Christian Concepts

Bringing your Potential to Light

Abuse and Neglect

Suffer For The Right Reasons

Suffer For The Right Reasons

by Leave a Comment

Reading time: 4 minutes

God works out everything for the good of those who love Him. But in the midst of suffering, those words from Romans 8:28 can feel trite. God wants us not to repay evil for evil. The person that can achieve this will demonstrate that God is real (1 Peter 3:15). That’s because the ability to respond to evil with kindness can only come from God.

However, the right response doesn’t always mean continuing to allow someone to take advantage of you. There are times when it makes sense to move out of harm’s way and times when God calls us to suffer for His purposes.

Appropriate Suffering Advances God’s Kingdom

When God expects us to endure suffering, there is always a purpose with eternal consequences. Enduring hardship for the right reasons allows God’s purposes to come to fruition. Because of sin, we live in a world where doing the right thing often results in suffering:

  • we don’t feel better and might even feel worse
  • we don’t get what we want and might even feel miserable
  • our immediate living (on this earth) might seem unproductive (by this world’s definition)

Jesus has an extremely difficult teaching for us. God’s kingdom is more important than any happiness or satisfaction you can derive from this life.

There are many different paths people can walk on in life. But there is only one kind of path that takes you to a desirable destination. It is the path of suffering and growth. This path is undesirable because it is difficult to walk. Choosing this path is counter-intuitive. It’s the right path, but it will feel wrong because it’s impossible to walk it without suffering.

The other paths appear much more desirable and are much easier to walk. In fact, there may even lead to a long period of ease and pleasure. But there is a catch: the journey is easy, but the destination is undesirable. What good is an easy path if it only takes you to an accursed destination?

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Matthew 7:13-14 NIV

Needless Suffering Only Contributes to Evil

Hopefully, I have made the case that suffering is necessary and natural some of the time–when it is directly connected to keeping your faith in Jesus and your witness to Him.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Matthew 5:11-12 NIV

But there are probably even more ways we all suffer needlessly. There is no reason to allow suffering to continue in any of the following circumstances.

  • The suffering does not advance God’s purposes
  • The adversity only harms or confuses the person being hurt (such as when a child is abused). The person does not have the capacity to endure the suffering without loss of personal integrity.
  • Pure evil is causing the torment, so there is no way that tolerating it will soften a heart.

In any of these kinds of situations, do all that you can to prevent or stop the suffering. Don’t embrace pain if you don’t have to. God’s will is not to suffer needlessly. But it is God’s will that you walk the path that leads to life, which often involves some heartache to accomplish God’s kingdom work.

For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

1 Peter 3:17 NIV

Finally, remember that even though the right path has many difficulties and obstacles, it is still the only sane path (all other paths lead to destruction), and God guarantees that once you start on the path, you will reach the glorious destination (heaven).

The righteous person may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all;

Psalm 34:19 NIV

Read more about avoiding needless suffering.
Image by Bernd Scheumann from Pixabay

Break Free From Suffering Needlessly

Break Free From Suffering Needlessly

by 2 Comments

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

Emotional Healing Is Possible For You Today

Emotional Healing Is Possible For You Today

by 1 Comment

Reading time: 4 minutes

God won’t always grant you more money or heal your body. But the Holy Spirit is always ready to provide emotional healing.

Are you being serious, Matt? I’ve been suffering for years. I don’t believe it. God doesn’t care about my pain. Does He?

Yes, I am serious. The Holy Spirit’s purpose is to guide believers into the truth. If you think about it, that’s the definition of emotional healing. You have a personal guide who can help you become intimately acquainted with God’s truth. Healing is more than learning facts, it’s an emotional experience of the truth.

The only caveat is that you must ask for and seek healing using biblical principles. Transformation is highly desirable, but not necessarily guaranteed (without effort on your part) or easily obtained. You have to really want it.

If you want this valuable transformation, you need to pursue it with Faith, Boldness, Persistence, and Humility.

Emotional Healing Requires Faith

Faith allows the believer to see spiritually. If you are going to approach God, it needs to be with a clear view of who God is. You need the ability to trust God and stay focused on His character!

And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Hebrews 11:6 ESV

If you struggle with believing God cares about you and wants you to thrive, then your first task is to ask God for the faith to see Him clearly.

Emotional Healing Requires Boldness

Boldness in this case means you seek without any kind of pretending or bashfulness. You must approach God with authenticity. You speak clearly. You tell it like it is!

In [Christ Jesus our Lord] we have boldness and access [to God] with confidence through our faith in him.

Ephesians 3:12 ESV

If you are afraid to approach God with what is on your heart, seek out another believer or a counselor who can help you develop boldness.

Emotional Healing Requires Persistence

God’s treasures are not left in the open for all to find. Only those people who really want to find the secrets to life will find them. To find them requires persistence. Do you understand the value of what you are seeking?

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

Matthew 13:44 ESV

I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me.

Proverbs 8:17 ESV

If you are tired and want to give up before you reach your goal, ask God for the energy to continue your pursuit.

Emotional Healing Requires Humility

If you want help, you must first prepare your heart to receive help. Desperation is a form of humility that God desires from us. God, you are my only hope! What I want is important and you are the only one who can supply my need.

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Psalm 63:1 ESV

In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”

Psalm 10:4 ESV

Emotional Healing is the subject of an experiential course I’ve developed. To heal emotionally requires that you are willing to:

  • Understand what your heart needs and doesn’t need.
  • Learn healthy ways to manage your pain.
  • Remember uncomfortable experiences.
  • Confront negative beliefs with the truth of who God is and who you are.
  • Feel and express your emotions.
  • Stop avoiding pain in ways that do more harm than good.
  • Emphasize seeking God and bringing your pain to Him.

While I’m putting the finishing touches on Emotional Healing, it’s available for a substantial discount. From now until Independence Day (July 4, 2022), you can purchase it for $44 instead of $100. Today could be the day you declare independence from the lies that lower your self-worth.

The first lesson is available to preview without any obligation. Also, this post is based on one of the exercises in the course.

Image from Pexels

Push through fear like you would cross a scary bridge.

Push Through Fear and Find Hope

by 2 Comments

Reading time: 4 minutes

A string of devastating disappointments can weaken you to the point you live in constant fear of the next disaster. Don’t give up. You can push through fear and find hope.

Job experienced multiple traumas. He suffered from the loss of his children, his finances, and his health. Though he was greatly distressed, he held on until God brought him relief.

In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.

Job 1:22 NIV

Just like Job, your mental attitude makes a difference. Do all you can to guard your heart against bitterness toward God. A healthy fear of God is good.

At any moment, you have the ability to choose a different path. With each decision you make, something changes. As long as something is changing, hope is alive.

If it seems like you are up against a wall with no way out, perhaps you are afraid of something. The enemy uses fear to distract you. When you are afraid, everything looks worse than it really is.

Here are two possible ways you can become immobilized by fear:

  1. You expect a change for the worse: You fear a change that will result in you being worse off than you are currently. You anticipate you will make a bigger mess of an already bad situation.
  2. You expect no positive change: You fear you’ll never be better off. You believe your dreams are unobtainable, your effort is futile, and change is impossible.

If nothing about you could ever change, fear would multiple quickly. You would become consumed with hopelessness. The more you feel trapped, the more you would panic. The more you panic, the more trapped you would feel.

Anxiety blocks creativity. The more anxious I am, the less I have access to the part of me that can find solutions. I can’t make a good decision when I am anxious. When my ability to change my thinking becomes inaccessible, I become confused, paralyzed, and unable to move forward.

Don’t give up. Push through fear like you would cross a scary bridge. You can use these 3 strategies to bridge your way to hope:

Use the Gospel to Push Through Fear

You were once dead in your sin, but now you are a new creation. You are forgiven and capable of becoming more like Christ. You can change because God is empowering you. This is the ultimate hope all believers have.

The kind of change I’m talking about is the kind that matters most. The priceless kind. Would you rather have an easy life or the strength and peace to endure a hard life?

The hope of the Gospel is more than enough to calm my fears.

Use Your Identity to Push Through Fear

All positive, significant change is a decision to embrace more of who God made you to be. Circumstances can change for better or worse. But your identity is fixed. And this is good because it’s easier to hit a fixed target than one that moves all the time.

As you accept and move toward your true identity, you’ll gain the power to also accept your circumstances.

If you’re believing lies about yourself, you are opening yourself to evil. Walk away from abusive situations. I don’t mean give up on loving others. Instead, I mean improve your self-worth by actively refuting lies with the truth.

Use Momentum to Push Through Fear

The smallest change can result in unstoppable momentum. There’s always hope when there’s something you can change. If you can make a change in what you’re doing or saying, then something must be different inside of you.

God takes no pleasure in seeing you beat yourself up or put yourself down. When something terrible happens, it has nothing to do with who you are. Remember Job? He lost so much, but that didn’t change who he was to God.

Can you decide to take better care of yourself? Relax and allow yourself to find the greater separation between who your circumstance says you are and who God says you are.

Always hold on to hope because you can make a change. If the change you want seems too big, then start smaller. Even a small change can lead to big hope. Do something different. Take a walk instead of sitting inside all day. Veg out instead of doing laundry all day. Do something to enjoy the moment you have right now.

To push through fear and choose peace despite your circumstances, you will need to pray.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Philippians 4:6-8 NIV

To explore this idea further see Ephesians 2:1-5, Proverbs 13:12, and see my post on Quora.
Image by Bishnu Sarangi from Pixabay

Decision-Making Made Clear And Confident

Decision-Making Made Clear and Confident

by Leave a Comment

Reading time: 5 minutes

Decision-making is challenging to the degree people are reluctant to make use of a worldview. In this context, a worldview is a set of prioritized values (convictions) that you can use to evaluate opportunities.

Making a decision requires discriminating between alternatives. To discriminate means to judge one opportunity as better than another. People who don’t like to be judgmental can therefore struggle to make decisions. For everything elevated as more valuable, there must be something else devalued. People who like to people-please can be reluctant to make a decision when no option will leave everyone happy.

You can become confused when you have too many options and no way to either emphasize the best ones as superior or eliminate the worst ones. You have two alternatives to make this decision-making easier. First, by choosing the best option, you don’t have to declare any option as bad (a more positive approach). Second, by rejecting the worse option, you can completely eliminate it from consideration (a more negative approach). Different personalities might prefer one alternative over the other.

Decision-Making with Spiritual Discernment

You can formulate your worldview with spiritual discernment. God is good. The devil is evil. Worldviews simplify decision-making options into right or wrong. Racism and other unhealthy discrimination result from choosing other categories for evaluation. Instead of good or evil, people choose false dichotomies like black or white, conservative or liberal, male or female, native or foreign. These are false dichotomies because, for example, while a person can only be born male or female, sex doesn’t determine if a person is right.

When a person refuses to believe God is 100% good and all other options are 100% evil, they must choose their own categories for evaluation. The problem with this is that people will then evaluate based on past experience (prejudice) rather than God’s standard of truth (objective right and wrong).

What do you base your worldview on?

Decision-Making with Personality

Almost all decision-making can benefit from spiritual discernment. Even a simple decision about what kind of car to buy can have moral implications. You might have plenty of money, but should you buy the most expensive car you can afford or should you buy the less expensive one and use the difference to help someone?

You might prefer to eat at one restaurant but your friend prefers another. Your preference isn’t right or wrong, but what you end up choosing could be, if your selfishness harms your friend. This situation requires a balance between following what you want and doing no harm to your friend. The more mature a person is, the more they can put aside (temporarily) what they want (or believe) in order to care for another person. Loving others takes precedence over having life go your way all the time.

In a three-legged race, two people are tied together, so they must run at the same speed or else they will come apart or fall down. If one person attempts to run faster than the other, just because they are a better athlete, that person achieves nothing. Members of a team all win or all lose together. Running faster means little if doing so will injure your partner’s leg. Is winning a race worth more than a person’s health?

The context of Romans 14 is eating food that has been sacrificed to idols, but the basic principle applies.

Don’t let your appetite destroy what God has done. All foods are fit to eat, but it is wrong to cause problems for others by what you eat. It is best not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything else that causes problems for other followers of the Lord. What you believe about these things should be kept between you and God. You are fortunate, if your actions don’t make you have doubts. But if you do have doubts about what you eat, you are going against your beliefs. And you know that is wrong, because anything you do against your beliefs is sin.

Romans 14:20-23 CEV

Decision-Making with Freedom

You are free to choose whatever you want, as long as you don’t go against your convictions and you don’t lead someone else to go against their convictions. God says such actions would be wrong because they are destructive.

God wants you to develop your worldview, which includes your preferences, convictions, and spiritual discernment. With a well-defined worldview, decision-making can be a positive, pleasant experience.

I have two points of clarification before I finish. Personal boundaries can possibly be in tension with the consideration of others. I’m not going to go into detail here, but Paul has written plenty about following what is right and confronting what is wrong. So, in Romans 14, when Paul suggests we should deny ourselves what we want it is for the sake of preserving the conscience of a fellow believer who is genuinely distressed about the practice of their faith. Otherwise, this would be abusive to the person who lacked faith. He is not saying anyone should submit their God-given ability to make healthy personal choices to a bully. This would be allowing someone to abuse you.

Consider too that emotional immaturity is similar to a lack of faith. Those who are more mature must bear with those who can’t yet help themselves. Again, this doesn’t mean you give in to their every desire, but that you treat them with patience and understanding to minimize creating unnecessary distress for them.

As an exercise, make a list of areas where you need extra understanding because you are insecure and another list where you are confident. How does it feel to be in each position?

Read about boundaries and being assertive.
Image by Gerhard G. from Pixabay

Rejection Is Like A Painful Death

Rejection Is Like A Painful Death

by Leave a Comment

Reading time: 4 minutes

What has been your experience with rejection? I see it as the most painful experience. But God has overcome it with the power of His acceptance.

I recently watched the movie, Saving Private Ryan, again. In one scene a German and American soldier are wrestling for survival. The American pulls out a knife, but the German manages to use the knife against him. The American pushes against the German’s arm to prevent the knife from cutting into his chest, but slowly the knife moves deeper until the American dies.

In managing pain, it’s usually easier to face and get it over with quickly. A slow and painful death is bad enough. To face the humiliation of defeat and also endure excruciating torment is the worst. But isn’t this is exactly what Jesus faced on the cross? He was without personal guilt, but in carrying the weight of sin, He must have experienced the shame of our guilt.

“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”

1 Peter 2:24 NIV

To die at the hands of another person is a physical rejection. To wither away because of another person’s critical words is an emotional rejection.

Rejection Is a Lie From the Devil

The devil wants you to feel cut off from God. He doesn’t have the ability to sever your connection with God. The best he can do is deceive you into believing God has rejected you.

When you experience emotional rejection, there is nothing true about it. It’s not valid. If you struggle with self-doubt, you become susceptible to believing the lie is valid. You might feel horrible as if it were true. This happens when you focus on the negatives rather than on God. It often leads to God-doubt such as, “God doesn’t love me” or “I’m too defective for God to love me.”

Jesus’s sacrifice saves you from destruction. He rescued you from the darkness–including its lies and shame.

For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.

Colossians 1:13-14 NLT

Because of this, no matter what you’ve done, you do not have to endure any shameful rejection. Don’t do that to yourself. You can graciously accept God’s discipline but you can reject the devil’s rejection.

God Accepts You as a Friend

Do you realize that God is for you? Because of Jesus’s death, you are blameless and without a single fault.

This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault. But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News.

Colossians 1:21-23 NLT

Because God has removed your sin and guilt, you have His complete acceptance. Others may reject you, but God will not reject you any longer. God wants you to cling to this truth. You are a member of His family. You are God’s friend.

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

John 15:15 ESV

To fully heal from rejection, you must not avoid it. Only by feeling it can you realize how false it is. The process involves staring down the lie until it is no more. Facing the lie with the truth weakens it. Even though it can be absurdly painful, the lie will die, leaving you with freedom because of Christ.

Take some time to remember when you have felt most rejected. Allow the truth of God’s acceptance to wash away the lie.

Read more about overcoming discouragement.
Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay