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One Flesh: What does it Mean?
In basketball, a full court press is a style of defense in which the team without the ball (the defense) pressures the team with the ball (the offense) from one end of the court to the other. The goal is to disrupt the offense before it has a chance to start its strategy.
I compare my lifestyle over the past thirty-four years to a full court press. I have tried to devote as much free time as I can to getting to know God, His word, and His world. I don't want to waste the precious opportunities He had given me.
Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.
(Ephesians 5:15-16, NASB)
My hope has been that by adding virtue, knowledge, self-control, and perseverance to my life, I will grow to know Jesus (godliness) and be able to love as He loves (brotherly kindness and love) (2 Peter 1:5-8). As a part of that, I have found that the full court press has derailed many of the schemes of sin, the world, and the devil (the other team). After a number of years, I was amazed at the abilities God had given me and what I was able to do with them.
My full court press started in 1984, shortly after I turned twenty-seven. I came down with a fairly serious case of asthma, and I decided to take just about every available moment I had and to devote it to seeking God for healing. I increased my Bible reading, prayer time, and fasting. I spent many hours pursuing God's presence and power, and the Holy Spirit moved in my life. I wasn't healed of asthma, but the Scriptures opened to me in new ways, and I was excited by what God was doing.
After two years, I ran into job trouble that greatly changed the way I practiced the full court press. I mentioned in Chapter 2 that I have a tough time submitting to an employer when I can't let my creative juices flow. At the age of twenty-nine, I ran into my first "non-creative" software job. My emotions dysregulated into rage and anger, and I struggled to bring them under control. Bible reading, prayer, and worship, by themselves, were no longer enough to calm me down, so I took some of the time I had focused on those activities and turned it toward studying self-help books that would train me for my job.
Doing so proved so helpful that I eventually decided to memorize my way through God's book on practical living, the book of Proverbs. I took eight verses a week for close to two years and worked on them until I could say them word for word. I quickly forgot the exact words, but memorizing them for a short time etched their message into my heart and changed me. It turned an idealistic young artist into a man who treasured wisdom, even when it contradicted his creative urges.
After Proverbs, I moved on to other books of the Bible. At the same time, I tried to study any subject that seemed like it would be helpful: theology, hermeneutics, philosophy, logic, psychology, ….
The full court press time of my life can be divided into four parts. In the first, I was so excited about what I was learning that I wasn't all that concerned about my emotions. I made all sorts of mistakes with them: I disconnected from them, suppressed them, and ignored them. I was so focused on growing in my ability to act wisely that I did whatever I could to keep them from getting in the way.
This didn't hurt me too badly at first; in fact, it had benefits. For years, my emotions had been undermining my plans in spite of my best efforts. They made it tough to work my job, sacrifice for my family, and do what responsible people need to do. But as I learned to avoid them, I was able to discover what I call the "Ninety Percent Rule." It is that if you control your actions and make good decisions, you get ninety percent of the external benefits of wisdom and obedience, even if you aren't sure what to do with your emotions.
It is easy to think of examples of this. If you are diligent at your job, you will help others and probably be paid better, even if you are unhappy with the work. As you lay down your life for your wife, she will be blessed, even if you aren't sure how to emotionally handle the sacrifices you make. If you love and guide your children, they will benefit from your care, even if letting go of your own dreams in the process causes distress. You might experience a growing inner turmoil because of your good choices, but many blessings will come from your actions.
The second part of the full court press came when my emotions reacted against being driven underground – they became resentful. It was an almost surreal experience to watch two different realities unfold in my life. On the one hand, I enjoyed greater and greater success in just about every area (the Ninety Percent Rule). My career went well; my family was amazing; I shared God's word; the Holy Spirit led me to book after book and teaching after teaching to help me grow. Yet at the same time, every victory was tainted with the scary feeling that I was losing control on the inside (the ten percent – and potentially more if I hadn't found answers). For a reason that was a mystery to me, the epitaph "The Letter Kills" was appearing in my life in spite of my best attempts to live by the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:6).
It didn't make sense. All of the victories I was experiencing caused me to rally in praise to God, yet something else was happening that undermined that excitement. I found myself increasingly thinking of God as an unfair tyrant who had no right to demand that I do the impossible. I, of course, fought those feelings with scripture, discipline, and whatever else I could find, but they continued to grow.
The third part of the full court press was one of survival. My emotions turned into a powder-keg within my soul, and I wasn't sure how much longer I could keep snuffing out the fuse. I fought cynicism daily. Eventually I came up with a saying to help me simply put my head down and press through the turmoil, "Life is a street fight." Feelings that seemed unfair came on me regularly, and the only Christian option I could see was to become tough enough to survive them. I went into robot mode; I became angry and told myself not be a wimp; I set my face to endure whatever came against me – but it kept growing worse.
I felt as if God didn't love the real me. I had a storm brewing inside of me, and at the heart of that storm was sexual temptation that had been suppressed and ignored for years. Yet I felt as if God refused to go near the storm. My emotions were slowly being dragged back into the pit I had escaped during my last year in college, and I couldn't figure out how to get Him to touch them. In spite of me devoting my life to Him, something in my heart kept heading in the wrong direction.
I thought about asking others for help, but I was afraid that doing so would betray my wife and children. Any mention of my sexual problems would seem to say that I didn't love them. Besides, I had never heard of anyone facing the problems I was facing and finding answers to them. No one even talked about the subject. Why risk ruining my family if no one had any answers anyway?
In the year 2000, I entered the fourth stage of the full court press. In it, I gradually let my emotions out into the open and learned how to deal with them. The first day of the process involved a long prayer with all sorts of swearing and sobbing as I poured out my frustration and disappointment before God. It would normally be wise to do this with an experienced counsellor. Expressing suppressed emotions can often lead to unwisely following them, which can cause great damage. Fortunately, well over a decade of the full court press had given me a good measure of wisdom. I found that I was able to face my worst emotions without letting them draw me into harmful actions. I was able to keep the Ninety Percent Rule working and to hear the Holy Spirit speaking to me in the middle of my turmoil.
As I continued to pour out my heart over the next few months, I believe God spoke two messages to me that gave me the perspective I needed. The first was that I had never really learned how to handle my emotions as a child. As a result, I had developed survival techniques to get around the inner conflicts they caused. An addictive approach to sex when I was young was one of those survival techniques; it buried my negative feelings beneath a sea of pleasure. Another survival technique was the way I spoke harshly to my feelings, avoided them, and compensated by developing my mind and will. Doing so had kept my life from spinning out of control, but it had also kept my emotions from getting the exercise they needed to grow properly.
I sensed that as I continued to open up before God, He would show me how to fix what had gone wrong. He might lead me to books that would help; He might arrange for me to hear teachings; He might speak to me directly. Whatever His plan, I trusted that He would get the job done.
The second message was that a part of His call on my life was to share with people about sexual sin. Western culture had led to all sorts of problems with sexuality, and He wanted me to help some of those who had lost their way. I sensed Him say that He had arranged my whole life to teach me about this subject. Everything from my early crisis with sexual issues to my current emotional difficulties had been allowed to prepare me for this work. Even my tendency to be totally open and honest was a part of my calling.
I mentioned earlier that my personality tends to view cultural norms through the filter of, "Who made this stupid rule and why should I listen to it?"[25] I keep this trait in check by working hard to submit myself to God and others. Nevertheless, the "who made this stupid rule" trait is consistently with me, and sometimes I decide to follow it.
When I sensed God say to me that He had been preparing me for years to share with people about sex, I felt I had entered one of those times. I had tried to handle my sexual issues by avoiding them for decades, and I had continued to do so even when I felt myself heading toward an emotional breakdown. Now I decided I needed to return to my roots, to the unveiled approach I believed God had taught me in college. I reasoned that if He had arranged my entire life to teach me about this subject, and if my tendency to be open and honest was a part of His call on me, then certainly the unveiled approach was worth exploring again.
Perhaps the best way to illustrate how this change affected me is with an analogy from the movie Miracle, the story of the 1980 United States Olympic hockey team.[26] In the movie, the team had the near impossible task of beating the world dominating Russian team. The coach, Herb Brooks, put in place an unorthodox plan to do so, and part of that plan involved his choice of a goalie.
He knew that in order to win, he needed an amazing game from his goalie. The Russians were going to be the better team, there was no doubt about that, but if his goalie could keep them from scoring, the game would be close even if the Russians outplayed them in every other aspect of the game. There were two goalies on the USA team. One was consistently great and had won a national championship for Herb Brook's college team. The other, Jim Craig, was inconsistent, but on his best days, he was amazing. One quote from the movie was: "You know people I speak to say that Craig's game has been off since his mom died." Herb Brooks, answered, "They ever see him when his game's on?"[27]
Herb Brooks decided he needed to gamble on Jim Craig. There was simply no other way to win. "Consistently great' wasn't going to be good enough; he needed "amazing." But Craig did not play well in the team's pre-Olympic practice game against the Russians, so Brooks considered benching him. This led to Craig objecting, and after some discussion, the conversation turned to a psychological test that Brooks had assigned his players when he first formed the team. Craig had decided not to take the test, because he didn't "see what it has to do with stopping the puck."[28] The discussion ended like this:
Jim Craig: No... you know what I understand, Herb? I don't understand you; nobody on this team understands you. You, with your ridiculous sayings, and your drills, and those stupid psychology tests that you had everybody take-
[cut off by Herb]
Herb Brooks: Everybody?
[Herb starts jogging up the stairs, while Jim yells after him]
Jim Craig: What, so this is what this is all about? Because I didn't take your test? Fine, you want me to take your test, I'll take your test. Is that what you want?
Herb Brooks: No. I wanna see that kid in the net who wouldn't take the test.[29]
Herb Brooks (at least as he is portrayed in the movie) knew that Jim Craig's ability was tied to his dislike of "stupid rules." Craig saw no purpose for the psychological test, so he ignored it …and I suspect that this was part of what made him amazing. He had a laser-like focus that blocked out distractions that were unimportant for that task at hand. He was able to put aside everything that might hinder him from stopping the other team from scoring.
When I sensed God telling me that He had arranged my whole life to teach me about sexual issues, I suspected that something similar was at play. It was as if God was saying to me, "When it comes to dealing with sexual sin, I don't want to see the kid in the net who avoids sexual issues. I want the kid who will dig in and discover what is really happening. I wanna see that kid in the net who says, 'Who made this stupid rule, and why should I listen to it?'"
As I focused on this task, I discovered that I couldn't use the first line of defense to keep out sins that had already moved inside of me. Trying to do so had led me to run from myself for over a decade, and there was no way I could get away from me. So I embraced the journey to explore my emotions with the Holy Spirit's help.
In the process, I was amazed at the way the abilities I had picked up during the "Full Court Press" helped me. I could read theology, philosophy, psychology and a number of other subjects. I could sense the Holy Spirit speaking in different ways. I was able to experience my emotions without them leading me into sinful actions (the Ninety Percent Rule – with the other ten percent now added!) …And God used all of this to reveal insights as I made my way forward. There was a highway within me that could take me where I needed to go at any given moment.
The way of the lazy man is like a hedge of thorns, but the way of the upright is a highway.
I was often able to deal with issues in a matter of seconds that would have taken me months to sort through when I was younger, if I was able to sort through them at all. Like a full court press in basketball, the full court press time in my life had given me the grace from God to derail the devil's strategy before it had a chance to take hold.
Stating this in terms of a hockey goalie: if the players on a hockey team know that they have a great goalie behind them, they will feel free to take risks as they attempt to score. They know that if a risk doesn't work out and the other team gains an advantage for a time, their goalie will protect them. In the same way, I was able to take the risk of experimenting with different approaches to my emotions, because I found that my mistakes didn't lead to disaster. Though the enemy "skated past me" for a time, the grace and wisdom the Lord had built into me over the years were like that amazing goalie. I was able to avoid serious harm while I took the time I needed to learn from my mistakes and try again.
God showed up in a lifestyle that didn't involve a quick miracle. There was no easy fix for what had gone wrong in me. I needed to see myself as marred clay, and I had to humbly walk through the emotional minefield created by both my tendency toward emotional dysregulation and my past sins. The process took so long that Paul's words about God's strength fit well:
Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness."
I chose to trust that in the area where I was weak, God's strength would be perfected. He would give me the ability to feel emotions that were as strong as death in a healthy way. I was still confused and misled in my sexuality, but with fear and trembling I embraced myself in that. I brought my far-from-perfect feelings into the open and tried to understand both His purpose in creating them and His path to restoring them.
The principles of the unveiled approach to life guided me. The Holy Spirit taught me what it meant to come to God without condemnation in spite of my imperfections and the shame that accompanied them (2 Corinthians 3:9). He wrote His laws on my heart and mind (2 Corinthians 3:3). I cautiously considered the question of how I should be open with others (2 Corinthians 3:12-13). My focus in all of this was to behold the glory of the Lord – I wanted to know Jesus intimately. I came with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, and my confused and embarrassing sexual emotions were gradually transformed from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18).
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