assistance in setting clearer boundaries in relationships. They complain that they often give too much to others, feel depleted, and have trouble saying “no” to others.

For example, Felicia, 44, often spends endless hours running errands for her mother, Suzanne, age 80. Even if she has work to do, or is feeling tired or overwhelmed, Felicia will agree to pick up groceries for her mother, or spend time talking with her about her medical issues.

While it’s important to care for others, the way Felicia does for Suz, we all need to practice self-care and learn to set healthy boundaries so we don’t become exhausted.

An expert on boundaries, therapist Nedra Glover Tawwab, took to social media to spread the word about her observations and solutions. Her post “Signs That You Need Boundaries” clearly struck a chord with her followers, but reached an even larger audience when the post went viral.

These are the Glover Tawwab’s Seven Signs that You Need Better Boundaries:

• You feel overwhelmed.
• You feel resentment toward people for asking for your help.
• You avoid phone calls and interactions with people you think might ask for something.
• You make comments about helping people and getting nothing in return.
• You feel burned out.
• You frequently daydream about dropping everything and disappearing.
• You have no time for yourself.

In processing the “overwhelming response,” Glover Tawwab wrote that her “posts online show me how much people relate to the need for boundaries.” Indeed, she had tapped into a relatable dynamic in the lives of so many people and couples, and her pragmatic, straightforward approach led her to host weekly Q&As on Instagram where she is able to interact directly with a wide audience.

The response to her posts seemed to give a sort of permission to people looking to unpack and understand their boundary issues in a new, healthy and constructive way. Moreover, it unlocked the power of recognizing our shared experiences, demonstrating how much we can learn about ourselves by learning about others.

Glover Tawwab presented boundary issues in approachable terms, highlighting the fact that we all have “triumphs and fails” in our journey toward building and sustaining healthy relationships. She discussed the difficulties and risks in setting limits in our lives, but successfully reframed those scary hurdles by focusing on the positive impact of setting boundaries.


Her philosophy is simple and gives people the tools and perspective to view the practice of setting boundaries in a positive light. While establishing healthy boundaries might be uncomfortable — even painful — at first, Glover Tawwab provided clarity around the end result, showing her followers the light at the end of the tunnel.

Being mindful of effective and honest communication, self-evaluation, and the realities of taking action on setting boundaries both big and small, Glover Tawwab provided a sort of checklist to recognize boundary issues (“You feel overwhelmed,” or “You feel resentment toward people asking for your help,” for example).

But in addition to helping her followers recognize the telltale signs of boundary issues, Glover Tawwab also broke down the ways in which the setting of boundaries is easier to achieve. Ultimately, when writing recently about her Instagram experience on Maria Shriver’s website, this seasoned therapist put this all-too-common problem in perspective: “People don’t know what you want. It’s your job to make it clear. Clarity saves relationships.”

As with her philosophy and strategies for helping patients, clarity indeed rules the day. In the end, Glover Tawwab distills the hope that we all need in the emotionally wrought and often challenging process of setting boundaries, writing that “the more you do it, the easier it gets — especially when you experience the peace of mind that follows.”


Working with individuals with boundary issues, my take away from Glover Tawwab’s valuable insights is that becoming clearer about our own boundary issues is the first step in change and that for many people it’s a life long journey that’s worth the effort.

 

[RiverOL]

Exhaustion: Rest for What Wearies Me​

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.

Psalm 62: 5

“One of life’s little ironies is that some of our hardest times are when our dreams actually do come true.”

Nothing compares to a sleepless night. Unless, of course, you string together a whole bunch of sleepless nights together right in a row, then you experience not only physical exhaustion but a special brand of craziness too. I’ve been there in the not so distant past and my memory of those months when I couldn’t sleep about drove me crazy.

Looking back, it was the perfect storm of events that took me to my knees hour by hour in complete and overwhelming exhaustion. If it wasn’t one (or both) of my loose shoulders paining me through those dim hours, it was the continual onslaught of hot flashes that stirred me out of sleep with a sudden and violent pounding in my heart that momentarily preceded an inside-out drenching. Hour after hour, I would wake up and have a difficult time going back to sleep. After a few months of this nonsense, I began hating bedtime. This is saying a lot since one of my favorite comforts in life has been to get a good night’s sleep.

Exhaustion Breeds Desperation​

I tried everything I could find to counteract the combination of pain and the hot flashes. Nothing worked. I cried out to God to please send me someone or something to help me because I was out of solutions and feeling more desperate as the days went by. In the midst of my delirium I learned to never, ever take God’s promised provision for granted. It just didn’t come packaged as I had hoped.

I also learned to never say never when no amount of exercise, eating plans, vitamin regimes, or holistic solutions worked and I was forced into a corner with few options left except pharmaceutical ones. My physician offered me a short stint on HRT (hormone replacement therapy) and though kicking and screaming, I agreed to try it. Immediately, my quality of life increased one hundred fold. Sleeplessness was a thing of the past but I was forced to accept the hard truth that when I ask for God’s help, He has the prerogative in how to supply my need. Sometimes, I truly believe He allows us to get real uncomfortable so we can hear Him better. And, so that we’re reminded God is the creator, sustainer, and life-giver.

God Alone Is In Control​

We all like to believe we’re in control of our lives. We love to mentally tabulate that what we’ve achieved is all a result of our own doing. For sure, it’s our blood, sweat and tears that got us the job, house, spouse, friends, or vacation. As Americans, we’ve got the corner on independence. But it’s not true.


Every single one of us is where we are in life because of God’s good gifts of specific talents, bents, abilities, and blessings. If we’re born with superior intelligence, thank God. If we’re born with physical strength and stamina, thank God. If we’re born into a family with parents who love us, thank God. Still, we often forget that who we are and what we accomplish is always sustained by our Heavenly Father.

Trouble Comes Packaged In Different Ways​

We like to believe that if we take good enough care of our bodies, our minds, our souls, then God will pave a smooth path in front of us. This isn’t what Scripture teaches. In fact, over and over, Jesus tells us we will have trouble (lots of it) in this life. The Good News is that Jesus has overcome this world and all its troubles. Once we accept that all our doing the right things onto exhaustion won’t inoculate us from the world’s pain (physical, emotional, mental) we can learn to rest from that which wearies us.

Throughout those tedious months of long sleepless nights, I begged the Lord to allow me one good night’s sleep. For months on end, that prayer went unanswered (from my human perspective.) In the worst moments of my exhaustion when it was hard to concentrate and speak a coherent sentence, I felt my humanity, my frailty, and my weakness more keenly than ever before. And I learned something during those dark hours when everyone else was slumbering sweetly, I realized how much I count on God for every breath I take. In and out, in and out, it’s all Him. It always was, I just hadn’t realized that truth yet.

Real Rest Comes From God Alone​

All our laboring is in vain, it is. He wants to give us rest. Regular daily (and nightly) rest to recharge and rejuvenate our bodies, our minds, our souls. It is one of life’s ironies that often when we believe everything is going our way, we are in reality, struggling more mightily than ever. The lesson I know to be true is this, God governs our days and nights and whether we work or we sleep, He longs to give us rest from whatever wearies us. Our choice is to come into His quiet presence long enough to hear Him speak.

 

[RiverOL]

[td] Restoring Connections​ ​ ​

[td] . . . build up the ancient ruins . . . repair the ruined cities—Isaiah 61:4​ ​ ​

[td] Three relationships broke when man fell, so long ago: the relationship between man and God, the relationship between man and himself, and the relationship between man and other men (and women). Our jobs now, brother, are to repair and rebuild those relationships, in our own unique ways, as much as we can during our lifetimes . . . and to encourage and assist others in doing likewise. Our King, Jesus Christ, gave us our instructions—love "God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" and love "your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:37-39). His two-part directive covers all three relationships: love God more than anything else; love yourself sufficiently; and love other people at least as much as you love yourself. It’s all there. So how do we begin? Well, we restore relationships with God when we soften our hearts, decide to trust him more than we trust ourselves, and bend ourselves toward obedience. We restore relationships with ourselves when we soften our hearts and decide to care for ourselves as God intends, finally dealing with self-condemnation or idolatry or addiction (to work, to food, to alcohol, to pornography, or anything else). And, we restore relationships with others when we soften our hearts, decide to look around for people who need us, and bend our lives toward loving and serving and forgiving them.​ ​ ​

[td] Okay, so what do we do? Take a moment to survey your life. Which type of relationship is most broken? If none is obvious, take time for listening prayer. Ask your counselor, God the Holy Spirit, to guide you. Once you’ve focused-in on what’s most in need of rebuilding, what’s most in need of repair, you’ve got your own, individualized blueprint for "what’s next." Begin working on it this week. Start with something practical.​ ​ ​

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[RiverOL]

Pursuing God | Tenacity in Seeking Blessing​

Then there are the times I need to chase down my blessing.

And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.
Genesis 32.26

This form of the word bless is a root word meaning to bless, sometimes to kneel. It is a common term, used over 300 times in the Hebrew Bible alone.

giving God freedom for blessing​

Jacob is asking the man (divine being) to bless him. He isn’t asking for a specific blessing. Perhaps there are more blessings available to me if I don’t ask specifically for what I want at any given moment.

Now I can almost hear our Lord at times say, “You keep asking for that because that is what you think you need, but I am waiting to give you this over here.”

I often ask amiss.

I often ask the wrong question.


Sometimes I need to give my question to God and ask Him if I can ask the right question.

There are some who are always asking the wrong questions.

Name it and claim it!

Blab it and grab it!

They use their words to try to manifest specific blessings.

Their questions are often wrong. Just because they ask God for something specific does not mean God intends that something specifically for them.

Jacob asks the right question. He does not ask for a specific blessing. He knows who he is wrestling with. Any blessing will be the right blessing. He is giving God the freedom to bless.

pursuing the Spirit for blessing​

Jacob is not specific in what he asks. Jacob is specific in what he does.

And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.
Genesis 32.24


Chasing a blessing is hard. Jacob had to leave everybody behind, or actually put everybody in front of him.

Sometimes I have to leave the comfort I am used to. My religion lines up with my way of thinking. Sometimes I have to get out of line because the blessing is not tied to my line. I have to chase it at the expense of leaving those I am comfortable with. I have to chase it alone.

Sometimes it seems like the blessing dodges and weaves, like it doesn’t want to be caught. But I have to keep my focus because I know it is of God.

Eventually, I catch up with it and tackle it, or wrestle it to the ground like Jacob.

There is a pursuit of God at times.

holding on​

Once I have apprehended that for which I am apprehended…

Once I have caught up with what God is doing in my life…

And once I have entered that space where it is clearly me and the Spirit…

I simply do not want to let go!

I want to hold on until I receive the blessing I am seeking, whatever that blessing may be.


It doesn’t happen this way every time, but it does happen enough.

Jacob could have wrestled with a Theophany.

I often do not know what I am holding onto. I might be surprised when the Spirit becomes the aggressor.

The divine man spoke a blessing over Jacob, changing his name to Israel. This was a shift in identity.

Maybe the Spirit wants to shift some things around in my life. Maybe the Spirit wants to do some work on my very identity.

Like Jacob, I do not know what the blessing is.

Like Jacob I hold on until I receive the blessing.

 

[RiverOL]

[td] Who Are Your Heroes?​ ​ ​

[td] Worship the Lord your God, and only him. Serve him with absolute single-heartedness—Matthew 4:10​ ​ ​

[td] We men like heroes. We like to look upward. We start early, as boys, looking up to men and women who do amazing things on grass and turf and hardwood and ice. As we get older, we shift our “looking up” to those who do amazing things in classrooms, board rooms, laboratories, legislatures . . . to those who speak and create and negotiate, to those who research and discover and write. There’s nothing wrong with honoring and admiring other people. Something is wrong, though, when honoring or admiration becomes worship—when we devote our lives to becoming just like our heroes. You see, heroic images are false. They are false because they’re incomplete. Heroic images portray the good and obscure the bad. We think, “he’s got it together”—“great job, great wife, great bank account, great house” . . . “must be nice.” What we don’t see is what’s broken. Something always is: “For we all stumble in many ways” (James 3:2). Maybe it’s what was sacrificed in order to achieve the heroic image. Not realizing we’re misled, though, we decide to chase their images, to model our lives after theirs. Not realizing we’re misled, we end up imitating their brokenness. When we worship heroes, we do like the ancient pagans who “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25). The truth is, no person, past or present, is worthy of our worship . . . except one.​ ​ ​

[td] Okay, so what do we do? Who are your heroes? Have you ever walked the line between admiration and hero worship? Have you ever held another (broken) person in too high esteem? If you’ve crossed that line, simply confess it to God in prayer. And commit to worshiping no man but our worthy King, Jesus Christ.​ ​ ​

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