Heaven On Earth

This full Bible study can be downloaded here.

How do I tell the story behind this study? Just trying to pin down the road I’ve traveled to arrive here brings back a host of memories. And yet, this study has a context. This study is the product of the various twists and turns, ups and deep, deep downs, intersections, detours, and roadblocks that the Lord has allowed into my life… into our lives. For nearly 22 years ago I stopped being “me” and became “we.”  Well, at least I should have, but I was totally unprepared for a biblically loving and serving marriage. Very soon into our young marriage I demanded something from my wife over her insistent “no’s.” Little did I understand the destructive power of that one, ignorant and selfish demand for my wife’s unhappy and at times abusive past came crashing down upon both of us. Let me tell you just a little of our journey to this point today.

I was born, baptized and confirmed in the United Methodist tradition, but during my freshman year of high school my mom started attending a Christian and Missionary Alliance church. Soon we three younger children were brought along with her to her new church of choice. That spring in 1981 I rededicated my life to Jesus. Soon I accepted a call to become a missionary, and three years later I was attending a small Bible college as I prepared for life-long service overseas.

Meanwhile, during my last three years in high school a group of my guy friends and I began, on occasion, to see a group of young ladies we called “the Toledo girls.”  They were in the same church denomination as we, and during regional and national events we became acquainted. My second year in college one of those Toledo girls suddenly transferred to my school, and being a dutiful friend (and because she had this strange notion that she could not speak to anyone unless she was first properly introduced), I showed her around and helped her get settled in. From there to best friends was a natural step, to dating, to breaking up (because she was the kind of girl I could marry and I wasn’t ready yet as a 19 year old), to dating again the next year, my first “I love you” to any girl, three weeks later a proposal, and three months later at the tender age of barely 21 I married my one true love.

But as I said, our marriage together was not to be one of wedded bliss, for soon after, we were both plunged into the aftermath of my wife’s painful childhood. Though she had told me of this before we were engaged, why would I care? I didn’t, but I found out that my selfish decision triggered a psychological defensive mechanism that would plague our marriage for the next 22 years.

In fact, the next 20 years of our marriage were a hyperbole and paradox. I truly did love my bride, and so I began voraciously reading a number of Christian marriage books that I found. One author suggested I work through a long list of possible grievances that my wife might have. So I groveled with the best trying to fix our hurting marriage. I became a student of my wife, spent all my time with her, and tried to enter into her world and love her out of her pain. On one level we had a great marriage. Anyone who saw us would think how close we must be, and yet for most of those years we and our marriage were hurting badly.

Then 2 years ago my wife began manifesting the signs of dissociative identity disorder (formerly called multiple personality disorder). This finally made sense of all of our struggles for the last 20 years which neither of us understood. So I was given the chance to put all the teaching of this study into a unique practical setting as I learned to love and care for the multiple little girls that had been hiding deep inside my wife’s broken spirit. My son and I have lived with and loved these little girls for the last two years and helped bring them to healing: a healing rapidly accelerated by using the principles in this Bible study.

Along with a dozen our so marriage books, I also was scouring the Bible. Since my college days, I’d had a fascination with the topic of a biblical view of man and woman and marriage. I read theological books on the subject, commentaries and did an independent study for college on the subject. Wouldn’t it have the answers for our wounded marriage? Later in my life I was reading a chapter of Scripture every hour for a time, and it revolutionized my understanding of Scripture. I also began writing a personal journal, parts of which would be the start of the study that follows here. And, of course, I continued to study and meditate on the Bible passages which specifically dealt with husbands and wives and men and women.

At the same time our marriage was hurting God decided to send my wife and me out on a desert road of life. This was not a road we would have chosen. Believe me, the road less traveled is sometimes bitter, poisonous, and noxious. It can be lonely, and at times it is a cause of ridicule and abandonment. Additionally the Lord took us on a “field trip” of His various church bodies. We became pentecostal-charisimatic-fundamental-anabaptist-reformed-evangelical Christians, and He threw in home churching, home schooling, creation science, and worldview weekends to round out the experience. What a field trip it was. It showed us that contrary to the popular belief of some, each of these traditions has very good and unique perspectives of our Christian faith, and each has very skewed and biased beliefs also within their tradition.

This understanding muddied my continuing study of Scripture to find a biblical view of marriage because most traditions are sure that its view of marriage and women in the church is the correct one. Each will present what it thinks are sound arguments to support their view and disprove the other views. As well many traditions like to label dissenters in other branches of the Body of Christ. We like to call others liberal or legalistic, feminists or misogynists and any other juicy labels that allow us to tune out any arguments that might have relevance to what should be our desire as a whole: to find the truth.

Lastly, lest I bore you, God also gave Karen and me a son, John. In the midst of our hurting marriage, my wife determinedly wanted our son raised better than we had been raised. In the midst of our sojourns through the Lord’s various church bodies, as I came to understand that each was partially right and each partially wrong, I wanted to teach my son a lesson. I call it the “schizophrenic” principle. I told him that when he approaches any subject as hotly debated and dissented on as a biblical marriage he must apply the “schizophrenic” test to each argument. A particular viewpoint is only as good as its weakest link. Moreover, a consistent argument cannot do violence to or skew any other relevant verses, passages, and principles on a topic. Finally if a view ignores a relevant, but “difficult,” passage or principle of scripture, then this is a hole that cannot be ignored if our highest goal is not winning the argument but finding the truth.

And that, in brief, is the story behind the story, or study, if you like. Heaven on Earth is the product of a hurting marriage that love will not let die, a sojourn through the Lord’s various camps, and a father’s lesson to his son. If my study does not pass the “schizophrenic” test in your opinion, I invite your comments. Please keep us in your prayers; the Lord is finally bringing others to our side to help us heal. We are not done yet, nor will we fully be until we reach heaven. But the Lord has promised in His word that it will be worth the wait:

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us… And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:18,28).

Sam

6/9/2010