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On The Fringe: The Truth About The Struggle To Belong

On The Fringe: The Truth About The Struggle To Belong

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Reading time: 3 minutes

Fringe, a TV show about weird, scientifically unexplainable events in the universe, debuted in 2008. It drew my interest at first because of the possibilities of the unknown. Because, well, exploring the mysteries of life is exciting.

“Fringe” can have a much broader definition than scientific anomalies. It has a connotation of “flaky” or “fragile.” If someone is teetering on the edge of an abyss they are on the fringe. They are one step away from slipping out of a meaningful existence. They are like Frodo when he puts on the evil ring; he must fight to not be drawn into the shadow world.

Non-Christians are on the Fringe

Without Christ, it’s easy to become lost in an endless pursuit of mysterious unknowns. Maybe there is something of substance beyond the fringe? Maybe an alien race is monitoring our every move. What else is out there?

You can become hooked on the lottery for the same reasons. Having lots of money sounds good, so it must be a good idea to buy into the lottery. I’ve got nothing else to do. I’ve got nothing to lose. — even though the odds of winning are small. You might say you have a fringe of a chance.

The craving to seek and discover is a good (God-given) desire. However, some people will tenaciously pursue strange, made-up phenomena, while at the same time refusing to acknowledge the existence of a real God that cries out to them through His creation.

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Romans 1:20 NIV

One definition of fringe is being “at the part of something that is farthest from the center.” This describes non-Christians quite well. They are present, able to see but choosing to face away from the center and pursue the outermost fringes of God’s creation. They keep hoping to find the fulfillment of their inner hunger in anything but God.

Are You, Christian, on The Fringe?

Another definition of fringe is “not completely belonging to or accepted by a group of people who share the same job, activities, etc.” It’s possible to be a Christian and know Christ, but still feel like you are on the fringe. This shouldn’t be so.

Do you feel like you are on the fringe? Are you hanging in the balance? Do you know you have worth, but can’t seem to feel your true worth in Christ?

Christ calls all who belong to Him to move toward Him. Because of His awesome sacrifice, all who are far away from the center are able to move toward the center.

Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Hebrews 4:16 NIV

“I am weird” and “I am worthless” are lies. Just because others don’t understand you (even other Christians) or you haven’t found a way to meet your needs doesn’t mean you are fringe material. Every one of God’s people belongs.

Living according to God’s plan for you means you will need to walk a different path than others walk. You have God’s favor as you walk on the path He made for you (see John 21:20-23).

God smiles as He thinks of you. God is always thinking about you. God is smiling at you. Look up to see His face.

Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy;
    no shadow of shame will darken their faces.

Psalm 34:5 NLT

Learn more about belonging.
More on the TV show at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fringe_(TV_series)
Definition from https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/on-the-fringes-of-something
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How To Grow More Confident

How To Grow More Confident

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Reading time: 3 minutes

Who wants to be confident? Everybody does That’s because possessing confidence means you have resilience, reliability, and strength. We are all familiar with what its opposite involves: self-doubt, insecurity, and discouragement. The cost of a lack of confidence is high.

So, why aren’t more people brimming over with confidence? Because it comes with a price. Are you willing to endure whatever it takes to gain this sense of peace and security?

To become strong, you first need to be more fully in touch with the ways you are weak. How aware are you of how you are doing emotionally? Fortunately, there is a shortcut to finding and building your endurance and confidence.

Listen To Your Body To Grow Confident

When I go running for more than a few minutes, my focus changes. As fatigue sets in, I have to motivate myself to keep going. I become more aware of the finish line. How much farther do I have to go? Will I be able to make it without stopping?

Fatigue can result in discouragement or you can allow it to produce a determination to keep going. When I become fatigued while running, it’s nearly impossible not to notice the strain on my body. But what is more interesting is how my physical health and my emotional health are linked.

God made our brains to store similar experiences together. Running triggers my brain to focus on the theme of whatever is desperately concerning me. When my body protests because of the physical strain, my brain brings my most serious emotional concerns into my awareness. I become flooded with what matters most to me. The thoughts can be obstacles on my path to a life well-lived.

Test Your Limits To Grow Confident

To grow in endurance, you have to test your limits. The testing identifies weak areas that need strengthening. Growth is stressful, usually requiring an upfront investment for a future payoff. Growth costs you your immediate state of relaxation.

When we can trust God with this process, the value of the reward far exceeds the stress.

Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

Romans 5:1-5 NLT

God is saying your problems and trials lead to a satisfying, secure, and confident hope. The development of character is the proof of your salvation–your entrance into heaven and eternal life. Furthermore, a heart full of love has no room for fear.

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

1 John 4:18 NIV

The next time you want to feel better, try wearing yourself out exercising (or whatever works for you). Then note what surfaces in your mind. That could be an area of weakness that God is working on so you can feel more confident.

We can see life as a painful struggle, but God sees it as endurance training. And endurance results in many good things such as peace, confidence, and character.

Read more about confidence.
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Last Edited 2023/01/29

Experiencing God

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Reading time: 4 minutes

Experiencing God Meeting Your Needs

God made us to have needs. How do you respond when God appears out of reach? It cuts to the core. It’s easy to respond negatively. What’s really going on here?

The Fox and the Grapes

A famished fox saw a cluster of ripe grapes hanging from a trellised vine. She resorted to all her tricks to get at them, but wearied herself in vain, for she could not reach them. At last she turned away, hiding her disappointment and saying: “The Grapes are sour, and not ripe as I thought.”

Wanting Something But Cannot Get It

Has this ever happened to you? You want something, but you cannot get it, and so you despise it? It is easy to despise what you cannot get. Then there is cognitive dissonance – wanting something, but not wanting it. What is cognitive dissonance? It’s a tension. When we are frustrated it is tempting to take an easy way out. It is the place where you reach where you hold seemingly contradictory thoughts at the same time. It is a place of confusion – uncertainty. When you find yourself frozen in your tracks and unable to make a decision, you might be experiencing C.D. Why else would you feel that way? That’s got to be tough – to want something so badly, but realize it’s beyond your grasp. The easy way out is to pretend you never needed in the first place.

More than Grapes

This applies to dating, and a whole lot of other things too. It applies to our hopes and dreams. It applies to our efforts. It applies to our self-worth. How? When we want something, but cannot attain it, it is certainly frustrating! Frustration combined with some unhealthy thinking leads to turning the frustration inward – taking it out on yourself. And wah-la — you are not just despising what you cannot get, you are despising yourself because you cannot get what you want. “I guess I didn’t deserve that anyway” or “I guess God doesn’t want me to have that” or “That must have been a bad thing for me because God isn’t allowing me to have it” “The grapes are sour anyway – I know it”.

Alternatives to Sour Grapes

Are there alternatives? You can get a ladder. Get some help! Are the grapes worth getting or not? Is the land flowing with milk and honey worth it or not? Or “is the land full of giants?” The land is spoiled. Unattainable. God won’t be with us. He doesn’t want the best for us. We are like grasshoppers. We can’t do it. I didn’t want it anyway. I am not worthy of such good grapes. I’ll take the sure bet – what I can achieve on my own.

What else can you do? You can look for lower hanging grapes. The grapes aren’t sour, they are presently out of reach. You can get them eventually. Don’t give up. Be patient. Be persistant. Be determined. Buy time. Don’t take your eye off the prize.

Reflections

Ask yourself – how does the fox feel about himself when he cannot get he grapes? Can he feel very good if he “curses” the grapes? What are the grapes in your life? Would you like some help to reach your grapes? I love helping people reach their grapes through focused determination and insights that help them see themselves as God sees them, and help people see God as he really is – a grape provider. Or, as we are sheep, God is a grass provider.

Resources

Numbers 13:32-33

And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.

Read on Bible Gateway

Psalm 23:1

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.

Read on Bible Gateway

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance. They do this by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and actions. Dissonance is also reduced by justifying, blaming, and denying.

Experience can clash with expectations, as, for example, with buyer’s remorse following the purchase of an expensive item. In a state of dissonance, people may feel surprise, dread, guilt, anger, or embarrassment. People are biased to think of their choices as correct, despite any contrary evidence. This bias gives dissonance theory its predictive power, shedding light on otherwise puzzling irrational and destructive behavior.

Read more on wikipedia

All Things New

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Reading time: 2 minutes

A traumatic event is not easily forgotten. As you begin this new year, what is one thing you’d like to forget?

If you’re in a car accident, your car doesn’t fix itself. If your tooth develops a cavity, the decay needs to be removed. When something breaks, you must decide what to do with it. Can it be restored? Is there hope, or are you better off cutting your losses?

If nothing will ever change, then hope will be impossible. Then all that remains is suffering.

God introduces the needed change.

I am creating something new. There it is! Do you see it?

I have put roads in deserts, streams in thirsty lands.

Isaiah 43:19 CEV

Because God is making us anew, hope is inevitable. You can change. You don’t have to remain stuck and hopeless. God is rehabilitating you. God wants you to feel hopeful.

Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. The past is forgotten, and everything is new.

2 Corinthians 5:17 CEV

Forget what happened long ago! Don’t think about the past.

Isaiah 43:18 CEV

The more you can leave behind your past, the better you will be. “Leave behind” is a loaded phrase. It takes significant emotional work to leave behind difficult experiences (memories).

Therefore, to move forward, you first need to move backward. If your carpet is dirty and worn, you need to rip it out before you can install new carpet.

Grieving is the work of leaving behind. Once that raggedy carpet is gone, you can forget about it. But you don’t want to completely forget about it, otherwise, you’ll be more likely to repeat an accident (like spilling grape juice).

Grieving allows you to remember the lesson, but forget about the discomfort and shame. Forget about it. Don’t worry about it. You are free. Once you are free, you are open to all that God has for you.

What is one new thing you want God to do in your life this year?

How To Know When To Say No

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Reading time: 3 minutes

You might be more of a people pleaser than you realize. When you are presented with a decision, how often do you discount your opinion with something like, “I can go either way” or “It doesn’t matter to me; you pick”? Or, maybe you disregard your opinion with a “Yes” without considering what you want.

Certainly, there will be times when you are indifferent. Even during these times, it’s nearly always a good idea to know what you want, even if you give up what you want for someone else.

A quick response of indifference might involve the least amount of effort, but it can cost you significantly more later on. Instead, what if you invested the time to know what you want?

The less you know yourself, the harder it is to give a clear, direct answer to even a simple question. When you know yourself well, your answer will be second nature.

You might be wondering, “How do I get to know myself?” There are two main approaches to strengthening your self-image. You can remain reactive or go proactive.

  1. In reactive mode, you stumble through life and only give consideration to your ways when it becomes absolutely required of you (if ever).
  2. In proactive mode, you consider your ways every chance you get. You explore your past and use what you learn to better your future. You take advantage of the fact that God gives you truth about life, including details about who you are.

A step in-between the two modes is trial and error. You essentially try something blindly. Then perhaps as an afterthought, you evaluate the outcome. It’s not completely reactive or proactive.

The superior approach is having an awareness of who you are. Then during any given moment, you can proactively choose how to act based on what you know about yourself. God wants you to live a self-examined life (see Haggai 1).

Essential to every approach is what you do with your experiences. God gives you a process to discover your identity (who you are as defined by God). The goal is to increase the awareness of your identity so that decisions become easier over time.

If you have trouble people-pleasing or making good decisions, that’s usually because you don’t know yourself well enough. Learning who you are can occur “on accident,” but knowing yourself will take much longer that way.

Instead, take the time to evaluate your experiences and weed out the lies that are growing in the garden of your self-image. With the clutter of lies cleared away, you’ll know more clearly whether you want to say yes or no.

For example: if you don’t know who you are very well, then you might end up with an over-booked schedule. You’ll wonder why you are tired and irritable. If you continue to ignore your God-given identity, you’ll assume you are doing what God wants you to be doing because you are serving others.

In contrast, with healthy boundaries that come from a healthy identity, you’ll be confident about where to draw the line. You can say yes to some activities and no to others without feeling guilty or overwhelmed.

Some things God requires of you. You should feel motivated to do right and not wrong. But actually, most things are up to you. God loves a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:7). You can decide to go for a walk or stay home. You can decide to visit a friend or be by yourself. For these decisions, you must trust that God gives you enough intelligence to choose.

You can know what to choose by determining what level of self-care you need at any given moment. Then weigh that against the needs of others around you.

You might be surprised at your preferences when you discover them, but they are never a surprise to God. God knows what you will choose before you choose it. Trust that God gave you a built-in preference system–that’s your identity.

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Act With Authority As You Live By The Spirit

Act With Authority As You Live By The Spirit

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Authority implies both confidence and the power to back it up. How often do you feel confident enough to act with God’s power? If you’re like me, you can never have too many reminders that God is on your side empowering you accomplish His will.

God wants us to act with authority when we are in alignment with His desires.

Act With Authority: Prioritize God’s Kingdom

If God wants something to happen, He can supply all you need to accomplish it. God knows what is most important in life. It’s those most important tasks that will ultimately bring the most joy by fulfilling them.

Sometimes, it’s hard to see what tasks are kingdom-focused. There are so many distractions and possibilities for how to live. The verse below starts with “seek.” Other words for seek are: pursue, explore, investigate, follow. That would imply that out understanding of God’s kingdom isn’t complete.

God also wants us to pursue what is right and reasonable. Believers have the mind of Christ, so we have some idea of what to pursue. Walking in the Spirit and being connect with God’s mind provides all we need to act with authority.

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

Matthew 6:33 NLT

Act With Authority: Don’t Worry

If you want something more than God thinks you need it, then you’ll end up carrying the burden for claiming it.

If you and Jesus are yoked together pulling a great weight, the effort required will be burdensome or manageable depending upon who is more eager to pull the weight.

If you are in a place of submission by letting Jesus lead, He will do most of the heavy lifting. But if in your impatience, you want to move faster than Jesus, you will feel the strain on your shoulders.

Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30 NLT

Act With Authority: Work Hard

Allowing God to lead doesn’t mean there is nothing left for you to do. God wants us to labor with all we have.

God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.

Ephesians 4:10-11 NLT

Therefore, we should develop a sophisticated believe system that allows for a complex application of God’s truth. We can both be dependent upon God’s strength and fully exercise our own strength. Both require faith because our strength can’t compare to God’s. But God wants us to participate with Him in the pursuit of His kingdom.

As you go about your days ahead, exercise your faith by seeking God’s kingdom. Put into practice all that you’ve learned from the Bible, the Spirt, and other believers. While you do this, be aware of God’s strength working in your life.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead

Ephesians 1:18-20 NIV

Grow Your Desire To Advance God’s Kingdom
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