Recently I’ve been learning a new way of thinking about relational wisdom from Ken Sande and his team at rw360.org. I highly recommend his work to anyone who wants to have healthier relationships and get upstream of conflict.
Pastoral counseling has been a huge part of my life one-on-one, in group settings, and in public teaching, but not until now have I seen as clearly the answer to a couple of things. The tools provided by rw360 are wonderful, and I’m beginning to make use of them daily. Management of my emotional responses is getting better in the hope that I reflect the Lord Jesus as He truly is. How to respond to others, when feeling anger or frustration, delight or satisfaction is now much clearer, and therefore the follow through to peace is becoming easier than it has ever been.
Waking up to relationships
The best kind of life is truly one in which relationships are thriving – molded by selflessness, joyful expressions of delight in each other, and cooperative effort to walk together in whatever opportunities or challenges life brings. That means that the first thoughts I have in the morning do not remain on how I’m feeling or what I’m going to do in the day, but move to how God and those around me are feeling about this day and what I might do to become a helpful part of what can be done together.
Emotions are God’s gift
There is built into every one of the core emotions the possibility of enrichment (see table below). I’ve heard that all emotions are a gift from God and meant to be an integral part of a whole, together-kind-of-life.[1] And yet I have especially struggled to accept the negative ones, failing to see why I should embrace them rather than running from them or fighting against them. When I’ve been depressed, for instance, I’ve done everything in my power to be rid of the depression but not to discover the benefits hidden inside those feelings. I have grown through those times, but usually only with hindsight. Now, however, my mind and heart are changing toward these things that have been so much a part of my living. I can see now that it is possible to be “emotional,” and be energized in a good way whether the emotions be positive or negative, as long as my spirit is aligned with my Creator (cf. Matthew 26:36-46).
The question remains
What about core weariness? How do we deal with the relational difficulties of living with weariness of body or soul? With chronic illness comes chronic weariness. With persistent struggles to do good toward, and with other people who can be very selfish, deceptive and mean comes weariness of soul. With persistent effort to keep a worldview centered on the Lord and to understand a complex and messy world comes weariness of mind. How can I love the Lord with all my, now very tired, body, soul and mind, and how can I love others as weary as I sometimes am of life?
I’m not sure yet how it all works out, but for me one of the greatest difficulties in responding well emotionally to life’s challenges is how tired or unwell I’m feeling in body or soul. Those times of core weariness add confusion and a sense of helplessness or hopelessness that bring on irritability, impatience, and self-pity – all enemies of the best kind of relating.
Hoping in answers because of what Jesus said
Not everyone today feels soul-weariness, or the crushing weight of past sins, failures, hurts, and rejections. But when you do, the words of Jesus may be your greatest reason to hope. Jesus said…
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 (NASB)
Because of what Jesus said, I can imagine being at peace in the midst of any storm. I can dare to imagine being loved and forgiven – when I’ve been at our worst. I can dare to imagine teaming up with the Creator – when I can’t imagine facing another day.
[1] Emotions are a gift of God
“We were given emotions by God, being made in the image of God, not from sin. So why throw away a gift from God? In moments of despair or grief we wish them away. Yet the right response is not to run from them, but to learn to deal with them and use them. We cannot just let our emotions go but we don’t have to pretend they are not there. These emotions of ours are tools God has given us: tools to grow, tools to love, tools to inspire.” (Brandon Fusco, theodysseyonline.com)
“We have wrongly concluded that negative emotions are from Satan. The Scriptures teach that emotions are a gift from God. They motivate us to take constructive action. Anger motivated Jesus to clear the temple of robbers and thieves. Emotions call us to engage the mind and to make wise decisions on what needs to be done. When we make wise decisions, emotions have served their purpose.” (myemail.constantcontact.com)
From solutions-recovery.com…
So where’s joy to be found if today is mixed with soul numbing routine, character testing, and the uncertainty of confusion and conflict? For me, greater joy is not found in the absence of those things, but in recognizing that I have the opportunity to walk with Jesus through them in fellowship with Him.
These comments by Spurgeon seem to turn on its head the notion that the only reason Christ entered our world is to save you and me from suffering and death. Just as Christ created our world and mankind for fellowship with him (with who he is in his heart of hearts), and just as he planned and spoke into being a man and woman whose human nature was fitted to the one he would want to embrace for himself, so now, as we live out our lives on an earthly plane, we live them out as he chose to live it himself (in the only way he could live it given who he is in his basic nature as the Son of God). His plan, or design, for our life preceded the actual execution of the plan in the creation moment. And that plan arose out of who he is personally, and what he could choose to experience himself. There is such Glory that we share in this that it’s hard to put it in words (Psalm 8)!
Yes, as the Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8:9, Jesus did become poor for our sake that we might become rich. It is proper to draw principles for living from such mercy and grace. But, to draw the greatest joy from that truth, we must come to realize that it was not just for my sake or your sake. Christ’s choice to live among us was clearly also and primarily so for his own sake, or his glory in other words – that he might fulfill the creation purpose he designed into everything (see Paul’s teaching in Ephesians 1:4-12 and Colossians 1:13-24).
Is it too bold of me to say, “I don’t know if He had a cold when He walked this earth, but today, in me, He’s got a whopper!”? That statement seems to resonate with the following scripture passage, and so I’m drinking deeply of the best kind of chicken soup to be had – chicken soup for the soul.
The amazing thing is that it was not Daniel’s good looks, strong body, his quick mind, or his prominence in government that rescued him in, and out of the den of lions. It was God Himself delighting to walk with him, uniting His power and wisdom to the strength of Daniel’s moral convictions. The New Testament book of Hebrews mentions Daniel among people of living, overcoming faith. His life was built upon a solid foundation of trust in the one true and living God walking with him.
God is omnipresent. He is everywhere at the same time, and one of the ways He manifests His omnipresence to us is through our prayers.
God’s forgiveness because of Christ’s death on our behalf “justifies” us forever. We speak of this justification powerfully moving us from the Kingdom of Darkness into the Kingdom of Light, or lovingly moving us from being lost in ourselves to being found and made part of His eternal family, or resurrecting us from being dead spiritually to being living temples of the Holy Spirit. For the believer in Jesus Christ, the Scriptures are quite clear there will never will be any judicial condemnation that can separate us again from God and eternity with Him.
Reconciling “hugs” from our Heavenly Father frees the child of God to thrive in God’s love. Familial forgiveness enables us to enjoy the blessing of a restored fellowship with Him free of any strain (that strain which hid God’s face for a season). The relationship after the forgiving hug from the Lord is the more intimate and deeper kind of a tested relationship that lasts forever.
The story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32 illustrates why and how the believing child of God will always seek the best of relationships with his Heavenly Father. The returning son said humbly, “Father, I have sinned,” but the beauty of the story is in the healing forgiveness and grace flowing from the father’s heart of love for his son. The father’s loving forgiveness restored his son completely and represents exactly what we seek when seeking God’s forgiveness.
Guilt arises because I’ve no moral justification for doing what I did, especially before my holy God who holds every life sacred and is exalted as the ultimate judge over all matters. The remedy is singular. To be free from guilt, I must recognize that ultimately only God can forgive sin, and accept humbly what he has to offer. My friend’s forgiveness does not pardon my guilt, nor will any act of forgiveness toward myself. My only option is to accept God’s forgiveness through Christ.
Love is the answer. The Scriptures teach us that God’s perfect love casts out fear, and over and over again calls us to forgive one another. This is an extreme, radical kind of loving that can heal my guilty soul at the deepest level – where the pool of shame I’m hiding in is deep and dark.
Think about the way God paints beauty into His magnificent creations. He will often repeat a theme or a subject (that daffodil, that cloud, that sunrise, that snowflake, that wave), but each time we experience it, it’s unique in some way. Isn’t it in the moment of revelation and awakening of those things that the blaze of beauty catches our breath? Seeing a photo of a blue-green wave cresting is wonderful, but it’s not the same as seeing the wave. God’s extravagant displays of love and glory are meant to be tasted in real time, today, in this moment we breathe by His grace.
Yesterday, we enjoyed such an awesome Christmas Eve together – in all three services and a reception, from the morning worship hour until midnight candlelight Communion! What struck me is how fresh & new something so old and familiar can feel. Last night when our church pianist played old carols, they seemed new, and then I realized they were! They were new to THAT moment, just as the precious awareness of Christ’s love was again new to THAT moment, and this moment, and the next…
I love the vision of an eternity with the Lord that rests on the foundation of beauty – beauty that’s always new. In the introduction to the eternal kingdom of Christ we’re told God makes all things new, in that moment, forever. We can’t be bored then, when God displays His beauty in eternal glory because it will be a living, breathing forever new thing!