The tested heart

Does anybody like taking a test?

During my twenty-four years in the Air Force, examiners evaluated me every year to determine if I would retain my qualifications in that particular aircraft. It didn't matter how many years I'd been flying the plane, I always felt like the physics teacher had called for a pop quiz, and my breakfast started trampolining from my belly to the back of my throat.

The purpose of a test, really, is to prove what you do know. Yes, it does seem like some tests attempt to trip you up rather than prove your knowledge, but that's not the intent. It is definitely not the intention of a good and loving God.

"The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold,

and the Lord tests hearts."

~ Proverbs 17:3

Consider, the quality of silver and the purity of gold does not change by its testing. It is proven. It is revealed. The craftsman can better see and scrape away the slag leaving the pristine mineral.

I have a couple of dear friends going through a very difficult trial right now. As a crucible crushes and as the furnace breaks down, so does God use the circumstances of life in a fallen world to prove the work he has done in our lives. The slag will be manifest only to be scraped away by God's good hand leaving a creature who shines a little more like the perfect material, the living Christ.

We stare at the clock and look ahead to see if we can get it all done in the allotted time. We long for the afternoon when the test will be behind us. But this, right now, is where God would have you be. Trust his hand to continue to hone and mold you into the man, husband, and father he would have you to be, a vessel for his good and glorious purpose (James 1:2-4). Give thanks to him for this very thing as difficult as that may be (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

As much as we would like to know the quality of our mettle, we do not, but God does. How awesome that he loves us so much that he would continue to take us through such trials that we might be conformed to the image of his Son, revealing to us our deficiencies that we might confess to him and our weaknesses that he might strengthen us through worship, prayer, study, fellowship, and service.

Let him test and prove the man that you are.

I hope this testimony, this prayer, this song by Steven Curtis Chapman can be yours, too:

Bring It On
by Steven Curtis Chapman

I didn’t come lookin’ for trouble
And I don’t want to fight needlessly
But I’m not gonna hide in a bubble
If trouble comes for me
I can feel my heart beating faster
I can tell something’s coming down
But if it’s gonna make me grow stronger then…

Bring it on
Let the lightning flash, let the thunder roll, let the storm winds blow
Bring it on
Let the trouble come, let the hard rain fall, let it make me strong
Bring it on

Now, maybe you’re thinkin’ I’m crazy
And maybe I need to explain some things
‘Cause I know I’ve got an enemy waiting
Who wants to bring me pain
But what he never seems to remember
What he means for evil God works for good
So I will not retreat or surrender

Bring it on
Let the lightning flash, let the thunder roll, let the storm winds blow
Bring it on
Let the trouble come, let the hard rain fall, let it make me strong
Bring it on

Now, I don’t want to sound like some hero
‘Cause it’s God alone that my hope is in
But I’m not gonna run from the very things
That would drive me closer to Him
So bring it on

Bring it on
Let the lightning flash, let the thunder roll, let the storm winds blow
Bring it on
Let the trouble come, let it make me fall on the One who’s strong
Bring it on
Let the lightning flash, let the thunder roll, let the storm winds blow
Bring it on
Let me be made weak so I’ll know the strength of the One who’s strong
Bring it on

(Youtube audio here)

This does not work

One of the gripes that cynics have about sitcoms of yesteryear, those like Leave it to Beaver or The Brady Bunch, is that you can't tie up such familial problems with a neat bow in a mere thirty minutes. Life, especially family life, is gritty and messy and difficult. Can you name a sitcom or even a drama where the protagonist had to deal with heartache and anguish for longer than 23 or 46 minutes?


While I still love the Cleavers and enjoyed the Bradys as a kid, the cynics have a point. What makes for light entertainment cannot be mistaken for real life. Human interaction is a wee bit more complicated.


Recently a good friend e-mailed me after reading one of my "Husbands" posts and asked, "What do we do when choosing to love our wives does not work?" Ouch. It doesn't take a counselor of thirty years to read the agony between the words. There is perhaps no greater pain that to pour heart and soul into your relationship with your woman and to be met with ridicule, derision, and frigidity.


I can't imagine that anyone enters marriage hoping for conflict, isolation, or abuse. Did we not all hope beyond hope that when we said "I do," our relationship with our woman would begin to flourish and only grow richer and more delicious with each passing day? Most have great expectations of and for their bride, but few have expectations for what will be required of them to love their wife.


Here's the deal: in none of the passages about husbands and wives in the New Testament (cf. Ephesians 5:22-33, Colossians 3:18-19, 1 Peter 3:1-7) does God, through the apostles, promise a marriage of magical bliss and elation. Never does God say, "Love your wife, and she will love you." Never does he hint that she might become a beast in the bedroom if you buy her roses--not once but twice! No inkling that your grace during her hormonal fluctuations will be rewarded with the same during your ill-thought outbursts. We do see that a believing spouse can have an amazing affect on a non-believing spouse (1 Corinthians 7:12-16, 1 Peter 3:1-2), but even then there is no promise for happily-ever-after.


Husband, love your wife. For how long? It's not a time-stamped command. That's why the til-death-do-us-part part gets tossed into the marriage vow. Or used to get tossed in. What should be the quality of the husband's love? It should be as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Ignorance is no excuse here. When you walked her down the aisle, when you sealed the covenant with an "I do," you vowed to give not get. Think about it. You promised what you would do, and that vow was not contingent upon her vow (more on her vow in a bit). You committed your life to be God's primary agent of love and ministry in her life.


No time loophole.


No "but she" loophole.


No "what about me" loophole.


Do you feel doomed? Don't. Consider this. "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28). Even rudeness, neglect and abuse? "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:32) We consider unpleasant things when we see the "all things" of Romans 8:28, but we have forgotten the unpleasantness of all things in the few verses it took to get to verse 32. God continues on the unpleasantness theme of "all things" in verses 35-37:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

No matter the difficulty, even within our own marriage, God will work good for his children. Notice, again, no time stamp. The blessing and reward may not come until heaven. Consider, though, the blessing and good that you are plowing into the life of your woman. Go back to Ephesians 5:26-28 and see why Jesus loved the church:

...that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.

Sanctify her. Cleanse her. That she might be holy and without blemish. Christ died for her, for her good, to ultimately see her redeemed before him in heaven.


When we love our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and love our wives as Christ loved the church, we may get nothing from her in return. In the world, you might consider this unfair. In God's economy, you are just like Christ (Romans 8:17)! Rejoice in him and with him, and press on.


I love Paul's admonition to the Corinthian church, "Act like men, be strong" (1 Corinthians 16:13). This does not mean that in a relationship where the believing wife has abdicated her marriage vows that the husband is to love her in silence. No, the strong husband will lead his wife into difficult communication but will do so with grace and love and respect. He will honor her as the weaker vessel and dwell with her with understanding (1 Peter 3:7) while at the same time pointing out that to cultivate a marriage of richness, a marriage that reflects to the world the love and relationship within the Godhead (1 Corinthians 11:3) and the love the church should have for Christ (Ephesians 5:22-24), the wife must biblically love her husband, too.


We may be spurned and rejected, even by a believing wife. This is a grievous and heavy burden, one which only those who have loved an unloving wife can understand. At the same time, it does not free us from our responsibility to lead and to love. We must not turn inward and shun communication. We must not turn outward and become brutal and hostile. We must not turn inward and find satisfaction within ourselves. We must not turn outward and vent our energies some place else (work, sport, play). Rather, day by day, moment by moment, we must love our wives as Christ loved the church and give ourselves up for her even if it means our life.


It might not work toward cultivating a Ward and June Cleaver or a Mike and Carol Brady marriage, but it will work for good. For you and for her.


Stay the course, brother. His promises will not fail. Love your wife.