Identity

Be Authentic And You Will Belong

May 15, 2022 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Having high expectations is good as long as they don’t come at the cost of being authentic. So, are expectations good or bad?

When you expect too much of yourself, you can never achieve an authentic life. If you are always chasing after some ideal standard, you won’t be able to appreciate who you are in the moment. An inauthentic life is never profoundly satisfying.

However, if you don’t expect enough of yourself, you also won’t be able to achieve an authentic life. You’ll be resigned to your shortcomings. You’ll assume that the way you are today is as good as it gets.

Be Authentic: It’s Okay to Cry

One common way to be inauthentic is to hold back your tears. Big boys or girls don’t cry. But what does it cost you to maintain the appearance that nothing phases you?

Keeping your feelings stuffed inside splits you in two psychologically. The public (or visible) you takes on too high expectations while the private (or hidden) you takes on too low expectations. This puts you in a body that is trying to be two different people at the same time. The more a person insists on living this way, the more likely they will experience a psychological breakdown.

No one should have to pretend to have their life together just to keep a relationship. But it’s all too common for someone to believe I’m too much or I’m too little.

Be Authentic: It’s Okay to Risk

The person you are today isn’t all that God has planned you to be. While being genuine doesn’t mean pretending to be someone greater than you are, it also doesn’t mean embracing a negative self-image. The one is too prideful while the other is too humble.

To seek to be closer to who you really are requires risking exposure. Some people will find out you aren’t who you’ve been leading them to believe. You might also find out that you’re never going to be like someone you idolize. Both of these realizations can produce some sadness.

If you’re going to choose an authentic life, be prepared for some initial disillusionment. But it should resolve quickly. If you work at accepting your God-given identity, you’ll find you’ve only lost what was never true and gained what was always true.

Be Authentic to Maximize Your Belonging

God wants us to embrace exactly who we are: who He made us to be. He gives each of us the faith to see our true selves. Because God planned for you to be your authentic self, you will automatically belong with Him and all your other spiritual brothers and sisters.

You must be willing to understand your identity and act with integrity because others are depending on you to be authentic.

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us. Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.
Romans 12:2-5 NLT

Don’t compromise who you are (God’s design) for any reason.

Would anyone like to share some ways they struggle to be authentic?

Recover From Crushing Betrayal

May 1, 2022 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

A husband’s betrayal causes his wife significant pain. While both are out driving, he loses lost control of his car and smashes into her car. He had been drinking. How can she recover from this betrayal?

Both are thrown from their cars and somehow land next to each other. The husband touches his head and discovers a sizeable bump. The wife can’t move her leg; it’s broken.

The husband keeps mumbling that he is sorry. But his wife doesn’t believe him.

How could you do this to me? I’ll never be able to forgive you. You could have killed me. You need help. You need to fix this so I’ll be able to walk again.

When the ambulance arrives, the wife can’t stop talking about her husband.

It’s my idiot husband who broke my leg. Make sure he gets help for his alcohol problem.

When the paramedic asks if she wanted treatment for her leg, she declines.

This is my husband’s fault. I don’t need help because I didn’t do anything wrong. He is the one who needs to figure out why this happened and how he can make this right. If I get my leg fixed, then he will think this is no big deal and he’ll never stop drinking.

A Physical Accident Should Not Be Different Than an Emotional Betrayal

A physical accident will probably never play out like that. No one in their right mind would refuse to have their broken leg treated. However, I’ve seen an emotional accident create this kind of response in the person who was betrayed. The logic goes something like this:

Why should I be inconvenienced with counseling when it’s my husband who has the problem? It’s his fault. He’s the one who should face the consequences. I don’t need counseling. He does.

This assumes that receiving medical care for a broken leg is somehow different than receiving emotional care for a broken heart. Medical care seems to be deserved but counseling is a punishment. As someone who works as a counselor, this saddens me.

Why are these two healing procedures treated so differently? I think it is because the medical model requires very little of its patients. The doctor does all the work. The patient is usually given pain killers to numb the pain. It’s obvious that a whole leg is better than a broken one. It’s obvious that the broken leg was the husband’s fault.

A person with a broken heart can nurse bitterness for a long time without feeling obligated to do anything about it. Some people might even encourage unforgiveness as a consequence: Forgiveness is a sign of weakness. It can feel like the only leverage a person has against a repeat offense.

A well-known saying applies here. Unforgiveness is like drinking poison to make the perpetrator suffer. But this doesn’t work emotionally either because the victim ends up giving up too much control over their own life just to make a point. Why would anyone want to suffer more? Maybe they are desperate to know if their suffering matters to the perpetrator.

Others have the power to hurt you but they don’t have the power to make you well.

This is an unfortunate fact of life. This is why forgiveness is necessary. Only Jesus has the power to make you well. We appeal to Him through prayer so that we might be healthy again.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
James 5:16 ESV

We forgive others so that our hearts are open to receiving God’s forgiveness.

And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
Mark 11:25 ESV

Forgiveness doesn’t prevent God from working in the perpetrator’s life, but unforgiveness might prevent God from working in yours. Counseling is supposed to be an emotional healing process, not a burden. If you’ve suffered an emotional injury, why not seek all the help you can get?

When you are in a state of unforgiveness, you are spiritually weak. But having forgiven, you are strong. Unforgiveness is about trying to maintain control over something you can’t control. Forgive today so you will be healed.

More about relational health.
Image by Queven from Pixabay

The Danger Of Trusting Too Much

April 24, 2022 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Trust is essential for healthy relationships. So much so that you might wonder if trusting too much is even possible. Wouldn’t more always be better?

To say trusting too much is dangerous is like saying that too much love or too much chocolate will kill you. How can you go wrong with something so good that is often in short supply?

Trusting Too Much

Yes, it’s possible to trust too much. It’s called blind trust. Although, no one will probably fault you for it. That’s because your trust benefits others. It will benefit you too, but only up to a point.

Trust has a natural limit or capacity much like a cup. If you fill a cup beyond its capacity, you will make a mess and waste your refreshing drink. Trust has a limit like your body has a limit. You can give certain parts away like a kidney and still live, but most other parts you can’t live without.

Trusting too much is like giving away an essential body part and expecting the recipient will be able to keep you alive. It’s depending on someone for something they can’t possibly give you. You were never meant to function that way.

If you trust others too much, you are open to being taken advantage of. Others might benefit, but only at your expense. When that happens you are going to get hurt. The more you hurt, the more you are likely to decrease your level of trust. In this case, that wouldn’t be bad except if you become determined to overprotect yourself. Then you might trust too little.

Trusting Too Little

If trusting benefits you and others, it must be possible to trust too little. It’s called mistrust. What if the person you are in a relationship with is trustworthy but you aren’t capable of trusting? That’s going to slow down your relationship, maybe to the point of breaking it.

How would a teenager feel about a mom who walks him to school and sits with him in class? Assuming the teenager normally makes it to school on his own and participates in class, this extreme hovering would degrade the relationship. The teen would probably either begin to rebel (which would be healthy) or suffer from low confidence (which would be unhealthy).

In an extreme case, trusting too little is called paranoia. A mom might have skipped school when she was a teenager. Perhaps she suffered from low self-esteem because her classmates teased her. She could over-emphasize her past hurts and then project them onto her son. It’s possible she feels too vulnerable even when her surrounding environment is safe.

Trusting Just Right

What is a person to do? If you trust too much, you can be hurt. If you trust too little, you hinder your relationships. The right amount of trust is called perceptive trust. The person engaged in perceptive trust is open to trusting others to the degree that they show themselves trustworthy. That’s smart.

Trust is evidence of a healthy relationship. But the cautions about trusting too much still apply. The amount of trust you place in an imperfect human should still be limited. Trusting too much will break your relationships with other humans. Others can’t live up to an exaggerated amount of trust. With too high expectations of a person, the relationship is doomed to fail from the start.

Trusting too much puts people on a pedestal. It can become idolatry.

It is better to trust the Lord for protection than to trust anyone else, including strong leaders.
Psalm 118:8-9 CEV

No matter how trustworthy another person is, there will always be some risk to trusting him. Nobody is perfect. Anyone at any time can let you down. So why should you trust anyone, including God who allows others to hurt you?

You can never trust God too much. He is completely trustworthy. You can’t blame Him for others’ mistakes. The more you trust God, without limit, the better off you will be.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart;
do not depend on your own understanding.
Proverbs 3:5 NLT

Trusting God with all you’ve got provides you with an insurance policy. If anyone lets you down, God will always be there to take care of you. That might not always make sense, but it doesn’t have to when you place your trust in God.

Read about repairing broken trust.
Image by Christian Calhoun from Pixabay

Guard Your Heart Or You Will Become Lost

April 10, 2022 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Does God want you to be more trusting or less trusting? Should you always open your heart to people? The answers to these questions depend on whether you are among friends or enemies.

However, sometimes your friends can act like enemies, and sometimes enemies can act like friends. An enemy, or a friend acting like an enemy, can harm your heart. The wound can take a long time to recover from. Many times, the wound won’t completely heal until the next life begins in heaven.

Wounds are costly. So what can you do? Read further to understand your heart and how you can protect it.

What is Your Heart?

Your heart is the core of your identity. Without it, you wouldn’t be able to know who you are. In many ways, it’s like a mysterious black box. Perhaps we can know some of what is in our hearts, and understand some about how it got there, but we probably have no clue how God makes it all work.

We know that Jesus is significantly concerned about our hearts (Matthew 15:18-19; Matthew 23:27-28). What a person says or does has its origins in the core of that person. The condition of a heart is an accurate representation of the whole person (Proverbs 27:19).

I suspect all of us could benefit from admitting that both of the following are true:

The heart contains more corrupt motives than any of us realize because we haven’t fully experienced the depths of its sickness (Jeremiah 17:9).
God has designed our hearts to contain amazingly beautiful features that we haven’t been able to appreciate because no one has recognized them yet (Proverbs 20:5).

Why Is Your Heart Important?

Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.
Proverbs 4:23 NLT

Most believers want to know God’s will for their lives. We want to know if our existence is significant. We want to know how to succeed in life.

Proverbs 4:23 provides the answer. Your heart will determine how your life turns out. It’s like a compass for your life. It will decide the direction you take. Without a well-functioning center, you will be lost.

Fortunately for us, God doesn’t leave us helpless. He gives believers a new heart that can respond to His correction and love (Ezekiel 36:26).

Guard Your Heart: Discern Your Enemies

While you can be courageous because God is with you (Joshua 1:9), God also commands you to protect your most valuable possession.

The enemy, and sometimes the people influenced by him, can cause great harm to your heart. God expects you to protect it from evil.

Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.
1 Peter 5:8 NLT

“Don’t waste what is holy on people who are unholy. Don’t throw your pearls to pigs! They will trample the pearls, then turn and attack you.”
Matthew 7:6 NLT

At the same time, to understand who you are, you must expose your heart to yourself, to God, and to others. As you allow God to search your heart, He will find sick parts that need Healing but also treasures that need to be put on display (Psalm 139:23-24).

The more you trust others, the more you are letting your guard down. You allow yourself to be known. Most of the time this will produce favorable results, but it can also end in rejection.

What level of risk is worth taking, given the possible rewards? As you become better at guarding your heart, your risk goes down. Guarding your heart means protecting it, but it also means nurturing it so it can thrive. What does your heart tell you today about the course of your life?

Master Conflict Resolution With 5 Concepts

April 3, 2022 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Conflict resolution is the ability to be satisfied with what is within your control. That sounds simple enough, but it’s not necessarily easy. It implies that finding a solution requires knowing what you can control and what you can’t.

Do you know what you are entitled to? To be entitled is to be empowered to accomplish or obtain something. If you are entitled, you are authorized and you are in control. Unfortunately, for too many people, this creates the idea that they can demand certain activities from their spouses as if marriage comes with enforceable guarantees.

However, just because something is supposed to happen in marriage, doesn’t entitle anyone to demand that it happens. You could make demands, but if you can’t control your spouse (and you can’t or at least you shouldn’t be able to), what does this accomplish? Making a demand is prideful while making a request is humble and doesn’t rule out exercising your boundaries (controlling what you can control).

Here are 5 concepts to help you resolve conflict without overstepping your bounds:

Conflict Resolution Concept #1: Be Responsible for your Happiness

Each person is 100% responsible for their own emotions/happiness. If you aren’t happy, don’t blame your spouse. God expects us to find a way to be content even when other people are not cooperating.

If you are feeling anxious, angry, or sad, those are your emotions. They say something about you. You are empowered to take action to manage your feelings. If you make your happiness dependent on someone else’s behavior, you might never be happy again.

Conflict Resolution Concept #2: Clean Up Past Hurts

It’s an essential skill to be able to bring up hurts from the past, or whatever is bothering you, so you can discuss it and resolve it as a couple. When you solve a puzzle, it is finished. You can put it behind you and move on to the next challenge. If you don’t find a solution, you’ll be stuck or limited to what happened in the past.

Cleaning up the past is different than blame-shifting today’s problems onto your spouse. Resolving present-day conflict often requires looking into the past to see the larger scope of the problem. It’s like making sure you have all the pieces of a puzzle before you start working on it.

Conflict Resolution Concept #3: Find Balance with Multiple Options

Find an appropriate balance between the urgency to work through your concerns and the acceptance of your spouse. Everyone needs grace for their spiritual journey.

You should spend a percentage (for example 50%) of your time working on conflict resolution and the rest on having fun together. You should spend a percentage (for example 70%) of your time together and the rest on individual pursuits.

Conflict Resolution Concept #4: Be Clear About What You Want

Speak clearly (directly if necessary) about what is going on with you and what you want. Don’t expect your spouse to know what you need or want (read your mind).

Communication is hard work. It’s okay if it takes time to put into words what you are experiencing. See if you can say what is on your heart in a way you’ve never done before. Use different words to explain how you are doing. You might learn something about yourself in the process.

Conflict Resolution Concept #5: Keep at Least One Listener in your Conversation

Watch out for the trap of two people needing to be heard at the same time with no listeners present. This will mean taking turns speaking and listening without defensiveness (turning the focus back to you). Listening doesn’t count if you spend your time speaking about your perspective. Your spouse isn’t usually interested in your perspective when they are trying to share theirs. They want to know if you understand their perspective.

Anything less than one listener results in wasted effort at best and complete chaos (fuel for conflict) at worst.

I hope these concepts help you with your conflict resolution. What struggles are you having that seem unsolvable? Let me know. Remember to make sure you have all the pieces of the puzzle before you become too discouraged or frustrated. If you need someone to help you find all the pieces and where they go, there’s marriage counseling for that.

Other ideas about improving your marriage.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Dig Up Courage To Bury Your Skeletons

March 27, 2022 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Skeletons belong in the ground, not in the closet. Likewise, sin belongs on the cross, not in the heart. It takes courage to properly clean up the mess in our hearts. Everyone is quick to hide their shame and slow to dispose of it.

Who hasn’t miraculously cleaned up a room by shoving all the clutter into the closet? Your guests can enjoy the illusion of a clean home. And you can enjoy your moment of pure genius, at least until a guest opens the door to hang up their coat or attempt to find the bathroom.

Half-Hearted Cleaning Lacks Courage

Closets are for storing junk out of the way, but hearts aren’t supposed to have hidden rooms. Jesus is against tactics that disguise the true state of the heart. Such efforts are especially insidious when the person attempting the beautification project believes that beauty is only skin deep.

“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
Matthew 23:27-28 NLT

Cleaning only the outside (being concerned only with appearance) is for non-believers. It’s impossible for a non-believer to clean the inside. That’s Jesus’s point to the Pharisees: they don’t know Him.

God tends to the hearts of those He calls His own (1 Samuel 16:7, Hebrews 12:4-11). God knows about your closet even if you’ve long forgotten about what is inside.

Whole-Hearted Cleaning Requires Courageous Humility

No one has a pure heart, at least not without help. Instead of humbling ourselves by asking for Jesus’s help, we scurry around doing what we can to manage the dirt in our lives. God appreciates our willingness, but I’m sure He must get a chuckle from seeing our attempt. Human cleaning efforts don’t eliminate the dirt; they only rearrange it.

On your own, you lack the power to be perfect. Your best effort can only make the outside look better. But if you are a believer, Jesus can make your heart clean.

To properly bury shame once and for all requires uncovering it. That’s because the antidote to shame is acceptance. All of us desperately need this affirmation of our value because the sins of our hearts only reveal our inadequacies.

To accept anything, you must first see it for what it is. How can anyone overcome shame when they are afraid to look at it? However, even when you can endure the awareness of your shortcomings, more is required than knowing God accepts you if you want to be free of shame.

You will know God’s acceptance has eliminated your shame when you can accept yourself. You can only accept yourself because God accepts you. However, God’s acceptance hasn’t done you any good until you can accept you. If you can’t accept yourself that means you haven’t fully embraced God’s acceptance.

Ask for Courage

If you have courage, pray like this:

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Psalm 51:10 ESV

If you lack the courage to face your shame, ask God for strength. Then look to Him for the antidote.

I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.
Psalm 34:4-5 NIV

All that is left now is to believe God accepts you. If you continue to struggle with this, you might benefit from Christian Identity Therapy to help you gain the courage to make God’s acceptance real in your life.

More help for overcoming shame.
Image by Lothar Dieterich from Pixabay