by Steven Gledhill for FREEdom from MEdom Project
Imagine you are in a classroom taking an exam, and you are asked the following question…
How do you get more of what you want from those who can give it to you?
This is a question that applies to all living humans. The answer to question hinges on a common answer, according to a universal social precept.
In the pursuit of what we want most, there is a tendency to settle for less when the challenge feels insurmountable. When it seems we cannot have what we want most, we’ll settle for something more obtainable; something easier; something with fewer conditions, requiring less effort.
Often times, in the pursuit of obtaining what we want most, we takes risks that involve losing some or much of what we already have in the pursuit of the bigger and better prize. Throughout the pursuit to gain something is losing something else. Then, it’s not just about the winning per se, it becomes about recovering what we’ve lost. Therefore, involved in the process of gain and benefit, is the experience of loss and pain.
How then do they get back what we’ve lost? How do we get more of what we want most?
We are always engaged in the examination of how to do life in relationships with other people who also want what they want in their lives, just as we want what we want in ours. There seems to be this constant conflict with everyone we do life with to experience some sense of happiness; and more often than not it seems that the pursuit of happiness is at the expense of someone else’s happiness.
Who is happier, typically, givers or takers?
Most will typically acknowledge that givers tend to find more joy in giving than takers find satisfaction in what they’ve taken. Givers tend to want for less, and takers tend to be in a static state of want and never seem to have enough.
Who is typically happier, takers or receivers? How is receiving different than, or in contrast with, taking?
Most, including the youth I work with professionally, usually agree that receivers are happier than takers since receivers partake in a reciprocating relationship of giving and receiving, which begets more giving. Receivers tend to concern themselves less with what they believe they deserve, and therefore, tend to be more grateful to receive what’s been given. For every giver there is someone to receive what’s been given. Takers are about taking what they believe they deserve, whether it’s been given to them or not.
Reciprocal giving and receiving involves grace, gratitude, and generosity; typically involving humility, compassion, and empathy. Reciprocating taking relationships involves self-centered intention, discontentment, envy and jealousy, resentment, contentious conflict, hostility, and too often malice.
When working with people in a group therapy setting having this discussion, we’re typically in agreement that all that’s been said thus far, is reasonable. All agree. Giving is more satisfying than taking, since givers find joy in giving. And, receiving is a better thing than taking, since receiving is reciprocated by more giving, and for every giver there is a receiver. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s what makes healthy relationships a beautiful thing.
So, what’s the problem?
A therapist can be working with a contentious family that struggles mightily to get along. Ask these questions in discussion with the family. Everyone seems to agrees. Then, the therapist asks the question to the family, “So what seems to be the problem?” Then, watch and listen to the family argue angrily with each other, futilely attempting to bargain with each other, talking over each other, while no one seems to be listening to anyone else but themselves.
The reality is that while it may to reasonable to agree that harmonious giving and receiving is the pathway to peaceful, contented relationships, it goes against the human sin nature. It is our nature to take. We come out of the womb screaming for what we want. Giving is learned. Sharing is learned. Loving is learned.
Who among us is willing to be a student, desiring to learn the lesson of giving and sharing, humility and grace, so that we can more easily trust each other more to love, rather than fear getting hurt?
So, what is the answer to the question, “How do you get more of what you want from those who have it to give it to you?”
Here is the answer to the question… Are you ready for it? … It’s a shocker…
Give THEM more of what THEY want from you.
That’s right.
It’s an equation for living contented in a world of discontent.
Write the answer on your hand and don’t wash it off until the examination is completed.
When working with adults embattled with depression and foreboding dissatisfaction in their lives, typical to their sense of hopelessness is their entanglement in toxic relationships and the dread that there is no way out, nor hope for change.
The truth about relationships is that there are relationships that are full of life, and then there are relationships that will drain the life right of you. There are people who are givers, and people who are takers. The givers contribute into the life of the relationship, and the takers behave in ways that suck life from the relationship.
The relationship got off to a great start. We were on our best behavior early on. We dressed up the relationship real nice. We saw the best in each other. We had this idealistic notion that what we have cannot be shaken. We loved each other. We were each other’s best friend. Let’s get married, we said. Nothing can touch this.
What happens? How does what is so great begin to break down?
It is often said that the best relationships are 50-50. The truth is that to get to 50-50, each party in the relationship must be willing to give 100 percent into the relationship. When this happens, what is received—experienced—in relationship doesn’t feel like you’re taking at all. It feels like gratitude that your giving is reciprocated in love. When both parties are grateful in each other’s favor, the relationship is substantial. It’s full of life. Though giving takes effort, as it comes from an attitude of love, it comes easily to each participant in the relationship.
What do you want in relationship with God?
You want blessing and provision, don’t you? Healing… deliverance, perhaps?
What can you give more of to God that he doesn’t already own? What does God need from you?
It’s not a question of what God needs, as it is a question of what God wants from you. And it’s not so much about what God wants from you, as it is what God wants with you. What God wants with you is same thing we all want with each other, when it comes right down to it. Relationship.
Are you a giver or a taker when it comes to relationship with God?
When working with young people struggling to get what they want from their parents, I tell them that the key to getting what they want is to give their parents more of what they want. What to the parents want most from these kids more than anything? Sacrifice? Uh uh.
What these parents want from their children is the same thing you want in your relationships with your kids. Obedience! Why? Because you’re power hungry, and wanting to control those under your authority? Or is it because you want what is best your children, and so their obedience to you is for their benefit? When your children obey your rules and wishes it’s for their best (not to satisfy your ego), and their obedience is foundational at it’s core, and the most important piece to building and maintaining a quality relationship.
It’s the same thing in our relationship with God. It’s through our obedience that we are givers in relationship with God. We can be sacrificial with our time, our energy, our effort, and even our money, but unless we are obedient to the foundational principles in relationship with God and with each other, any sacrificial service to God loses it’s significance.
Of course, none of us can out give God. But it’s not about what we give in a cumulative sense as it is our willingness to give in relationship with God. This relationship formula of having a giving attitude still applies when it comes to relationship with God. We give what we have to give from a willing heart (attitude), and God gives what He has to give from a willing heart. It’s what loving God is all about. It’s what loving each other is all about. It’s a beautiful thing.
Jesus said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40 (ESV)
The last part of that Scripture tells us that everything that is right, and good, and best in relationship with God, and with each other, hinges on loving God, and loving each other, with a willingness to be givers, with an attitude of giving. We’re told that giving is love, and love is giving. And from that is quality of relationship with God, and with each other; and from that is enjoying quality of life. That’s living!
If it’s so obvious, how to have successful relationships with each other, enjoying what we want from the relationship through giving into the relationship, why is it so challenging?
It’s obvious but not so simple, is it
Our brains are always thinking and making behavioral choices. Always. We don’t scratch an itch, or switch positions in a chair, without the brain making thoughtful decisions. Behavior that produces positive outcomes are reinforced and repeated. Behavior that proves harmful to us, to others, or both, is extinguished. Isn’t it? Not always? You mean, even behavior that produces pain is repeated? Behavior that doesn’t get us what we want, or closer to where we want to be is repeated? Why?
Why do we repeat behavior that takes us the opposite direction from where we want to be? What are we thinking? What do we believe the outcome to be when we do what we do, and say what we say? Why do we believe what we believe, especially if what we believe about what we do and say is ineffective, counterproductive, and in fact, painful?
What I want is influenced by what I believe. My belief, activated by my interpretation of what I have experienced, drives my behavioral choices, which produce logical, common sense outcomes… each and every time. I act according to what I believe gets me what I want, or at least gets me closer to what I want. Since, for a time, my behavior is reinforced when it does get me what I want, I am conditioned to repeat it. What’s at issue is, does what I do and say truly draw me closer to what I want most, or does my behavior inevitably drag me farther away from what I want and value most?
So long as at-risk behavior is reinforced by what appear to be favorable desired outcomes, it makes perfect sense to continue the desired behavior. When the same behavior begins to produce less than favorable outcomes, it can lead to apprehension about the behavior. The emotional area of the brain likes the relationship between feel-good behavior and feeling good. It does not believe there is sufficient discomfort linked to the behavior. The tendency, then, is to wrestle with at-risk behavior at the onset of some discomfort and discount it as random and incidental. Until recently, the behavior had produce favorable outcomes.
Because I want the feel-good of the at-risk behavior, I develop degree of ambivalence concerning change to behavior with less risk and less potential for harm. I want this that I value most, but it is challenging to get there. So, I settle for that, which is less challenging. My brain tells me that I can have both this and that. But this and that oppose each other, so I am left to choose. So, since that comes easier to me, I choose that. What I may not understand yet is that to get that, it cost me this; the logical outcome. When I lose this that I value most, it causes me discomfort and eventually pain.
Next, is what I want most for my life altered now that the logical consequences of my actions have cost so much? How much have my values for living changed because my behavior has wrought undesired and unintended consequences? I want to get to a certain place, but because I have taken a wrong turn along the way, or perhaps I’ve driven into a ditch, I have lost my way, and will surrender to settling to feel better than what I’ve been feeling: disappointed, upset, angry, anxious, stressed, fearful, etc.
This is intended to help you, or someone in your life that might need this, to recognize and acknowledge that what you do and say to get what you want, or at least get closer to what you want, at some point has the opposite effect, and takes you farther away from what you want. That being the case, why do we live and behave in ways that are intended to draw us closer to what we believe we want, but in actuality create greater distance between where we are and where we want to be?
Believe it or not, this is a problem that effects every area of our lives to one extent or another. As children, the more we fought to get what we wanted from parents, siblings, friends, teachers, and so on, the angrier and more frustrated we were when we, not only didn’t get what we wanted, but were punished and lost privileges. The more we fought to defend ourselves, and lied to protect ourselves, the more trouble we got into, digging our way into holes that felt impossible to get out of. It was a power struggle we couldn’t win.
Then as parents, we’ve done the same thing with our kids. We get angry and frustrated when they talk back and blatantly rebel against what we believe is best for them. We punish them and take away their privileges, but then our kids can’t stand us awful parents as they fight to defend themselves, and lie to protect themselves, still resisting what we believe is best for them. It’s been a power struggle that we can’t seem to win.
Life, when it comes right down to it, is an ongoing conflict of interest that requires an effective (and productive) strategy where all parties involved, somehow get enough of what they want, that they are content with the resolution to their conflict. It feels like a complex equation that does not appear to have a reasonable solution.
How do we get there?
When I counseled incarcerated men, younger and older, their primary objective was to be set free from prison. They were desperate to be back with their families and loved ones. The drug addict that would risk it all to get high; robbing a convenient store, or breaking into someone’s home, or robbing a rival drug dealer at gunpoint. The tough guy that was a thug on the street, is in tears in front of his therapy group talking about how much he misses his kids. That is what he wanted most; to be able to love on his kids and be a good dad who provides for them. How does he do that from a prison cell?
Where was the appreciation for family when the man wasn’t in prison? How are his values different depending on where he is, and what he is looking forward to? From prison, the man is looking forward to being released and reunited with his loved ones. Upon his release from prison, the same man is looking forward to a cigarette and a beer, even before getting home to his family. He may even be thinking hard about his next score before hugging his kids and loving his girl. He might actually commit a crime before getting home to what he’s been crying about for a few years. Why is that?
Why is it that our perspective and value for what we want most is so affected by setting? How have our beliefs been conditioned to want something we care less about more than what we care most about? How have our feelings been conditioned to crave that which in the bigger picture we deem less important at the expense of what we esteem to have the most value?
Today, I work mostly with children and adolescents in a psychiatric hospital setting. We have had children on our unit as young as five years of age. These kids are in trouble. They often live in highly dysfunctional households where they may be vulnerable to ridicule and abuse; particularly emotional abuse. They may have been bullied. And many of these kids have become the bully.
These kids display mental health symptoms. The patient embattled by suicidal ideation is struggling with depression and feeling overwhelmed by stressful circumstances that will not go away by the time the patient leaves the hospital. Another patient has an impulse control disorder that presents as aggression and harmful behavior against self, others, and property. In other words, someone could get hurt badly if something isn’t done about it.
I ask the same three questions for my patients in the hospital that I had for the inmates at the prison.
First: Does what you do (and say) get you what you want?
Second: Does what you do (and say) get you closer to what you want?
Third: Does what you do (and say) take you farther from what you want?
Whether the person I ask is six or sixty-six, the responses to these three questions are the same 99.99 percent of the time: “No”, “No”, and “Yes.”
There was a nine year-old boy that returned to the hospital for highly aggressive behavior with whom I had a good relationship the last time he was in for treatment. I came onto the unit, knowing from report that he was there. As I walked down the hall toward where the boy was, I heard, “Hi Mr. Steve,” even before I’d laid eyes on him. He was, and likely continues to be, highly impulsive, which when he becomes angry, leads to highly aggressive, and potentially destructive, behavior.
I asked the boy what happened that he was back in the hospital. He didn’t know that I already had been informed about his aggressive behavior that led to someone getting hurt, and the destruction of property. The boy, expressing sincere regret gave an honest, accurate account of what he did.
So I had to ask, “Did what you did get you…” when he interrupted me with a stern voice to say, “FARTHER.”
It’s not rocket science. This boy did the math. Just like 2 plus 2 always equals 4, without exception, this boy understood that his actions are connected to reasonable outcomes, whether they’re favorable or not.
Rational, emotive, behavioral change
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) was originated by Dr. Albert Ellis in 1957 (originally called Rational Therapy), and it was something he continued to develop for more than thirty years. At the center of Dr. Ellis’s theory about behavior is that it is driven by beliefs, and that when beliefs are triggered by irrational interpretations of life experiences, subsequent behavior produces logical adverse outcomes consistent with one’s belief system.
A = Activating event experience that activates a belief
B = Belief interpretation of the event/experience
C = Consequence emotional consequence in the wake of behavioral outcome driven by belief about the event/experience
D = Dispute repeated adverse consequences finally hurts enough to challenge irrational belief
E = Effect effect of challenged belief improving behavioral choices producing more favorable outcomes
The theory behind the therapy model suggests that there are experiences (Dr. Ellis referred to them as activating events) in our lives that activate a belief about the experience, according to one’s interpretation of the experience. From the interpretation of what has been experienced comes perception and belief. It is one’s belief about the experience that triggers feelings and drives behavior. The behavior produces an outcome; and from the outcome, favorable or unfavorable as it may be, comes a logical emotional consequence.
When outcomes from behavior driven by beliefs about life experiences are favorable, and the person is feeling good that the behavioral choice resulted in a favorable experience, according to what the person values, behavior is reinforced, and therefore repeated.
When outcomes from behavior driven by beliefs about life experiences are unfavorable, and the person experiences some discomfort since the behavioral choice resulted in an undesired emotional consequence, incongruent with the person’s comfort standards, there may be some growing ambivalence since whatever discomfort experienced wasn’t so unreasonable as to challenge the belief that connects behavior with the desired experience. Perhaps the consequence is considered an anomaly of sorts not common to outcomes generally considered favorable.
When outcomes from behavior driven by beliefs about life experiences repeatedly connect with adverse logical consequences that become increasingly painful experiences, physically and/or emotionally, incongruent with the person’s comfort standards, it may be time to dispute the belief that the behavior does not produce the favorable desired outcome. Because the person has been conditioned physiologically and psychologically to respond behaviorally to experiences in order to minimize discomfort, and maximize pleasure, the behavior may be repeated until the person experiences enough pain that hurts enough to finally extinguish the behavior.
As pain increases due to this association between experiences and beliefs, it becomes its own activating event; hastening the need to confront behavioral patterns. The logical response should be a willingness to dispute beliefs that emote problematic, self-destructive behavior. Changing behavior may appear most sensible.
Changing behavior, however can feel threatening to what has been conditioned as ‘normal’ to one’s way of life. How challenging is it to change what is known internally as normal?
Once there is the determination and commitment to change in order to terminate the pain akin to harmful destructive behavior, the likelihood of favorable outcomes improves significantly. This is the effect of conversion from irrational beliefs to manage stressors involved in daily living over to rational beliefs that now drive healthier, more sensible behavioral choices.
There is a great deal that goes in to sorting out all of the life experiences that have generated beliefs by which we live our lives. I work with people younger and older everyday that are survivors of trauma and various forms of abuse. I counsel individuals whose experiences make it challenging to express sincere empathy because it is difficult to imagine anyone having to go through with what so many go through in their lives.
Events of trauma can activate beliefs that are entirely understandable while altogether irrational when internalized guilt morphs into paralyzing shame and fear. These are human beings that have been dealt with inhumanely. So they tend to behave in ways that are destructive both to themselves and others; even against those they love most and hold in high esteem.
The behavior is understandable. There are reasons and explanations for harmfully destructive behavior. But there still is no justification for it. Behavior is never excused, nor should it be. We all are, and will always be, held accountable for what we do and say.
By the way, Dr. Ellis’s theory about irrational beliefs driving behavior can be paralleled with beliefs people have about spirituality and religion. An ugly religious experience can produce a belief that religion is a hoax, or perhaps a crutch for hurting people.
Others may find that religion is all about rules, judgment, and condemnation, so they want nothing to do with it. The most damaging of religious experiences gone bad is the hypocrisy of people that claim to be religious, or have positions in the church, but their lives don’t reflect what they say they believe.
Still other religious folks are physically and emotionally abusive. They are villains of the faith that have produced victims who trusted them. They see there abusers as victimizers. If God is love and someone claims to love God, how can he or she engage in blatant hypocrisy and abuse followers that trust them and look up to them?
So these dysfunctional “religious” experiences with people that claim to love God can promote a belief that God is on the side those that attend church, carry their Bible and pray and stuff. If God is on their team, “What chance do I have?” And if God is on the side of those hypocrites, “Why would I want anything to do with God?”
The problem with that belief about God is that what others do in the name of God is not a reflection on God, but rather a reflection on people. But to reject God is to reject opportunity for an accessible relationship with God, which could very well mean rejecting the blessing that comes in relationship with God. The emotional consequence of being outside of relationship with God can be the absence of hope, and joy.
So you continue on your own, in a weakened, diminished state, to solve your problems on your own, in your own strength, without necessary support. You continue to struggle and claw your way into managing what feels like unresolvable conflict. You labor through relationship conflict and emotional struggle. Prayer isn’t an option. What’s the point? Even if God is real, he is not interested. Besides, knowing what I know about me, how could God forgive me? Why would God forgive me?
So you seek and find your remedy to manage and feel better. Maybe it does feel better… for a time. But how many times does the remedy have to fail you and cause you pain before considering a more rational opportunity for relief? If you’ve given up on God because of people who have failed you, why would you continue to pursue comfort in anything else that has failed you?
Perhaps it’s time for an examination of the effectiveness of what appears at first glance to be viable remedies to lower discomfort, reduce anxiety and stress, and minimize pain. What are the emotional consequences of these so-called relief efforts?
How do you spell R.E.L.I.E.F.?
The problem is that emotional consequences tend to require a remedy. How do I remedy my discomfort? How do I tend to my wounds and manage by pain? How do I assuage my guilt?
Will alcohol do it? What if I smoke some weed? I’m not using heroin!
My experiences have activated the belief that I need something to effectively remedy my pain and discomfort and relieve my stress. What’s it gonna take? Whatever it takes, that’s what.
What if I engage in some casual, no-strings-attached sex?
What if I get involved in a relationship with someone who shares my experience to one degree or another?
What if I take uninformed risks with how I spend my money? Spending to obtain stuff is therapeutic, right?
What if I lie to protect myself? Most of what comes out of my mouth is legit when I spin the truth. That’s not so bad, is it?
What if I take advantage of someone else’s vulnerabilities to get my self out of a jam? You know, as long as it doesn’t hurt them too badly.
I only keep my secrets of ill-advised behavior and lapses in judgment to protect the people I love. That’s the right thing to do, isn’t it? So what if I dabble in this and in that. As long as no one’s getting hurt, what’s the harm? No harm, no foul, right?
Nobody loves me… They might say they do, but not really. I’m fat. I’m weak. I’m dumb. Okay, maybe that’s overstating it. I’m not smart. I can’t do it. I’m not good enough. I’m broken. I’m damaged goods. I feel empty inside. I feel worthless and hopeless; and I’m not overstating that. I’m not going to kill myself, or anything like that. Mmm… not always sure, but don’t think I could through with something like that. But something’s gotta give. When I feel bad, I need to feel better. When I feel nothing, I need to feel something. Gotta do what I gotta do, you know?
I’m tired of being hit and pushed around. I am sick and tired of the way people talk to me. If you knew my parents. If you knew my spouse. If you knew my so-called friends. If you knew what I’ve put up with. If you could see how I’ve been treated for way too long. If you knew about the betrayals and broken promises by people that say they care about me. If you felt my disappointment. If you heard the way they talk to me… and talk about me. So much rejection. I’ve been betrayed and abandoned by those who are supposed to love me. I’ve been hurt in ways over the course of my life that would turn your stomach. How do you think I feel?
Tell me, where was God?
Like I said, I gotta do what I gotta to do. And you’re trying to say that what I believe about my experience is irrational? What do you know? Pain is my life. Walk for a week in my shoes, and then tell me that what I believe about what I have to do endure (survive?) is irrational. Who are you to tell me anything?
If that is what you’re dealing with, I can see how you might resort to various forms of self-harm and behavior that you feel is necessary to remedy your pain and discomfort. But for me, I think I tend to fair better managing adversity and my emotional baggage. Sure, I might waste time talking to a coworker, blowing off opportunity to be useful and productive. Maybe I fudge with some words and numbers here and there; and do or say something clever to look good for the boss. I might say something about someone for entertainment value. I don’t say it’s mean enough to call it gossip. Is it really that big a deal that I might use sarcasm to get a laugh? It’s never my intention to really offend anyone. People can a bit oversensitive at times, but they survive. They understand I’m kidding. It got a big laugh. So what if I flirt a little. It’s innocent. We’re just having a little fun.
Of course, I can be a little more generous with my time to help someone. I’ll get around to it. I’ll make time for my kids. I always do. I just need some time for myself to relax. They understand. Thankfully, my spouse is patient with me. Alright, maybe ‘tolerant’ is more like it. I know that I can be more attentive. Sure, I can be more respectful as well. It’s just been a rough day; a difficult week. As soon as things calm down some in my life, I will get back to being myself. For now, I need a little something to relax and ease my stress.
If you really knew how I’ve been treated in this relationship, you wouldn’t blame me for being upset; okay… maybe angry is a more accurate description of what I am feeling. The insults I have to put up with is more than I can handle. Some of things that are said and done to me repeatedly are beyond forgiveness. I’m aware that it’s a problem. How do you forgive someone who isn’t sorry? Not at all. Not even close. Sometimes, I feel my hate is all I have. You take that away from me and, well… I just don’t know.
Did reading any of this touch a nerve?
In each of the anecdotal examples you just read, you can find what appear to be understandable rationalizations for self-destructive behavior, ranging from responses to intensely painful experiences to those seemingly more subtle experiences that look to a remedy for relief from stress in all of its forms.
Drivel psychobabble, or drenched in truth?
We tend to become slaves to our feelings regardless of how often they have bought into lies and distortions, and betrayed our intellectual, rational mind. The limbic area of the brain is where feelings come alive as they are manipulated by neurotransmissions, go rogue, and take hostage our values and beliefs. This occurs when impulsive behavior produces painful outcomes. As we foolishly put our trust in our feelings, the pre-frontal areas of the brain where logical judgment occurs are impaired (especially when chemicals and other devices for harm and destruction are added to the mix), we trend toward beliefs that are counter-intuitive to what we know rationally makes the most sense.
The more we trust our feelings, the more easily we are triggered, attracted to things far less meaningful then what we truly value. That is when we settle for what’s behind “door number two” (a Let’s Make a Deal reference). It looks good. It sound good. It taste good. And it certainly feels good… for a moment. But then the beautiful angel sheds her disguise, revealing herself to be a terrifying monster with ill intentions. Trusting feelings that range from wounded and damaged to haughty and greedy is a dangerous invitation.
If this sounds like not much more than psychobabbling drivel, then lets examine how Scripture takes a bit of a deductive and, dare I say, formulaic approach to behavior.
Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death. John 1:14-15 (NLT)
Before breaking this down, let’s find some common ground about what sin is outside of its religious value attributed to guilt and judgment. Merriam-Webster dictionary sites sin as “a transgression of willful or deliberate violation of some religious or moral principle… any reprehensible or regrettable action, behavior, lapse…to offend against a principle; standard.” From that, perhaps sin can also be considered an offense to someone’s own core values, according to what the person believes to be an important value deep down.
When considering the Scripture from the apostle James, it sounds like what he is saying about beliefs, behavior, and outcomes is, “Do the math.” We have in our brains this ever-expanding palate of what we want, and believe we deserve. Our appetite, when woken, produces desire and craving, which advances the lure for the thing we want. We feel the urge to pursue what we believe we want and deserve. That is temptation.
We are enticed when entertaining in our thoughts what is desired. Feeding the urge produces the craving. The craving then takes what may have appeared innocent to a place that is dangerous. The rationalization is that there is no harm in thinking on something, or is there? So, allowing feelings to be teased by temptation stirs the pot until the temptation is irresistible. It feels good already, tickling that nerve. But, have you considered the cost? Haven’t done anything… yet. So, what’s the problem?
But then it happens, eventually or suddenly, that you’re overcome by the urge and can no longer resist it. It’s as though there is no choice but to give in to the temptation, regardless of the cost. The cycle of temptation began when attraction met desire. Then, the jury within the emotion-driven areas of the brain declared the desire innocent. It’s only thoughts and feelings dancing together. Haven’t done anything.
Once you act, you are committed, having turned yourself over to desire and the appetite for what you want and believe you deserve. You have recalibrated your moral standard emotionally according to what you want, even at the expense of what rationally makes the most sense.
Having recalibrated your moral standards, you may even be willing to tolerate some of the discomfort and pain associated with repeated self-indulgent behavior, pursuant to reconditioned wants and needs, according to irrational beliefs. Your conscience is infected by what you now believe you want and deserve. So, you are more likely to pursue what you want and deserve, even if it distances from your quality of life, especially that which you have always known intellectually—rationally—you truly love and value most.
Life experiences that shape irrational beliefs also produce jaded opinions and attitudes about God, and his role in the process of your life. Perhaps, it appears as though God doesn’t exist. And if God does exist, he’s hardly interested or engaged in what someone is experiencing, so why be concerned about what God thinks about what’s going on?
“Sin always begins with the minimization of God… A seared conscience subject to continual pain eventually becomes conditioned to endure the pain, until becoming numb to the pain. No more conviction. No guilt.” —James McDonald
For someone like myself that ascribes to holding myself accountable to a godly moral standard, it can be challenging to maintain my integrity when faced with the lure of temptation. I know in my rational my mind that I am subscribing to a carnal moral standard when tempted to lie (even if 90 percent of the lie is based in truth some semblance of “truth”), fudge with my principles, take advantage for selfish gain, minimize my loss at the expense of someone else’s gain, spend money foolishly, be unreasonably irresponsible with my time and energy (lazy), and engage in folly inconsistent with my core sensibilities.
Is it just me, or do you have at least a vague notion of what I am talking about?
Not only do I compromise my core values and moral standard, but I betray what I know in my soul to be rational truth. I forsake what I say I believe when allowing for deceitful justifications to tickle my fancy and prompt me to tweak my nerve enough to do what I know to be in poor judgment. What does it say about my relationship with God? What integrity? It is rational to tender the “well, I’m only human” excuse to justify my actions? Or, is it rooted in an irrational belief to furnish that excuse?
This is when divinely spiritual values and sound psychological principles can be applied together in a way that makes sense to both the clinical folks and evangelical pundits. Why not? The rational-emotive-behavioral theory starts with an experience and how it is perceived. The belief generated by the experience feeds feelings that drive behavior. So long as outcomes are favorable and it feels good, the behavior is reinforced and repeated. Connected to the behavior are outcomes that ultimately produce discomfort and struggle until the pain becomes severe enough that it is no longer tolerable, and eventually is unbearable. Then hopefully, the irrational belief is disputed, and behavior is changed.
The problem turns to crisis when it’s too late. The outcome of a sin problem can advance like a cancer eating you alive from the inside. Your irrational beliefs have led to irrational behavior that is tantamount to treason against everything you rationally understand to be truth. The sin against everything you truly value has matured into something so excessive that you cannot stop it or take it back, costing you what you value most, leading to the death of what you knew all along you wanted. The cancer advances until it’s fatal, and you’ve lost the life you love. And that’s the tragedy.
It is crucial to one’s quality of life the realization of irrational beliefs driving behavior, producing unwanted negative outcomes. When one’s moral standard has broken down and core values have become so distorted and twisted, lines blurred beyond recognition, there must be that moment of coming to one’s senses before it’s too late. So, it’s not enough to dwell on this problem. There needs to be a viable strategy for taking on the challenging of disputing irrational beliefs through the development and application of rational principles.
This means it’s time to consider a new way of thinking. It’s time to involve the support of those who are trustworthy and able to help in the recovery process. It’s also time to involve the one who made us in the first place and is bigger than anything we have to face in this life. It’s time to invite God into the recovery process. God is more than willing to engage, and more than able to help you (or someone you love) find your way through an impossible circumstance.
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:2 (NIV)
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