Lisa notes

Does this happen to you, too? You’re reading along in a good book, and the author mentions another book that also sounds promising. So you read that book. It’s good, too, and it leads you to another book. On and on.

The opposite happened when I read this book, The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You’ve Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended, by Sheila Wray Gregoire with Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach and Joanna Sawatsky.

This is a very good book about sex in Christian marriages. It mentions several books NOT to read, books that have gained great popularity in the Christian community, much to its demise, several of which I’ve read myself or have heard recommended, and I don’t want to read again. 

The author of The Great Sex Rescue did an extensive survey of Christian women to see which teachings in the popular books were helpful and which were harmful to relationships.

Harmful teachings included viewing sexual intimacy as primarily a physical release for husbands only. Wives in these books were taught they were to be sexually available only for their husbands’ pleasure, not also for their own pleasure (that’s just icing on the cake).

Gregoire says,

“In reading all of these bestselling Christian sex and marriage books, we found ourselves dumbfounded by how little is being asked of men.”

And if the wives didn’t totally cooperate when their husbands wanted them? Many of these books insinuate that the wives are guilty of running their men into the arms of other women or into pornography.

Why do these teachings become popular? One reason might be that:

“Sex has been taught primarily through a male lens, mostly by male authors and by male speakers at marriage conferences. Women’s experiences have been largely overlooked or ignored, while women are seen as tools to help men get what they want. That’s not Christian. That’s not of Jesus.”

But not all the books and teachings they researched were harmful. On the contrary, helpful teachings they found in Christian literature included framing intimate relationships as mutual and equally beneficial to both partners, both for physical pleasure and for emotional connectivity.

The positive books included this message:

“Sex is about both of you. Both of you should give and receive; both of you should feel loved and cherished.”

The bottom line of The Great Sex Rescue is that the best relationships involve mutuality in the bedroom, contrary to what Christian women are often taught in many of our most popular marriage books.

Gregoire speaks plainly and boldly in her message to the Christian community.

“What we’re saying in this book is that women do understand men. We know men need sex. Yelling louder about that won’t help. What we need now is for men to understand women. If men understood women’s need for intimacy and women’s need to experience pleasure, and if churches started talking about mutuality, we would awaken women’s libido and sexual response.”

The author invites the church to keep asking questions. To keep listening. To keep refining and creating more healthy resources for marital satisfaction for both partners.

If you want to see the books Gregoire does and doesn’t recommend without first reading The Great Sex Rescue (although I highly recommend you read it!), you can get an email copy of her scorecard by subscribing to her newsletter. The books she reviews (some good, some bad) include: Love & Respect; For Women Only; His Needs, Her Needs; Sacred Marriage; and more.

My thanks to NetGalley and Baker Books
for the review copy of this book

Sometimes we make things harder than they need to be. But with the right steps, we can learn to make life easier instead.

An Effortless Recommendation

I’m sitting in the recliner at home, scrolling through Twitter as the day winds down, somewhere between supper and bedtime.

I see a tweet from Daniel Pink. It shows his latest list of book recommendations. I always read his tweets, just like I always read his books and his emails.

5 Books About Making the World Better:

BIASED by Jennifer Eberhardt

CHANGE by @DamonCentola

THE POWER OF ETHICS by @SusanLiautaud

HUMANKIND by @rcbregman

BUILDING FOR EVERYONE by @Its_Me_AJB

https://t.co/B4aBbD8fe0

via @NextBigIdeaClub

— Daniel Pink (@DanielPink) February 16, 2021

I immediately read his list. These are books I’ll hunt down at my library and on NetGalley and add to my Evernote “To Read” folder.

Why? Because I trust Daniel Pink. He’s earned it through numerous positive connections between the books he recommends and the books I like.

Daniel Pink makes my life easier. He makes it effortless to know which new books to add to my to-read list.

Trying Too Hard?

Making life effortless is what Greg McKeown writes about in his newest release, Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most. (McKeown is also the author of the best-selling book Essentialiam: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. Read more about it here: You can’t do it all—choose less.)

In Effortless, McKeown focuses on making it easy to do what matters. He says we sometimes fail because we’re trying too hard. Instead, maybe we should “make the most essential activities the easiest ones.”

The book doesn’t give a one-size-fits-all answer, because what matters to you, to me, and to McKeown might be three different things. But the approach we use to arrive at that answer can be similar.

6 Tips to Make Life Easier

Here are 6 pieces of advice from McKeown to make life easier, among many in his book.

1. Make it a pair.

Reduce the lag time between the action and satisfaction by pairing an essential activity with a reward (such as, listening to a podcast only when you’re walking on the treadmill).

2. Create habit recipes.

“After [X] I will [Y].” For example, after I complain I will say something I am thankful for.

3. Create a “Done for the Day” list.

Only include on this list what constitutes meaningful and essential progress. Don’t make it a completion list, just a done-for-the day list.

4. Take the first obvious action.

Break projects down into their simplest parts. Too often we think of the first series of steps as the first step. Instead, find the true first step and start there.

5. Embrace the rubbish.

Don’t try to get everything exactly right the first time.

6. Grow a knowledge tree.

To repeat the residual results of knowledge, leverage what others know.

The Question to Ask

Tip #6 is what I do when I listen to Daniel Pink’s advice on what to read next. I leverage what he knows to effortlessly grow my own knowledge tree.

The book Effortless is full of more practical tips like these six. None are extreme or difficult, but are all designed to help us go the distance by choosing a lighter path.

McKeown ends the book with this takeaway:

“Life doesn’t have to be as hard and complicated as we make it. Ask yourself, “How am I making things harder than they need to be?” When you have your answer, you will know what to do next. It is as simple, it is as easy, as that.”

What are you making harder than it needs to be? Which of these 6 tips do you need the most? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Further Reading:

• How to Make and Keep Better Habits
• Put Success in Your Way
• Find Ways to be a Lazy Genius

My thanks to NetGalley and Crown
Publishing for the review copy of this book