“Thus they go immediately from stimulus to response without psychologically assessing the meaning of an event. This makes them prone to freeze, or alternatively, to overreact.” —Besser van der Kolk, Trauma Research Author
We are free to choose as we see fit. When our choices are impacted by painful life experiences, we are prone to our vulnerabilities and insecurities that spread fear across the spectrum of our lives until we are either stuck in our distrust of what we don’t know, or alternatively, overreact impulsively to rid ourselves of unsettling discomfort.
Being free to choose as we see fit, there is the inherent probability for conflict, due to differences in our belief systems as culturally diverse people. Whether or not we are civil as a society, as naturally self-centered beings, we will trend toward hurting ourselves, and will continue to be hurt by the self-centered actions of others. Once we accept this reality, we have the opportunity to experience what you might say is a spiritual intervention from this predicament we find ourselves in once we enter into relationship with God. Then, and only then, freedom is not only promised, it’s guaranteed. How can this be possible? Read on.
Relationships labored by the distress of burgeoning conflict (especially relationships with loved ones) are due to conditional expectations and unmet need resulting in the deflation of confidence and trust. Consistent disappointment fosters the lack or absence of motivation to amend unsettling tension. Injured relationships left unmended over time will advance their toxicity from within, until disharmony intensifies and people end up hating each other; even the people they love. The value of love gets diminished and distorted to the point that it’s unrecognizable. Someone feeling beaten down on several fronts can feel unworthy—unacceptable—as though he or she does not belong or fit in anywhere. It is a shame-based, self-defining response to so much disappointment that when internalized leaves one feeling unloved and miserably unhappy. With such loneliness is the absence of joy; an empty void; a vacuum of space desperate to be filled.
It is not enough to hopelessly survive the noisy disturbance of another day. It is joy that affords us the opportunity to experience peace while in the worst of times. Joy is not merely some romanticized ideal, but something intended by our creator to be experienced; even while faced with challenges. Joy is meant to be experienced in relationship with God, and relationship with other people in the experience of fearless love. In partnership with joy, love need not be some idealistic figment of the imagination, but experienced in relationship.
Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in (relationship with) Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:4-7 (NLT)
Authentic love drives out fear while abounding in joy, cutting through hardship. Sincere love is accepting and tolerant of flawed imperfections. Purely selfless love is impossible outside of relationship with God, who is flawless. Joyful love experienced in relationship with Jesus, releases us from fear. Joyful love in relationship with Jesus defies description since it really does transcend human understanding.
The problem with the way we love as humans is that we are self-centered. In our fallen condition, we can’t help it. We are born into it, so we live in this world that is selfish, and loves selfishly. We are flawed in how we love. It is our imperfections that renders how we love to be imperfect. With imperfect love comes discomfort and tension… relationship STRESS.
Self-centered love has its conditional parameters, with the expectation that relationships function within those parameters. Self-centered love is typically self-indulgent. The reality of self-centered love goes something like this: “I love me, and I love you for what you do for me.” We may attempt in our own way to disguise this reality, but eventually the truth about imperfect love in our relationships comes to the surface and makes itself known, whether it be subtle or obvious.
While it’s clear that relationships are conditional, according to reasonable expectations, flawed conditional love is always suspect in nature, can be quite dreadful, and is not really love at all. Relationships are most fragile when absent of trust because of fear. Healing and deliverance is needed before trust is merited in relationships. Who will heal my wounds? Who will deliver from me from bondage? How will I ever really trust again? Who can help with that? Who will help with that?
The initial step towards FREEdom from MEdom is recognizing that I am helpless to fix myself without help and support. If the best source for help and support includes being empowered by something or someone bigger than me, and bigger than my life and my world, and wants to help me from a place of compassion and generosity, why wouldn’t I want that? I WANT THAT! Do you want that?
Unyielding Conflict between Trust and Fear
The Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. Isaiah 30:18 (NIV)
Truth be told, my greatest challenge is trusting entirely in what I say I believe. I struggle with doubt, and the anxiety that comes along with it, especially when faced with adversity so intense it’s crazy-scary. It’s easy for folks to say, “Well, just give it to Jesus” or, “Let go and let God,” but all the while I’m wondering, “Will God help me, this time?” I have, at times, wrestled with the question, “Where was God when this (and that) happened to me?” In times of intense crisis, this unyielding internal conflict between trust and fear can grip my insides and will not let go.
“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” —A.W. Tozer, author, theologian
It is often said, “If there really is a God, then why is there pain?”
The question truly being asked is, “If God loves me and is really paying attention, then why have I experienced so much pain?” It’s a legitimate question.
“You have to process that the sovereignty of God is over everything, including things we don’t think He even likes… Everything under the sun on some level God is connected to, or is aware of, or is permitting because of (the condition of) mankind. God may permit things He doesn’t desire so that we may turn towards Him. It’s hard to comprehend and process because we can’t get our head around the fact that God might allow for things outside of His desirable plan for our life because if we were God and in charge, we would do it differently.” —Martyn Sloan, Pastor
Pain it would seem is the logical consequence of our fallen condition. Sin is typically a religious word associated with shame, judgment, and condemnation. What sin really is, is the selfish nature of human choice as it affects us all both individually and as a global community. It is rogue selfish ambition that distorts our values and twists what we believe we deserve.
Sin is why Jesus needed to address the human condition in person. Jesus lived in the flesh on earth to fully participate in our slavery to self; to experience everything every one of us has, without exception. Jesus experienced selfish urges and temptation (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus experienced the most severe of human pain, including betrayal, abandonment, and especially, trauma. In order to save us, Jesus suffered traumatic torture and died. While the physical and psychological torture, and ultimately the death of God’s son was permitted to occur, just as God permitted the selfish choice of mankind to occur, God never desired that we sin, nor did God desire that Jesus die as the sacrifice for sin. But he had to permit it to happen, even after his beloved son asked for a another way.
While God in his sovereignty allows for the experience of pain and suffering, it is never the desire of God that we experience anything less than his best.
Did you know that Jesus pleaded to God for a way out of his torment?
Three times he pleaded to his Father…
“If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me.” —Jesus Christ
When Jesus was a man truly desperate for divine intervention in the storm of real tragedy, he felt rejected and alone. Feeling abandoned and betrayed by those closest to him, in the midst of such horrific pain and suffering, was in fact his experience. He felt it all as a human being while carrying a burden so heavy I fail to comprehend it.
An intense feeling of great sorrow plunged his soul into deep sorrow and agony. Matthew 26:37 (Passion Translation)
Jesus said to his closest friends,
“My heart is overwhelmed and crushed with grief. It feels as though I am dying.” Matthew 26:38 (TPT)
In my life experience, I have been confronted by fierce opposition, and God felt distant to me… disengaged. There have been times that “required” God’s immediate attention to the details; to intervene in the way that only God can; especially those times in my life when the evil raising its ugly head against me seemed to prevail. Where was God when it felt like evil was winning?
Even though I never doubt what God can do, I sometimes think to myself, “God, I believe you can, but will you?” It is in that place that I may doubt what God will do in my time of crisis and desperate need.
I have felt at times as though I was left out there on my own… alone. When my quality of life was threatened, where was God? Where is God? Have you ever felt like that… or perhaps even today, feel like that?
“I wanted nothing to do with faith. That changed the night I tried to take my own life. Never did I imagine that God would answer me. But he did… I was ready to take my own life and instead found myself laid out by God… flooded with a peace that to this day, I cannot fully describe. I felt the resuscitation of grace.” —Alia Joy, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, author of God Saved Me from Suicide
Alone and overwhelmed in the darkened depths of despair, Jesus cried out…
“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
King David, an icon of the Old Testament, often found himself in times of peril, struggling in the teeth of torment wondering how he would survive the immediate crisis. Even David pondered to himself that the universe is so vast, “How can God even see me? Why would God pay attention to me in the midst of this storm in my life?”
O Lord, what are human beings that you should notice them,
mere mortals that you should think about them? Psalm 144:3 (NLT)
David was the anointed King of Israel, perhaps the single most important person on the planet, under attack from enemy forces, when he wrote something to the effect of, “Who am I that you would even know who I am?” He is suggesting that the God of the universe is in fact God and that David, a mere mortal, anointed king or not, is a barely a blip on the radar, a speck of dust in a ray of light, compared to the awesomeness of God and the vast wonder of His creation.
I’ve wondered the same thing. “Why would God even notice me? Why would God care about my need… the storm in my life?”
Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?” Mark 4:38 (NLT)
It’s overwhelming! It can feel like you’re drowning. Have you wondered at times if God is missing in action? I have. I have experienced times of desperate peril when I wondered, “God, how can you allow this to even happen? It’s so much more than I can bear.”
Jesus understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. Hebrews 4:15-16 (NLT)
Consider what happened to Jesus throughout his life as a human being. Was his experience anything like yours or mine? How is it that Jesus can relate to what we have experienced in our lifetime? What did Jesus as a human know about disappointment, betrayal, loss, pain, and suffering? Maybe, Jesus can empathize, imagining our struggle; or better yet, having experienced insufferable human torture, both physically and emotionally, he has genuine sympathy for the full scope of what you and I have endured.
Yet, while in the garden, as Jesus prayed, he sounded like a man drowning in fear, pleading with God for a different plan, anticipating that the pain and suffering on the way would be too much. Carrying the weight of the world, he was overwhelmed and very, very scared. Fear will do that; spawning the feeling that one is desperately alone in the void. Jesus understands, by his own experience, feelings of torment and despair.
Jesus knew what it was to be bullied by a hostile enemy. He was brutally abused to the extreme both physically and emotionally. What Jesus would experience was severe trauma right up until the end when he was put to death. If you’re someone suffering at the expense of someone’s brutality against you, bullied and abused by someone’s spiteful hostility aimed directly at you, Jesus, having been bullied, beaten almost to death, and then executed on a cross, today identifies with your suffering with the intention to intervene in your time of need. As Jesus was resurrected from death, he wants to resurrect and restore you.
Once the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives within you he will, by that same Spirit, bring to your whole being new strength and vitality. Romans 8:11 (PHILLIPS)
I have also asked myself this question. Is it possible that my suffering and pain precludes or prevents me from experiencing God’s presence to the extent that I do not see, hear, or feel that he is near? Am I so preoccupied with the hurt that accompanies loss, and preoccupied with my suffering that I am deaf and blind to the hope that is in relationship with God, who is so much bigger and better than anything I can come up with? Should I be entirely honest about it, I can be so caught up in the cauldron of my chaotic mess that it makes it especially challenging—scarcely possible—to recognize that God, and to experience that Jesus is alive. And if he is alive, who am I that he would notice me?
God has always been fully aware of what it is for us when we make choices outside of what is best for us. God noticed each of us, and knew our need for Jesus. Jesus knew from the beginning that the plan was that he would be the sacrifice that would pay the debt of sin for all people to be reconciled back into relationship with God. He was on board with that, motivated by love, confident that the plan was necessary and perfect. Jesus was not spared grief, pain, and immense suffering. Jesus experienced it all to become the grace that, in relationship with him, would spare the ultimate in pain and suffering; death outside of the will and glory of God. It is by the grace of God that we experience healing and ultimately resurrection from pain and death.
Can I become so preoccupied, and perhaps self-absorbed in whatever it is that seems to be consuming me from the inside, that I don’t see clearly what is happening on the outside? Are the lenses of my perspective too cloudy to see things as they are, as well as to see God for who God is. If that’s the case what am I missing?
Inherent Conflict
The inherent conflict within the mind is the ongoing contention between trust and fear. Trust and confidence go hand-in-hand. But so does fear and anxiety; fear and worry; worry and stress; fear and stress. We can be so consumed with fear until we are overpowered and controlled by it. Fear casts its spell. Fear becomes a barrier that walls someone off from being able to trust someone; perhaps anyone. Controlled by fear, one can feel all alone; compelled to shut it down, feeling like there is nothing left. Isolated and withdrawn, there can be a sense of desertion (feeling like everyone left) that can be so powerful, that drowning in loneliness emotes feeling unloved and unworthy of love.
If I am so undeserving of love, how can I possibly love myself?
“We all engage in attempts at self-care and self-soothing, which, at times, can feel deeply compelling to us even when the activity is in conflict with our values.” —Timothy Harrington, Wide Wonder
In my professional work counseling mostly adolescents struggling with severe depression and anxiety, it is often said by patients that they don’t love themselves. This struggle with love of self can lead to feeling worthless and hopeless; depression sinking into the depths of despair, until possibly feeling the “need” to preserve oneself by the most extreme measure of all to finally be free from fear, and the pain accompanying it. Escape applying measures that involve suicide can feel rational, deceiving the most reasonable of common sensibilities.
Upon closer consideration, if someone does not have any love of self, why the need to escape pain and struggle to feel better?
The act of self-remedy, regardless of the extent to which one might go to experience relief, reflects the need to care for and soothe oneself, even if it isn’t healthy and is harmful and destructive. Therefore, the need to escape, even the act of giving into despair through something more permanent, reflects a love of self, as dangerous and tragic as it may be.
If we did not love ourselves, we wouldn’t know what we are missing. We certainly wouldn’t comprehend anxiety or stress. We would not have a care in the world one way or the other. There would not be a single expectation of any sort. Never a disappointment.
If we did not love ourselves, we wouldn’t comprehend love on any level. We wouldn’t care. We would be indifferent; without any sense of want or need; no desire, no motivation, no intention, no appetite for anything.
Often central to the war within the mind is the notion that feeling unworthy and undeserving of love reflects the absence of self-love. It’s trendy to view self-destructive behavior as a contradiction to love of self, as it would appear to be. However, the reality is that if we did not love ourselves we would truly be indifferent to our own needs. We would never have conflict internally with what we value since we wouldn’t value anything. We’d be indifferent to self-care, whether or not we’re comfortable, and we certainly would be indifferent to self-soothing mechanisms to manage our discomfort.
It’s because of love of self that we experience deeply the true sense of what we want and need to both survive and thrive. It’s because of self-love that we are aware of what’s missing, and it hurts to one degree or another. Even self-loathing and self-destruction is a maladaptive form of self-love as an attempt to self-soothe; though as a remedy to relieve discomfort or as a method to cope, it’s doing more harm than good.
Lifestyle choices and behavioral patterns tend to reflect the way we see ourselves, the way we see our lives, and how we see our place in the overall scheme of things. The thoughts we entertain and how we choose to behave reflects our values. What we believe in the core of our being is essential to the experience of being satisfied, fulfilled, and joyful. What we believe in our core can also leave us in a heap of discomfort, feeling empty and unworthy of joy. How we think (overthink) and behave will also reflect remorse and regret, grieving over consequences.
What someone values is of the utmost importance and influence. To attribute value to something is to hold it up as intrinsically desirable, having a substantial degree of worth, setting the standard for highest quality and priority; is deemed fair and equitable, in common with what most people would reasonably agree is right, and good.
Here is a common-sense, no doubt about it, fact. Everything we do and everything we say, factors into what we want and value most for our lives. So, ask yourself the following questions:
1) How does what I do and say draw me closer to what I want and value most for my life?
2) How does what I do and say drag me farther from what I want and value most for my life?
The problem we have with these two questions is we tend to ignore what matters most. We’re definitely aware of what we want and perceive we need now, in the moment, but what is it that what we want and value most in the bigger picture; the longer view? To include or exclude the matter of most can flip the answers to these questions that apply to everything we experience, every day of our lives. How does what we do and say direct us to make forward progress to what we want and value most? How does what we do and say take us another direction—perhaps the opposite direction—from what we want and value most?
“Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road.” —C.S. Lewis, Scholar and Author
Does your behavioral choices advance you closer to what you want most in life, or do they distance you from what you value most? Could it be that your response to conflict, especially in the heat of the moment, takes you the somewhere other than where you want to be? Does what you do and say reflect your core values? Or, do you give into distorted logic and react impulsively, leading to even more conflict and tension; bigger problems that lead to increased discomfort?
How has an unhealthy love of self fueled distorted thinking, twisted values and beliefs that drive at-risk behavior, and produce unfavorable, regrettable outcomes?
How have consequences brought on by negative behavior piled onto already wounded self-esteem?
How can you hope to be restored to best see yourself and find direction in how you live life with the people you live life with?
Diminished Expectations
I have experienced times of low self-esteem and felt unworthy of God’s attention. I felt that God was not invested in me because I was unworthy of God’s investment in me. It was a reflection of who I was, and where I was in my life. At those times, I may know in my rational mind that God is near, but I struggle to feel his presence. It is at that time when I may feel unworthy of God’s presence in my circumstance, and therefore highly doubt that God will intervene.
When I am at my weakest, desperate for God to do something about the thing that is wiping me out, why would he? God is holy and I’m not. If God does notice me, isn’t he disappointed? I have struggled with that… even as someone who believes God to be graciously compassionate, merciful, and generous.
I have felt that I am undeserving of God’s favor. I don’t feel that God is willing to forgive me this time. So then, I don’t expect mercy or favor; which can send me reeling. It too is overwhelming, and I cannot seem to shake it.
The high and lofty one who lives in eternity, the Holy One, says this: “I live in the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble. I restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts.” Isaiah 57:15 (NLT)
Crisis and trauma can suddenly sap someone’s strength from the inside out. Personal tragedy and failure can overwhelm anyone, and break one’s will to go on. Cumulative anxiety and stress takes its toll over time, bankrupting a person’s emotional reserves until being so discouraged it drains one’s motivation to fight through adversity. Giving into one’s deflated self-worth leads to the betrayal of rational thought, producing self-defeating attitudes and behavior.
If you’re not sure what to do about, consider that God, who made you, loves you as his own child. Consider that God loves to bless and take care of his children; healing the one he loves… YOU… wanting then to restore you by mending what is broken, and filling what is empty. Consider that God wants to bless and take care of you. What do you need from God? What do you want to ask God for? If it’s true that God loves you and wants to bless you, what keeps you from asking God for what you need and want for your life?
Though you may acknowledge God’s existence, how might believing that God is distant (or disinterested) contribute to your sense of dread in times of adversity and crisis? You may wonder, “Where was God when I was blind-sided by sudden tragedy?” What if you’ve prayed before during times of trauma, severe crisis, or conflict and the situation seemed to get worse instead of better?
How do you view God in the most difficult of times? How do you see yourself when swallowed up by life’s challenges? How might your perceptions be skewed by past experiences when it seemed God was distant?
If God exists and is real, then God is real to (and for) everyone! That is the only thing that makes any sense. So, I suppose the question is, is God paying attention? Does God love what he created? Does God love you? And, what about Jesus?
Who is Jesus? Is Jesus the relatable person of God who is there for you? History agrees that Jesus lived and died; nailed to a cross. I believe he did so to save all people from the harm they do to themselves and others. The question then is, could Jesus be resurrected from death? Historians struggle with that one because there is authentic historical reasoning that suggests he certainly did. Common reason should conclude that if God originated life from nothing, then God can certainly resurrect life from the dead. If Jesus arose from the dead and is alive, how is that relevant for you and me, today? It’s a big deal!
Life is hard. Navigating through the drama and, in so many cases, trauma is most challenging. How does one do it?
How does managing on your own make any sense when life gets too big for you? Why not take the hand of your savior? Because it didn’t go the way you thought it should go last time around? Choosing pride disguised as self-preservation over sound reason is irrational and about as foolish as it gets. Or, maybe there’s some apprehension that there will be a condition attached to being saved.
Unfortunately, the response of so many in times of desperate peril is to reject the out-stretched hand of their savior. Then, when hurt yet again… and then again, there can be the idea that God is somehow responsible for the bad that happens, and the pain that comes with it. God is not some genie in a bottle. God wants relationship with you. If relationship with God is the only condition for blessing you with mercy, healing, deliverance, and provision into a better, more satisfying life, how do you feel about that?
Vulnerable to Distortions
What is your experience? What do you see when you look into the mirror? Is what you see a true reflection of who you are in the light of your circumstances and how you see yourself, or is the reflection distorted by the weight of the burden you’re carrying?
How does what you’re dealing with affect how you see things in the world you live in?
Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. 1 Corinthians 13:12 (NLT)
What is true about how your perceptions when it comes to anything spiritual? How have negative religious experiences disturbed what you believe about God? How might your most inward sensibilities influence what you believe about God, particularly when it comes to you? How might unmet expectations and unfavorable experiences affect an impression that God is distant or disinterested, or worse, disapproves of your lifestyle choices?
How have consequences of behavioral choices led to feelings of guilt and shame, remorse and regret? How has a deep sense of self-condemnation—an inability or unwillingness to forgive yourself—fed into a belief that God has condemned you? How does the perception of God as judge, jury, and executioner perhaps distort your idea about faith, that you cannot believe or put confidence in something or someone that will not forgive you, especially if you believe you’re unworthy of forgiveness?
“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16-17 (NLT, Jesus speaking)
What are the lies twisting your beliefs and distorting your values? How does giving into distortions and lies become treasonous acts against your core values? How has altered values impacted what you believe? How has infected beliefs influenced behavioral choices? How did you come to believe that at-risk behavior was a good thing, reinforcing the repetition of those choices? How have behavioral choices that felt good for awhile turned against you, producing (often sudden) adverse consequences? How has at-risk behavioral choices led to chronic pain and suffering?
There is a way that seems (feels) right… but its end is the way of death. Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
How might adverse consequences, pain and suffering (regardless of who’s responsible) poison your perception of who, what, and where God is? Why is God so often held responsible when bad happens?
Another possibility is that there is this idea that God needs to intervene to better my circumstances, but perhaps I haven’t really considered what needs to change in me. And if I have, I might not be so willing yet (if I am able) to do what I can to improve what is within my ability to change what I honestly understand needs to change.
It can get interesting when choices are made to commit to behavioral changes that feel necessary to improve the likelihood that you’ll survive a crisis. You may stop something known to be destructive, or start something that feels healthier while trying to manage high degrees of difficulty, because in times of challenge it feels necessary; the right thing to do. It’s done largely for the purpose of relieving discomfort and boosting confidence while in a state of urgency.
Once the crisis has been averted and things have settled down that you might get a bit lazy about doing the right thing, and fall back into some old familiar ways of thinking about things and doing things that felt good before things went bad again, even though you know better. Familiar patterns of feel-good, at-risk behavior, means recycling the non-productive ‘normal’ in your life, which likely means triggering the unfavorable outcomes you’re all too familiar with.
Continue reading by clicking on, Why Recovery?
Written by Steven Gledhill for FREEdom from MEdom Project
