Monthly Archives: June 2008

Family

Leave a comment

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”1

One day a man comes home from work to find total mayhem at home. The kids were outside still in their pajamas playing in the mud and muck. There were empty food boxes and wrappers all around. As he proceeded into the house, he found an even bigger mess. Dishes on the counter, dog food spilled on the floor, a broken glass under the table, and a small pile of sand by the back door. The family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing, and a lamp had been knocked over.

He headed up the stairs, stepping over toys, to look for his wife. He was becoming worried that she may be ill, or that something had happened to her. He found her in the bedroom, still in bed with her pajamas on, reading a book.

She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went.

He looked at her bewildered and asked, “What happened here today?” She again smiled and answered, “You know, everyday when you come home from work and ask me what I did today?”

“Yes,” was his reply.

She answered, “Well, today I didn’t do it!”

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me regardless of my marital state to love and appreciate my spouse and/or family members as you would have me love and appreciate them and, with your help, always be as Christ to them. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

1. Ephesians 5:25 (NIV).

<:))))><

Affirmation by Fathers

Leave a comment

Wishing all dads a very Happy Father’s Day

“Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.”1

In their book, The Gift of Honor, Gary Smalley and John Trent tell about “Keith Hernandez … one of baseball’s top players. He is a lifetime .300 hitter who has won numerous Golden Glove awards for excellence in fielding. He’s won a batting championship for having the highest average, the Most Valuable Player award in his league, and even the World Series. Yet with all his accomplishments, he has missed out on something crucially important to him—his father’s acceptance and recognition that what he has accomplished is valuable.

Listen to what he had to say in a very candid interview about his relationship with his father: ‘One day Keith asked his father, “Dad, I have a lifetime .300 batting average. What more do you want?” His father replied, “But someday you’re going to look back and say, ‘I could have done more.’”

The number of people I’ve worked with over the years in recovery work who have a deep father-wound is reason for discouragement. They are numerous. Many sons and daughters of so-called successful businessmen felt that their fathers cared more about their work than they did about their kids. Many kids of pastors feel the same way. Many adult children of alcoholic fathers grew up feeling neglected, receiving little or no emotional support or affirmation from their dads. And I’ve worked with numerous men and women who felt that their father was never involved with them emotionally, and deep down they felt abandoned by him.

Many a woman has looked for love in all the wrong places, substituting sex for love in a desperate attempt to fill the empty void caused by an emotionally absentee father. (Many men who have a deep mother-wound do the same thing.)

Regardless of what some would try to tell us today, fathers have a vital role in the wellbeing of the family, and therefore in the wellbeing of the nation. As former President Reagan said, “As goes the family so goes the nation.”

One of the greatest things we fathers can do for our children is to acknowledge our own father- and/or mother-wound, and admit our inability to affirm our loved ones emotionally. Then we need to get into a recovery program to overcome our issues and grow towards wholeness ourselves. Only then will we be able to fully love and affirm the most important people in our lives—our sons, our daughters, and our spouses.

Furthermore, one of the greatest needs of every one of us is to know and experience the love and affirmation of God, our Heavenly Father, at the very core of our being.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to face and overcome my father-wound so that I will be able to be the father that my children need. Where I have failed, please forgive me, and above all, please help me to know and experience your affirmation at the very core of my being. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus name, amen.”

NOTE: Be sure to read “Healing a Man’s Father Wound” at:http://tinyurl.com/9dse4

Book: A Dad Shaped Hole in My Heart by H. Norman Wright. http://tinyurl.com/32scsv

1. Colossians 3:21 (NIV).

<:))))><

Fly With the Eagles

Leave a comment

“Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”1

A friend of mine has trouble with Japanese bonsai trees in that she sees tiny trees with great potential inhibited because they have been root-bound by man. Others have trouble seeing animals and birds trapped in cages for the same reason. For example, how do eagles feel in cages in zoos? These magnificent birds, created to soar to the heights of mountaintops, do they get frustrated? Are they fulfilled? How could they be?

Too many of us, who were created to reach our total God-given human and spiritual potential, are trapped in a cage of our own or of another’s making. We fail to resolve the problems in our life that hold us back. True, we may have been wounded in the past, but God wants us to be healed, to be made whole, to be free to fly, to soar to the heights of all that he has for us.

We have a choice, we can scratch in the dirt with the turkeys or we can rise up to follow Christ and fly with the eagles to the heights that God envisioned for us to reach. That choice is ours.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, help me to fully grasp the fact that you have a wonderful plan for MY life. Help me to discover what this is, and create in me a restlessness until I discover it. And help me to begin fulfilling that plan today by seeking you until I discover it. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

1. Isaiah 40:31 (NIV).

<:))))><

Follow Your Bubbles

Leave a comment

“I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”1

Vern Treat tells about a scuba diver who said that when you’re in deep water, you’re encircled by light, so there’s no way you can tell which way is up because the water diffuses the light. You’re also totally weightless, so you have no sense of gravity. The only way you can tell which way to get out of the water is to go the direction the bubbles are going.

Surrounded in an aura of light and weightless, it’s very easy to lose all sense of direction and get disoriented. You may sense that this way is up and that your air bubbles are going sideways. You may be so convinced that your perception is true that you decide to ignore your bubbles and go the way you think is up.

One of the first things we were told when learning to scuba-dive, Trent said, was to always trust your bubbles—to always follow your bubbles. No matter how you feel, no matter what you think, your bubbles are always right.

Life can be like that at times too. If we base the rules of life on our feelings, perception or what we think, we can be very easily led astray. The philosophy, “If it feels good it must be right,” is a dangerous guide to follow because our feelings can play all sorts of tricks on us. If something is wrong, it is wrong regardless of how we feel or what we think. True, it’s important that we don’t deny or repress our feelings, because we can learn to trust them; but what we can’t always trust is our interpretation of them.

The only safe guide to follow when it comes to the rules of life is to trust God and his Word, the Bible. Therein lie the “bubbles of life” to follow. These “bubbles” are always right. Always!

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for your Word, the Bible, and for giving us principles for healthy living and loving. Give me a love for your Word and the desire to hide it in my heart so I won’t sin against you. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

1. Psalm 119:11 (NIV).

<:))))><

Little Sins

Leave a comment

“Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.”1

In their book, Living a Power-Filled Life, Bill Tucker with Pat Maxwell talk about a four-hundred-year-old tree that crashed to the forest floor Over the centuries it had been struck by lightning fourteen times, braved great windstorms, and even defied an earthquake. In the end, however, it was killed by little beetles. Boring under the bark, they chewed away its mighty fibers until the giant of the forest lay broken on the ground.

How true it is, it’s the little things in life, which at the time seem harmless, but when you put them all together, they can cause great devastation. As another has said, “Many a marital grave has been dug by a lot of little digs.” And as the ditty puts it:

It’s the little things that bother us
and put us on the rack,
you can sit upon a mountain
but you can’t sit on a tack!

But the biggest danger of all is found in our so-called “little sins.” Eventually they will catch up with us and inch by silent inch will drive us farther and farther away from God. And as Edmund Burke said, “By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.”

Sins—large or small—are a spiritual cancer and unless we get the cancer, the cancer will get us. As God’s word says, “Be sure your sin will find you out.”2 The good news is that God also says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”3

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, your Word warns us about the dangers of sin. Please help me to see and admit to my sins, confess them to you, and receive your forgiveness. And help me to resolve and overcome any habitual sin I may have in my life. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

1. Song of Solomon 2:15 (NIV).
2. Numbers 32:23.
3. 1 John 1:9.

<:))))><

Hardening of the Heart

Leave a comment

“But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said.”1

“While sitting on the bank of a river one day, I picked up a solid round stone from the water and broke it open. It was perfectly dry in spite of the fact that it had been immersed in water for centuries. The same is true of many people in the Western world. For centuries they have been surrounded by Christianity; they live immersed in the waters of its benefits. And yet it has not penetrated their hearts; they do not love it. The fault is not in Christianity, but in men’s hearts, which have been hardened by materialism and intellectualism.”2

Some 4,000 years ago, when God called Moses to deliver the ancient people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, Pharaoh refused to let the people go. God kept sending plagues on the Egyptians so Pharaoh would agree to let the Israelites go, which he did. But as soon as there was relief from the plague, Pharaoh changed his mind, hardened his heart and refused to let the people go. After continual resistance, eventually God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.

When we continually fail to adhere to God’s Word and his message of obedience and salvation we end up hardening our hearts. Eventually God may harden our hearts too—a dangerous course to follow.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please give me a heart that is open to your Word, that accepts your free offer of salvation, and the desire to always live in harmony with your will. And please soften any areas of my heart that I may already have hardened. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

1. Exodus 8:15 (NIV).
2. Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889–1929)

<:))))><

Resolving Conflict Creatively, Part IV

Leave a comment

“Don’t sin by letting anger gain control over you. Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a mighty foothold to the Devil.”1

A ninth step in resolving anger is to give up the right to always be right. People who have a compulsion to always be right are very insecure and immature. Be willing to say, “I was wrong. I apologize.” As the Apostle Paul points out, we are not only to speak the truth in love but also to grow up in all areas of our Christian life—both are essential for effective communications and creative conflict management.

Tenth, as the Bible also teaches, “Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a mighty foothold to the Devil.” In other words, resolve conflict and anger as quickly as possible. And, by the way, my anger is not a demon as some want to blame. The anger is all mine but when I fail to resolve it (like all negative emotions), I give “a mighty foothold to the Devil.” When I resolve my anger, the devil loses his foothold and is defeated.

Eleventh, speak softly. Probably most of us tend to raise our voices when we are ticked off. However, keep in mind that research has shown that one effective way to handle yellers is to speak softly. This tends to make them lean forward and speak softer so they can hear what you are saying. Remember that yelling begets yelling! Also, as Michel de Montaigne said, “He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.”

Twelfth, pray. First pray about yourself. One of the most powerful prayers I ever learned to pray was when I was at wit’s end in a seemingly hopeless conflict. In utter frustration I begged God to face me with the truth of what I was still contributing to the mess I was in. What years of counseling failed to achieve, prayer did in two weeks. I saw my hopeless co-dependency (even though I hadn’t even heard of the word at the time). Only when I saw the reality of what I was contributing was I able to resolve my part in the conflict. I wish I would have learned to pray this prayer years before—even in Sunday school. Had I done so, I could have saved myself years of needless pain and frustration.

Then pray together. When two people genuinely want to grow through and resolve their conflicts and are willing and want to face the truth about themselves and pray accordingly, I don’t think there are too many arguments and conflicts that can’t be resolved.

Remember always, “The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.”2

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for the wonderful principles in your Word that give instructions needed, not only to resolve conflict creatively, but to guide and direct in every aspect of life. Help me to always strive to live by these principles in everything I am and do. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

RECAP: Here are the twelve steps for resolving conflict creatively: 1. Speak the truth in love. 2. Listen with the heart. 3. Be honest with your true feelings. 4. Use “I” messages. 5. Avoid the blame game. 6. Accept responsibility. 7. Stick to the subject at hand. 8. Confess nobody’s sin but your own. 9. Give up the right to always be right. 10. Resolve anger quickly. 11. Speak softly. 12. Pray.

1. Ephesians 4:26–27 (NLT).
2. Psalm 145:18 (NIV).

<:))))><

Resolving Conflict Creatively, Part III

Leave a comment

“If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”1

To resolve conflict creatively we have pointed out the need to strive always to speak the truth in love, to listen with our hearts and hear what the other person is not saying, to be honest with our true feelings, to use “I” messages, and to avoid the blame game.

Sixth, we also need to accept responsibility. Working with several hundred divorced people over the past decade, I have found that the majority primarily blame their former spouse for the breakup of their marriage without taking a serious look at what they contributed. I repeat, conflict managed creatively can be growth producing when both parties will accept responsibility for their share in the conflict. Yes, it is true, some people are bullies, belligerent, and dogmatic, but some of us are too “nice” to stand up for ourselves—that is, we are too weak, too passive, too co-dependent, or too super-sensitive.

Even the Bible implies that some people are impossible to get along with, and there comes a time—with controlling, manipulating, dishonest, or abusive people—when we need to say, “No more,” and exercise tough love. When we fail to do this, that’s our problem. And as we said yesterday, what the other person does or fails to do is their issue (or problem). How I respond is always my responsibility. Only when I can see and admit my part in the conflict can I have a chance of getting to resolution. I believe that failure for each party to see what he/she is contributing to the conflict is one of the major causes of relational failure.

Seventh, stick to the subject at hand. Whew … when people stuff their negative feelings and sit on their hurt and anger, look out! They will eventually either implode, that is, turn their emotions inward and get sick or even have a heart attack, or they will explode. And it will be the “dumbest” little thing that triggers the explosion, and beware … they will go back to unresolved grievances for the past three years (or three decades). To fight fair, it is imperative to deal only with the issue at hand.

Eighth, confess nobody’s “sins” but your own and seek to change only yourself! The reality is that the only person I can ever change is myself. When I confess the other person’s faults and try to change him or her, it just makes them madder, and rightfully so. As Jesus also said, before we try to take a splinter out of the other person’s eye, we need to take the log out of our own. Amazing, isn’t it? It is so much easier to see the other guy’s splinter and not even be aware of the log in our own eye!

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to always accept my responsibility in every conflict situation and face the truth of what I am contributing, and to resolve whatever that might be. Help me to admit and confess only my own sins and seek forgiveness for my failures, not only from you, but also from those I may have hurt unwittingly or on purpose. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

(To be concluded)

1. Romans 12:18 (NIV).

<:))))><

Resolving Conflict Creatively, Part II

Leave a comment

“Instead, we will lovingly follow the truth at all times—speaking truly, dealing truly, living truly—and so become more and more in every way like Christ who is the Head of his body, the church.”1

To resolve conflict creatively we need, first, not only to speak the truth in love and, second, to listen with our heart, but third, we need to be honest and share our true feelings—not just our surface feelings. For example, anger is often a defense against feeling our fear. So, to resolve conflict, it’s important not to deny the anger, but to be aware that it is a defense against feeling our deeper feelings. This can be difficult for many of us to do. We either don’t know how to do this, or we use anger to stop the other person from getting close to us.

Or, equally destructive, to avoid conflict we deny our true feelings and pretend to be something we are not. This way conflict never gets faced, let alone resolved, and resentment can fester below the surface for years. And this festering is the cause behind many a broken relationship.

Author John Powell expressed this attitude very poignantly when he said, “We defend our dishonesty [denying and not sharing our true feelings] on the grounds that it may hurt another person. And then, having rationalized our phoniness into nobility, we settle for superficial relationships.”2

Fourth, to resolve conflict it is also very important to use “I” messages. That is, instead of saying, “You make me mad or you really hurt my feelings,” say words to the effect, “When you say (or do) things like thus and so, I feel hurt and/or angry, and I need to talk about it.”

Fifth, avoid the blame-game at all costs. Many, if not most of us are like the lawyer in the Bible who, “wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’”3 This was when Jesus told him that the greatest commandment was to love God and your neighbor as yourself.

If I don’t love and accept myself in a healthy sense, conflict can be terribly distressing. I need to realize that nobody can upset me (hurt my feelings or make me angry) without my permission. For instance, if I had a perfect self-concept (which I don’t) it would be very rare that my feelings would ever get hurt. What the other person says or does may or may not be a problem, but how I respond is always my responsibility. And to the degree I overreact, that is always my problem.

So before I lay the blame at another’s feet, I need to be courageously honest with myself and know when I am responding responsibly and openly admit when I am overreacting out of proportion to what has happened. Overreactions happen when unresolved issues from the past get triggered. The trigger is not my problem but my overreaction is!

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to lovingly follow the truth at all times—speaking truly, dealing truly, living truly—and so become more and more in every way like Christ. Help me to know whenever I overreact in a conflict situation, to admit that it is my problem, and help me to overcome it. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

(To be continued.)

1. Ephesians 4:15 (TLB).
2. John Powell, Why I Am Afraid to Tell You
Who I Am, Argus Communications.
3. Luke 10:29 (NKJV).

<:))))><

Resolving Conflict Creatively, Part I

Leave a comment

“But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ.”1

I recall hearing a preacher of a large church, when celebrating his twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, declaring that he and his wife had never had a conflict. Chances are that one of the partners had become a doormat or a “peace at any price” person. About the only other way to live without ever having an argument or conflict is to become a hermit.

Wherever there are people, there will always be conflict at one time or another. When handled creatively, conflict can lead not only to resolution but also to personal growth. What we need to do is learn how to fight fair, to disagree agreeably, and to “fight” like a Christian.

So how do we do this?

First and foremost is to always strive to speak the truth in love. Remember that grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. We, too, need to precede truth with grace; that is, to always give loving, gracious acceptance. Unless we do this, the other person will not likely feel safe to share their truth. And without the sharing of truth, there is no connection and there is no resolution of conflict.

Second, listen…listen…listen—not only with our ears, but much more so with the heart. We need to hear what the other person is saying—not just what we think they are saying. This is because we all interpret messages through our own lenses, for “we see things not as they are, but as we are.” And the more dishonest we are with our own inner-self (feelings), the more our seeing and hearing “lenses” are distorted and the more we will twist messages to make them match our perception of reality. For instance, if we are insecure or don’t like ourselves, we will read into what others say to put ourselves down.

(To be continued.)

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to be gracious in conflict situations, to always speak the truth in love, and be much more willing to listen before I speak. Help me to hear what the other person is saying regardless of their words and to handle conflict in a Christ-like manner. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

1. Ephesians 4:15 (NASB).

<:))))><