Since I've been a minister I've married almost 30 couples. I love weddings. I'm the "wedding guy." There is nothing quite like celebrating marriage vows with people who are in love. When I counsel with couples I go over this list of 10 questions with them. (The list is adapted from a series of Dennis Prager articles.) Let me know what you think.
1. Is the person your best friend?
If you cannot say that the person you are considering marrying has become or is becoming your best friend, you need to figure out why before you decide to marry. Over time, friendship is the greatest bond between a couple. If the person you marry does not become your best friend, you will either seek someone who will be or simply drift apart. What is a best friend? Someone you can tell just about everything to. Someone you want to be with as much as possible.
2. Do you enjoy spending time with each other?
This sounds small, but enjoying each other may actually be the single most important characteristic of a happy marriage.
3. Is there chemistry between the two of you?
As essential as being best friends and enjoying each other are, there should be a physical component to your relationship if it is going to survive.
4. How does the person treat others?
It should go without saying that if the person is not kind to you, quit while you can. But it is far from sufficient that the person you are considering marrying treats just you kindly. Watch how he or she treats waitresses, employees, family members and anyone else they come into contact with.
5. What problems do the two of you now have?
Here is a rule that is rarely broken: Whatever problems you have before the wedding day, you will have during your marriage. Do not think that marrying will solve any problem you have with the person. You therefore have three choices: Make peace with the problem, see if it can be solved before deciding to marry, or don't marry the person. It is imperative that you be ruthlessly honest with yourself. And that is very hard. Nothing in life is easier than denying problems when you are in love.
6. How often do you fight?
It may be normal for couples to fight, but it is usually a bad sign if you are doing so frequently while dating. If you do fight, do you quickly make up? Does he/she fight fairly and hear your side? Has either of you said, “I'm sorry” after a fight? Do you fight over the same issues with no resolution? These are important questions?
7. Do you share values?
Opposites only attract in the very beginning. People who are alike stay together for the long term. The more you share, especially religious and social values, the better your chances of a good marriage.
8. Do you miss the person when you are not together?
This is even true for men. Even though men are easily distracted by work, sports, computer games, and numerous other things it is not a good sign if you rarely miss her when not together. As for women, if you don't miss him, it is probably a really bad sign.
9. Is the person unhappy?
The importance of marrying an essentially happy person cannot be exaggerated. If you are basically happy, do not think that you can make an unhappy person happy by marrying them. On the contrary, the ability of the unhappy to make the happy unhappy is far greater than the ability of the happy to make the unhappy happy. In other words – misery seeks company.
10. What do people you respect think of the person you're marrying?
Young people are certain they know better than anyone else in the world what is good for them. So a lack of enthusiasm for the person you are considering for marriage on the part of family or friends may mean little or nothing. But if objections come from a parent you respect for reasons that are not easily dismissed, and if others you respect are unenthusiastic as well, you should take their objections seriously.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
"Moral Bank Accounts"
If you've ever heard of a Ponzi scheme you will surely assume that Charles Ponzi was a bad man. He cheated people out of their money. But a new biography of Charles Ponzi reveals that a few years before inventing his scheme, Ponzi had given a fair amount of his skin so it could be grafted onto a woman who was dying of severe burns. He suffered pain from this act of generosity, which saved a person's life. Yet who would ever associate Ponzi with anything except scamming people out of their money?
I mention this because of something I heard on the radio a few weeks ago (the Dennis Prager show). Human beings all have what Dennis Prager calls moral bank accounts. Just like a real bank account into which we make deposits and also withdrawals, we make moral deposits into and moral withdrawals from our moral bank accounts based on the actions we engage in during our lifetime. Now some people make so many withdrawals – Hitler for example - that no imaginable good they can do will change the balance. People should be judged this way, rather than on the basis of every little thing they do. I started thinking this way last year when Bill Bennett was railed against because he gambled away large sums of money. The gambling paled in comparison to how much good Bennett has done with his books on moral character. We need moral perspective. If your spouse has been a good and loyal person and a good and loving father or mother for 20 or 30 years and had an unfaithful night on a business trip, do all those years of deposits into their moral bank account count for nothing?
Without the perspective a “moral bank account” gives us, we exaggerate the good done by bad people, and the bad done by good people. God is the ultimate judge of us all. But in the meantime, moral judgments must be made by us humans here on earth. Charles Ponzi heroically saved a woman's life at a great personal price. His money scheme was awful; but he was not. Oscar Schindler saved many Jews during the Holocaust while being unfaithful to his wife. Yet we regard Schindler as a moral hero. I am for moral clarity and calling good “good” and evil “evil.” But we lose the war against evil and the war for good when we lose moral perspective. We all have moral bank accounts, and it's good to make deposits because we all make withdrawals.
I mention this because of something I heard on the radio a few weeks ago (the Dennis Prager show). Human beings all have what Dennis Prager calls moral bank accounts. Just like a real bank account into which we make deposits and also withdrawals, we make moral deposits into and moral withdrawals from our moral bank accounts based on the actions we engage in during our lifetime. Now some people make so many withdrawals – Hitler for example - that no imaginable good they can do will change the balance. People should be judged this way, rather than on the basis of every little thing they do. I started thinking this way last year when Bill Bennett was railed against because he gambled away large sums of money. The gambling paled in comparison to how much good Bennett has done with his books on moral character. We need moral perspective. If your spouse has been a good and loyal person and a good and loving father or mother for 20 or 30 years and had an unfaithful night on a business trip, do all those years of deposits into their moral bank account count for nothing?
Without the perspective a “moral bank account” gives us, we exaggerate the good done by bad people, and the bad done by good people. God is the ultimate judge of us all. But in the meantime, moral judgments must be made by us humans here on earth. Charles Ponzi heroically saved a woman's life at a great personal price. His money scheme was awful; but he was not. Oscar Schindler saved many Jews during the Holocaust while being unfaithful to his wife. Yet we regard Schindler as a moral hero. I am for moral clarity and calling good “good” and evil “evil.” But we lose the war against evil and the war for good when we lose moral perspective. We all have moral bank accounts, and it's good to make deposits because we all make withdrawals.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
My First Suit
On Sunday I was going through my closet and came across a suit I never wear anymore. Why? Because it's a 36 waist and I'm a disgraceful 38! It's a sharp-looking charcoal Nieman Marcus suit. It's worn out now (the lining has pulled apart in the shoulders), but I'll bet it cost $500 new. Now, here's the context. Holly and I just bought a nice new house - it's 2600 square feet. This past weekend we went out of town for our annual Valentine's getaway. We stayed at the Westin Stonebriar Resort and Country Club - had a nice dinner, slept in the "heavenly bed," and ordered breakfast up to the room - we spared no expense! Now back to the suit. Ten years ago I got my first preaching assignment in February when I knew nothing and had nothing. When I showed up in Dallas at age 19 I had a visitor's visa that expired in 6 months and $270 in my pocket. As a foreign student I was not allowed to work. I had nothing - nada. I would go out to Mexican restaurants with my classmates and order water. While they ate enchiladas I ate the free chips and salsa! Where was I going to get a suit? A member of the Preston Road Church of Christ (probably one of those evil rich conservatives) gave me his Nieman Marcus suit - gave, not loaned. I was so proud of that suit! I wish I could still fit in it. But I'll never give it away or throw it away. It will always be a reminder to me that I am either the luckiest man ever born, or God has smiled on me! I also keep a $1 bill given to me in 1986 by Marvin Philips (I was 12, dreaming of America, and this was the first real American money I ever saw). Ten years ago I was kid from South Africa with no money and no way to earn money. Today I'm an American, I live in a big house, I preach at a large church, and I take my wife to Westin Resorts. God has used so many kind, hospitable Christian people to bless me. I thank Him, and I thank all those people. And I thank Mr. Nieman Marcus for making the best suit in the world!
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
My New Blogging Adventure
For my regular readers, friends, and family: Check out my new blog (my complete sermon transcripts) at www.charlesnorthsermons.blogspot.com Let me know what you think.
Monday, February 13, 2006
The Majority of Muslims are Peaceful - So What?
Whenever the question of Islam and violence is raised, we are repeatedly told that “the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful,” and that Islam is a “religion of peace.” This is entirely accurate, and entirely irrelevant.
The vast majority of Germans living in the Nazi era were also peaceful; very few ever laid a hand on a Jew. The vast majority of Russians never killed anyone while 20-40 million of their fellow citizens were murdered by Stalin. The threat to civilization coming from within Islam is not negated by the fact that the great majority of Muslims are not violent. The “cartoon riots” provide evidence of this. Most of the people rioting and protesting have never seen the cartoons, and only took to the streets months after the cartoons were published because their Imams told them to do it. So it’s probably more accurate to say that Muslims are stupid dupes and puppets rather than violent or evil. Germany was a threat to civilization because Nazis and their ideology took over German society while the majority of Germans (the “peaceful Germans”) either supported Nazi ideals or did nothing. Russia was a threat to civilization because Communists took over the country, and the great majority of Russians either supported them out of fear or did nothing. Islamic society is becoming a threat to civilization because Islamic totalitarians and terrorists are taking over those societies while a majority of Muslims either support their ideals or do nothing. That is why it is meaningless and dishonest to deny the threat to civilization coming from various Muslim countries by noting that most Muslims are not violent. Only a handful of Saudis terrorized America on 9/11, but a large majority of Saudis support Osama bin Laden. Few Palestinians strap bombs onto their children's bodies, but the majority of them support such evil – they elected Hamas after all. At this moment, the dominant strain of Islamic thought is totalitarian, meaning that wherever possible, a government should be Islamic and govern according to a strict interpretation of the Sharia (Muslim religious law). Furthermore, the Islamists believe these religious laws should be imposed violently, as they were in the Sudan, Nigeria, Afghanistan and elsewhere. In addition, the dominant ideological trend in much of Islamic society is hate-filled. Their peaceful lifestyle is not influencing the hateful trends in their religion.
So the fact that the majority of those living in Islamic countries are good people is of no consequence. Unless they do something to condemn and to isolate the totalitarians and terrorists in their midst, history will judge them as it has all the good Germans during the Holocaust – guilty!
The vast majority of Germans living in the Nazi era were also peaceful; very few ever laid a hand on a Jew. The vast majority of Russians never killed anyone while 20-40 million of their fellow citizens were murdered by Stalin. The threat to civilization coming from within Islam is not negated by the fact that the great majority of Muslims are not violent. The “cartoon riots” provide evidence of this. Most of the people rioting and protesting have never seen the cartoons, and only took to the streets months after the cartoons were published because their Imams told them to do it. So it’s probably more accurate to say that Muslims are stupid dupes and puppets rather than violent or evil. Germany was a threat to civilization because Nazis and their ideology took over German society while the majority of Germans (the “peaceful Germans”) either supported Nazi ideals or did nothing. Russia was a threat to civilization because Communists took over the country, and the great majority of Russians either supported them out of fear or did nothing. Islamic society is becoming a threat to civilization because Islamic totalitarians and terrorists are taking over those societies while a majority of Muslims either support their ideals or do nothing. That is why it is meaningless and dishonest to deny the threat to civilization coming from various Muslim countries by noting that most Muslims are not violent. Only a handful of Saudis terrorized America on 9/11, but a large majority of Saudis support Osama bin Laden. Few Palestinians strap bombs onto their children's bodies, but the majority of them support such evil – they elected Hamas after all. At this moment, the dominant strain of Islamic thought is totalitarian, meaning that wherever possible, a government should be Islamic and govern according to a strict interpretation of the Sharia (Muslim religious law). Furthermore, the Islamists believe these religious laws should be imposed violently, as they were in the Sudan, Nigeria, Afghanistan and elsewhere. In addition, the dominant ideological trend in much of Islamic society is hate-filled. Their peaceful lifestyle is not influencing the hateful trends in their religion.
So the fact that the majority of those living in Islamic countries are good people is of no consequence. Unless they do something to condemn and to isolate the totalitarians and terrorists in their midst, history will judge them as it has all the good Germans during the Holocaust – guilty!
Saturday, February 04, 2006
"The Big Game" - Yawn
Apparantly I can't say "Superbowl" since the NFL has the word "Superbowl" copyrighted. Anyway, it's the eve of the Superbowl, I just finished my sermon for tommorrow (a lesson on church discipline of all things), I'll be going to bed soon, and it just dawned on me, "Tommorrow is the Superbowl!" And I couln't care less! Who's playing again? The Steelers and the Seahawks? I love football. I used to watch the Superbowl. We had Superbowl parties. We became a "Pepsi family" for an entire year because of some Superbowl ad. What has happened? Please give me some direction for next year! Help me my friends!
P.S. I used the word "Superbowl" 8 times in violation of NFL copyright laws.
P.S. I used the word "Superbowl" 8 times in violation of NFL copyright laws.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Is it 1938 again for the Jews?
This is the scariest time for Jews since the Holocaust. I dare say that we woke up to a new world this morning. Hamas – an organization that exists to destroy Israel (and kill Jews) - won over 70% of the Palestinian vote! Hamas is bought and paid for by Iran, whose leader has stated, as his goal, the eradication of Israel. To call these goons “Islamo-fascists” is insulting to Mussolini! They’re far worse.
I think the world can be divided into three groups with regards to Jews and Israel: Those who hate the Jews and want them dead, those who are indifferent to this hatred, and Americans (at least those Americans who support Israel). The first group consists mostly of Muslim societies. Muslim literature today is as anti-Semitic as Nazi literature was. Hitler's "Mein Kampf" is a best seller in the Middle East. Jews have been expelled from nearly every Arab country, and the deliberate killing of Jews is celebrated throughout the Muslim Middle East. And it’s not only the Middle East. There are some 32 million Muslims in Europe, many of them radical and, therefore, anti-Semitic. Virtually every day in the past month Jews and synagogues were attacked by Muslims in Europe. Because Europe fears its Muslim population, and because of its own deep-seated anti-Semitism, Europe is the primary supporter of those who wish another Jewish Holocaust. The rest of the world is either pro-Arab (e.g., Russia, China, and my old home, South Africa) or totally oblivious to Israel’s fate (most of Asia and Latin America). America is Israel's only defender. America does not merely tolerate Jews, it honors them. The United States has always defined itself as “Judeo-Christian.” Though Christians founded the United States, the Old Testament played a big role in shaping America's identity. Thomas Jefferson even suggested that the seal of the United States depict Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt. However, given the number of Americans, including American Jews, who are willing to throw Israel under the bus because they believe that “Zionism” is the cause of terrorism, is frightening. Even George W. Bush said something today that made the hair on my neck bristle. In response to the overwhelming Hamas electoral victory, Mr. Bush said, “This reminds me of the power of democracy.” Yeah, and Hitler’s electoral victory in 1933 was another jewel in the crown of world democracy.
So here we are, so soon after nearly every Jew in Europe was murdered, and the remnant that remains in the New Jersey-sized state of Israel is threatened with extinction. Just like in 1938, the world now seems to be divided between those nations that were about to murder Jews and those that would let it happen. It is almost unbelievable – almost.
I think the world can be divided into three groups with regards to Jews and Israel: Those who hate the Jews and want them dead, those who are indifferent to this hatred, and Americans (at least those Americans who support Israel). The first group consists mostly of Muslim societies. Muslim literature today is as anti-Semitic as Nazi literature was. Hitler's "Mein Kampf" is a best seller in the Middle East. Jews have been expelled from nearly every Arab country, and the deliberate killing of Jews is celebrated throughout the Muslim Middle East. And it’s not only the Middle East. There are some 32 million Muslims in Europe, many of them radical and, therefore, anti-Semitic. Virtually every day in the past month Jews and synagogues were attacked by Muslims in Europe. Because Europe fears its Muslim population, and because of its own deep-seated anti-Semitism, Europe is the primary supporter of those who wish another Jewish Holocaust. The rest of the world is either pro-Arab (e.g., Russia, China, and my old home, South Africa) or totally oblivious to Israel’s fate (most of Asia and Latin America). America is Israel's only defender. America does not merely tolerate Jews, it honors them. The United States has always defined itself as “Judeo-Christian.” Though Christians founded the United States, the Old Testament played a big role in shaping America's identity. Thomas Jefferson even suggested that the seal of the United States depict Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt. However, given the number of Americans, including American Jews, who are willing to throw Israel under the bus because they believe that “Zionism” is the cause of terrorism, is frightening. Even George W. Bush said something today that made the hair on my neck bristle. In response to the overwhelming Hamas electoral victory, Mr. Bush said, “This reminds me of the power of democracy.” Yeah, and Hitler’s electoral victory in 1933 was another jewel in the crown of world democracy.
So here we are, so soon after nearly every Jew in Europe was murdered, and the remnant that remains in the New Jersey-sized state of Israel is threatened with extinction. Just like in 1938, the world now seems to be divided between those nations that were about to murder Jews and those that would let it happen. It is almost unbelievable – almost.
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