Chapter 26: Evaluations - Part II

 Loren:

    As Nancy read her letter to me, I was very deeply touched. She spoke with a gentle, loving heart which found a ready place of acceptance in my own; but her letter raised concerns for me as well. We discussed them over the next few hours and were able to resolve most of them, but three items in particular remained which could not be resolved so easily.

    The first of these pertained to my war stories. As Nancy explained her fears, a grieving sense of heaviness settled in my stomach. It was the very thing I had dreaded hearing. I was caught in the same trap as she, but from the other end.

    “Nancy, I haven’t had to confront false teachers for years now, but that’s not to say it will never happen again. If God would call me to do it, then I wouldn’t shirk Him. And if it happened, I’d need to know you were supportive.

    “I’m not asking you to fight alongside me. In fact, I’d prefer you didn’t! I’d rather leave it behind me for the day and be rejuvenated with you, as an oasis. I’d rather have you as a part of my rest.

    “But I couldn’t have you undermining my resolve, either. I couldn’t have you pleading with me to let it go, or trying to second-guess me, or crying and breaking my heart about it.”

    Oh, how I ached to say more! But I knew this discussion was a losing one. Most Christians have no experience with such things, so there’s simply no basis for discussing it knowledgeably; and if I tried to lay that foundation now, in the midst of her fears, it would only add a sense of urgency to them. This discussion would have to wait for another day.

    After our abbreviated discussion on false teachers, Nancy returned to the subject of psychology—but she did so indirectly. “I would want us to read books on relationships together, and then discuss them.” she said. “Would you be willing to do that?”

    I had known, from the day I read her profile, that psychology might one day become an issue, and now it was here at last. I knew she wouldn’t understand this but I had no choice. I had to shake my head slowly.

    “If I knew the author and I knew for sure that he’d stick to the Scriptures, then maybe I would. But psychology is so subtle and pervasive that even well-meaning Christians preach it without realizing they’re doing so. Books on relationships are a prime example of that.

    “No, I’m afraid I wouldn’t want to read them for that reason. And I wouldn’t want my wife reading them either—I just couldn’t risk it. I could never be part of a relationship that was based on psychology’s rules. In my view, that’s as good as planning for failure.”

    Nancy was quietly aghast at these words. She’d never told me, but reading relationship books with her spouse had been a favorite daydream of hers for many years.

    “But Loren, I need this. I have thoughts, and sometimes a book helps me find the words for those thoughts. My greatest wish for intimacy would be to explore every avenue of communication with my husband.”

    “But you have the Scriptures,” I replied gently. “And they’re ‘well able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart’ (Hebrews 4:12). That’s something psychology can only pretend to do, and the Scriptures will always be right in what they say.”

    “Oh, I could never compete with you in the Scriptures! If we disagreed, you’d just say that I’d misinterpreted them!”

    “But Nancy,” I said as defensively as I could, “The Bible is a self-interpreting book. This is especially true in relationships! Jesus sets the perfect example for what He means, and I’d relate to you as He relates to me.

    “I view His love as a constant object lesson. If I ever acted deceitfully toward you, He’d return it on my head – especially if you were standing on His word the whole time, because He’s always going to stand behind His word (Job 5:13; Second Timothy 2:13).

    “Besides, if you don’t think God’s word could persuade me, then why would you think that psychology would persuade me?”

    “Well maybe you should know this, that I’ve probably financed the college education of a couple of therapist’s kids by now.”

Nancy:

    Loren and I were on different wave lengths and all I could hear from this was dominance. I had a panicked feeling that I could get trapped; caught in a marriage where my husband wouldn’t tell me about his feelings, and I would have no resources to communicate with him. But actually, he was trying to preserve the same things from another direction.

    “As our friendship grows under His guidance,” I told him, “and I begin to trust you, I would hope to discover that there is nothing we could not discuss. In a marriage especially, I would hope for a sharing of thoughts. What I want to see is, can we laugh, can we cry, can we sing? Can we talk? Can we disagree? Can we trust? Can we change?” I was talking about my feelings, but Loren was talking about principles. And this led to our third disagreement, which actually related to the second:

    “If we were to discuss something and we came to an impasse, would you be willing to see a marital counselor with me?”

Loren:

    By now my heart was just aching to find a compromise, to please Nancy and to show her that I was trying to be reasonable. But from far beyond, I felt the Lord speaking to me:

    “You’re in the process of laying a foundation. You’d better stick to your convictions now, or you’ll be building on sand from now on.” So I closed my eyes and swallowed hard.

    “No,” I replied to her. “I wouldn’t be willing to go to a marriage counselor. But please let me explain to you why:

    “I believe that couples should discuss their options in advance and always try to make their decisions together. It’s not always possible to do that in advance, so that’s when they have to trust each other. But let’s stick with the ‘discussion’ scenario a little longer:

    “Most times, if they really care for each other, they’ll come to a fair agreement on the best course; or at least they’ll find some sort of compromise they can both live with. But there will still be that one time in a hundred when they just can’t seem to agree and they can’t seem to find a compromise either.

    “If they’ve gone over it and over it and still can’t agree, then someone has to prevail and the other one has to yield and support them. I think the Lord gives that final decision to the husband, and He calls on the wife to be supportive at that point.”

    “I don’t agree. The part about the impasse, I mean. I do agree that the Lord has made the husband the leader. But if they come to an impasse, they should see a counselor. I would at least want that option.”

    “Nancy,” I said as patiently as I could. “Either the husband is the head of the relationship, or he’s not. Ninety-nine percent of the time they’d reach some sort of agreement, so they’d still be acting as partners. But if they reached that last one-percent and they still couldn’t agree, it would be time for the leader to lead.

    “But if he defers and seeks a counselor, he’s already failed as a leader before the Lord, because he’s surrendered his leadership into the hands of a mediator who can overrule him.

    “And also, if she has the right to demand a counselor at that point, what does that say about her? It means she refuses to accept his leadership when it really counts. So he wouldn’t have the final word after all—she would have that word. Or at least, she’d have the power to decide that he wouldn’t have that word.”

    “But the counselor might agree with him! He might help talk her into it!”

    “Yes, that’s true, he might. But at that point, the best the husband could do is to break even, and at worst his decision could be overruled. But either way, he’s already failed as the leader of their marriage—and that’s something God requires of him.”

    “But the Bible says that ‘in the multitude of counselors there is safety,’ ” and of course her objection was true (Proverbs 11:14).

    “A counselor is one thing, but a mediator is something else. I would suggest that a Christian counselor becomes a ‘mediator’ in the type of situation you’re describing. Not to mention that most of them would be mediating on the basis of psychology.

    “And a marriage is a very special situation, too, because it’s exclusive. Marriage is always private, not a matter of public policy. That exclusivity has to be protected. And so the question of counselors has to be handled differently.”

    “Loren, safety is what I need to hear. I really need to know that it’s safe to talk, and the Bible says ‘in the multitude of counselors there is safety.’ That’s the point I’m trying to make! So if there needs to be a change to handle it properly, then I’d like to hear an answer: How would you apply that Scripture to a marriage?”

    “Well, let’s say that you and I were at an impasse. Rather than rushing onward, I’d take some time to discuss it with my friends: men whom I trust; godly men who know the Scriptures and who respect a husband’s authority. I would ask for their opinions and maybe they could suggest something we hadn’t thought of yet.

    “Meanwhile, you could do the same and discuss it with some of your own friends: older women who are discreet, who understand that their counsel is unofficial and not authoritative. Then you and I could come together and discuss it again between us. Maybe we could find a compromise after all.

    “In a marriage, I think that’s a little closer to what the Bible envisions because of the passage that says: ‘The older women should admonish the younger women to reverence their husbands’ (Titus 2:3-4). It would seem to include an understanding like that in the background.”

    “But how do I know you’d even ask your friends? If you already thought you were right, then why would you?”

    “Well, just for the sake of argument let’s say that I wouldn’t. Even then, the whole thing could work the other way around. If our friends or pastors felt concerned, they could be the ones to approach me. The Scriptures tell them to ‘Exhort one another daily, while it’s called today’ (Hebrews 3:13.)

    “They could express their concern in the spirit of regaining a brother; they could even break fellowship with me if they felt strongly enough about it, and if they followed the steps of Matthew 18. But here’s the important point: they still couldn’t overrule my decision or take that authority away from me.

    “Paul said: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as is fitting in the Lord” (Colossians 3:18; First Corinthians 14:35; Ephesians 5:22,24; Titus 2:5). He said this several times and Peter used the same words, so there’s no mistake about their meaning (First Peter 3:1,5).

    “In each case, ‘their own husbands’ were specified because marriage is an exclusive arrangement. The husband cannot be overruled by a father or brother, a pastor or a counselor, or by any other man; not even by a ‘counsel of husbands’ from their church. Nor can the wife resort to ‘the standard of what a Christian husband ought to be,’ as some Christian organizations would seem to offer. It still comes down to her very own husband as the head over their own marriage.

    “Nancy, I’m not making this up! That’s the way God ordained it. So the best advice I could give her is to make sure she marries the right man in the first place. She needs to be very careful in her decision, and all that it will mean; she needs to choose a man who really loves her, as Christ loves the church: someone who genuinely cares for her, who would even sacrifice his life for her if the need should come to it.

    “Look at the example that Jesus gives. He loves us, He gave Himself for us and He cares for all our needs. But at the same time, we all know who’s the Lord, don’t we? And why is it hard to submit to a leader like that? He always has our best interest at heart.”

    From there, we discussed the possible limitations of this arrangement. A wife might have to follow her husband to another church, but the line would be drawn if he tried to lead her away from the Lord. She would not be required to do anything illegal. She could always appeal to the Lord Himself in prayer, to see if He agreed with her. And if He did, the Lord Himself would take it up with her husband. Finally, if she disagreed with her husband and followed him anyway, to be submissive, and he turned out to be wrong, the Lord would hold him entirely accountable but He would consider her blameless in the matter.

    “Nancy,” I said quietly. “I, personally, have another dimension of compromise that I’d like to offer if things ever came to an impasse. I don’t feel that the Scriptures require this of me, but I’ve thought about it in terms of fairness and in terms of Jesus’ example, so I’ve come to require it of myself.”

    “Let’s hear it.”

    “I know it’s hard for a woman to be submissive, but the Lord requires that of her. I’m sensitive to how she must feel about that. So, depending on the nature of the impasse, I’d try to offer a consolation, based on Second Timothy 2:14.

    “The reason why man was made head over the woman is because Eve was deceived, but Adam was not deceived. At least he knew that he was sinning, and the next time he might make the right decision. He’s supposed to be a little better at discerning truth from error.

    “Therefore, if we reached an impasse, I would honestly take a look at the nature of the disagreement. If it pertained to a truth, or to a right or wrong doing, then my decision would be that we would do it my way. That’s the husband’s responsibility, and that’s why God gave him that responsibility.

    “But if it only pertained to a preference, I would probably concede and let you have it your way. For example, let’s say that I wanted to buy a blue item, but you wanted us to buy a red one. It’s just a matter of preference; there’s nothing right or wrong about blue or red. So even if I preferred blue, it would make me even happier to know that you were happy with the red one. So most of the time I’d let you have your way when it came to preferences.

    “But there’s still a bit of a limit on that. For example, I’d never let you paint the bathroom chartreuse! But I’m only talking about tempering the extremes. Within reason, I’d let you win out on the preferences.” I lowered my voice still more and spoke as kindly as I could:

    “Nancy, the way I see it, you can’t be a leader if your followers are always losing heart about it. You have to let them win some disagreements when there’s room for it. You have to be gracious and willing to support their desires when you can.

    “Look at the example Jesus gave. He always grants our desires when there’s a way in His will for doing so. And that’s something that husbands can do too, without having to compromise the truth.”

Nancy:

    Loren and I spoke of many things that day, and in most cases we were able to reach agreement. Other things I needed to think about. But when he shared his thoughts on counselors, that troubled me.

    I still had feelings that I could be emotionally trapped, with no place to go where I could feel that I was being heard—and that was a top significant need for me. The day was filled with anticipation, anxious thoughts and misperceptions on my part.

“When it comes to submission, I’m a natural follower,” I said. “I’ve declined leadership positions in the past because I’ve recognized that I’m a better follower than a leader. I do not wish to lead, nor do I like to.

    “My singleness, and in many ways my isolated childhood, have paved the way for my independence in making decisions. Submitting to another person would probably be a challenge for me. But if I knew that I could trust, I could willingly relinquish.

    “I do have a problem with trusting. You should know this. Our Father is none too pleased about it either. But know also that it’s a matter of continual submission to the Lord.

    “In a marriage, I would hope for a partnership. A sharing of thoughts, an agreement to respectfully disagree: a mutual submission. My fear would be the stifling of my emotions, whether it be of fear, anger, disappointment – whatever I felt.

    “Please try to hear my heart. I’m not closed to Biblical correction; on the contrary, I invite it. But the ‘safety’ I need is in trusting that the good word of exhortation and correction will be done after the bearing of one another’s burdens.”

Loren:

    Nancy’s final words were compassionate and heartfelt, and I completely agreed with her sentiments. I had a deeper feeling that we were really working toward the same goal from different perspectives, while only seeming to butt our heads on the surface.

    “Nancy, I do see what you’re saying and I think you’re right. But I don’t think there’s such a great difference between us, if I can explain:

    “When I say ‘I’m against psychology,’ I think you’re jumping to a conclusion about it: ‘If he’s against psychology, then he’s against helping people, he’s against loving them, he’s against hearing them out and caring for them.’ That’s what I think you’ve been hearing, but that’s never what I said or meant. Psychology doesn’t have a monopoly on those qualities by any means. In fact, I believe the opposite is true:

    “I honestly believe that psychology is a false hope, but the Lord is a true one. I don’t think psychology can help anyone. It just keeps digging them deeper into the same pit; but ‘Whom the Son sets free is free indeed’ (John 8:36).

    “The love of God brings a true answer, which is truly expressed through the Scriptures. Nancy, I want everyone to know God’s love and to feel His love; I want Him to bind up their broken hearts and renew their lives in Christ. And I want them to know that I care enough to listen to them too, and to keep on praying for them.

    “But I don’t want to see those hopes betrayed through ways that would seem to promise freedom, yet keep on binding them (Second Peter 2:19). And especially in a relationship, I would only want to follow Christ and the church, and not someone else’s ideal of what a relationship ought to be.

    “Somehow, I’ve got to make you see the bigger picture. Nothing in this world is higher or more sacred than a marriage; and so psychology—the wisdom of this world—can never truly guide it. For that sort of guidance, we can only look to Christ and the church, since this is the wisdom that comes from above. It’s the only source of guidance that’s higher than a marriage, so it’s the only pattern worth trusting.”

    I hope the reader will bear in mind that many other issues were discussed that day and resolved in a congenial way. These were the ones we couldn’t resolve, but eventually would. It took a broader perspective and a lot of patience to do that. But for now the day was growing late and it was time for me to return to Dallas. Nancy summarized our meeting with a review:

    “Now let me understand you clearly. Did I understand you to say that you would not be willing to go and see a counselor with me?”

    “Yes, you did.”

    “I see. Thank you.”

    We spoke a little further and gave each other a cordial hug, wished each other good night and said good-bye. Then I was on the road back to Dallas, to arrive very late in the evening. But as I drove, I reviewed the entire conversation in my mind, as I’d done after our initial meeting.