The Anger Issue (May/June 2012)

The Anger Issue

Newsstand Price CDN $4.95

may – june, 2012

contents

may – june, 2012

on the cover

The many faces of anger

Newsstand Price CDN $4.95

may – june, 2012

4/4/12 9:13 PM Page 1

Anger is a powerful force that causes many men to leave a lot of damage in their wake. It doesn’t need to be that way. Anger isn’t king. It can be controlled and channeled in ways that bring hope and healing to others.

SEVEN is a Christian magazine for Canadian men that exists to help men lead more fulfilling lives and leave enduring legacies.

features 14

The name reflects the seven promises that form the basis of the Promise Keepers organization, which works with churches to minister to men across Canada.

The man who withheld sex from his wife | bill perkins

one – A promise keeper is committed to honouring Jesus Christ through worship, prayer, and obedience to God’s Word in the power of the Spirit.

Bill Perkins reveals some of the roots of anger, and how to outgrow them.

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The Anger Issue

Righteous anger leads to constructive action | frank stirk

two – A promise keeper is committed to pursuing Christ-centred friendships with a few other men, connecting regularly, understanding that he needs brothers to help him keep his promises.

Jamie McIntosh, Kenny Blacksmith and countless other men are getting angry at the things that make God angry. This is good news.

21 Angry man learns to roll with the punches | gerry bowler Anger management would be so much easier without telemarketers and CFL refugees.

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columns 5 PK Podium Hope for the angry man 6 Man to Man A Greek guide to anger

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three – A promise keeper is committed to practicing biblical integrity: spiritually, morally, ethically and sexually. four – A promise keeper is committed to strengthening families and marriages through love, honour, protection, and biblical values.

departments

five – A promise keeper is committed to supporting the mission of his church by honouring and praying for his pastor, and by actively giving his time and resources.

8-12 Pulse Curious events. Interesting people. Good ideas.

25 Sports Scene Surprising star a man of faith

13 Reviews Thrive outside the comfort zone

26 Money Matters A lot is riding on your shoulders

28 Power Play Tools. Toys. Technology.

27 Out of My Depth Call in the umpire 30 What Women Want Don’t get caught in the lizard trap

six – A promise keeper is committed to reaching beyond racial, social, economic, generational, and denominational barriers to demonstrate that power of biblical unity. seven – A promise keeper is committed to influencing the world by his fervent love for God while loving his neighbour, seeking justice for the poor and oppressed, and making disciples of Jesus Christ.

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The PK Canada logo features a maple leaf, indicating our dedication to serve the men of Canada. An arrow breaks into the maple leaf symbolizing the impact we believe God wants to see Promise Keepers and men making in our nation.

25 Publisher: Brian Koldyk Managing Editor: Doug Koop Pulse Editor: Robert White

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advertising John Steadman jsteadman@promisekeepers.ca 1-888-901-9700

editorial advisory board KIRK GILES: Promise Keepers Canada JEFF STEARNS: Promise Keepers Canada PHIL WAGLER: Gracepoint Community Church SANDRA REIMER: Reimer Reason Communications ADAM KROEKER: ChristianWeek DOUG KOOP: Soulcraft Communication

editorial

Promise Keepers Canada Box 20099 RPO Brant Hills Burlington, ON L7P 0A4 (905) 331-1830 subscriptions@promisekeepers.ca Postmaster: Please send address changes to Box 20099 RPO Brant Hills, Burlington, ON L7P 0A4

204-424 Logan Avenue Winnipeg, MB R3A 0R4 Phone: (204) 982-2060 (800) 263-6695 admin@christianweek.org dougkoop@gmail.com Design: ’Segun Olude www.indigoinkstudios.com

ISSN 1916-8403 Cover: iStockphoto/Andrejs Zemdega seven – issue twenty-four may – june page 3

PK@HOME RESOURCES

Visit our new website for the latest info, videos, audio messages, men’s articles, books and other resources.

Men of Integrity Devotional Especially written for men, personally challenging, eternally rewarding.

Available in a 60 page booklet or as an email devotional.

SEVEN Magazine Men. God. Life.

A Christian magazine for Canadian men.

Relevant, exciting and biblical.

Visit us online at www.PromiseKeepers.ca and

Equip

PK Podium

Hope for the angry man Men do a lot of damage when they don’t properly harness their anger

by Kirk Giles

I finally snapped! Several years ago, my son Carter had been doing what little boys do and I had enough. I yelled and screamed at my son, and watched this little boy back into a corner of our rec room.

When I finally realized I had gone too far, I went to reach out and hug him. But he ducked and turned away from me. He thought I was going to hit him.

I was overwhelmed with sadness and sorrow—not only for what I had done, but also because now my son was afraid I was going to hurt him.

Anger.

For many years, people have talked about sexual purity being one of the greatest temptations facing men. While it is a great temptation, anger is another significant issue that ranks right beside it.

Anger is something men all around you are wrestling with. We have facilitated enough workshops on anger at our “Ignite” men’s conferences to know that this topic strikes a nerve with men we see at church every Sunday. These workshops are usually over capacity in attendance as men from all ages and backgrounds recognize they battle with anger.

There are men who have moments where they simply feel intense anger towards someone; others feel angry on a consistent basis; and there are other men who regularly lash out in anger— usually to those they love the most. In these moments we lose control and are likely to do something we will deeply regret afterwards.

Men have done a lot of damage to others by not being able to harness their anger.

We also need to recognize that anger is not always a negative. The Bible talks very clearly about righteous anger, and we need to give men who follow Jesus permission to get angry over unrighteous things and express this anger in righteous ways.

Too many times we ignore or cast aside a man who is angry because we do not believe he is being like Jesus. When we find ourselves acting this way, we need to revisit some of Jesus’ actions and attitudes.

We should not automatically write off a man who is angry, but we need to discover the source of his anger.

Many times, you will be surprised at why a man is actually angry.

It is our hope and prayer that this edition of SEVEN will be a challenge to men who are angry, and a source of hope and encouragement that there is a way out—a way for God to heal what has already been damaged by our anger.

Carter is now 16 years old. While I am not a perfect father, by God’s grace we have a fantastic relationship as a father and son. We laugh together, go places together and really enjoy life together.

He comes to me for advice and is no longer afraid that I will respond with anger.

I share this with you for only one reason—I am a living example that if we allow Him to, God can shape us to be men of love and joy rather than anger and bitterness. I share this with you to give you hope that God can heal your relationships and life.

Kirk Giles is the president of Promise Keepers Canada. However, his most important roles as a man are husband to Shannon and father to Carter, Joshua, Sydney and Samuel.

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man to man

Anger, Greek, and an Invitation to Righteousness When is anger righteous, moral and appropriate?

by Rod Wilson

You’re watching television and hear about a baby killed by a drunk driver.

What do you feel? Grief and indignation.

After being cut off for the fifth time on your way to work you cannot take it anymore. Your feelings?

Temper and fury.

Your brother takes a year before he tells you that he had an affair with someone you know. Your feelings?

Violation and distress. After you expressed your concerns a month ago, your teenage son comes home late for the third Friday night in a row. Your feelings?

Exasperation and frustration.

While we understand these normal human experiences of anger, Christians need to ask the question—when is anger righteous, moral and appropriate? Four Greek words will help us form an answer.

Aganaktesis. The Greek word for indignation (aganaktesis) communicates a sense of irritation, grief and annoyance at what someone else has done— particularly if it is unjust. Jesus felt this way when the disciples rebuked the people who were bringing children to have him touch them. “When Jesus saw this, he was indignant” (Mark 10:14).

The lack of care demonstrated by the disciples caused Jesus to be indignant for good reason. It wasn’t a petty issue that bothered him, but something that violated the clear teaching of the gospel that children and other marginalized groups should be treated with respect and offered hospitality.

Aganaktesis in response to the death of a baby at the hand of a drunk driver is appropriate and righteous.

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Thumos. Words like temper and rage describe thumos anger, an emotion that exhibits no control or self-discipline but lashes out at the other person in a completely inappropriate way. Like the striking of a match, this anger flares up with a boiling, turbulent commotion before it simmers down.

Many of us have experienced this emotion, the cruel, demeaning attitude that lacks love and respect. In every case we are told that we are to “get rid of all…rage/thumos” (Ephesians 4:31), and to recognize an unbridled temper and uncontrolled rage are never condoned.

Never.

So while it is frustrating to be cut off five times on one trip, road rage is never appropriate or righteous.

Orge. There are times when we become distressed because of a deep and certain sense that we have been violated. This is orge anger. Jesus felt this way sometimes, such as when interacting with the misguided religious people: “He looked around at them in anger/orge” (Mark 3:5).

But there are times when this appropriate anger can be expressed in sinful ways, where we experience vengeance and personal animosity toward the other person. Paul’s reminders in Ephesians 4:31—Get rid of all anger/orge—as well as his caution in Ephesians 4:26—In your anger/orge do not sin—show us that to experience violation and distress with a brother is not inherently sinful but it could move this way if I am not mindful of the need for righteous expression.

Parorgismos. While thumos has an allencompassing body rage, parorgismos is more about irritation and exasperation.

Something happens repetitively, creating a slow, smoldering irritation that is not a full-blown rage but is challenging nonetheless.

Interestingly, the Apostle Paul indicates that the exasperation of children is often the responsibility of the parents (Ephesians 6:4). But earlier in the same book Paul says, “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry/parorgismos, and do not give the devil a foothold” (Ephesians 4:26-27).

The passage is not suggesting that you should never go to bed angry, but that if irritation and exasperation are cultivated over time then you can expect that this will be an invitation to the devil to do his work. So being irritated with your son may be an appropriate and righteous response to ongoing rebellious behaviour, but if it is nurtured over time you can expect that a door is wide open for the influence of the evil one.

While the experience of anger is human, a careful reading of the biblical text allows us to not just revel in the normalcy of anger but to experience the clear invitation to live righteously.

Rod Wilson is currently president of Regent College. He is also the author of Counseling and Community, How Do I Help a Hurting Friend? and co-author of Exploring Your Anger and Helping Angry People (all of which can be ordered through the Regent College Bookstore (www.regent-college.edu).

Visit www.PromiseKeepers.ca or call 1-888-901-9700 to receive the next issue.

pulse

Curiousities. Personalities. Ideas. Information.

by Robert White PULSE Editor

WHICH FAITH-WORK “FRANKENMONSTER” ARE YOU? “It can be tricky for an average businessperson to figure out how he or she should do business for the glory of God and the common good,” wrote Lukas Naugle in a recent issue of Cardus’ journal Comment. Naugle, a principal with Marketplace One, provides leadership to OneInstitute and Changegoat, a creative communications company.

Naugle writes that as part of his work he’d been reading a few dozen books on faith and work. And he noted that with each book, the “perspectives multiplied” and he ended up seeing a Frankenstein’s monster of faith-work view developing.

Some of those faith-work Frankenstein monsters he’s met include: Great Commission Investor—“I train entrepreneurs and invest in businesses that are strictly a means to sharing the gospel with as many people as possible.”

Deus ex Machina—“Not sure why the business didn’t work.

God spoke to me and gave us the business and the plan. He must have other plans.”

Christian Pitchman—“Normally, I write a business plan, but since we’re brothers in Christ I wanted to see if God put it on your heart to invest.”

Social Entrepreneurship Vaporware—“I’m passionate about solving problems through popular media. I have a Twitter account, Facebook page and a documentary. We’re creating a lot of awareness.”

Jaded Christian Entrepreneur—“I have two businesses. I connect with unbelievers all day long. Most Christians don’t get what I do. I’m actually not really going to church anymore.”

Secret Success—“I don’t tell people at church what I’m doing…People at church either don’t understand my world, want to leverage my success to make the church seem successful, or target me for aggressive fundraising.”

Become the Establishment—“Sin is in the structures, so I plan to get into the powerful elite of cultural institutions and create the right conditions on earth so we can bring in the kingdom.”

Muddled and Confused—“I hear my pastor talk about economics, end times, social issues and greed. At the end of the day I’m no longer sure what to do, how to feel about it, or if it even matters.”

“These familiar characters all suffer from a misguided—or sometimes nonexistent—understanding of how their faith and work come together,” writes Naugle, suggesting two books for “clearing up this madness:” Why Business Matters to God,

by Jeff Van Duzer, and Business for the Common Good,

by Kenman L. Wong and Scott B. Rae.

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IDIOTIC RAGE: DAD SHOOTS DAUGHTER’S LAPTOP A North Carolina father tried teaching his daughter a lesson by shooting up her laptop after she posted a long Facebook rant. She wrote about why she was sick of her parents and how they nag her to do too many chores. An attempt to filter the post so her parents wouldn’t see it didn’t work—her dad found it anyway.

Tommy Jordan reacted by posting a YouTube video, titled “Facebook Parenting: For the troubled teen,” which has had more than 30 million hits since February.

In the video, Jordan, cigarette in hand, sits in a chair in a field and says the recording is dedicated to his daughter, Hannah, and “more importantly, for all her friends on Facebook who thought that her little rebellious post was cute. And for all you parents out there who think your kids don’t post bad things on Facebook.”

He then offers a seven-minute rant of his own, in which he reads out his daughter’s Facebook tirade, and defends his parenting methods. He then says he’s going to put a stop to his daughter’s disrespect and fires nine shots from a .45 mm handgun into her laptop.

He ends the video by telling his daughter that if she wants to buy a new laptop after she’s finished being grounded—“whatever year that happens to be”—she’ll have to buy it herself.

As might be expected, the video has earned the whole gamut of responses, from those who applaud the father, to those who worry about his mental state, to those who wonder how the public takedown will mend their family relations.

MOST MEN WHO DIE DURING SEX ARE CHEATING: STUDY It may be God’s way of saying “gotcha,” but a new study by the American Heart Association (AHA) suggests most men who die during sex are having extramarital affairs.

The AHA studied autopsy reports and found only 34 of 5,559 cases of sudden death occurred during sex.

That’s 0.6 per cent, which means it’s quite rare.

But, between 82 and 93 per cent of the sex-linked casualties were men, and 75 per cent were engaging in extramarital sexual activity. Usually the men were with a younger partner after too much food and alcohol and/or in an unfamiliar setting.

Studies conducted mainly with young married men showed sexual activity with a person’s usual partner is equal to a brisk walk or climbing two flights of stairs says the AHA statement on “Sexual Activity and Cardiovascular Disease.”

The paper notes this may not apply to all and for some sexual activity can be equal to a slightly more vigorous activity. In some cases, men may “exert themselves to a greater degree of exhaustion with relatively greater demand on their cardiovascular system,” says the AHA. So if you don’t want to take chances with your heart, curl up with your similarly-aged partner at your usual spot and skip the bottle of wine.

SURFING WE WILL GO Want more information on the topics in Pulse? Check out these website links: Which Frankenmonster are you? http://tinyurl.com/6tod2m2 Dad shoots daughter’s laptop over Facebook rant http://tinyurl.com/7vw287b Compassion’s trust, purpose makes it a great workplace http://www.bcwinstitute.com www.compassion.ca.

Most men who die during sex are cheating: study http://tinyurl.com/6q7ocmy

Comedy key to reaching younger men? http://tinyurl.com/clsxzl6 All work and no play ... http://tinyurl.com/c3cc72q Are depressed kids bully magnets? http://tinyurl.com/6t4c645 Leadership lessons from James T. Kirk http://tinyurl.com/7x8p92f seven – issue twenty-four may – june page 9

pulse

COMEDY KEY TO REACHING YOUNGER MEN?

Every other year, for the past eight, Compassion Canada employees have graded their employer. And for the fourth time in a row, Compassion ranked as a Best Christian Workplace.

“I have an insatiable thirst for excellence,” says president and CEO Barry Slauenwhite who heard about the Best Christian Workplaces Institute at a Canadian Council of Christian Charities conference. “I thought ‘wow, this is a fantastic tool to help me manage better.’”

Employees take part in a confidential, online survey and the results and analysis are sent to the employer. Compassion has a 95 per cent response rate and Slauenwhite says it’s impossible to match responses and comments to any employee.

He says the areas Compassion scored well in were the same as in past surveys. But one result even surprised the BCWI. “It drew so much attention BCWI came back and asked to re-take some part. They’d never seen a score that high.”

The high score came in the area of “trust” which Slauenwhite says “is a valuable commodity in the workplace.

Our score was so high they thought something was wrong. It generated interaction between us and BCW with them asking ‘how does an organization score that high in the most difficult area they question?’”

For Slauenwhite, the whole process “really enforces employee engagement.

“Productivity in ministry is different than productivity in business. The bottom line can’t be money. It must be impact.”

Still for all the positives, there’s one area Compassion where still scores lower than the others: interdepartmental communication. “When we unpacked this—it’s been a low score last couple times and we’ve done quite a few things to address it—BCWI said we’re doing such a good job with communication that we’ve created an appetite for communication,” says Slauenwhite. “And we may never fill that appetite.”

Slauenwhite runs the BCWI process every two years, which, he says, is a good cycle. “If we do it too often it becomes meaningless. If we’re asking the same questions every year, people might not think and just answer the same as last year.

If it’s spaced out, they engage more and think about the questions.”

Comedy could be the key to reaching men suggests David Murrow, author of Why Men Hate Going to Church and founder of Church for Men, in a recent blogpost, citing statistics from the TV network Comedy Central: 65 per cent of its audience is male, with a median age of 29 and ratings up 10 per cent among men 18 to 34.

Murrow’s blog on the subject suggests the church can learn a few lessons: Humour is essential—when a man laughs, he drops his guard, which makes it easier for him to hear the serious truth of the Gospel.

Humour doesn’t “dumb down” the Word— many scholars believe Jesus used direct humor in his teaching, and He repeatedly used irony.

Comedy may someday replace music as the “warm up” for the sermon—Murrow writes: “if I were planting a church in 2012, I’d be looking for a comedian instead of a worship leader.

“People are getting really sick of the whole ‘stand for 15 minutes in the dark singing love songs to Jesus.’ In many churches, fewer than 20 per cent of churchgoers sing any more. Perhaps there’s a different way to offer praise to the Lord, and comedy might be a part of this.”

Prediction: the next Billy Graham will be a comedian—Murrow suggests there’s a big opportunity waiting for the pastor who brands himself as The Comic Preacher.

“He has the opportunity to reach millions because men will share his clips on the Internet,” Murrow writes. “If we get young men quoting funny sermons the same way they quote funny movies, we’ll bring the Good News into their culture.”

Murrow suggests Robert Darden’s book Jesus Laughed would cast more light on the topic.

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© iStockphoto/Tetsuo Morita

COMPASSION’S TRUST, PURPOSE MAKES IT A GREAT WORKPLACE

ARE DEPRESSED KIDS BULLY MAGNETS?

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY ...

All work and no play isn’t healthy for adults.

Nor is it healthy for children says developmental psychologist and best-selling author Gordon Neufeld in an Ottawa Citizen interview.

The Vancouver-based Neufeld, co-author of the best-selling 2004 book Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Matter, argues that parents who relinquish the parental role too soon force children to turn to peers for their attachment needs, sometimes with disastrous results.

“It takes six years of ideal conditions where a child gives his heart to his parents,” he says.

Preschoolers have fundamentally different brain wiring and need to be free of consequences and “attachment hunger,” says Neufeld. Germany, where the word “kindergarten” was coined more than 150 years ago, mandated play-based preschool education about a decade ago.

Play helps children build problem-solving networks. At four, five, even six, children aren’t ready to learn by working because the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain where a child is capable of mixed feelings, is still under construction. “It only gets wired at between five and seven years of age,” he says.

Developmentally, preschoolers have to be secure in the love and attention of their families, says Neufeld. Too often, children are pushed into performing. “You can get incredible things out of them if you detach them from marks and rewards.”

What is play? Neufeld defines it as “not work.” Play is expressive and it’s not “for real.”

There are no consequences to messing up, and the child is playing for the joy of the activity, not because of an outcome.

It’s like playing marbles, Neufeld says. You can play for fun and take your marbles home when you’re done, or you can play for keeps, where the winner takes all. Only playing for fun is really playing.

Kids who cry easily, express negative emotions and show other signs of depression are often targeted by bullies, suggests a new study.

“Bullies target youth who are unlikely to fight back,” says lead author Karen Kochel, an assistant research professor at Arizona State University. “Youth who are depressed really have the potential to appear vulnerable, and are easy marks for victimization.”

Kochel and her colleagues tracked an ethically and socioeconomically diverse group of 486 children as they went through Grades 4, 5 and 6.

Every so often researchers gauged depression symptoms and social acceptance by surveying parents, teachers and the kids themselves.

Fourth graders who showed signs of depression were more likely than their classmates to be victimized as fifth graders. Kids who were picked on in fifth grade tended to be less accepted by their peers in sixth grade. Researchers found little evidence that being bullied increased a child’s risk of becoming depressed in later grades.

Although the findings suggest depression tends to precede social difficulty, they don’t rule out the possibility that problems with peers can make an already depressed child even more depressed. “I think it’s possible it’s a cyclical process,” Kochel says.

Jennifer Lansford, a developmental psychologist at Duke University’s Center for Child and Family Policy, says the findings make sense.

“Even from a pretty early age, (a show) of sadness or...other negative emotions can lead to problems with peers,” she says. “If parents and teachers are able to work with kids to express their emotions in different ways, then they may not elicit the same maltreatment from peers.”

Lansford also says depressed behavior never justifies bullying or exclusion of a child. “I think it’s important to avoid a ‘blame the victim’ perspective on this,” she says.

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LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM JAMES T. KIRK Every Trekkie knows that Captain James Tiberius Kirk of the Starship Enterprise is a great leader. And now Forbes Alex Knapp has come up with five reasons as to why.

“Kirk’s success was no fluke, either,” wrote Knapp in his www.forbes.com blog.

“His style of command demonstrates a keen understanding of leadership and how to maintain a team that succeeds time and time again, regardless of the dangers faced.”

Here is Knapp’s list of five leadership lessons from Captain Kirk: Never stop learning—at the Starfleet Academy Kirk was a “walking stack of books,” said his former first officer, Gary Mitchell. Perhaps the best demonstration of this is in the episode “Arena,” where advanced beings force Kirk and a Gorn Captain to single combat. Using his knowledge and materials at hand, Kirk builds a rudimentary shotgun, which he uses to defeat the Gorn.

Have advisors with different worldviews— Kirk’s closest two advisors are Spock, a Vulcan committed to a philosophy of logic, and Leonard McCoy, a doctor driven by compassion and scientific curiosity.

Be part of the away team—whenever an interesting or challenging mission came up, Kirk was willing to put himself in harm’s way by joining the “Away Team.” Kirk was a hands-on leader, leading the vanguard of his crew as they explored interesting and dangerous situations.

Play poker, not chess—in an all-time favorite episode, Kirk and his crew face an unknown vessel from a group calling themselves the “First Federation.” As threats escalate, Kirk bluffs the ship by telling them that the Enterprise has a substance in its hull called “corbomite” which will reflect the energy of any weapon back against an attacker.

Blow up the Enterprise—Despite Kirk’s love for the Enterprise there came a point in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, where, in order to defeat the Klingons attacking him and save his crew, Kirk destroyed the Enterprise.

“Kirk embodied several leadership lessons that we can use in our own lives,” writes Knapp. “We need to keep exploring and learning. We need to ensure we encourage creativity and innovation by listening to the advice of people with vastly different opinions.

“We need to occasionally get down in the trenches so we understand their needs and earn their trust and loyalty. We need to understand the psychology of our competitors and also learn to radically change course when circumstances dictate.

“By following these lessons, we can lead our organizations into places where none have gone before.” seven – issue twenty-four may – june, 2012 page 12

reviews

Thrive outside the comfort zone YOUR CHURCH IS TOO SAFE: WHY FOLLOWING JESUS TURNS THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN

By Mark Buchanan Comfort zones are comfortable, and there’s nothing wrong with comfort.

Unless that’s all there is. “I am too often preoccupied by my own quest for comfort and safety,” admits Canadian pastor and SEVEN columnist Mark Buchanan. “If I am not careful, I could turn God into a mere errand boy, catering to my whims and wimpiness.” But that’s something of a cop-out. “The gospel is about dying to self and living for Christ in such a way that we actually become dangerous… [that we] get on with the life we’re actually called to live, in the power we’re called to live it, for the glory of the one who calls.” Forged in both study and real life experience, Your Church is Too Safe helps to show the way, exploring key biblical passages as practical guides to kingdom life in the present moment. Our love for comfort and safety has a way of holding us back from all God wants us to do.

GOD IN A BROTHEL: AN UNDERCOVER JOURNEY INTO SEX TRAFFICKING AND RESCUE

By Daniel Walker A police officer from New Zealand has been into some of the harshest places in the world where’s he’s witnessed first hand the crass and cruel exploitation of women, girls and boys. Daniel Walker knows how difficult it is to confront this global scourge, yet he is willing to try.

He wonders “what would happen if men everywhere embraced their God-given destiny to defend and protect the vulnerable women and children in their

communities.” Walker takes readers on an adventure-filled tour of some of these places, detailing the highs and lows of rescue work (including his own moral compromises). Nonetheless, he believes that redemption in these circumstances is mission possible. He is fundamentally convinced that it can happen if “churches around the world will come alive with a passion for justice and a hatred of evil.”

SAMSON AND THE PIRATE MONKS: CALLING ALL MEN TO AUTHENTIC BROTHERHOOD

By Nate Larkin Nate Larkin models the hard virtue of vulnerability. He knows all too well what it’s like to live a lie; he was a Christian minister with a sordid secret that was harmful to him and the people closest to him. Only when his circumstances became truly desperate did Larkin begin to reach out for help and eventually admitted his own sex addiction. The turnaround came when he began to realize that integrity isn’t perfection or even purity of intention, which is unachievable.

“Rather,” he writes, “integrity is a combination of rigorous honesty about my own

condition and humble faith in the steadfast love of God.” Then it took him some time to learn that the private nature of his struggle was trapping him alone in a no-win situation, and to discover that real men need real friends.

Samson and the Pirate Monks is Larkin’s revealing personal story buttressed by a helpful call to a new way of living.

10 LIES MEN BELIEVE: THE TRUTH ABOUT WOMEN, POWER, SEX AND GOD—AND WHY IT MATTERS

By J. Lee Grady Many men behave badly, including many Christians who ought to know better. It isn’t that they want to be jerks; more likely they’ve bought into any number of bad ideas that lead them down false paths. J. Lee Grady addresses 10 specific “lies” that lead men astray. Not surprisingly, in one way or another they all relate to our conduct with money, sex and power.

Our actions in these areas truly do reveal the state of our spirit. Grady calls it a lie that “God made men superior to women,” and he also confronts the notions that “a real man is made by material success” or that “a man is the ultimate ‘boss’ of his family.”

Muscles, money and sexual prowess do not a true man make, he insists.

This book strikes at the very heart of much of the male dysfunction in our North American culture, and walks us step-by-step into a better way.

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features

The Man Who

Withheld Sex From His Wife Respect deficit at core of many men’s anger issues

by Bill Perkins

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features

I’ve been to only two professional fights in my life. And I wouldn’t have gone to either if one of the fighters hadn’t brought me along to watch.

I had no idea sitting ringside would be such a rush. Of course, knowing one of the fighters added to the excitement. The fighter’s name was Austin. He grew up in Austin, Texas. Good thing he didn’t grow up in Waxahachie—a small town in Texas.

That was his joke, not mine.

The bell rang for round one. I knew what to expect from Austin because he had told me he wasn’t the aggressor in a fight. “I back up. I let the other guy come after me.”

“Why?” “Because I’m a counterpuncher. When you see me backing up, don’t worry about it. Every aggressor makes a mistake, and when they do—bam! I hammer them.”

I’m glad he told me that because Austin’s opponent came after him fast and hard. The guy was shorter and built like a smaller version of Mike Tyson. For two minutes Austin backed up and dodged one punch after another. And then it was over. Austin ducked a crossing right and followed with a powerful right uppercut. Bam! His opponent’s eyes rolled into the top of his head, and he fell back hard. His head hit the canvas and bounced once. Austin raised his hands in victory and smiled triumphantly.

25 percent of surveyed men get angry when their wives aren’t in the mood for sex.

A week later I met with Austin and Holly, his wife, in my office. Austin was an impressive man. Only twenty-eight, he already owned a thriving construction company that built high-end homes. At 5 foot 11 inches, he weighed in at 175 pounds and wore his black hair marine short. His wife was equally impressive. A tall, attractive woman, she had short blond hair, angel green eyes, and a cheerful look. She worked as a buyer for a chain of clothing stores.

Disrespect Triggers Anger They entered my office without speaking a word or even looking at each other and sat in the two leather chairs.

Holly sat upright with her arms crossed and her jaw locked. Austin appeared relaxed with a smirk on his face. He seemed to be enjoying her misery.

I broke the tense silence. “What’s going on?”

“Holly is upset because we don’t have sex as often as she wants to.”

“Oh, really, Austin? You think that maybe I’m too sexually demanding since I want to make love with you more than once a month.” Holly spoke with a hard edge that I didn’t expect.

“I’ve been busy. You know that.”

“You’ve always been busy. But until three months ago you always found time for sex three or four times a week. I know you’re mad at me for something. I just don’t know what.”

Austin smiled. “Why would I be mad at you?”

In that moment I knew Holly was right.

It was Austin’s smile that gave him away. I had seen it a week earlier at the fight when he won. Withholding sex would mimic his boxing style. Instead of attacking Holly, he backed off. No aggressive verbal attack on his part. I needed to discover what triggered his anger.

“Holly, would you mind if I spent a few minutes alone with Austin?”

She tilted her head, looking at Austin and then at me. “Sure. Go ahead.” She picked up her purse and walked out the door, closing it behind her.

“What did she do to make you mad?”

“What makes you think I’m mad?”

“Austin, let’s not play games here, okay? Just shoot straight with me.”

“I’m just giving her a taste of her own medicine.”

“How’s that?”

“I got tired of her saying she was too tired for sex or wasn’t in the mood.”

“Do you think she said that to get even with you?”

“No.” “She said until three months ago you

had been having sex three or four times a week. Is that true?”

“Yeah, it’s true.”

“So how many times did she not want to make love?”

“Okay, it wasn’t that often. But it made me mad.”

“Why?” “I don’t know. I guess I felt she disrespected me and my needs.”

“So you got mad, and instead of talking it through you decided to disrespect her need for intimacy?

“That pretty much sums it up.”

“Austin, let’s assume for a minute that she disregarded your needs. On a scale of one to ten, how bad would that act be compared to what you’ve been doing for the last three months? Remember, she acted unintentionally. You meant to hurt her.”

“I know. I get your point.”

“I’m curious, Austin. How could you live with a woman so beautiful and not make love to her? I remember when I first got married I decided to withhold sex from Cindy. I figured that would straighten her out. I made it maybe two days.”

“I guess I’m better at staying mad when I feel disrespected,” he said.

19 percent usually express anger by withdrawing affection and communication.

Austin’s comment got my attention. It seemed that disrespect had triggered a prolonged anger that he refused to release. I hoped he could discover why. I knew from previous conversations with Austin that his wife wasn’t the only person he torpedoed when he felt disrespected.

Holly rejoined us, and Austin told her why he had been withholding sex.

Holly sat silently, but her stillness seemed sharp enough to stab Austin.

She finally spoke in a controlled voice.

“You figure out how to deal with your

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The Man Who Withheld Sex From His Wife

anger . . . or else.” The words didn’t sound as harsh to the ear as they appear to the eye when read. She spoke sweetly, and her words lingered in the room like a fragrance.

But Austin didn’t hear her tone. “Or else what?” he said, challenging her.

“Or else,” she hesitated. Tears trickled down her cheeks. “We’ll be living in torment. And I . . . we . . . don’t want that.”

As we talked more about how Austin’s rejection of his wife’s advances was hurting their marriage, he slowly realized how misguided his anger had been.

I took some time at the end of the session to talk with them about a man’s need for respect. “I think it ties in to our being created in the image of God. Just as God desires the respect of man, and will ultimately get it from everyone, so men desire respect. In the Garden of Eden God gave mankind dominion over the earth.

But before the creation of Eve, it was Adam who named the animals. By doing so he proved himself their master. In other words, from the beginning man exercised a role of leadership over the earth and wildlife.”

“Even now after the Fall, men are still wired to understand and subdue the earth. And with that genetic drive comes an equally strong need for respect from the world around them—the world they hope to subdue.”

“In the context of marriage, God commands men to love their wives and women to respect their husbands. Paul’s command underscores the significance of a man’s need for respect.”

30 percent of surveyed men said disrespect is the main cause of anger for them “So what you’re saying is that Austin’s need for respect was put there by God?” Holly said.

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“That’s right. The problem is that this God-given need can easily be channeled destructively. When that happens, any act of disrespect, or perceived disrespect, can trigger inappropriate anger.”

“Like when I got mad at Holly for refusing my advances?”

“Exactly.”

Nobody Else Is Your Parent “Okay. So how do I keep from overreacting?” Austin asked.

“Between now and next week, whenever you find yourself getting mad ask yourself, ‘Am I really being disrespected? Or is it a perceived act of disrespect?’ At the end of each day, talk with Holly about what you experienced.

Next week share what you’ve learned with me.”

When we met the next week Austin was stunned by how many times he had gotten angry about perceived acts of disrespect. As he talked about getting mad, he repeatedly referred to demanding customers and subcontractors as “leeches.”

I pointed this out to him and asked why he felt they were leeches.

At first he had no idea why he would call them that. And then he surprised himself with an answer. “I think maybe it’s got to do with my mother.”

“Go on,” I said.

“She was an alcoholic . . . an emotional black hole. Instead of nurturing her kids, she wanted us to nurture her. When I was sixteen, she was in a horrible car wreck and was hospitalized for three months.

She almost lost her left arm. When she came home in a wheelchair, she asked me to give her shoulder and back massages. She said I had healing hands.

I did it a time or two, but it drained me too much—like a leech sucking out my blood.

If she refused to respect me and my needs, how could she expect me to respect and meet hers? And so I stopped.

I just didn’t have the emotional strength to care for her like that. I resented her. I also remember turning off my

compassion like the light of a lamp.”

“No wonder you’re angry,” I said.

“And no wonder you lack compassion for people who seem demanding or disrespectful. But, Austin, nobody else is your mother. And nobody will ever do to you what she did.”

Austin sat silently for a couple of minutes with his face in his hands.

Holly leaned over and put her hand on his shoulder.

The Respect Bank When he finally looked up he said, “I hear what you’re saying, but why would my mom’s neediness still be causing me problems?”

I leaned to my right, picked up a picture from the floor, and handed it to Austin. “I planned on showing you something today, and now seems like a good time,” I said.

After glancing at the picture, he said, “A piggy bank will help put things in perspective?”

“I hope so,” I said. “Every man has what I call a ‘respect bank’ in his heart.

If his parents, coaches, teachers, family, and friends give him a lot of respect and affirmation as he’s growing up, he may get through childhood and adolescence with a respect surplus.”

I then handed him a second picture, which showed a piggy bank stuffed to overflowing with coins.

“When a young man enters adulthood with a respect surplus and someone shows him disrespect, it has little effect on him. His sense of self-worth isn’t threatened, so it’s easier for him to manage the little anger he may experience.

“Unfortunately, many men grow up with a respect deficit. Their parents and other important people in their lives gave them little respect and affirmation. That’s what happened with you and your mother and even your father. I remember when we were driving home from your fight and I asked you about your dad. You said he attended your athletic events, but you

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never quite measured up to his high standard of competition. I got the impression that while you respect him, you don’t think he respects you. I’m not knocking your parents; I’m just saying that their lack of affirmation and encouragement created a deficit in your respect bank.”

Austin interrupted. “And since my bank is empty, when Holly or people at work disrespect me—or seem to—I overreact and get angry. And my anger is an attempt to force them to make a deposit in my respect bank.”

“You’ve nailed it,” I said. “But there’s one more important element to consider.

When you get angry at people who disrespect you and later refer to them as leeches, it may be that you feel toward them like you did toward your parents.

And so you react against them in an effort to replace not only the respect you feel those people took from you, but the respect your parents took. You’re not just reacting with anger for their offense, but for the disrespect you felt for years from your mom and dad. Not only can no one else do what they did to you, but no one else should be punished for what they did.”

40 percent occasionally express anger that way.

“So you’re saying that I’ve been trying to force Holly, along with many other people, to make up for all the respect my parents failed to give me?”

“It seems that way to me. And it might also explain why you were able to withhold sex from Holly for so long. Since you came into marriage with a deficit in your respect bank, even her best efforts couldn’t give you enough respect to create a surplus. To make matters worse, your anger had the opposite effect of what you intended. Instead of treating you with more respect, she got mad and treated you with less.”

“What can he do to create a surplus in his respect bank?” Holly asked.

“Before addressing that question, let me ask you one,” I said. “Do either of you think it would be possible to get so much respect and affirmation that you could say, ‘That’s enough; I never want any more’?”

They both laughed and assured me they couldn’t.

“Let me give you an illustration from my marriage,” I said. “I make an effort every day to tell my wife, Cindy, how beautiful I think she is. Whenever we see a stunning sunset, painting, or anything else that grabs our attention, I’ll say, ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ She’ll always agree.

And then I’ll say, ‘But it’s not as beautiful as you, and I get to see you every day.’

“One evening I asked her, ‘Cindy, do you ever get tired of me telling you how beautiful I think you are? Should I cut down on the affirmation?’ ‘Oh, no!’ she said. ‘I never get enough!’”

We laughed together, and then I said, “Men are the same way when it comes to respect. . . . We can never get enough. The fact is that our parents, wives, children, bosses, and friends are incapable of filling our respect bank. Only God can do that.”

Then I asked him, “How do you win the respect of an opponent in the ring?”

“With my smartness, skill, stamina, speed, and toughness.”

“And how do you develop those?”

“The only way I know is through disciplined training.”

“When you train, do you try to anticipate how you’ll respond to an opponent?”

“Sure. That’s why I spar. It perfects my skills and makes me tough. It helps me think better when I’m in a real fight.”

“You mentioned thinking. Do you ever get mad when an opponent trash-talks you or connects with a powerful punch?”

“I train not to get mad. If I get mad, then all of my experience goes out the window because I throw wild punches.”

“Suppose for a moment that every day

Truths to Live By • God wired me to need respect, and that’s a good thing.

• My need for respect can become distorted so that any real or perceived act of disrespect can trigger inappropriate anger.

• Nobody else can do to me what my parents did to me, and nobody else should be punished for what they did.

• If I’ve got a deficit in my respect bank, then I may try to use anger to force others to treat me respectfully in order to fill my bank.

• My anger usually fosters disrespect in those around me.

• Only God can fill my respect bank.

• My respect bank is filled as I embrace my true and new identity in Christ.

• When I feel disrespected, I won’t act on my initial impulse and throw wild verbal or physical punches.

• Allowing God to fill my respect bank requires that I put into practice a spiritual training routine.

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you’re involved in a spiritual battle… because you are. And suppose that every word and act of disrespect or perceived disrespect is a jab thrown by an opponent.”

“In order to respond with skill, stamina, speed, and toughness, you need a training routine. A routine that will help you keep your cool when someone trash-talks you or hits you with a disrespectful act. Such a routine involves strengthening the way you see yourself.

And that demands depositing into your respect bank the kind of truth that will create a surplus.”

While I waited for Austin to respond, I grabbed a Bible from the round table between us.

After several moments he said, “No wonder my anger is out of control.

I never even knew I was in a fight, and so I did nothing to prepare.”

“The training routine is simple, Austin.

But it demands discipline. It’s based on the biblical truth that you’re a new man in Christ.” I flipped my Bible open to the book of John. “Your true and new identity is wrapped up in Jesus. And it’s based on the fact that you are of infinite value to God. It’s one thing for me to tell you that and another thing for you to believe it’s true at the core of your being. Yet how do we determine the value of anything? By the price paid for it. And the price God paid for you was the life of his Son. John 3:16 tells us, ‘For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.’”

“I realize this verse has been read and recited so many times that it often loses its punch. But if you substitute your name for the word world, you realize that Jesus is telling you God loved you enough to send his Son to die so you could have a friendship with him. God would not have allowed his Son to suffer for you unless he valued and respected you.

“Austin, would you doubt the love of someone who died for you?”

“Never,” he said.

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© iStockphoto/Daniel Laflor

The Man Who Withheld Sex From His Wife

“Of course not,” I said. “And there’s another passage that contains a complementary truth. Later, on the night before his death, Jesus prayed for his present and future disciples. During that prayer he said in John 17:23, ‘May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.’”

I handed the Bible to Austin again and asked him to read that verse aloud for Holly and me. After he read it, I asked him if he saw something mind-blowing in it.

“Jesus said that God the Father loves me as much as he loves Jesus,” Austin said. “I’ve never seen that before.”

“There are no favorites in God’s family,” I said. “Austin, Jesus prayed this knowing the disciples would abandon him and Peter would deny him. Yet Jesus said his Father loved these weak men as much as he loved his perfect Son.” We talked briefly about this concept, and then I gave Austin a training routine.

“There are several things you need to do,” I said.

“First, you must memorize and then review John 3:16 and John 17:23 every day. Each time you review the verses, take a moment and thank God that he loves and respects you. Thank him that the true and new you is a man of infinite worth to him.

“Second, when you feel disrespected throughout the day, consider yourself in a sparring match. Think of it as a situation God put you in to strengthen your character—the true and new you. Quickly tell God, ‘Thanks for filling my respect bank. Enable me to act as a man of

infinite worth even when I feel otherwise.’

“Third, continue to determine whether the words and actions that anger you are real or perceived acts of disrespect. In either case, refuse to act on your anger.

Control your response just as you would if you were in the boxing ring.

“Fourth, keep a daily list of how you’re doing in each of these three other disciplines and report to me next week.”

The Second Fight The second professional fight I ever attended surprised me more than the first. I think it’s because I expected my friend to let his opponent be the aggressor. Instead, Austin took the fight to him. As the fight progressed I thought Austin would win because of his superior skills and much higher punch count. But in the fourth round a powerful jab opened a cut over his right eye, and the ringside doctor called the fight.

Afterward I asked him why he changed tactics. “I don’t know,” he said, as he rubbed the mouse over his eye. “I think it’s got something to do with how I view myself. But maybe not.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I’m not as angry. And an angry me always backed up and counterpunched.

I think taking on my feelings of disrespect so aggressively enabled me to stop letting my anger knock me around and dictate the pace of my life. I suspect that carried over to the ring. I’m just more comfortable being the aggressor than before.”

Bill Perkins served as a senior pastor for 24 years and is the founder and CEO of Million Mighty Men. He has authored or collaborated on 20 books, including Six Battles Every Man Must Win, 6 Rules Every Man Must Break, and the best-selling When Good Men Are Tempted. www.billperkins.com Taken from When Good Men Get Angry by Bill Perkins. Copyright © 2009 by Bill Perkins.

Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Righteous anger leads to constructive action If you’re not angry, you’re probably not awake.”

by Frank Stirk

As executive director of International Justice Mission Canada, Jamie McIntosh has taken part in overseas operations to rescue children and women from the clutches of modern-day slave traders.

Once he had to pretend to be interested in checking out three young girls, ages eight, 10 and 11, for possible purchase.

Being up close and personal with their “owners” was almost more than McIntosh could handle.

“Yeah, I wanted to tear the faces off these guys, absolutely,” he says.

“I wanted to take these guys out, but more importantly, scoop the girls up and rush them to freedom.”

But being aware that this would compromise the goal of the operation— to rescue these and other children and bring their captors to justice—McIntosh was able to swallow his outrage. As a Christian, McIntosh says he also remembered that the Bible teaches us to “leave room for God’s wrath,” because vengeance belongs to God alone (Romans 12:19).

David Collins has had to resist similar vengeful urges. In 1994, he went to Rwanda as the founder and CEO of Canadian Food for the Hungry—and became an eyewitness to inter-tribal genocide. In that moment, the taste of revenge was sweet.

“Most guys’ reaction is just go out and waste the guy—‘He’s not worth it.’ I have felt that actually myself,” says Collins, who is now a speaker and author and head of Paradigm Ministries in Abbotsford, B.C. What restrained him was knowing God’s love extends even to the most cold-blooded mass murderer.

“It’s especially difficult—and, I would say, apart from God, impossible—to love the guy who’s holding a machete who’s just hacked up your spouse or your children,” he says. “But is it true that he is any less valuable to God than I am?”

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Righteous anger leads to constructive action Righteous anger McIntosh and Collins both discovered what’s known as righteous anger. This is the anger that does not lead to sin (Ephesians 4:26). This is getting angry over the same things, and only those things, that made Jesus angry.

The Gospels tell of times when Jesus got angry. Once He was “deeply distressed” at the stubborn refusal of the Pharisees to admit that doing good and saving a life was more important than the rules governing the Sabbath (Mark 3:1-5).

Another time was when Jesus threw the moneychangers and the sellers of birds and animals out of the temple, because they had turned “a house of prayer” into “a den of robbers” (Matthew 21:12-13).

“It’s that intermingling of compassion for the abused and the afflicted, and passionate indignation against those who would prey upon them,” says McIntosh.

“This isn’t right and we need to rise up against it—not in a rage, but like Jesus, who saw people who were helpless and harassed, like sheep without a shepherd, caught in the thickets of injustice.”

“If you’re not angry, you’re probably not awake to what’s going on in the world. It should cause anger,” says Aaron White with the Salvation Army’s Corps 614 Vancouver (the number refers to Isaiah 61:4), who both lives and works in the Downtown Eastside.

“But if we’re just cutting a violent swath of anger through injustice, that’s just going to fuel more violence and more anger,” he says. “So in our anger, we really must not sin. We really must say, ‘Lord, what is it that you would have me do?’ Which isn’t to say that sometimes the response can’t be quite potent or forceful.”

A critical element in a righteous response is to make sure the fight is to stop the injustice and help bring about healing, as opposed to just taking out the perpetrators of injustice.

“We fight not against flesh and blood, we fight against principalities and powers,” says Bill Mollard, president of Vancouver’s Union Gospel Mission, referring to Ephesians 6:12. “The right fight brings grace, brings mercy. The right fight protects. It always seeks to bring peace and love and reconciliation.”

“You cannot effectively, sustainably fight injustice if you get confused about the battle you’re fighting,” says Collins.

“If you get fixated on the people who did it rather than what they did, and you begin to think you’re better than them, then you’ve fallen into the same trap they fell into. The symptom will be different, but the root will be the same.”

One man’s journey from anger to forgiveness

“I’ve made my choice,” says Kenny Blacksmith, a former chief of the Cree community of Mistissini in northern Quebec. “I choose to be controlled by the Spirit of God.” While many First Nations people still feel deep anger towards the Canadian government for the intense suffering inflicted upon their ancestors under its century-long residential schools policy, Blacksmith instead walks the much less travelled path of forgiveness.

Launched in the years following Confederation, the policy involved virtually kidnapping Aboriginal children and placing them in church-run

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Mollard also doubts that any young child would ever dream of growing up to become a pimp or a pusher or an abuser.

“I think evil in and of itself causes people to move in those directions,” he says. “That’s where I get angry, to know that often they had been brutalized when they were young, and they use drugs to anaesthetize themselves from that brutality.”

That said, an abusive childhood is still no excuse for their criminal behaviour now that they’re adults. They still need to be legally caught, convicted and sent to prison.

“You need to restrain them if they’ve lost the capacity for self-government, restrain them from their crimes,” says McIntosh. “Then hopefully there will be an opportunity for them to reflect on their ways and change course, as their hearts are touched as well.”

White worries that some of those people “are just so far gone that barring an absolute miracle of God, I don’t know what’s going to happen to them. But only God’s in a position to make those eternal judgments.”

Telling results But when righteous anger stays focused on breaking the yoke of oppression and injustice, the results speak for themselves.

“In one specific region of the Philippines,” McIntosh says, “we have seen a 79 per cent reduction in just three years in the number of children available for commercial exploitation. We recently had 512 men, women and children set free from slavery in a brick kiln in India.

These breakthroughs, I think, begin to build hope for the future.”

schools where they were stripped of their culture, language and heritage and indoctrinated in “civilized” Western values.

Blacksmith spent 11 years in a residential school.

“I was punished for speaking my language. I was hurt emotionally and mentally. I was sexually abused,” he says.

“I would have harboured all my anger all my life, but I came to know that through His love, I can find healing, restoration and freedom. So when I confessed that I needed God’s help, He came and gave me the tools and the strength to cut the roots of a negative past, and allow God to help me walk through a new journey of freedom.”

The founder of Gathering Nations International, Blacksmith now seeks to encourage his people to also learn to forgive. In 2010, he led the National Forgiven Summit in Ottawa to mark the two-year anniversary of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s formal apology on behalf of the Government of Canada for the residential schools system.

Blacksmith is convinced that Harper was sincere in his apology, and that First Nations people should be willing to

As well, in the past year, every graduate of Union Gospel Mission’s alcohol and drug recovery program has remained clean and sober.

“Righteous anger,” says Mollard, “should always lead to action. It is being God’s voice, being God’s hands, showing people that there is hope, that life won’t always be like this, and trying to bring God’s shalom, God’s community, His kingdom, into the situation. If righteous anger does nothing, then it’s just an emotion. It’s just apathy.”

Frank Stirk is a Vancouver-based freelance writer.

accept it and finally lay the issue to rest. “A lot of them are unable to do that,” he says. “They’ve made a choice to not allow the memory of the past to be forgotten. They are still in anger and denial.”

Blacksmith sees that attitude reflected in the recent report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which the government set up in a bid to bring closure to the residential schools tragedy.

“The report is good, but nothing has really changed. It’s status quo. When are we going to move forward on these issues, and how?” he asks. “It is very evident that more time and more resources are needed.”

Yet the fact this anger still persists leaves Blacksmith neither defeated nor discouraged.

“I want to do whatever I can to see the fullness of the kingdom of God in my time,” he says. “I want to see a better Canada, something I can get excited about—an expectancy that there is much more ahead of us.”

— Frank Stirk

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Angry man

learns to roll with the punches (sort of)!

If only the CFL would hire referees who don’t need guide dogs!

by Gerry Bowler I don’t like to think of myself as an angry man. I’d much prefer that people see me as that amiable, laid-back dude capable of rolling with the punches and keeping a brave smile on his ruby lips even in the hardest of circumstances. I wish.

In fact, there are a lot of things that get up my nose in no time at all. Here is a short list of what has had steam coming out of my ears lately: • Terrorists.

• Telemarketers.

• Cats that come into my yard.

• CFL referees recruited from the School for the Blind who, encumbered by their white canes, manage to miss every thuggish act of pass interference on Roughrider receivers but who can, nonetheless, detect to a micron’s width any violation of the five-yard restraining zone on punts by Saskatchewan wouldbe tacklers.

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• Any threats to my children.

• Cats that, while not actually in my yard, live nearby with crazy Cat People and that could come into my yard while I wasn’t looking.

• Don Cherry, for his many crimes against fashion and sportsmanship • People who don’t signal lane changes.

• University students who bring their 15-page essays to class and hand them to me with a cheery “You got a stapler?”

No, I don’t got a stapler. What I have now is a pile of hundreds of unstapled pages, thank you very much.

• The cruel actions of the government of North Korea. Also the actions of the governments of Pakistan, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Manitoba.

• People who think using an apostrophe makes noun’s nouns plural.

• People who think “it begs the question” means “it leads me to ask…” when, in fact to beg the question is to commit a logical fallacy in which the proposition

to be proven is assumed in the premise.

• Grammar snobs.

• The criminal justice system’s selfdefeating leniency with young offenders.

• Baseball’s designated hitter rule.

• Potty-mouthed Members of Parliament whose mothers should have washed their mouths out with soap at an early age. Yes, Pat Martin, I’m talking about you. And you too, Justin Trudeau – don’t think that hiding behind that ridiculous goatee makes you any less visible.

• Professional grievance mongers in the war against Christmas.

• Christians for whom other Christians are never Christian enough.

That’s a not-inconsiderable list, compiled quickly off the top of my head.

And it begs the question leads me to ask: does all of this anger make me a bad person? Is this something I should be struggling with?

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If one were to consult the Good Book (as one should) one would find that there is certainly an awful lot of anger in the Bible and much of it comes from the top down. “Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child,” says God in Exodus 22.

“If thou afflict them at all, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry; and my wrath shall wax hot.”

And along with the wrath comes the smiting. In Deuteronomy 28, God gets quite specific about what will happen to those who vex him: “The LORD will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods [hemorrhoids], and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed. The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart: And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee.”

No need to go on, Lord; you had me at “the botch of Egypt.”

We can see in the New Testament that God the Son can wax pretty wrathful too, if the cursed fig tree, bruised Temple moneychangers and embarrassed disciples who were asked to stay awake for just one hour, for crying out loud, are anything to go by.

But, that’s kind of comforting, in a way; isn’t it? Don’t these examples of the anger of the Almighty let me, a lowly mortal blessed with no great measure of selfcontrol and maturity, off the hook?

If I light up the occasional candle, aren’t I allowed the occasional curse?

Well, as my teachers used to say: not so fast, Bowler. There may yet be something to learn from the differences between the wrath emitting from the Creator of the Universe and that which comes shrieking out of the quick temper of a middle-aged historian who has just been cut off by a non-signaling driver with a cat lying on the dashboard and an

“I ♥ Don Cherry” banner obscuring her rear window to the extent that she can’t see the interesting and helpful gestures I am making as a commentary on her driving skills.

What is it that makes our God angry?

Let’s check that famous book again.

Injustice, theft, adultery, disrespect to one’s elders, hypocrisy, greed, sloth, envy, swollen pride, persecuting the poor and the helpless.

Lying ticks God off. Also idolatry, betrayal, deceit, gossip, slander, malice, child sacrifice and those without pity. You could build a civilization around the virtues that God’s anger is meant to protect and whose violations he has promised to punish.

And how does my list compare to that?

If I am honest, I will admit that the aggregation of what makes Gerry angry looks petty and foolish alongside the wisdom of the Great Judge.

I think I get marks for hating religious violence and oppression of the innocent—

seven – issue twenty-four may – june page 23

features

but cats and referees? A hockey commentator’s collars and gormless students who know not their right hands from their left?

Like Jonah I look pretty lame defending my anger over small things and ignoring what it is that my Master says I should be concerned about.

Even worse, the things that I should get mad at are the things that I can do the least about.

I can’t defeat al Qaeda or the Taliban. I can’t topple the madman in charge of North Korea, nor can I invent a machine that would whisk me back in time to administer a richlydeserved oral cleansing to the infant who will grow up to be the Honourable Member for Winnipeg Centre when he drops his first f-bomb in kindergarten.

Perhaps, instead of clinging to the notion of righteous anger as something which I am entitled to exercise, instead of cultivating my already-enormous powers of bleak judgment on the errors of my fellow citizens, instead of wishing the botch of Egypt (and the hemorrhoids, and the scabs and the itch) on those whose understanding of the Highway Code, Parliamentary decorum or the rules of grammar may fall somewhat short of mine, I should concentrate on my failings that provoke those around me to wrath.

I should make an effort to be a milder driver and a kindlier professor, a more longsuffering spouse and neighbour. Perhaps if I cultivate the meekness, self-abnegation, humility and patience which are recommended to the followers of Jesus I might reduce the sum of anger in the world and lower my blood pressure during trips in the car and watching football on television.

But still, would it kill the CFL to hire officials who can make it to the stadium without seeing-eye dogs?

Gerry Bowler is a cultural historian, a very witty and jolly fellow who teaches at the University of Manitoba. He is, among other things, the author of Santa Claus: A Biography and The World Encyclopedia of Christmas.

seven – issue twenty-four may – june, 2012 page 24

sports scene

features

Surprising star a man of faith High flying Jeremy Lin stays grounded

by Scott Taylor He's cooled off lately, but in the midst of basketball's burst of Lin-sanity, the best thing I read about the sudden and refreshing rise of New York Knicks basketball star Jeremy Lin, came from Alex Pareene at Salon.

“While Lin’s Christianity is obviously of great importance to Lin, it honestly has barely anything to do with what made him an instant superstar, except for when hacks want to compare him to Tim Tebow, which is dumb.”

Pareene pretty much nailed it.

Yes, the story of Jeremy Lin is terrific and worth writing about. He’s an Asian kid from California who went to Harvard, was cut by the Golden State Warriors and the Houston Rockets and as a last resort, Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni sent him into a game and he lit it up.

Lin went on to play some marvelous games and coax the Knicks back to respectability despite the fact the team’s two stars, Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire, were out of the lineup for much of the team’s resurgence.

A game Lin played in Toronto in midFebruary was epic. He hit a three-pointer with less than a second to play and scored the final six points as the Knicks beat the Raptors 90-87 at Air Canada Centre. He finished with 27 points and 11 assists as the Story of “Linderella” gained even more traction.

In fact, a crowd of 20,092 in Toronto roared with delight when Lin hit the winning trey at the end of a game in which the hometown Raptors had led by as many as 15 points.

Nothing new Meanwhile, Lin’s faith is no sudden, new, surprising thing. He is a member of Redeemer Bible Fellowship in Mountain View, California and often speaks at

Christian gatherings. At a conference hosted by River of Life Christian Church in Santa Clara last summer, Lin spoke frankly about his early career difficulty in dealing with the double life he was suddenly leading.

On the one hand, he was a professional basketball player—adored by fans and glamorized by the media. On the other, he was trying to remain grounded in his faith. He admitted it was a troubling time and that only way he could handle the wild ups-and-downs of

being a professional athlete was to anchor his trust in God. But then again, he’s not the first person of faith to be a professional athlete. Every team in every sport has a Christian athlete or two. Most professional teams make both a chapel and a pastor available to its players.

Professional sport has long been a comfortable place for Christians who also happen to have been blessed with great athletic skills.

That’s the major reason why all these comparisons between Lin and Tebow are so, well, silly. They are different players in different sports with completely different backgrounds, who address their faith in completely different ways. Tebow likes to demonstrate to the world that he’s a Christian while Lin is more subtle.

Both, however, are deeply committed to their beliefs.

Adrian Tam, Lin’s spiritual advisor at Harvard, spoke to World on Campus magazine about the comparison between Lin and Tebow. “The only thing I see that they have in common is that both men have a commitment to sharing their faith and backing it up with their actions.

They both want to give all the credit to God,” he said.

Good point. Tebow and Lin did not become professional athletes because they were Christians. Like so many before them, they were Christians who became professional athletes. And while they have one thing in common, they are extremely different people, playing extremely different sports from extremely different backgrounds with extremely different approaches to their faith.

And there is nothing wrong with that.

Scott Taylor is a Winnipeg-based sportswriter and broadcaster.

seven – issue twenty-four may – june page 25

money matters

A lot is riding on your shoulders!

Term insurance options can protect your family

by Paul Emerton

Over the years, tire companies have gone out of their way to tell consumers “there’s a lot riding on your tires.”

It’s true: tires are one of the most important systems on your vehicle and certainly demand your attention.

Under-inflation is one reason a tire can fail. Tires that don’t have enough pressure run much hotter than properly inflated ones, degrading the rubber and fabric construction of the tire.

Just like your choice of tires and how you maintain them makes a difference for your family, so does your choice of mortgage insurance when you purchase a home.

Is your insurance under-inflated?

Buying a home requires a homebuyer to make a lot of decisions, and when it comes to mortgage insurance you need to make sure that, like your tires, your insurance is not underinflated. Taking steps to ensure you have enough insurance to take care of your family — so they can stay in their home in your absence — is one of those important decisions.

One question that homebuyers will be asking themselves this spring is, “How will we protect our mortgage?”

Buying insurance through the mortgage lender is only one option. But did you know that a traditional, term life insurance policy, can offer much greater flexibility and better protection?

Three key benefits Many people don’t realize that there are significant advantages to protecting

seven – issue twenty-four may – june, 2012 page 26

your mortgage through term life insurance, including the following three key benefits: 1) Upon death, mortgage insurance from the lender simply pays off your mortgage, leaving no choice and no money for other expenses. Term life insurance provides cash that your family can use as they choose—to pay off the mortgage or to save it and make regular mortgage payments, along with any other needs that arise.

2) Mortgage insurance from the lender pays only the remaining mortgage balance. Even though premiums are being paid on the initial amount of your mortgage, at your death only the

Two policies two benefits. And the cost is comparable. outstanding mortgage amount will be paid (and that amount may decrease significantly over time). However, a term life insurance policy that you own and control will pay the full amount of the term insurance policy, regardless of your outstanding mortgage amount.

3) Lender mortgage insurance is typically sold as a “first to die” plan, which means that both spouses are covered under the same policy, but when one home owner dies, the mortgage is paid out and there is no further coverage.

One policy—one benefit.

If you buy two separate term life insurance plans, when the first homeowner dies, the benefit is paid and the remaining spouse still has financial protection in place. Two policies—two benefits! And the cost is comparable.

When you purchase a term life insurance policy, you are also able to maintain your insurance if you change lenders or refinance your mortgage. This means less administrative hassle and you don’t have to prove your good health each time you refinance. The coverage moves with you and remains in effect, regardless of which mortgage lender you choose or any changes in your health.

Your term life insurance also includes the option to change to permanent life insurance, regardless of your health, if you have other needs for life insurance that last beyond your years of carrying a home mortgage.

When you purchase a home, take some time to meet with your financial advisor to explore all of the available insurance options. The future of your family really is riding on your shoulders!

Paul Emerton is a certified financial planner and trainer at FaithLife Financial. www.faithlifefinancial.com

Out of my depth

Call in the umpire How to keep anger under control

by Mark Buchanan

My name is Mark.

My parents named me after Mars, the god of war. Perhaps they didn’t know any better. Or perhaps it was an intuition.

Mars was a petty deity, a whining coward and a rancorous bully, who knew how to nurse the smallest grudge into full-scale carnage.

Flattering.

And it probably doesn’t help that I’m Scottish, three-generations removed: I have the spirit of the highlander, the poetbrawler, running in my veins. In 2010 I went to Scotland for the first time. I noticed something the minute I crossed the border from England: road signs everywhere warning against the lethal dangers of road rage.

“Ah,” Cheryl said, “So that’s where it comes from.”

Well, where it comes from—in me, in you, in anyone—has a deeper root, regardless of ethnicity or namesake.

Anger, indeed, seems our birthright.

Especially men’s.

Several years ago, two pastors— Newman Smith and Robert Hall—got into a dispute over some point of doctrine.

Smith wrote a take-no-prisoners pamphlet in which he denounced Hall in scathing terms. But he was stumped for a title for his pamphlet, and so sent it to a friend to read and suggest one.

This was not Smith’s first outing as an author. The year previously he published a well-received tract called “Come to Jesus.” Smith’s friend read his latest effort, and sent back his title suggestion: “Go to Hell” by the Author of “Come to Jesus.”

Warning signals No wonder the Bible is thick with admonition about anger, this most volatile of emotions. We’re warned not to let the sun go down on our anger, to not let the devil get a foothold in it. We’re told that anger never accomplishes God’s purposes, and letting it run unchecked is like murder. We’re cautioned that those who rage and brawl without restraint will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. It’s a long list of warnings, and sobering.

But it’s proved, at least in my case, a weak antidote.

We can hear all the warnings: the psychological and physiological ones, alerting us to the toll anger takes on our mental and physical health; the sociological ones, depicting the brutality of anger scaled up to the proportions of war; the theological ones, portraying the damage anger does to the soul (both our own and that of another).

We can know all this, know it so well we could teach it, maybe even write a column on it, and still find anger welling up in us at the slightest provocation, the tiniest inconvenience. The warnings are like a garden hose against a wild fire.

A better way But I’ve discovered a more excellent way. The Bible recognizes that resisting sin is of some value. But it’s limited. The deeper and wiser strategy is to replace sin with something better: lust with intimacy, greed with generosity, envy with thankfulness.

And anger with shalom.

With peace.

The Apostle Paul writes: “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as

members of one body you were called to peace” (Col. 3:15). In the Greek, the phrase “let the peace of Christ rule” can literally be translated “make Christ’s shalom your umpire.”

Peace is an umpire.

This fascinates me. Even better, it helps me. Here’s why. Anger is a ruling passion. It takes over. It waylays. It ambushes. It barges in and demands its way. And peace is a passive emotion. It sits and waits. It flees when threatened. It backs off, and yields ground.

Until Jesus comes along. His peace is tenacious, subversive, resilient. It’s boss.

It rules. His peace is an umpire.

In baseball, the umpire is boss. He decides what’s allowed and what’s not.

The opinions of players and fans alike are irrelevant. What the umpire says is what is. He rules and over-rules. No further discussion.

Christ’s peace works like that. It can rule and over-rule where anger is trying to call the shots. You can actually call in the peace of Christ to settle a matter. You’re angry with your wife? Call in Christ’s peace to rule, to decide how this gets played. You’re wanting vengeance for a hurt inflicted? Submit it to Christ’s peace, and let him render his verdict.

Christ’s peace then does more than rule in our heart: it floods it. It washes out what was there, and replaces it with shalom.

Try it. Next time anger rises, call in the umpire. Let him rule.

Mark Buchanan is an author and pastor living on Vancouver Island. The author of several bestselling books, his most recent title is Your Church is Too Safe (Zondervan, March 2012).

seven – issue twenty-four may – june page 27

power play

Great games. Great toys.

Great gadgets.

Reviews by Sandy McMurray

CONSERVE SOCKET belkin.com

I never thought about the cost of electricity when I was a teenager. My father would go from room to room turning off the lights I had left on, and I wondered why it was such a big deal. Now that I have children of my own, and my name is on the electric bill, I get it. The problem isn’t just teenagers leaving on lights. Our house is full of little LED lights from appliances and gadgets that are neither off nor on. Some have finished charging; others are on standby, just waiting to be turned on.

The Conserve Socket power timer is a handy way to shut off devices automatically, on your schedule. It can be used with lamps and fans, small appliances like coffee makers, and to switch off standby power drain for things like cell phone chargers and music players. Set the switch to cut power after 30 minutes, three or six hours. When time is up, the power shuts off automatically.

TRAINING DRESSER peterbristol.net

The Training Dresser is a great idea that grabs you the moment you see it. Each drawer is shaped like the things that

should be inside it: socks, pants, shirts, and underwear. It’s perfect for children who are just figuring out where things are supposed to go.

(Hint: clothes go in the drawers, not on the floor.)

This is one of those things designed for kids but useful for all ages. If there was an adult version, I would definitely be interested.

The Training Dresser goes for $1,500, which most of us don’t really have lying around, but I think the idea is the exciting thing. If you’re handy, you might be able to make your own version of this. If you’re not handy, try using a permanent marker to draw a picture of socks on your kids’ drawers.

HIT THE DECK fundexgames.com

Hit The Deck is a card game that’s very similar to UNO, but with several features that make it unique. The object of the game is to get rid of your cards before everyone else.

Points are awarded for each card left in your opponents’ hands. Special

cards labeled HIT and THE and DECK must be played in order to capture the discard pile for bonus points. And, like the classic kids game Slapjack, you have to shout HIT THE DECK and actually hit the discard pile when you play a DECK card. Hit The Deck is a loud, fun game for all ages.

IPHONE CHARGER CASE thirdrailmobility.com

iPhone cases come in many shapes and sizes. This one, from Third Rail Mobility, not only protects the iPhone from damage but also provides extra power when it’s needed, both to the iPhone and to other devices. Unlike other charger cases that have a built-in battery pack, the Third Rail battery is removable. This reduces bulk and weight for the case and gives you the option to carry more than one extra battery. To charge the iPhone, snap the battery to the back of the case. You can use the iPhone while it’s charging, then remove the extra battery when the iPhone is fully charged. The Third Rail battery can also be used to charge Bluetooth headsets and other devices, via a universal connector on the battery. At the end of the day, you can connect to AC power to recharge your iPhone, battery pack(s), and external devices all at once. The Third Rail system is designed for iPhone 4 and 4S. The case with one removable battery goes for $90. Extra batteries cost about $60 each.

power play

THE ULTIMATE TOOL

TABLE DRUM

amazingkitchenrock.com

tabledrum.com

This is the story of an amazing kitchen tool with multiple uses. Throw away your drawer full of kitchen gadgets. This one tool can replace a garlic peeler, mortar and pestle, cleaver, meat tenderizer and garlic press. The Amazing Kitchen Rock is a must-have tool for cracking, crushing, smashing, peeling, pounding and tenderizing. Made of feldspar, quartz and granite, this versatile tool can peel garlic cloves easily, split a whole chicken in two without a cleaver, crack nuts without using a nutcracker, break up large blocks of chocolate, crush ice without an ice crusher, tenderize meat, and crack lobster and crab. For $6.95 (plus shipping and handling) you get more than just a smooth stone. The Amazing Kitchen Rock is “tumbled with a natural aggregate in pure, clean water” to make a “dynamic, powerful, effective” kitchen tool that is “practically indestructible yet easy to clean” and “dishwasher safe on either rack.”

Is it safe? You bet. “Unlike hammers or mallets, where most of the weight is placed away from you and the handle, the Amazing Kitchen Rock is cradled in your hand, giving you complete control.

It is highly unlikely that you would lose control of the rock and injure yourself since the movement is a natural one.

One hand doesn’t normally hit the other hand, does it?” How can you say no?

Turn idle tapping into big fun with Table Drum, a new app for iOS devices that turns any flat surface into a drum kit.

Instead of tapping the screen to play drum sounds, you tap on other surfaces and the app responds with high quality drum

optimized aerodynamics, all wheel drive, and record-setting top speed. It goes from 0 to 100 km/h in 2.3 seconds. RC racing has come a long way since I was a kid.

Telemetry sensors on the model capture real-time data such as speed, RPM, temperature and battery voltage. The XO-1 remote control is powered by an iOS app that gives you complete control over the operation and tuning of the car.

You can watch and record replay data from each race. Save and share drive profiles, to quickly program the XO-1 for different tracks and road conditions. The XO-1 sells for about $1,100.

(Those $50 RC cars you thought were so expensive suddenly look like a bargain, don’t they?)

THE NEW IPAD sounds. Here’s how it works: you hold down a drum pad icon until it glows, then tap a real object several times while the app learns to recognize the sound. When the rim of the pad glows, it’s ready to play.

Once the app is set up, you can bang out a drum solo on any combination of table top, book, cup, bowl or whatever. To you and everyone around, your tabletop drum solo will sound like you have a real drum kit. The basic app includes a Classic Rock kit with eight drum samples. In-app purchases let you add new drum sounds.

The app developers suggest you should “use headphones for best results.” The neighbours will thank you.

apple.ca/-ipad

The difference between iPad 2 and the new iPad is like the difference between TV and HDTV. The “resolutionary” new screen on the new iPad can display high definition images and video. The built-in iSight camera can take still pictures and record in high definition video. Other new features in the new iPad include voice dictation and support for faster LTE cellular networks. If none of that impresses you, how about this: the price of the “old” iPad 2 has dropped by $100 to $419. How do you like them Apples?

XO-1 SUPERCAR traxxas.com

The XO-1 from Traxxas is the world’s fastest radio controlled car. Designed for serious RC fans, this 1/7 scale model features computer-

Sandy McMurray writes about toys, gadgets, and games at techstuff.ca

seven – issue twenty-four may – june page 29

What women want

Don’t get caught in the lizard trap Work to understand your wife. Fight to have her understand you.

by Sheila Wray Gregoire

What would happen if you went to Japan with a “Learn to Speak German” manual? You would certainly get some awfully quizzical looks when you asked for the train station or the bathroom.

I think that’s the problem in marriages, too. It’s not just that we speak different languages. It’s that we women assume you men are speaking a language that you’re not. We think you speak Lizard.

We think you men are motivated predominantly by the baser instincts.

“Show up naked and bring food” is your recipe for a happy marriage, and we think that’s kind of pathetic. Now, perhaps you have a point here, because, as most men instinctually understand, when a couple makes love regularly, they can usually negotiate bumps in the relationship, because they’re connecting on an intimate level.

To most women, that seems backwards. You should connect first before you have sex, or the connection isn’t real.

That attitude must really aggravate you, because you guys realize how easy it would be to keep you smiling. Men have just a few switches. If women flick them all, guys will be happy. Women, on the other hand, have thousands of different switches, and the instruction manual is in Swahili. We don’t even understand it ourselves.

I sometimes sympathize with my poor husband because he figures that to keep me happy he has to juggle so many different balls in the air, while I really only have a few to worry about. I have the much easier job. Yet despite this, women often run kicking and screaming from a guy’s needs because we fundamentally mistrust them, especially when it comes to sex.

seven – issue twenty-four may – june, 2012 page 30

We don’t have the same biological urge for it that most men do, so we tend to think that sex is somehow shallow or base, as if God created it because He figured “they have to reproduce somehow, and this is the best I’ve got.”

We women, who meditate on relationship far more than anatomy, figure we were created a little closer to the angels, and men created a little closer to the lizards. We flourish on deep, important things, like emotional connection, while you focus on breasts.

And a lot of women unfortunately feel that part of our job in a marriage is to help men “grow up.”

This, I believe, is at the heart of most marriage struggles: she wants you to prove you’re not a lizard. And the way you do that is to become like she is—like a woman.

That’s why you’re supposed to know what we women are thinking. When we sigh dramatically, you’re supposed to be able to interpret whether it’s because we’re mad about a phone call from our mom, mad because you’re home late, or mad at ourselves because the house is a mess.

You’re supposed to be able to read between the lines when we say, “Can you—oh, no never mind.” And most of all, you’re supposed to know what to do when you ask us what’s wrong, and we reply, “nothing.”

If you don’t, then you’re a lizard.

You probably don’t like constantly feeling judged, and she probably doesn’t like not feeling understood. And so what do we tend to do when our expectations aren’t met? Sometimes we may rage and scream, but far more frequently we just disengage. We retreat from the fight.

Do you remember the stories of World War I? Both sides sat knee deep in mud for four years inside those trenches. They doubled down and stayed hidden, afraid to stick their heads up in case they got shot. Nothing could happen until one side was brave enough to step out of that trench.

In marriage, we face the same challenge. Many couples have retreated and doubled down. But someone has to get out of that trench and walk forward to break this impasse. Walking forward doesn’t mean surrender. It means that you engage the other side; that you say, “a stalemate isn’t good enough.”

Guys, if she is assuming something about you that isn’t right, don’t stand for it. Keep talking. Keep working it through.

Keep the dialogue open. Don’t withdraw, even if she does. Jesus made the first move to reconcile Himself with us; maybe it’s time you took that first step, too.

God created intimacy as our deepest need, but we express and feel it in different ways. Instead of seeing ourselves at odds, on opposing sides with that problem in between you, why not get up, walk to your wife, and sit side by side looking at the same issue together. You are on the same team and you ultimately want the same thing. You both want to know and be known; you both want to love and be loved.

Work to understand your wife. Fight to have her understand you. It’s worth standing your ground. After all, lizards scurry away. Men stand and fight.

Sheila is a speaker and author of The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex. She blogs everyday at tolovehonorandvacuum.com.

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A Christian magazine for Canadian men.

Relevant, exciting and biblical.

Visit us online at www.PromiseKeepers.ca and

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