Have you ever watched someone do something foolish and said to yourself, “I’m never going to do anything like that,” and then wound up doing something very similar later on? If so, you have a picture of what’s going on in 1 Kings chapter 12.
There, Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, chooses to reject wise counsel and instead do what he wants to do. Because of this tragic and rebellious sin, Rehoboam loses over 90% of his kingdom to Jeroboam.
Now you would think that Jeroboam, having watched Rehoboam lose most of his kingdom through selfish rebellion, would have learned to do things differently. But after God gives most of the kingdom to him, and after God has told him that He will do for him what He did for David, Jeroboam turns away from the God who has given him the kingdom and sets up idols and false gods for worship. He’s a repeat offender.
It makes you want to say, “How can you be so foolish?”
But before we start pointing fingers, how many times have we watched someone suffer the consequences of willful disobedience only to turned around and ignored our own need to obey.
It’s part of our post-fall wiring (Romans 3:23) and none of us are exempt. This is why we need a Savior to pay for our sin and give us a new life that can combat the old life.
Rehoboam. Jeroboam. They all sound alike. They all act alike, and they are all prone to wander off the path of God…just as we are. The question is not, “Will you ever do something like that?” The question is, “When you do, will you turn back to the God of your blessings or continue toward your downfall.
Have you ever wished you could go back and change something in your history? Most of us feel that way, but we know we can’t change the past. You can’t change our history.
But what if I told you there IS a way to change your FUTURE HISTORY.It may sound like something from a sci-fi movie, but it’s possible! You don’t have to be a time traveler to change your future history. You just have to make the most of what’s in front of you now!
No one wants them. We try to avoid them. But if you’re married, you can’t avoid them. So we skirt them and try to spend as little time as possible with them.
I am not talking about in-laws. I’m talking about hard conversations.
If you’re married, there are going to be some hard conversations. You can’t avoid them. In fact, the more you try to avoid them, the worse they become.
WHAT MAKES CONVERSATIONS HARD AND WHAT YOU CAN DO
Hard conversations are just that…they’re hard. And there are some good reasons for that. Here are a few things that can make conversations hard…
Topics.
There are some topics in marriage that are just hard to talk about. Some of the the more common hard topics are:
Money.
Children.
Sex.
In-laws.
Personal Habits.
These types of topics make for hard conversations because they feel personal and they highlight our differences and disagreements.
If a topic is uncomfortable for you, admit that to your spouse, upfront. Let them know why it’s uncomfortable for you, and ask them to be patient with you as you have the conversation.
Temperaments.
Our temperaments also make certain conversations hard. We tend to avoid hard conversations if we are:
Fearful.
Anxious.
Angry.
Insecure.
Depressed.
Have low self-esteem.
Feel insignificant.
These are traits that cause people to avoid, withdraw, or conceed; as well as to aggressively and angrily overpower the other person so as to silence the conversation.
If this is you, and a hard conversation is on the horizon, you need to:
Take a moment to calm yourself. Get comfortable and breathe deeply and slowly until you’re more relaxed.
Remind yourself you’re not adversaries. You’re just normal people who have different views and needs.
Think of all the difficult things you’ve successfully worked through in the past. Tell yourself that this will eventually be another one of those things.
Start the conversation by telling your spouse that you love them. Tell them you are committed to trying to meet their needs and having a marriage you both will enjoy.
Agree to take a break if needed. If the conversation gets bogged down or negative, agree to take a break from it and return to it at a set time.
These steps will help you take control of your temperament.
Timing.
Many conversations are made more difficult because of poor timing.
Sometimes we choose a poor time to have the conversation. Here are some examples of poor times to start a hard conversation:
At bedtime, or late at night.
When your spouse is busy or focused on something else.
If your spouse is already upset or angry.
When your spouse is exhausted.
You may feel these are the only times you have, but you would be able to find a good time to talk to your kids about something important, and you can do the same for your spouse.
Another problem with timing is that we procrastinate and wait too long to have the conversation.
We put off the conversation. We convince ourselves it’s too small of a thing to deal with. Or we hope it will get better on its own. But when we wait too long to have a hard conversation, two things happen:
First, the problem builds up within us over time and we are too emotional when we finally bring up the subject.
Second, so much time has passed between the incident that called for the conversation and the actual conversation that the other spouse feels blind-sided and wonders where it’s coming from.
Pick a time when things are relatively calm and good. Tell your spouse you would like to talk to them about something, and ask for a good time to do that. This might put them on high alert, but assure them it’s ok. Ask if you could go out for dinner or dessert to talk. If their curiosity can’t take the suspense, give them a very general idea of what you want to talk about, but don’t get into it right then and there.
Your spouse may try to keep putting you off, but stay lovingly persistent.
Talking.
Here, I’m referring to talking too much or too little.
If you’re someone who handles hard conversations by talking a lot, then you need to talk less and listen more. This will communicate to your spouse that you care about what they think and feel.
If you’re someone who handles hard conversations by withdrawing and not saying anything, you need to open up more, so that your spouse knows what you’re thinking and feeling. When you open up, it keeps your spouse from feeling shut out.
Twisting.
Finally, conversations become hard when we twist what our spouse is trying to say. We do this when we get so defensive and caught up in our own emotions we don’t hear what our spouse is truly saying to us.
To keep from twisting what your spouse is saying, try the following…
Listen without interrupting.
If your spouse is going on and on, and you’re losing track of what they’re saying, then hold up your hand and tell them you really want to follow what they’re saying, but you’re starting to lose track.
Then, tell them what you think they’re trying to say to you at that point.
If your spouse agrees that you’ve heard them correctly, then take a moment to respond to that…and only that. Keep it short and don’t start adding other things to it. Stay on topic.
If the two of you will keep repeating this process, it will help to keep the two of you from twisting each other’s words. It will also make hard conversations less difficult and more productive.
A FINAL WORD
To sum it all up, you can’t avoid having hard conversations in marriage, but you can make those hard conversations a “TAD” easier by remembering the acronym T-A-D. Be careful with your Timing, your Attitude, and your Delivery.
So don’t be afraid of hard conversations, and don’t avoid them. You can do this. And when you do, you and your spouse will grow closer for it.
It’s not unusual to find news stories of well-known and successful investors being arrested for illegally cheating their clients out of millions of dollars. Thousands of people have lost their retirement and life savings due to illegal investment schemes by unscrupulous investors.
These investors were successful without their illegal schemes. Even in a down-turned economy, they fared better than most. Yet their desire for even more led to their downfall.
This was the case with Solomon in 1 Kings chapter 11. Solomon had wealth, wisdom, power, and luxury. He was famous and respected throughout the known world. But he wanted even more.
Solomon had a weakness for women. And though he could have had all the Israelite women he wanted for his wives, Solomon wanted foreign women. He wanted women who believed in, and followed after, other gods. God had specifically and clearly told Solomon that such women were “out of bounds.” But Solomon, though he had everything, wanted more and willfully disobeyed God’s instructions. (1 Kings 11:2, 9-10)
This started Solomon and the whole nation of Israel on a downward slide.
It’s so easy for our lives to be like Solomon’s. God has given us so much, yet we still want more. We clearly understand how God wants us to live, yet we willfully do what we want to…often with similar results to Solomon’s.
We consider an act of disobedience such a small thing, then we suffer big consequences. And we find ourselves saying, “I don’t know what happened. Things were going so well!”
God has given us Solomon’s story to warn and teach us. The God who blesses us so richly calls us to follow Him completely. (1 Kings 11:6) There’s no such thing as a little disobedience!
I would like to tell you that you and I can completely rid ourselves of discouragement, but I can’t. Discouragement is a part of life that we can’t completely avoid.
But I can tell you how to increase your tolerance level for discouragement. It involves making three small changes:
Change Your Focus.
Change Your Comparisons.
Change Your Frame.
If you’re a person of faith, you can see these three changes in the story of David and Goliath.
Are you discouraged today? Is there something that seems too big for you? Try applying these 3 changes and see if it doesn’t raise your tolerance level for discouragement.
We have seen a lot of loss in recent days due to a worldwide pandemic, but we have been suffering from a virus that is much more devastating than COVID-19. Since the birth of Playboy magazine in 1953 and the sexual revolution of the 1960s, the entertainment industry has constantly pushed the envelope when it comes to sex. For years, sexual content became bolder and more mainstream. Then in 1993, the World Wide Web became public. And this newfound digital access comes with a virus that has permeated our homes and churches and has put influenza to shame.
Defining the Problem.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, pornography is defined as:
“Printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings.”
But chances are I don’t need to define it. We all know what it is and probably have all seen or watched some version of it.
Over 40 million Americans are regular visitors to porn sites.
68% of church-going men and over 50% of pastors view porn on a regular basis.
And the average age a child is first exposed to porn is 11 years old.
Porn is truly a pandemic worse than COVID. It is destroying our homes and families right under our noses. Why? It kills the desire for true intimacy and leads to sexual addiction.
You may be reading this and thinking that porn is not a problem. You may believe that porn is a normal part of life and something everyone does. But the truth is that once you begin to use pornography for sexual gratification, you start training your brain to attach to the fantasy world through pornography and masturbation.
Sex addiction can cause some serious challenges in relational sex, because you have neurologically attached your brain to a fantasy image or act. So when you have sex in real life, you have to close your eyes and/or disconnect from reality. Fantasy simply becomes more enticing, because it requires no work or relational intimacy. It is a false intimacy that sinks it claws deep into you, and you cannot pull away.
Do I Have a Problem?
Now you may be asking yourself, “Do I have a pornography problem?” Or “Am I a sex addict?”
First, let’s help define what a sex addiction looks like. Sexual addiction is a compulsive behavior that completely dominates your life. It causes you to make sex a bigger priority than family, friends, and work. Everything revolves around sex, and you are willing to sacrifice what you cherish most to preserve and continue your unhealthy behavior.
There are also patterns of out-of-control sexual behavior, such as: compulsive masturbation, indulgence in pornography, chronic affairs, dangerous sexual practices, prostitution, anonymous sex, and compulsive sexual episodes.
For sex addicts, sex is the same as food or drugs in other addictions. It provides the “high” that addicts depend on for feeling normal. Temporary pleasure and unhealthy relationships become more important than forming healthy, intimate relationships. A sexual addict may begin to isolate themselves either emotionally or literally. There is a repetitive struggle to control behavior, which is followed by a deep sense of despair for continuously failing to do so. Self-esteem gradually decreases, increasing the need to escape into the addictive behavior all the more. It’s a vicious cycle.
Here are some questions to ask yourself if you are wondering whether you might be an addict:
Do I have secret sexual behaviors with myself, pornography or others?
Am I unable to be honest about my sexual behavior?
Have I caused pain in my relationships due to my sexual behavior?
Have I had consequences financially, relationally or socially due to my sexual behavior?
Do I continue my sexual behavior regardless of consequences or attempts to stop the behavior?
Do I have difficulty not lusting or objectifying people?
If you have answered yes to one or more of these questions, you really need to seek help. It’s hard to admit weakness and ask for help, but it is absolutely crucial. One of the biggest lies that lust tells us is, “You can handle this by yourself.” Once you believe that, all hope of getting better is gone.
Addressing the Problem.
For the Christians reading this post, you may be telling yourself, “I will just pray harder or increase my faith.” I am here to tell you that this is not enough. I know that may sound blasphemous, but I am not the one who said that—God did. The Bible tells us in I John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” This promise is absolutely true, but it only offers forgiveness. There is a vast difference between forgiveness and healing. The key to healing is not found here. It is found in James 5:16, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed….”
Forgiveness is immediate and comes from God, but healing takes place over time and is gradual. Forgiveness comes when we confess our sins to God, but healing comes when we confess our sins to one another. You CANNOT heal from a sex addiction on your own or even just you and God. Others must be involved. Start by finding one person you can trust and confide in, and ask them to help you by being accountable to them.
If you find yourself bound to pornography and sex addiction, there is hope. Find someone you can be accountable to or find a recovery group that encourages behavior change. The road ahead is long and the work is hard, but the result is absolute freedom to live the addiction-free life God has called you to live.
“It doesn’t get any better than this!” These are the words of someone who feels they’ve reached a high point and can begin to enjoy the fruit of their labor.
He’s completed the most magnificent temple and palace in all of history.
He has the blessing of God upon his life and his reign.
He’s built projects to his heart’s content.
He has acquired chariots, horses; fleets of ships; and tons of gold, silver, and jewels.
He is the wisest man on the planet, and people all over the known world come to experience his wisdom and wealth.
“It doesn’t get any better than this!”
But, as you read of all this in 1 Kings chapters 9-10, you begin to get uneasy. Much like a piece of music that keeps building and climbing to greater and greater heights, you begin to wonder… “when and how will it all come down?”
The answer to that question is alluded to in 1 Kings 9:6. It’s as if the writer of 1 Kings is dropping a clue as to what will eventually happen in chapter 11 and following.
The sad thing is, it didn’t have to end. We’re told in 1 Kings 9:4 that all Solomon had to do was to continue to follow God with integrity and godliness, keeping His laws and commands. It’s such a small thing to ask, in light of all the benefits Solomon was experiencing.
In light of all that God has done for us…and all He promises to do for us…following His commands is such a small thing to ask. Why would we not do this and forfeit all we’ve received?
There are many different support groups out there, and many people attending them. But are they helpful? I believe they are. In this episode of Quick Counsel, we’re going to answer these three questions:
Our moods can feel like some ethereal, ghost-like entity that just settles upon us. Like something intangible that we can’t quite get a hold of. But once you understand how a mood is made, you will begin to understand how you can manage a mood. In this episode of Quick Counsel, we’re going to help you do this, by explaining what goes into making your mood and 3 things you can do to help manage your mood.
No matter how many times I see Jame Cameron’s movie “Titanic,” I am always uneasy each time I watch that ship slowly submerge, violently break apart, and then disappear to the dark depths. The fear, the panic, the finality…with each viewing, it’s unnerving.
Not long ago, I counseled 6 people who were either divorcing or headed towards divorce. And this was over the course of just two days! It was like watching the Titanic sink over and over again as I watched these marriages slowly submerge, violently break apart, and begin to disappear into the dark depths.
I’m not trying to be melodramatic here, but each time a marriage ends in divorce it’s a tragedy of Titanic proportion. And the similarities are unsettling.
INITIAL ARROGANCE.
The Titanic was believed to be different than any other ship because it was reported to be unsinkable.
In every premarital counseling session I’ve ever done, as well as every wedding ceremony I’ve ever officiated, the couple before me believes they are different from other couples. They are convinced in their heart of hearts that their relationship is different and impervious to sinking.
But every marriage will encounter “icebergs” that will threaten even the thickest of marital hulls. And assuming that your marriage is exempt puts you even more at risk.
NOT TAKING PROPER PRECAUTIONS.
The company that designed and owned the Titanic was so sure of its superiority that they failed to take proper precautions. For example, they cut back on the number of lifeboats needed, and when they were in dangerous waters, they were over-confident, increasing their speed and dropping their guard.
Too many married couples are too sure of themselves. They are over-confident in that they fail to bring enough people into their lives who could serve as lifeboats in times of need. And they are so busy that they fail to slow down when they’re in difficult and dangerous waters. They just assume they can power through.
A LAST MINUTE PANIC AND SCRAMBLE.
When the Titanic hit the iceberg, they were unprepared and ill-equipped. They fell into an every-man-for-himself panic. They even ignored innocent lives by not filling the lifeboats to the capacity to save as many as they could.
The icebergs that threaten a marriage are many: financial icebergs, infidelity icebergs, relational icebergs, parenting icebergs, as well as others. Too many couples are unprepared and ill-equipped for the icebergs. So when they strike one, they fall into panicking, scrambling, blaming, and an every-man/woman-for-themselves mentality.
THE RESULTS.
There are two images from Cameron’s “Titanic” that haunt me. The first is when the camera seamlessly morphs from Titanic’s polished decks gleaming in the sunlight to its ghostly, rusted wreckage strewn across the bottom of the dark ocean floor. And the second image that haunts me is the image of all the victims strewn across the surface of the Atlantic.
The results of divorce are similar. What once was a polished and shiny new marriage morphs into unsalvageable wreckage. And those who were once joyful passengers on this marriage voyage became victims of the tragedy.
Let me say this…I’m not trying to depress anyone, nor am I trying to heap guilt upon anyone who has been through a divorce. If this post has done either of those things, I sincerely apologize. Maybe it’s me processing a tough week of sinking marriages and sad wreckage.
But almost always, divorce – like the sinking of the Titanic – is a preventable tragedy. Yes, there are a percentage of marriages where abuses, abandonment, and adultery may doom a marriage to divorce…even if one spouse doesn’t want it. But those percentages are small in comparison to the overall divorce rate.
SO, WHAT CAN WE DO?
Just as shipbuilders and captains learned from the sinking of the Titanic, we need to learn from the marriages that are sinking around us.
Don’t be arrogant or over-confident. No matter how strongly you love one another…no matter how long you’ve been married…divorce can happen to you. There are many “icebergs” out there that can and will threaten your marriage. Assuming that your marriage will be exempt puts you even more at risk. Be in love, but be realistic.
Take proper precautions. When you know there are “icebergs” out there that will threaten your marriage, then take precautions ahead of time.
Establish regular date nights for just you and your spouse, and fiercely protect them.
Create a financial plan that will secure your present and your future.
Give as much attention to romance and sex as you do to paying bills and raising kids.
Fix any problems you may have in communication and conflict resolution.
Make sure your expectations are realistic.
Don’t panic and scramble. If your marriage hits an “iceberg,” don’t panic and scramble. As a couple, turn to the lifeboats that are available to you: parents, friends, counselors, pastors, your church, etc. And don’t forget the other potential casualties around you. As a couple, gather up and protect the kids, family, and friends involved and keep them as safe as possible.
TO SUM IT UP…
I don’t mean to be all gloom and doom. Nor am I trying to scare you. But I want your marriage to safely navigate the sometimes difficult waters of life so that the two of you arrive at your destination together and intact.
So let me sum things up this way: Love each other like it was your last day together, and then your days together will last.
