David Whiting Live

Relationships: A Mess Worth Making - chapter 12

A couple of days ago, I posted a blog saying that EQUIP is THIS Saturday. That was wrong. It is the next Saturday (July 9).  I'm sorry for the confusion.  I typed those posts ahead of a trip I went on and got the dates confused.

Here are some valuable thoughts from chapter 12 on MERCY:

• There is a corollary to Murphy's Law that says, "Everything you decide to do costs more than you first estimated." So it is with ministry. If you have a committment to do more than just survive the people around you, an agenda higher than your own happiness, and a desire to be an instrument in God's hands, you will soon learn that the cost of ministry always exceeds your preliminary calculations. The same is true for mercy.
• A relationship without mercy is a relationship lived outside biblical borders. God clearly calls us to respond to one another out of a heart of mercy. He commands us to extend the same mercy to others that we have received from him. The problem is that mercy is hard.
• As you extend mercy and encounter its heavy cost, you will see how thin your commitment to mercy is and how unmerciful your responses can be. It's very humbling, but a commitment to mercy will reveal your own need for mercy.
• Even while we are basking in God's forgiveness, we find it incredibly difficult to bear with the sin and weakness of others. That's why, in the mirror of mercy, all of us look the same. 
• What makes mercy merciful is a heartfelt compassion that results in some kind of action toward the other person. Mercy is not just something you fell; mercy is something you do. It is a lifestyle, a stance toward others that shapes everything we say and do.
• When you extend mercy, you will begin to see how selfish, impatient, unforgiving, and inconsistent you can be. Mercy will how you how much your own heart still needs the continuing work of the Redeemer.

Relationships: A Mess Worth Making - chapter 10

EQUIP is coming up on Saturday... Are you up to speed? Today, I highlight some parts of chapter 10: HOPE

• Already the power of sin has been broken, but the presence of sin has not yet been eradicated. (p. 108)
• The timetable is in the hands of the sovereign Lord of grace. His timing is always right and he never gets a wrong address. Our job is to learn how to best live in the middle. So we live as broken people who are being repaired, living among neighbors in the same condition, always thankful for what has already been done but ever aware of our need for what we have not yet been given. (p. 109)
• Everyone who lives between the already and the not yet will experience four things:
  • Our relationships will never work according to our plan
  • Our relationships will never live up to our expectations
    • This side of eternity, none of us get to be with the person of our dreams and none of us are ready to be the person of someone else's dreams! We are all flawed people living in fallen world, but with a faithful God. And at some point in every relationship, we are required to accept graciously who the other person is, even as we humbly admit who we are.
  • Our relationships will always grapple with some kind of difficulty
  • Our relationships will always need to improve (pp. 109-110)
• Because our relationships are always lived out in the middle of some kind of difficulty, good relationships demand character. Remember, your relationships have not been designed by God as vehicles for human happiness but as instruments of redemption. (p. 110)

Relationships: A Mess Worth Making - chapter 9

I'm still away on a trip for our 20th anniversary. My brother, Greg, is teaching at Northridge this morning! Enjoy!

Here are some highlights of chapter 9 from "Relationships: A Mess Worth Making"

FORGIVENESS

• When we choose to pratice true forgiveness, the relationship is not just brought back to where it was before the offense; it actually moves farther down the road to maturity. (p. 93)
• Forgiveness is one of the most poorly practiced activities in the Christian community - if it is practiced at all. (p. 93)
• Forgiveness involves canceling a debt. By forfeiting your right to collect, you make at least three promises.
  • You promise that you will not bring up the debt to use it as leverage. When you forgive, you are saying that you will not make the offender pay by reminding him of what he has done in an effort to control him.
  • You promise that you will not bring up the offense to others and slander the person who sinned against you.
  • Finally, you promise not to dwell on the offense yourself. One of the biggest challenges when someone sins against you is to not replay the offense over and over again in your mind. (pp. 95-96)

Relationships: A Mess Worth Making - chapter 8

If you are part of EQUIP - have you gotten to chapter 8 yet?  If not - try to catch up!!  Here are some highlights of that chapter:

• Conflict with others is one of God's mysterious, counterintuitive ways of rescuing us from ourselves. (p. 78)
• It's inevitable. If you live with other sinners, you will have conflict. The closer you are to someone, the more potential there is for conflict. Relationships are costly, but so is avoiding them. If you choose to avoid them, you will minimize the conflict in your life, but that safety has liabilities of its own. If you choose to face conflict head on, it is full of risks and th epotential for great hurt, but it can also be redemptive. (p. 79)
• God wants to make us more like Christ and he wants to use others to make that happen. (p. 80)

Relationships: A Mess Worth Making - chapter 7

TALK - A summary of chapter 7 (for those reading the book for EQUIP):

• Because our communication largely takes place in the inconsequential moments of everyday life, it is easy to underestimate its significance. The moments are rare when what you say will literally be life changing. What sets the course of a person's life are the ways he responds to the little moments. The character developed in a thousand little moments is what you carry into the big, important moments. (p. 69)
• Because our talk lives in the world of the ordinary, it is easy to forget its true significance. It is easy to forget the impact our words have on every relationship. (p. 70)
• "Words kill, words give life; they're either poison or fruit - you choose." - Eugene Peterson (p. 71)
• Here is the point: Your words are always in pursuit of some kind of kingdom. You are either speaking as a mini-king, seeking to establish your will in your relationships and circumstances, or you are speaking as an ambassador, seeking to be part of what the King is doing. There is no end to the battle of words when two mini-kings talk to each other. (p. 73)

Relationships: A Mess Worth Making - chapter 6

I am taking a few days to summarize some of the chapters from the next EQUIP book. I hope it helps you stay on track and to see some of the themes and best quotes of the chapters.

CHAPTER 6 - WORSHIP

• Struggle in relationships is everyone's story. None of us has ever had a relationship completely free of struggle. All of us have had moments when we were discouraged by the effort a good relationship requires. Each of us has dreamed that those relationships would magically become easier. (p. 55)
• All of us have allowed inconsequential actions and habits ot get under our skin and argued for a personal preference as if it were a moral absolute. And each of us has tried to be the Holy Spirit in another person's life, trying to work spiritual changes that only God can accomplish. (p. 55)
• What we are getting at is that, because you are a human being, there is always something you are living for; always some desire, goal, treasure, purpose, value, or craving that controls your heart. The Bible reminds us that God wants - and deserves - to be the defining center of both these things. (p. 56)
• When I live out of a biblical sense of who I am (identity) and rest in who God is (worship), I will be able to build a healthy relationship with you. THese are not abstract theological concepts. We're talking about the content and character of our hearts. (p. 57)
• The theology you live out is much more important to your daily life than the theology you claim to believe. (p. 57)
• No human being was ever meant to be the source of personal joy and contentment for someone else. And surely, no sinner is ever going to be able to pull that off day after day in the all-encompassing relationship of marriage! Your spouse, your friends, and your children cannot be the sources of your identity. When you seek to define who you are through those relationships, you are actually asking another sinner to be your personal messiah, to give you the inward rest of soul that only God can give. (p. 59)

Relationships: A Mess Worth Making - chapter 5

Here is a summary of chapter 5 - AGENDAS

• The more satisfying the relationship, the less conscious you will be of self-interest. The most destructive diseases are the ones that don't show themselves in obvious ways. (p. 42)
• For all of us, as self-centered people, the agenda for personal happiness is very seductive. Sin always draws us toward self-interest. It is possible that even our most altruistic moments are driven by what we get out of them. (p. 42)
• These two themes predominate in Scriptures about relationships:
  • The power of self-interest is still present in the believer.
    • This means that while you live on earth, you will not fully escape the power of self-interest in your life.
  • God has a bigger agenda for our relationships than we do
    • We would easily settle for our own definition of personal happiness when God's purpose is nothing short of conforming us to the image of Christ! (p. 43)
• You have a dream for relationships and God has a dream for your relationships. We all live somewhere between the two. The best ting you can do is become more conscious of which one rules you. (p. 43)
• Why are we impatient? Why do we fail to be kind and gentle? Why do we hold a grudge or act out of vengeance? Why do we refuse to cooperate? Why do we say things to one another that should never be uttered? Shy do we walk away in disgust? Why would we lie to someone or seek to manipulate? Why are we competitive and envious? Why do we struggle to rejoice at another's blessing? We do all of these things for one reason: We want our own way, in the way we have chosen, and at the time we have deemed best. We love us and we have a wonderful plan for our lives! We have a dream. The problem is that it is not the Lord's. (p. 44)
• Our purpose is to get what we want, but God's purpose is to give us what we really need. (p. 48)
• If you look at your own character, some of your deepest growth has been bron out of great stress and trial. (p. 51)
• Every day in your relationships, you are pursuing one of these plans, driven by one of these two agendas: yours or God's. The plan you follow will shape your responses to everything you face in each relationship. (p. 52)

Are you seeing why this is one of my favorite books yet?!?!?!

 

Relationships: A Mess Worth Making - chapter 4

Before getting into chapter 4 - I want to mention that I'm away on a trip for our 20th anniversary and Jason DeGraaff will be speaking today at church. ENJOY!

Chapter four of "Relationships: A Mess Worth Making" is one of my favorite chapters of ANY book!! Have you read this one yet? Here are some of the highlights:

• Your best relationship - no matter who it's with - is messy! (p. 31)
• The Bible assumes that relationships this side of eternity will be messy and require a lot of work. If this applies to our best relationships, how much more does it apply to relationship that are more difficult (p. 32)
• Our biggest problem is inside us and we can't fix it on our own. (p. 33)
• Sin affects us in six basic ways:
  • Self-centeredness
  • Self-rule
  • Self-sufficiency
  • Self-righteousness
  • Self-satisfaction
  • Self-taught (pp. 33-35)
• When love for God is replaced by love for self, we see people either as obstacles that hinder our goals or vehicles that promote them. Sinful self-interest turns the two great commands upside down: rather than loving God and using his gifts to serve others, we love the gifts and use people to get them. For example, parents who crave a good reputation view their children as tools to gain it. Spouses who crave intimacy manipulate their mates to get it. People who crave success view people as either a means or a threat to their agenda. People who crave comfort are excited about easy relationships and annoyed by difficult ones. People who crave control are threatened by strength and gravitate to weakness. People who crave material things shun relationships that hinder their pursuit. (pp. 35, 37)
• Do you see what happens when something other than the living God rules your heart? There is no way to get around the profound truth in James 4:1. Whenever the things you want become more important than God, your relationships suffer. Even when you make relationships more important than God, your relationships suffer! This is what sin does. It blinds us to our dependence upon God, turns us inward, and causes us to either fear or exploit others. (p. 37)
• What we have said so far may give the impression that your relationships are only harmed by your sin. But the Bible is a very realistic book. It takes into account that you are also sinned again. You are sometimes the victimizer and need to deal with your sin. And you are sometimes the victim. And there are times when you are both! Without a doubt, the victimizer needs to face his sin, yet the victim is still responsible for his response to being sinned against. (p. 38)
• We all tend to sin in response to being sinned against. (p. 38)

There is one MAJOR disagreement I have in this chapter... On page 40, he says that The Lord's Supper and Baptism are means of grace. That is a Presbyterian view and we do not agree with that, by any means. We view both as symbols - sacred symbols - but NOT means of grace.

 

 

Relationships: A Mess Worth Making - chapter 3

EQUIP Attenders - are you keeping up with your reading?  Here are some of the highlights of chapter 3:

NO OPTIONS

• We live with this tension between self-protective isolation and the dream for meaningful relationships. (p. 17)
• While most of us don't tend to live at either of these extremes, we do move in the directions of isolation or immersion in all our relationships:
  • EITHER "I want to be safe" (Isolation) 
  • OR "I need you in order to live" (Immersion) (p. 17)
• Whatever problems we have in relationships tend to fit one of three relational profiles:
  • The FRUSTRATED RELATIONSHIP - Here, one person moves toward isolation while the other moves toward immersion.
  • The ENMESHED RELATIONSHIP - Here both people move toward immersion. Because they are so dependent on each other, they can be easily hurt when the other does not meet their needs. Because their expectations for the relationship are so high, they tend to live in isolation from other people.
  • The ISOLATED RELATIONSHIP - Here, both people move toward isolation. Conversations are limited, safe, and impersonal. (p. 18)
• The question is not whether you are a theologian, but what kind of theologian you are (p. 20)

If you haven't gotten to chapter 3 yet in your reading, try to catch up so you aren't reading too much right before the class.

Relationships: A Mess Worth Making - chapter 2

This is for those taking EQUIP - just to encourage you to keep up with your reading. And for those who aren't reading, maybe some of these quotes will encourage you!

• Some of our deepest joys and most painful hurts have been in relationships. There are times we wish we could live alone and other times we are glad we don't What is certain is that we all have been shaped significantly by relationships that are full of both sorrow and joy. (page 6)

He gives eight biblical facts that summarize the way God wants us to think about relationships.

1. You were made for relationships (p. 9)
2. In some way, all relationships are difficult (p. 10)
   •  While the first fact is exciting, we still have to deal with reality. All of our relationships are less than perfect. They require work if they are going to thrive. (p. 10)
3. Each of us is tempted to make relationships the end rather than the means (p. 10)
   • We settle for the satisfaction of human relationships when they were meant ot point us to the perfect relational satisfaction found only with God. (p. 11)
4. There are no secrets that guarantee problem-free relationships (p. 11)
   • Skills and techniques appeal to us because they promise that relational problems can be fixed by tweaking our behavior without altering the bent of our hearts. But the Bible says something very different. It says that Christ is the only real hope for relationships because only he can dig deep enough to address the core motivations and desires of our hearts. (p. 11)
5. At some point you will wonder whether relationships are worth it (p. 11)
   • From birth to death, we are sinners living with other sinners. A good relationship involves honestly identifying the sin patterns that tend to trouble it. (p. 11)
6. God keeps us in messy relationships for his redemptive purpose (p. 12)
7. The fact that our relationships work as well as they do is a sure sign of grace (p. 12)
8. Scripture offers a clear hope for our relationships (p. 13)

• If you ever wonder, "Why bother?" [with relationships] the answer is, "Because God did." (p. 14)