Can you love when you are angry?

Can you love when angry?
People that care want the best for the other. Is it possible to deeply want to bless and build up another and also be intensely angry with that one?
Love and hate are opposite. Anger and love are not. Anger moves us to speak up and rebuke, discipline, confront the one we love. Study my article on Anger, Hate, Forgiveness and love to sort this out. I believe that we can be angry, in a good way, with those we love.
HealMyLife.com/articles/listen to God/
Anger, Hate, Forgiveness and Love

Can you love when angry? Of course!

Cleanse the Temple

Cleanse the Temple
Jesus cleansed the temple in Jerusalem. In this life transforming prayer we ask him to cleanse our inner sanctuary of any idols. Pleasing people makes people into idols. That is just one example.
Cleansing and deliverance. Removing evil - deliverance from evil - is similar to cleansing. One could use this prayer for deliverance.
See:
HealMyLife.com/articles/innerhealing
Cleanse the Temple

Good Grief!

Good Grief!
Grief is a natural God-given response to deep losses. The Bible teaches "Blessed are they that mourn." How can it be a blessing to grieve?
There is a very powerful way that grief can lead to blessing. Learn how to visualize yourself sharing and being listened to and comforted by Jesus.
This not only brings comfort it builds attachment - a love relationship forms between you and Jesus. This is especially important for those who have never experienced a secure safe emotional bond.
The article on HealMyLife.com is called Grief and comfort.

"Don't trust your feelings!"

Christians are often told: "Don't trust your feelings."
That is not always helpful because our spirit and the Holy Spirit speak to us through our feelings. So don't tune out to your feelings. Listen.
Christians are aften told that anger is wrong. I wish we taught that anger has a place but hatred hurts both us and the other person. It acts like a curse.
Could I suggest that we reserve our misgivings for hate, bitterness, hostility, resentment and any feeling leading to revenge against another. Keep 'anger' free of negative judgement unless it is used sinfully.
It is said: "Do not let the sun go down on your wrath." Please interpret this to mean that anger needs to be expressed. Look at anger as energy from God to get us talking, confronting, standing up to injustice, unfairness, hurt and oppression.
Be guided by: "Be angry but sin not." Ephesians 4:26. Take this to mean that you can confront the issue without putting down the person. Sin enters in when we call names, put down or intentionally hurt another. Speak the truth in love.
For more on this see: Anger, Hate, Forgiveness and love.

Ed Young sexperiment

Hi Sarah,

Sounds like Rev. Ed Young intends to challenge a long tradition of church silence on the topic of sex. He is confronting sensibilities by talking about sex in a very open, direct and loving way. He is using language that sounds controversial but is completely within the bounds of traditional Christian morality and Biblical norms.

Ethically there is no problem with a pastor suggesting that marital couples in his church have sex daily for seven days and telling the singles to eat chocolate.

Young’s scholarship is good when he says that God created sex and wants us to enjoy it. Sex has God’s stamp of approval.

The Bible offers us a Creation Story in which God sees everything as good except one thing. Man was alone without a partner. To correct this God created male and female and sex so that ‘one-flesh-unity’ could happen. Sex is good because it is not good for man to be alone.

This Creation Story says that gender and sexuality are essential to the fulfillment of the need for safe loving emotional/spiritual connection. God’s answer to lack of communion was gender, sex and one-flesh-unity.

We now know that infants cannot survive without personal handling and loving touch. Companionship is essential for life. Not just infants but all of us need to be acknowledged, responded to, touched and loved.

Young wants couples to observe their reactions to his sexperiment. They are each to keep a journal. Hopefully he really means it when he says, “It’s really not about sex itself, it’s what surrounds it.”

Do I think this challenge will work? I do not think a woman granting more sex will resolve true sexual addiction. Young may have to back track on any such suggestion. In my opinion sex addictive behaviours are attempts to fill an inner void – a need for love. Even after a week of sex that void may remain. The void often reflects emotional disassociation as the result of lack of bonding or trauma in the primary years of childhood.

Young will bring significant issues out into the open by talking openly about sex and advocating daily sex for a week. More important, in my eyes, will be the conversations about love. Men do look at other women when their needs for both sex and loving attachment are not met.

I would like to say three things:

1. More sex may not solve our need for intimate connection.

2. Sex can be done in such a way that bonding and connection are avoided.

3. Therapy may be needed the deep inner emptiness that underlies sexual addiction.

In my article on The Avoidant Personality and Silent Divorce I make the observation that one can have sex and avoid heart to heart bonding. “This is done by avoidance of eye contact, stepping away from the afterglow period then a powerful opportunity to deepen the marital bond and feed and nurture one another’s spirits is missed.”

According to Dr. Sue Johnson developer of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy, loving relationship – safe emotional connection with a partner – is our primary need. Gender and sex was God’s answer to that need. I hope Young gets beyond sex to what we might call the ‘real marriage’ – the emotional bonding.

George Hartwell M.Sc. counsellor, Mississauga, www.HealMyLife.com (416) 234-1850

Am I married? A test.

A marriage ceremony and a marriage certificate does not guarantee that one is married if by married we are referring to the emotional connection that the Bible calls 'one flesh.'

If you come to me - a professional counselor - and share information that strongly suggests that you are in a marriage that is not a marriage, I might suggest the following things to do to clarify this issue.

1. Know yourself and your mission and values:
I would suggest you spend some time on your own life, your life's purpose, your life's values. Know who you are.

2. Look at, write down, all the signs, all the clues that indicate that you spouse is not married. One example is language. Do they use the language of 'we.'

3. Compare ambitions. Are you on the same page? Are you equally yoked or is one doing all the giving and the other is taking?

4. Are there major warning signs that this is not a stable healthy relationship? Is there an abusive component to the relationship? Does one partner always have to be right or in control? Does this mean it is nearly impossible to have constructive criticism, confrontation or raising of issues without getting derailed?

5. What is your vision for marriage? What is negotiable and what is nonnegotiable? Are you already being forced to compromise your core values in order to make this work? Is it unlikely that what you want in a marraige is going to happen? That you will always be doing your best to 'make it work.'

6. What is God's heart on marriage? I base my theology of marriage on John 15 and point to the spirit and truth of marriage as the secure bond, the unity and connection upon which one can build a life. My best guess is that God holds us accountable for the relationship and is not as concerned with the legalities and religious rituals. Think this through for yourself.

Learning from Christian marriage retreats

I remember that this couple was really keen to get a breakthrough in their marriage. They loved each other, were real and authentic and ready to work.
It was during the summer and we had wonderful weather and a lovely time at Jack and JoAnnes retreat center.
Of course I started each session with a prayer that submitted our work to God and invited the Holy Spirit to protect and guide us. I always to that.
At this time in my career I was more relaxed than earlier. I could rest in my experience, my training and the discernment of the Holy Spirit.
I had lots of experience of God coming through whenever we called upon Him. If we were lost. If we needed insight into a memory. If we needed His truth or His comfort. He was always there.
John Sandford always prayed when he was stuck (Help!) and learned that way. I appreciate learning from John and Paula Sandford. Now I can appreciate learning from the Holy Spirit in the times when I call for "Help!"
This Christian marriage retreat began the process of showing me some of the blocks to marriages that one is likely to see. This resulted in my article on 10 marriage transforming prayer encounters.