Author Archives: calledtogether

Challenge, Encouragement, Identity, Insecurity, Issues of the Day

You are Uniquely You

A Thirty Day Devotional adapted from the NEW book: Identity: The Distinctiveness of You – Day 24

I have been blessed with every spiritual blessing. Ephesians 1:3

I am the temple of the Holy Spirit. I Corinthians 6:19

Every decision we make is made through our past experiences, our present desires and thoughts or our future wants or needs.  God has created us with the capacity to think within all three of these realms or dimensions.  The memory capacity of our brains is simply amazing, as it provides for us the knowledge needed from past experience for decision making today.

Just imagine if we lacked memory.  We would not know how to drive home from work today.  We would not know or be able to identify our spouse in the morning when we wake up.  We would have to start each new day reading a memory log from the day before: who we are, where we live, where we work or go to school.  Life would function so differently.  We can conclude memory is not only necessary for life, it provides so much wonderful meaning to life.

The Bible says what we sow, we reap (See Galatians 6:7, 8.).  What I sow today, determines the return I will have on that seed tomorrow.  If I desire a certain crop in the future, then I have to sow that seed today.  Not one farmer expects to reap where they have not sown, but every farmer fully expects to reap where they have sown.  You may expect to be a millionaire one day in the future, but if you do nothing and place no effort toward that goal today, you will never see it.  It is easy to then become deceived into thinking you’ll win the lottery or inherit that million, but without earning it.  The scriptures describe this type of gain as ill-gotten treasure.  (Proverbs 10: 2)

Do you want to live in health in your latter years?  Take measures today to exercise and eat healthy because when reaching tomorrow, today will be the past.  Do you desire to be free of pain from your past?  Then do something about it today and forgive those who have hurt you and bless those who have cursed you.  

Unfortunately, I experienced a lot of cavities as a child.  My family did not use toothpaste with fluoride in it.  Fluoride wasn’t even marketed in those days.  My trips to the dentist were fear-filled and excruciating.  Today, I pay the price of dealing with crowns to save my teeth.  My past dental care affects my present oral condition and will continue to affect my future.  

You just cannot separate these three: the past, the present and the future.  But you can start making decisions in alignment with God’s word and His direction for your life.  A better decision today means a better outcome tomorrow.  A destructive decision today means certain pain in our future.

For example, are you a worrier?  I mean, does your mind immediately go to the exercise of worry when an unknown is surfacing?  Or, is your response to a present worrisome issue one of going to your heavenly Father in prayer and trust?  One response is trusting and relying upon yourself and your capacity to worry (needing to solve the issue yourself) and the other is trusting God and His capacity to intervene both in the here-and-now and the future.  Philippians 4: 6,7 reminds us to not be anxious and if we’ll petition God along with giving thanks, the peace of God will guard our hearts and minds.  Peace does not follow worry; it follows prayer and trusting God, literally giving our worry to God.  (See Psalm 37: 1-8.)

Question for reflection:

If you find yourself to be a worrier, how does your worry affect your present-day life?

Order your book today here.

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Challenge, Issues of the Day, Marriage, Men, Postmarital, Small Groups, Training, Women

A Marriage Mentoring Group is Born

Multiple younger couples were either coming to us or we were having them over to our home for a meal. It seemed apparent they were looking for marriage mentors, a spiritual mom and dad to walk with them and share some helpful marriage principles. 

And so, it began. Ten groups and ten years later we are still excited about marriage mentoring. We grab four couples, hand picking them to invite to our group. They should not be on the verge of divorce or in desperate need of counseling. This is not a counseling group. This is a group that receives care, concern and input, but also gives it to the other couples. It is their group, not ours. My wife and I are the facilitators. 

We use our book Staying Together, Marriage: A Lifelong Affair and go through it chapter by chapter. We begin in February and end the following January on a weekend retreat together. We meet once per month on a Tuesday evening with dinner together; everyone helps with the meal. 

That first hour around the table is full of reporting about the last month, prayer requests, jokes and laughter, fun and fellowship. The following two hours are in our living room sharing our experiences and questions in marriage provoked by the reading assignment. We laugh, we cry and we pray. We talk, we get passionate and we get real about our lives as married couples. 

Mary, my wife says, “This is my very favorite group all month. We love these ‘kids’ and we love their authentic, truth-filled responses.” If you are a happily married, seasoned couple with a heart for marriage, you can duplicate this very group. Young couples are just waiting to be asked. They are a hungry generation looking for help to succeed in their marriages. They long for parents who will encourage them, tell them they’re wrong at times and provide loving examples to them. The book will help you and guide you with plenty of questions, but it will take a back seat to the relationships that are built. 

Do you want the divorce statistics to decrease? Then take my challenge and start your own marriage mentoring group. Meet consistently once a month for one year and you will change lives and build memories for a lifetime. 

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Encouragement, Healing, History, Issues of the Day, Just for fun

Tide, It Gets the Dirt Out…But Not All of It

I recently read an article about the very first laundry detergent. It was Procter and Gamble’s desire to create a product that would not leave soap scum in the clothes being washed. Soap prior to the 1930’s left behind dirt, fats and oils in the clothing. These residues would not dissolve in water. 

It would take P&G scientists and chemists ten years to develop a formula that could actually “grab” the dirt and leave clothes clean without soap residue left in the fabric. This revolutionary product was named Tide. 

Tide is now an international name. In 2018 Americans bought $1.7 billion worth of the laundry product now offered in multiple forms. It is simply the most trusted laundry detergent brand. 

There is a hymn we used to sing back in the day and I for one loved it. The first verse was:

What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Tide might get the dirt out of your clothing but it won’t touch your soul. There is only one product that can do that: the blood shed by Jesus on the cross. Easter 2024 has come and gone, but the celebration of a soul cleansing, a heart washing and a mind renewing begins at the cross.

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Challenge, Children, Healing, Issues of the Day, Just for fun, Parents

The Ragman

by Walter Wangerin, Jr.

My wife and I stumbled upon this amazing story many years ago. We actually turned it into a skit with our foster children and performed it at our local church. I find it intriguing and hopeful and so appropriate for Easter. Enjoy!

I saw a strange sight. I stumbled upon a story most strange, like nothing in my life, my street sense, my sly tongue had ever prepared me for. Hush now, and I will tell it to you.

Even before the dawn one Friday morning, I noticed a young man, handsome and strong, walking the alleys of our city. He was pulling an old cart filled with clothes both bright and new, and he was calling in a clear tenor voice: “Rags!”

“Rags! New rags for old! I take your old, dirty, and tired rags! Rags!”

Now this is a wonder, I thought to myself, for the man stood six-feet-four, and his arms were like tree limbs, hard and muscular. His eyes flashed love and wonderment. Could he find no better job than this? To be a ragman in the inner city?

I followed him. My curiosity drove me. And I wasn’t disappointed. For what I was about to see was miraculous.

Soon the ragman saw a woman sitting on her back porch. She was sobbing into a handkerchief, sighing, and shedding a thousand tears. Her knees and elbows made a sad X. Her shoulders shook. Her heart was breaking.

The ragman stopped his cart. Quietly, he walked to the woman, stepping round tin cans, dead toys, and baby diapers.

“Give me your rag,” he said gently, “and I’ll give you another.”

He slipped the handkerchief from her eyes. She looked up, and he laid across her palm a linen cloth so clean and new that it shined. She blinked from the gift to the giver.

Then, as he began to pull his cart again, the ragman did a strange thing: he put her stained handkerchief to his own face and he began to weep, to sob as grievously as she had done. His shoulders were shaking vigorously. Yet she was left without a tear.

This is a wonder, I breathed to myself, and I followed the sobbing ragman like a child who cannot turn away from a mystery.

‘Rags! Rags! New rags for old!”

In a little while, when the sky showed grey behind the rooftops and I could see the shredded curtains hanging out black windows, the ragman came upon a girl whose head was wrapped in a bandage, whose eyes were empty. Blood soaked her bandage. A single line of blood ran down her cheek.

Now the ragman full of compassion looked upon this child with pity, as he drew a lovely yellow bonnet from his cart.

“Give me your rag,” he said, tracing his own line on her cheek, “and I’ll give you mine.”

The child could only gaze at him while he loosened the bandage, removed it, and tied it to his own head, while placing the bonnet upon her. I gasped at what I saw: for with the bandage went the wound! Against his brow it ran a darker, more substantial blood – his own!

“Rags! Rags! I take old rags!” cried the sobbing, bleeding, strong ragman.

The sun hurt both the sky now, and my eyes; the ragman seemed more and more in a hurry.

“Are you going to work?” he asked a man who leaned against a telephone pole. The man shook his head. The ragman pressed him: “Do you have a job?”

“Are you crazy?” sneered the man. He pulled away from the pole, revealing the right sleeve of his jacket – flat, the cuff stuffed into the pocket. He had no arm.

“So,” said the ragman. “Give me your jacket, and I’ll give you mine.”

The one-armed man took off his jacket as did the ragman. I trembled at what I was now seeing: the ragman’s arm stayed in its sleeve, and when the other put the ragman’s jacket on, he now had two good arms, thick as tree limbs.

“Go to work,” said the now one-armed ragman.

Stumbling upon a drunk, the ragman found lying unconscious beneath an army blanket an old man hunched in a fetal position. He took that blanket and wrapped it round himself, but for the drunk he left new clothes.

And now I had to run to keep up with the ragman. Though he was weeping uncontrollably, and bleeding freely at the forehead, pulling his cart with one arm, stumbling for drunkenness, falling again and again, exhausted, looking older, and sick, yet he moved with a steady pace. He eventually came to the city limits, and then he rushed beyond.

I wept to see the change in this man. I hurt to see his sorrow. And yet I needed to see where he was going in such haste, perhaps to know what drove him onward.

The ragman came to a landfill; the garbage pits. I wanted to help him in what he was attempting to do but I hung back, hiding. He climbed a hill. With tormented labor he cleared a little space on that hill. Then, he layed down and pillowed his head on a handkerchief and a jacket. He covered his bones with an army blanket and then he died.

How I cried to witness that death! I slumped over and wailed as one who has no hope. I had come to admire the ragman. I sobbed myself to sleep.

I did not know, how could I know? I slept through Friday night and Saturday night too.

But then, on Sunday morning, I was wakened by a violently supernatural bright light.

Light – pure, bright, demanding light slammed against my face. I blinked and I looked and I saw the ragman, folding his blanket most carefully, a scar on his forehead, but alive! There was no sign of sorrow or age and all the rags he had gathered shined, cleansed and bright.

I walked up to the ragman. I told him my name. I felt compeled to remove my clothes. I said to him with longing in my voice: “Dress me.”

He dressed me. My Lord, he put new rags on me, and I am a wonder beside him. The ragman, the ragman, the Christ!

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Challenge, Children, Issues of the Day, Marriage, Men, Parents, Women

Leave and Cleave; Have You Left Your Parents?

I distinctly remember when each of our children left their family home for good. It is never a matter of will they leave, but rather a matter of when and how they will leave. Be assured, they will one day leave and the test of all that you taught them will begin. 

God instructed the newlywed to “leave and cleave.” It was a pretty clear command to leave father and mother. But it was not a command to lose relationship in the process. More so, it was a command to switch one’s loyalty from their parents to their spouse. 

Have you “left” your parents? And, what boundaries have you set in place? Here are some boundaries that my wife and I agreed to early in our marriage. 

  • We would never mention the “D” word–divorce.
  • We would not return to our parent’s home and leave or separate from our spouse.
  • We would not maintain a dependency upon our parents in anyway, i.e., financially or emotionally.
  • We would never speak disrespectfully about our spouse to our parents.
  • We would not allow our parents or extended family to speak negatively about our spouse. 
  • We would not share our spouses weaknesses with anyone unless we empower that person to help us with that weakness.
  • We would establish our own traditions and traditional visits to family.
  • We would not expect any kind of inheritance from our families.
  • We would not borrow money from our parents unless our parents approached us, we agreed with them and agreed to the terms and conditions.
  • We would not allow the influence of a parent to outweigh the influence of our spouse.
  • We would always honor our parents, but our first loyalty would be to one another.
  • We would always maintain a spirit of respect toward our parents even if we disagreed with them.
  • We would listen to their counsel and apply it as we agreed together to do.
  • We would care for them together as they aged.

There could certainly be a lot more areas to agree upon, but I think you get the idea. Obviously clear, open and honest communication is necessary to maintain an attitude of honor and affirmation toward your parents while at the same time finding your way as a “leaving and cleaving” couple.

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Challenge, Encouragement, Healing, Issues of the Day, Leadership, Training

Leadership Fatigue and Burnout

I can recall an important part of a message that I heard many years ago. I remember one small but impacting statement the speaker made. It went like this: “If the evil one cannot move you away from God, he’ll push you into God!”

What does that mean? 

It means he is relentless at letting you know you’re not doing enough, not praying enough, not studying the Bible enough, and not testifying enough. If he can push you to believe these lies, he can discourage you and cause you to think you simply are not enough. 

The end result is spiritual exhaustion, physical depletion and emotional discouragement. And that can affect your work, your ministry, your marriage and your family. In the last decade over 29,000 evangelical pastors have left the pastorate. Lifeway Research has noted that 71% of churches have no plan for sabbaticals; 66% lack a support group for the pastor’s family and 33% do not have a list of counselors for referrals. 

Leaders burn out, fail and fall. Our leaders are sheep as well and we all need shepherds in our life. 

That’s where sabbaticals come in. It’s not a new idea, just one that is rarely utilized. In the Monterey Herald newspaper article “Beating Burnout,” writer Cindy Kirschner Goodman reports, “Among the Fortune 100 Best Places to Work, 22 companies boast of offering a fully paid sabbatical.” She writes, “These companies find if they don’t do something, their workers will burn out and leave, or even worse burn out and stay.”

A sabbatical is preventative medicine. It is some of the best preventative medicine/maintenance a company or a ministry can initiate for their long-term, full-time workers. 

So, how is it done? I believe in and have written about a four-phase approach:

  1. Disengage and Rest – Disengage from life as normal and then engage in what will provide rest to you physically, mentally and spiritually.
  2. Retooling and Refocusing – After rest, one is often ready for some input into their life that promotes personal growth and health.
  3. Regeneration or Renewal – This is the evaluation phase and then the vision stage; assessing the past and looking toward the future. 
  4. Resolution – This phase is a firm or unwavering determination toward a solved problem or solution toward healthy boundaries to sustain a balanced lifestyle. It is a written plan for your future so you do not return to life as “usual,” but rather implementing the changes that are necessary.

You can catch an in-depth look at sabbaticals in this book. 

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Challenge, Children, History, Issues of the Day, Parents

Family Relationships vs. Activity

Growing up in the 1960’s seemed like such a slower pace than we endure these days. As kids, we had long summer days at the creek, riding our bikes for miles on lonely country roads or creating forts in the woods behind our house. 

Sometimes we’d get the neighborhood kids together and play football, baseball or go sledding down numerous hills we could claim within walking distance from home.

Entertainment was a handheld AM transistor radio playing the latest tunes or a few black and white TV programs in the evening. We went to bed early after convincing Mom we had a bath two nights ago and didn’t need one that night. 

We caught fireflies in the summer and made campfires in the winter or anxiously waited for the creek to freeze so we could ice skate or play hockey. Ice hockey was preferred using the perfect dogged leg stick and a smashed tin can as a puck. 

We constantly used our imagination. Was there boredom? Yes, but that gave time for whittling a new slingshot, repairing a bike or accomplishing our chores. Oh yeah, chores. We had jobs to do and that often came before school work. 

There were expectations in those days. Families ate together, sat on the front porch together watching the cars go by and swatted flies. The adults read the newspaper and the kids read the funnies. Families talked about life, cousins or uncles in the military, house rules, right and wrong. There was talking, listening, and once in a while, laughter. Even the TV shows of the day were a picture of the same. 

The pace of life today is not the same. Families are going from activity to activity. Kids are having to wolf down Happy Meals or “value meals” over and over in order to make it to the next practice on time. We’re all too often missing the conversations around the dinner table and time together on the deck just talking and laughing. This fast paced life is valuing activity over relationship and it’s hurting family life. 

Will our children look back at their childhood and see mostly activity or remember relationship building as a family value? 

We live in a diffferent world today, but work hard at giving your children something to remember: RELATIONSHIP.

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Challenge, Encouragement, Healing, Issues of the Day, Marriage, Men, Postmarital, Women

Intimacy Anorexia

It’s not my term. Author and speaker Dr. Doug Weiss coined the term and states it’s why some people “actively withhold emotional, spiritual, and sexual intimacy” from their partner. He writes that some of those issues can be identified as:

  • Keeping themselves busy with child care, household tasks, technology or work. Too busy for you, but not others.
  • Blaming you [or others] for the loss of intimacy rather than exploring potential patterns in their own behavior.
  • Withholding love, especially in the way you desire to receive it.
  • They stop complementing you.
  • Have little to no interest in sex.
  • Show little interest in connecting on a spiritual level.
  • Avoid talking about their feelings and not connecting on an emotional level.
  • Treat you more like a roommate and not a romantic partner.
  • Have money control issues or desire to control the money.
  • Have anger outbursts, ignore you or give you the silent treatment.

Wiess states it doesn’t take all these issues, maybe just five of them to experience sexual anorexia. He believes many persons who survive some form of sexual abuse will respond in this way to their marriage partners. 

Further, these relationships can be full of frequent criticism, including criticism of things one cannot change. 

Persons who exhibit these types of behaviors have more than likely experienced something traumatic in their growing up years. In their adult world, however, they are attempting to avoid the pain of their misguided view by avoiding intimacy. 

Intimacy requires trust in a relationship. It requires vulnerability. It requires safety and, of course, that all important ingredient: love.

Sexual intimacy within the boundary of marriage brings glory to God.

Sexual intimacy within the boundary of marriage draws marriages closer to God and one another.

Sexual intimacy within the boundary of marriage is always centered on your spouse.

Sexual intimacy within the boundary of marriage promotes deeper love, commitment and pleasure.

If you find yourself battling with any of the above descriptions of intimacy anorexia, please see a counselor who is familiar with the subject.  

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Children, Encouragement, In the news, Issues of the Day, Marriage, Men, Parents, Premarital, Singles

DINK’S – Have you Heard About Them?

It’s our culture’s latest attempt at trying to minimize what has historically been the norm when it comes to marriage. With couples marrying older and having fewer children, DINK’S have now become a thing.

What is a D.I.N.K? It’s an acronym: Double Income No Children.

Yep, more and more couples are opting for “wealth” and “freedom” over bearing and raising children. Is it selfishly motivated? Maybe. 

(Note: This is not a blog for those who long for children and who have been unable to conceive or where there are physical complications. For you, we grieve.) 

It sounds nice, even inviting to have more financial resources to travel, to buy nice things, to have money left over at the end of the month and to max out that 401K. But, what are they missing?

DINKS are missing out on a monumental part of life – bearing and raising children. The joy of children; the parental self-maturing of raising children; the personal pain and emotional ups and downs of child raising. Perhaps in your 30’s you’ll never miss out on children, but when you’re in your 50’s, I guarantee you it will be a different story. 

How will you look back on your life without the legacy of raising kids to adults? Further, you’ll never know or experience grandparenting.

Finally, what happens when you come to the end of your life? Who will be there? Where will all of the “stuff” you’ve collected go? Who will care for you and visit you if you need to be in a retirement home, while all of your friends and extended family are themselves passing? 

“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.” (Psalm 127:3)

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Challenge, Encouragement, History, Leadership, Training

Who Are the Eight?

When a Hebrew person wanted to declare or express an intimate response to someone they would often repeat their name twice. It was an endearment or expression of closeness.

Most of us remember Jesus saying to his friend Martha, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset over many things, but only one thing is needed.” (Luke 10:41) Mary was worshipful while Martha was busy. One was over-occupied while one was overcome with His presence. Martha was frustrated while Mary was being refreshed.

Why? Many things are needful and necessary, but it was a Person who was loving and being loved that Martha was missing out on. 

Abraham takes his son up the mountain for a sacrifice. He builds an altar, places the wood on it, ties up his son, Isaac, and lays him on the altar. He raised his knife and from heaven he hears, “Abraham! Abraham!” (Genesis 22:9-12) God stops him dead in his tracks and Abraham’s obedience is proven. 

Further in the book of Genesis, we have another example of God getting someone’s attention. Jacob is spoken to by God in the night. “Jacob! Jacob!” Jacob replies, “Here I am.” (Genesis 46:2) God reassured him to not be afraid to go to Egypt because He said, “…I will make you into a great nation there.”

Moses sees a burning bush. He moves closer to take another look at why it wasn’t being consumed. He then hears “from within the bush, Moses! Moses!” (Exodus 3:4) God calls Moses to bring His people out of Egypt and the slavery they find themselves in. 

On to I Samuel chapter three. There is a young boy asleep in the tabernacle of God who awakes hearing a voice. It was a voice he didn’t recognize. Eli the priest realized it was the voice of God calling Samuel and he told him to go back and lie down on his bed. Eli instructed him that when he hears the voice again say, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” Verse ten records God’s final call to Samuel, “The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’”

It was the Last Supper and the disciples were disputing who among them was considered the greatest. Jesus singles out Peter to tell him that he will deny his Savior. Jesus looks straight at him and says, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.” (Luke 22:31-32)

God was after a really zealous character, one who was unashamedly persecuting “the Way,” the believers in Christ. Saul is on the road to the town of Damascus when all of a sudden there is a light from heaven that flashes like gunpowder when lit. Saul falls to the ground and hears these words, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4) Saul becomes Paul, a selected apostle to carry the Name to the Gentiles. 

And finally, there is one of the most excruciating times a name was called out twice. Jesus, on the cross bruised, beaten, His flesh torn open and bleeding profusely experiences His darkest hour. In a lamentable, desperate and abandoned state He cries out, “My God. My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) 

As I look back over these names and specific situations, it is interesting to point out that in some of the situations the person hearing their name twice did not know the One who was calling them, but it certainly seems that God knew them. 

If you hear the Lord call your name twice, LISTEN UP!

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