Happy this sweet pea recovered from her tonsil surgery so quickly

We took the Faithful Heart Boys to the beach for a few days this spring break

Prayers with good friends in Samoeng, Thailand

Greeting from Thailand!  

Welcome back to our series on building a better life!
This is part 9 of 10.

(I needed to put a limit on this series, though only on the posts themselves---learning and changing is hopefully a lifelong process for all of us)

I think it is helpful for all of us to reflect on how we are growing and what we are learning about life as we go along.

I am sometimes embarrassed by things I thought when I was younger, or yesterday. 
But this is part of the humility of being human---we are never fully, completely, right; but only in the process of learning (that includes the present!).    

I considered calling this post "Rise by Lifting."  

"We rise by lifting others” is a quote by Robert Ingersoll that conveys the idea that helping others can lead to our own personal growth and success as well as those we seek to help.

Good things happen when we get Berean Baptist and Faithful Heart together

A great time with the Berean team

Middleschool graduation !

It has been a foundational idea in my life for many years.  

Jesus taught and demonstrated that the way to find our true selves, and our true life, was to lay down our lives for others.  

It can sound paradoxical in theory, but in practice it becomes obvious.  

We become better kinds of people, better versions of ourselves, and maybe most surprisingly, we become more our true selves not in isolation or individualism, but when we commit ourselves to others. 

Conversely, if our only commitment is to ourselves, and our own welfare, we become not only worse humans, but worse versions of ourselves.   

As we enter our 10th year in Thailand, one thing I have grown more and more confident of is that a life driven by commitments to others is also the best life for ourselves.  

Because our best life is never a selfish life.  

Swiss friends who also minister overseas

Talking about marriage at Kingdom of God church

Ezra climbing mountains

A commitment-driven life can be hard, and it is by nature restrictive, but it is so, so good! 

To gain your life, you must give it away. 
It is a paradox we must embrace to live well and to live in joy.  

The voluntary loss of some freedoms, results in the greatest freedom of all. 

Rick Warren wrote a very popular book years ago called "The Purpose Driven Life."

The idea was that a sense of purpose was more important for a good life than any other consideration---like wealth or success or fame.  

I think he was right.  

I want to add that the greatest sense of purpose in my life has come from serious, and costly commitments I have made to others.  

Sienna climbs too!

Memorial Service for a good man

Coffee shop customers

Anyone who has really loved someone else has experienced this. 

Usually this starts with our families in childhood.  

We commit ourselves to the people who have first committed themselves to us. 
We feel a strong sense of camaraderie, that our welfare is tied up with their welfare.  

If they aren't happy, we can't be fully happy either. 
If they aren't ok, we aren't ok. 
If they are sad, we are sad.   

Parents and siblings are the first people we experience this with.  

But perhaps the most powerful personal commitment we make is when we fall in love.  

Have you ever really considered wedding vows? 
They are pretty crazy things to promise to another human being.  

If this goes well, I commit to you.
If this goes bad, I commit to you.
If we are broke, I am committed to you.
If we get rich, and I could maybe find someone better, but I am still committed to you.
If you get really sick, I won't jump ship, but I will suffer with you.
Until death separates us, I am committed to you, and you are committed to me.  

[my paraphrase]

Pretty serious words.  

For most of us, we don't think much of those words until a few months or years down the road when they become much harder.  

When we realize the person we fell in love with isn't always lovely.  
One of the great tragedies to human happiness is the modern way we consider marriage.  

What used to be a wild, somewhat reckless commitment we made to another, has become a "test drive" to see how well the other suits us.  

The former was a grand and sometimes terrifying adventure.
The latter is a poor attempt to avoid risk and play it safe.  

What we have lost is intimacy and growth that comes from commitments, not feelings.  By hedging our commitments to others, our own lives have been diminished. 

Cute little guy

New linen cabinet is done (and huge)

Ob Khan park

A good marriage has great costs, but it also has great rewards.
Children are another great example of the rewards and costs of commitment.  

9 months of pregnancy, then labor, birth and at least 18 years of relentless teaching, playing, correcting, discipling, encouraging, celebrating, worrying, and praying.   

My point is that these commitments, whether we consciously or unconsciously make them, are not only good for those we commit to, (like our kids and spouses) but they are also good for us.

That is the part that doesn't always seem obvious. 
Especially if you have a difficult partner, or ungrateful children.  

A serious commitment to others almost always starts by feeling like a personal loss, whether it is a loss of freedom, time, or resources.  

But if we stick with it, the rewards are amazing. 
Indeed, they are the substance of all that is really valuable in life.   

Consider marriage again.  
The real gift of marriage is intimacy---and that only comes with time and commitment.

Our obsession with sex is partly a failure to understand real intimacy. 
Intimacy in marriage is so much more than sex. 
It is the bond that forms over years of doing life together.

The mutual understanding, the growth together, the successes and failures endured together, the joy and sorrow weathered together, and all that laughter and silliness!  

In other words, the joyful, secure intimacy of marriage is the reward of commitment. 
If we are unwilling to make that commitment, to take that risk, we will not enjoy the same reward.  

If we are always leaving when things get hard, when our commitment to the other person becomes costly and difficult, we will never experience the joys of intimacy---knowing and being known.  

Or if we enter into every relationship, wary of commitment, and leaving ourselves a convenient way out whenever things get hard, we will never build that intimacy.  

The risk is what produces the reward.  
You cannot have the reward, without the risk.  

Tables for our friend's church and children's home

Strong kids

Delicious home made Korean food!

Commitments to children are another investment that produces unbelievable returns.
Make no mistake raising kids is a lot of work, and it can be brutal at times.  

But the sheer joy and delight my kids bring into my life is unmatched. 
There is no hobby, or pet, or even friendship that really comes close. 

The reward is hearing a little voice screaming with joy, "DAD!!!!" when you come home from a hard day at work.  

It is snuggles on the couch.
Watching a beautiful mini-human grow and develop, and having a (terrifying) role in shaping that child.

The most rewarding, meaningful relationships in my life have come as a result of serious, costly commitments I have made to others. 

It wasn't instant, but the product of years of work.  

Let me go further.  Here is the part I want to urge from my more unique experience of living in a foreign country and working with vulnerable children:

If you want more joy in your life, make more commitments to more people.  Enlarge, don't shrink, the circle of your love. 

The greatest hurts as well as the greatest joys in my life have come as a result of my commitments to others.  

My commitment to my brother Jon made his death from cancer an agony.
But it is also what made it a joy to have him in my life in the first place.

My commitment to my church in college made it an agony to leave.  
But it is also what made my time in college so much rewarding. 

Commitment is always a risk. 
People let us down.
We let others down.

So isn't it better to just go it alone and avoid all that pain?

No.

'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all," (Tennyson)

It is our commitment to others that gives meaning to our own lives.  

It is the absence of commitment that leaves so many of our lives and relationships feeling shallow and unfulfilling.  

You don't need to be married or have kids of your own, to find meaningful commitments.  

The world has a huge deficit of love and commitment.  

Cute artists

More cute artists

Pii Pen showing her kayak skills

Commit to being a big brother or big sister to kids who need a caring adult. 
Commit to a local church and serve wherever it's needed.
Commit to a friend to communicate regularly and support each other.  

It is true that fulfilling relationships are often two directional.   
There is give and take from both sides---especially in marriage.

Relationships are also negotiations, as Jordan Peterson has pointed out.  Successful relationships are those where both parties have managed to negotiate successfully, so that they each are getting what they need from the relationship.

All that is valid and helpful.

However, I want to suggest that in many of our relationships we can still find deep meaning from a one-way commitment.

We can commit ourselves to others and find great meaning and purpose from that decision. Even if the return commitment is not shared.  

The need for love generally outweighs the will to love.  

In other words, there are more people who need to receive love, before they can give it.  

To address that imbalance, what our world needs is people who can receive love for somewhere (or Someone) else, and then pour love out to the people who desperately need to be loved now, so they can learn to love in the future.  

We need people who can commit to others without conditions, without a return.  

This isn't a superpower some special people possess, but an overflow when we feel secure and deeply loved already.  

Ezra under a boat

Date night!

Mattias of Redwall

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.  Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

...Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us."  

-1 John 4 

We can love freely, even if others don't return our love, because Someone else loved us first.

God always takes the initiative in committing to others.  

He loves us first, so we are free to love others, with or without a return.  

This life of love and commitment to others is a powerful antidote to the poisonous idea that we if spend our lives doing what we think we want, we will be happy.

A life lived for others is the best life for us.

And the most meaningful commitments are to people, not just causes.   

Changing the world takes a long time.  
But changing one person's life can happen remarkably fast.  

You probably cannot change the world, but you might be able to change a life.  

When we are young, and insecure and trying to prove ourselves, our success compared to others make us feel good about ourselves.  

But imagine the feeling when our success is the success of others?
We can all celebrate together.   

Now that is something!  

Toothless!

German friends who also serve in Thailand

Power for Life

We rise, not by advancing beyond others, but by lifting others.  

We learn that there is something more powerful in the world than selfishness: Love.  

We learn that in giving away, we become richer.
By losing our lives for others, we find them.  

As we begin a new year, let me encourage you to take the risk of committing yourself to the welfare of someone new.  

Open your heart a little wider, and be delightfully surprised to see how committing to the good of someone else can make your own life better.  

Thank you to so many of you who have committed to us.  
May the New Year lead you closer to God and to others.  

Love,

Matt, Audrey, Ezra, and Sienna

Beach time!