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It’s official. I have an ulcer. This is not the first time this has happened. Stomach issues have been sort of a recurring thing for me throughout the years. It’s a sign of me being overloaded with stress and allowing the circumstances of life to overwhelm me. Sometimes I do this to myself, allowing too much to accumulate on my to-do list. Other times, I encounter difficult struggles that are beyond my control. This time around, it’s been some of both.

I find comfort in resolving issues. In other words, I like being able to say something is “done” and then move on from it. This may sound okay. Well, it is…until I find myself in a situation in which I simply cannot resolve the issue at hand (or multiple issues!). Lately, life keeps delivering problems at a rate faster than I can resolve the ones I already have. At this point, finding peace feels impossible. It’s a good thing my “feelings” on this are not true. There is a way out of this. Too bad I didn’t realize what was happening before the stomach pains began!

We often fail to see the warning signs.

Knowing the warning signs of mounting anxiety can be very helpful information. If I can catch myself before I go sailing off the cliff, I can help keep the negative effects of stress from accumulating to the point of a stomach ulcer (or some other troubling physical, mental, or emotional effect). The truth is, I find that I often make the mistake of not taking notice of the smell of what’s brewing.

Honestly, most of us behave this way. We find that we are in way too deep before noticing we are caught in a rip current. It’s sucking us out to sea, but we keep trying to swim harder to get back to shore. No matter how hard we fight, we keep getting pulled in the opposite direction.

The only thing that soothes our soul in the midst of stress is embracing His grace as a reality.

The good news is this: the way out is the same whether we catch the early signs and symptoms or if we wait until more debilitating stomach pains or a few sleepless nights occur. Actually, and please forgive me for sounding a bit corny here, the good news is “The Good News”. Only God’s grace can save me when things are completely out of control. The problem is, I keep trying to BE IN CONTROL. To embrace His healing and freeing grace, I must surrender the sense of control I have been struggling to maintain. This doesn’t mean I stop caring about the problems I’m facing. It doesn’t mean I get lazy and do nothing. Embracing His grace is anything but apathetic and passive.

His grace is always experienced through trust.

The underlying issue with relying on myself and trying to control things is never a failure to work hard enough, to know enough, or to be good enough. The root issue is always a lack of trusting Him. I rely on my own strength because I fail to realize how limited my strength truly is. I also may fail to realize the sufficiency of His strength. However, I often find that I realize He is far more than strong enough to handle my stuff, but I fail to trust that He actually IS handling it!

God is actively loving and protecting us all the time, whether we realize it or not.

My perspective for the last three or more weeks has been one of isolation. As the unwanted life circumstances have been hitting me, one after another, I have reverted to my old failed way of handling them. I’ve dug my heels in and said to myself, “I’m gonna get this done”. However, this time, I haven’t been able to satisfy this need through self-effort. Not one of the things on my increasing list of “undones” has gotten fixed through my diligence.

God has been inviting me into a place I resist often. While He lovingly desires that I lean on Him as I live my life (including the difficult troubles along the way), my flesh screams that I must handle things myself. My flesh and the Enemy scream the lie, “If you don’t do this yourself, things will just get worse!” The truth is, I cannot handle the brokenness of this world any more than I can handle my own sin. I NEED my Father to put His arm around me, to protect me, to discuss with me each step that I take as I move forward, and to love me no matter what. My problems and my stomach ache may not disappear immediately, but when I allow myself to fall back into his grace by trusting His love for me, it’s only a matter of time before I begin feeling the effects of the healing taking place.

Trusting God includes trusting others.

I almost didn’t write this last section, as this post is getting a bit long. However, I think it is important to say a little about this. As it is true many times in our lives, trusting God often means trusting others He sends our way. I’m talking about those trusted friends, family, or spouses in our lives. Despite the fact that I’ve encountered several people over the past few weeks that had no interest in helping me, others have shown up and offered a helping hand. It is often hard for us to humble ourselves (humility is always connected with trust!) and allow others to help, but it’s part of the journey we are on with our Father and the rest of His family.

-Neil

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One of my favorite hobbies is weightlifting. I enjoy setting and breaking goals in the different lifts that I perform. For instance, I may set a goal for benching a certain weight once. Other times, I might see how many times I can squat a certain weight. Although my goals vary in some ways, one thing remains the same. These moments in which I test my strength always require maximum effort. That’s why these types of exercises are sometimes called “max effort lifts”.

We often set out to do a Max Effort Lift in religious behavior.

We can approach our relationship with God the same way someone approaches a bench press or deadlift. We can set goals for ourselves and strive hard to attain them. We might say we will make a point to be nicer to someone that gets on our nerves. Cursing less might be at the top of our list, along with only one glass of wine instead of three. Perhaps we will strive to be more productive at church by joining a committee or volunteering for a fundraiser event. As parents, we might tell ourselves we will pray more as a family, do a devotional every morning before work to set a good example for the kids, and not raise our voices with our children.

Our flesh has its limitations.

All of the goals mentioned above have some things in common. For one, they are all something we can possibly get good at. Like weightlifting, we might actually meet some of our goals. These goals are all behavioral. In other words, they all have something to do with what we do or don’t do. If we train hard, set reminders, and push each other enough…we just might be successful. But there is a significant problem. Behaviors that we choose or do not choose are directly related to what Paul refers to many times in Scripture as our “flesh”. We all have “flesh”, and it has its limitations.

What is done in the spirit far surpasses anything we could ever do with our flesh.

Before knowing Christ, we were “in the flesh”, completely controlled by it with no other way to operate. After being saved by God’s grace through faith in Christ, we are no longer “in the flesh” but “in the spirit”. Through Jesus, our old selves are put to death. We are made in a new creation, reborn as righteous and holy. However, we still have flesh, and can be “of the flesh” (relying on it for our strength and allowing it to control us). The best we can do when we rely on our own strength (flesh) is meet our human potential, just like in the weight room. Eventually, we will fail. The sin we try to avoid becomes the thing we cannot avoid. When we tap into our new identity by trusting who God says we are in Christ, the Holy Spirit in us guides our decision making with God’s strength, wisdom, and power. Instead of being limited by our human potential, our God-given destiny can be realized. We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us (Philippians 4:13, ESV). The sin we could not control with our flesh (our max effort) becomes something God handles in us as we trust Him.

More than anything God desires for us to trust Him, and there is a part of the gospel we often fail to see which hinders this trust.

This new identity is something often missed in our understanding of the gospel. We are adopted children of God, His beloved, and Saints. The Holy Spirit resides in us because in Christ we are made holy and righteous like He is holy and righteous. Instead of living as if this is true of us now, many of us often cling to the flesh. We believe we were saved, but now falsely believe we must work really hard to make ourselves better. We think we need to do more good things and less bad things to please God. Because of this focus on behavior, we fail to trust Him and receive the love He has for us. This religious striving with our flesh leads to burnout, depression, anxiety, and anger. The truth is, He is already pleased with us because we are in Christ. There’s no need to burden ourselves with working on our flesh. Instead, we have a deep need to trust Him to handle our flesh. We need to trust that we are new creatures so we can embrace His love. He is pleased with the “new me” that He has created and wants me to trust Him to handle what I cannot do myself. What pleases Him is when we trust Him (Hebrews 11:6), and also trust in this new identity He has given us (Ephesians 4:24). Trusting Him and trusting who He says we are is crucial to experiencing His love and sharing it with others (Ephesians 5:2). Striving to please Him never allows us to receive this great love, nor share it. This sharing of love is what He wants to see because it is evidence that we are trusting Him. The max effort of Christ in us is for us to be loved and to love more.

-Neil

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Three years ago, I left full-time counseling. There was more than one reason that led to my decision. For one thing, I was experiencing burnout. My love for counseling others had not changed at all. I deeply loved and enjoyed working with people who came to me for counsel (and I still do). However, something had led to an increasingly present problem that made it difficult for me to find the energy to continue a full-time schedule of counseling in April 2013. During the three years since then, a lot of healing has taken place.  God has been responsible for that healing. He has walked with me through the realization of what was going on with me that led to burnout from something I had such a passion for doing. One major issue that has been made known to me is that I was living more out of my own strength than I was out of trusting Him.

How do others know that we belong to Christ?

In John 13:35 (ESV), Jesus said this, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” In other words, Christians are known by love. Love is the one piece of evidence that shines above everything else that we belong to Jesus and are adopted children of God. When we rest in the reality of being loved unconditionally by our Heavenly Father, others can tell. It is very apparent in everything we do. This love does so much I cannot possibly list it all here. Receiving His love leads to the resolution of the shame we feel because, in Christ, our old self has been put to death. We have a knew identity in Christ. Above all else, we are loved deeply by God. Living loved gives us confidence. His love casts out fear so that we can rest, knowing we are secure in His arms. And, as John 13:35 states explicitly, in this new life God has given us in Christ, we now have the ability to love one another. Some of us may have heard this so much that it is merely words that do not seem to bear repeating. However, when you think of how much turmoil, strife, and hatred fills this broken world (and often our own hearts and minds), it is simply amazing God has put inside of us, as His beloved children, the desire to love each other.

Often times, we get caught up in being known by things other than this miraculous love He has bestowed upon us. I have found that I was often caught up in these “other things” in 2013. Here are just two of these “other things”: fear and good behavior.

We are not known to belong to Him because of our fear.

When I started counseling, I was excited to minister to others. However, over time, fear crept in. What if I fail? What if I say the wrong thing? What if I hurt someone?! When I would become more focused on my fears than the love God had for me and had given me to share with others, I was stressed out. I would freeze at times, not knowing what to do. I lost confidence that I was any good at what I was doing. Not knowing or understanding the depths of what was happening to me, the opportunity to step away from the full-time position gave God a chance to make me aware of what was behind these fears.

Some fears actually make us feel like we are doing the right thing. Through the media we know a lot about what is going on (or at least what people tell us is going on). This invokes fear in many of us. We often feel driven to wrap ourselves up in these things and then plead with others to not let this or that happen. We put a great deal of energy into trying to prevent certain occurrences. We boycott, picket, and protest things we think are “un-Christian”. Some of them may be and some of these actions may be warranted at times. However, when we are driven by fear we are not resting in God’s love. We are just scared to death of not being in control. And others know it. They see it. They may wonder, what is the big deal? Or, they may join us in our current quest or argument. Either way, they do not see Christ in us because He is not made known to others by our fears. The tragedy for us is this: in those moments in which we are driven by our fears, we don’t get to experience His soothing love that is ever-present, and we do not get to experience the joy of sharing it with others.

We are not known to belong to Him because of our good behavior.

This is another one that tripped me up in 2013 when I realized I was burning out in full-time counseling. As the fears that I mentioned above mounted, pressure came with them. This pressure was to perform. Instead of living the reality of being loved by Him no matter what, I felt I was failing Him and others. This led to me trying harder to do the right thing each and every moment I was counseling. I put tremendous pressure on myself to not make any mistakes at all. Of course, I did. These mistakes did not come from me failing to try hard enough. No, no. They came directly from me losing sight of who I really was. I was not a failure that needed to work hard not to be a failure. I was in Christ, and Christ was in me…making me a redeemed, holy, and righteous son of God. And again, above all else, as His child I was loved and in no need of proving myself to Him through good behavior (or avoiding failure). With my attention solely on my behavior (and potential sins), I could not focus on the thing I needed to carry me forward: His love. Religious striving (focusing on avoiding bad behaviors and performing good behaviors) is sin-focused, not Christ-focused. We wind up doing more out of guilt than out of the love God has put in our hearts to motivate us.

Being driven by fear and striving not to fail will lead to burnout, not being more like Christ.

During the last few years, there have been ups and downs. I have looked like myself at times (who God says I am in Christ), and not myself at other times. Through it all, God has done something very special. He has helped make this more of a reality for me than ever before: I only become more like Christ when I am solely trusting in who He says I am. When I am living out of this new identity He has given me, instead of trying to work to make myself better, I get to experience His love and joyfully share it with others. The freedom that comes with this is amazing. I can see clearly that I could never burnout from embracing “too much” of His love.

-Neil

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I love the movie Braveheart. One of my favorite scenes occurs right before William Wallace picks a fight with the English who are oppressing the Scottish people. Just prior to Wallace taking off to speak with the English, some of his men ask him what they should do. His response is this: “Just be yourselves”. He trusts that if the men lay down any attempts to be something they are not, trust who they really are, and act on that identity, that the outcome will be what it needs to be. The men were scared. Many did not believe in themselves anymore after years of living under tyranny. However, Wallace saw through all the mess in their lives. He believed in them. When the men bought into what he was saying, they, too bought into the fight for freedom that Wallace was instigating with their oppressors.

Fear deters us from being ourselves. 

I recall many times that I did not act out of who I truly am. From the examples I have swirling in my brain, all were fueled by fear. Underneath the fears has always been a doubt about my abilities and what I have to offer. I often feel as though I am not smart enough and will fail at what I set out to do. I mistakenly look for my worth in doing and saying the right thing. As a counselor, this has been a tremendous struggle at times as hurting people come to me looking for help.

When we are not ourselves, we wind up robbing others of what we have to offer.

One time, many years ago, a lady came to see me. I was a brand new counselor, just getting over the jitters of sitting with clients all by myself. The lady had experienced a tremendous loss in her life…one like I have never personally known. Her story was heart-wrenching. We both cried as she shared what had happened to her. She was grieving deeply. Beyond the sadness that I felt for her, I was scared. What was I to do for her? I wanted so badly to help her, but how could I? What could I possibly do to help her through this agonizing trauma that she was going through?

I listened to her for several sessions as she unpacked the details of what had happened to her. I had little to say, as I could not imagine anything I could say that would be helpful. Eventually, I asked someone for advice regarding the inadequacy I felt in helping this hurting person. This person suggested I refer her to someone with more experience in grief counseling. Regretfully, the next time I saw her, I did just that. I explained that I wanted her to get the help she needed, and I had realized I did not know how to help her. Immediately, tears rolled down her face. She was heartbroken. Through the tears, she explained that she came to me feeling completely alone. She had no one to listen to her…no one to be with her as she traveled the dark path that she was on. She further explained that I was the first person in her life in a long time to take the time to really listen to her. She felt comforted by my presence. She had trusted me almost instantly after she opened up the first time we met as she had sensed my sincere concern. When I considered referring her to someone else, she felt rejected and alone once again.

People do not need a good performance or a good fix. God doesn’t either. What is needed and desired is love.

The lady did not need a perfect counselor. This person, in particular, didn’t even need someone with an advanced degree in grief counseling. She did not come to me to get a problem fixed. She needed someone to be present with her, hear her story, and allow her to grieve in a safe place. The mistake I made was trying to figure out what else I should do for her instead of trusting that the love God had put in my heart for her was enough.

Our relationships with God and others thrive on us being ourselves.

God does not want us to try to be anything other than who He has created us to be. Trusting who He says we are is always exactly what He desires. Our worth is based on His view of us, and as children of God who are “in Christ”, we have been made righteous and holy just like Christ is righteous and holy. He has also instilled in us a need to love and be loved. Jesus says people know we belong to Him because of this love that is now inside of us, not because we look good and perform well. To live out of who He says we are, we must trust Him. In that counseling office years ago, I did not realize it, but I was trusting in myself. When I realized I could not handle it myself, I felt like I needed to hand it over to someone “more qualified”. The truth was (and always IS) that we were never meant to rely on our own resources. We were born to trust Him and rely on the relationship we have with Him in Christ. By His Grace through our trust, we experience the unconditional love He has for us. Because of the love He has for us, we are able to give others around us what they need above all else: love.

Authentic lives are not easy. It requires us to acknowledge our self-insufficiency and our need to rely on trust in our Father. Although it is often scary to consider living authentically, authentic lives do not provoke more fear. Instead, they provide freedom. Authenticity is so very rewarding. We need it, not only in humbling ourselves before God, but with each other. The lady in the counseling office did not need me to be something I was not. She simply needed me to be me. As human beings, we all have a desperate need to be ourselves (who God created us to be), and we need others who are being themselves as well. When we aren’t living authentically, we wind up hurting ourselves and hurting each other.

-Neil

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