Day #1 THE RESPECT DARE

Today, I am joining a group a of women in the Respect Dare. The book the Respect Dare: 40 days to a Deeper Communication with God and Your Husband written by Nina Roesner challenges every woman to -with God's help, learn to  and be transformed by respecting our  husbands better or more.
After reading the first day, the conclusion is that this is not for wimps.  This dare will take you to a place of introspection that will be difficult, but Nina assures, necessary and vital for personal and marital transformation. May God bless all of us who are accepting this challenge.

The first challenge is to take a look at our expectations-bad and good.  The ones we have for our husbands (negative), and the ones we have for ourselves (positive) as we go through this program.

It was not always this way, but in the most recent years I have thought that my expectations for others were kept at a minimum. As I think about this activity, I feel the same, but being honest, it doesn't mean that I don't have any expectations at all.  For my husband, I expect these things:

1. smile more (he seems either depressed or upset a lot)
2. Be more of a spiritual leader for my family which means initiate prayer with me and my daughter more, and encourage us more in the Word.
3. Have similar priorities or be more like-minded in our opinions.  We don't argue about our differences of opinion, but, it seems that if we were more like-minded, our relationship would be even better.
4. Be more aware of his table manners and habits which I don't want passed on to my daughter.
5. Be a bit more disciplined with personal hygiene.

Now, the challenge is to lay these expectations down, release them to God.  I accept my husband for the man he is now, not trying to change him, but accept him.

For the rest of the challenge, I expect these things from myself:

1. Understand what disrespect is to my husband and stop those things.
2. Repent of all bitterness and resentment that is poisoning me.
3. Use my words exclusively to build up my husband, encourage and affirm him.
4. See my sin the way God does, deeply mourn over it with Godly sorrow that leads to true repentence.
5. Be full of God's joy.


This was by no means an easy task. In fact, I had some help from Jennifer.  Thanks to her comments and lists, I could organize my thoughts and not feel so overwhelmed.  Encouraged by the Forgiven Wife because she describes the feeling I sometimes have when dealing with internal issues!  Lost and overwhelmed! Not able to identify or communicate anything well!

Thank you, ladies!

A Real Spiritual Battle

Lord, have mercy on us for we truly know not what we are doing!  I am made aware of that reality more today than usual from a few posts on Facebook.  First, a friend of mine posted this article about how in S. Korea a new policy has been put into place that will remove the teaching of evolution from the high school textbooks.  There is no plan, however, to teach evolution, of course.  A baby step in the right direction.  Sadly, the comments didn't resonate the victory that has been achieved.  Comments such as dark ages and a sad day indeed were what followed.  Then again, I post Colossians 3: 12-15.  I think a scripture of encouragement and good attributes that Christians should have.  The post begins, 12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  One response is "God's chosen people, how ridiculous!" I am silenced. May I truly be thankful that Christians are still permitted and have the freedom of speech. There will come a time when we will not be allowed to speak so freely.  Perhaps that time is approaching faster than we realize.

WAW Movement?

Where are the women disciples?  There is such a need for women to have good mentors that encourage a Christ-like walk, but it seems like in this day and age of feminism ideology and the bad wrap that Christianity has gotten (for good reason) have caused a near extinction of women who are really equipped to teach the younger women.  Where are they who walk instead of merely talk of genuine love and obedience to God?

As I, too, struggle in knowing how to handle myself in many situations, I am seeking such a woman. For example, one of the hardest things that I have to deal with is my lack of respect for men (in general).  Perhaps it is because I haven't seen many stellar examples of great men in my experience.  It has been the women in my life that have shown me how to bring home the bacon AND  fry it in a pan so to speak.  Not only that, I have met more women than I have met men who are really interested in social activism, in saving the world and doing something about it such as starting NGO's or volunteering.  These women are all busy with jobs, being moms and the such, but they, in their spare time (haha), involve themselves with things that really matter. Of course, my experience is very limited.  There may be statistically more men in the world that exhibit such attributes worth praising.  However, I am just saying that my limited experience may be the reason for my dysfunctional lack of respect towards men.  We have the Bible which gives us our mandate.  Women should respect their husbands. I know that many women would say, but how can I respect my husband if he is not respectable?  It doesn't say in the Bible we should respect our husbands if or when he is respectable. It says respect your husband.  What happens when we enter into marriage and we have never learned to respect men in other context before or even respect ourselves to some extent?  There is no experience even if you  marry a nice guy and you want to respect your husband.

To see what other women had to say, I googled the question What is so good about men? Very little could I find of encouragement. Instead, I discover there is a WAW (Women are Wonderful) movement.  It seems that according to some survey or research both men and women think women are more wonderful than men these days. Is that a lack of humility or what? Great that we all have realized that women are so wonderful. It still doesn't solve discrimination or unequal compensation or other imbalances in our society.  Nor does it really help women to understand their role in a relationship with men.  If we all had our identities firm in Christ, we would probably realize that we are all very loved and wonderful in the sight of God-both men and women, so this news that women are wonderful shouldn't be a surprise, but where are the blogs about how men are wonderful.  And if you are women reading something like how men are wonderful, what would you think about that?

Thinking about Genesis, I think God has an incredible sense of how to make us humble.  First of all, women ARE God's gift to man.  That is true.  He made this gift so intimate that this gift was created from the man's rib and some dust.  We were created to be a man's helper in the image of God.  Man, too, was created in the image of God.  I always kind of joke that women had to be made a little more capable than men because if we are to be his helper, then we have to have more skills and abilities than he does.  It is no use to have a helper that can't help you, right?  At the same time, men are given some special authority and responsibility over their family.  Perhaps if you are a man and recognize your great responsibility and your lack, that could make you feel more easily insecure and lack confidence (hence the need for others to respect the man more?).  The mix of great responsibility and lack always should lead to dependence in God, right?  For women, we don't have the authority, but may have many skills and special insights that our wonderful husbands may not be gifted with.  This mix, too, will force us to look to God for grace and love and much, much patience.

I am reminded of a book that I consider the best book on marriage that I have read.  It is called Sacred Marriage: What if God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More than to Make Us Happy by Gary Thomas



Perhaps for transformation to occur in our hearts, we need to reframe the question. It shouldn't be what is so great about men.  There is nothing really great about either men or women.  God is great!  However, for a more practical understanding of how to honor and respect in our hearts, there must be a question that is more suitable to the problem.  Any ideas?

This morning I read a post by John Piper entitled The Agonizing Problem of the Assurance of Salvation.  It was the most insightful commentary that I have read on the subject ever. It deals with the heart of the question of salvation.  Simply, am I truly saved and not self-deceiving myself or just believing in God to assuage my fears of hell. I mean how do we come to terms with scripture such as in Matthew 7:21-23 where it says that many will not enter the kingdom even though they proclaim to have not only believed but even prophesied in the Lord's name? There is  a test of three questions that can help you determine whether salvation has come to you or not.

1. Do you believe that the fact that Christ died on the cross for our sins is something truly glorious and wonderful? This can be realized when the gospel is preached.

2. Is it because you think that His dying on the cross for our sins is wonderful that you accept Him as your Savior or is it because you are merely trying to avoid the bad consequences of not believing in Him?
In other words, are you resting in the light in the gospel of the glory of Christ? To accomplish this, we should always pray that God enlighten our eyes.

3. Do we love each other? In John, it says that we can know that we have passed from death to light if we love one another.

Ultimately, salvation is a gift from God.  I agree with Pastor Piper when he closes by commanding us to pray that it (this precious gift of salvation) may abound among us.

My desire is to be like a Seraphina- the Hebrew word for an angel who is known to be the most powerful servant of God.

What is it to be a servant/follower of Christ?  This is the question that consumes me.  Many evangelists focus on the way to salvation because for many the first step is the hardest.  I accepted Christ when I was very young.  What I have discovered along the way is that being a Christian is much more difficult than believing some precepts.  Yes, it is required, but the exploring and fleshing out of the Christian life is the opening of a Pandora's Box that can be overwhelming. 

To reach a destination, we need to know where we are going.  God created us for a purpose- to serve Him.  As we obey Him and serve Him, He transforms us into a likeness of Christ.  In the Bible, there are many verses that exemplify the kind of people God wants His people to be.  As a married woman, I am particularly attracted to the woman described in Proverbs 31.  This is the ideal woman who is approved by God as an exemplary model of what a women should be  For this reason, this ideal is also what I seek for myself. Yes, a high standard, but Christians have been called to move in the right direction.  This time here is transient; we have an eternity ahead of us.

My starting point, therefore, is my destination: Proverbs 31.