One Step from Stupid: Living Life with One Finger on the Dumb Button

By Pastor Larry J. Paxson

Finally, some sensible advice and caring encouragement when it comes to those who tend to give in to temptation and for those who suffer for their bad decision-making--Pastor Larry Paxson, a twenty-four-year veteran of relational Christian counseling, shares insights into the healing process.

There is so much confusion about why we do such dumb things even when we know it will crush a relationship or a loved one's heart. And the only excuses that are given over and over are, "I don't know why I did it," "I guess I just wasn't thinking," "it meant nothing to me," "I didn't mean to hurt anyone," "that is not who I am," "I would never hurt my significant other," but they do and did. They break hearts and end the trust that has been built over the years in the relationship. It is almost like they were listening to someone's whispers and were under their spell to do wrong. And the realization is, that is exactly what happened.

In this book, we will come to realize just how it happens and why. Reading this book could be the one thing that will keep your marriage together. One Step from Stupid: Living Life with One Finger on the Dumb Button is a must read for couples who are struggling in their relationships, for church counselors, and pastors who do Christian counseling. It is for anyone who accepts the challenge of trying to hold together a marriage or a relationship instead of following the way of our culture and just ending it. After all, it is so much easier than working on it, trying to make it better than it ever was before. Yes, it is possible for a complete healing of the relationship. We just need to know how. It is not from being one step from stupid and pushing the dumb button again and giving up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798889439479

Book preview

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One Step from Stupid

Living Life with One Finger on the Dumb Button

Pastor Larry J. Paxson

ISBN 979-8-88943-946-2 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88943-947-9 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Pastor Larry J. Paxson

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

New Living Translation (NLT)

Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Why? Why Did I Do That? Why Did I Let This Happen?

Chapter 2

A Fictional Example of Pushing the Dumb Button

Chapter 3

The Way It Used to Be or the Way It Has Always Been?

Chapter 4

My, Mr. One-Step-from-Stupid Cover Boy

Chapter 5

What Can I Say that Will Hurt Her the Most?

Chapter 6

Don't Blame Your Sordid Affair on My God

Chapter 7

How Do We Stop Falling into These Temptations?

Chapter 8

Who Am I to Communicate These Truths?

Chapter 9

Super Stupid and Scary to Boot—Know Anyone like That?

Chapter 10

This Will Never Happen to Me

Chapter 11

The Steps to Salvation—How Do We Get Saved?

Chapter 12

We Not Only Push the Dumb Button in Our Relationships

Chapter 13

Pushing the Dumb Button When We Should Have Done Something, and for No Good Reason We Don't Do It

About the Author

Chapter 1

Why? Why Did I Do That? Why Did I Let This Happen?

After decades of biblical and relational counseling, it amazes me how often I hear the very same statements repeatedly—statements like, I love him or her, but I am not in love with him or her anymore. What they are truly saying is, I want to play the field again. I want out of the relationship and the responsibility. I want out of the relationship because I am sure it's over with, and I want to be nice about it. I don't want to hurt my partner's feelings, and this is easier to say than saying, It's over. I don't love you anymore. I don't want people to think I was the one who pushed for the divorce or dissolution. Even if it was, I don't want to look like the bad guy that ended the relationship.

I hear it over and over again being put this way: I didn't want things to turn out this way. Why in the world did I do that? How could I let it happen to us? Or it was an innocent flirtation. Why is he or she so angry? It meant nothing to me. Or I loved my wife or husband, but I didn't realize how much I was hurting him or her. Or how did I know he was so in love with me that he couldn't forgive me if I made a little slipup? It was only once and only for a short time. If I would have thought for a minute that I was going to hurt her or him like that, it would have never happened.

Another fact that is true in almost every case I work with is that people who fall to temptation never really think it through. It is like they become brain-dead at that very moment. The temptation has taken over their mind and other parts of their bodies, if you know what I mean. The temptation is so great that nothing else matters. The lust of it all is in control. Even if they know that it is wrong, they do it anyway. Why?

It is the same with pornography. It is nearly a fifteen-billion-dollar-a-year business. Because a little is never enough, and the temptation is great, people just can't say no! To fill their new wants, needs, and desires is all they care about. After all, everyone is getting separated these days. It is not such a big deal. But it is! The temptation to just end the relationship for something new and exciting is too great and too easy to make happen. So why not? Everyone else is doing it. I have heard that excuse a thousand times.

In reality, it is a biblical truth. We see it at the last supper when Judas was sent to betray Jesus. He fell to the temptation of thirty pieces of silver, without a thought of what might happen to Jesus and His followers and to Himself. For many of you, the question you want answered is why? Why did this happen? Why did she or he do that? I have heard it put this way: Why did he throw twelve years of marriage away? He ended our whole marriage for a one-night stand with that girl half his age? How could he do that? Doesn't he care that the children are hurting? It is the question that is the hardest to understand. Did they go brain-dead? Doesn't he or she love us anymore?

That is the question I had to tackle in this book. Why? The truth is that I believe they do almost go brain-dead in a way. It is not an easy question to answer because everything that means anything to them, they are putting on the line for a forbidden moment of pleasure or to fulfill the temptation.

After many years of counseling and study, I have come to an answer. You may not agree with it, but it is true. The why truly has been with us our whole lives. The answer is temptation or the temptation to do evil. It is all about giving in to the temptations—right or wrong, evil or good—in our lives. (Temptation or being tempted means to be enticed to do wrong by the promise of pleasure or gain or to be tested in some way.)

The question comes up then: tested by whom? Who and why are we being tested? The answer has been with us since the beginning of time. It's no secret that Satan aims his arrows at families. In the garden of Eden, he disrupted the marriage of Adam and Eve. Keep in mind, it was the perfect marriage. But even though it was the perfect marriage, the temptation was too great for Eve, even though God made Eve for Adam, and they lived in the perfect world. There was no other option for Eve. She fell to the temptation of Satan the serpent.

Then in the very next chapter of the Bible, Satan's influence was so great that a brother killed a brother. We have all heard of Cain and Able. It wasn't the norm even then. What could entice a brother to kill his own brother no matter what? From that time on, the homes and the families and relationships of the innocent have been in Satan's sights. Here's why: ten truths about Satan.

Satan's desire in general is to destroy anything that is good that God has created.

That's just his nature. If God had granted him permission to do so, he would have killed Job, one of God's greatest believers and followers.

Satan wants to destroy the witness of our marriage.

Yes, a good marriage is a witness to all the people around us. Paul told us in Ephesians 5 that our marriages are a picture of the gospel. If the enemy destroys my marriage, then I can no longer model the gospel by loving my wife as Christ loves the church.

Satan hates our children.

He delights when our adult decisions affect our children by turning them against God and the church. Sometimes we become the enemy's tools to do that, especially if we are church attenders, when we follow Satan's ways more than God's. Yes, it is just that simple.

The enemy, Satan, wants to take out the primary place of disciple making.

The first place for making disciples is in the home, where parents are to disciple their children. When that home is messed up, the church's disciple-making work is only harder for all concerned, let alone the harm that comes to our children.

He wants to harm our witness.

Satan loses us from his kingdom when we follow Christ, but he doesn't back away; in fact, the battle only gets tougher. He can't rip us from God's kingdom by tempting us in a weak area of our lives, and he can't dim our light for the gospel, the truth of the Word of God. I read it like this on Facebook: It is hard to hear God's word speak to us when our Bibles are closed.

Satan strives to remove people from ministry.

I know that church leaders debate what sins disqualify certain people from ministry, but that argument is beside the point here. The bottom line is that Satan wants to destroy our homes so that we have nothing left for ministry. I had an opportunity to serve the Lord in the church that I was saved in. But because I had been divorced before, they felt I was unqualified because I would be easy on those who wanted divorce. The truth is just the opposite. I believe that was all part of Satan's lies they were listening to. Because the reality was just the opposite. I was tougher on people who wanted to divorce because I know how much pain it causes God's creation. I believe we can work things out, no matter how big the issues are in the relationships God blessed us with. Normally, people have a desire to end it rather than work for it. They listen to the whispers of the enemy and pride he created in our minds. I will never forgive what they did. When Jesus said we must forgive to be forgiven, it was so that we would know better.

Satan wants to redirect the church away from evangelism.

He will do whatever he can to keep us from taking the gospel to our nonbelieving neighbors and to our communities and the nations, including attacking our homes so much so that our pastors spend all their time trying to put out family fires and holding our families together. All the while, if you study Jesus's ministry here on earth, it was to bring as many of His creation to an understanding of who His Father is and a belief that Jesus Christ Himself is the Son of God the Father. Amen!

Satan always wants to hinder prayer.

Peter warned us that unhealthy marriages block our prayer channel (1 Peter 3:7). Satan will always aim to rob us of power by weakening our prayers. My current church just put out a study on pray first. After all my years of counsel, I cannot think of a more important thing to do in every circumstance of life. Always, always pray first.

He delights in scars he can attack later in life.

Our sinful choices often leave scars in our life and in the lives of our children. Satan doesn't miss opportunities to rip them open when he wants to later in our life. After all, he wants to control our emotions. That is who we were, not who we are today. Please don't forget that.

He wounds the entire church families when a home falls apart.

That's part of what it means to be a church; we all hurt when one hurts. Great