So there's this guy...
A brilliant letter of concern from my brother John
April 2004

Who is he? Has he ever been arrested? Where did he go to college? does he drink? does he or has he ever smoked? What kind of bike does he ride (I can tell you all about someone just by knowing their bike)?

You are (OK, I am) clearly dealing with the question "how do I know the condition of someone else’s spirit."

The obvious trouble here is that anyone can state 5 examples of Christians who used to be "on fire" for the lord and who are now "on fire" for whatever satisfies their lusts. Or 10 examples of "Christians" who are unbearable even as Christians, and of whom I might pray "lord, please don't make me share the company of these people when I get to heaven." Or 15 examples of non-Christians who are better representatives of the love of Christ than am I. Or even non-Christians who are more instrumental then I am in leading others to Christ.

So, what is to be gained from this confusion? I might conclude (praise God) that a person’s holiness scorecard is not a valid faith-in-Christ membership ID. But then there is that annoying James who says “show me your faith apart from works and I will show you my faith by works”, “faith without works is dead”, and to make me feel even more comfortable “you believe God is one, you do well; the demons also believe and shudder” and “a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.”

OK, have I now concluded that I can’t conclude anything regarding works; Not exactly. Unfortunately, I think most parents are inclined to mistake intelligence for wisdom, wisdom for faith, or success for blessing. Considering my lack of understanding of the 2 books of Samuel, I am reluctant to refer to it. But then, I am in the habit of making reference to things I don’t understand, so why be inconsistent?

Anyway, if I were a father who was given the task of marrying my daughter to either Saul or David, I honestly don’t know who I would pick. On the surface, Saul’s big sin could be viewed as acting on his own wisdom and intelligence (which by any human measure was perfectly valid) and not being ruthless and cold enough as a killer. If I were Saul I would be S.O.L. (if you are unfamiliar with the afore mentioned abbreviation, ask anyone at work.) Then there is David. Given the chance to meet and talk with David, I can’t imagine liking him very much. And, for a “man after Gods own heart,” he sure made an ass of himself on occasion. Clearly the bible tells us who God would pick as a husband (king) for his daughter (the Jews.) And if God weren’t the supreme ruler over and creator of the universe, He and I would just agree to disagree on this issue (you probably never thought your little brother would struggle over this question.) So, lets be glad that you don’t have to choose between Saul and David.

Wait a minute, now I am proposing that you are fortunate because you don’t have Saul and David on your list of suitors; what a dumb proposition. Is there any man walking the earth who is more suitable than these. OK, I have reached a conclusion; YOU MAY NOT MARRY ANYONE EVER. I am sorry, but this is clearly the best for you. Just kidding, or maybe not, or maybe so, or not; don’t you see the pain you have caused me. In truth I know God has a man set in your path who will be a wonderful continuation of the fulfillment of his plan for you life, and the ultimate plan is nothing short of glorious beyond words. I pray for God to hasten this part of his work in your life because waiting by its very nature brings seasons of pain, fear and resentment that no one can lift from your shoulders. Anyone who denies these three seasons in their own (get used to subject pronoun disagreement) life is a liar.

It is one thing to know that God has a good reason for every thing he does, but that knowledge seems to crumble when we can’t see what is around the corner. When you think of Mike and Libby, you are faced with a kind of pain that can’t be reconciled with God’s goodness. (On a long distance trip in March 2004, Mike fell asleep behind the wheel. Libby and their soon to be born first child were killed instantly. It happened the day before their first wedding anniversary. He waited so long to marry her. He adored her.)

From the vantage point of a guy who has no real idea but only an image of what Mike is gong through, I cold easily disregard all of the nights they must have spent together dreaming of how much Gods love was made clear in their love for each other, and how Mike must have dispensed of a bad day at work by thoughts of getting home to Libby, and how Libby’s mother must have thanked God for her daughter clothed in strength and dignity who was soon to know the joy of her own child rising up to be an ornament of blessing. Is this easily disregarded? If I disregard all of this, then maybe I could say “God has something better in mind for you.” I cannot do anything of the sort. But God doesn’t need my go-ahead to work in the lives of others.

When I consider the overflowing vessel of beauty, passion, and determination that God created, and mom and dad named Catherine Ann; I have to ask how God could allow so much time to pass before some man would become jealous of the pouring out of your heart over the people fortunate enough to know you, and secure your heart to his own. I would imagine it becomes hard to trust that God knows what you need. What is the alternative to trusting God with such matters? I suppose this issue addressed through Abraham and Ishmael. Or I could look to Paul when he asked for relief and God’s response was “my power is made perfect in your weakness.”

Now I wonder when patience turns to doubt and doubt to fear and fear to resentment, is all of this the weakness in which God’s power is made perfect? In logic class the following was proposed; feelings are a matter of the heart, understanding is a matter of the mind, and the two do not coincide. I might be inclined to agree with this, but then I asked ‘can feelings be understood?’ That is to say, can one offer a reason for the experience of a feeling? In Mark 12 Jesus said we are to love God with all our heart and with all our mind, and this is the greatest of the commandments. From this I gather that it is not sufficient to love God only in our heart, but rather we are to love him with understanding (i.e. it would be wrong for me to separate my capacity for understanding, from my love of God.)

I suppose God may not satisfy my desire to understand what he is doing in someone else’s life. I do know that through whatever trouble I have seen in my own life, God has been faithful. So this is where I leave the problem; I will make my petitions to God, and trust that pain doesn’t mandate healing, but it’s the healing that mandates pain.

About this guy, while no one can determine his spiritual condition, I think there are some more specific prerequisites for the man you should marry.

First, he should have a clear and expressed commitment to following Christ.

Second, he should understand that, for a man, a commitment to Christ means a commitment to loving and guiding his family according to Christ’s love for the church. This is not even remotely similar to using particular Christ-like principles in his own life or in leading his family.

Third, he should be a willing subject to the spiritual authority of his pastor/church. He, through his mouth and in his actions, should completely and unambiguously express these three.

I don’t by any means believe that there is a guaranty that he won’t deviate from these in the future. However, should you marry him without these three, I believe you are unequally yoked and your marriage is definitely and seriously unbiblical. I think you are probably well informed of all of this, so forgive me for being redundant. What people say is only a representation of what is in on mind at that moment. Even if it were an accurate representation, it is never a complete representation. There will always be impressions that you can’t seem to get across, or impressions that do get across but without the necessary qualifications. Unfortunately, there have been many occasions when I successfully communicated my thoughts to someone, but later I changed my mind and wished I hadn’t said anything.

Unfortunately, for matters of the heart, there is not any way to verify or know for certain if what you think will change or when. This seems to me to be the point of marriage (that sounds dumb doesn’t it). By making a covenant before God and man, you take the matter out of your mind, and now you are one in God’s mind. Fortunately, Gods mind does not change so it’s a load of crap when someone tries to exit a marriage on the basis of a change of mind or “loosing that loving feeling.” Frankly, if both the husband and the wife are living according to biblical guidelines, I don’t think your feelings or happiness have anything to do with the other person. Divorce is no more valid a solution for unhappiness, than suicide is. If I have a headache I wouldn’t separate my body from my head in order to relieve the aching.

I believe that the love experienced in any relationship has three distinct manifestations that serve to teach us first hand about how God loves us. First is when Both Amy and I are happy with the other and expressing our love equally, I would compare this to heaven itself. Second is when I am loving Amy but she, for whatever reason, doesn’t seem to love me. I would compare this to God’s relationship to me when I am in rebellion. The third is when Amy is loving me but I, for whatever reason, can’t reciprocate that love back to her. I would compare this to my relationship to God when I am in rebellion. In the second case I become God’s agent of unconditional love toward Amy, and in the third case Amy becomes God’s agent of unconditional love toward me.

I have never heard of any marriage that hasn’t seen all three of these situations. Regardless of this, everyone thinks their relationships live or die by the quality of their love for the other person. Honestly this is not a very romantic view of love and relationships but what do you expect from a techno snob (ask Amy.) I think the decision of who do you choose (or accept the proposal from) to marry is, like many other decisions, not a matter of making a “best of all options” decision but rather a decision of “obedience or disobedience”. I suppose this is not a new idea so I shouldn’t call it my thought but occasionally disobedience presents itself under the guise of wisdom.

The perfect example of this is just about every major philosopher who ever lived. Most of them were very wise and respected (not wise in the sense of “fearing God”) but, when they reached the end of where their wisdom had taken them, it inevitably made asses of them (in the eyes of God and man.) All of this assumes that you are relying on either wisdom or obedience to make this sort of decision. It is my own experience that I usually act neither in obedience nor wisdom when dealing with the opposite sex.

Internally there is no acceptable third option worth relying on. This is why you need Godly people around you (Ken) who will keep you from putting you fingers in the light socket. A little fear and trembling would also help. I think you know better than I can tell you, how important spiritual leaders are in this sense (and in ever other sense.)

After I wrote the next paragraph, I realized that I should have given you advanced warning of how cynical it may seem. So consider yourself warned, but be sure to read all the way through it before you decide that I am a paranoid, overprotective butthead.

From what you have said about this guy, he sounds very much like a guy who has dated a lot and who knows how women work. If not already you will soon be thinking to yourself “oh no, I must have totally given John the wrong impression about this guy.” No you didn’t, I am just a guy who knows guys and I am also very skeptical.

Anyway. It sounds like he could be speaking from the “international handbook of how to make women think you are exactly what they are want in a guy without actually having to be that guy”. OK that was really harsh and perhaps unnecessary, but I wanted you to know that there are guys out there who live by that handbook and who are very good at using it.

If you were to encounter such a guy, you would probably never know it (because you’re a girl). Believe it or not, Derek Leonidof is exactly the kind of guy I am talking about (he had the added benefit of being an actor too). I should say he was (not is) this kind of guy, but even for a while after he was saved he just had the gift of speaking what sounded like wonder and profundity to women but men only heard

“bla bla your beautiful bla bla bla you like that too, oh I love that bla bla bla I don’t think anyone understands you like I do bla bla bla I never knew how beautiful the moon was until I saw you under it bla bla bla I have always wanted to spend the weekend in Hawaii but no one else I know wants to.”

OK I exadurated a little, but I hope you get the general idea. This is what girls should be extremely careful of but nevertheless they very very very often follow exactly this path; A guy (girls do it too) will spend a while outlining all of the virtues and qualities that he would like to find in a mate, then over time he shows you one by one how you have each of the very things he is looking for. Then, low and behold, it dawns on you that the two of you are perfect for each other.

This accomplishes three important tasks for a guy and all in one shot:

#1. You are thinking that he has very high standards and good-virtuous standards at that. #2. You are thinking that he must be able to see all the good things about you that other people miss, so he must be discerning (or wise.) And finally #3. You are the perfect match for him, and given his high standards this is one in a million.

Ultimately this just turns out to be both people seeing exactly what they want to see at the moment. Honestly most of my relationships started out following essentially this very system. The only reason I never let Amy go, is that we went through some rough times and God himself wouldn’t let me escape so I knew there was something that God knew about Amy that made her the only woman on the earth, qualified to deal with me as my wife. Subsequently I have learned approximately ten million things about her that make her uniquely qualified to be my wife.

The sum total of everything I knew and loved about Amy before the day we got married would have been enough to get us through about 4 months of marriage and no more. Since then I have seen so many other qualities in her that all together they project an image of love which is now clear and resolute and completely unaffected by the wavering of any single quality.

I really have only one point to make in this whole letter; all your wisdom and intelligence will never qualify you to see into the future and know if the person you like is the person you will learn to love. And the same goes for him. So pray hard, work at being obedient in every area of your life not having to do with men, and know that God will not let you fall through his plan. In other words, practice obedience every time you know which path to take, and know that God will honor that by showing you what you once couldn’t see.

Four pages just didn’t seem long enough, so I am going to get off this love nonsense and think about something less stressful. Amy and I love the Oceanview/Willoughby apartment but the owner is apparently bordering on senile. Amy and I were talking to him about parking and some other stuff when he suddenly started talking about his trouble with pigeons nesting in his roof. I would have taken that as an attempt to dodge the issue but the issue was trivial and I have seen him interact the same way with other people. Otherwise we love being able to get up on Saturday morning and go walk on the beach and watch the ships or the occasional submarine (they have to stay surfaced in shipping lanes) go over the bridge tunnel.

We are still not officially locked into a church and I had some excuses for this, but I have exhausted them all so now I think we are going to settle on Trinity. I am watching people around me, who have been in church limbo, begin to resist and alienate God. This is, of course, the essence of rebellion and it is proving to me that I can accomplish nothing short of destruction if left to my self.

Amy’s mom was worried about me taking a philosophy course from a secular university. Philosophy has taught me one thing; to neglect a complete dependence on God, and to neglect the bible as the living word of God brings an end to wisdom and understanding. I am beginning to think that there is no knowledge or learning, there is only revelation and grace. Praise God.

Amy and I talked today about when we are going to come out there and visit. Amy thought we could use some of the insurance settlement to pay for it. If we go ahead with that plan it’s only a matter of timing. I think maybe the middle of June. We still have to work that out. You should email me some pictures of your place. How is work? I managed to convince the other two members of my senior project group to get locked in to a turbofan optimization project. This whole idea seems endlessly cool to me. Any way, the point is that I will now have something really cool to put on my resume.

THE END