Paul Miller: When Love Hurts

A lot of pastors are really hurting now with loss of attendance and it's a hard time and I have been urging pastors tell people you are hurting.

Tell them this is hard for you.

Tell them your fears. Let into your hurting.

I would say that's more than just teach pastors I think. So often we pull inward in our pain. A decile year writing for pastors to model that.

And then for all of us have someone say get trusted yet that may have a biblical viewpoint can kind of wrap their arms around us and pray for us that if something really healthy about welcome to family life today where we want to help you pursue relationships that matter most and Wilson Wilson. You can find us if we live today.com or on our family life Family life today so I have a confession but it's not real bad but I don't like to admit this but every once in a while and I'm flipping through channels.

I'll come across the bachelor or the bell read. I know this about you. Did you know you I find myself watching. I've never watched Lycos season or Priam even watch the total show what is an hour but I watch for this year and avid watcher about ripping you if you watch the show but I find myself just invaded and I'm snickering because this woman think she can find her guy or this guy thinks he's going to find her woman right and everything is so fake everything is perfect and they're all in their tuxedos and I'm just like, this is not like this is not marriages is not the relationships and yet I know it does hook you in good you want to watch the drama that I know there's bachelor and bachelorette parties only want a minute of every watched it but I think I want to because it's so not real right probably and I think you know we need to display what Israel and I think today were to talk about what is really a Paul Miller back in the studio to talk about the life of Christ formed in us, which is so unlike the bachelor bachelorette Paul welcome back to family life today. I'm excited talk again about what you call the J curve.

Your books called the J curve right is a beautiful visual of the Christian life. Even a relationship dating life or a married life or a family goes through this curve so remind our listeners what the J curve is well.

The supply did the J curve is like the J Jesus life goes down into death and up into resurrection and that is the template for our lives. And there's three kinds of J curves, there is the love J curve which Philippians 2 talks about where Jesus descends from the heavenly's down all the way to death on the cross it's motivated by love. He's going into a world where there's problems, he's going into trouble.

Okay then this second kind of J curve is when trouble comes after me that's suffering like when Johnny Erickson taught a better accident that was a suffering J curve for me.

She jumped into a lake and ends up.yeah so this suffering is coming out her nose in the love J curve. It is like being a missionary, you know, marriage is a love J curve you you enter into it with love and the third kind J curve is where I need to die to myself because the troubles in me.

This problems in me where I have to put to death something in me so that three kinds of J curves I call the repentance J curve where the problem is in me the love J curve where I married the pub. I should get a different word and then the third one is where the problem comes out okay just the start of a taxonomy of J curves. So if you're wondering why should I listen to this today.

It's because every single one of us experiences this at some point in our lives where we are suffering or we are struggling. Yeah, we need to know how does the life of Christ. How does biblical knowledge.

How does this J curve help me right and just. Here's a quick story that I mention the J curve book where Kim our fourth child of six children with her autism would get up at like 4 o'clock in the morning. Her bedroom is on the third floor and paced back and forth. She got the hallway, flicked the light on run back to bed.

Five minutes later she come back and flick off and I could sleep through this my wife so she could tell her to get back in bed, because we were separated by three doors and a floor.

She had to tell you loudly yelled. When we would have devotions at that point we had her devotion separately. Jill would be on the first floor I did on the second floor came would be patient on the third floor. Jill had to yell at me so I yelled to get back in bed so like tagteam yelling.

Does that mean I got the picture you and Jill are up at four in the morning, having your devotion this to be like the kid would start pacing at 530, uterine, and a typical male brain. I could just turn this off. Yeah, my wife heard everything at five times as volume.

So one day I I decided I was convicted and and will call this a repentance J. Kurt Ives compared to the yelling and I was half with you writing this book on prayer.

I thought maybe I should go up and pray with Kip.

Jill said to me as I was getting databases when you do yelling Ken which was on comment, because we did our yelling, long distance, you know, so that hasn't worked for 10 years so I said I was to go pray with her and she started laughing. It is been 20 years. I go upstairs I just sit on Kim's bed and I pray with her.

I just I just pray that God would quiet her and it's amazing.

As we enter into the world of love what God does in my prayer as I begin the moment I started praying about Kim. I knew something that I hadn't known a minute before it was just a stock. It was just like that and there I noticed her words to it and it was just that I had underestimated Kim and her ability to learn and to grow and mature as a person is just something I knew that was like December and March, it stopped. So I went about once a week to pray with Kim and his topic as we moved. We realize that the trucks from the meat factory across the street when they would pull then we waking up can realize she was the back of by the way, is why it's so important not to overthink prayer. Prayer is so mysterious because God is so mysterious you. You just have to be like a little child. So God had the answer to prayer before I prayed it with that policy. I'm listening. I'm thinking we do underestimate the power of prayer. Yeah why is it sometimes it's the last thing we know that in the first thing I'm recalling recently I was in the hospital with my daughter in law and are one-year-old granddaughter was in the hospital and she needed a CAT scan and the nurses were saying this baby cannot eat for six hours and we are the reverse of the feeding of the 5000 possible source strategizing how can we do this and I'll never forget like the baby was fussy she was hungry and were all basically crying like how we can do this and we started to pray and I put worship music to the baby fear as I prayed. It was the most miraculous thing that experiences maybe just settled down and she fell asleep for three hours and I'm thinking the same thing in the first thing did you now. I love that you my faith that for 20 years, even yelling upstairs.

This change the whole pattern you underestimated your daughter yeah let me just finish out this JSTOR so it begins with the repentance we enter into the work of love. God takes us on this journey and then he began to speak into my journey and I was convicted by that thought I could get out of my mind so two or three months that I will he do with that I started doing morning devotions with Kim. We had a great time doing devotions and then she would look like oh we would just read something from the Jesus children's book kind of art, connoisseur of children's books we've started now on our fourth reading of the comic book the Bible because of the motor with her but when Kim would pray and she would pray in her speech computer.

I would go do the dishes is just a good old American multitasking unit. I mean, I would've sat down with her except I had to go to work and write a book about prayer is that there is a couple months you know I should respect, or if, especially since I wrote a book about being attentive to people.

I just convicted as I sat down with her as soon as I started I sat down with her. Her prayers begin the blossom and mean it went from one or two sentence to longer prayers. They were funny prayers. I'll take pictures of her prayers because it shows on her print out of her screen send to people who she's praying for. She prays for angry people because she struggles with anger and shall thank God for Disney. You know I'm I should just chill. Thank God for SpongeBob things that I would never think to thank God for you know what was that about you sitting down. I was valuing her I was and I knew I should do.

I was attentive to her, you know, she blossomed yeah and she blossomed is just and what I'm describing is a resurrection that's was to say that the resurrection side and this resurrection that has come out of this has so many sides to it. Right around that time I stopped teaching Sunday school just told the pastor I'm gonna shut down Kim's not been taught.

They found an empty room next to the furnace. Kim and I another disabled kids. We just started doing Bible study together that my wife took it over and now we have a ministry within see Jesus that writes Bible curriculum for people with intellectual disabilities called Bethesda. So it's really helpful to be attentive to the story we should be story watchers and storytellers because you know were alert to the patterns of dying and so there was a love J curve. I was loving Jill. I was time to myself and there were several other dines in there like dying to multitasking and that Kim blossoms is just it's very sweet. I love praying together you know after breakfast every morning she she pushes aside all her stuff and we read our Bible story together and also suggested Kim something that she can remember. I find she has a limit about five suggestions. Or she gets irritated because SpongeBob awaits suppresses parents. I remember that to lift if I hadn't spent some time just being on the bed asking them how they're doing of reading a devotional lizard days upon days of doing that, but then you get older you hear their prayers and you see their lives kind of igniting and being set on fire for Jesus. That's the resurrection is the resurrection and the resurrection brings hope right yeah I mean a couple your chapters talk about it transforms your vision. Yes, for life for your family. It's just that resurrection. Understanding is literally life-giving. Yes, it really is an autistic couple examples from Philippians 1 Paul's in prison literally in chains. What is dictating the book of Philippians and he says to the Philippians, who were evidently worried about him. Don't worry because of my chains.

The whole predatory in regards of Paul's in Rome, which we think he is about 6000 members. The praetorian guard the whole predatory guard has heard about Jesus. So it's a way of looking at your life where you're picking up the beauty.

It's a kind of a Christian realism you so you're not optimistic you optimism ignores the negative. It is denial. You know it's not honest and it just looks of the positive. But Paul is realistic. So what's the great reality he sees is the resurrection and enthronement of Jesus Christ I mean that's the 10,000 W neon bulb at the center of the room that just the blinding light that reshapes how Paul looks at everything. Then he mentioned there are people that are try to get me in trouble here, but you said you know what, let's look at that through resurrection lens they're trying to get me in trouble by aggressively preaching the gospel and look more people are hearing about Jesus who cares about their motive, means the dominance of the therapeutic lens can lead us to kinda getting stuck in debt.

Let's say you're in a difficult marriage where you're married to what I what I like to call the prickly St. you need to be praying every day to see the beauty of Jesus in that person. Otherwise, you're going to get caught in the prickles and that's going to shape your lands and you'll get stuck at the bottom of the J that's David and Wilson with Paul Miller on family life today to hear about the hope of a spouse can have, even when facing a difficult marriage in just a second. As a listener of family life today. Heard many stories of how God can do amazing work in even the toughest marriages and the amazing thing is that God chooses to use people just like you to help one way you can make an impact for more marriages and families is by financially partnering with family like today all this week is our thanks for your partnership. We want to send you a copy of KY must book called the peace project.

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You can get your copy when you give this week@familylifetoday.com when you call with your donation at 800-358-6329. That's 800 F as in family L as in life, and then the word today. Right now, back to David Anne's conversation with Paul Miller call even if somebody's at the bottom of the chain. They are really struggling in their circumstances of the marriage.

Don't change. Are you saying they can come up and experience resurrection in the midst of a great example of that is Paul and Silas in the Philippian jail and been there at the literally at the bottom of the J in prison they been beaten once they're in stocks which were torture extenders there in pain and they are in the fellowship of his suffering.

They start worshiping and praying and so the resurrection can always begin in your heart and so what does this the dying and rising with Christ stabilizes your emotions so you can say yeah this really hurts.

And this is really hard and you can have friends that you can unburden your heart to but that grief and that sadness that you feel the and you should feel because of a difficult marriage doesn't have to be the last word. I was just thinking of when we wrote our book critical marriage. It was about our 10 year anniversary of how I told Dave I was pretty much done in our marriage and I would describe that as the most horrendous beautiful point of my life because in the pain it led to repentance and that repentance and the dying of self. It led to resurrection. The resurrection yeah got resurrected our marriage not in in an instant. Although in an instant of repentance.

The miracle began yeah and then flush itself out over the last 31 years now 41 years.

My question is it possible to experience resurrection vision of life alone or do you need a community or is it both in minutes both and there are some situations where you really that great proverb that every heart has its own grief, you know, I think there's often parts of our hearts that that are either inappropriate or just for one reason or another and that's okay.

And sometimes the stories that we are in need to be hidden because it to share them with her people and you know the beautiful thing is what a whole community begins to enter and and that's what Paul's passion is the Corinthian community has been what I call the failure boasting chart so think of a slow slide. You know were failures of the bodily boasting is the top that. That's kind of our flesh, you know where were trying to get up and avoiding going down but Jesus is the pattern of his life needs to describe every community in here. Here's a quick example of that law. Pastors are really hurting now with loss of attendance and it's a hard time and I have been urging pastors tell people you are hurting. Tell them this is hard for you. Tell them your fears don't put on the evangelical smile don't do vision series on how great your churches let into your where where you are.

So if you're dying to be able to open your heart up in a wise and prudent way to that dying. It is really for and you get the whole convocation praying for you. They know you're hurting highly say that's more than just pastors I think. So often we pull inward in our pain. Yeah yeah so you're right for pastors to model that. And then for all of us to have someone say yeah trusted. Yeah, that may have a biblical viewpoint that can kind of wrap their arms around us and pray for us that if something really healthy about that is just enormously healthy and will and I was going to that hard time that I missed our last podcast with challenging boss. I had a really close friend I would open up my heart to that friend to just because you're the suffering J curve suffering J curve exposes the possibility of repentance. Shakers of sin in your life. So opening your life up to you. Moving between the different J curve so that here's the way it is harder to be a victim than it is to be a sinner, a sinner can repent. But if you remember my Kayla story. Kayla was a victim when you are wounded by someone you got to take that into a fellowship of his suffering or that door to bitterness will will not be adorable, be vacuum that sucks you in and thinking for a listener something for us even what's the hardest thing in your life right now where would you say I am struggling here anything I Thought polished like can we die to ourselves in the suffering of Christ. Can we give that to him and what's keeping you from that. Yeah, I'm thinking 01 of the things I've learned. Paul from from you and from your book to J curve is when I'm in the death, suffering, struggle, stage, open my eyes and realize Jesus is right here. He wants to meet me. He hasn't abandoned me. I am fellowship being with him and there's part of this glorious I know it's hard to have that perspective fish. If you're in a dark right now but he's there and you are actually with him. You're participating in something he's already gone through for you that is beautiful thing. I know it's crazy to think of that right now and I don't know when resurrection is going to come. It could be years from now County this hour but endure and participate in this suffering because it's worth it. And he loves you and the very simplest thing to do when you find yourself in the situation that Davis is described is to go to Jesus and tell him what you're doing it. It's a notice to Hebrew lament you. No telling where your hat and start asking him for his help. Just keep going back you been listening to David and Wilson with Paul Miller on family life to a have you looked at your book lately from when you were about 15 you member what life was like them. It's a time when you can really struggle with figuring out just who you are and as a parent, it can be pretty tricky knowing how to help, but let me just say getting a copy of family life's passport to identity is a good place to start. At the chance to get some quality time away together one on one with your teenager. You listen together to biblical teaching on what it means to be a young man or young woman. It's quality time this just absolutely priceless. And now you can get passport to identity young men's addition or young woman's addition for 25% off with the code passport. Just go to family life to a.com or call 800-358-6329. That's 800 F's and family L as in life and in the world today, tomorrow, David and Wilson are to be talking with Jay Anna's door to talk about what to do when you lose your fire for God. We've all been there, on behalf of David and Wilson. I'm Shelby Abbott, was you back next time for another edition of family life.

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