3 Ways to Live Like a Creator instead of a Victim

The concepts in this post come from an amazing little book, The Power of TED: The Empowerment Dynamic by David Emerald. You can pick up your copy here. It’s one of the best books I’ve read in the last 12 months. I highly recommend it. (BTW, this is not an affiliate link. I receive no commission or any other benefit if you buy the book. But you’ll receive a huge benefit if you read it and incorporate these Kingdom of God principles into your daily life.)

I also want to give a shout out to my friend, Jane Abbate, who turned me on to this awesome little book. You can check out Jane’s excellent website at www.MessyMiracles.com (again, not an affiliate link).

No one wants to be a Victim. Yet so many of us live a victim lifestyle. We live at the mercy of our Persecutor, be it a person or a situation, and helplessly await our victorious Rescuer. Only the Rescuer never measures up to our expectations. The rescue comes with strings attached. Our Rescuer becomes our new Persecutor, and around the track we go again. Does this sound familiar? Have you been, or are you now, caught in this cycle?

The fascinating thing to me is that all three roles, Persecutor, Rescuer, and Victim, are all driven by the same motivational engine. Fear.

• Persecutors act the way they do out of fear of becoming Victims. They try to control the situation. If they make someone else the Victim, then they aren’t. The persecutor thinks of the Victim, “Oh, you poor, sad bugger!”
• Rescuers also operate out of fear of becoming a Victim. They get their sense of well-being and purpose, not from the calling of God on their own lives, but from fixing Victims. You know you’re dealing with a Rescuer when they don’t want to help you fix the problem—they want to fix you. Rescuers think, “Oh, you poor thing! Bless your heart!”
• Victims are afraid of everything and live in anxiety, reacting to one problem after another. Victims think, “Oh, poor me!”

The good news is there’s another way to live. God did not create us to be Victims. God is The Creator, and since we were made in his image (Genesis 1:26-27), we were made to be Creators. Creator is the opposite of Victim.

Stick with me here. This is not New Age “we are all gods” nonsense. But God gives us authority over our sphere of influence, especially our lives. That’s why we become what we behold, and what we focus on manifests in our lives.

That’s why Jesus said, after Peter’s confession of Christ, “… on this rock I will build my church.” (Matthew 16:18) The Greek word translated “church” is ecclesia. Since there weren’t any churches around yet, I always thought it was the Greek word for synagogue. But it’s not. Ecclesia actually is the ruling council of a Greek city-state. Jesus was really saying, “On this rock (Peter’s spoken confession), I will build my government.”

Our words, our confession of what we believe, have governmental authority over our lives. God created us this way in his own image as Creators with this authority. He built this principle into the fabric of the universe so we could bless each other (and our own lives). When we speak or focus our attention on something, good or bad, it dispatches spiritual forces to make it so.

What does living like a Creator instead of a Victim look like? The key is that, instead of fear, the Creator’s driven by a different motivational engine—Empowerment. Here are three very practical ways to live like a Creator instead of a Victim.

1) Creators focus on vision while Victims focus on problems. Victims don’t have vision. Reacting to problems is their whole life. Creators focus on the reality they want, and realistically assess the differences between that and their current reality.

2) Creators deal with Challengers, not Persecutors. Persecutors create problems the Victim waits to be rescued from. The responsibility lies with the Rescuer, not the powerless Victim. Creators, on the other hand, see problems, not as Persecutors, but as Challengers to their desired vision. Creators take responsibility for actively taking baby steps through the Challenge and toward their vision.

3) Creators work with Coaches, not Rescuers. Rescuers assume responsibility for fixing the Victim, and their help comes with strings attached. They often become the Victim’s new Persecutor. But although Coaches may offer advice to help fix a problem, both the Coach and the Creator understand the responsibility for fixing the problem rests with the Creator. Coaches allow Creators to freely accept or reject their advice, and Creators seek out this kind of healthy help.

But what about when bad things happen that are not our fault? What about things totally out of our control? What about crime? Mass shooting victims and their surviving families? What if your parents divorce? How about abuse?

We can be the victim of a crime, or of abuse, or anything else life dishes out, without getting sucked into the Victim lifestyle. That’s a choice we make. It’s all about what we choose to focus on. Do we focus on the problem, and live a Victim lifestyle careening from one reaction to the next? Or do we live a Creator lifestyle, focusing on the vision of the life we want, designing and actively taking baby steps to get there?

The choice is up to us.

How about you? Does this resonate? Which of these roles do you fill most of the time? What change are you going to make after reading this article? And please share on social media if you think this would bless someone else.