Christian Concepts

Bringing your Potential to Light

Identity

God is Making You Whole

by 1 Comment

What might you have in common with Spider-Man’s enemy, Sandman? Sandman had a broken heart and then through a freak accident, his body became broken too. If you haven’t seen Spider-Man 3 from 2007, catch a clip showing the birth of Sandman if it is still available.

Watching Sandman pull himself together will tug at your heart. He is sad and beat down by the difficulties of life. But sitting in the pieces of his life, he becomes aware of his reason to live.

When you have a mess of challenges to overcome, life can feel sad and slow. You might be saying to yourself, life can’t get any worse. But then it does.

You might feel like you're falling apart. Don't give up. God is making you whole. There is a power at work within the members of your body. Click To Tweet

and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,

Ephesian 1:19-20

Life has a way of pulling you apart at the seams. However, even if you feel completely disintegrated, God is always working to make you new. You don’t have to pull yourself together, although, you have no choice but to wait as God stitches you together.

Even when you feel weak and are spread thin, God’s power is at work. God knows where every part is. He is pulling you together with His great might.

When is God going to do this in your life? He’s doing it now. The first step to wholeness is to take inventory of how you feel spread into little pieces. You must feel the pieces

In what ways is your life in pieces? Visualize this.

Now, see the pieces coming together. What do you see?

No matter how broken you started, or how excruciatingly slow it seems God is working, God is making you whole. You are valuable to God and by His presence you are whole.

Christ is risen! And if you died with Him, so shall you also be raised with Him (Romans 6:5).

Image by Kuradomova from Pixabay

Your Pain Will Guide You

by Leave a Comment

You might see another person receiving significant attention and adoration from others. Or others are promoted ahead of you. Or others are pregnant for the second time while you’ve been trying for years. God is working in others’ lives, but He doesn’t appear to be working in your life.

That’s painful. Let it register as such.

It’s easy to become immobilized by doubt when others appear to have God’s favor while you seem to be invisible to God.

To become unstuck, you need to enter fully into your pain. Let your heaviness of heart guide you. If you’re not in touch with your feelings, you won’t be able to wake up to God’s reality for your life.

How in touch are you with your hunger? What does your soul ache for? Do you want more relationship? more peace? meaningful work? kingdom work? more healing?

It’s easy to deny the ache. Like in the movie The Matrix you can think you know reality, but be nearly oblivious to the true condition of your soul.

Hunger is scary. Hunger is so scary that I hide it from my awareness. When I’m not coping well, I cling to anything I can find to stop the pain. I lose touch with the condition of my soul. Then I experience shock when I reconnect. It’s easy to do.

Listen to the aches. They speak from a deeper reality. They speak out answers to life. To identify your suffering is to know a new kind of freedom. You will gain freedom from the ambiguity in life. Finally, you recognize the value of pain. What was once an intolerable distraction becomes a faithful guide.

Hind’s Feet on High Places is an excellent book for those times of unbearable confusion. You feel discouraged. Then, just when you adjust to your discomfort and believe it can’t get any worse, God suggests that you lean further into your pain and carry your cross.

God has a purpose for your pain.

As a counselor, I like to think I have some answers to life’s problems. However, I’m not at my best when I’m focused primarily on finding clever solutions. I’m more helpful when I provide support that allows my clients to stay connected to their pain. If they can achieve contact with their aching soul, they might not cease to suffer, but they will find the strength to endure and other side-effects like clarity, peace, and a path forward.

How are you doing with connecting to your pain? Do you allow others to support you as you stay connected?

—Image by Joe Murphy from Pixabay

3 Steps to Overcoming Shame

by 1 Comment

Shame is the inability to tolerate being known.

Before you can share yourself with others, you must first be willing to know yourself.

There’s no end to being known. Every day is new. Every day brings more ways you can know and be known.

Being willing to be known is a discipline. Sometimes the cost of being known isn’t worth the reward. Hiding seems better than facing the humiliation of being known. There are times when you won’t be ready for the exposure. That’s okay temporarily.

The more you hide, the more you remain hidden even from yourself. It’s not that you’ve forgotten who you are, but more like you’ve never given yourself a chance to understand who you are.

But hiding in shame isn’t really an option for the Christian. God won’t let you hide forever. You are salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16). He calls each one of us out of hiding and into a relationship with Him, others, and our self.

The antidote to shame is being authentic. I have three practical steps you can take to practice the discipline of being known. Each step has an element of taking in (receiving) and an element of letting go (expressing).

Step 1: Study and Journal

If you struggle to tolerate being known, the least risky way to begin is keeping a private journal. Make time to write consistently. As you journal and reread your writing, you begin to see yourself from an outside perspective.

What should you write about? Read the Bible and other helpful materials that teach you who you are. Then write about what the truths stir up in your heart.

Step 2: Confide in One Person

Choose a trusted person and begin to share verbally. Practice putting into words what you’re feeling inside, entrusting your private life to another. Receive their acceptance and care.

Remember that God is a person too. Pay attention to how He speaks to you whether directly or indirectly through others.

Step 3: Share Publically and Discriminantly

Now transition to sharing with everyone you know. This doesn’t mean being an open book to everyone. Healthy people discriminate how much they share to each person. However, as you heal, you should be able to share more freely with more people.

The more you know the truth about yourself, the more you’ll know how you can contribute to others. You don’t always have to receive; eventually, you’ll know what you can give back.

Shame is difficult to overcome. It’s easy to fear the unknown. And it’s ten times harder when that unknown is you.

Where are you on your journey to overcoming shame?

You May Be Suffering Needlessly

by Leave a Comment

If I told you I am suffering needlessly, what adjectives would you use to describe me?

Everybody suffers. Some suffering is necessary while other suffering is needless.

Here is one way to define a balanced, healthy love:

Love does not suffer needlessly but neither does it run from suffering when running would be a denial of love. A loving person walks away from harm when possible and stays and faces harm when that is the only way to be loving.

Emilie Calabrese
Necessary suffering is God-ordained while needless suffering is self-inflicted. Click To Tweet

Take a moment and reflect on your current suffering. Can you separate out which suffering is necessary and which is needless?

A mid-life crisis can involve coming face-to-face with the need to grow up. Instead of pressing forward, you decide to run away, refusing the opportunity for growth. Of course, then the only way to go is backward, so your behavior starts to look like your childhood and early adulthood.

Instead of crossing the emotional bridge, you remain “land-locked.”

Self-inflicted pain is really self-rejection, a form of learned helplessness. Share on Twitter

Self-inflicted pain can be anything from the literal cutting of your body to psychological put-downs such as, “I’m not enough” or “I’m disgusting.”

Learned helplessness is a cycle of defeat with no apparent escape. The bridge forward might be visible but might as well be invisible because the thought of crossing seems ridiculous.

Start the journey by being aware of how you are suffering needlessly.

Where will this bridge take you?

Is Emotion an Obstacle or a Bridge?

by 1 Comment

Whether emotion is a positive experience for you or a negative one, depends on your perspective, doesn’t it?

Everything has a purpose.

Rough, calloused hands and fingertips are a sign of hard work. Your body forms a protective layer while you get work done.

Notice the strong correlation between physical and emotional sensation.

In an emotionally risky environment, the natural thing to do is develop an emotionally protective layer. Some negative environments you can avoid completely. And you should. But other environments you can’t.

You can’t avoid all risky environments because there’s no heaven on earth.

Naturally everyone is going to have some emotional callous. Adam and Eve became overly defensive after the fall. Over-protection is a tendency we all have to work at overcoming.

You have an automatic defense system that sometimes malfunctions.

Sometimes your defensive system protects you so well that you don’t even know what it’s protecting. I’m lost; I don’t know who I am. At other times, you’re surprisingly vulnerable. Why am I flooded with emotion now?

Is emotion an obstacle or a bridge?

Emotion can always become a bridge to a better place. Sometime though, it’s an obstacle because you’re not ready to find out who you are deep down.

Join me on the journey to becoming alive.

Are You Trying to Solve a Problem You Don’t Need to Solve?

by Leave a Comment

If you’re afraid, do you know what you’re really afraid of?

What is normal can go unnoticed. Thoughts on autopilot can go unaware. You’ve invested in understanding the confusion and sadness you’re going through, but you might not even realize yet that it isn’t helping.

You’ve dedicated your brain’s full computing power. But, hmmm. What if all your efforts are unnecessary? What if there is a simpler solution?

Life doesn't have to make sense for you to have peace. Your understanding of your life situation is probably missing important pieces. God has those missing pieces. Click To Tweet

Proverbs 3:5 says to “lean not on your own understanding.” But Proverbs 3:13 says to “get understanding.” At first, this might seem like a contradiction. But God is not saying to avoid all understanding. He is saying your understanding is incomplete and you’ll gain His understanding as (or perhaps after) you walk in faith. The understanding often comes in hindsight.

Most people have heard of the serenity prayer. Even if you know it, read it anyway because you might need to apply it again in a new, fresh way.

God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Reinhold Niebuhr

That’s the short version. It continues:

Living one day at a time,
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;
taking, as Jesus did,
this sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it;
trusting that You will make all things right
if I surrender to Your will;
so that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.

Reinhold Niebuhr

There is a lot of wisdom there. Now, back to the beginning. What are you afraid of? What do you most need when you are overwhelmed? Are you trying to solve the right problem?