Learning to renew your spiritual life and relax are critical to the emotional and physical health of ministers everywhere.
Dear Roger,
I can’t go on like this. The suffering is too great. I am learning how to cope. Would you give me some advice?
Sincerely,
Hurting.
Dear Hurting,
I am sharing the experience from my daughter Brianna, who has suffered from chronic illness for over twenty years. Here is her testimony:
“Yesterday, I HAD ENOUGH. Have you ever HAD ENOUGH? You roll with the punches, keep up the good fight, be the little engine that could…until you can’t. ENOUGH is ENOUGH.
I have a severe immunodeficiency, and I’ve been struggling with lung infections since early December. They wear me out! Breathing is really important. And for me, it takes weeks of breathing treatments, steroids, and antibiotics for my lungs to decide to move air again. I’m finally getting some air, and my body decides a migraine would be a great idea. So would extreme nausea. I haven’t kept food down—except for Jell-O or bread—in four days.
Then the internet went down. With four video calls on my docket. I’m applying for a doctoral program, and my transcript request was denied because I messed up a number in my student ID from 15 years ago. And then? The last straw? We. Ran. Out. Of. Apple. Juice.
ENOUGH doesn’t always hit at the most important moment. Just the most inopportune.
I proceeded to turn into a slavering hyena, biting the heads off of everyone in my vicinity. Mom, I AM FINE. No, I don’t want soup. EVER AGAIN. Dad, I DON’T CARE what we watch on TV. No internet means commercials. I hate commercials. Brad (my sweet husband), LOOK OUT! I’ve had the worst day. No, I don’t want a hug. I don’t want you to be nice to me. I’VE HAD ENOUGH.
I decided it would be best for everyone if I removed my lovely self from their presence. So, I did the obvious thing. I hid in the bathroom. Small space = containment.
Angry, frustrated, and exhausted doesn’t cover it. But I only know one way to deal with ENOUGH. And that’s to place it in the hands of the One who holds exploding stars. He is big enough, loving enough, and patient enough to deal with my ENOUGH. Plus, you can tell Him when you’re angry, frustrated, and exhausted. He already knows! He can take it.
It’s not a sin to have feelings. It’s a sin to act on them in a way that hurts other people. My dad always says, “Hurting people hurt people.” He’s absolutely right.
So, pour out the hurt. Holler at God. Tell Him all about your ENOUGH. Get out the pain.
Then ask Him to fill you with His peace. Accept that He is in control. Verbally place all your frustrations and needs in His hands.
Now, go rest. ENOUGH takes a lot out of you physically, mentally, and emotionally. You need to recharge. Make the time.
I slept hard last night, but I’m still pretty empty. So, after doing the work I have to do today, I’ll take some time to read, nap, and just chill. Gotta keep ENOUGH at bay, you know?”
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. (2 Corinthians 1:3-5 NIV)
Sincerely,
Roger and Brie
Simon Sinek unpacks his back story, including how his grandfather shaped him, how ADHD impacted his leadership and how a deep, personal crisis led to him developing the ideas behind Start With Why. Simon also talks about how existential flex is so important in a post-pandemic world, and why the church keeps losing ground.
www.careynieuwhof.com.
Drs. Roger Barrier and Chet Weld discuss why anxiety and stress are produced by misplaced priorities and worldliness. Get back to the basics.
NYT bestselling author, John Eldredge, returns to the podcast to talk about the collective trauma we’ve been through. He outlines the surprising signs of trauma, including memory loss, why you still feel depleted, the future of the church, the craziness of mindfulness and the challenges of deconstruction.
www,careynieuwhof.com
We saw the storm coming. While it was still days away, the predictions chilled our spines and jolted our complacency. “It’s a monster!” “Disaster is not only at our doorstep, it’s coming in!”
Now it arrives and will it be as vast and terrible as advertised? It promises to pounce, then sit and sit upon vast swaths of our coastland – drenching, driving, and destroying so much of what we love.
Many on the East Coast are fleeing the flooding. And as images of destruction begin to roll across our screens, we are all tempted to worry, wonder and fret. What can be done? Where is God in the midst of this disaster? Where is he in the midst of the storm that threatens your own life?
May I remind us of one strong anchor that is hooked to at least four unbreakable lifelines? You see, God is a God of promises. From the first chapter of the Bible, Scripture makes a case for the dependability of God. Nine times the text reiterates “God said.” And without exception when God spoke, something happened. By divine fiat there were light, land, beaches, and creatures. We are left with one conclusion: God’s word is sure and his promises can be trusted. What he says happens.
After 40 years in ministry I’ve seen a lot of storms. And I’ve learned that in turbulent times like this, there is nothing more secure than the anchor of God’s promises. “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure” (Hebrews 6:19).
Could you use some hope in the aftermath of this storm, and in other choppy seas you may be facing? Perhaps the wind of change and challenge is blowing in your faith, your family, or finances. Anchor deep into the unshakable promises of God.
And hold on tight to these four lifelines – they can withstand the waves of worry and difficulty in your life.
Hang tight, God gets you! He’s been there. He’s been here – and he understands your pain. The stunning idea is simply this: God, for a time, became one of us. Does this promise matter? If you ever wonder if God listens, he does. If you ever wonder if the Uncreated Creator can, in a million years, comprehend the challenges you are facing, then ponder long and hard the promise that Jesus is “able to understand our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:15).
Overcome Despair with Prayer. When life overwhelms, pray to the one who is in charge, and know that he is praying for you. Will God do what you ask? Perhaps. Or perhaps he will do more than you imagine. Stand firmly on the promise that “when a believing person prays, great things happen” (James 5:16). And ponder this truth: Jesus, right now, at this moment, in the midst of whatever trouble you are facing, is speaking on your behalf. He is calling out to the Heavenly Father. He is advocating for a special blessing to be sent your way. You do not fight the wind and waves alone. Every day he speaks up for you. “He always lives to intercede for [us]” (Romans 8:34).
Pull together when life comes apart. In times of extreme challenge we can divide or we can unite. One of the beautiful things that can emerge from times of trouble is extravagant compassion and care for our neighbors – crossing lines and building bridges. Our pain bears fruit if it reminds us that everyone has value, and we were created by God, in God’s image, for God’s glory (Genesis 1:26).
Evil exists, but it does not win! Yes, we’d rather have a storm-free life, but we can count on the devil stirring up trouble and fear. Take heart, God has overcome! Satan’s days are numbered. So in those moments when all that is good appears to lose, you do not need to worry. Remind the evil one, “The God who brings peace will soon defeat Satan and give you power over him” (Romans 16:20).
Hold fast to these lifelines and ask yourself this key question: Is what I’m anchored to stronger than what I’ll go through? Sometimes it may be a calamity that thousands are facing together, or it may be a personal battle that no one else even knows you are dealing with. But God knows. He knows and he cares. And he wants to buoy you in the day-to-day difficulties and guide you home to safe harbor. When the storm hits, anchor to no one but God.
Storms will come, my friend. But when they do, filter them through the promises of God. And since his promises are unbreakable, your hope will be unshakable.
www.lysaterkeurst.org.
Dear Roger,
I’m stressed and scared. It seems that the world is becoming more unstable daily. I worry about COVID, mass murderers, and protests. I’m worried about losing my job. I’m worried about what’s happening to my children’s education. I’m worried that life is we knew it is gone forever. I no longer read the news, because it seems that the same scary things are being repeated over and over. Everything seems to be in crisis. What are some practical ways to handle my stress? I’m all stressed out.
Sincerely,
Andy
Dear Andy,
When I was a teenager, I came across the following “LIFE EVENTS STRESS SCALE in the Sunday morning newspaper. Of course, putting a number to various stress situations is not an exact science. If you were to make a personal chart, your evaluations would certainly be somewhat different. Nevertheless, this exercise may well give us an idea of just how much stress we’re under.
Life events Stress scale
To get an idea of the level of stress (distress) in your life, place a checkmark beside each event that you have experienced in the last 12 months. Depending on your coping skills or the lack thereof, this scale can predict the likelihood that you will fall victim to a stress-related illness sometime in the next year.
NOTE: Stress-related illnesses can include heart attack or other heart problems, stroke, cognitive difficulties such as extreme forgetfulness or decline in problem-solving abilities, major depression, anxiety, immune suppression and a rise in infections, chronic fatigue, increased susceptibility to certain types of cancer, and many others.
When you’re finished, add up the points for each event. Check your score at the bottom.
_____ 100 Death of Spouse
_____ 73 Divorce
_____ 65 Marital or relationship partner separation
_____ 63 Jail term
_____ 63 Death of close family member
_____ 53 Personal injury or illness
_____ 50 Marriage
_____ 47 Fired from work
_____ 45 Marital reconciliation
_____ 45 Retirement
_____ 44 Change in family member’s health
_____ 40 Pregnancy
_____ 39 Sex difficulties
_____ 39 Addition to family
_____ 39 Business readjustment
_____ 38 Change in financial status
_____ 37 Death of close friend
_____ 36 Change to a different line of work
_____ 35 Change in number of marital arguments
_____ 31 Mortgage or loan over $350,000
_____ 30 Foreclosure of mortgage or loan
_____ 29 Change in work responsibilities
_____ 29 Trouble with in-laws
_____ 28 Outstanding personal achievement
_____ 26 Spouse begins or stops work
_____ 26 Starting or finishing school
_____ 25 Change in living conditions
_____ 24 Revision of personal habits
_____ 23 Trouble with boss
_____ 20 Change in work hours, conditions
_____ 20 Change in residence
_____ 20 Change in schools
_____ 19 Change in recreational habits
_____ 19 Change in church activities
_____ 18 Change in social activities
_____ 17 Mortgage or loan under $350,000
_____ 16 Change in sleeping habits
_____ 15 Change in number of family gatherings
_____ 15 Change in eating habits
_____ 13 Vacation
_____ 12 Christmas season
_____ 11 Minor violations of the law
_____ 50 Before we tidy up our total score, we need to include points which reflect the stress of the covid pandemic. I’m suggesting 50 points. You may want to go higher or lower depending upon your circumstances.
Of course, you may want to add points in unlisted areas like worrying about recessions and depressions. Or having a fixed income with a downturn in the economy accompanied with worries about inflation. You may have to add points based on you own personal circumstances.
______Your Total Score
Now, compare your score to the scale below:
< 149 = Low susceptibility to stress-related illness
150-299 = Medium susceptibility to stress-related illness
> 300 = High susceptibility to stress-related illness
Let me give you several practical thoughts about handling stress in a healthy, biblically sound way.
- WE CAN CHOOSE TO QUIET DOWN AND REDUCE OUR STRESS.
Psalm 131, written by David, is one of my favorite “quieting down” biblical passages. I go to it often, especially when I’m stressed. David says that it is possible to quiet our minds if we so choose:
My heart is not proud, oh Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I still and quiet my soul; like a child quieted at its mother’s breast, like a child that is quieted is my soul. (Psalm 131:1-2)
I also like to keep in mind the following verse. I often quote it to myself.
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee. (Isaiah 26:3 KJV)
Imagine that you’re sitting on the hillside with Jesus while He teaches about handling stress.
- WE CAN LOWER OUR STRESS LEVEL WHEN WE CONSIDER HOW VALUABLE WE ARE TO CHRIST.
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? (Matthew 6:26)
How many birds are you worth to God?
Perhaps five sparrows, a hawk, two cockatoos, and a bald eagle? How about two vultures?
Julie and I were teaching a spiritual seminar as in Izmir, Turkey. One of my daughters and one of her friends were with us on the trip.
I came upon a leather-engraved briefcase in the bazaar. The price tag was $300.
I said to the shopkeeper, “I’ll give you $150!”
He replied “No, how about $200.”
“No, thank you,” I said, $150 is as high as I’ll go.” We left.
Several hours later we were walking by the shop with the briefcase. The shop owner saw me, held up the briefcase, and yelled out, “How about one daughter and two goats?”
“No, that’s too much” I hollered back. “How about I give you one daughter and one goat!”
“Dad!”
Of course, my children are priceless.
God’s children are priceless to Him.
He will never allow anything to happen to us that is out of His control. We are worth too much.
- DRAW ON YOUR FAITH TO TRUST THAT NOTHING IS OUT OF CONTROL. GOD HAS A PLAN AND A PURPOSE FOR EVERYTHING.
And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in his entire splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 6:28-30)
Jesus invented the word “little faiths” (oligopistoi). It seems to be a nickname he utilized as a way of gently chiding his disciples for their lack of faith in God.
Remember when the storm raged upon the Sea of Galilee? Jesus was asleep in the boat, and the disciples were terrified. They awakened Jesus. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid, you “little faiths”?
I wish we could’ve seen His face and heard the inflection of His voice. He wasn’t scolding. He was smiling and encouraging. I’ve often thought that he may have been singing something like: “You’ve got the cutest little baby faith!”
Jesus is in the business of building and strengthening our faith.
Maybe you’re just starting out in your spiritual walk.
“Baby faith: you’ve got the cutest little baby faith!”
One of the most difficult and most important issues for those of baby faith is understanding that God often uses those things which stress us to mature us to look like Jesus.
During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered. (Hebrews 4:8)
The tools of obedience that God used with Jesus are the same tools that He uses with us. Consider these three types of faith we see in Scripture:
Doubting Faith: Like Thomas vacillating in the Upper Room, we struggle to believe. But when all is said and done, we put our faith in Him.
Normal Faith: Most of us live with normal faith. This type of faith enables us to work with the Father in finding good solutions to handle our stress. With normal faith, we can analyze and better understand what’s going on in our situation.
Amazing Faith: The Centurion’s son was dying. As Jesus set out for his house, the Centurion said, “My house is far away. You don’t need to go all that way. Just speak the word from here and now, and I know he’ll be well.”
Jesus said, “That’s amazing faith! I have not found this type of faith even in Israel!”
The more faith that we have, the easier it is to handle our stresses.
- RECOGNIZING THE WORRY PROCESS MAY HELP US UNDERSTAND HOW WE WORRY AND THUS REDUCE OUR STRESS.
What I call the “worry PROCESS” works like this.
First, our alert system registers that something is going wrong. This is often called “fight or flight.”
Second, our brain tells us that we are fixing the problem. So, we work on it.
Third, our brain tells us that the problem is fixed. All is well.
For some people, that process works well. Unfortunately, we can become stuck at any point.
Personally, I get stuck on all three. My alert system is overactive. Try as I might to fix things, I find little relief. I never reach the time when I can say, “All is well.”
Unfortunately, because of my genetic makeup, and also because of the habits I’ve developed, I’ve never handled stress very well. I live with a knot in my gut that never goes away, that tells me that something bad is about to happen.
In other words, worry and anxiety occur more naturally to some people than to others.
But knowing how these three parts of the process work together, I can get a rational head start on handling my stress. I have a chance to control my worry and consciously choose faith.
- PRACTICE LIVING DAILY IN THE PRESENT SO THAT YOU CAN ENJOY THE ABUNDANT LIFE THAT JESUS PROMISED AND STOP WORRYING SO MUCH ABOUT TOMORROW.
Living in the present is one of the best tools we have for overcoming our stress.
Jesus said: The thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy, but I have come that they may have life and life more abundantly. (Matthew 10:10)
Please notice the context. What does Satan come to steal, kill and destroy? Our abundant life!
We can only enjoy abundant life in the present.
We may say “Well, last week I enjoyed some abundant living.” Yes, but when we experienced it last week, we experienced it in the present. The same goes for the future. We may say, “Well, one day in the future I’ll experience more abundant life.” Yes, but when that future day comes, it will be your present.
What if Satan can keep us bound up in regrets, hurts, anger, humiliations, and ruminations about failures and losses in the past?
Would not that ruin our abundant life?
What if Satan can keep us filled with anxiety, worry and fears for the future?
Would not that ruin our abundant life?
Satan is out to steal, kill, and destroy our abundant life. We overcome his attacks by keeping our thinking in the present.
- LET’S MEDITATE ON JESUS’ SUMMATION OF HIS SERMON ON HOW TO HANDLE STRESS AS RECORDED IN MATTHEW 6:25-34.
I enjoyed Jesus’ teaching about God providing clothes and caring for the birds and the flowers. But I enjoy most Jesus ending His sermon with a simple and easy to remember statement that summarizes His advice on handling stress.
When you struggle with stress, memorize the following verse, and use it often:
Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:34)
Well Andy,
I hope you can use these tools to dramatically reduce your stress when needed.
Love, Roger
One of the callers on the Intentional Living program said, “I’m a single mom. I’m feeling overwhelmed with life. I’m trying to go to work. I’m trying to raise my kids.” And if you’ve been a single parent, you know some of that stress.
You may not be overwhelmed with parenting or grand-parenting. It could be your health, your finances, your work or any number of things. But we feel overwhelmed at times. And I’ve learned over the years in working with people that when we get really overwhelmed, sometimes we can do some stupid things. People have made decisions when they’re overwhelmed that they later look back and say “I shouldn’t have done that,” or “I could’ve made a better decision, but because I was feeling so overwhelmed, it just seemed like the right thing to do.”
So, let’s look at six things you can do when you’re feeling overwhelmed with life.
1 – Embrace what you’re facing
We usually want to hurry through life; we want to get to the next stage, especially when the current situation is overwhelming. We tend to ask the question, “Are we there yet?” We tend to have an expectation that once we arrive, we’ll have peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven” (NKJV). When you’re feeling overwhelmed in life – whatever stage you are in – embrace the season that you are in because there’s always lessons to be learned, experiences to help you grow.
When we are feeling overwhelmed, we should be able to say, God, I don’t know why I’m going through this. I’m not quite clear on what this experience is going to teach me, but, I’m going to embrace this season of my life.
2 – Picture a better future
There is something about being able to see a brighter, more hope-filled future. And I don’t mean only in eternity. God’s mercies are new every morning. The sun is going to come up again tomorrow. You are not always going to be facing the situation you’re experiencing right now.
3 – Understand God’s intentions for you are always good
In Jeremiah 29:11, God is saying “Hey, listen! I know what I’m doing. Just relax. I have it all planned out – plans to take care of you, not abandon you – plans to give you a future that you’ve hoped for” (MSG). It’s assuring to know God’s intentions for us are always good.
4 – Declare your intentions
When I declare, not only what I believe, but what I’m going to do, it’s transformational in my life. Look what Paul says when he’s talking about the declaration of our intention spiritually: “It’s the word of faith that welcomes God to work and set things right for us. This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word of God, Jesus is my master” (Romans 10:8 MSG). Paul says it’s important “we declare with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead and we will be saved. Embracing and body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead” (Romans 10:9-10 MSG).
This passage reminds us God doesn’t need to hear us speak audibly to know what’s going on in our hearts. Declaring it helps us.
5 – Act in faith
I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back. “The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see” (Hebrews 11:1 MSG).
We have faith in people we’ve never seen, people we don’t even know. So, why can’t we have faith in a God who is always there for us?
6 – Build confidence
When you act in faith, it builds confidence in your life. The first time you got on a bicycle, you acted by faith to be able to ride it. After a while, you had the confidence to be able to get on it and do it.
The word intention comes from the Latin meaning to stretch. Intentional living is all about your faith being stretched to its limit – knowing what scripture teaches, taking that step of faith and stretching to that next level.
Paul says in Philippians 3:14, “I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back” (MSG). He’s saying – I’m going to stretch towards this goal and get it done.
Do you ever feel the pinch of a life under pressure? Do you wonder in those moments how you’ll find the time to consider God and His work in your life, in your family’s life, or in the life of those you hold dear? Have you forgotten that darkness comes before the dawn? Furthermore, does your gaze ever make its way into our culture–even our Christian culture–and you see pain, division, and sometimes defeat? Have you ever been let down by someone that you trusted? Have you ever been betrayed or deceived by institutions or organizations that should stand for truth and what is right? Does your own life reveal a questionable commitment to Jesus and His commands? Are there times when you do the things you shouldn’t and don’t want to do? Do you, in those seasons of intense pressure and confusion, long for a better world, a better place wherein righteousness dwells?
Me too.
Where then do you turn? When the pressure is turned on…when the culture is confusing…when your own life lets you down?
Christ.
He alone–sent by the Father–pierced through the darkness, and promises rest. He is the One who will (and does) make all things right, He is the One whom the Father sent to once and for all deal with the pressure, the confusion, and the sin that permeates our world and lives. It is Christ. He is the One.
And so, we remember. We reflect. We press on. No matter the season we hang in there, because a day is coming when Christ will return to take back and make right all that humanity has defaced, destroyed, and demeaned. The sun is moving on its course, and the dawn of a new day looms on the horizon…it’s coming…hang on…lean in…and run to Him, because He is worthy! Glory!
“And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the book and to break its seals?” And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the book or to look into it. Then I began to weep greatly because no one was found worthy to open the book or to look into it; and one of the elders said to me, “Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals.””
Revelation 5:2-5
Why did God institute the Sabbath? The good news here is that Jesus is our Sabbath rest, that you and I have the opportunity to walk in centeredness, presence, and power anytime we choose to enter into the privilege of that. No one was more centered than Jesus Christ. Learn some practical ways Jesus can help you experience work and rest in your home today.
Preached at Village Church. www.thevillagechurch.net.
“The Lord is my Light and my Salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid?” Psalm 27:1 RSV
She walks ‘with’ fear, but she does not live ‘in’ fear. At nineteen, Anna’s story is less a story and more a most wrenching tale penned of blistering heartache, seemingly unscalable disadvantages, improbable misfortune handily spun on the loom of all things unjust, and hope ground to powder only to be blown away on the ever-restless winds of adversity. She has known nothing other and she lives presuming that the tale of her life will continue to be penned in similar lines such as these. And while she wishes that her faith were sufficiently stalwart to thwart all fear, she is honest enough to admit that such a faith is a work in progress. And so, she walks ‘with’ fear, but she does not live ‘in’ fear.
Her health is delicately precarious, leaving each moment she lives as a hope but not a promise. Her life is an existence of individual moments lived out with the hope that if enough of them are accumulated and stitched together they might possibly stretch out into a future. The physical challenges of each day render every tomorrow as something so far away that it may never arrive. And while she wishes that her faith were sufficiently stalwart to thwart all fear of a tomorrow never coming, she is honest enough to admit that such a faith is a work in progress. And so, she walks ‘with’ fear, but she does not live ‘in’ fear. And it is in seizing the good in fear that we beat fear.
The Hidden Opportunity in Fear
In sitting with this delicate but powerful young woman, I have found that Anna has learned that the best way that she could walk ‘with’ fear but not live in ‘it’ was to turn her attention to seeking out and seizing the immense opportunities that lie within it, rather than allowing it to seek out and seize the confidence within her. She discovered that fear animates itself and enlarges its aura sufficiently to keep our focus on fear. That fear stealthily hides its hidden treasures by keeping us fearful and therefore allowing us to see nothing else but fear. And she has discovered that fear is deliberate enough in executing this terribly refined strategy that we become convinced that fear is made up of nothing but fear. Anna admits that she walks ‘with’ fear, but she does not live ‘in’ fear.
And she is able to walk ‘with’ it but not ‘in’ it because she decided to look beyond the fear to what great good fear can do. Behind the ‘fear of fear’ she has discovered a rich cache of opportunity for improbable growth. That fear is the catalyst for growth, not the opponent of growth. That fear is not the monster that destroys, for that is the distortion that fear lures us into and the tale that frightened people tell of it. That the implicit nature of fear is such that it surgically seeks out the nature of our existence that is contrary to our existence. That behind the façade of fear there is great good. And in the oddity of it all, it is the ‘great good’ encased in fear that, when released, can be a potent solution to that very fear. Therefore, we walk ‘with’ fear as a means of releasing these solutions into our lives so that in time we can walk with the solutions and live without the fear.
The Great Good – Breaking The Nature of Our Existence That is Contrary to Our Existence
Fear is the thing that deftly exposes the shallowness of our petty attitudes. It renders the constructs that we have built our lives upon as the epitome of selfishness and the bedfellow of ignorance, thereby granting us sufficient understanding to effectively change them. Fear strips us of the preconceived notions of ‘who we are’ that we have tediously constructed based on the fear of ‘who we actually are.’ Fear brings unprecedented collapse to the permissive morality that we have created in order to grant us permission to do all things immoral. Fear exposes the things that we have ‘lived for’ so that we can flee the things that we were ‘born for.’ Fear takes our lives out of our hands and shows us that they were never in our hands to begin with. And most profoundly, fear shows us that our fear persists because we have sought out refuge in some person or institution that is at the very same time attempting to find refuge for themselves. For the only Person Who is His own refuge in order to be ours is God. Therefore, we walk ‘with’ fear as a means of releasing these solutions into our lives so that in time we can walk with the solutions and live without the fear.
Yes. Anna walks ‘with’ fear, but she does not live ‘in’ fear. She has not fallen for the façade of fear and therefore she has not fallen to fear. And in embracing these precious lessons, a tomorrow is on the way where she will not walk ‘with’ fear any longer.
Conclusion
I wish I could tell you that I don’t fear, because at times I do. But because I do, I will seize it and wrestle the riches out of it. I will take what I need from it, rather than letting it take what it wants from me. And this is a time to let the lessons of our fears change the trajectory of our lives. This is the time to work through our fear by letting its lessons work through our lives until we have vanquished it from our lives. Therefore, I walk ‘with’ fear as a means of releasing these solutions into my life so that in time I can walk with the solutions and live without the fear.
Like Amy, I wish that my faith were sufficiently stalwart to thwart all fear, but I am honest enough to admit that such a faith is a work in progress. And so, I walk ‘with’ fear, but I do not live ‘in’ fear. And someday soon, I will do neither.
It’s that time of year. Okay, truth be told, I don’ think the time of year makes any difference. Seems we all face major stress every day, all year long.
But this time of year, all the shopping, planning, cooking, baking, parties, programs, and other holiday “joys” do tend to magnify our stress and anxiety.
We enter the season with grand hopes of treasuring the season and enjoying the festivity. Then, BAMM!
So, what can we do?
Intentionality
I’ve come to be a huge believer in the power of intentionality.
Those things that are important to us – marriage, parenting, grandparenting, living a life centered on Christ, our health – must be approached with great intentionality.
This Christmas season, the treasuring, the festivity, our mental and physical health must be approached with great intentionality.
Healthy Ideas for Handling Holiday Stress
- Exercise
There is strong scientific evidence as to the benefits of exercise in managing stress. I know you don’t think you have the time, but its benefits are HUGE and so worth it!
The good news is that practically any form of exercise can relieve stress. So, find something you enjoy – walking, bicycling, running, swimming, tennis – and spend a few minutes keeping that Christmas stress at bay! (I’ve read that for stress relief 30 minutes a day, 6 days a week is ideal.)
2. Relax
I know. I know. Who has time to relax?
But did you know when the body and the mind are relaxed at the same time, it is impossible for us to continue to be stressed? Like light and dark, the two cannot reside in the same place.
Pull away from your shopping frenzy to enjoy 15 minutes at your favorite local shop or bookstore. Enjoy an evening bubble bath. Warm yourself by a fire. Take a nap.
Difficult to believe, but our bodies can be taught to relax. All it takes is some “intentionality.”
3. Feed Your Soul
Biblical meditation is the most effective way to treat anxiety.
This Christmas season schedule in some time to meditate on Scripture. Spend some time filling your mind with God’s Word by reading it, writing it out by hand, memorizing it, singing it, praying it.
4. Fuel Your Body Wisely
Yes, there will be parties, cookies, and Christmas treats. Go ahead. Enjoy a little something now and again (unless there’s a medical diagnosis that keeps you from it).
But by all means, for the sake of your stress levels (and your weight), keep your indulgences to a minimum. Rather than continual binging on sweets and carbs, begin your day with a healthy breakfast and make choices that include lots of vegetables and other healthy options.
5. Sleep
We were created for sleep. In fact, all of creation sleeps.
During the holidays especially, establish a sleep routine that includes a consistent bedtime and 8-9 hours of sleep.
6. Connect With Others
Loneliness increases stress levels.
This Christmas season live in connection. Volunteer at a local ministry or charity. Interact and share with others in ways that are meaningful.
“Staying connected is a balm for your heart, your stress level, and your health.”
U.S. News & World Report, February, 2009.
I don’t know about you, but this year I plan to set myself up to enjoy the season and my good health by making intentional choices that will help to manage the stress that can so easily deplete me.
Questions for Managing Holiday Stress
- Where will you schedule in some exercise and relaxation?
- How will you be sure to feed your soul and get your required amount of sleep?
- What will be your eating plan?
- When and in what way will you live in connection to others?
www.deborahhaddix.com. Used by permission.
Here are some keys to setting boundaries, resting, and removing anxiety.
How can God use stress in our lives to produce good. How can it conform us to the image of Christ. Randy Alcorn writes:
1. God uses stress to get our attention. God created our bodies. He designed them to send us messages. If I stick my hand in fire, my body will send me a message, quick and clear. If I ignore it, I’ll pay the price.
C.S. Lewis said “pain is God’s megaphone.” Some of us are hard of hearing. We ignore physical, mental, and spiritual warning signs. We’re like the stubborn mule the farmer had to hit over the head with a two-by-four to get his attention. God wants us to tune our ears to the messages He sends us through our minds and bodies.
2. God uses stress to help us redefine or rediscover our priorities. By abandoning our God-given priorities we set ourselves up to learn a hard lesson. In essence we do what the Israelites did: lived in paneled houses while God’s house became a ruin (Haggai 1:4). In response, God sent lack of fulfillment, disillusionment, and failure as His messengers. He withheld His blessing till His people rediscovered their priorities:
Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”
This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house [of God], so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the Lord. “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the Lord Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house. Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands” (Haggai 1:5-11).
God’s people are twice admonished “Give careful thought to your ways.” Stress should take us back to the basics. It is an opportunity to re-evaluate our priorities and bring them in line with God’s.
3. God uses stress to draw us to Himself. Time and again it was said of the people of Israel, “But in their distress they turned to the Lord, the God of Israel, and sought him, and he was found by them” (2 Chronicles 15:4). It was in Jonah’s darkest hour, in his most stressful circumstances that he said this: “In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me” (Jonah 2:2). The Psalms are full of references of turning to God, seeking Him and finding Him in times of intense stress.
In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears (Psalm 18:6).
In your distress you called and I rescued you, I answered you out of a thundercloud; I tested you at the waters of Meribah (Psalm 81:7).
I call on the Lord in my distress, and he answers me (Psalm 120:1).
When our lives are comfortable and stress-free, too often we withdraw from the Lord into our own worlds of spiritual independence and isolation. Smug and self-satisfied, we forget what life is really all about. But as the thirsty seek for water, those under stress often seek God. Many non-believers have come to Christ and many believers have returned to Him in times of stress.
4. God uses stress to discipline us. Quoting Solomon’s words to his son, the writer of Hebrews offers what he calls a word of encouragement:
“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons (Hebrews 12:5-7).
(The word son, of course, is generic for “child,” and applies equally to daughters.)
To some of us, this doesn’t sound so encouraging. But we fail to realize how essential discipline is. Scripture says that to withhold discipline from a child is, in essence, child abuse: “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him” (Proverbs 13:24).
Discipline is corrective. It is remedial, not revengeful. God sends stresses not to get back at us for doing wrong, but to deepen our dependence on Him in order to do right. Though the stressful experience may seem excruciating at the time, it is ultimately all for good:
God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it (Hebrews 12:10-11).
5. God uses stress to strengthen our faith. 1 Peter 1:7 tells us: “These [trials] have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
There is only one way a muscle grows—through stress. A muscle that is rarely exercised atrophies; it shrinks into uselessness. A muscle seldom stretched beyond its usual limits can only maintain itself. It cannot grow. To grow, a muscle must be taxed. Unusual demands must be placed upon it.
Stress is a demand placed upon our faith. Without it our faith will not, cannot, grow.
Ever seen grass grow through asphalt? It’s amazing if you think about it. How does grass, pressed flat and robbed of light, persevere? Yet we’ve seen it. Somehow God made those tiny blades of grass to rise to the greatest challenge. Nanci and I have seen many people rise against odds just as great.
In the crucible of stress, as we draw on our resources in Christ, He gives us faith and strength to crack through and rise above the asphalt coat. That hard demanding surface buries some forever, but is to others the defining point of breaking through and thriving by the grace of God.
For more, see Randy and Nanci’s book Help for Women Under Stress.
What are the bare-bone facts of the gospel? What is the minimum information needed to believe and be saved? While those questions may foster interesting discussions, they are not valid questions for developing evangelistic programs. Sadly, too many evangelistic efforts are based on answers to those questions.
In fact, many of the formulaic approaches to the gospel deliberately omit important truths like repentance and God’s wrath against sin. Some influential voices in modern evangelicalism have actually argued that those truths (and others, including Christ’s lordship) are extraneous to the gospel. They say such matters should not even be brought up when talking to unbelievers.
Other evangelical leaders, desiring ecumenical unity with Catholic and orthodox churches, suggest that important doctrinal issues such as justification by faith and substitutionary atonement are not really essential to the gospel. They’re in effect calling for a bare-bones approach to the gospel. Their ecumenical openness implies that virtually any kind of generic faith in Christ may be regarded as authentic saving faith. They ignore the fact that the New Testament condemns those who profess to believe in Christ while rejecting or twisting the doctrine of justification (Galatians 1:6–9). It seems many evangelicals are obsessed with finding out how little of God’s truth a person can believe and still get to heaven.
Parental Evangelism
Applied to parenting, that approach has potentially eternal consequences. That’s why parents should resist the temptation to think in such terms. The sort of constant, faithful, diligent teaching required by Deuteronomy 6:6–7 is incompatible with a minimalist approach to the gospel.
The gospel is the good news about Christ. There is a sense in which the gospel includes all truth about Him. There’s no need to think of any aspect of biblical truth as incompatible with or extraneous to the gospel. In fact, since Christ is the sum and the summit of all biblical revelation (Hebrews 1:1–3), every truth in Scripture ultimately points to Him. And therefore none of it is out of place in evangelistic contexts. One could accurately say, then, that parents who want to be thorough in evangelizing their children need to teach them the whole counsel of God, taking care to show the gospel ramifications in all that truth. That, I believe, is the true spirit of what Deuteronomy 6:6–7 calls for.
No single formula can possibly meet the needs of every unregenerate person anyway. Those who are ignorant need to be told who Christ is and why He offers the only hope of salvation (Romans 10:3). Those who are careless need to be confronted with the reality of impending judgment (John 16:11). Those who are fearful need to hear that God is merciful, delighting not in the death of the wicked but pleading with sinners to come to Him for mercy (Ezekiel 33:11). Those who are hostile need to be shown the futility of opposing the will of God (Psalm 2:1–4). Those who are self-righteous need to have their sin exposed by the demands of God’s law (Romans 3:20). Those who are proud need to hear that God hates pride (1 Peter 5:5). All sinners must understand that God is holy and that Christ has met the demands of God’s perfect righteousness on behalf of sinners (1 Corinthians 1:30). Every gospel presentation should include an explanation of Christ’s sacrificial death for sin (15:3). And the message is not the gospel if it does not also recount His burial and the triumph of His resurrection (vv. 4, 17).
Highlight the Crucial Gospel Doctrines
Along with a commitment to be thorough, however, parents must also take great care to highlight certain truths that are particularly crucial to a correct understanding of the gospel. Here are some pointers that will help keep you on course:
Teach Them About God’s Holiness
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111:10). That is not speaking of a craven fear. It is not the kind of fear that regards God as capricious in His anger. Rather, it is a devout, reverential fear of offending God’s holiness, based on a true understanding of God as One whose “eyes are too pure to approve evil, and [One who] can not look on wickedness” (Habakkuk 1:13).
Show Them Their Sin
Be sure to teach your children from the youngest age that misbehavior is not merely an offense against Mom and Dad; it’s also a sin against a holy God, who demands that children obey their parents (Exodus 20:12).
Help educate your children’s conscience so that they understand they are accountable to God first, and then their parents. Teach them this with love and genuine compassion, not in a browbeating manner.
Teaching them they are sinners does not mean belittling them or tormenting them with constant verbal battering about their failures. The goal is not to trample their spirit by continually berating them. Instead, you need to instruct them tenderly and help them view their own fallenness from God’s perspective. They need to appreciate why they are drawn to sin, and ultimately they must sense their own need of redemption. Jesus said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). How will your child turn to Christ if he doesn’t realize he’s sick?
Instruct Them About Christ and What He Has Done
Teaching your children about their own sin is by no means an end in itself. You must also point them to the only remedy for sin—Jesus Christ. He is the heart of the gospel message, so instructing them about Jesus Christ should be the ultimate focus and the design of all your spiritual instruction.
Explain Christ’s deity (John 1:1-3, 14) and His Lordship (Philippians 2:9-11). Explain that He became a man (Philippians 2:6-7), but maintained His sinless purity (Hebrews 4:15; 1 Peter 2:22-23) and became the spotless sacrifice for our sins (2 Corinthians 5:21), shedding His blood as an atonement for our sin (Ephesians 1:7). Explain how His death on the cross purchased our salvation (1 Peter 2:24; Colossians 1:20), and that He triumphantly rose from the dead (Romans 4:25; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4). And explain that He freely justifies those who trust in Him (Romans 5:1-2; Galatians 2:16), and that His righteousness is imputed to us (2 Corinthians 5:21; Romans 4:5-6; Philippians 3:8-9).
Tell Them What God Demands of Sinners
God calls sinners to repentance (Acts 17:30). Genuine repentance is not self-reformation or the turning over of a new leaf. It is a turning of the heart to God from all that is evil.
It’s helpful to stress that repentance is a heart-turning and should not be equated with any external action on the child’s part. In many modern evangelicals’ minds, the act of praying to invite Jesus into the heart has become practically a sacramental means of salvation. The same thing is true of lifting a hand in a meeting, or coming forward to the altar. But such external actions have no intrinsic saving efficacy. They are all works, and works cannot save. Faith—a repentant trust in Christ alone for salvation—is the one true instrument of our justification, according to Scripture. “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9).
It’s best to avoid all such emphasis on external actions, and keep focusing instead on the response Scripture calls for from sinners.
Advise Them to Count the Cost Thoughtfully
Don’t downplay the hard demands of Christ. Don’t portray the Christian life as a life of ease, free from difficulties and dilemmas. Keep reminding your kids that the true price of following Christ always involves sacrifice, and the prelude to glory is suffering. It’s true that Christ offers the water of life freely to all who will take it (Revelation 22:17). But those who do are making an unconditional commitment to follow Him that may literally cost them their very lives.
Here is why all the central truths of the gospel focus on the cross: It reveals how heinous our sin is. It shows the intensity of God’s wrath against sin. It reveals the great love of God in paying such a high price for redemption. But it also serves as a fitting metaphor for the cost of following Christ. Jesus repeatedly stated that the cost of following Him involves a willingness to sacrifice all.
Urge Them to Trust Christ
We began by noting that regeneration is the Holy Spirit’s work in the heart, and we cautioned parents not to employ artificial means or external pressure to coax a shallow profession of faith from the child. Nonetheless, there is an urgency inherent in the gospel message itself, and it is right for parents to impress that urgency on the child’s heart.
God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:18-20)
Posted on the Grace to You website. For the original article, click HERE.
Are you really excited about the holidays, or are you dreading them? Many people dread “family time.”
Russell Moore writes:
“We tend to idealize holidays, but human depravity doesn’t go into hibernation between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. One thing that will hit most Christians, sooner or later, are tensions within extended families at holiday time. Some of you will be visiting family members who are contemptuous of the Christian faith and downright hostile to the whole thing.
Others are empty nest couples who now have sons- or daughters-in-law to get adjusted to, maybe even grandchildren who are being reared, well, not exactly the way the grandparents would do it. Still others are young couples who are figuring out how to keep from offending family members who are watching the calendar, to see which side of the family gets more time on the ledger. And others are new parents, trying to figure out how to parent their child when it’s Mammonpalooza at Aunt Judie’s house this year.
And, of course, there’s just always the kind of thing that happens when sinful people come into contact with one another. Somebody asks “When is the baby due?” to an unpregnant woman or somebody blasts your favorite political figure or…well, you know.
Here are a few quick thoughts on what followers of Jesus ought to remember, especially if you’ve got a difficult extended family situation.
1. Peace
Yes, Jesus tells us that his gospel brings a sword of division, and that sometimes this splits up families (Matt. 10:34-37). But there’s a difference between gospel division and carnal division (see 1 Cor. 1, e.g.). The Spirit brings peace (Gal. 5:22), and the sons of God are peacemakers (Matt. 5:9). Since that’s so, we ought to “strive for peace with everyone” (Heb. 12:14).
Often, the divisiveness that happens at extended family dinner tables is not because an unbelieving family member decides to persecute a Christian. It’s instead because a Christian decides to go ahead and sort the wheat from the weeds right now, rather than waiting for Judgment Day (Matt. 13:29-30). Yes, the gospel exposes sin, but the gospel does so strategically, in order to point to Christ. Antagonizing unbelievers at a family dinner table because they think or feel like unbelievers isn’t the way of Christ.
Some Christians think their belligerence is actually a sign of holiness. They leave the Christmas table saying, “See, if you’re not being opposed, then you’re not with Christ!” Sometimes, of course, divisions must come. But think of the qualifications Jesus gives for his church’s pastors. They must not be “quarrelsome” and they must be “well thought of by outsiders” (1 Tim. 3:3,7). That’s in the same list as not being a heretic or a drunk.
Your presence should be one of peace and tranquility. The gospel you believe ought to be what disrupts. There’s a big difference.
2. Honor
The Scripture tells us to fear God, to obey the king, and to honor (notice this) everyone (1 Pet. 2:17). If your parents are high-priests in the Church of Satan, they are still your parents. If cousin Betty V. does Jello shots in her car, just to take the edge off the cocaine, well, she still bears the imprint of the God you adore.
You cannot do the will of God by opposing the will of God. That is, you can’t evangelize by dishonoring father and mother, or by disrespecting the image-bearers of God. Pray for God to show you the ways those in your life are worthy of honor, and teach your children to follow you in showing respect and gratitude.
3. Humility
Part of the reason some Christians have such difficulty with unbelieving or nominally believing extended family members is right at this point. They see differences over Jesus as being of the same kind (just of a different degree) as our differences over, say, the war in Afghanistan or the future of Sarah Palin or the Saints’ winning streak this year.
Often the frustration comes not because of how much Christians love their family members as much as how much these Christians want to be right. The professional Left and Right cable-TV and talk-radio pontificators may value the last word, but we can’t.
Jesus never, not once, seeks to prove he is right, and he was accused of being everything from a wino to a demoniac. He rejects Satan’s temptation to force a visible vindication, waiting instead for God to vindicate him at the empty tomb.
Often Christians veer toward Satanism at holiday time because we, deep down, pride ourselves on knowing the truth of the gospel. The rage you feel when Uncle Happy says why “many roads lead to God” might be more about the fact that you want to be right than that you want him to be resurrected.
Plus, we often forget just how it is that we came to be in Christ in the first place. This wasn’t some act of brilliance, like being accepted into Harvard or some exertion of the will, like learning to put a Rubik’s cube together in 20 seconds. “What do you have that you did not receive,” the Apostle Paul asks us, “And if you received it, then why do you boast as though you didn’t receive it?” (1 Cor. 4:6-7)
Satan wants to destroy you through his primal flaw, pride (1 Pet. 5:7-9; 1 Tim. 3:6). He doesn’t care if that pride comes through looking around the family table and figuring out how much more money you make than your second cousin-in-law or whether it comes by your looking around the table and saying, “Thank you Lord that I am not like these publicans.” The end result is the same (Prov. 29:23).
Unless you’re in an exceptionally sanctified family, you’re going to see failing marriages, parenting crises, and a thousand other shards of the curse. If your response is to puff up as you look at your own situation, there’s a Satanist at your family gathering, and you’re it.
4. Maturity
The Scripture tells us that if we follow Jesus we’ll follow the path he took: that’s through temptation, to suffering, and ultimately to glory. Often we think these testings are big, monumental things, but they rarely are.
God will allow you to be tested. He’ll refine you, bring you to the fullness of maturity in Christ. He probably won’t do it by your fighting lions before the emperor or standing with a John 3:16 sign before a tank in the streets of Beijing. More likely, it will be through those seemingly little places of temptation—like whether you’ll love the belching brother-in-law at the other end of the table who wants to talk about how the Cubans killed JFK and how to make $100,000 a year selling herbal laxatives on the Internet.
Some of the tensions Christians face at holiday time have nothing to do with outside oppression as much as internal immaturity on the part of the Christians themselves.
I’ve had young men who tell me they feel treated like children when they go home to see their extended families. Their parents or parents-in-law are dictating to them where to go, when, and for how much time. Their parents or parent-in-law are hijacking the rearing of their children (”Oh, come on! He can watch Die Harder! Don’t be so strict!”). Some of these men just give in, and then seethe in frustration.
Sometimes that’s because the extended family is particularly obstinate. But sometimes the extended family treats the young man like a child because that’s how he acts the rest of the year. Don’t live financially and emotionally dependent on your parents or in-laws, passively dithering in your decisions about your family’s future, and then expect them to see you as the head of your house.
Be a man (if you are one). Make decisions (including decisions about where, and for how long, you’ll spend the holidays). Teach and discipline your children.Your extended family might not like it at first, but they’ll come to respect the fact that you’re leaving and cleaving, taking responsibility for that which has been entrusted to you.
5. Perspective
Remember that you’ll give an account at the resurrection for every idle (that means seemingly tiny, insignificant, unmemorable) thought, word, and deed. At the Judgment Seat of the Lord Christ, you’ll be responsible for living out the gospel in every arena to which the Spirit has led you… including Aunt Flossie’s dining room table.
www.russellmoore.com.
Hi Roger,
How can I impact someone else’s life without harassing them with religion?
I have many friends that don’t believe in God and many of them find it ridiculous. They know that I am a Christian, and I want to help them since I noticed that most of them are missing the joy of having Jesus Christ in their life.
As a teenager, in a school where religion does not matter, it is somewhat of a difficulty for me to talk to my fellow peers about the wonders of God.
I know most of them are going through situations that are difficult to surpass without God’s help and presence. I want to help them and show them God’s glory, but I don’t know how to since they don’t like to talk openly about God or anything. I want to know how I can show them God’s will for their lives without irritating them about what their religious views should be.
Sincerely,Rebeca
Dear Rebeca
I am thrilled with your passion for your friends to know Christ. Jesus’ parting instructions to us as He ascended to heaven were, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
May God bless you greatly as you fulfill His wishes.
FIRST, RELATIONSHIPS OPEN THE DOOR TO SHARING THE GOSPEL. THE DEEPER THE RELATIONSHIP, THE DEEPER THE SHARING.
You mention that they “don’t want to talk about these things.” We know that relationships open the door to sharing. The more time you invest getting to know them, the more likely they are to open up, listen to your ideas and give credence to what you say.
Building relationships takes time and energy. We cannot sit in the comfortable pews of our church and shoot “gospel bullets” over the walls and expect our friends out there to come to Christ. Jesus ate with tax collectors, sinners, prostitutes and social outcasts. Of course, one meeting was all it took for them to build a relationship with Jesus. With the rest of us, it will usually take a little longer.
SECOND, MINISTERING TO PEOPLE’S HURTS OFTEN OPENS THE DOOR FOR THE GOSPEL TO GO THROUGH.
Alexander McLaren used to say, “Be kind to everyone you meet because everyone you meet is fighting a battle.”
I use an evangelism model, based on healing hurts, which works as well with brand-new acquaintances as it does with folks I’ve known for years.
My model is based on Romans 12:15: “Rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn.”
So, I meet someone, and after chatting for a short time, I’ll grin and ask them,” What is the best day you ever had?”
People never hesitate to tell me. I rejoice with them. I reflect back how wonderful that day must have been. I get excited about their experience. This is rejoicing with those who rejoice.
After a while I’ll I ask, “What was the worst day you ever had?” The better I know a person the more likely he or she is to answer. I mourn with them. I say things like, “I am so sorry. How did you feel as you were going through that difficult experience? What an awful time for you. I am so sad you had to experience that. Did you have people around the support you; or did you handle things alone? I’m so sorry that you were hurt so deeply.
This is called comforting. Jesus says in Matthew 5:4: “Blessed are they who mourn for they shall be comforted.”
At this point, I let him or her know that I understand their pain by sharing something like this, “I’ve been through some difficult times, too; and one of the things that helped me was when Jesus Christ gave me the grace and strength to handle it.”
Then, I share one of my hurts and relate how Jesus helped me.
The door is now open. People may criticize the Bible, point at the hypocrites or believe that Jesus was a myth. However, the one thing they cannot reject is your experience with Jesus.
Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-8) was a hated, crooked tax collector for the Roman government. He used his position to line his own pockets. He was a traitor to his neighbors and they hated him for it. He was a wicked, lying, stealing, cheating, selfish man.
Could you imagine that a man like Zacchaeus might have some feelings? Certainly! Just for starters you know that he was feeling lonely, rejected, despised, hated and guilty.
Could you imagine that a tax collector behaving like he was and feeling like he did, might have some needs? Certainly! Like all of us, he needed love, acceptance, companionship, forgiveness and affirmation.
When Jesus arrived in town He walked immediately to Zacchaeus’ tree and called out, “You sneaky, thieving, selfish little man! Stop it!”
No, that’s not what He said. Only a beginner starts like that. Christ gently said, “Zacchaeus, come down. I’m going to lunch with you today.”
Good things happened during lunch. Jesus ministered to his needs and comforted his hurts Three hours later the front door flew open and Zacchaeus shouted: “Half of all I have I give to the poor; and whatever I have stolen from any of you I will restore four times over!” Jesus declared, “Today, salvation has come to your house!”
Zacchaeus found faith in Christ—not because Jesus yelled, “Stop it,” but because Jesus took the time to build a relationship and then ministered to his deepest needs and hurts.
This model makes things so naturally an easy.
I met a golfer on the first tee on the golf course. We introduced ourselves and begin sharing a little as we walked together down the first fairway.
On the fourth tee I casually asked him, “What was the best day of your life?”
He replied, “I guess it was the day my son was born. We had anticipated with growing delight his arrival. It was such an exciting time. I guess that was the best day of my life.”
So I rejoiced with him about how good it is to have a baby, and to watch all our dreams come true, and to hold a little child that we had made.
Walking down the sixth fairway I asked him what was the worst day in his life?
He replied, “Well, I guess it was the day my son was born. My wife wanted to have a natural childbirth so we hired a midwife to help us. Unfortunately, there were problems and his legs were injured and not repairable. It might have been different had we been in the hospital.”
I really touched a nerve. He was tearing up He was mourning. I know what to do when I see mourning, I comfort it. We walked into the trees off the left side of the fairway. I comforted through the emotions and feelings that I knew he had. We talked about grief and anger and depression as a number of groups played on through us.
Finally, it was my turn. “Our first baby died in our arms, “I said. “We went through all the sorrow and grief and loss and depression. We had a number of folks for support. Nevertheless, the greatest help we received came from our faith in the strength and grace of Jesus Christ. May I share with you what a difference He’s made in our lives?
The opportunity was there. The door was open and the gospel walked right in.
THIRD, WHILE RELATIONSHIP BUILDING TAKES TIME, TIME IS NOT ALWAYS ESSENTIAL.
As I approached my gate at LAX I noticed a woman quietly crying. Several minutes later, I could stand it no longer, I sat down beside her and asked, “I’m so sorry you’re hurting; can I help you?
She was a Las Vegas showgirl who had just missed her flight to Mexico where she had a job as a cruise ship dancer. No later flights existed that could get her there before sailing. She didn’t know what to do next.
So, I told her how sorry I was for her loss and I told her how Jesus helped a woman caught in adultery pick up the pieces of her life and start over.
“Jesus helped her, and he can surely help you. Would you like to hear how Jesus helps people like you and me through every difficulty in life?
I must admit that I was quite surprised when she answered, “Yes”. So I shared the gospel and she prayed to receive Christ as her Lord and Savior. I gave her my pocket New Testament. I wrote down a reading list beginning with the gospel of John.
FOURTH, WE MUST BE PREPARED AT A MOMENT’S NOTICE TO SHARE OUR FAITH.
Paul advised his friend, Timothy, “Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season. Always be ready to give testimony to the hope that lives within you” (2 Timothy 4:2).
Fifth, We No Longer Live In A “Churched” Society. We Live In A “Post-Christian” Age. It Makes A Difference.
Once upon a time the Bible was entrenched in the fabric of our culture. You could start with the Bible and show people how they were sinful and needed a Savior–right out of the pages of Scripture.
Today, instead of beginning with biblical teachings regarding Christ and salvation, we must first deal with questions concerning atheism, agnosticism, suffering, God’s existence, evolution or comparative religions—among a myriad of other questionings. These are chasms which must first be traversed before we can even get to the truths of the Bible.
Learn about these hurdles so that you can answer their questions with at least some degree of understanding. But, remember, you don’t have to have all the answers. Your personal story of what Christ has done in your life is the most compelling truth you can share.
FINALLY, FOLLOW THE PROMPTINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.
Opportunities to share the gospel may seem few and far between with your friends right now; nevertheless, when the Holy Spirit prompts you to speak, don’t flinch.
Pray for the Holy Spirit to let you know when it’s time to speak and when it’s time to be quiet.
Remember, we cannot convince our friends of their need for a personal relationship with Jesus without working closely with the Holy Spirit.
Convicting our friends of their sin and subsequent need for a Savior is never our job. Convicting of sin is always the job of the Holy Spirit (John 16:7-11).
What we can do is explain the benefits we have in Christ, and perhaps answer their questions, and perhaps share our own faith in Christ—and why we believe. Then, pray for the Holy Spirit to break down the unbelief in their hearts by convicting them of the beauty and reality of Christ.
I hope this helps. God bless you, Rebeca, as you love your friends and find open doors deep into their hearts.
Love, Roger
Know your Enemy’s strategy: temptation, lies and condemnation. Overcome by being tethered to the truth, led by the Holy Spirit and understanding the compassion of God. Only those who know Satan’s nature can uncover his schemes.
From www.creativepastors.com. Used by permission.
Have you ever been in a volatile relationship? The word “volatile” means “liable to change rapidly and unpredictably, especially for the worse.” You may be sitting next to a terrorist: not the radical kind, just the dysfunctional, abusive kind! Your child may be a “holy terror,” holding your happy home hostage. Your co-worker may use inflammatory words, creating a hostile work environment. You may be in a turbulent, abusive marriage. You never know when you enter your front door if you will face an emotional explosion.
How do you identify a volatile person in a relationship?
- Unpredictable behavior
- Highly-charged words
- Impulsive decisions
- Mercurial moods
- Controlling others
You can diffuse a volatile situation.
Dr. Chet Weld, marriage counselor relates: “I specialize in marriage counseling. Couples often come to me thinking the hostility they hold is irreconcilable. Of course, each partner is hurting, and they’ve not asked for help in such a long time that negative marriage patterns seem immovable. Fortunately, they’re usually not immovable at all!”
You can diffuse the bomb and repair the damage.
Here are some guidelines to re-build trust and stability in a volatile relationship:
- Do not allow yourself to feel like a victim.
- Ask yourself, “What trauma is being triggered or ‘re-stimulated?” Take responsibility for letting the trauma be triggered.
- Recognize your own inner conflict.
- Own your own individual issue.
- Learn new communication and other skills in order to stop old patterns.
- Give up on the idea that your partner or friend can meet any unmet needs of childhood.
- If there is drug or alcohol abuse, this issue needs to be solved prior to resolving relationship issues.
- Admit your fears beneath your anger.
- Learn to self-soothe.
- Admit that your partner or friend can help with large matters such as the death of a parent, but cannot usually help with smaller, every day concerns.
- Accept that you are each imperfect.
- Tell each other your good intentions.
- Look at the impact of your family-of-origin on your own reactions.
- Avoid blame, withdrawal, resentful compliance, whining.
- Avoid long explanations and justifications. Just say “ouch” or “I’m getting defensive.”
- Ask, “What would you like to hear right now?”
- Soothe the pain rapidly – “I am sorry I hurt you.”
- Take turns as speaker or listener. Ask each other questions. Postpone persuasion.
- Dialogue must replace the four horsemen that lead to relational suicide.
- Spend more time on solvable problems than on perpetual ones.
- Talk about each other’s dreams.
Dr. Weld encourages healthy dialogue.
“Here are good some good topics of discussion to help you talk to your fiery friend or spouse in “normal tones” about understanding them and resolving conflict. Of course, it’s important for each of you to take turns listening and talking. Sometimes 10-20 minutes apiece – without interruption – is what’s required.”
- What do you feel about this issue?
- What do you believe about it?
- What’s the story behind it?
- Can you relate to the other person’s background in some way?
- What do you need, as illustrated by this issue?
- Tell me why this is so important to you?
- What would be your ideal dream?
- Is there a fear in not having the dream?
- Is there a deeper purpose or goal inside of either of you?
Draw two concentric circles. What are the issues you can’t give up? Write these down in middle. Outside circle: What you’re flexible about.
Recommended reading:
The Dance of Anger, by Harriet Lerner
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, by John M. Gottman and Nan Silver
Boundaries in Marriage, by Henry Cloud, John Townsend, John Sims Townsend
Also included: Dr. Ellyn Bader, Dr. Julie Gottman’s research at the Milton Erickson Conference, April 2, 2011.
I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.-Mark Twain.
According to Oceana, a nonprofit organization, sharks kill only about four people a year worldwide and only one in the U.S.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cows kill more than five times the number of people than sharks do. One research study reported an average of 22 deaths a year by bovines, typically due to stomping or goring.
Mosquitoes are the most dangerous; they kill 655,000 people each year, primarily in Africa, through the spread of malaria.
So why all the fuss over sharks?
Sometimes in life, we worry about the wrong things. Things that are large and have sharp teeth get our attention, but we’re often waylaid by less obvious assailants—we worry the most about things that endanger us the least.
For instance, we may inordinately worry about getting shot by a random shooter in a public area but ignore our daily intake of calories. We may obsess over being antiseptically clean—washing our hands often, using sterile wipes—but contaminate our minds by watching trash on TV.
Things that look menacing may not be, whereas some things that are invisible may be. We may cautiously avoid people with tattoos who drive loud motorcycles, but neglect getting a flu shot.
Sometimes, the mass media prompts us to focus on inconsequential issues. After all, they have to discuss something to fill up the required time and space, and they usually try to create a sense of emergency and concern regarding their topics, even banal ones.
Actually, I don’t see the advantage in worrying at all. Corrie ten Boom said,”worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength—carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”
But if you insist on worrying about something, at least worry about things that might truly hurt you. Forget about sharks.
Question: What are your thoughts about this essay? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
Summary
What? – If you must worry, at least focus on issues that might matter.
So what? – We often worry needlessly.
Now what? – Analyze what you are concerned about and make sure it is a legitimate concern.
www.donmcminn.com. Used by permission.
How do we learn to persevere in the challenges of our lives? We play hurt. In the world of athletics, the phrase playing hurt is used to describe an athlete who continues to play even though he or she is injured. It also describes a necessary life skill that we all need to develop—sometimes we must continue to function, despite pain and adversity.
Here are some interesting thoughts from an article by Peggy Noonan that appeared in the Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2002.
“There’s a small but telling scene in Ridley Scott’s ‘Black Hawk Down’ that contains some dialogue that reverberates, at least for me. In the spirit of Samuel Johnson, who said man needs more often to be reminded than instructed, I offer it to all, including myself, who might benefit from its message.
“The movie, as you know, is about the Battle of the Bakara Market in Mogadishu, Somalia, in October 1993. In the scene, the actor Tom Sizemore, playing your basic tough-guy U.S. Army Ranger colonel, is in charge of a small convoy of humvees trying to make its way back to base under heavy gun and rocket fire. The colonel stops the convoy, takes in some wounded, tears a dead driver out of a driver’s seat, and barks at a bleeding sergeant who’s standing in shock nearby:
- Colonel: Get into that truck and drive.
- Sergeant: But I’m shot, Colonel.
- Colonel: Everybody’s shot, get in and drive.”
Everybody’s been shot. Everyone’s been wounded. All of us have suffered a deep bruise. It’s one thing we all have in common.
But don’t think your wound gives you permission to sit on the sidelines; it doesn’t exempt you from fully engaging in life and being responsible for outcomes.
Don’t be defined by your wound and don’t let it put you on the bench. When life demands it, play hurt.
I saw this steely resolve displayed in church one Sunday morning. Moments before the worship service started, my pastor received some tragic news about a member of his family. I watched with amazement as he carried out his duties (even preaching a sermon) with grace and dignity, never letting on to the emotional turmoil that was going on inside.
There will be times in your life when you must play hurt. You’ll need to clamp down on physical or emotional discomfort and continue to perform. That’s not denial; it’s courage, control, and fortitude in action.
Summary
What? – Often, we must continue to function despite hardships.
So what? – Develop the emotional fortitude to play hurt.
Now what? –
Francis Chan addresses greed in the lives of believers. He explains that while we live life it easy to be captured by money and things, missing out on our fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Francis also asks us to look at our lives as if God has loaned it to us, challenging us to use our life for something more than just making money and buying things. When we learn to give we see how God provides and it’s an amazing thing!
Preached at Cornerstone Church, Simi Valley California. Used by permission.
Dear Roger,
We worship on Sunday. For some reason, lately I’ve worried we are violating God’s 5th command to keep the Sabbath Holy. I can’t find any Biblical reference why we changed. Can you help ?
Thanks, Gil
Dear Gil,
The Sabbath, was given to Israel, not to the church. The Sabbath is still Saturday, not Sunday, and has never been changed. The Sabbath runs from Friday night at sunset to Saturday night at sunset. The Sabbath is part of the Old Testament Law and as a result most Jews still worship on the Sabbath.
On the other hand, Christians are free from the bondage of the Mosaic Law, and thus free from worshiping on the Sabbath, “…for sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14).
It is well to note that every one of the Ten Commandments is included somewhere in the New Testament except the command to obey the Sabbath.
God still has an eschatological plan for Israel. He has a different eschatological plan for the Christian church. The plans are not the same. His plan for Israel includes worshiping on the Sabbath. His plan for the Christian church allows Christians to worship on any day that they so choose.
”Therefore, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day” (Colossians 2:16 -17).
“One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind” (Romans 14:5).
Because Jesus arose from the dead on the first day of the week, Sunday, those early Christians called it the “Lord’s Day” (Revelation 1:10), and regularly met for their Christian worship on Sunday (Acts 20:7, 1 Corinthians 16:2).
The transition from worshiping on the Sabbath to worshiping on Sunday did not occur immediately.
When Non-Jews began to convert to Christianity, there was much dispute about whether Gentile Christians had to observe the Jewish laws about circumcision, dietary restrictions, Sabbath observance, and so forth, before they could become Christians. About 20 years after his conversion, Paul, Peter, James and other Church leaders met at the “Council of Jerusalem” and decided that it was not necessary for Christians to observe the Sabbath rules and other Jewish laws (Acts 15:28-29, Romans 14:5-6, Colossians 2:16).
In the early centuries of Christianity Constantine was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. In 321 A.D. he proclaimed Sunday a legal day of rest and ordered all judges, city-people and craftsmen to rest. Since that time worshiping on the Lord’s Day has become normative for most Christians. The one exception is the seventh day Adventists who still worship on Saturday.
Is the Sabbath an important commandment? Or is God just filling space on the tablet?
The Sabbath command takes more words to discuss than any of the other ten.
God needed only four words to tell us not to kill.
He needed 97 to tell us to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”
There is an eternal principle here that goes right back to the creation. God created and worked for six days and then rested on the seventh. If resting one day out of seven was good enough for God it ought to be good enough for us!
God never intended for us to live life at full speed, 24/7. He designed our bodies to need sleep every night and to take a day of rest every week.
He has woven a rhythm into the fabric of the universe.
And it goes “six days work, one day rest, six days work, one day rest.”
The world says “Go, go go go go go faster.” (Notice the six and seven pattern)
God says ‘go go go go go go rest.”
The Biblical Position Is That We Are No Longer Required To Worship On The Sabbath. However, The Principle Of The Sabbath Stands As An Eternal Principle Of Our Need For Rest.
Gil, let me share a few thoughts about applying the eternal principles of the Sabbath to us in our day.
“THE SABBATH WAS MADE FOR MAN, NOT MAN FOR THE SABBATH” (MARK 2:27).
The Pharisees discovered 1500 different ways a person could break the Sabbath.
The law said not to carry a burden on the Sabbath. So they argued over how big is a burden? Anything that weighed more than two dried figs was a burden. If you can’t carry a burden, can you drag it? How far?
You couldn’t spit on the Sabbath. If spittle hit dirt and made a little row, that was plowing.
You couldn’t light a fire nor quench a flame on the Sabbath. Recently a fire broke out in Jerusalem. Everyone ran to see the fire.
When some Orthodox Jews got there, they stoned the fire truck for putting out a fire on the Sabbath.
In the Sabbath we see the heart of God. God is no scorekeeper. Enjoying the Sabbath with rest and worship is more important than following any man-made religious rules.
THE WORD SABBATH IS SYNONYMOUS WITH REST.
If you don’t give your body a break, your body is going to break.
Bishop Gerald Kennedy of California’s Methodist church told of two groups crossing plains during migrations to California during gold rush days.
One group was led by a Christian who stopped every Lord’s day for worship and rest.
The other party was led by a non-Christian who was so motivated with gold fever that he refused to let them stop and rest.
The wagon train that rested and worshipped every seventh day arrived first in the gold fields.
Rest the mind as well as the body.
Sometimes I’ll be sitting with my son-in-law, Ricky. I’ll say “What are you thinking?” and He’ll say “Nothing.” And he’s serious. I love it!!! There’s nothing going on up there. He’s learned to quiet his mind. I am jealous. I’ve rarely had a mind that doesn’t go 100 miles per hour.
Resting on the Sabbath means TAKING twenty-four hours off every seven days.
For most of us this means five days at our job, one day working at home to get all the chores done, and one day with no work whatsoever. That is six days on and one day off.
Sometimes we think we can be like the Energizer Bunny—and just keep going and going and going. But, the bunny is a fraud. They have to keep putting new batteries in.
Once upon a time Julie and I decided to light a candle during our day of rest to remind us to slow down and rest. After a few weeks we got too busy to light the candle. No one ever said that learning how to rest would be easy.
Have you ever noticed on a hot day that when you turn your gas grill on high, the propane tank gets cold? It’s because the tank is being decompressed.
According to the natural laws of compression and expansion, when we compress something like a gas or a liquid, it becomes very hot. Decompressing something has the opposite effect.
Life is like that. The more we compress into life the more heat it produces, and that heat comes in the form of stress and anxiety.
The more we decompress the more enjoyment and fulfilled is life.
Even Jesus needed a time away to rest from his ministry of teaching and healing. We see in Luke 5:16 where Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”
He walked for weeks and the phone never rang. He got along just fine. He got everything done he needed to do.
SABBATH KEEPING IS ABOUT REMEMBERING.
The Ten Commandments are given twice in the Bible. The commandment regarding the Sabbath is the same in both places, but the reasons for the commandment are different.
In Exodus chapter twenty the reason is tied to the rhythm of creation.
In Deuteronomy chapter five the reason is connected to remembering all the great things God did for the people of Israel!
Sometimes we forget that we are eternal beings. There’s more to life than just making a paycheck and getting a promotion. I forget that I was created to be in relationship with my Creator.
I forget that I am a new creature in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).
I need to remember that I was bought away from sin not with silver and gold but with the precious blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:18-19).
I need to remember that God allows difficulties for the good purpose of molding me to look like Jesus.
When pressures and trials come, it’s easy to feel we’ve been abandoned by God. The Sabbath reminds us that God has been faithful in the past, and that He will be faithful in the future.
GOD DESIGNED THE SABBATH TO BE OUR DELIGHT.
“… if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD’s holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way … then you will find your joy in the LORD …” (Isaiah 58:13-14).
First century Romans suspected that Christians were guilty of orgies on Sunday because they thought that no one could be having that much fun!
There are portions of Hebrew literature that declare that a part of the Sabbath should be set aside for love-making. That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?
HOW DO WE KNOW WHEN WE’VE DONE THE SABBATH RIGHT?
Answer: “When we are no longer exhausted and mentally upset as we began another week.
No one snatches Sabbath Rest from us. We give it away by our choices.
Partner up with Jesus: “Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
Gil, I hope I’ve answered your question and even added a few extra thoughts that you may find helpful.
Love Roger
Understanding the distinctive characteristics of your offspring because of their birth order can dramatically affect your parenting. Here is a concise description of unique birth order qualities. I hope you will see your children in a new way.
First Born
Newscasters and TV talk show hosts tend to be first born or only children. Prominent examples include: Walter Cronkite, Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, Ted Koppel, Oprah, Donahue, Geraldo, Arsenio Hall and Rush Limbaugh. Over half of U.S presidents were firstborns. Clearly, firstborns are natural leaders. They also tend to be reliable, conscientious and perfectionists who don’t like surprises. Although, firstborns are typically aggressive, many are also compliant people pleasers. They are model children who have a strong need for approval from anyone in charge.
Only Children
Only children are firstborns in triplicate. They are even more responsible and even bigger perfectionists. They usually get along better with people older than themselves.
Middle Child
These kids are the most difficult to pin down. They are guaranteed to be opposite of their older sibling, but that difference can manifest in a variety of ways. Middle children often feel like their older brother gets all the glory while their younger sister escapes all discipline. Because the middle child feels that the world pays him less attention, he tends to be secretive; he does not openly share his thoughts or feelings.
Middle children may not feel they have a special place in the family so friends and peer groups become much more important. They can usually read people well, they are peacemakers who see all sides of a situation, they are independent and inventive. If a firstborn is a company’s CEO, the middle child is the entrepreneur.
Last Born
Babies of the family are social and outgoing, they are the most financially irresponsible of all birth orders. They just want to have a good time. Knowing that these kids love the limelight, it’s no surprise to discover that Billy Crystal, Goldie Hawn, Drew Carey, Jim Carey and Steve Martin are all lastborns.
While lastborns may be charming, they also have the potential to be manipulative, spoiled or babied to the point of helplessness.
The last born is the one who will probably still have a pet name although he’s 29 and has a masters degree.
Exceptions?
Some variables can affect the above descriptions. For instance, if there are several years between the first and second child, the second child will have some characteristics of a firstborn. Or, if the firstborn is a girl and the second a boy, the son will have some first-born characteristics because he is the family’s first male offspring. Sibling deaths, adoptions and blended families can also upset the traditional birth order.
Children are all different and have to be parented in different ways. You need to parent kids differently depending on their birth order.
Parenting The First Born
- Don’t Be an Improver: Your child already feels the need to be perfect in every way. “Improving” tasks your firstborn attempts on her own will only increase the pressure she places on herself. For instance, let’s say you ask your oldest son to make his bed. Being a firstborn he will, of course, seek your approval and want you to see the finished task. If you tell him it looks good but then proceed to fluff the pillow and straighten out wrinkles in the bedspread, you send the message that he could have done better.
- Take Two-On–One Time: “Firstborns respond better to adult company than children of any other birth order. Firstborns often feel that parents don’t pay much attention to them because they’re always concentrating on the younger ones in the family. Make a special effort to have the first born join you and your spouse in going out alone for a treat, or to run some kind of special errand.
- Don’t Pile On Responsibilities: Older children often feel as though they do much more work around the house than their younger siblings. Share the duties and errands as soon as young children are capable. And, stay away from making your first born the family’s instant baby sitter. Check with his schedule, just as you would an outside babysitter.
Parenting The Middle Child
- Make Time To Listen: Remember that middle children tend to avoid sharing how they really feel. Although it’s important to set aside time to talk to all of your children, it’s particularly important to make this happen with the middle child because he is least likely to insist on his fair share of time.
- Allow Child to Make Decisions: Empower your middle child and make him feel special by allowing him to make choices such as who gets to bowl first or what the family will eat for dessert. This will help alleviate feelings of always being overshadowed by older and younger siblings.
- Update the Family Album: This may sound silly but it truly is important. There tend to be a billion photos of the firstborn and about six of the next child. To a child flipping through the family album, this is a sure sign that he’s not loved as much. Be sure to have photos of the middle child alone, not always paired with the older sibling.
Parenting The Last Born
- Stick to the Rules: The saying “he gets away with murder” is based in reality. Statistics show the lastborn is least likely to be disciplined and the least likely to have to toe the mark the way the older children did. You can be sure your older children are watching you closely!
- Hand Out Responsibility: Lastborns often wind up with less to do around the house for two reasons. One, they are pros at ducking out of work. And two, they are so little and “helpless” that the rest of the family decides it’s easier to do the work themselves. You want to raise a confident, self-reliant child so don’t promote this helpless image.
- Applaud Accomplishments: Lastborns are well known for feeling that nothing they do is important. Make a big deal out of accomplishments (you may have seen two other kids learn to ride a bike but it’s the first time for your baby) and be sure he gets his fair share of “marquee time” on the refrigerator.
Parents’ Birth Order
We’ve been discussing children’s birth orders, but it’s important to realize that parenting style is also influenced by the parent’s own birth order. Parents subconsciously identify with the child who holds the spot in the family they occupied themselves. A lastborn dad might think his youngest antics are cute while mom sees them as irresponsible.
Also, firstborns are perfectionists their whole lives. As parents, they may set standards that are difficult for a child to reach. This makes them frustrated and their children unhappy.
Find the valuable resources Kevin Leman offers at www.drleman.com/store/.
Let me chat with those of you who are control freaks. I’m a control freak, a perfectionist. I’m a Type A personality. I want to control everything! It is human nature to struggle with those things we can’t control. But I want to remind you of something. You are not in control, and that can stress you out until the day Jesus returns. Or, I think you can get a little bit of perspective, so let me take a little pressure off of us. If you think that one misstep, one mistake, one failure can frustrate the providential plan of Almighty God, then your God is way too small.
I’m amazed at my ability to put myself on par with God and think that somehow, I can frustrate His omnipotent plan. God is bigger than that. Proverbs 16:9: In his heart a man plans his course but God orders his footsteps. Solomon’s words have a recalibrating effect physiologically don’t they? When I’m in the middle of that impossible struggle, what I try to do is just remind myself that God is ordering my footsteps and no matter how difficult it gets, no matter how frustrating, disorienting, I need to remind myself that God is sovereign. And that gives me that sense of destiny about my life.
Paul, in Acts 28, was shipwrecked off the island of Malta. What a detour to his mission? What could God have possibly had in mind? Now, how did Paul end up on the island of Malta? I want to remind you, it wasn’t the navigational skills of the ship’s captain, it wasn’t the sailing skills of the crew. They landed on Malta because of something totally out of their control: the wind factor. Acts 27:14-15 “…a wind of hurricane force, called the ‘northeaster,’ swept down from the island. The ship was caught by the storm and could not head into the wind; so we gave way to it and were driven along.” Headwinds, gale force winds, the winds seemed to be taking them off course, but it’s the wind factor that gets Paul right where God wants him to go.
Disasters in life are going to happen beyond your control. You might lose a job, someone might break up with you, economic issues, bad diagnosis, but listen, things are going to happen that you can’t control but I want to remind you of Christ’s words in John 3:8. Jesus said this: The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear it’s sound but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. In other words, if you are born of the Spirit, if you put your faith in Christ, the Spirit of God takes up residence in your life, you begin that incredible journey with God, and what happens is this—you aren’t going to know where you are going or what is coming most of the time, and that’s a good thing! It’s right where God wants you to be.
Jesus likened the workings of the Holy Spirit to the wind. Sometimes it is a light wind from the South. Oh, we love it when it is the wind at our backs. Sometimes it is gale force winds in our face, and all I know is this—resisting the Holy Spirit is like spitting into the wind. So what you need to do is you need to begin to cultivate that moment-by-moment sensitivity to the Spirit of God. In fact, you need to get to the point in your life where you trust His promptings more than you trust your plans. You get to that point where you embrace the uncontrollable, unpredictable working of the Holy Spirit in your life. And as I look back at my own map of my own spiritual journey, I can honestly say that I’m grateful for the hard times. God was in the storm.
From www.thetheaterchurch.com. Used by permission of Heather Zempel.
From “Cage of Failure” Wild Goose Chase www.theaterchurch.com
Jesus teaches that we live under great stress when we worship the rival god, Money. We must learn to walk in faith in the present and run to Jesus when we hurt.
Life Events Stress Scale click here.
We live in a stress-filled society. Technology makes us accessible to anyone at anytime. Economic down-turns cause many to fear the loss of a job or a home. Stress has been linked to all the leading causes of death, including heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis and suicide. Seventy-five to ninety percent of visits to primary care physicians are due to stress-related problems. An estimated one million workers are absent each workday because of stress-related complaints. Forty percent of all worker turnover is due to job stress.
A limited amount of stress is good and necessary for healthy living. If we live in a stress-free life, we will likely become apathetic and unproductive. But severe amounts of stress wreak havoc on our emotions. Romans 5:14 says, “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”
David’s intimate declaration in Psalm 131 is a great remedy for stressful emotions.
“My heart is not proud, O Lord, my eyes are not haughty. I do not concern myself with great matters of things too wonderful for me. But I have stilled and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother, like weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and forevermore.”
It’s amazing to think that David-King of Israel-slayer of giants-would encounter “great matters” and that he would consider certain things “too wonderful for him.” And yet he acknowledged that there were, indeed areas so far outside his comfort zone that he would avoid them. He was a great musician, but perhaps public speaking made him nervous. He as a valiant warrior, but perhaps he got frustrated with financial management. He might have been a visionary, but perhaps he got stressed out over details. Regardless of the specifics, David did acknowledge that there were areas in which he felt uncomfortable and that he was going to avoid those areas.
Our stress level begins to escalate when we are continually asked to perform tasks that are far outside our comfort zone and when we’re expected to “be” someone we are not.
What’s the solution? Discover who you are and what you feel comfortable doing. Accept the way God has made you. Learn to say “no” to matters that are “too wonderful.”
In Psalm 131, it is interesting to note that David’s confession of his inadequacies is prefaced by a declaration of humility, “My heart is not proud, O Lord, my eyes are not haughty.” Pride will prompt us to cling stubbornly to “great matters” while humility will encourage us to release them.
De-stressing essentials include cultivating true spirituality, developing a positive self-image and focusing on positive dreams and goals for your life.
It is important to reduce stress by setting a wise balance in this imbalanced world and by being proactive in preventing disease.
Christ saw the Sabbath (and by extension, all of life) as being a time of restoration and connectedness with God. The Pharisees viewed the Sabbath as a day to prove one’s spiritual prowess by adhering to the difficult rigors of the Sabbath laws. One view is based on grace. The other is based on merit. Practical tips on enjoying a “day of rest” are given.
This is usually an “Ask Roger” question. But this time, I have a question, and I am going to ask my resident Thanksgiving expert, Tom Terry.
Dear Tom,
What is the significance of the Thanksgiving holiday, both politically and spiritually?
Dear Roger,
More than any other, Thanksgiving embodies both religious and political freedoms, and puts them in their proper place.
Of the numerous holidays Americans celebrate each year, Thanksgiving is uniquely American, and uniquely Christian.
In the early 1600s a small group of devoutly religious men and women sought to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience. These Pilgrims broke from the Anglican church and were persecuted from England to Holland until they boarded the Mayflower and set sail for the New World. The Pilgrims were separatists, seeking to restore the true nature of the Gospel to Christian practices from what they believed were the pollutants of Catholicism and the Anglican Church.
Upon arrival, before disembarking their vessel they signed an agreement known as the Mayflower Compact. The text of the agreement included a vision for a new government:
Solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politick, for our better ordering and preservation, and furthering of the ends foresaid: and by virtue to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony; unto which we all promise all due submission and obedience.
It was this band of Pilgrims, after having lost half their population to an extreme winter, that stuck to the vision laid out in the Mayflower Compact. They were thankful for more than surviving harsh weather, they were also thankful that God has preserved their society and would see it to its conclusion.
Most interesting about the Mayflower Pilgrims is what they did considering who they were. Essentially, they were normal men and women, devoutly religious, who wanted more than to escape the religious pollutions from the home they left. They wanted to build a new society with a new government founded upon the principles they held dear. Their principles were uniquely Christian, and planted the seeds of what would eventually become American liberties.
The Mayflower Compact stated its purpose for the new colony’s existence: The “advancement of the Christian faith” and formation of a “civil body politick.” If the Compact made anything clear, it was that the new government of the colony proceeded from the religious convictions of the colonists—religious freedom giving birth to political freedom.
In the 21st century we tend to turn things around. We view religious freedom as a guarantee of the State instead of a transformation of the heart. Even under the former regime of the Soviet Union, effective missionary work was viewed as a limited possibility as long as the communist remained in power. When the Iron Curtain fell, American missionary activity in the former Evil Empire surged. Yet American Christians working in Russia discovered that the Russian Church was alive and well. Likewise, American churches have discovered that in communist China a revival is taking place that will surely transform millions in that country. And many of those who have been transformed by their freedom in Christ have turned to political activism to try and free the nation further from the grip of communism.
The Mayflower Pilgrims did not develop their convictions about religion, society, or government after they came to the New World. They had those convictions under the heavy hand of religious persecution in their native land. When they came to the New World they could have refused self-government. Instead they established their society for their own preservation. That government and the ones that followed were built squarely upon the foundation laid in their shared faith convictions. Those that would follow in the wake of the Mayflower and the footsteps of William Bradford and the colony he led, would enact laws and draft constitutions guided by many of those same principles Those early founding documents include, The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, and The Massachusetts Body of Liberties. Most of the first State Constitutions contained language that placed the burden for the survival of America upon the backs of those who lived according to the principles set down in the Bible.
Our concept of liberty has chanced in the last three centuries. What we think of as liberty today is anathema to the colonists of the Mayflower. Their reasons for declaring a day of Thanksgiving were quite different than the reasons most Americans celebrate the holiday today.
Let us reclaim the holiday’s original meaning. On Thanksgiving take time to read the account that William Bradford wrote of the Plymouth Plantation. For each day after we should let the principles of those first Americans guide our ideas of religious and political freedom.
Love, Tom