Council of Counselors: Too Tired for Sex / Body-Soul Care / Life Expectancy / Unfair Parenting / Distracted Prayer

This is a weekly post that highlights resources from other counselors that I have found helpful. The counselors may be from the biblical counseling, Christian psychology, integration, or secular counseling traditions. By linking to a post, I am not giving it my full endorsement, I am merely indicating that I believe it made a unique contribution or raised an important subject for consideration.

When You’re Too Tired for Sex with Your Spouse by Lauren Lambert

Sex can be complicated to discuss because it’s personal and intimate. But I want to talk about a specific sexual struggle: the exhausted married woman who doesn’t feel like having sex with her husband, but should do it anyway. She doesn’t have complicating factors like marital abuse happening in her life. She doesn’t have sexual traumas making sex difficult for her. She’s just tired.

• For more guidance on this subject see my post “Initiating and Declining Sex Need Not Be Awkward or Upsetting” from “Creating a Gospel-Centered Marriage: Intimacy.“

Considering Body and Soul in Counseling: Psychotropic Medications by Sam Williams

Psychotropic medications are a sensitive topic; most people you talk to will have fairly strong opinions about whether or not they should be used in treating a host of life’s problems. In thinking about this, though, it’s helpful to take a step back and consider who we are as human persons. In doing so, this helps us understand where life issues fall on the spectrum between spiritual problems and physical problems. Once we understand where a particular issue falls on that spectrum, we can better assess the place that psychotropic medication may have for a given counselee.

• If you enjoyed this post and want more guidance consider my post “6 Steps to Wise Decision Making About Psychotropic Medications“

Life Expectancy Can Vary By 20 Years Depending On Where You Live by Rob Stein

New research documents significant disparities in the life spans of Americans depending on where they live. And those gaps appear to be widening, according to the research.

7 Ways Parents Unfairly Provoke Our Children by Tim Challies

Parents, do not provoke your children to anger lest they become discouraged, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” This single sentence combines the New Testament’s two most prominent passages on parenting and, as I said yesterday (see Fathers (and Mothers), Do Not Provoke Your Children!), offers a significant warning to parents: We can parent our children in such a way that we provoke them to anger and discouragement. There are times when we so provoke our children that anger is the fitting and inevitable response. Today I want to offer a few ways that we, as parents, may provoke our children to that kind of anger and discouragement.

• Here is a collection of my favorite posts on parenting.

7 Ways to Fight Distraction in Prayer by Gavin Ortlund

Distraction can be a huge hindrance in our prayer life, but I’m also discovering it provides an opportunity for growth. Here are seven strategies for fighting and harnessing distraction to deepen and direct our prayers.

• Here is a collection of my favorite posts on spiritual disciplines.

What I’m Reading

You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit by James K.A. Smith. Who and what we worship fundamentally shape our hearts. And while we desire to shape culture, we are not often aware of how culture shapes us. We might not realize the ways our hearts are being taught to love rival gods instead of the One for whom we were made. Smith helps readers recognize the formative power of culture and the transformative possibilities of Christian practices. He explains that worship is the “imagination station” that incubates our loves and longings so that our cultural endeavors are indexed toward God and his kingdom. This is why the church and worshiping in a local community of believers should be the hub and heart of Christian formation and discipleship.

Following the publication of his influential work Desiring the Kingdom, Smith received numerous requests from pastors and leaders for a more accessible version of that book’s content. No mere abridgment, this new book draws on years of Smith’s popular presentations on the ideas in Desiring the Kingdom to offer a fresh, bottom-up rearticulation. The author creatively uses film, literature, and music illustrations to engage readers and includes new material on marriage, family, youth ministry, and faith and work. He also suggests individual and communal practices for shaping the Christian life.

Tweets of the Week

Meaningful Meme

On the Lighter Side

Because, “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones,” Proverbs 17:22.

For the NBA fans out there.