glenn packiam's blog

What Easter Means for the Future of the Cosmos

Is Easter only something we look back at with gratitude? Does God care about injustice in the world, the pain and suffering we experience, or is He only interested in 'saving our souls'? Should we just hope to "fly away" in glory and escape the wreckage of the cosmos, or does God mean to rescue the whole universe, His good creation? Here is the audio (in dark gray below) and a rough sketch of my outline of a 20-minute talk I gave on Easter Sunday Night on what Easter means for God's defeat of evil and the future of the cosmos:

EASTER_ What the Resurrection of Jesus Means for the World

The preaching of the early apostles was all about the resurrection

Peter preaches about the resurrection of Jesus at Pentecost

Peter & John were preaching that Jesus was raised from the dead on Solomon’s porch

Paul proclaimed the resurrection of Jesus before a skeptical Greek crowd and before a divided Sanhedrin

Acts 4:33 (NIV)
“With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all.”

Why? Is Easter something we only look back at with gratitude?
1 Cor. 15:12-19 (NIV)
“But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

The Resurrection of Jesus Means Evil’s Defeat Has Begun

Image-bearers (Adam: Multiply so the earth reflects God’ glory)

Sin, evil and a cosmos coming apart

God’s plan to set it right (Abraham, Israel: Carry blessing to the whole earth)

Jesus, the fulfillment of Israel’s calling

Col. 2:15 (ESV)
“He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”

1 Cor. 15:20-25 (NIV)
“But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 23But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. 24Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.”

Evil has been put on notice: victory has begun; the final triumph is coming

It will not always be this way 

The Resurrection of Jesus Means New Creation Has Begun
Rom. 8:18-25 (NIV)
“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

The Psalmist sang, “The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice!”

Creation is waiting for the King to return and set the world right

The resurrection of Jesus is the firstfruit; He is the “firstborn among many brothers.” (Rom, 8:29)

N. T. Wright: “God will do for the universe what He has done for Jesus.”

The resurrection of Jesus makes us look back to the initial triumph over evil and how we have been made alive to God.

The resurrection of Jesus makes us look ahead to the final destruction of evil and the re-creation of all things.

That is our hope! It means that even on the worst day here we can say:
I know my Redeemer lives
And because He lives I know
What’s coming is better that what is!

Theology Is An Aquarium...

Last night I taught at our Sunday Night Campus on the subject of Justification. It was a great opportunity to clearly present the theological distinctions between justification, sanctification, and glorification, and to explain why the New Testament talks about salvation in past, present, and future verb tenses. The joy, the confidence that comes from knowing that our justification is a one-time declaration from God...and that it's all God's work through Christ...is amazing. To believe that while our sanctification is on-going and involves our cooperation, setbacks in our sanctification process will not undo our justification. Thanks be to God!

But along the way, while immersing myself again in Erickson's "Christian Theology" and Grudem's "Systematic Theology", and re-reading Paul's words to the Romans, it occurred to me that our theological categories can be problematic. Paul is not as clear in delineating these three phases of our salvation. And to complicate things further, there are other New Testament-inspired theological words like regeneration, redemption, atonement, reconciliation, and more. Then, as a parishioner pointed out to me earlier in the week, there is Matthew 25, in which Jesus seems to indicate that there is a certain kind of behavior that demonstrates what we have done with Christ (The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats) that determines our reward or punishment. How do all these things fit together? And why is the Gospel's first and best theologian-- Paul-- not as systematic as we'd like?

I suggest, as many others have, it's because Jesus wants more for us than information and understanding; He wants participation and firsthand, relationship-based knowledge. (Paul's favorite word for the kind of "knowledge" we are to have of Christ is the kind of intimate knowledge that you could only gain through experiencing Him.) 

In a way, then, theology is like an aquarium-- a large, massive Sea World sort of aquarium, if it's a good theology, anyway! An aquarium recreates the oceanic environment and helps us see things we wouldn't otherwise see. In a good aquarium, the salt water, the dynamic and diverse coral and "vegetation", and overall ambience help us imagine what the ocean depths are like. The living creatures are descendants of actual inhabitants of the deep seas. An aquarium gives us an accurate depiction of the ocean. 

And yet, an aquarium is not the ocean. There is more to the ocean than what an aquarium can hold. In the same way, even our best theological categories and designations are like gigantic aquariums. They are helpful depictions of God in His creating and saving work. They are useful for study and understanding. But they are not the sum total of God and His work. God is more.

But this does not mean-- as some has suggested-- that the "more" that there is to God will be contradictory to what we know and understand of Him in sound, orthodox theology. The ocean is not fundamentally or in its essence different than what we find in the aquarium. It's not as if a deep sea diver might discover that ocean water is really as sustainable to human life as oxygen or that fish actually talk or that tiger sharks are really playful puppies. No, the ocean isn't fundamentally different. It is just larger, more massive, more difficult to absorb and comprehend. In that way, God is larger than our theological designations. I don't suspect that we'll come to the end and then say, "Oh my. I didn't realize that God is actually something totally different that the attributes I studied of Him in the Scriptures and in theology." To be clear, I am not suggesting that by saying God is larger than our theology we are saying that we might find that none of our theology matters and that all roads lead to God anyway. No. An emphatic NO. I am simply saying that our theological designations are helpful and necessary. And yet they are limited. 

There is more to the ocean than what an aquarium can show; there is more to God than what theology can tell. 

So, keep the books. Study them well. They will keep you from drowning and dispel your illusions of "ocean life".

But hold them loosely. The categories and compartments are made of fragile glass.

Most of all, go diving. 

Deep.

The ocean is for exploring; and God is for knowing.

How Mercy Triumphed Over Judgment

[EDITOR'S NOTE: As a follow-up to my last post, here is a slightly adapted excerpt from Chapter 8 of "Secondhand Jesus". If you like, you might enjoy the rest of the book! :)]

If God’s justice requires Him to judge evil and punish sinners, aren’t we all in trouble? Can’t God simply forgive? After all, isn’t He a God of love?

There is no such thing as simply forgiving, even at the human level. There is always a cost. When someone wrongs you, something is taken from you, a piece of you is gone. Sometimes it’s something physical; more often it’s something intangible, like your innocence, your childhood, your respect, your marriage. Fill in the blank. If you’ve been wronged, you are missing something you once had or should have had. That is why we instinctively feel like saying to the one who has wronged us, “You owe me!” Even our own justice system is based on the old Hebrew law of paying “an eye for an eye”—i.e., making the punishment fit the crime, requiring restitution and replacement where possible. 

We have wronged God and He—because He is just—cannot just forgive us. Someone must bear the cost. 

1 Sam. 6 tells the story of the ark of the covenant finally being returned to Israel on an oxcart from the Philistines. The people were overjoyed at the sight. There were sacrifices and songs of joy. But then the tragic happened unexpectedly.

The men of Beth-Shemesh opened the cover of the ark and looked in at the Law without the cover of blood, and they were struck dead. It's a picture of a rumor about God: that God is pleased with our own goodness; that we can handle the law without the blood. The people of Beth-Shemesh, seeing seventy of their men suddenly slain because of the wrath of God, cried out, “Who can stand in the presence of the Lord, this holy God?” (1 Sam 6:20a).

This same question can lead us on the road to salvation. In this question is a truth we have missed: God is holy. 

You see, God’s sense of justice is rooted in His holiness. To properly understand His justice, we have to recognize His holiness. To say that God is holy is to say that God is far removed from us not just by degree but in also in kind. He is not the top of the spectrum on which we lie near the bottom; He is on a spectrum wholly different than ours. He is, literally, in a league of His own. That is enough to require a mediator. But to make matters worse, we are fallen, sinful creatures. Adam was the first to attempt a life apart from God, to try to live as God instead of with Him. That sin has been passed on to the rest of us, embedded in our very nature. But we are not passive in this. By our own actions we confirm our sinfulness and our desire to rebel and live apart from God. By our own choice, we have become enemies of God.

This presents a problem on a cosmic scale. Throughout the Old Testament, there are hints and references to a “cup of wrath” waiting to be poured out in judgment on the nations. 

Psalms 75:8 says, “In the hand of the Lord is a cup full of foaming wine mixed with spices; he pours it out, and all the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs.” 

In a prophecy against Judah, Ezekiel warns, "This is what the Sovereign Lord says: ‘You will drink your sister's cup, a cup large and deep; it will bring scorn and derision, for it holds so much. You will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, the cup of ruin and desolation, the cup of your sister Samaria. You will drink it and drain it dry; you will dash it to pieces and tear your breasts. I have spoken,’ declares the Sovereign Lord” (Ez. 23:32–34).

The book of Revelation gives a glimpse into the final judgment that awaits: “A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: ‘If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name’” (Rev. 14:9–11).

A cup in Scripture is symbolic of a person’s lot or portion in life. To be an enemy of God is to deserve the cup of wrath, the cup of ruin, sorrow, and destruction. It is our lot, and our coming portion forever. 

But God did the unthinkable. He sent His own Son—who is God forever—to come to earth and drink the cup that was meant for us. It is interesting that when James and John asked—or more accurately, when their mother asked!—if they could sit at the right and left hand of Jesus, He said to them, “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” (Matt. 20:22).

Later, in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will" (Matt. 26:39). And a second time in the Garden, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done" (Matt. 26:42).

Let this cup pass. What was Jesus’ portion? The cup of wrath. The cup of ruin, sorrow, and destruction. It was a heavy lot to have, yet it was one only Jesus could bear. Only God could satisfy the honor of God. Only God could be holy enough to take on the sin of all the world and with it all the destruction due to us. Jesus took for us the full blow, the full force of God’s wrath so that we no longer have to taste God’s judgment. 

Instead, our cup, our lot, is now the cup of blessing, symbolized in the cup of communion. The apostle Paul wrote, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16 ESV).

We switched cups! Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath instead of us so that we can drink the cup of blessing. The cup of blessing is ours because of the new covenant. John Stott words the miraculous reversal of roles this way:

"The essence of sin is we human beings substituting ourselves for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for us. We … put ourselves where only God deserves to be; God … puts himself where we deserve to be."

Again, I say, "Thanks be to God!"

When Bottom-Line Thinking Ruins Everything

This year was supposed to be the year my football team broke out of their rebuilding phase and rose to challenge the Patriots, Colts, and Steelers for the right to represent the AFC in the SuperBowl. Instead, we have sunk to cellar, hoping to crawl out with a new head coach who is younger than his best veterans and without a Pro Bowl quarterback who was supposed to be the second coming of John Elway.

The trouble began months ago when a teary man in his mid-sixties simply said he was firing one of best friends because "it was time". Pat Bowlen's joint press conference with Mike Shannahan, his Superbowl-winning coach of 15 years, was the most crying I've ever seen in the NLF-- except of course for the time Brett Favre retired...the first time. Pro football, as we are reminded every offseason (which should be called "contract dispute season") is a business. And in any business, the bottom line is what matters most. Friendships are good; team loyalty counts for something, especially during the season. But in the end, players, coaches, owners, and VPs must produce or be fired. 

America's pastime, baseball, now marred by multiple steroid scandals, is carnage on the altar of bottom-line thinking. Is it really surprising that the immense pressure to produce godlike statistics to match their godlike salaries has driven so many pro athletes to Performance Enhancing Drugs? Teams want to make more money; to make more money you have to win more; to win more you need the best coaches and players; to get the best players you've got to pay them the best salaries for their position. And when you pay them that much, they better produce. And when there's that much pressure to produce, vocational purity is lost. There is nothing sacred or pure about the game anymore. There is no longer anything special about being a baseball player or a football player or a basketball player. It's all just a business.

Such thinking is all around us. A few years ago, my wife and I took our daughter to a pediatrician that many of our friends recommended. At first, we appreciated his efficiency, the way we got in and got out. But after a few visits, he seemed more willing to write a prescription for Amoxicillin than to listen to our concerns. We began to feel like we were being herded through the office and rushed through an appointment so the maximum number of patients could be seen each day. In short, it seemed our pediatrician had reduced his vocation of caring for children and attending to their health to simply a business. And the more patients he had, the better his bottom line. Eventually we left and found a different pediatrician who was more willing to take her time with her patients, one who was running her business but preserved the purity of her vocation.

Bottom-line thinking has a way of undoing our best intentions. I know because my vocation is not immune to it. Pastors are tempted to evaluate their work through the same grid as pro athletes and pediatricians: as managers of a business. Our bottom line, though it could be measured in dollars, is more often measured in people. Because of that, it seems purer. And to some degree it is. It's better to evaluate a church by the lives it is affecting than by the money it's bringing in. But still, it's a way of reducing the richness and complexity of our calling as pastors into something as static and unreliable as numbers. Worse, it often leads us to justify a way of doing ministry that looks nothing like Jesus simply for the sake of reaching more people. The proof of the pervasiveness of that thinking is in popular church campaign slogans like "Reach the Lost at Any Cost."

It might be worth noting that Jesus didn't reach the lost at any cost. When the rich young ruler walked away sad because he wasn't about to sell all he had and give it to the poor, Jesus let him. When the prodigal son left home, the father didn't run after him. To top it off, Jesus seems to have made a concerted choice to avoid a more popular and potentially more effective approach to reaching people simply because it was less personal. The two large cities in Galilee of Jesus’ day were Sepphoris and Tiberias. Sepphoris, Galilee’s capital, was only a few miles from Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth. Both cities were centers of activity and influence. Both were within view of the places Jesus frequented. Yet neither is mentioned in the stories of Jesus. (Tiberias gets a passing mention of people coming in boats form Tiberias to look for Jesus.) Instead, Jesus, as Eugene Peterson suggests, worked out “his way of life in the intensely personal and God-oriented small towns of Capernaum, Chorazin, and Bethsaida.” It wasn’t that He didn’t have any other options. He most certainly did. Could it be that Jesus chose these more personal settings on purpose? It seems consistent with the rest of His ministry approach. When Jesus did set His face toward Jerusalem it wasn’t to perform a spectacle at the Temple, as Satan had earlier suggested He do; Jesus went to Jerusalem, to the epicenter of culture, to die. These are certainly not the choices of a person driven by the bottom-line of producing more or reaching more.

To be sure, all vocations have an element of business. We are to be shrewd managers, faithful stewards, making the most of what we have been given. It's not wrong to get paid for what you do...even as pastors. (Paul makes a strong case to young pastor Timothy about the merits of rewarding those who serve as elders, governing the affairs of the church, in particular those who teach.) And it's not wrong to watch the bottom-line in your business. But at some point, too much attention to the bottom line corrupts the purity of any vocation. We must ask ourselves not simply how well our business is doing, but how well we are doing business. Are we losing the purity of our vocation-- as doctors or lawyers or pastors or athletes-- because of an obsession with the bottom line? The bottom line is one piece of what we do as a professional in any field. But if the bottom line drives our decisions and shapes our vocation, we will find ourselves in the place my beloved Broncos are in: ruined.

The New Sunday Night Service at New Life Church

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Since launch the service on Sept. 13, 2009, we have made a few tweaks, both to the service order and the preaching element. I have adjusted this blog to now reflect those changes as of Nov. 15, 2009]

The word's out: New Life is launching a Sunday Night Service. I know many of my blog readers don't live in Colorado Springs, but I thought the best way for me to share my heart for this service would be to blog about it. 

The pastor's challenge is to let his heart and mind be full of the way things should be while his hands and feet are firmly in the reality of how things are. We are always fixing our eyes on Christ and trying to follow Him and His ways, all while working with the particulars of the soil of our field. This means that not everything will line up with a list of ideals. It also means that we will get dirt under our fingernails. Yet we labor to be on this earth as Christ was, to be carriers of the Divine, acting out His Kingdom and the values of that Kingdom here and now, on earth as it is in heaven. We deal in the subversive, beginning with where culture is but undermining it with a Love that is not of this world. So, here are some of the values that will shape the service and the culture of the Sunday Night Campus.

PERSONAL
One of the main reasons Pastor Brady and the team decided to launch this service is to create a smaller environment for worship and community. We're looking for ways to make a big church not just "feel" smaller, but to actually be smaller. My hope is to be more than a service host. I want be a pastor. I want to build relationships with people who make this service their home and help them grow in the Lord. I want us to learn to be attentive to what God is doing in each other's lives so that as we gather each week we "recognize each other as companions along the way of the cross".

SACRAMENTAL
What I'm most excited about is gathering at the Lord's Table every week. As we prepare to celebrate the Eucharist about 20 minutes into the service, we'll participate in a liturgical confession from the Book of Common Prayer. We'll be saying words that have been said by the Church for hundreds of years, and in some cases, longer. Then, after our corporate confession, we'll go to tables on the sides and gather the elements as the worship team continues to sing. From there, you can either go to our prayer team, stationed along the edges, to receive prayer and ministry as you receive the elements, or gather in clusters with friends and family to receive the elements together. Of course, if the Lord is doing something deeply personal in your heart, you can gather the elements, find a corner and receive them on your own. To conclude our time of prayer and ministry at the Lord's Table, we'll stand to pray together the Lord's Prayer. 

For those who have never experienced the power of liturgy, this will be wonderful introduction to an ancient practice. For those who are from a liturgical background, this will all seem familiar but out of order (it is!). I pray these familiar actions and words become meaningful in a fresh way.

CONVERSATIONAL
In Working the Angles, Eugene Peterson describes the Greek word hodegete in context of the more familiar word exegete. Both have as part of their word the idea of "leading". But while exegesis focuses on "leading the meaning out of the text", hodegesis is the process of "leading people into the text." An exegete is an explainer; a hodegete is a guide. Both, of course, are necessary. Hodegesis is seen in the way Philip gets in the chariot with the eunuch and helps him understand the Isaiah scroll he's reading, and how it speaks of Christ. 

So, in a similar way, each talk will involve an exploration of the text so that we, with the Holy Spirit, can learn how to enter the Scriptures and to let the Scriptures enter us. The talks will follow the same sermon series as the Sunday morning services. Each one will use the same text and convey the same key points, but will have a slightly different expression and feel. I will preach about 36 times a year and have others from our teaching team do the rest. 

INCARNATIONAL
This is a fancy way of saying that we believe that God is present in ordinary people in the midst of ordinary situations. While we should-- and we will-- set apart special times and moments to encounter God, we believe He is with us all through the week. Our gatherings are a way of creating space, making room, for God. The songs, sermon, conversation and liturgy are all ways that we call attention to Him in our midst as a congregation. But the hope is that this habit of paying attention to God in the service will train us to be attentive to Him in the more ordinary moments and conversations.

This is also a nice way for saying we like laughing, eating, and enjoying one another. (And we hope the lobby reflects it!) There's something spiritual about it, though not in the conventional sense. OK, now for the nitty-gritty!

Details:
Sundays, 5:30pm-7:00pm
Location: The TENT, New Life Church
Launch Date: September 13, 2009 

Matthew Fallentine will be leading worship, and I will serve as the pastor of the service. The flow is roughly as follows:

Invocation Song/Welcome
Worship
Eucharist Confession
Receiving of the Eucharist with Prayer/Ministry
JoyTime (Offering and OT/NT Readings)
The Talk
Benediction

How to Get Involved:
There are loads of ways to serve and get involved. The Leadership Team will involve men and women who who lead small groups, pray for people as we gather at the Lord's Table, greet people at the door, take up the offering, set-up the lobby, prepare coffee and coordinate snacks, prepare the communion elements, and other little things. I am in the process of forming a core team who will help lead these areas.

But to start with, you can email me at [email protected].
You can also follow the service on Twitter: @NLCSundayNight. (If you're not on Twitter, it's an amazing way to communicate to a targeted group of people in a concise way, with highly intelligent "tagging" and "searching" features.) For us, it will be a great way to get updates and details on the service and the Leadership Team.

The Myth of More, Part 2 of 3

Last blog, I introduced what I call the “Myth of More”. The Myth of More is the belief that the secret to a meaningful life is more. More activity, more programs, more appointments, more people, more stuff. Make your life more meaningful by adding to it, we are told, in a million subconscious ways. Part 1 focused on the Myth of More Activity. This installment, Part 2, is about the Myth of More Friendships.

Since we’ve had children, it’s been hard for my wife to keep her cell phone safe. As soon as Sophia was old enough to grip a toy, the cell phone was her toy of choice. And no matter how many shiny, light, battery-operated fake cell phones we tried to give her, she somehow always knew the real from the fake. She wanted our cell phones. My cell phone, a SmartPhone, is property of the church I work for. Naturally, I have always been more careful about keeping out of Sophia’s reach. I wish I could say the same for my sweet wife. Her phone has been thrown to the floor, mixed in with the silverware in the dishwasher—and run a full cycle with them!—and most recently, flung into the toilet. Needless to say, the phones have not recovered. By the second or third new phone, my wife prepared a back up plan. She has written out all her contacts on a sheet of paper. The bummer is that she has to manually plug them in her new phone.

But here’s what I’ve noticed: with each new painful effort of entering contacts into her phone, the number of contacts has dwindled. Perhaps the reduction has come out of an effort to be time-efficient. But I suspect it also reflects our journey with regard to our friendships. The longer we’ve live—and it hasn’t been that long—the more focused our friendships have become. We have slowly debunked the Myth of More Friendships. The Myth of More Friendships says that the more people we spend time with, the richer our lives are. The truth is that meaningful relationships are rare and special and require great care, time, and attention.

A few thoughts on how to cultivate the kind of relationships that make life more meaningful:

1. Narrow Your Focus

When we were younger, maybe even before we had kids, we might have added new friends to our life simply for the enrichment of a new relationship, maybe the fascination of a new perspective. But as with so many other things, what is good practice in your younger years can be fruitless in you get on in life. Your twenties are the perfect time to explore new talents, new jobs, and new friendships. But as you approach your thirties and forties, there ought to be a narrowing that takes place.

When Jesus hit the big 3-0, he began by handpicking 12 men that would walk with him through the thrills and spills of ministry on earth, and 3 that were closer than the rest. And still one who called himself the Lord’s favorite, the one Jesus loved. That doesn’t spell a formula or a mandate for us, but it might be a clue into what our relational capacity might be. I suspect it’s different for all of us. Some can handle 12 close, deep, life-shaping friendships. For others, the number is closer to 3 or 4. I confess: if someone tells me their capacity is in the range of 15-20, I begin to seriously doubt that they’ve ever tasted true friendship of the soul. For me, my capacity for regular, deep, shaping relationships lands in the 4-5 range. There are 4 or 5 guys that I truly share life with.

(By the way, I think who the people in that inner circle are can fluctuate. All relationships breathe. There are seasons where one is your closest friend, and then when they are simply among your close friends. It’s all OK. Take the pressure of the BFF mentality from your mind! You don’t want wild, random changes in which ones you call your closest, but a relational ebb and flow is natural.)

2, Deepen the Connection

Friendships don’t get deeper until the circle gets smaller. Once you have identified the friendships that really resonate with you, that stretch you, that bring out the best in you, it’s time to take the plunge. Do things that will deepen the connection. Read the same book together and discuss it along the way. Take the risks to become vulnerable about the true state of your marriage, or your struggle with pride, or your bouts with pornography. Trust is the result of a risk survived. I read that somewhere. And it’s true. You will never build trust among friends if you never take the risks of being vulnerable.

And the more trust you have, the more risks you should take. This time, some of the risks will be of confronting and challenging them, being a mirror for them, showing their weakness, but also their potential.

3. Increase the Frequency

One of the immediate benefits of a narrow scope of relationships is that all of sudden you have time to spend with the ones who sharpen you. It’s no longer a different friend-couple every weekend; it’s a handful of friend-couples that you connect with every month. Time in and of itself doesn’t make a relationship grow. But time is the only currency we have, and it must be spent if you want your relationships to be rich. The choice to spend time with a friend is how you communicate value to a relationship. I know, “There are 5 love languages,” I hear you say, “And time is only one of them.” But without time spent with a person, how can you offer them gifts, or words of affirmation, or acts of service, or physical touch? Quality time need not be our love language. But time together is the only chance a friendship gets to grow.

4. Work at It

I hear Oprah ask Will Smith how he and his wife have been able to stay married in spite of the crazy Hollywood culture. His answer was simple and profound. He pointed out that everything else we want to be successful at we devote 60 hours a week or more to; why do we think marriages survive with just the leftovers of our time and attention? The same is true for a friendship. Commit to it like a job. There are days it will feel like your worst job; but the pay is rewarding. Be willing to fight it out, talk it through, walk it to end. Don’t be too quick to ignore it and try to turn it in for a new shiny friendship. All friendship get old; but if you stick it out just a little bit longer, that’s just when it gets good.

In short, the Myth of More Friendship says to add more relationships to our life to make it more meaningful. The truth is, if we narrow our focus and commit to a few, we become truly rich.

How To Avoid a Fight

So, last blog I talked about how to fight right. The thing that is really at stake in every conflict with a friend or a spouse is our intimacy with that person. It’s not that the conflict itself can destroy the intimacy; it’s the way the conflict is handled can either lead to intimacy or it can hinder it.

Of course, not every conflict should have gotten to that stage. Many frustrations could have been stopped before they reached a boil. So, here are three things that might help minimizing the amount of negative, unproductive conflict—or drama—in your relationships.

1. Don’t Assume You Know More Than You Do

Often, the thing that triggers our anger or frustration is not often the actual actions of the other person, but our belief about their motive or intent behind the action. A co-worker comes in late, and you assume it’s because they are lazy. A friend has a glum expression; you’re sure it’s because they’re mad at you. A spouse makes a joke about you in public; they must have been trying to embarrass you. A co-worker loses his temper; you conclude he’s just an arrogant bastard. Some friends are going on a vacation and you weren’t invited. It must mean they don’t like you. And they’re probably going to be talking about you the whole trip.

Here’s the trick: even if you may be right about your assumptions, it is pure torment to live on assumed knowledge. Plus, giving in to your assumptions means you’re trusting yourself—and all your paranoid, insecure fears—more than you’re trusting the relationship. And once trust erodes, a relationship crumbles.

In a moment of frustration, stop to ask yourself what you actually, factually know about the situation. What exactly did they say? What did they do? Remind yourself that you don’t know any of their reasons for doing what they did. And any attempt to guess is simply that: a guess. Most of our trouble comes from being too clever, from thinking we have another person figured out. We play armchair psychologist, assessing what from their past has made them into the jerk that they are today. We paint people with a broad, inaccurate brush. And even if we’re right, we run the risk of holding people prisoner to what they were and not giving them the opportunity to grow or change.

The bottom line is this: assuming that you know more than you do about a person’s motives, intentions, or character than you actually do is the textbook definition of judgment. You are arriving at unwarranted and potentially wrong conclusions about another person. It makes you impossible to please and incurably frustrated. If you insist on believing what you have assumed, there is no trust in the other person, and no hope for the relationship.

2. Don’t Believe What You Hear Second-Hand

We typically defend our assumptions with what we hear from others. “I know he doesn’t like the new boss. He just told Bob that he can’t wait to get out of here.” Or “Of course she’s jealous of me. She told Jill that she wanted the solo for Sunday.”

Have you ever noticed that when a friend is recounting a conflict, they always remember what they said to the other person, but completely skip over what the other person’s response was?

“I told her she just was totally being rude to me. She just was ignoring what I was saying. And she told me, you know, something like, I was wrong or whatever. But then I said…”

It’s always, “I said…” Never an accurate quote of the other person. Always an overdramatic, exaggerated account of their case. The other person is thoughtless, heartless, careless, oblivious, rude, ungodly. You’re never hearing what a person said to your friend. You’re hearing what your friend heard that person say. And there’s a lot of assuming that goes into that “hearing”. This is why you can’t trust what you hear about others. When in doubt, go to the source.

If someone else tells me that my friend is mad at me but my friend hasn’t told me that, I’m not going to act like they’re mad at me. In fact, even if I see someone throwing a tantrum or being moody, I will wait for them to tell me that something is wrong before going off impressions and hearsay. That doesn’t mean I’m going to act insensitive or not pay attention to clues. It just means I want to know from their lips that something is wrong. So, if a friend just isn’t being himself around me, I will ask him for myself: “Is everything OK? Have I done something to offend you?” I won’t go to someone else and ask about my friend. I will go to my friend.

3. Don’t Expect Someone to Know What You Haven’t Told Them

The flip side of this idea of believing only what you hear first-hand is that we’ve got to tell people what we want or need them to know. You cannot punish people for failing to meet an expectation you haven’t communicated. Most of the time we feel frustrated with someone, it’s because they’ve done something that we had hoped they wouldn’t, or they’ve not done something we had hoped hey would. But in either case, we haven’t told them.

As I do pre-marital counseling for couples at the church, I always tell them that the three hardest words to say in a marriage are not usually, “I love you” or “I am sorry”; it’s “I need you.” It is an exercise in humility to actually say that you need someone to affirm you or encourage you. It takes a lot of courage to admit that you’re weak, that you need anything at all. But it’s much better to admit that we are counting on something from someone before they fail they provide it. If our admission comes after their failure, it usually comes with some rage or hurt. Pre-empt the fight by telling your friend, spouse, or co-worker what you need or expect from them. At the very least, the conversation could help re-adjust your expectations!

How to Fight Right (before it's too late to apologize)

A few weeks ago, Holly and I were asked to come and talk to a young marrieds’ class on the subject of conflict. Having been married a little less than 7 years, I was wondering why they had chosen us. Did they think we fought a lot? Maybe they hoped to learn from our mistakes and discover what not to do! In any case, as we sat down to prepare a few notes, some important lessons came to mind-- lessons learned as we stumbled through our different conflict styles, learned from two very different family personalities. Here's the funny thing: we never taught the class. It was cancelled due to inclement weather. But I'm glad Holly and I put our thoughts to paper. Not only has it helped reinforced what we've learned about marriage conflict, it has also proven to be good advice for learning to fight right in any relationship. So, friends and lovers, here are some thoughts on what not to do in a fight:

1.                   Don't Insist on Immediate Discussion

The tendency when a conflict arises is to work it out right then and there. While that sometimes is possible, there are many times when it’s best to let your heads cool and come back to it. Insisting on working it out in the heat of the moment could lead to saying things you’ll later regret. Unfortunately, damage done is hard to reverse. Holly and I might postpone an argument by saying something like, “OK…I can’t talk about this right now.” Or “Can we talk about this later?” We try to come back to it within 24 hours so it’s not hanging over us indefinitely.

2.                   Don't Be Mean in the Meantime

One bad apple shouldn’t spoil the bunch. In other words, a disagreement over whose family to spend the holidays with shouldn’t make going to the grocery store unpleasant too. The meantime between the initial disagreement and the eventual resolution can become quite, well, mean. And it shouldn’t be. Making your friend or spouse “pay” by giving them the silent treatment, being short with them, or ignoring them altogether is downright rude. And it doesn’t encourage the practice of waiting ‘til you’re calm enough to have a healthy discussion since the waiting is so miserable. As hard as it is, try to set aside the issue where the tension is and be kind and respectful toward each other as you talk or do other things, knowing that a calm and complete conversation about the issue is coming.

3.                   Don't Rush to Resolution

Too many couples or fighting friends think saying, “I’m sorry” is the end goal of every conflict. It is not. For that matter, neither is saying, “I love you.” Both of those phrases seem like great peacemaking tools, but rushing to say them can be completely counter-productive. The real goal of every conflict is intimacy. Every disagreement is an opportunity to learn something about each other. The bulk of our fights with others are over “small things”: how to spend a weekend, why grocery shopping always takes so long, who’s supposed to clean up the messy apartment after a party. All small things, right? Except that anger is a kind of warning system. It alerts us to something deeper that is being violated. Frustration, irritation, annoyance are often signs that some value has been trampled, or some part of us has been disrespected or rejected. When tempers flare, it’s good to ask yourself questions like:  “Why did this bother me so much?” “What past issue did this trigger?” “What fear did this awaken?” “What dream or hope did this seem to crush?” Or better yet, as you take time to step away from the fight, ask these questions to yourself about the person you’re fighting with. Put yourself in their shoes. Try to understand why this is triggering such a strong response. I can think of too many examples to write of times in our marriage when I’ve realized our conflict wasn’t really about my hanging with the fellas or love of video games but my lack of attentiveness to my wife. Rushing to an “I’m sorry” or an “I love you” can prevent you from discovering what you’re really fighting about. And that can rob you of the gift conflict can bring: intimacy.

4.                   Don't Leverage Knowledge of Each Other Against Each Other

The more you fight well, the more vulnerable you will become with one another. You’ll learn more about each other’s secret fears, insecurities, anxieties, dreams, hopes, and a host of soft spots and sore issues. While conflict can lead to intimacy, intimacy is often the grounds for the most wounding conflict. You can say things to one another, using your intimate knowledge of each other, that can be hurtful beyond recovery. “You are such a workaholic like your dad.” Or “Are you sure this isn’t one of your panic-attack freak out moments?” Leveraging your knowledge of each other to gain an advantage in a fight is cheap. But more than that, it is a sure way to shut down any healthy conflict in the future. Who would open up after that? If the goal of conflict is knowledge of the other, then the goal of knowledge of the other is to love them and act for their good.

In conclusion, remember: you’re not fighting to be right; you’re fighting to know each other better and to become better at loving one another. That is what it means to fight right.