Dr Paul Allen

The secret of a happy marriage has changed, reports the UK ’s Independent in a story on a recent presentation to the American Association for the Advance of Science. In former times, marriage was for food, shelter, and physical safety. Then, as society moved from a rural economy to an industrial one, marriage involved men as providers, women as homemakers. Now, in our post-industrial world, marriage is all about each partner finding their own potential. The argument, such as it is, is replete with the usual portentous gibberish about “inner cores,” “core essence,” “voyages of self-discovery , “ and “finding oneself.” I confess I find it very hard to take seriously anyone who uses the words “voyage” or “journey,” other than to refer to physical movement from geographical Point A to geographical Point B. And as to self-discovery, I recall going to Morocco in 1987 in order to “find myself,” only to come to the startling conclusion that I had known where I was all the time, located in

Image via Wikipedia There’s only one absolute way I know of to keep your Christian growth from becoming stagnant , and that is to die. The only time Christian growth stops altogether is at death. That’s because we don’t need to grow any further; we’re ushered into the state of glorification. If a person is in Christ and Christ is in that person, it is impossible for the Christian not to move, to grow. It may seem at times as if our Christian growth has been totally arrested and is in a stagnant state, but I think that’s merely an outward appearance. Obviously our Christian growth can move at various speeds, and we tend to have a kind of ebb and flow. Sometimes we’re moving ahead in leaps and bounds and other times at a snail’s pace. When it’s moving in such a laboriously slow fashion, we may think that it has become utterly stagnant. Again, if there is no evidence of growth whatsoever then I would say it’s time to examine our souls and our hearts to see if we’re in Christ at all be