Did Christmas pass by us already? It seems like just last week it was Thanksgiving. Sorry I didn’t write a blog last Monday but the week crept up on me so fast I totally forgot.
For all of us who spend some time making New Year’s Resolutions, I thought I’d answer a reader’s question about making some permanent changes in her life.
Question: There are things in my life that I want to change and although I have good intentions, I never seem to get very far with any actual change. Any wisdom or tips?
Answer: I think making significant changes to our life – especially to our habits and inner character qualities takes a determined effort and support of like-minded people. It’s tempting and frankly easiest to do what we’ve always done, even if we don’t like it. So here are some things that will help you make that leap from wanting to change to success.
First you actually have to want to change more than you want to stay the same. That may seem like a no brainer but here is a very common example. Each year millions of people vow to lose weight. Gyms are crowded the first week of January with people who want to take it all off by bathing suit season. Very few of these same people are in the gym come February. Why not? It’s too hard and they like eating what they want more than they like working out and eating healthy. But if they were with a group of people who had the same desire and goals and went to the gym together, then they would be more likely to succeed.
Second, set some specific goals. If your desire is to lose weight for example, then set a goal of 5 pounds, or a goal to exercise 3 times a week. If you want to read your bible more this year, then set a goal of a specific book to read or join a study that will help you accomplish that goal with some accountability. Again, if you do these things with a group of like-minded people who want the same things you do, your chances for success greatly increase.
The next step is crucial. For our desires and goals to actually become reality – we must learn to train/discipline ourselves.
Let me explain. An athlete trains or disciplines his body because he LOVES his sport and wants to be the best. The same principle applies for a musician. We don’t discipline ourselves because we love discipline. We discipline ourselves in order to reach the goal we have set. In our spiritual lives, we train ourselves because we love God and want to become more like him.
Owsald Chambers advises us: “We go wrong because we stubbornly refuse to discipline ourselves, physically, morally, or mentally. You must discipline yourself now. If you do not, you will ruin the whole of your personal life for God.” Dec 10th
A musician or athlete understands that they will never reach their potential without hard work. Somehow as Christians we naively think that we can develop our new nature without such disciplined training.
As Christians, we can have all the desire in the world to change—to become more like Jesus, but having a desire is just not enough. Many of us desire to save money for retirement, but have no disciplined practice or goals of making that desire into a reality. Many want good marriages, but do not take the time and effort required to communicate and relate effectively with our spouse. I can want to run a marathon until the day I die, but I will never be able to get my body to run a marathon, or even run two miles in a row unless I train my body to perform at the level that my will desires it to. Most of us will never be top athletes or concert musicians but in Christ, our fullest potential is to develop the nature of Christ within so that our lives will glorify God. But God never expected us to do this kind of training without the benefit of community. So find a good body of believers and then join a small group, Sunday school class or women’s bible study where you can share your goals and struggles and they can encourage you and keep you accountable.
The final step is to stay determined. In other words, understand that perfection is not the goal but saying focused is. This past year I read through the entire bible. Each day I had selected passages to read in order to reach my goal. Did that mean I disciplined myself every day to read my bible? Not really, but I did discipline myself to read more days than not and when I fell behind, I determined not to let go of my goal and would catch up. Staying determined to reach your goal means you hold yourself accountable and you don’t let yourself get so far behind or off course that you’re tempted to give up.
Let’s use this blog to share with each other our 2010 goals and how we can encourage one another toward greater growth and change.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Practical Suggestions for Loving An Enemy (Difficult Person)
We had a lot of responses from last week’s question about how to deal with a difficult person with love, honor and respect, especially when you don’t trust them. So this week’s blog is a follow up to that question with some practical suggestions on how to implement loving one’s enemy or doing good for someone whom you do not like.
Let me begin with a story. Once upon a time there was a thoughtful and generous woman who spontaneously would bring her mother-in-law special treats from the grocery store. If tomatoes were on sale, she’d buy a few extra. If there was a coupon for a certain product she knew she liked, she’d cut it out and buy it for her. Over time however, this generous and thoughtful woman began to notice that her mother-in-law rarely reciprocated. As she paid attention to the lack of mutuality in their relationship, she started to keep score. Soon she felt resentful and bitter and decided that doing these nice things for her mother-in-law was a waste of time. She complained to her husband and to others. She eventually confronted her mother-in-law but nothing was changing,. . . or was it?
We’ve been looking this month – both in my blog and my December newsletter about practicing presence. Today my advent reading said this. “What is most present to me is what has a hold on my becoming.” In the above story, what was this woman becoming? She was once a thoughtful and generous person but by being most present to her mother-in-laws ingratitude and indifference she was becoming a different person, stingy, bitter and resentful. The mother-in-law wasn’t changing but the woman certainly was.
I believe that when we’re not careful or mindful, negative and destructive people can influence us to become just like they are. That is why it is essential that we practice the opposite virtue when we are caught in our own emotional quicksand from difficult people. Doing good toward our enemy may not make a difference to them, but it will greatly help us.
Here are some practical ways we can do good and yet not expect mutuality, fairness, gratitude, or anything else back. We can pray for the person – not just about the person but for their good. We can pray that God will bless him or her, that he will help him or her, that he will show his love. We can also pray that God will bring them to their senses, help him see his sinfulness and repent (this would be for his good).
We can also do tangible things to help them where appropriate. Joseph helped his brothers get food during a famine but he did not offer them a relationship with him because he didn't trust them (see Genesis for the story). Doing good to our enemy doesn't mean that we give our fellowship (which isn't possible when there is an abusive or destructive person who refuses to acknowledge their actions or repent).
We can offer transportation if needed, we can bring a meal over, we can offer to help clean their home, or do other chores that they are unable to do for themselves. We can send them a birthday card or other word of encouragement. We can send them money, pay a specific bill, visit them in the hospital or nursing home, take our children to see them even if our relationship is tense (as long as the children are safe).
Obviously these suggestions need to be tempered with wisdom depending upon the specific situation and may also need specific time limits and boundaries so that you are not overwhelmed beyond your own ability to handle it in a godly way. As I mention in my book, The Emotionally Destructive Relationship, when you enter into a toxic environment, take precautions and go in prepared. Ask people to pray for you, imagine different situations that may come up so you can practice how you want to respond if provoked and don’t do it for a longer time period than you can do it graciously. And if you are not able to do it yet, don’t despair. Just pray and ask God for wisdom to what he would have you do, if anything right now.
God says that he gives sunshine and rain to the righteous and unrighteous alike. Who God is doesn’t depend on how we treat him. Jesus didn’t allow other people’s insults, ingratitude, unbelief,sin, or foolishness to turn him into someone else. His focus was on God, not on the people and because he was most present to God, that was what continued to shape his becoming. In the same way, let us be more present to God, even in the midst of difficult and destructive people that we may fix our eyes on him and that in the process, become more and more like him.
Let me begin with a story. Once upon a time there was a thoughtful and generous woman who spontaneously would bring her mother-in-law special treats from the grocery store. If tomatoes were on sale, she’d buy a few extra. If there was a coupon for a certain product she knew she liked, she’d cut it out and buy it for her. Over time however, this generous and thoughtful woman began to notice that her mother-in-law rarely reciprocated. As she paid attention to the lack of mutuality in their relationship, she started to keep score. Soon she felt resentful and bitter and decided that doing these nice things for her mother-in-law was a waste of time. She complained to her husband and to others. She eventually confronted her mother-in-law but nothing was changing,. . . or was it?
We’ve been looking this month – both in my blog and my December newsletter about practicing presence. Today my advent reading said this. “What is most present to me is what has a hold on my becoming.” In the above story, what was this woman becoming? She was once a thoughtful and generous person but by being most present to her mother-in-laws ingratitude and indifference she was becoming a different person, stingy, bitter and resentful. The mother-in-law wasn’t changing but the woman certainly was.
I believe that when we’re not careful or mindful, negative and destructive people can influence us to become just like they are. That is why it is essential that we practice the opposite virtue when we are caught in our own emotional quicksand from difficult people. Doing good toward our enemy may not make a difference to them, but it will greatly help us.
Here are some practical ways we can do good and yet not expect mutuality, fairness, gratitude, or anything else back. We can pray for the person – not just about the person but for their good. We can pray that God will bless him or her, that he will help him or her, that he will show his love. We can also pray that God will bring them to their senses, help him see his sinfulness and repent (this would be for his good).
We can also do tangible things to help them where appropriate. Joseph helped his brothers get food during a famine but he did not offer them a relationship with him because he didn't trust them (see Genesis for the story). Doing good to our enemy doesn't mean that we give our fellowship (which isn't possible when there is an abusive or destructive person who refuses to acknowledge their actions or repent).
We can offer transportation if needed, we can bring a meal over, we can offer to help clean their home, or do other chores that they are unable to do for themselves. We can send them a birthday card or other word of encouragement. We can send them money, pay a specific bill, visit them in the hospital or nursing home, take our children to see them even if our relationship is tense (as long as the children are safe).
Obviously these suggestions need to be tempered with wisdom depending upon the specific situation and may also need specific time limits and boundaries so that you are not overwhelmed beyond your own ability to handle it in a godly way. As I mention in my book, The Emotionally Destructive Relationship, when you enter into a toxic environment, take precautions and go in prepared. Ask people to pray for you, imagine different situations that may come up so you can practice how you want to respond if provoked and don’t do it for a longer time period than you can do it graciously. And if you are not able to do it yet, don’t despair. Just pray and ask God for wisdom to what he would have you do, if anything right now.
God says that he gives sunshine and rain to the righteous and unrighteous alike. Who God is doesn’t depend on how we treat him. Jesus didn’t allow other people’s insults, ingratitude, unbelief,sin, or foolishness to turn him into someone else. His focus was on God, not on the people and because he was most present to God, that was what continued to shape his becoming. In the same way, let us be more present to God, even in the midst of difficult and destructive people that we may fix our eyes on him and that in the process, become more and more like him.
Monday, December 7, 2009
My mother-in-law is getting to me. Help!
Before I address this week's question I want to follow up last week’s blog about practicing God’s presence by sharing with you a metaphor that I’ve been using to help me practice abiding in Christ. Jesus used many metaphors to explain the mysterious and unknown things of God in ways people might grasp. For example, he said, “the kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.” Later on he said, “The kingdom of God is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened” (Luke 13:18-20)
We may not really understand these word pictures Jesus used because we don’t regularly bake bread or see mustard trees but in Jesus’ culture these were common ordinary things that he referred to in order to help his followers grasp deeper spiritual realities. Last week I was reading in John 14 and 15, where Jesus says, “I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” Later on in chapter 15 he says, “Abide in me, and I in you.” We read that we’re supposed to do this but experientially it’s difficult to grasp how this works.
While on vacation in Hawaii I did something rather ordinary that helped me experience the profound mystery of abiding with God and he with me. While playing in the ocean I suddenly became aware that I was in the ocean and that the ocean was in me. While remaining in the ocean I could float, which I could not do if I stepped out of the ocean.
In the same way Jesus tells us apart from him, we can do nothing. That’s why he tells us to remain in him. We are not God anymore than I am the ocean. The ocean is bigger than I am, but I can be in it and it can be in me. The awareness of that truth empowers us to float (abide). It’s not hard, but we have to let go, open our arms and allow the ocean to carry us. If you’ve floated before, use that experience to help your body and mind experience what it might be like to abide in God and him in you.
Here is this weeks’ question.
Question: I have had an on and off relationship with my mother in law. She’s nice to me as long as I give her what she wants. She is manipulative and controlling and even my husband, her son, wants nothing to do with her. She tells people bad things about me and when she is confronted, she blames others and defends herself.
I want to forgive her and start over but I know she will never change. I want to be the bigger person so I try to be kind. I recently sent her a birthday card but I can’t call her “mom” and don’t know what else to do to deal with this relationship. I have 11 years of hurt and anger and I don’t trust her. What do I do?
Answer: This is a difficult and common problem when someone is a family member but he or she has broken our trust and we really don’t like them very much. As Christians our desire is to forgive them and be reconciled but how do we deal with the hurt and anger that results from not only their sin against us, but also their unwillingness to accept any responsibility for the damage they’ve caused?
First, it’s important to understand that we are not Biblically required to have a close and personal relationship with everyone. It’s not possible. We only have so much time and energy and even Jesus himself wasn’t “friends” with everyone he knew or met. I think that for too long Christians have given themselves unnecessary guilt trips thinking that they have to like and be close to people they do not like or trust. It says of Jesus, “Many believed in his name when they saw the signs that Jesus was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what is in man” John 2:23,24).
From what you’ve written it sounds like your mother in law has always been this way and although you’ve tried to build a closer friendship with her, she has consistently done things to damage it. In this case it’s probably wisest to accept the reality that she doesn’t know how to have a healthy relationship and let it go. That doesn’t mean you have nothing to do with her, but it means that you have no expectations of mutual caring, mutual respect, or mutual honesty. You can minister to her but not be friends with her. There is a difference.
As your mother-in-law, God wants you to honor her. So what would that look? I’ve already addressed this question in a previous blog last June when a reader asked about honoring an abusive father, but I think honoring is similar to Christ’s command to “love our enemy and to do him or her good.” Jesus is not asking us to be friends with our enemy, but to love him or her. In the same way I think God knows that there are bad fathers and mothers and mothers-in-laws. He’s not expecting us to have close friendships with those who intentionally or blindly hurt us with no repentance but he does ask us to honor them anyway.
Why? Because when we love our enemy or honor an undeserving parent it protects us from being overcome with our own negative emotions toward that person. By practicing the opposite virtue (honoring someone instead of paying them back for the evil he or she does), we are not giving Satan the victory. The apostle Paul coaches us, “Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). Overcome is a fighting word, an active process you must do in order to not allow the evil your mother in law has done to you to overwhelm you with hurt, anger or bitterness. You already said you do not want to hang on to those emotions. You let them go through practicing forgiveness and living out the opposite virtue toward him or her such as kindness, compassion, honor, forgiveness and goodness. These are the ways we behave toward our friends, but Jesus calls us to act that way even toward our enemy – those we have no personal friendship with but with who we can still be Christ-like to.
Journal out your negative feelings and keep giving them to God. He knows exactly how you feel. He was gossiped about, misunderstood, reviled, abused and rejected. He didn’t allow those awful experiences to turn him into a different person nor was he friends with those people. Yet he continued to be who God wanted him to be and do what God wanted him to do and God gives us the power to do likewise.
We may not really understand these word pictures Jesus used because we don’t regularly bake bread or see mustard trees but in Jesus’ culture these were common ordinary things that he referred to in order to help his followers grasp deeper spiritual realities. Last week I was reading in John 14 and 15, where Jesus says, “I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” Later on in chapter 15 he says, “Abide in me, and I in you.” We read that we’re supposed to do this but experientially it’s difficult to grasp how this works.
While on vacation in Hawaii I did something rather ordinary that helped me experience the profound mystery of abiding with God and he with me. While playing in the ocean I suddenly became aware that I was in the ocean and that the ocean was in me. While remaining in the ocean I could float, which I could not do if I stepped out of the ocean.
In the same way Jesus tells us apart from him, we can do nothing. That’s why he tells us to remain in him. We are not God anymore than I am the ocean. The ocean is bigger than I am, but I can be in it and it can be in me. The awareness of that truth empowers us to float (abide). It’s not hard, but we have to let go, open our arms and allow the ocean to carry us. If you’ve floated before, use that experience to help your body and mind experience what it might be like to abide in God and him in you.
Here is this weeks’ question.
Question: I have had an on and off relationship with my mother in law. She’s nice to me as long as I give her what she wants. She is manipulative and controlling and even my husband, her son, wants nothing to do with her. She tells people bad things about me and when she is confronted, she blames others and defends herself.
I want to forgive her and start over but I know she will never change. I want to be the bigger person so I try to be kind. I recently sent her a birthday card but I can’t call her “mom” and don’t know what else to do to deal with this relationship. I have 11 years of hurt and anger and I don’t trust her. What do I do?
Answer: This is a difficult and common problem when someone is a family member but he or she has broken our trust and we really don’t like them very much. As Christians our desire is to forgive them and be reconciled but how do we deal with the hurt and anger that results from not only their sin against us, but also their unwillingness to accept any responsibility for the damage they’ve caused?
First, it’s important to understand that we are not Biblically required to have a close and personal relationship with everyone. It’s not possible. We only have so much time and energy and even Jesus himself wasn’t “friends” with everyone he knew or met. I think that for too long Christians have given themselves unnecessary guilt trips thinking that they have to like and be close to people they do not like or trust. It says of Jesus, “Many believed in his name when they saw the signs that Jesus was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what is in man” John 2:23,24).
From what you’ve written it sounds like your mother in law has always been this way and although you’ve tried to build a closer friendship with her, she has consistently done things to damage it. In this case it’s probably wisest to accept the reality that she doesn’t know how to have a healthy relationship and let it go. That doesn’t mean you have nothing to do with her, but it means that you have no expectations of mutual caring, mutual respect, or mutual honesty. You can minister to her but not be friends with her. There is a difference.
As your mother-in-law, God wants you to honor her. So what would that look? I’ve already addressed this question in a previous blog last June when a reader asked about honoring an abusive father, but I think honoring is similar to Christ’s command to “love our enemy and to do him or her good.” Jesus is not asking us to be friends with our enemy, but to love him or her. In the same way I think God knows that there are bad fathers and mothers and mothers-in-laws. He’s not expecting us to have close friendships with those who intentionally or blindly hurt us with no repentance but he does ask us to honor them anyway.
Why? Because when we love our enemy or honor an undeserving parent it protects us from being overcome with our own negative emotions toward that person. By practicing the opposite virtue (honoring someone instead of paying them back for the evil he or she does), we are not giving Satan the victory. The apostle Paul coaches us, “Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). Overcome is a fighting word, an active process you must do in order to not allow the evil your mother in law has done to you to overwhelm you with hurt, anger or bitterness. You already said you do not want to hang on to those emotions. You let them go through practicing forgiveness and living out the opposite virtue toward him or her such as kindness, compassion, honor, forgiveness and goodness. These are the ways we behave toward our friends, but Jesus calls us to act that way even toward our enemy – those we have no personal friendship with but with who we can still be Christ-like to.
Journal out your negative feelings and keep giving them to God. He knows exactly how you feel. He was gossiped about, misunderstood, reviled, abused and rejected. He didn’t allow those awful experiences to turn him into a different person nor was he friends with those people. Yet he continued to be who God wanted him to be and do what God wanted him to do and God gives us the power to do likewise.
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