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escape a chained reality

Find God’s Beautiful Reality

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How much of your life do you spend in reality? How much do you spend in a fantasy world whether that is of your making or another’s creative fiction?

Taking a break from reality is healthy up to a point. But what starts as innocent can become harmful. Taking a break can eventually become escaping reality. Then what if you reach the point where you begin to prefer to escape more than you like to be present? You could then become chained (addicted) to a false reality that you find difficult to escape.

Don’t Deny Reality

We are only aware of a fraction of who we are at any given time. Sometimes this denial of who we are is normal and healthy. But at other times, we become stuck denying important information.

If you’re in denial, you could be:

  1. Believing you are better than you are (you are pridefully protecting your ego).
  2. Believing you are worse than you are (you are making a negative experience more important than it is).

Try to become more aware right now. Think through the past couple of weeks. What has been the focus of your thoughts? Is there anything resting just below the surface? What are you half-aware of? What could be buried deep? What is nagging at you in the back of your mind, but you haven’t admitted or verbalized it?

Denying the truth is usually not good. But you must escape what you can’t fully handle in the moment. On the other hand, denying something false is usually good. God wants us to die to (deny) sin and be alive to Him.

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:11 ESV

Focus on God’s Reality

Is there such a place as heaven on earth? How hard should Christians be trying to manufacture a utopia?

We can make the effort to embrace the reality of God’s truth. But this includes the truth that this life, in its present form, is passing away (1 Corinthians 7:31). We can make our lives somewhat better, but we might lose everything if we focus more on present reality over future reality. What is coming next is far greater than what we have today. Jesus said if we focus on keeping our (present) life we might lose our (future) life, but if we focus away from our present life, we will keep our future life (Matthew 16:25).

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.

Philippians 1:21-24

The only true reality is the one God says is real. You might lean into other less-than-true realities when the pain is too much and you think you have no other options. But as soon as you’re ready, you should run toward God and His reality.

In what ways are you in denial? Consider how aware you are of your emotions and memories. Put together these determine the worldview you carry around in your heart. Are you avoiding these significant experience by being stuck in a rut of unchanging routine? Ask God for the strength to endure the harshness of reality, but also for the spiritual insight to behold the beauty of His reality.

God is merciful; He allows and even provides for a healthy escape. He provides moments that transcend the difficulties of life (see 1 Corinthians 10:13). When God provides the opportunity for you to enjoy life, be sure to take full advantage.

Learn more about identity and reality.
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Last updated 2024/11/24

Worship God With Genuine Joy

Worship God With Genuine Joy

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Does God seem distant to you? Does worship feel like an obligation? Maybe you are missing a genuine experience of God.

Are you struggling to believe God cares? Do you like yourself? Wait. What does liking yourself have to do with God? God assumes that you will care for yourself. But He commands that you love others (Him and your neighbor).

Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

Matthew 22:37-40 NLT

How to Worship God Authentically

Loving God with everything you have is the same as worship. Authentic worship will only happen as we understand and experience God.

God is at His fullest potential. He can’t get any better than He already is. Instead of this meaning He is frequently bored, He lives with maximum enjoyment. That’s right. Part of what it means to be God is that He lives with a constant euphoria (a feeling or state of intense excitement and happiness). Because we are made in God’s image, God intends us to reach our full potential and experience euphoria. Enthusiasm is similar to euphoria; it means to be full of God.

When we are full of God, we can’t help but worship Him. We worship because He is worthy. However, there is more to worship than how awesome God is. Consider the scene in heaven from Revelation 4:

Whenever the living beings give glory and honor and thanks to the one sitting on the throne (the one who lives forever and ever), the twenty-four elders fall down and worship the one sitting on the throne (the one who lives forever and ever). And they lay their crowns before the throne and say, “You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and they exist because you created what you pleased.”

Revelation 4:9-11 NLT

Revelation 5 continues with Jesus being the only one worthy to open the scroll and the elders falling down in worship. If we only consider this scene superficially, we might observe that worship seems robotic. Who wants to fall down and worship every few minutes, repeating this for eternity? Wouldn’t that get old? It might if we ignore how we can experience God.

On earth today there are many distractions and distortions which prevent us from seeing God clearly. In heaven, these barriers will be gone. We will see and experience God as He is, at least to the limit of our capacity. God made us to appreciate who He is. Encountering God produces an intense, joyful response. The worship is spontaneous, genuine, never forced. The difference might be compared to seeing electricity power a light bulb and feeling electricity surge through your body.

How to Love Yourself When You Don’t Feel Worthy

God expects that people will care for themselves. Despite this being a simple truth, most people struggle to genuinely feel good about who they are. This is a problem because when you’re negative on what God made, how can you be positive about God? When you can’t see God as positive, you can’t believe He’s got your best interest in mind.

If you want to feel close to God, you must feel positive about yourself. If you don’t like yourself, then the you you don’t like is probably not the real you God has in mind. Your identity is who God says you are, while your self-image is who you think you are. When you get the two mixed up, you can’t like yourself.

Not liking yourself is ultimately the inability to see yourself as God sees you. Putting this all together, if you want to be closer to God, you need to see what He sees. Who does God see when He looks at you? Spend time thanking God for how He made you. Ask Him to help you see yourself through His eyes. Then you will know the joy of genuine worship.

Learn more about identity and self-worth.
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Last updated 2024/11/17

Seek Understanding Before Solution

Seek Understanding Before Solution

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Reading time: 4 minutes

If you understand what is happening, you have found an optimized path to an improved situation. In contrast, a lack of understanding only multiplies uncertainty. When aiming at a target, the greater the error in the sighting, the greater the chance of missing the bullseye.

This applies to almost any task, but it is just as valid to relationships. Communication must be accurate if the goal is increasing closeness. The more you can’t see what is going on in a person, the more hopeless and powerless you can feel. Then, if you cannot trust God, the odds increase that you will respond to your situation with frustration or even folly.

Understanding, wisdom, and insight are essentially the same thing. They all mean seeing reality as it is, without distortions or denial. Insight means “see inside.” When you can see behind the scenes, you will know intimately how the product is produced.

The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight.

Proverbs 4:7 ESV

A fool doesn’t want more knowledge, doesn’t care about how life works, and rejects absolute truth, favoring his subjective reality instead. He is filled with denial and wishful thinking. Why would someone do this? Learning the truth requires the humility to accept correction. The humble person can say, “Yes, I got that wrong. I can see more clearly now.”

A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.

Proverbs 18:2 ESV

So, it makes sense that the person who can see the reasons for another’s behavior will generally be more patient with them. A fool doesn’t want understanding, so he is limited to exploding in anger.

Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.

Proverbs 14:29 ESV

The person with self-control can hold off on expressing anger. It’s possible because of his insight. He can see that uncontrolled anger is destructive and it does nothing to help another struggling person.

Ignorance Will Lead to Repeated Pain

A lack of discernment can lead a person to make regrettable decisions. Wise people can learn from their mistakes, but foolish people will only dig in deeper. In this sense, regret can be a sign of wisdom.

Like an archer who wounds everyone
    is one who hires a passing fool or drunkard.
Like a dog that returns to his vomit
    is a fool who repeats his folly.

Proverbs 26:10-11 ESV

The archer does not discriminate between friend and foe; he shoots without a clear target. The fool enjoys the chaos he creates; he has no room for remorse.

In relationships, don’t be the person who shoots off his mouth without considering the consequences of his words.

Understanding Provides Clear Options

Understanding maps out how to set boundaries and make decisions. Conflict can be simplified into options. Options can be negotiated to find an optimal solution. No one likes the frustration of feeling stuck; understanding can lead to a way forward.

Two people in conflict can consider which one has a greater need for healing. Consider asking, “What will it mean to you if we do it your way?” This might allow you to move past the ugly presentation of anger to the hurt behind it. You might get an answer like, “I’ve always had hand-me-downs. The last three cars I’ve had were used. They break down all the time. I want to get a new car. I am willing to keep it for over ten years.”

Of course, some people only want their way all the time. Their demands are often unreasonable, unrealistic, or unfair. In this situation, understanding can lead to confidently setting firm boundaries. Consider responding, “I understand you want to buy a new car now, but we don’t have the budget for that. We can save up for one though.”

Buying a new car won’t fix anyone’s brokenness, but it could be meaningful in the right context. Material goods will be used better after people are convinced of their worth in Christ. Conflict resolution will be most fruitful when emotional needs for self-worth are grounded in the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Learn more about healing relationships.
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How To Make Trusting God Easier

How To Make Trusting God Easier

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Are you trusting God more or less than you were yesterday? If you are trusting Him less than you used to, perhaps something has happened to cause you to give up on God. God promises you are not wasting your time when you seek Him, trust Him, and make your requests known to Him.

Trusting God throughout your day can be challenging because of distractions. Some distractions are positive and some are negative. Either way, consider how much you have increased your trust in God today. The best thing you can accomplish each day is to end it by trusting God a little more.

Strengthen your faith requires an intentional effort to cleanse negative memories with God’s truth. If you want to trust God more, you must apply biblical truth to infected memories. Infected memories cause you to doubt God’s character.

Trust God Because He Knows Everything

In Isaiah 46, God says much about who He is and what He likes to do. God promises He will act. He isn’t a worthless idol. God doesn’t forget about you. He knows your future so of course, He knows your past. He’s been attending to you since even before you were born.

I have cared for you since you were born. Yes, I carried you before you were born.

Isaiah 46:3 NLT

Trust God Because He Keeps You Safe

But that’s not all. God proclaims that He will care for you and carry you throughout your future.

I will be your God throughout your lifetime—until your hair is white with age. I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you.

Isaiah 46:4 NLT

If you put your trust in something other than God, you will be disappointed. But God cares about you enough to rescue you from trouble.

[An idol] can’t even move! And when someone prays to it, there is no answer. It can’t rescue anyone from trouble.

Isaiah 46:7 NLT

God has already rescued you and is more than capable of keeping you safe.

Trust God Because He is in Control

God is in complete control of the past, present, and future. Only God can make such bold statements as these:

Remember the things I have done in the past. For I alone am God! I am God, and there is none like me. Only I can tell you the future before it even happens. Everything I plan will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish.

Isaiah 46:9-10 NLT

God can and will do whatever He wants. For those who are friends of God, this should provide increased comfort and trust. For those who are yet enemies of God, this is likely scary and irritating. I remember the emptiness I felt when I was unable to understand who God is.

Memories Can Help You Trust God

If you are a believer, then you must have some positive memories. At the very least, God has done a work in your life to cause you to cross over from death to life. Can you remember what that felt like? I remember how uplifting and hopeful I felt when I first believed.

Remembering what God has done in your life is a source of spiritual strength. When you recall the ways God has touched your life, it helps you trust Him with current life challenges. When God breaks into your life, that’s God building trust with you. Use it for all it’s worth to make your faith solid.

As you focus on the positive, be equally willing to revisit the negative memories. These significant life events desperately need to be considered in light of the truth you now know. Learn details of how to cleanse hurtful memories so you can trust God more.

God is real. Let’s pray with anticipation of the good things He will do. No matter what is happening around us, God is still good and in control.

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Last Updated 2024/09/22

Remember Your Past For A Healthy Present

Remember Your Past For A Healthy Present

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

God wants you to see the whole picture of who you are. Have you ever worked on a puzzle only to get to the end and realize some pieces are missing? It’s frustrating because it feels so incomplete.

I’m fascinated by my past. I’m not thinking of historical facts. I mean my psychological and emotional journey. Memories are important because they are the key to setting a person free from being trapped in the past.

You can’t change what has happened to you but you can change its meaning. You decided how much a particular memory has the power to define who you are. They answer the question: 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. Healing can be both strengthening the positive memories and weakening the negative ones.

Questions to Help You Remember

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?
  • 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 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 toe in the water. If you considered more than one, you might feel overwhelmed as you swim in a pool of emotional memories.

As 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.

Remember the Past, Compare it with the Present, and Plan the Future

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 can lead 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 (life responsibilities) that you forget what it’s like to enjoy life on your terms.

Here are three more questions that should help you “pull yourself together.” What day would you most like to relive? What makes life worth living today? 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.

More about the benefits of exploring your past.
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Last updated 2022/12/11

Is Love A Choice

Is Love a Choice?

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God loves you. But what does this mean? God is love (1 John 4:16). So, God has to love. He can’t not love. Does He love out of obligation? Is His love involuntary?

We know God cares enough to die for us (John 3:16). He paid the price to redeem us. He is patient with us. He did what He had to do to keep us alive (spiritually).

To say love is a choice is to say that it is objective. You and I can show love despite how we feel about another person. If we only loved when we felt like it, our actions would only be motivated by how others treat us. But here I am talking about human love which can be fickle.

God’s agape is different. It always does right. It flows out of who God is. In that sense, it could be described as involuntary.

Love makes it impossible to harm another, so love fulfills all that the law requires.

Romans 13:10 TPT

Much of life is starkly unpredictable, so it’s nice that God doesn’t change His mind about loving us.

Is Love More Than a Choice?

When love is a choice, it’s a rational, steady, and dependable love. But there is more to it than that. Love as only a choice is incomplete. Love includes compassion, affection, and favor. Agape is motivated by feeling. But keep in mind that God’s feelings are pure, undefiled by any sin.

The Lord your God is in your midst,
    a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
    he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.

Zephaniah 3:17 ESV

Subjective, irrational love is at the center of agape. God is not cold, loving only out of obligation. He is passionate and unrelenting. God’s favor, from the core of His being, drives Him to save us no matter the cost.

God’s Love is Irrational

God goes “all in” with His love toward us. This makes it an extravagant love. God’s loving favor doesn’t make sense, but that’s what makes it wonderful.

God doesn’t only do the minimum decent thing to do. He doesn’t save us in compassion and then tell us to go on our way. He adopts us into His family (1 John 3:1; Romans 8:14-30).

God’s family is forever. In Isaiah 49, God’s people felt like Yahweh had abandoned them.

Yahweh responds, “But how could a loving mother forget her nursing child and not deeply love the one she bore? Even if a there is a mother who forgets her child, I could never, no never, forget you.

Isaiah 49:15 TPT

God’s affection for you is greater than any imperfect parent.

If you, imperfect as you are, know how to lovingly take care of your children and give them what’s best, how much more ready is your heavenly Father to give wonderful gifts to those who ask him?”

Matthew 7:11 TPT

God has a strong bond of love with you. He withholds nothing good from you. What can you do today to believe, trust, and feel God’s affection for you?

For God has proved his love by giving us his greatest treasure, the gift of his Son. And since God freely offered him up as the sacrifice for us all, he certainly won’t withhold from us anything else he has to give.

Romans 8:32 TPT

So, God loves you. He values you. He saves you. He rejoices because of you. He makes you a co-heir with Christ.

I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:17-19 NIV

God has many good things in store for you, things too wonderful to fully comprehend today, but things that allow you to experience the fullness of hope as you are filled with God (Ephesians 3:20).

Read more about God’s love.
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Last updated 2023/04/30