sooooo, john piper and i have a LOT in common.
well, to be honest we only have one thing in common. we both tweet.
john piper does it like he most likely does EVERYTHING else in his life. much better and more spiritual than the rest of us. i usually have profound things to say in my tweets, like what i am cooking for dinner or what beverages i like at starbucks. but john piper has scripture and short commentaries that take my breath away in less than 140 characters. i couldn’t take anyone’s breath away with 14,000 characters (not that i haven’t tried).
and last week one of his little thoughts really stuck with me and i have been unable to forget it and i only read it through once, i thought about the incredibly profound and simple truth of it for a minute or two and it was seared onto my brain.
here is the tweet...
Marriages fail because of how right it feels to justify sinful responses to sin.
{tweeted by john piper last week}
relationships in general fail because of this. parenting fails. and it all falls apart when we justify sinful responses to sin because it feels right... and boy does it ever feel right to do that.
now don’t get me wrong, i didn’t realize the truth of this from my OWN marriage. my husband is as perfect as a man ever gets... and as for little ole’ me... what what kind of sin could i ever have in my life?????? or sweet john piper-ish me have a sinful response to something????? i shudder to imagine. i just have some friends that are kind of imperfect and so are their spouses, that is how i recognized the truth of this...
none that read this blog of course. you are ALL perfect.
i meant that once on t.v. i saw a marriage between two imperfect people and that is how i came to this knowledge of marriage...
yeah, that’s it.
a sinful response is sin. no matter how right it feels. no matter how LARGE the sin of the other person feels to you. or how personal it feels. or the consequences of that sin. responding sinfully to sin will not make it any better.
doing what “feels right” will ruin a marriage, a friendship, a parenting relationship.
doing what is righteous will build a marriage, a friendship, a parenting relationship. and what is righteous doesn’t always feel “right”, or easy, or pleasant.
i want to be john piper when i grow up. i want to be able to write something meaningful in 140 words or less. sigh. i might even settle for being able to write something meaningful in 14,000,000 words. i might even settle for being able to end this post with a pithy comment that would stick in your brain...
but i am no john piper.
yet...