A recent poll of 4,000 couples found that those spouses who described themselves as “very happy” tended to hug one another at least four times a day. Science has found many direct correlations between human touch and physical health…and I’m not even talking about actual sexual intercourse!  Just holding hands, hugs, a pat on the back, a hand on the arm or other touches like this have a great impact on our mental wellness, our health and the state of our relationships.

Studies have shown that people who don’t have physical touch don’t fair as well. Single people, who generally don’t get as much physical touch have more health problems, and babies in ICUs and people with chronic health conditions who get touched more heal faster and fair better.  We are not designed to be people who are never touched or held. We really do need to have it. See the following article on the connection between touch and the release of oxytocin.
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by Mark Gungor

Why does the Church seem to be so impotent today?

As I look at what we Evangelical Christians have accomplished over that last decades, I cannot help but be stunned at how far we have “dumbed down” the Christian message.  For the last fifty years, we have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on crusades, television and radio broadcasts, concerts and outreaches trying to get as many people as we possibly can to “believe” in Jesus.  We have told millions of people that if they just “acknowledge Jesus as their savior, they will be saved!”

Really??

We have convinced millions of people that all they needed to do was “repeat this prayer after me…” and Christ would transform them from the kingdom of this world to the Kingdom of our glorious God.  That “it doesn’t matter what you do – just believe”.  That once they let those magic words ooze over their tongue, push past their teeth and bubble over their lips, they would now would become real Christians.

Really???

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Guest Blogger-Diane Brierley, Co-Host of The Mark Gungor Show

Several times on the radio show, we have heard from wives who feel as if they have to be and do everything in their homes and are very upset because their husbands don’t help them. I call this the “Martha Complex”—where wives think they have to be “superwoman”.  Now, because Mark Gungor is not a woman and he is not a “Martha”, he asked me to give my perspective speaking as a “reformed” Martha!

We can start with the biblical example of Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42) when addressing women about this and see how Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus just listening to him while Martha was running around taking care of all that she thought needed to be done. Martha ends up getting mad because she’s doing all the work, and thinking Jesus will be on her side, asks Jesus to tell Mary to help her. But Jesus doesn’t do that. Instead, he tells Martha to chill out and leave Mary alone because she has chosen what is better–that which is more important. (The Gungor translation!)
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Many people have seen the 1999 movie The Matrix, starring Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne. It’s a really cool movie with all this action and cool special effects that most guys really love.  One of the great things about the movie is the theme of the “chosen one” or “messiah” coming to save the race—a theme common to lots of literature and movies because of it’s universal appeal to the human soul.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, or in case you have forgotten, the basic gist of the movie is that these humans think they are alive and carrying on their normal lives, but in reality, they are not actually living. They exist in cocoons where their bodies are used to generate energy to run the giant computer program that simulates their lives—the matrix. All they are doing is living a virtual life in their heads and the movie is about trying to break out of the matrix so they will live a real life, rather than the one generated in their minds by the computer.

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There is a very troubling phenomenon in churches today and it’s having a terrible and very destructive effect on marriages. Far too many couples are living on their own “islands” and are actually living a lie. Millions of Christians husbands and wives are experiencing struggles and trials in their marriages, yet they are going through life in isolation, refusing to tell anyone or to bring their pastor, their friends, or family into it. They come to church and go about their business acting like everything is just hunky-dory, when the reality is, they are miserable and going through hell. What on earth makes people think that they can just be dishonest and lie and pretend that nothing is wrong? They are deceiving others and they are lying—that is sin!  It sounds harsh, but it’s true!

Why are so many people lying when church community and family surround them? These are the people that we should go to, ask questions of, talk things out with, and get wisdom from so we can effectively handle the challenges of life. But instead, we end up being on an island. It’s just the two of us and all the stuff we’re dealing with.  We are playing Survivor and trying to see who gets voted off and who stays on the island—the problem is pretty soon we destroy our marriage in the process!

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