A Guy's Guide to Marrying Well

This free, nicely designed booklet looks like it will serve a lot of guys:

Most men hope to marry some day, but there's no guarantee they will. Increasingly, young men are — as one writer put it — "stumbling on to the altar as if by accident."

Too many guys make their way into their 20s and 30s without the marriage modeling and insights that were once easy to find from dads, coaches, teachers, mentors and Christian leaders. When they do find advice about relationships, it's often spectacularly bad.

The simple purpose of the information here is to present a path that is as biblical as possible in order to help you marry well. But not just so that you can experience all the happiness, health and wealth that guys who marry well enjoy, but so that your marriage can point to God's glory and His greater purposes.

This guide is based on a few timeless concepts — intentionality, purity, Christian compatibility and community — that we rarely encounter in popular culture but are a proven path to marrying well.

May God bless the time you spend with this information and help you apply His design in your life.

(HT: JT)

Taking the college years off

I thought this was a good and helpful post from Stuff Christians Like :

When I started college, I never officially said to God, "Adios, I'll see you again when I'm in my mid 20s," but I should have, because that's what I did. I essentially took a Jon vacation from God during my college years.

I put Him in a tiny box, labeled that box "Open when you’re married or after you have kids," and put the box under the bed. Then I proceeded to live for me with an embarrassing amount of gusto.

You didn't. Hopefully, upon reading those first few sentences your thought was, "What a loser. College was the period of my life when I grew close to God and learned about what it meant to be in a relationship with Christ." That happens a lot and I honestly think that is awesome.

I didn't have that experience though. My college years were a mess and although I can't change them, I can tell you and my little sister Molly, who heads to the University of North Carolina this fall, why I wish I had not taken the college years off from God.

Here are the four things I'd tell every graduate:

1. God is not trying to ruin your college experience.
Man oh man did I throw God under the fun bus. I thought that if I pursued a relationship with God during college I would miss out on all the "fun college experiences" you're supposed to have. Like drunken spring breaks, casual relationships, coming home with the sunrise parties etc. Wow, was I wrong. I realize now that God placed the deepest, most “light me on fire with fun and hope and life desires” within me and would have loved the opportunity to awaken those during college. He wants college, and every day after that for that matter, to be lived fully alive and is by no means trying to rain on your college parade. Like Missy Elliot, God can't stand the rain, but unlike Missy Elliot He's the one that created the sunrise and I promise that only He can show you the brightest ones in college.

2. Your parents' faith won't sustain you.
Neither will your high school youth minister's or your friend's or your pastor's back home. If you inherited some beliefs from people around you while you were growing up, expect to go through a period of redefining them and personalizing them. For instance, if the only reason you went to church every Sunday was because that's just what your family did, don't expect that habit to carry you through college. You've got an amazing opportunity to understand your faith and your one on one relationship with God during these years, don't miss it.

3. College is not forever.
I didn't realize it at the time, but by completely disregarding my faith and my God during college, I was building a really horrible foundation for my mid 20s. Even now, 11 years after graduating from Samford University, there are things that my wife experienced in college with God that she can lean on. I don't have those same things. And the damage I did to my heart and my mind during college made the first four years of marriage unnecessarily difficult. Sometimes during college you don't like to think about consequences or you get sucked into this idea that college is all there is. But it’s not. Be kind to the 25 year old you and don't gather the baggage I did.

4. Don't have sex.
In addition to all the health risks, the pregnancy risks, the Biblical pleading against premarital sex, let me throw one more reason not to have sex that all the "wisdom for graduates" books seem to be leaving out: College sex is strictly amateur hour. Seriously, the ROI (Return on Investment) is bogus. You'll give a part of you that is special and irreplaceable and beautiful and in return get something that is fumbling and awkward and shallow and selfish. Marriage sex, that has the benefit of a covenant relationship that allows people to be real and honest and adventurous, is better than college sex. I promise. Don't believe me? Ask your parents. And then go throw up. But it's still true.

There is very little chance I will ever be invited to give a high school graduation commencement speech at a Christian school, especially after point 4, but if I did, I would plead with the graduates not to take the college years off from God.

How about you?

What would you tell graduates this year?

Pray for Next

Here's a prayer from Paul Medler about the Next Conference in a couple weeks rooted in Ephesians.

Let's be in prayer as we look ahead...

What would make you dance like this?

Sam Storms writes...

I haven't sent out a newsletter in quite some time, so you may be wondering what would stir me to do so now.

Well, every so often you come across something that touches a nerve in your soul and feel compelled to share it with others. In my case it was a You Tube video that I saw on a friend's blog. With the potential for a Swine Flu pandemic, together with the ever-present threat of international terrorism, the economic crisis, and who knows what else, we all could use a bit of spontaneous joy.

I found mine in a remarkable event that took place in a Belgian Train Station. Perhaps you've already seen it. It's making the rounds of the internet and is now found on numerous blogs.

In one sense, it's a bit silly. You'll know why when you watch it. But as I watched it (several times now), I couldn't help but think about what makes people dance. For some it is a well-known song from The Sound of Music. For others it is newly found wealth or the birth of a child. Perhaps you dance because of the love you feel for your husband or wife.

It all got me thinking about the absence of joy in our churches, the lack of spontaneity, and the fear of what others might think. If people can display such freedom and delight in something as banal as Julie Andrews singing "Do, Re, Me," can we not do as much for someone as beautiful as the Lord Jesus Christ? O.k., o.k., I know all about propriety in church and reverence and gravity. Yes, God is deserving of our deepest thoughts and most exalted praise and we must never permit our worship to degenerate into carnal or flippant emotionalism.

But does not the thought of forgiveness of sins elicit unbridled joy in your heart? Does not the prospect of eternity with Christ make your feet move? Should not the glory of saving grace and the power of the indwelling Spirit and intimacy with a loving heavenly Father move us in both body and soul?

These are the questions that came to mind as I watched and listened to this video. I wondered, what would the world think of us if our love for Jesus and our gratitude for all that God has done for us in him spilled out into the streets in godly celebration? As you watch the video, be sure to take note of the startled look on the faces of passersby. Watch as their incredulity turns to sheer enjoyment. Then ask yourself, what effect might we have on a lost and dying world if our love for God was seen in holy revelry, in glad-hearted dancing, in unashamed, extravagant affection for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Even if you don't agree with what I've said, I think you'll get a kick from watching this event. But as you watch, it wouldn't hurt to ask yourself a question: For what or whom would I dance?