OF SHIPWRECKS AND SCRIPTURE: Worldview and You

G. K. Chesterton, the famous British author of the early 20th century, was once invited to a gathering of intellectuals where a question was posed: “If you were shipwrecked on a desert island, what one book would you wish to have?”

Knowing his commitment to orthodox Christianity, most assumed Chesterton would answer, “The Bible.” Instead he replied, “Thomas’s Guide to Practical Shipbuilding.”

Many Christians today wouldn’t have been half as clever, because even if we know our bibles well, we do not know how to think biblically about life. We do not know how to answer non-biblical questions from the biblical worldview.

Everyone has a worldview, whether they realize it or not. Your worldview is the system of thought that helps you answer life’s four great questions: Where did we come from? What’s wrong with us? How can we solve life’s problems? What’s the ultimate purpose and meaning of life? Your worldview is the way you think the world works and how you fit in it.

The biblical worldview represents reality. It sees the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. It answers the four questions this way: We are created beings, made in the image of God, not random accidents of biology. We were created good with marvelous potential, but became broken and prone to evil when we rejected God, bringing all of creation under the curse when we did so. From that moment on, the cosmic Murphy’s Law applied: if something can go wrong, it will.

The solution to man’s problems is the work of redemption, recovering what was lost by the sacrifice of Christ for our sins, and the ongoing work of his people in restoring God’s order of things, healing the brokenness of the world wherever we find it with whatever works best. Thus Chesterton’s reply: Stranded sailors need books on shipbuilding. Stranded sinners, on the other hand, need the scriptures.

Ultimate meaning comes from glorifying God by fulfilling our purpose, knowing that, on the day Christ returns to renew all things, we will give an account to him for all that we have been given, and be rewarded for our faithfulness. Thomas’s redemptive purpose was to write that shipbuilding book; Chesterton’s was to build it.

The short version is: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration and Judgment. When we learn to sift every life situation, every opportunity, and every problem to be solved through that grid we will know how to respond with biblical wisdom, and even wit, to questions which cannot be answered with chapter and verse.

The Bible does not specifically address many things in life, but that doesn’t mean it has nothing to say about them. The trick is learning to think from a biblical worldview.

HAVE GREAT FAITH

Every day we face situations that call for great faith.

A loved one is sick, our marriage is on the rocks, or a job is downsized out of existence. There’s something new we want to do, some ministry we want to start, some new venture we feel called to pursue. But we’re afraid. We know the outcomes we seek are beyond our individual ability to achieve. We need great faith. How do we get it?

The Bible only records two times when Jesus was “amazed, astonished, or taken aback” by someone’s behavior. One is in Mark 6:6 when Jesus was “amazed at their lack of faith.” The other is in Matthew 8:10, where it says he was “astonished” at the great faith of the Centurion. So what is it about the faith of that Centurion that was so great? And how can we imitate it?

Great Faith Apprehends His Authority
A Centurion was the commander of one hundred men. He represented imperial Roman power in its most immediate form. He commanded and others obeyed. He also recognized authority when he saw it in Jesus, saying to him, “I am a man under authority and I know how it is used. All you need to do is say the word.”

Great faith begins by recognizing the authority of Jesus.

Great Faith Submits to His Authority
By Roman law the Centurion could tap Jesus on the shoulder and force him to carry his pack for a mile. The world told him he had absolute authority over these rag-tag, conquered people. But his conscience told him something different. So instead of tapping Jesus on the shoulder and demanding his servant be healed, he humbled himself by saying, “I’m not worthy for you to come to my house.”

Much of faith teaching today is presumptuous. As the late Ray Stedman said, “Some people think the prayer of faith is crawling out on a limb and then begging God to keep someone from sawing it off. But that is not real prayer, that is presumption. If God makes it clear that he wants you out on a limb, fine–you will be perfectly safe there. If not, it is presumptuous to crawl out on that limb, expecting God to keep you there.”

Great faith looks to Christ in humility, submitting to his authority, asking for his help.

Great Faith is Confident in His Authority
Americans, having seen its abuses, have great distrust of authority. So it might help to think of authority in terms of orderliness. When you think of authority, think of order. Order the parts of a generator according to the laws of electromagnetism and we have the “authority” to produce power. Order the parts of the human genome correctly and we have the “authority” to defeat disease, to reorder a disordered system.

When the Centurion said, “You do not need to come to my house,” he was saying that as part of the system of order imposed by Rome he understood how things got done. It enabled him to recognize a higher order of things flowing from the ultimate orderliness of God, and to have confidence in it. When we depend on that authority it brings stability, and power, and blessing into our lives. “You don’t need to come to my house. Just say the word. I know it will be done.” Great faith is confident in Christ’s authority.

People often mistake faith for something it is not. Great faith is measured not by the depth of our ignorance, or the height of our presumptions, or the extent of our emotions. Great faith is measured by our apprehension, and submission to, and total confidence in the authority of Jesus Christ.

PARENTING ISN’T FOR SISSIES

Parenting isn’t for sissies. If you don’t believe it just ask anyone who’s managed to raise even one child to productive, responsible, God-fearing, adulthood and we will show you our scars.

Children also make you fat. Yes, I know, you think it’s the donuts in your diet, but I can prove it. I’ve gained seventy pounds since I got married and had kids.

Just kidding! But seriously, parenting is one of the most demanding and rewarding things anyone can do. It is also a task for which many find themselves unprepared. Children have a way of revealing how selfish and ignorant we are. Their needs seem endless when our energy is exhausted. Their development demands wisdom when we are at wit’s end.

With that in mind I want to offer some encouragement as well as a resource for wisdom along the parenting way.

Begin with the Bible
Considering the critical nature of parenting, that whole “hand that rocks the cradle rules the world” thing, the Bible has very little to say about it. “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it,” comes to mind, as does “raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord.” But the rest of the Bible’s specific advice on parenting can be summed up with, “Children obey your parents and fathers don’t exasperate them.”

The bigger picture the Bible paints, however, is the more important one. Children bear the image of God and as such have huge potential for good, but they also inherit the sinful nature of Adam, and while they aren’t exactly little animals, they aren’t little angels either. Every child is human, and everything the Bible says about restoring the image of God in humans and restraining the evil inherent in our nature applies.

Apply Basic Principles
Experienced parents know that there is no magic formula for raising the perfect child, but a few basic principles proved themselves to us over the years.

First, use common sense. Some parents are so afraid that one mistake will permanently damage their children that they fail to do the obvious. Children, and I include teens in this, aren’t yet adults. If a rule seems obvious to you but doesn’t to them, never fear to impose it. They will get over it, they won’t hate you forever, and they may even thank you later.

Second, let them make decisions, take risks, and fail! It makes them stronger when they realize that failure isn’t fatal and risk reaps reward. The biggest mistake parents make is smothering their children, doing everything possible to prevent failure and its associated pain. But overprotecting a child is like overprotecting a plant. It stifles development.

Third, tell them no, and don’t be afraid to enforce your no with discipline. The fastest way to fill your child with insecurity and anger is to fail to discipline them when they are wrong. The insecurity comes because for a child, the lack of boundaries, the lack of restraint on their impulses, is destabilizing. The anger comes when they reap the consequences of an undisciplined life and realize that you didn’t love them enough to reign in their rebellion. Love must be tough.

Fourth, encourage relentlessly. We need to be like the momma dog with a litter of pups I read about. She gave them six licks of loving encouragement for every disciplinary swipe of the paw. Learn to catch your kids doing something right and affirm it. Let your affirmations outnumber your corrections six-to-one. This is especially important for dads.

Fifth, keep calm and carry on. Kids, especially teens, pass through developmental phases faster than they outgrow shoes. Never let a fleeting adolescent furor produce a parental meltdown. Your calm in the midst of their storm will provide the anchorage they need to ride it out.

Get Expert Help
Those five principles will carry you a long way, but if you find you need more I recommend child psychologist, and syndicated columnist John Rosemond. There are many others of course, but I read his column every week and find his parenting wisdom to be without peer. Find him at http://www.johnrosemond.com.

THE PORN PANDEMIC And How to Escape

Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. (1 Corinthians 6:18 NIV).

If you are a man or if you are married to or dating one who has learned the truth of that statement the hard way please read on, I have good news for you.

Decades before the Ashley Madison website hack and the very public falls of Josh Duggar and Jared Fogle we were hearing from men, Christian men, and their wives, about the havoc their pornography addictions were wreaking. But never have the words of Scripture been so thoroughly validated by a non-religious source as they have now been by the April 11, 2016 cover story in TIME.

First, a note to the men who are struggling with this: I do not condemn you and you are not alone. This post is not about making you feel bad. I’ve counseled enough of you to know that many of you feel terribly ashamed, and isolated, and helpless. I’m offering hope.

Let’s start by being real about the problem.

A few, a very few, of the statistics TIME reports are: 46% of men and 16% of women ages 18-39 intentionally view pornography in any given week. From February of 2006 to January 2016 monthly visits by U.S. citizens to porn websites increased from 58 million to 107 million, according to one web-tracking company. Yes, that’s 107 million visits per month.

Christians are not immune. Covenant Eyes website reports that about 64% of Christian men and 15% of women access porn every month. And as the Apostle Paul warned the Corinthians, it’s damaging their bodies.

TIME confirms that, citing a 2014 fMRI study from the Max Planck Institute which revealed that habitual porn use may have an effect on the brain. Repeated exposure to porn appeared to cause the brain’s reward center, called the striatum, to be less and less responsive. In other words, the brain becomes desensitized, requiring more and more stimulation to achieve the same level of pleasure. This is somewhat like the way cocaine and other drugs effect the brain. It’s no surprise then that porn addicts often progress from plain vanilla porn to harder, more violent, or simply more bizarre forms. Many also end up frequenting prostitutes and some become predators.

Scientists have long known that the brain is our primary sex organ, but it isn’t the only one suffering from the effects of porn. Young men, Christian and non-Christian alike, are increasingly reporting PIED, porn-induced erectile dysfunction. Their bodies have been so desensitized by porn that they cannot respond to normal sexual stimuli.

Enough of the bad news, I’ll provide links to more information at the end if you’re interested. Let’s talk about redeeming what’s been lost.

The Bible teaches that we are three-part beings, body, soul, and spirit. Dealing effectively with this or any other addiction requires addressing all three. Some of you who aren’t Christians, and even some who are, don’t have any problem with sex outside of marriage. But the Bible calls that sin and I encourage you to do the same. The first step to freedom is calling slavery what it is. Even if you can’t yet see it as a sin against God or your own body, an honest look at the underbelly of the porn industry will reveal that the whole thing is one massive assault on the dignity of women. That’s why businesses like Hilton Hotels have eliminated pornography channels in their hotel rooms in 85 countries. They have a company policy against participating in sexual exploitation and recognized the link between sex trafficking, prostitution and porn. Christ died to free us from slavery to sin. Agreeing with God that pornography is sin frees the Holy Spirit to help you do away with it.

Second, understand that your mind, will, and emotions, what we know as the soul, have been damaged by porn. You were created to be a thinking, choosing, feeling and relating being. Porn addiction, like others, pulls your soul into a spiral of sickness. Your thinking is clouded, your will is weakened, your feelings are misleading, and your ability to relate in healthy ways to other human beings, especially women, is damaged. You’re going to need some help sorting out your feelings, strengthening your will, straightening out your thinking, and reshaping the way you relate to others. Happily, there are many different kinds of help out there for this, from books to websites, to support groups. I’ll list some at the end.

Finally, your body is going to need rewiring. One of the most fascinating and hopeful things I’ve learned from counseling men with pornography addictions is the power of simple behavior-modification techniques. Pastors and counseling psychologists often assume that all problems stem from within the soul and can be effectively addressed by talking, teaching and prayer; correcting the wrongs of the psyche. I’m not discounting any of those, but the fact is that not everyone becomes addicted because they have issues with their upbringing. The neurology of our sexuality is incredibly important. Repeated exposure to porn trains the brain and the body to react a certain way by burning deep neural pathways. Think of it as a kind of sexual muscle memory that won’t go away just because you wish it would. The good news is that it is possible to burn new pathways and let the old ones die off. It takes time and training, but it is possible.

If you find yourself or a loved one a victim of the porn pandemic there is hope. Christ died to set you free from sin and give you full access to the redemptive power of his Spirit. God in his mercy has provided all kinds of aids, secular and spiritual, to help you break free. I’ve listed all the ones I’m aware of at the end of this post. May God bless you as you pursue freedom, forgiveness, and healing.

Resources for Recovery from Sexual Addiction.
Christian
https://www.faithfulandtrue.com/About-Us.aspx
http://restoringthesoul.com/we-specialize-in-healing-addictions-to-porn-and-sex/
http://www.purelifeministries.org/about#leadership
http://www.fredstoeker.com/book/everymansbattle.shtml
http://www.focusonthefamily.com/marriage/divorce-and-infidelity/dealing-with-pornography/maier-on-pornography-recovery
http://www.covenanteyes.com/
https://www.shelleylubben.com/home

Non-Christian
http://www.nofap.com/
http://www.yourbrainonporn.com/

 

Rx for Anxiety

ANXIETY, I am not immune to it. I doubt you are either. Yet something Jesus said just before his crucifixion reminds me that we have a choice about our anxieties.

The Apostle John describes the scene for us in chapters thirteen and fourteen of his gospel. Jesus, already in Jerusalem for the Passover feast, is in the upper room with his closest followers, his twelve, hand-picked men. There is a price on his head. He washes their feet, shares the bread and the cup, and most notably, predicts his betrayal. All are aghast. All are frightened. They are well aware of the threat they are under, the risks they are running by being in Jerusalem. It is a time of great anxiety.

Into this fractious moment Jesus speaks some his most familiar words, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.” (John 14:1). I’ve read those words hundreds of times, often at funerals. But this week the first three words stood out from the rest in a way they haven’t before because I realized Jesus repeated them near the end of his talk, just before they left the upper room, saying, “Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:27).

The first three words of each line tell us something about ourselves that can be hard to believe: We have a choice about our anxieties. Jesus’ two “Do not let(s)…” make an emphatic statement about our ability to select worry and its gut-wrenching results, or trust and the peace that accompanies it.

The fact, the physiological fact, is that we can worry ourselves sick. Psychiatrists have reliable evidence that the more we worry, the more we fixate on some fearful thing over which we have no control, the more likely we are to push our brain chemistry out of balance. Once the neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine and others get off-kilter it can be very difficult to return them to an even keel. In some cases medications are necessary to help restore the balance. But for most of us medication is a temporary fix. If we don’t address the underlying habit of fear in the first place the imbalance is likely to reoccur.

Jesus has a prescription for preventing such brain disorders in the first place. “Do not let” it happen. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust God (instead). Trust me (instead).” Do not choose worry and it cannot enslave your mind. Choose to trust God and he will set it free.

Easier said than done? Yes, certainly. But it can be done. Let me offer a couple of practical steps to help. Call it Rx for Anxiety.
First, it may be necessary to confess that we’ve allowed the source of our worry, in our minds at least, to become more powerful than God, more important to our wellbeing than Christ. That’s actually idolatry and it requires confession and repentance. “Father, thing A or thing B is occupying front and center in my life. That’s your place. I now repent of that and confess that you are God and nothing else. I confess that I am not in control.”

Second, remembering that physical expressions of worship often help us deal with difficult emotions, take a step of faith. Take that thing over which you have no control (which includes most of life, does it not?), write it down on a piece of paper, and in an act of worship offer it up to God. Then set it on fire.

Some things are more difficult to offer up like this than others. Some may require a daily offering for a while. But make it a habit with all of your worries and peace will become your companion.

We have a choice about our anxieties. As you think about all that Christ accomplished for us during his Passion this week, choose trust.

RISEN: Something Good Out of Hollywood

Based on Bible stories made into movies of late, the Nathaniel’s among us would be justified in paraphrasing the dubious disciple’s first question about Jesus: “Can anything good come out of Hollywood?”

Noah, in spite of my initial enthusiasm about it, turned out to be a theological mish-mash and a box office disappointment. The trailers for Exodus: God’s and Kings, revealed such an obvious hack job on the original story that I, along with many others, didn’t waste my time or money on it. Roma Downey and Mark Burnette’s 2015 television hit, AD, also left me disappointed by the middle of the series.

Not so with Risen, the Sony Pictures release now playing in local theaters. Instead of trying to make something more or something different than the original Easter story, Risen follows the tradition of The Robe and Ben Hur by inserting a fictitious historical character into the Biblical narrative as an eyewitness to events. And while it doesn’t aspire to the epic proportions of those classics it is a good story well told.

Joseph Fiennes (Luther 2003) turns in a phenomenal performance as Clavius, the Roman Tribune charged by Pilate (Peter Firth) with insuring that Jesus stays dead, the Sanhedrin remains mollified, the mob remains pacified, and Caesar stays in the dark about all of it. The cinematography is good. The plot is believable, the film is well paced, and even though it’s obvious that special effects were relegated to the shallow end of the budget pool, the script and the acting more than made up for it. Pilate’s cynicism is palpable, but not overdone, as he and Clavius play a high-stakes game of political chess with the equally cynical High Priest. We come away reminded of how quickly truth goes by the boards as the players manipulate the message in a never-ending battle to shape public opinion.

Risen does have a few weaknesses. One actor is glaringly amateurish in the two short scenes he inhabits. It wouldn’t matter if they weren’t so strategically placed. And those of us concerned with fidelity to the biblical text will note a glaring omission in the words of Jesus just prior to the ascension. But these things are minor and offset by biblical faithfulness throughout the rest of the script and an otherwise excellent supporting cast. Watch especially for the drunken guard’s testimony in the bar. That actor should win an Oscar.

Far more important however and ultimately more moving than any of these things is Fiennes’ Clavius. He is utterly convincing as a man’s man intimately acquainted with the brutal parts of life on a fallen planet. Every man who feels the cynicism of Pilate creeping up on him in mid-life will identify with Clavius’ quest for truth. And everyone who watches will struggle with him to reconcile two irreconcilable things: “A man dead without question, and that same man alive again.”

NO TIME TO KILL

There’s no time to kill between the cradle and the grave
Father time still takes a toll on every minute that we save
Legal tender’s never gonna change the number on your days
The highest cost of livin’s dyin that’s what everybody pays
So have it spent before you get the bill, there’s no time to kill
Clint Black

Everyone’s time is terminal. 86,400 seconds a day, 315,000 seconds a year, and who knows how many years, but no one gets more minutes in a day, no one gets more hours in a year than anyone else. And no one lives forever. Time is the great equalizer.

Clint isn’t the first person to write so cleverly and accurately about time. King Solomon did the same with poetry that captures the essence of life in brilliant brevity. His song still sings three thousand years after it was composed.

Eccl. 3:1 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

Beautiful isn’t it? But let’s think about it practically.

Some of us are so over-booked that we never have time to do the things essential to the good life, to plant, to heal, to laugh, and to dance. Some of us never give ourselves time to mourn and weep over things that had to be torn down, and yes, over things that had to die. We do not give ourselves time to reflect on the important things and in consequence we live shallow lives, searching the internet for stuff to fill the space between us an eternity.

Let’s get off that hellish highway shall we? Life goes by too fast to let the good things go. Do you still have kids at home? Take time with them. Are you married? Set aside time for your mate. Do you believe in the Kingdom of God? Make a plan for how you will invest your time in building it this year.

Remember Solomon’s words as you set your clocks forward this Saturday, and while you’re at it, remember Clint’s too:

If you don’t look ahead nobody will; there’s no time to kill.
CB

 

WILL THE REAL LEADERS PLEASE SIT DOWN?

“If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last and the servant of all.” Mark 9:35.

John Kasich, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio all have credible Christian testimonies. All four take their faith seriously and care deeply about this country. It is time for three of them to sit down. The question is: who among them will accept the responsibility to lead by serving? Who among them will volunteer to be the very last?

Neither alternative to one of these men is desirable for anyone who thinks from the Biblical Worldview. One is a serial liar whose career of corruption reaches back to the seventies and who stands a very good chance of coming under FBI indictment before the show is over. The second is a ruthless business man, bully, and political opportunist whose positions change depending on which microphone he’s speaking into. And the distant third is a Socialist Pied-Piper whose major policy positions would make America Greece again. All three of them could be counted on to continue to strip Americans of their religious freedom and second amendment rights, promote Planned Parenthood’s death-mills, double-down on the disaster ironically named The Affordable Care Act, and fertilize geo-political destabilization.

Yet that is what we will get if Messieurs Kasich, Carson, Cruz and Rubio continue to put winning ahead of leading. All four of them have enough of the right principles to lead this country well. All four of them claim to follow Christ. All four know what is at stake if they continue to split the vote of Constitutional conservatives. Three of them need to sit down now and throw their support behind the fourth in order have enough nominating delegates to stop this train wreck.

What can you do? Pray, of course. But do more than that. If you are a conservative, write the candidate you support, as I have already done for mine. Be honest and straightforward about the situation. Tell him, if you’ve sent money, that you are sending no more. Ask him to put the country ahead of his pride and his personal prospects, to listen to the Lord instead of his advisors, to put leading ahead of winning, and to please sit down.

If we do that perhaps, in the providence of God, the nation will be treated to something it hasn’t seen in a long time: men who lead by serving.

 

REAL HEAD SCRATCHERS

Things that make us scratch our heads:

Christians line up by the thousands to vote for an arrogant, rude, reckless, serial adulterer. Huh?

Once staunchly-biblical denominations line up to support blatantly anti-biblical forms of marriage. Wha?

Liberals of all stripes line up to support the right of Islamists to impose Sharia law in European democracies and American Universities. Really?

What’s up with that? How did we arrive at this state of confusion? The answer, in one word, is tolerance. Tolerance is the virtue most exalted in the last thirty years of Western Civilization. The thoughtless embrace of it has led us to this point.

Now I know what you’re thinking, “How can you say that? Tolerance is a good thing.” And I agree with you. But the late John R.W. Stott, in his book Contemporary Christian, outlined three kinds of tolerance. Christians ought to support the first two to the hilt and oppose the last kind to the last man.

Legal Tolerance
You and I should be committed to everyone’s right to think or say or preach anything he believes. It is the basic ‘freedom of religion’ that this country was founded upon. If someone wants to say that the rapture will happen next week he should have the freedom to do that. If someone wants to say that gender-dysphoric people should have the right to use the restroom of their choice, he or she should have the freedom to say that. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us should run up our credit cards because Jesus is coming back on Friday, or that we should allow biologically male teens to use the girl’s restroom at the high school with our daughters. The freedom to believe and say something does not imply the obligation of everyone else to agree with us.

Social Tolerance
You and I should be equally careful to protect social tolerance. Social tolerance means respect for all people, regardless of the views they may hold.

I think gambling is a bad idea. I can argue against its legalization and preach against its corruptive power. I am not at liberty however to label every person who gambles as a supporter of the Mafia. Social tolerance means I try to understand the values and convictions of others without passing judgment on them.

Christians believe that all humans are made in the image of God and that He wants us to live together in harmony. “As much as it lies with you, be at peace with everyone,” said the Apostle Paul to the Romans. That’s social tolerance.

Intellectual Tolerance
Intellectual tolerance is something we should beware of and oppose. Intellectual tolerance means that we’re supposed to accept every idea and philosophy and doctrine uncritically as equal in value and virtue with every other idea.

Stott said it this way, “To cultivate a mind so broad that it can accommodate every opinion, however false or evil, without ever detecting anything to reject, is not a virtue; it is the vice of the feebleminded and amoral. It ends up in an unprincipled confusion of truth with error and goodness with evil.”

It leads to Evangelicals supporting an ungodly, unprincipled opportunist; to pastors and parishioners supporting same-sex marriage; to intellectual liberals supporting a political ideology dressed up as religion that oppresses minorities, abuses women, sponsors terrorism, and murders gays.

That confusion of truth with error and goodness with evil is why so many of us are scratching our heads. Intellectual tolerance is a subtle but powerful cultural current and it is easy to go with the flow. We who stake our lives on biblical truth are swimming upstream against it. But swim we must, trusting God that as we do truth will prevail.

WHEN A WOMAN LOVES A MAN Five Keys to Success

Everyone wants to succeed at love yet few of us are born with the wisdom for it. I’m no different and have benefitted greatly from many writers over the years. Two of those are Patrick Morely and Laura Doyle, whose insights on how to successfully love a man I pass on to you ladies today. As Valentine’s Day arrives and your lover attempts to express his appreciation, here are five things that may help as you seek to express yours.

1. Understand his need for masculine approval. “One motive … compels men like few others,” wrote Patrick Morely in WHAT HUSBANDS WISH THEIR WIVES KNEW ABOUT MEN. “It is foundational, perpetual, and insatiable.” It is a man’s need for his dad to be proud of him. You might wish that your approval of him would be enough, but it won’t be. If your man has any unresolved issues with his dad that have caused pain for him, gently encourage him to seek peace and reconciliation. If he doesn’t have a dad, as is the case for many young men today, encourage him to let God be his father and let men of the church be his mentors. He will love you for it.

2. Understand his need to accomplish. A second driving force for every man boils down to “an intense desire ‘to do,’ to master his world, to shape the course of events,” says Morely. Every man has a desire for significance, meaning and purpose. He wants to accomplish something with his life, especially in his work. Let your man know that you understand this, and that you pray for him to find it, and will be his greatest cheerleader in it and he will love you for it.

3. Understand his financial pressure and don’t increase it. Americans are doing a little less borrowing than they were before the crash of 2008, but it’s tough. The pressure to achieve a higher standard of living is relentless and often drives men to load themselves with debt. The best thing you can do for the man you love is understand the pressure he feels to provide you with the best of everything and let him know that a used car is OK, that cheap dates are just fine, and that you can wait for that expensive honeymoon until you’ve been married long enough to afford it.

4. Understand his need for companionship. Men are notorious loners. It is part of their competitive nature not to let others get too close, lest they take some advantage of that position. Yet they also live in a brutally competitive world. They’re looking for a partner in life that they can trust, someone who looks forward to their homecoming, who will nurse their wounds when they’ve been “sacked” one to many times, and who will encourage them when it’s time to head back into the fray. Let him know he can trust you; that you will not take advantage of his vulnerabilities, and he will love you for it.

5. Understand his need to lead, and let him. Laura Doyle, author of The Surrendered Wife, “used to think that communication was the key to a better marriage. But that wasn’t how it turned out … Even though I have a degree in communications, trying for years to “communicate” with my husband never got me the connection I craved, but the principles of surrender did. One of those principles is that a surrendered wife is “trusting where she used to be controlling.”

The need to control is a need generated by fear, not trust. 1 Pet 3:5-6 says, “For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope (or trust) in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham… You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear,” (emphasis added).

Ladies, if you’re in a relationship with an abusive and unfaithful man there are other biblical principles that apply. But if you’re a woman who is destroying her romance by controlling her man I encourage you to let go of your fear, first by trusting God, then by trusting your man enough to let him lead. You will be amazed at the results.

May God bless you and fulfill all of your desires as you seek to love each other according to his design.