Insights

Recover From Crushing Betrayal

May 1, 2022 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Reading time: 4 minutes

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.
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The Danger Of Trusting Too Much

April 24, 2022 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Reading time: 6 minutes

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

Is trusting too much the same as loving too much or eating too much chocolate? How can you go wrong with something so good that is often in short supply? Anything used beyond its intended capacity or function can become harmful.

Trusting Too Much

Would you walk across a room in broad daylight? Most people wouldn’t have a problem with this. How about walking across the same room at night? While more challenging, most people could handle this. But what would happen if I had thrown out a handful of thumbtacks onto the floor?

Yes, it is possible to trust too much. It’s called blind trust. No one will fault you for it–possibly only yourself, after the fact. That’s because your trust benefits others. It will benefit you too, but only up to a point.

It might be helpful to think of trust not so much as an all-or-nothing blank check, but as something that you grant others in varying degrees. Asking whether you should trust someone oversimplifies the problem. Forcing a “Yes” or “No” leaves too much room for error. And the more error, the more people will be hurt.

To minimize the hurt, a better, more refined question is “How much do I trust this person?”

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. With this analogy, the cup is the other person’s trustworthiness and the liquid is the length you go to trust them. Before you fill the cup it’s better to estimate how much it can hold. Does it have holes? Try to determine an individual’s character and trustworthiness.

Trust is a commodity that has a limited supply. If you give too much away… if you waste it… you might be unwilling to trust when you really want to.

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.

By trusting too much, you open yourself 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 feel hurt, the more you are likely to decrease your level of trust.

While protecting yourself is wise in some cases, it’s never the best option all the time. Overprotecting yourself to prevent ever being hurt again goes too far. You might trust too little as a general rule you apply to everyone (even the people who are trustworthy). Instead of discerning if people are trustworthy (which requires much more effort), you predetermine to not trust anyone by withholding real consideration.

Trusting Too Little

Some people choose to trust too little. This is 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.

Let’s return to the cup analogy. What if you go to fill another’s cup and realize you only have a few drops of trust that you’re willing to spare? If the other person has the capacity for trust, then you can be the limiting factor in the relationship.

How would a teenager feel about a mom who walks him to school and sits with him in class? Assuming the teenager typically 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.

It’s important to notice in this example that the amount of trust this mom allows isn’t based on her experience and observations of her teenager but based on her experiences and observations of herself.

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 exercising discernment.

Trust is evidence of a healthy relationship. But because no one is completely trustworthy except God, the cautions about trusting too much still apply. Even when you rightly determine a high level of integrity in a person, 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. When you’ve been betrayed, trusting God might not always make sense, but it doesn’t have to. Blind trust in God is always better than no trust in God. Although, even with God, trust based on a positive experience of Him is more robust. Don’t neglect to build up your trust in God.

Read about repairing broken trust.
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Updated and Expanded August 7, 2022

Grieving Frees You From A Trapped Life

April 17, 2022 by Matt Pavlik 2 Comments

Reading time: 6 minutes

I’ve discovered that grieving is a way to become unstuck. It’s a process of coming to accept what seems unacceptable. It changes you for the good, but it leaves you different.

Can you remember a time when you felt stuck? Perhaps you wanted to change but weren’t sure who or what would help. Maybe you had already tried many solutions. I have been there many times.

You can only experience something for the first time once in your life. Once you experience it, you are changed. Those second and following experiences aren’t the same. Consider—the first bite of that heavenly dessert or that first sip of refreshingly cold water on a scorching hot day. Though you may finish the rest, it won’t be the same as the first.

Life is like a series of gates you go through. The gates are one-way doors. After you go through them, you can’t go back. All you can do is view the past from a distance. Here are three reasons why you should become better at grieving.

Grieving Helps You Let Go of Regrets

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.
2 Corinthians 7:10 ESV

It’s better to realize too late that you could have handled a situation better than to never realize it at all. How many times have you wished for a do-over?

Sometimes life can feel like a rushing river is escorting you through the gates faster than you want to go. As you careen downstream, you hit some rocks; there isn’t time to catch your breath. You can feel trapped because rivers don’t flow backward.

Is there no way to go back so you can erase your mistakes? If you can’t make it so it never happened, is there any point in dwelling on it?

Godly grief allows you to move forward into a new way of living that embraces God’s ability to make all things work for good (Romans 8:28). But to move forward, you must revisit the past. You can’t change the past, but you can change yourself. Grieving allows you to see your mistakes and sit with them for a time. This is important because it gives the past proper significance. It is natural and understandable for us to want to quickly forget about the pain, but when we do, we miss the depth of recovery.

Grieving gives you time to receive God’s words of forgiveness and healing. Worldly grief keeps you stubborn and unwilling to accept God’s help—you are sorry to be stuck, but don’t want to do the hard work to heal. People stuck in worldly grief, even if their pain goes away, have nothing to show for their time. They don’t care about learning a lesson.

Grieving Helps You Wait For God

Sometimes life can feel like a riverbed that dried up so long ago you can’t remember when. The gate in front of you seems to be permanently blocked. You think you are ready to move on, but God has other plans and says “wait.” He wants you to linger where you are for a while. You feel trapped because you can’t move forward into the future, the past seems irrelevant, and the present is boring or painful.

But during this time, you make the effort to learn that God is sufficient for all your needs.

Deep in my heart I say, “The Lord is all I need; I can depend on him!

The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.

It is good to wait patiently for the Lord to save us.
Lamentations 3:24 (CEV) 25 (ESV) 26 (CEV)

The way forward won’t be closed forever. If you find that it is currently closed, then there’s more to do in this chapter of your life before you move on to the next.

While you are waiting, you can seek God by asking Him to accomplish His plans in your life so you can eventually open the door. Tell Him how you feel a deep sense of frustration because you can’t reach the future you desire. Ask God to reveal what important task remains to be accomplished.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
Matthew 7:7-8 NIV

Allow God to meet you here. This might be a time to be fully in the present moment and to cultivate contentedness. Slow down and enjoy the time you have now. After you move forward, you’ll only be able to return through your memories.

Grieving Helps You Step Through the Open Door

Sometimes life can feel like you are on a calm lake but you are approaching a waterfall. You fear for your survival. The way forward is dreadful. You’d rather enjoy the serenity of the lake.

Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.
Ecclesiastes 7:10 ESV

Most people think of grieving as coming to accept a loss, but longing for the so-called “good ol’ days” is also a form of grieving. With each passing gate, a melancholy nostalgia can build. The older you are, the more there is that will never be again.

The older I get, the more I realize that I won’t be able to accomplish everything on my to-do list. Prioritization matters at every age, but its value becomes abundantly clear later in life.

Grieving is a process that can transform you as you sort through memories and bring closure to them. If the past seems to be the happiest you will ever be, think again! Prepare your heart for what else God has in store for you. Passing by the old things also means God is doing something new right now and He will do even more tomorrow.

For I am about to do something new.
See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?
I will make a pathway through the wilderness.
I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.
Isaiah 43:19 NLT

What body of water best describes your current season of life? Remember that God is a masterful gatekeeper. Allow Him to guide you through the wilderness with all He provides. Seek wisdom from God (see Ecclesiastes 7:8-14 for more insight into grieving).

Read more about 3 Steps to Achieve Healthy Grieving
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Updated and Expanded July 10, 2022

Guard Your Heart Or You Will Become Lost

April 10, 2022 by Matt Pavlik 2 Comments

Reading time: 5 minutes

How are you doing with trust? Do you trust enough, too much, or not enough? Would genuine Christians close their hearts to others? Does God want you to always open your heart to people? The answers to these questions all depend on whether you are among friends or enemies.

But who exactly is your friend? Sometimes a friend can act like an enemy. Sometimes an enemy can act like a friend. An enemy, or a friend acting like an enemy, can harm your heart. So-called friends or “frenemies” can be immature or weak. Jealousy or bitterness can produce passive-aggressive behavior.

People close to you can tear you down for their advantage and steal what is rightfully yours. 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.

If you have ever experienced this, you understand that betrayal wounds are costly. So what can you do? Read further to better understand your heart and what healthy steps you can take to protect it.

Why Is Your Heart Important?

Your heart is a biblical term for the core of your identity: who you are, what you value, and what you stand for. Your heart can seem like a mysterious black box. Can you know for sure what is inside?

Perhaps we can know some of what is in our hearts, and understand some about how it got there, but we have no clue how God makes it all work. Only God knows us completely.

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).

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. How? Proverbs 4:23 provides the answer.

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

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.

Follow Your New Heart But Deny Your Old Heart

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).

Recognizing these as both true is crucial to avoiding extreme thinking that leads to unhealthy behaviors. For instance, you could read Jeremiah 17:9 and conclude that you are bad and that nothing you desire can be trusted. This only produces fear, self-doubt, and a passive approach to life.

Fortunately, God didn’t leave us believers helpless. He gives us new hearts that can respond to His correction and love.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:26 NIV

The new, living heart replaces the old, dead one. In this context, “flesh” is positive–it means alive. But there is another kind of flesh that Paul mentions (Romans 7:14-24). In this context, “flesh” is the entire physicalness of our being which has been corrupted by a sinful nature. You can read more about flesh here.

Your new heart comes with your newly created spirit. But even with a new core, it’s possible to give in to the desires of the flesh. For the believer, new, worthy, and beautiful desires coexist with harmful motives and desires. It’s possible to do something that appears to be right for the wrong reason. People can donate to the poor to look good to others. Therefore, every desire must be tested.

Guard Your Heart: Discern Your Enemies

Discernment is especially important in a culture that says “follow your heart” to do whatever you want, regardless of how it affects yourself, your future, other people, or your ability to follow God’s commandments.

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

The enemy, and sometimes the people influenced by him, can cause you great harm. God expects you to protect yourself from evil people and evil ideas. Sometimes this can be as simple as avoiding evil influences. Other times, it will involve guiding and guarding your heart while you are in the midst of evil. In those situations, consider what would help you, such as what you are thinking about or who you are trusting.

Truth, whether about a situation, about who you are, or about who God is, is the powerful antidote to the poison of evil. Here are two truths to encourage you to protect yourself.

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, your heart needs nurturing. To understand who you are, you must share what is inside of you with yourself, God, and others. As you allow God to search you, He will help you identify the 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. Protect yourself, without ceasing to nurture yourself, so you can thrive. What does your heart tell you today about the course of your life?

Read more about how to keep your heart healthy.
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Updated and expanded July 24, 2022

Master Conflict Resolution With 5 Concepts

April 3, 2022 by Matt Pavlik 3 Comments

Reading time: 4 minutes

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.
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Dig Up Courage To Bury Your Skeletons

March 27, 2022 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

Reading time: 3 minutes

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.
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