sensitive subjects

There’s  more from Malachi this coming Sunday morning.

Someone was asking why my focus the other week had been on the failure of the people of God to give due weight to the ‘spiritual pedigree’ of the person they chose as their spouse.

Why pick on that particular issue? the individual asked. Are there not a lot of other issues you could have addressed? Like the materialism and greed that’s rife? Why didn’t you preach on that, instead of a sensitive subject such as who a Christian marries?

My answer was three-fold -

1. I preach what’s in the text of Scripture. Since it happened to be this bit of Malachi we were looking at as we worked through the book which bears his name, and since this is the issue which Malachi addresses, I don’t really have an option.

I preach what’s there in the Scripture: I don’t have either the liberty or the luxury of skipping over awkward bits of Scripture on the basis that the material touches on sensitive issues.

2. What’s sensitive varies from one person to another. Who you married may be a touchy subject for you (and perhaps not at all a sensitive subject for someone else); while the issue of materialism and greed may touch a  lot of raw nerves for someone else (and seem perfectly ‘safe’ a theme so far as you’re concerned).

In other words, there’s not  an issue I  might be addressing which is not going to be a ‘sensitive’ subject (often very ‘sensitive’ because it’s so very close to the bone) for someone. God does have a habit of wisely putting his finger right on the issues which need to be addressed. To require of the preacher that he treads on nobody’s toes and is  careful to touch no raw nerves is to neuter the gospel.

3. Hang in there with Malachi for another Sunday. Because what we do with our money, and how we steward our money, is the issue the man’s addressing in the passage we’ll be looking at this coming Sunday morning. You want something on materialism and greed? Well, strange to say, that’s there on the menu this coming Sunday. And there may well be folk who’re left feeling that this is touching some pretty raw nerves in their lives.

In other words, if you expose yourself regularly (week by week) to the preaching of God’s Word, you can be pretty sure that most of the issues you could think of will be being addressed. The gospel embraces all of life.

* **

This coming Sunday, then, sees our current preacher, Malachi, addressing the issue of giving. It’s as if this guy knows with uncanny insight exactly the issues which are crucial in our present congregational life.

As background reading in the lead upto Sunday coming, then, take a  look at Paul’s extended treatment of the theme in his letter to the church at Corinth. Here today is how he starts.

2 Corinthians 8

¹And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. ² Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. ³ For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, ⁴ they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints.

⁵ And they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God’s will. ⁶ So we urged Titus, since he had earlier made a beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part. ⁷ But just as you excel in everything— in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us— see that you also excel in this grace of giving.

⁸ I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. ⁹ For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

There’s lots which might be said about this, but it’s helpful, perhaps, to note how this exhortation to excel in this grace of giving is ‘bookended’ by reference, first, to the remarkable generosity of the Macedonian churches [effected in their hearts and lives by the grace of God], and then, secondly, and more significantly still, to the supremely generous and uniquely sacrificial ‘grace’ of giving displayed by the Lord Jesus.

The wealthiest Person in all the universe simply emptied his pockets, blew his whole spiritual bank account on us, impoverished himself beyond recognition – to make us rich.

Astonishing.

You know that grace of the Lord Jesus. Well, do we? Maybe we know it as a theological doctrine. Do we know it as away of life?

Paul seems to suggest that if we really know the grace of the Lord Jesus, we will ourselves excel in this grace of giving.

gospel people

After the wedding I conducted on Saturday past one of the guests approached me.

“Thank you,” he said.

(Isn’t it great when people take time, and go out of their way somehow simply to say a ‘thank you’?)

The man knew the bride from a good many years back.

“She worshipped with us,” he went on.“But when she returned to Scotland, we weren’t quite sure what she’d be going to.”

He was Welsh. I’d have gathered that from the accent, though he told me that from the start.

I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by the uncertainty he’d expressed. But I soon found out.

“I’m so pleased to find that the gospel’s still being preached in Scotland,” he explained.

It’s interesting the perspective that others have. They’ve seen and heard enough about this land (which once was known as ‘the land of the book’) to have no great confidence that it would be the gospel that this friend would be hearing when she’d returned, those years back, to Scotland.

A couple of reflections on that brief encounter stand out.

The first was the ease with which I could tell from the start that this was a man who loved the Lord Jesus. I could tell it in his very eyes, in his manner, everything. Strange, in some ways, how without even having to open his mouth, far less actually explaining that he was a Christian, within my own spirit, through the Holy Spirit, I recognised a kindred spirit.

I narrated that little episode at last night’s service, in touching on the note which Luke gives that at Puteoli “we found some brothers” [Acts 28.14]: have you ever wondered just how they found these brothers? There’s a dimension of ‘recognition’ which the Holy Spirit gives whereby we readily ‘find’ such kindred spirits.

The other reflection is this – that even in a marriage service, it will be evident to an outsider immediately whether or not a church is a’gospel’ church: that’s to  say, a church  where the gospel of God’s saving grace through the costly, sacrifical death of Jesus, is proclaimed and where Jesus is known personally, served eagerly, and proclaimed constantly.

Every part of such a church’s life will breathe, and be infused with the message of the gospel. That’s how it should be.

And not just with church’s but with every individual who knows and loves the Lord. In our homes, at our work, everywhere – in all that we’re doing, it will surely be more and more evident that we are ‘gospel’ people.

The gospel is anything but just a ‘Sunday’ sort of thing.

More from Malachi

It’s been a busy week again, I’m afraid!

So without more ado, here’s tomorrow’s reading in Malachi.

Malachi 2

¹⁷ You have wearied the LORD with your words. How have we wearied him? you ask. By saying, All who do evil are good in the eyes of the LORD, and he is pleased with them or Where is the God of justice?

Malachi 3

¹ See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come, says the LORD Almighty.

² But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. ³ He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, ⁴ and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.

⁵ So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud labourers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me, says the LORD Almighty.

A lot of what this man says sounds quite tough! He was plain speaking, for sure. But he was also pretty positive, too: and we need to learn to see that.

Malachi on marriage – why grace is always the bottom line

I spent the large part of Monday evening working through with someone the substance of what had been said on Sunday morning past.

Or what had been heard. Since the two are often not exactly the same.

‘Spiritual acoustics’ are a strange and striking phenomenon. What you hear depends a lot on where exactly you’re sitting; or where, to put it slightly differently, you’re coming from. It’s not so much that we choose to hear what we want to hear  – though that does sometimes happen: it’s more that how we hear what’s being said is affected, at least to some extent, by our own particular circumstances.

That’s where ‘distortion’ (whereby what’s heard is different from what was actually said) can easily creep in: and that’s why it’s helpful to work the thing through on, ideally, a one-to-one basis.

Sunday morning’s message was a case in point.

The principle Malachi preaches is clear enough. If your life is centred on Jesus, you’ll want to make sure that the person you choose to marry is centred  on Jesus as well.

That certainly is the consistent teaching of Scripture, and (quite apart from the teaching of Scripture) it makes a lot of sense.

A couple contemplating marriage, however different they well may be in all sorts of ways, will want to be sure they’re travelling in the same direction, seeking the same goals, building on the same foundations, revolving around the same ‘centre’, embracing the same values, pursuing the same priorities, and able to share fully with one another the deepest things of their hearts.

That last paragraph is as much common sense, of course, as it is Christian truth. But all of that basic ‘common sense’ is buttressed yet further, for those who love Christ, by the arguments Scripture sets forth in insisting that this is, indeed, both the way and the will of the Lord for his people.

Those arguments are at least three-fold.

First, we honour the Lord, who has pledged to his people his radical, covenant  love – we honour our Lord by resolving to take for our spouse a person who honours his Lordship as well.

Second, we honour our brothers and sisters in Christ, and the costly commitment they’ve made to pursue in their lives the glory of Jesus alone – we honour their commitment when we make it clear in who our choice of spouse will be that that sort of ‘spiritual pedigree’ counts for really everything.

And, third, we honour the coming generation, when our children grow up so very aware that their parents have rooted their love, and their home, and the whole of their family life in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, as I say, the principle Malachi preaches is clear enough. If your life is centred on Jesus, you’ll want to make sure that the person you choose to marry is centred  on Jesus as well.

It’s  not by any means an easy truth and it’s sometimes very challenging. But it is both clear and consistent, and it does make some sort of sense.

It’s with the pastoral applications, and perhaps more particularly the pastoral implications, that the problems lie. And it’s here that the ‘spiritual acoustics’ invariably come into play. This is the point at which where you happen to be sitting makes a difference in terms of just how you hear what’s being said.

There’s a (metaphorical) block of people, for instance, sitting in perhaps the most ‘comfortable’ seats (ie the least uncomfortable seats – pews are a physical reminder that sitting under the Word of God is never a comfortable experience for anyone!): they’re those whose spouse shares the same commitment to Christ as they do.

Malachi’s message makes sense,  of course, to them, and they gladly affirm the principle Malachi preaches. They may have their marital problems – no couple doesn’t – but those problems are not made more complex by their standing in two separate places.

Then there’s a (metaphorical) block of other individuals, who are not, or not yet, married. Most of them are probably young (or younger rather than older). This message Malachi preaches may well be a hard one to bear, for some at least: the summons to follow the Lord they may suddenly find to be costly in what it involves. But hard though the message may be, it’s a  message they need to be hearing – and they need (and, in hindsight at least, they will probably also be glad) to be hearing it now instead of some time later in their lives.

But what about that other (metaphorical) block of Christian people who are sitting in the hardest ‘pews’ of all? Those who are married to someone who isn’t a Christian. How are they left feeling? What have they been hearing as they’ve listened in on Malachi like this?

It isn’t hard to guess.

But I don’t even have to guess. People here are thankfully honest enough to express how they feel, to explain what they heard, and the consequent struggles they’ve had. And they do so very graciously as well.

Feelings of failure, and a sense of despair. That’s how they’re left.

It sounds like they’ve blown it: it sounds as if a marriage which they treasure (and a spouse whom they rightly both cherish and love) is being coldly and cruelly simply ‘written off’ as useless, sinful refuse in the eyes of God.

And how does that make a sensitive Christian person feel if not wretched, angry, confused (and a few other adjectives, too)?

That isn’t, of course, what was actually said: but it is what was heard.

It’s helpful to have the principle clear. Obviously. That enables informed and wise decisions on our part.

But most of the time, and in most of our lives, the situation isn’t just as simple and straightforward as we might wish it were.

And the pastoral line that the Lord himself takes is always to have us start asking – how do I now take my present situation forward in a way that best honours the Lord?

Whether or not this is where I should be at, the fact of the matter is that this is my present situation. How do I take it forward from here in a way that best honours the Lord?

Remember how Jesus responded when his disciples played the blame game with  the man born blind? Whose sin led to this? they asked.

But Jesus was having none of that line. That sort of question will get you precisely nowhere, he pretty much said. Rather, whatever the reasons, this is where he is at: how do we best take this forward from here in a way that will glorify God?

That’s how these issues are pastorally handled. How do I take it on from here in a way that best honours God?

There are, plainly, various reasons why Christians are in this sort of situation.

It happens often upon conversion, for instance. A person, already married, becomes a Christian while their spouse takes no such step. Here a Christian being married to a non-Christian is clearly the consequence of a deliberate, and often difficult, step of faith.

That sort of situation was common in the days of the early church – and is becoming increasingly common again today. And it’s one which is helpfully addressed by both Peter (1 Pet.3.1-8) and Paul (1 Cor.7.12-24).

How do you take things forward in that situation in a way which honours the Lord? Well, you love your spouse with a Christ-like love, and seek by the grace of God to give your spouse a sense of the sheer vibrant beauty of Christ’s holy person and presence. Your coming to faith is a first and a wonderful move on the part of the life-giving God: who knows what his next move will be, and where that next move will lead? Perhaps to your spouse’s conversion!

Sometimes, though, the situation has arisen simply because a Christian didn’t know any better.

One thing which stands out a mile from Sunday morning’s message, and the comments that have come my way since then, is that much of the principle Malachi preached is news to a great many folk. No one had ever told them these things before. Here, for instance, is what one correspondent wrote -

“I grew up listening to my father and others preach on subjects like that – and as a youngster it was so foundational for me and so many others.  It is so long since I had heard it…”

‘It is so long since I had heard it ….’   If anyone should have felt guilty in the light of Sunday’s word, then on that basis it was surely the likes of me, for failing adequately and often enough to teach these things and work them through with our people.

In that sort of situation, any disobedience to the word of God has been unwitting through an ignorance of what the Scriptures teach.

Does that mean your situation is hopeless? Of course not! We simply acknowledge our sin in humble and grateful faith before God, and rejoice in a merciful, sovereign God who is not only pleased to forgive, but is able as well marvelously to work all things together for good – even our sin.

And I mean that. Not just God somehow patching it up and making the best of a rather bad job: but God amazingly taking that whole situation and turning it into a platform from which he accomplishes more than perhaps we could ever have dreamed was possible.

He is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think. And our honouring him and exercising faith in that sort of situation involves trusting that that is indeed what he’ll do. It may well be costly for us, in all sorts of ways. But the God of grace does glorious things in us, through us, and for us! Rejoice in such a God – and enjoy that glorious grace!

But it may have been something both wilful and witting on our part which sees us in the marriage that we’re in. We knew what the Scriptures taught, but perhaps chose simply to ignore it, excuse ourselves from it, or somehow explain it away. We thought we knew better on this than God, and put our romantic desires before his revealed decrees.

That’s a different scenario again: but only because it’s deliberate. The way we take it on from there remains the same. Namely, the three Rs.

Repentance, first of all: honestly, openly, wholly confessing our sin, and laying that sin at the cross of Christ and embracing the grace of God’s full and complete forgiveness.

Nothing is held against us any more when our sin is laid at the cross. We will still have to live with the tensions (and frustrations, doubtless, too) there are in a marriage like that, but it does not mean you may not know the favour of your gracious God upon your life and home – and upon your marriage, too.

Then a steady resolve in moving on into the future from here – a steady and heartfelt resolve to be all the more careful of seeking the honour of God in all that you are and do. Marvelling that those mercies of God are new towards us every day, cherish in your heart a grateful zeal for the glory of God in your life. Learn to love your spouse the way your gracious Lord has first loved you. And see the difference that may make in your marriage – and the change that may well be wrought in your spouse.

And above all rejoice in the goodness and grace of the Lord. Amazing grace, transforming grace, renewing grace. Grace which somehow restores to us ‘the years that the wasting locust has eaten’ (Joel 2.25). Grace which is able to ‘build you again, and again you will be rebuilt, O Virgin Israel’ (Jer.31.4).

Grace which gives us a future. Rejoice in that assurance. Always.

does it really matter who I marry?

The cat was set among the pigeons just abit on Sunday morning, I fear, judging by reactions to the passage in Malachi 2.10-16 which we were studying. Not least in regard to what Malachi underlines about the need for ‘faithfulness’ in the choice of a spouse, the need to be consciously careful about the ‘spritual pedigree’ of our life partner.

In explaining the passage I mentioned that Malachi was not alone in the burden that lay on his heart. He as the prophet preached on this issue: Nehemiah the governor prescribed in relation to this issue: and Ezra the priest prayed about this issue.

Take some time this week, therefore, to listen in to Ezra at prayer in relation to precisely this issue. Here’s the background -

Ezra 9

¹After these things had been done, the leaders came to me and said, The people of Israel, including the priests and the Levites, have not kept themselves separate from the neighbouring peoples with their detestable practices, like those of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians and Amorites. ² They have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, and have mingled the holy race with the peoples around them. And the leaders and officials have led the way in this unfaithfulness.

³ When I heard this, I tore my tunic and cloak, pulled hair from my head and beard and sat down appalled. ⁴ Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel gathered round me because of this unfaithfulness of the exiles. And I sat there appalled until the evening sacrifice.

Ezra calls it ‘unfaithfulness’. Malachi speaks ofthe people ‘breaking faith’. It’s the same thing. And the way in which Ezra reacted to the ease with which these people were ready to marry those who were not devout believers in the Lord makes it clear, surely, that this was (and is) a matter of no small moment.

faith not feelings

Malachi didn’t duck the awkward issues, that’s for sure!

He could have chosen an easier job than a prophet (if he’d had the choice – which prophets, of course, don’t): and he could have chosen an easier theme (if he’d had the choice: but that’s the thing with prophets, they don’t get to choose either their vocation or their message).

The people of God had got woolly in their thinking when it came to marriage.

Their feelings had taken over (at least in this area of their lives) and had become for them the arbiter of right and wrong. It feels so good it must be right.

Have you noticed how the language of ‘feelings’ has come to the fore in the way people speak and in how they make their decisions? With Christians as much as others throughout our society today.

My feeling is that …

It felt like God was saying …

I feel we should be …

I’ve felt for a while that …

What we say is often a good enough guide as to where we’re at. And this (the language of ‘feeling’) is a worrying trend. Because feelings are notoriously volatile, and no real guide at all as to what is actually right.

It’s nothing particularly new, of course. Malachi faced much the same.

God’s way of doing things, set out with no small clarity in the Scriptures he had given, was trumped by how they ‘felt’. And as a result they got it all wrong. Hence the need for God’s resident prophet, Malachi, and some more of his hard-hitting words.

Malachi 2

¹⁰ Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by breaking faith with one another?

¹¹ Judah has broken faith. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the LORD loves, by marrying the daughter of a foreign god. ¹² As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the LORD cut him off from the tents of Jacob— even though he brings offerings to the LORD Almighty.

¹³ Another thing you do: You flood the LORD’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands.

¹⁴ You ask, Why? It is because the LORD is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. ¹⁵ Has not the LORD made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.

¹⁶ I hate divorce, says the LORD God of Israel, and I hate a man’s covering himself with violence as well as with his garment, says the LORD Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith.

It’s sensitive ground on which we’ll be travelling, this coming Sunday morning. It will be all too easy to hurt a lot of feelings. But Malachi, Ezra and Nehemiah all tackled this same central issue head on.

And so must I. I trust it will be with a lot of grace, with a lot of gentle care and understanding, with a lot of hope and encouragement, to balance the necessary challenge.

But I don’t get to choose as to whether I duck the issue or not! The choice isn’t mine.

The issue was never their feelings. The issue was to do with their faithfulness. And that, in the end of the day, is what God’s people are called to display.

Faith: we’re called to be full of faith.

praying together

There’s a famous ‘aphorism’ which runs like this -

Seven days without prayer makes one weak.

It’s a reality as true, of course, for a local congregation as it is for an individual. And it’s one at which we’re continually having to work: we agree with the thing in theory- it’s the task of translating the theory into the practice of our congregational life which is always the challenge.

We’ve figured that whatever the final picture looks like in a congregation’s life, the four ‘corners’ of the jig-saw (and sometimes it seems like a real puzzle trying to put the bits together!) are these.

1. We need to develop personal prayer. People will never begin to be comfortable with corporate prayer, if they’re not really praying themselves. We have to teach our people to pray before we can help and encourage them to be praying together.

2. We need to ensure our people are joining to pray over very specific issues together. When Esther was faced with the challenge of risking her life by going before the king, she made sure that people were praying: all of them, wherever they were, joining to pray about this one particular thing.

Esther 4

¹When Mordecai learned of all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the city, wailing loudly and bitterly. ² But he went only as far as the king’s gate, because no-one clothed in sackcloth was allowed to enter it. ³ In every province to which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes.

⁴ When Esther’s maids and eunuchs came and told her about Mordecai, she was in great distress. She sent clothes for him to put on instead of his sackcloth, but he would not accept them. ⁵ Then Esther summoned Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs assigned to attend her, and ordered him to find out what was troubling Mordecai and why.

⁶ So Hathach went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate. ⁷ Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him, including the exact amount of money Haman had promised to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews. ⁸ He also gave him a copy of the text of the edict for their annihilation, which had been published in Susa, to show to Esther and explain it to her, and he told him to urge her to go into the king’s presence to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people.

⁹Hathach went back and reported to Esther what Mordecai had said. ¹⁰ Then she instructed him to say to Mordecai, ¹¹ All the king’s officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that he be put to death. The only exception to this is for the king to extend the gold sceptre to him and spare his life. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king.

¹² When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai, ¹³ he sent back this answer: Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. ¹⁴ For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?

¹⁵ Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: ¹⁶ Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish. ¹⁷ So Mordecai went away and carried out all of Esther’s instructions.

Not just all of God’s people praying: but all of them praying together about this one particular issue.

3.  We need to set time aside to come together to pray. That, after all, is what the early church seemed to make a regular point of doing: for our physically coming together, and agreeing together in prayer, is a powerful expression of that oneness for which our Saviour died.

Acts 1

¹²Then they returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city. ¹³ When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. ¹⁴ They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

Acts 2

¹ When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.

So – not just allof God’s people praying: and not just all  of God’s people praying through specific issues together: but all of God’s people coming together to pray and to sound out together their heartfelt requests to God, their Father in heaven.

4. We need to avoid over-crowding people’s diaires. One of the great besetting sins of good and godly Christian folk is our capacity to fill up the nights of each week with good and godly Christian meetings.

Sunday worship is primary. We’ve seen here, as well, the value and importance of small (discipling) groups. Leaders, and all sorts of others involved in ministry, often have at least one other evening through the week (at least) taken up with some sort of meeting. And before you know it,  when you factor in these times of congregational prayer, the bulk of each week has been ‘spoken for’ already!

So we want to be careful in striking the right sort of balance.

But these are surely the four crucial ‘corner-pieces’ every congregation has to set in place – whatever the final picture of that congregational life will look like.