Theology is a wonderful and
powerful thing, but just like any other enormously powerful tool, it can be
very dangerous if misused, or wielded by someone who never learned how to put
it to good use.
This is true when
you are putting theology to work in counseling or discipleship settings, and
especially when you are caring for, loving and counseling your wife who is
suffering. You have to take the right
approach to putting your theology to work, and in order to do that, you have to
know what type of tool it is.
Some people think theology
is like a hammer, to be used for smashing nails that are sticking up in life
back into place. This an approach that
is too often taken, especially by those who focus on making sure their doctrine
is sound and biblical, but have never matured in the area of Christian love (always remember that Jesus said the two greatest commandments were love God and love others). They crush error
with staccato bursts of biblical truth delivered like bullets from a machine
gun.
Others see theology as a
kind of fire blanket. Anytime trouble
comes up they cast a large wet blanket of theology over the situation and run
for cover and call fire department as fast as they can.
Still others seem to think
of theology as an antique jack-plain, something that is expensively acquired,
fun to have and to look at, but never to be actually used. It’s a tool of course, but an obsolete one
and not really suited for today’s needs – something to be admired, and
treasured and protected but never actually put to use.
But I would say that
theology is like a jeep, the ultimate tool for navigating rough terrain. If you know how to use it, there is virtually
no minefield you can’t navigate, but if you don’t know how to use it, you just
might run someone over leaving them worse off than when you found then and if
you mash the pedal to the floor, and try to drive through a boulder field at
the same speed you head down the highway, you are going to break an axle and that
jeep is going to be useless to you.
So what does this have to do
with marriage and MS? Well MS is varied
terrain, there are times when the road is relatively smooth and you can mash
the pedal to the floor and feed your wife (and yourself) theological truth at a
high-speed, and in its most blunt form. But sometimes the going is rough, and
pathway is strewn with huge boulders you have to crawl over.
What does this look like in
real life? There is nothing more
important than to equip your wife, when she has MS, with than a proper understanding
of the sovereignty of God. She need to
know that He is in control of all things, the good things and the bad things;
that He causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes; that all good and perfect gifts(trials) come down from the Father and they are to strengthen and make us more
Christ like; That not one sparrow falls from the sky without the Father willing
it. In short she need to be able to answer the
question why is this happening to me, “because it is what God who is good and
loves me has declared would happen before the foundation of the world for my
good and for His glory.” You work to
build that understanding when the road is smooth.
But there are times when the
road is rocky, like when your wife wakes up at 2:00 in the morning crying out
in pain because one of those muscles that has been spasming to produce the “MS
hug” all day has cramped up and she has a full body charlie horse that feels
like it’s going to kill her and through tears she cries “why is this happening
to me?”
Now you could hammer her and
land a one two punch of Romans 8:28 and James 1:2 and maybe finisher her off
with a little 1 Peter 4:12 (which of course would be taking it out of
context). Now she would probably stop
asking you why she was suffering, and you not only would have delivered pure
biblical truth you would probably be able to get right back to sleep. But that wouldn’t help your wife at all.
Or you could also barrage
her with so many verses (and of course pepper in a few quotes from Jay Adams,
Wayne Mack and John Calvin for good measure) and at such a rapid rate they she
couldn’t even get another question out of her mouth, promising to call the
doctor in the morning. You might have
thrown a blanket over the fire, but you wouldn’t have helped your wife at all.
And of course you could just
shrug, say I don’t know and just roll over, failing to see that this is not
only a physical crisis, but an opportunity to put your theology into action.
Or you could use your
theology like a jeep, and use it to lovingly and gently guide your wife through
this intense time of trial. First you
need to realize that you are called to love your wife as Christ loved the
church (Ephesians 5:25) knowing that you are called to give your life for her
and to sanctify her with the washing of the Word.
Too often I think when we
read Ephesians 5 we think that this is instruction how to treat our wives and
forget that it is instruction on how to love our wives. Christ didn’t just give himself up for the
church, because that was what the Father required Him to do, He did it because
the Father loved the world (John 3:16) and because He loved his bride. When we approach our wives, especially in the
midst of suffering, it’s not to comfort them, it’s not to correct them, it’s
not even to help them, it must first and foremost be to love them. Loving might include comforting, correcting,
helping and a myriad to other things, but loving them always comes first.
So lovingly, gently when my
wife asked me cried out “why is this happening” I didn’t run her over with four
wheel drive theology, I truthfully said ‘I don’t know.” Because I didn’t and I still don’t. We are not privy to God’s purposes and plans
and we can no more know His reasons for allowing specific trials in our life,
than we can know the timing of the return of Christ.
What we can know and do know
however is that God is sovereign and perfectly good, and because I have taken
the time to build that understanding in our wife’s mind when we were not in the
midst of a deep and immediate crisis, when the heat is on and I respond to her
question of “why is this happening” with “I don’t know” she doesn’t hear “I don’t
know and it’s unfair” or “I don’t know and your sinful for asking” or “I don’t
know, it just did” she hears “I don’t know but God does and he is good.” She hears and is comforted and feels loved.
Sometimes you have to plan
ahead to make your theology work for you in a time of crisis.
