In the Diner

I am in the diner this morning thinking about men, women, marriage, knives, murder, and bars. Strange combination, eh?

On Monday night, a few blocks from my house and the church, a woman was stabbed to death, left in an office in a bar which was then set on fire. I heard the sirens that night and wondered what it was about, but was too tired to go find it. (On Tuesday, the Michigan State Police helicopter landed almost in my back yard during the investigation. My son loved it until it was time to take off and the noise was frightening to him.)

Reports are that the woman who was stabbed was in an abusive relationship with the man and he had threatened to kill her if she left.

It reminds me of just how bad people are at relationships. Men are not being taught to be men. Women are not being taught to be women. The basis of male/female relationships is so fundamentally misguided in our world that it can lead to things like this. Real men do not do this to women. Tough men are tough with themselves and tender with women.

What’s the cause? I think we lay this problem at the feet of dads who have not taught their sons the gospel, and have not lived the gospel with their own wives. Sons see it, and see the world around them, and learn how to be men. And it’s not pretty.

The reality is that most relationships will never rise (or sink) to this level. It is doubtful that your wife will be found in a burning bar, having been stabbed by you.

But our potential for abusive relationships is still there.

We are fundamentally self-centered people. Our aim in life is to be satisfied, and we will use people to achieve that. Too often our marriages are built on this principle—that she (or he) exists to satisfy me. And so we use and abuse, subtly to be sure, but use and abuse nonetheless.

We don’t stab with knives. We do it with words. And then with silence. We don’t take the life out of them all at once. We take it little by little, day by day, destroying their spirit through unkind words and actions, through selfish desires.

We aren’t found in Kentucky after a nationwide manhunt like this man was. We aren’t facing prison time (for the third, and hopefully last time).

We go on about our lives, slowly sucking the life of those that God has entrusted to us to love and to care for in his stead.

The only answer to this tragedy is the gospel—that Jesus, in an act of real love, gave his life for the sake of petty, abusive, selfish God-haters, to redeem them from the penalty and power of sin over their lives. He does not abuse those who are his. He gives us what we do not deserve, and loves us in the midst of our many failures.

So men, love carefully and sacrificially—just like Jesus did. Honor your wives as fellow heirs of the grace of life.

Watch for the warning signs of subtle abuse—the kind that will not get the police to show up at your house on suspicion of domestic abuse, but will have effects that are just as damaging.

Love her like Christ loved the church. Give yourself for her to make her holy by the washing of water with the Word. Prepare to present her to Jesus with her being more holy and more godly because you were in her life (Ephesians 4:25-27).

And dads, remember that little eyes are watching. For the sake of the gospel, and generation of women yet to be married, teach them—by what you say and by what you do—teach them the gospel for relationships.