Christian Concepts

Bringing your Potential to Light

Matt Pavlik

God is Making You Whole

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Reading time: 2 minutes

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. Share on X

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

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Reading time: 2 minutes

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

3 Steps To Overcoming Shame

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Reading time: 4 minutes

Shame is the inability to tolerate being known. There is no end to being known. Every day is new. Every day brings more ways you can know and be known. This can be threatening to the person who feels shame intensely.

Shame results from becoming confused about the truth after lies are introduced into your mind. The lies provide an alternative to the truth and therefore an alternative to trusting God.

People who feel shame will instinctively hide: from themselves, from others, and from God. This is exactly what Adam and Eve did after they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They acquired a sense of their inadequacy because they could no longer believe God.

“You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”

The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the LORD God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the LORD God among the trees.

Genesis 3:4-8 NLT

The opposite of hiding in shame is being authentic. Here are three practical ways to reverse the effects of shame.

Know Yourself to Overcome Shame

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

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 for the moment.

However, 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 of us out of hiding and into a relationship with Him, others, and ourselves.

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.

Study and Journal to Overcome Shame

If you struggle to tolerate being known, keeping a private journal is the least risky way to begin. 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.

Share Yourself with Others to Overcome Shame

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.

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

Share Yourself with God to Overcome Shame

Some parts of ourselves only God knows. Can you completely put your inner feelings of shame into clear words for others to understand? Maybe. Can you receive the truth of who you are completely through words alone? Unlikely.

As you grow in being genuine with others, you grow in readiness to receive healing from God. His acceptance is the only true antidote to shame. He can address your shame at the core through a deeply spiritual, relational transaction. Essentially, God reveals who He is to you in order to cure your shame.

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?

Read more about Journaling
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Break Free From Suffering Needlessly

Break Free From Suffering Needlessly

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Reading time: 3 minutes

Everybody suffers. Some suffering is necessary while other suffering is needless. If I told you I am suffering needlessly, what adjectives would you use to describe me? Perhaps you’d think I was foolish or masochistic?

Jesus suffered, but not needlessly. There is a time to stay the course and suffer and there is a time to choose an alternate plan. 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

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

Needless Suffering is Self-Inflicted

Some suffering is avoidable. We suffer because of evil, its destructive deeds, and sin. Others can cause some of these deeds, but other destructive behaviors are self-inflicted.

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

It’s easy to want to give up all hope when evil must co-exist with good (our present reality). God made us to desire complete beauty, not distorted beauty. But beauty remains even when part of it is missing. A puzzle with a hopeful message, even though it has some missing pieces, can still inspire hope. Beauty, even with some blemishes, fully retains its identity as God’s inspirational instrument.

Necessary suffering is God-ordained while needless suffering is self-inflicted. Share on X

Our world is not without good even though it has some evil mixed in. Despair is needless suffering because it focuses on the bad news as if it were stronger than the good news. Suffering will always be a part of this life, but you don’t need to give it more power than it has on its own.

Needless Suffering is a Form of Learned Helplessness

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 it did when you were a child. Except now, if you have more power or money, you can create an even bigger mess.

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

Learned helplessness is a cycle of defeat with no apparent escape. When people need to escape, but no escape is allowed, they can learn to accept feeling hopeless. Without hope, a genuine exit will feel no different than an impassible wall.

A bird in a cage learns what is possible and what is impossible. If the bird truly believes, “there is no escape,” then even when the cage door opens, the bird will not leave. The cage may be too comfortable or the outside too foreign.

Likewise, you can feel so negative for so long that you become numb. Then you can reach the point where it is normal to feel numb.

In this way, you can learn to turn off your emotions because they don’t seem to be of any help. But emotions are not the bad guy. Even the circumstances are not a catastrophe. The learned sense of hopelessness is the worst of it all.

Working through difficult experiences and emotions becomes the bridge of escape. But the bridge can appear to be too scary to cross. Instead of crossing the emotional bridge, you remain “land-locked.” The bridge forward is visible but might as well be invisible because the thought of making it across seems unbelieveable.

Needless suffering results from refusing to cross the bridge. Crossing the bridge might also be painful, but it leads to a better place.

Read more about emotions as a bridge to health.
Image by Martin Redlin from Pixabay
Last updated October 2, 2022

Is Emotion an Obstacle or a Bridge?

Is Emotion an Obstacle or a Bridge?

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Reading time: 3 minutes

Does emotion hinder or does it help? To many people, emotion is a pointless burden. It seems to linger purposelessly forever like a plastic bottle in a landfill.

Obstacles impede progress. You must expend more effort to move beyond the obstacles in your path. Some obstacles cannot be removed by your effort alone.

Bridges on the other hand smooth the journey. Someone already cleared the path which makes your end goal possible and maybe easier. Although, some bridges are challenging to cross. The journey is strenuous, not because of the path, but because of what must be left behind.

Whether the emotion is a positive experience for you or a negative one, depends on your perspective. Rocks in your pack can be considered an affliction, but they could also be a blessing in disguise–they can help you grow stronger so you can move obstacles out of your way. What seems like an obstacle one day, might eventually come to be seen as a benefit.

Emotion is Like an Obstacle

Emotion is never bad; it’s only the messenger. We’re not supposed to shoot the messenger. But what is a person to do when the message is overwhelmingly negative? When emotion is immobilizing, it acts like an obstacle to progress. But it really is only a pivot point loaded with potential.

A person can lean into the negative message and become all the more discouraged. A person can also block out the message. Rough, calloused hands and fingertips are a sign of hard work. Your body forms a protective layer while you get work done.

In an emotionally risky environment, it’s natural to develop an insulative layer to protect your heart. Some negative environments you can avoid completely. And you should. But in other environments, you can’t.

Everyone is going to have some emotional callousness. 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?

Emotion is Like a Bridge

Because God exists, hope exists. No circumstance can determine the final outcome of your life. Because of God, emotion, even discouragement, can be productive.

Everything has a purpose–even negative feelings. You can’t avoid all risky environments because there’s no heaven on earth. So the best anyone can do is commit to crossing the emotional bridge.

Emotion can always become a bridge to a better place. That bridge can look like an obstacle, at first glance. Maybe you aren’t ready to leave behind what is comfortable, whether that be numbness or negativity. Maybe you aren’t ready to find out who you are deep down.

Crossing the bridge means embarking on a journey to becoming alive.

The obstacle to a better future is refusing to leave behind the past. You can only escape past and present pain by crossing the bridge of emotion. As you feel what you’ve experienced, it will carry you forward.

God didn’t make us to journey alone. We need traveling companions to help ease the pain of seeking true living that God has planned for us. Avoiding future pain is wise… unless that pain is needed to make you into a better person. Or perhaps the better way to put that is becoming a better person always involved confronting your pain.

If you’d like to better understand how difficult emotions can be blessings, try the book Hind’s Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard.

Read about choosing healing instead of coping.
Image by Larisa Koshkina from Pixabay
Last Updated 2022/10/16

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

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Reading time: 1 minutes

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. Share on X

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?