Christian Concepts

Bringing your Potential to Light

Self-Care

Box Your Concerns And Give Them To God

by Leave a Comment

The last few months have been especially stressful because of the various global crises we are all facing. In addition, each of us has our personal struggles. It’s overwhelming.

As Christians, we live between the truth that we will have trouble in this life and the truth that God comforts us during our struggles. Jesus had a lot to say to His disciples in the weeks before His death and resurrection.

A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me. I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

John 16:32-33 NIV

Jesus knew that even His closest followers would be disturbed by his capture and crucifixion. They lost it and deserted Jesus. But, He prepared them well by explaining everything ahead of time. More importantly, He sent the Great Comforter in His place.

What can you do when you feel stressed beyond your limits? If you don’t manage your feelings well, you’ll end up reaping destruction. If stress isn’t addressed in a healthy way, the stress stays on you and in you. Then your body can end up bearing the cost of the stress. Or, you can hurt others out of your anger.

Any extreme response to difficulty doesn’t help much and usually makes the situation worse. The extremes I’m talking about are either:

  1. Denial of the problem which requires complete isolation from the problem. This is over-compartmentalized.
  2. Over-reaction to the problem which inevitably involves retaliation instead of reconciliation. This is under-compartmentalized.

Both options miss the best approach which is to face the problem and embrace the problem at the right time and under the right circumstances. When people reconcile they can’t get everything they want. Most people would choose to erase the harm if that were possible. Since it isn’t, there has to be a way to work through it. The working through it involves both:

  1. Letting go of what has already happened. It can’t be changed. What’s done is done. This usually involves a lot of sadness.
  2. Taking steps forward to make needed changes that are reasonable for all involved. This might involve some anger. But it needs to be anger that motivates positive change.

Are you feeling overwhelmed? When I’m counseling others, I like to assign exercises that help people find the most direct way to grow emotionally and spiritually. Here is an exercise to try:

  1. Think of a concern you have.
  2. Now imagine a box big enough to hold it. Put your concern in the box. Close it up and label it with a description.
  3. Think about what remains. If you’re still concerned about something, go to step 1. If you sense everything is boxed up, move to step 4.
  4. Thank God you made it to step 4. Seriously! If you made it this far, then for the moment your life has some sanity.
  5. Ask yourself what is left. If your concerns are put aside, there’s probably some good things left. Thank God for the good things.
  6. Ask God to take the boxes for safe keeping. He might destroy some boxes. Others He will hand back to you at the right time so you can work through your healing. Then, at other times, God will give you a box of blessings.
  7. Acknowledge that God is in control. Approach the boxes of concern at a pace you can handle.

Hopefully, when you finished boxing up your concerns, you found the truth remaining. You are significant and loved.

How does it feel to have your concerns separated from the truth of who you are? Problems put into perspective aren’t as big as we imagine them to be. That’s because God is bigger than any problem you can imagine. God doesn’t fit in any box, but there’s always a box big enough for your concern.

Photo from: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/597668

Remember Your Past For A Healthy Present

by Leave a Comment

How does remembering your past help you today? Think of re-membering as bringing scattered parts together. It’s like gathering the parts of a jigsaw puzzle and assembling them together where they belong.

God wants you to see the whole picture of who you are.

I’m fascinated by my past. I’m not thinking of historical facts. I mean my psychological and emotional journey.

Do memories define who I am? Are memories real? Relevant? How did I get to where I am today?

How you first experience something has long-lasting implications. Your journey is, in many ways, a series of first-time experiences. To put the pieces of your life together, you must revisit your first-time experiences to create follow-on experiences.

Your relationship with your childhood memories can tell you a lot about yourself. Here are some questions you can use to explore your emotional health:

  • How do you feel about your childhood?
  • Do you feel like you are still a child?
  • Do you feel like you are stuck in your childhood?
  • Does childhood seem like it happened eons ago?
  • Do you feel extremely distant from childhood, almost like it was another lifetime?
  • Does childhood feel real to you or more like a fantasy?
  • Does childhood seem unimportant or highly relevant to you?
  • Do you remember a lot or a little?
  • How much was childhood the same or different every day?
  • What positive memories come to mind?
  • What negative memories come to mind?

Did you skim through these questions or did you pause on each one and give a real, in-depth answer? Are you willing to embrace your childhood or do you think you’d be happier if you never thought about it again?

Even if you considered only one of the questions, you’ve got a taste of what it’s like to move toward emotional health. You dipped your tow in the water. If you considered more than one, you might be swimming in a pool of emotional memories.

Like I said, memories are fascinating. They aren’t part of who you are. Yet, in another way, they are part of you. You’re not five years old anymore. But you might feel five years old sometimes.

Here are a few more questions for you to consider: In what ways do you feel the same, today, as you did when you were a young child? In what ways are you the same? In what ways are you different?

Life has a way of leading you away from being in touch with who you are. The pressures, demands, and trauma open a chasm between your performance and who you are. It’s possible to become so familiar with present-day performance that you forget what it’s like to enjoy life on your own terms.

Here are two more questions that should help you “pull yourself together.” What day would you most like to relive? Now, what new day do you imagine you would like to live in the near future?

In answering all these questions, look for two things. First, look for any infections: emotional wounds that haven’t fully healed. Second, look for peak experiences: emotional highs that give you energy.

If you’d like more practice at developing follow-on experiences, then you should try a book from my Journal Your Way series.

Your Struggle Is Related to Childhood

by Leave a Comment

Optical illusions are fun. They work because of your assumptions about reality. To some degree, you will perceive what you want to perceive. Sometimes that aligns with reality and sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, after you see past the illusion, it’s difficult to be tricked again.

Your consciousness is similar to an optical illusion. You have meaningful events buried beneath the surface. The significant events are rich with life lessons and strong feelings. As you intentionally uncover the significance of your history, it becomes harder to ignore, unless you are determined to avoid it.

Becoming in touch with your uncomfortable memories is helpful. This can seem counter-intuitive until you realize that to not be in touch with your history is to be in denial. What is distressing tends to stay buried, unless you are determined to be healthy.

As you probably know, there is a tension between wanting everything to just be okay and admitting everything isn’t okay.

Many of your childhood struggles continue to play out in your everyday interactions. You just don’t realize it unless you look intentionally. Without some prompting, it’s easy to leave pain buried. You might think you are better off leaving sleeping giants undisturbed.

A decade or two or three isn’t enough time to fully resolve life’s challenges. Chances are, whatever you struggled with as a child, you still struggle with today. Ideally, you struggle with it to a lesser degree. But there’s no shame in noticing you continue to struggle.

Everyone has to overcome their fear of inadequacy if they want to grow. Don’t be surprised and discouraged when you experience some of the same feelings you had during your younger years. Instead, see this as a positive sign that you are strong enough to take a clear look at how you are responding to life.

How you respond reveals a lot about yourself that you need to know if you want to continue healing. This works for both positive and negative emotions.

Positive emotions can tell you what you’ll naturally be drawn to. They can get you into a trap just as easily as negative ones if you’re not vigilant. For example, a person who notices they feel great when they win might be tempted to gamble for a chance to win big.

Negative emotions tell you what you want to avoid. They become a trap when they take center stage. For example, a person who fears competition might become so consumed with failure, that they avoid trying.

Spend time noticing what makes you exceptionally happy, sad, angry, or anxious. Then make connections with your earlier experiences. What themes do you see?

For those of you who made it this far, the picture that goes with today’s post contains an optical illusion. I found it on the internet. Apparently it was popular around 2014.

Surviving On The Fringe

by Leave a Comment

Are you on the fringe? Fringe means “to be on the outskirts.” That can be good or bad depending upon what it at the center.

Last week I wrote about feeling on the outskirts of God and what He is doing in the world. But what if we flip that around and define fringe as being on the outskirts of what the world is doing? Then being on the fringe would be a good thing.

Jesus lived on the fringe while He was on earth. The leaders at the time expected Him to join them in their agenda. But Jesus certainly lived as if not engrossed in the world:

What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.

1 Corinthians 7:29-31 NIV

If you find yourself depressed and anxious about what is happening in the world, maybe you are too deeply engrossed? What is too engrossed? This means living as if this life is all there is. If it were all there is, you’d have to put your full hope in it. You’d have no other choice.

If you are holding too tightly to this world, you’re going to feel discouraged. You’re going to be worried because this world in its present form is passing away. But, there is another option besides hoping in this world.

If you are in Christ, you are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). God has separated you out from this world. He’s brought you to the fringe. He’s sent you into the world to help it, not to be engrossed in it (1).

Don’t love the world or anything that belongs to the world. If you love the world, you cannot love the Father. Our foolish pride comes from this world, and so do our selfish desires and our desire to have everything we see. None of this comes from the Father. The world and the desires it causes are disappearing. But if we obey God, we will live forever.

1 John 2:15-17 CEV

Jesus had no place to lay His head (Luke 9:58). Of course, this doesn’t mean that He never slept lying down. It means He didn’t ever settle down as if this was His permanent home.

Sure – it’s okay to own a home and live in it. More important that where you live is how attached you are to your life in this world. It’s impossible to be completely satisfied with this world. If you try to find your life somewhere in the world, you will feel empty and disappointed.

But if you join Jesus at the fringe, you will find your life and you’ll be in good company. You can be on the fringe and not feel lonely.

If you’ve been engrossed in the world, it takes time to detach from it. At some point you have to let go of the world.

Have you ever lost something and become focused on finding it? What if you can’t find it? Eventually you have to move on. If you spend your life consumed with what you’ve lost, your life will be compromised. It won’t be all it could be.

Imagine what it feels like to let go of what you’ve lost and move on. That’s what you need to do with the world. The world isn’t as great as you thought it was. That’s good or bad depending upon how you look at it. If you can give up on finding your ultimate happiness in it, you’ll end up content and peaceful.

(1) https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/lets-revise-the-popular-phrase-in-but-not-of
Image by Paul Brennan from Pixabay

How To Grow More Confident

by Leave a Comment

When I go running for more than a few minutes, my focus changes. As fatigue sets in, I have to motivate myself to keep going. I become more aware of the finish line. How much farther do I have to go? Will I be able to make it without stopping?

How in touch are you with how you are doing emotionally? What if I told you there is an easy way to find out and build your endurance and confidence at the same time?

When I become fatigued while running, it’s nearly impossible to not notice the strain on my body. But what is more interesting is how my physical health and my emotional health surface together.

God made our brains to store similar experiences together. Running triggers my brain to focus on the theme of whatever is desperately concerning me. When my body protests because of the physical strain, my brain brings into my awareness my most serious emotional concerns. I become flooded with what matters most to me.

To grow in endurance, you have to test your limits. The testing identifies weak areas that need strengthening. Growth is stressful, usually requiring an upfront investment for a future payoff. Growth costs you your immediate state of relaxation.

But the stress is worth the reward because God gives us so much when we trust Him.

Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory. We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

Romans 5:1-5 NLT

God is saying your problems and trials lead to a satisfying, secure, and confident hope. The development of character is the proof of your salvation–your entrance into heaven and eternal life.

The next time you want to feel better, try wearing yourself out exercising (or whatever works for you). Then note what surfaces in your mind. That could be an area of weakness that God is working on so you can feel more confident.

We see life as a painful struggle, but God sees it as endurance training. And endurance results in many good things such as peace, confidence, and character.

Image by skeeze from Pixabay

How to Live Worry Free

by Leave a Comment

What are you worried about? What change are you hoping for?

Anxious worrying involves fear. You can be afraid of something bad happening. You can also be afraid of losing something valuable to you.

The more you focus on what you can’t control, the more anxious you’ll become. The more you live in fear, the more discouraged you’ll become.

Anxious fear brings depression,
but a life-giving word of encouragement
can do wonders to restore joy to the heart.

Proverbs 12:25 TPT

The only way to live worry free is to give up your attempts to control the outcomes of your life.

This doesn’t mean giving up on life. You can love God with everything you have, but still accept that this life rarely goes exactly the way you want it to go.

Encouragement is Real

There’s always a greater reality beyond what you see immediately in front of you. Encouraging words never need to be empty promises.

Maybe you are caught up in fear. Maybe you aren’t allowing a life-giving word of encouragement to reach your heart.

Living intentionally by telling God you want to be more hopeful. Agree that you want to open your heart to encouragement.

Imagine God encouraging you. Which of the following would be most life-giving?

  • You are unconditionally loved.
  • You are safe and secure.
  • You are wanted in relationship.
  • You are significant and needed.
  • You have a place in my kingdom-house.

Fortunately for us believers, all of the above are true. Then why don’t they often feel true?

None of those statements require that your circumstances are always pleasant or desirable. They are spiritual truths more than they are earthly or temporal facts. Spiritual truths last forever; circumstances are temporary. Don’t confuse the two. When you believe your circumstances are forever and truth is temporary, you will understandably be afraid. So if you’re struggling, ask yourself which way you’re believing.

Spiritual truths remain true, even when they don’t feel true. Who you are (all the good that God made you to be) remains true, even when you don’t feel good about yourself.

Wounds are Real, But God is More Real

When terrible, painful things happen, we are supposed to feel sad, but not discouraged forever. If you lose a loved one, develop a serious medical condition, or face humiliating rejection, you will feel it, and you should.

No doubt that life circumstances can be obstacles to faith. No doubt there is plenty to be sad about. Just not sad forever. The reality of who God is brings joy to the heart.

Wounds are real, but God is more real. Open your heart to life-giving encouragement.

Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay