Unka Glen

catholedigger asked: Hey Unka Glen! I’ve been struggling a little bit with the topic of romantic love. What’s the difference between loving someone like I should love any other person, and liking someone romantically in addition to loving them? Besides physical attraction, I can think of no differences. [edited for length]

Unka Glen answered: Well yeah, you’re right, we’re meant to love everyone, and to love them with God’s love (what the Bible calls “agape”, that is, love that is given to us from God), and so we should have that same kind of love (and more) for the person we’re dating and eventually marrying. And yes physical attraction is part of that picture.

But here are a few important additional elements besides the agape and the hotness:

Romance. Sure, all that heart-pounding and butterflies in the stomach gives way to something more familiar over time, but still, there needs to be that sense of always making a special gesture. It’s about looking for ways to surprise that other person with something that makes them feel special. 

Respect. You can have agape love for someone who is living a life that’s not worthy of respect. But if you lose respect for the person you’re with romantically, then that relationship is basically dead, whether or not it’s had the good manners to lay down and be buried.

If you think about it, respect eliminates a whole class of ugly behaviors. Let’s say a girlfriend is insecure, and she acts jealous around her boyfriend. This is actually disrespectful to the boyfriend. It’s accusing him of very ugly behavior, not based on what he’s done, but based on her insecurity. If you respect someone, you certainly see that they deserve better than to be a pawn in the drama playing out in your head.

Understanding. If you respect me, and understand me, you’ll be able to look at a lot of ugly behavior without judging me. That doesn’t make wrong stuff acceptable in any way, but it can help people to change. More than once I’ve been ranting to my wife on the phone about something driving me crazy, and she’ll say “have you eaten anything today?”

She is so understanding, she can tell by the tone of my voice, that I’m cranky from not having eaten anything, and she knows that if I eat a sandwich, all of this will look much better. And she’s always right. Understanding brought healing, awareness of my wrong attitude, and kept my frustrations from being a conflict between us. Understanding is powerful!

Celebrating victories. As I get older, my relationships are more and more organized by those who celebrate my victories, and those who don’t. Your beloved’s victories should matter to you. Big time. When you do it right, everything is a team effort, and thus, it’s a team victory. 

Help with calling. Here’s where it gets good. A good partner can reflect back to us a side of ourselves that we might not have seen before. They can help us see our giftedness in a deeper way. They can help us find, refine, and dial in on that calling. 

More than that, you can reverse the roles when needed to make that go. If the wife is heading out to help with the youth at the church, that husband needs to take over doing the dishes and cleaning up. And behold there shall be foot rubs upon her return. If the husband is going out to help build houses for the homeless, maybe he comes home to find the game was recorded for him, and there’s a cold drink next to his recliner. 

Life is good when you’re good to each other.

follow me on Twitter: @GlenFitzjerrell

thebridgechicago:

The Acoustic version of “Cast My Cares” from May’s Bridge Box. An intimate, introspective look at our need for God’s tenderness in the midst of our weakness.

Get songs, sermons, studies, and much more for only $8/month. Sign up at missionusa.com/bridgebox.

sonofiver asked: There are pastors and Christians who say there is only ONE way to date, making up rules and regulations, about time spent together, and physical intimacy, and what not. If you had 5 minutes with one of these people, what would you say to him/her?

Unka Glen answered: Oh, they’d basically agree with me. You have to remember, that many of these fad Christian dating books were actually written a few years ago, and the authors have had a chance to see the fruit of their work. And it’s not pretty.

They’ve had plenty of feedback from ministry professionals who do regular marriage counseling, and those professionals have explained how these books have made a mess of things, to put it mildly.

It’s created people who are scared to death, just to go out on a date. Far from helping people have healthy and Godly relationships, in large numbers, it’s driven them to simply have no relationships at all. Fewer and fewer married couples know anything about how to be an actual couple. 

Trust me when I tell you that the authors of these books have heard this feedback in numbers far too big for them to ignore. They agree with the results, simply because they can’t be denied any longer. So why isn’t the larger Christian culture aware of all this?

That’s where things get complicated.

Many of these authors have tried to, well, kinda sorta distance themselves from their own books. Others have suggested that their work was taken out of context (it wasn’t), and made into something ugly and legalistic (it was already legalistic), and that people have made a mess of it (it was already a mess).

To you, these might sound like lame excuses, and that’s in fact what they are. The real answer to your question is: money. You see, when an author writes a book and makes a deal with the publisher, the publisher OWNS that book. 

An author can publicly denounce their book, but if they do something to prevent a publisher from making money on the book that was sold to them, then that publisher can sue that author. 

That might still sound like a lame excuse for a generation of people who are not only stuck with all this toxic nonsense in their heads, but that these books are still available, and are still making money, and they’re making money off of the very people they’re messing up. It is lame, and it is wrong.

I know divorced people who would still be married today, if they’d never read any of these books. And it breaks my heart to see them suffer.

But in a way, what you and I are doing here is the solution to that whole mess. I’m not getting paid to tell you what I’m telling you, nobody owns or controls this conversation. You and I are free to compare notes, to share what we’re seeing out there, and to make sense of it all together. 

This technology is allowing YOU to help shape the church of the future. And I think the future is in good hands.

a-dash-of-ravishing asked: Hey Unka! I was wondering about paranormal events, I know that 99.99% of that stuff is a hoax, but there are some things I’ve even experienced MYSELF, and cases that are just too real. Are they demons? Is it Satan’s plot to lead us astray from Christ and into things like the occult? Thanks for your time! :)

Unka Glen answered: You’re certainly right that most of that “paranormal” stuff is a hoax. And of course both demons and angels are real. The Bible talks about both, so there you have it. But here’s where most people get it turned around: 2 Corinthians 11:14 says “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.”

You see, the devil doesn’t care about you believing in him, there’s not really much to believe in there anyway, and he knows that. It’s really about you believing in his counterfeit version of God. 

Satan says: God cares about you, so He wants you to be rich!

God says: I will supply all your needs according to MY RICHES, so you can focus on giving to the poor.

Satan says: God wants you to be successful! It’s the key to happiness!

God says: Take infinite, perfect peace. Take endless joy. Follow me, and your heart will be so full, it will overflow to those around you. 

Satan says: We’re all afraid of so many things in this world, so BE CAREFUL, and try to keep God happy!

God says: Have no fear. I am your hiding place. I will protect you from trouble, and I will surround you with songs of deliverance. 

…Anyway, you see the point, the enemy isn’t really looking for you to believe in all that occult stuff. The deeper one goes into reading around and investigating things, the more likely one is to eventually hear the actual Gospel.

The enemy knows that someone with an eyes-open interest in the occult may be closer to finding the truth than a person who has fallen for a fake and messed up version of Christianity that denies people a connection with God from the start.

Satan says: Read your bible, go to church, and pray, then God will be pleased with you.

God says: Just hang with me for awhile. Right now I don’t care what you’ve done. Just let me hold you awhile.

This week’s Say That podcast is up!

This week: How to combat jealousy. Is there such a thing as overemphasizing God’s love? How to fight back when depression is kicking your butt.

Stream it FREE from our website, or subscribe for FREE on iTunes.

Anonymous asked: Can I ask about pornography? I feel like I’ve fallen so many times, how many times will God forgive me? Am I really sorry if I continue to do it? How many times can I spit in Gods face? [edited for length]

Unka Glen answered: Well, you actually have about a zillion things about you that need fixing or tweaking or adjusting, right? In fact, nobody ever dies a perfect human being. So it’s kind of an endless list of things to work on, and that’s true for all of us.

So right away we know one thing for sure: God is infinitely patient. We know that God will never be dealing with a perfect human being. From birth to death, He will be dealing with some kind of wrongness from each of us. If He couldn’t tolerate all that, none of us would be here. 

He tells us that love is patient, and kind, and that it keeps no record of wrongs, and then He said, “I am love”.

But WE keep a record of our wrongs, don’t we? Despite Isaiah 43:18 telling us, “forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.” We live in that past anyway. We make it about our performance when our performance didn’t get us saved and it certainly can’t keep us in good standing with God.

So if we let it drop when it comes to our past, we’re still in the present looking at a zillion sins, knowing that even in our future, this list of sins and imperfections will still exist. And there’s only one way to handle all this: one at a time. 

If I tell you to paint a house, you can’t paint all the rooms at once, right? you start in one place and you end in another. You plan it so that you literally don’t paint yourself into a corner. Same thing with your spiritual life, you’re meant to wisely start in one place, and end in another, dealing with one thing at a time. 

It’s SUPER IMPORTANT that you get this list of things you need to deal with in the right order. And in your case, this is your real problem: you’ve put porn at the top of your list. And so I must ask you, why? Is it of major theological importance? Does it effect your witness? Does it ruin your life in some tangible way? How did this get to the top of the list?

You and I know the answer is: the emotions of guilt put it there. Here’s what you need to know about that: guilt is a tool of the enemy, and it always entraps. In your case you’ve been convinced that looking at naked people is the exact same thing as “spitting in God’s face”. It’s obviously not. This is a lie. 

So we should have thought of GUILT as the thing to put at the top of this list! Our guilt tells us theological lies. It keeps us from sharing God with others in an effective way, because we either share our guilt-ridden lives (and who would want to sign up for that?), or more likely we don’t share Christ at all, because we feel unworthy. In the end guilt is ruining everything.

Why isn’t guilt at the top of your list? 

Not only isn’t guilt at the top of the list, it’s not even ON your list! Worse still, it’s actually the thing you’re using to decide what order the list goes in! Guilt was the setup. Guilt was the trap. Porn just happens to be the thing you were willing to feel guilty about. Once you’ve been convinced that you’ve “spit in God’s face”, then you can’t go to God and ask for help, right?

And the separation is complete. 

You think it’s the porn that did the damage. It was the guilt. And here’s the thing about that. Quit the porn, and the enemy with tempt you to feel guilty about something else. Now, by contrast, if you quit the guilt, then you have all that mental energy, and all that renewed connection with God, to fight the porn thing. 

You see, when you get that list right, each item you work on builds a momentum towards solving the next thing. 

suile-glasa asked: How do you deal with having doubts about God?

Unka Glen answered: Well, awhile back I had me some doubts. And I tried talking to my Christian friends about my doubts, but they were no help, because they were too busy repressing their own doubts to hear mine. Besides they were worried I’d talk us both into disbelief.

So I tried talking to my atheist friends, but I realized they were worried too, about losing their faith in nothing. Who knows, if they doubted all their non-belief, they’d end up, ya know, being a believer. So they weren’t any help. 

In the end, there was nobody to talk to except God, and that conversation went a lot like this:

Me: I have, like, doubts about all this stuff.

Him: I get that.

Me: You’re not mad?

Him: Nope. I like to do things on the down-low, so that way people come to me by choice. It’s better for the relationship that way. But it sometimes leads to moments of confusion.

Me: Yeah, I guess I kinda suck at the faith thing.

Him: Well, I can just give you the faith, that’s how it’s supposed to work anyway.

Me: Right on. I can dig that.

Him: I knew that you could.

Me: It’s just that sometimes things really look bad.

Him: There’s much more to life than what you can see.

Me: Yeah. That makes sense.

Him: But you can always come to me for answers, that’s how that’s supposed to work too.

Me: That sounds like a lot of me coming to you, and like, depending on you.

Him: Now we’re getting somewhere!

Me: Okaaay. You don’t mind me being kind of a hot mess about all this?

Him: I love talking to you about all this stuff, and there’s so much more for us to talk about as well. Don’t worry about your doubts, fears, or stumbles… just focus on keeping us connected. Everything you need will flow from that connection.