Why Life is Sacred and What that Even Means

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Sacred. What does that word even mean? We hardly use it anymore today. It sounds like a vegetable. “Yeah, we just planted some sacred between the beets and the squash.” But it’s a very important word. Because life is sacred. When our hearts lose the truth of that last sentence, we descend into the very worst of humanity. But when we live that truth, we reflect the best.

Google says sacred means:

  • Connected with God (or the gods) or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration.
  • Religious rather than secular.
  • Of writing or text, embodying the laws or doctrines of a religion.

Wrong. That’s not even right! We totally don’t know what the word even means anymore. Sacred is not just a synonym for religious.

Wikipedia’s Sacred page starts with: “Sacred means revered due to sanctity and is generally the state of being perceived by religious individuals as associated with divinity and considered worthy of spiritual respect or devotion; or inspiring awe or reverence among believers. Objects are often considered sacred if used for spiritual purposes, such as the worship or service of gods.”

Wrong again. “Sacred means revered due to sanctity”? That’s a circular definition! At best, Wikipedia makes it sound irrelevant to everyday life. But nothing could be more relevant to life than an understanding, at the heart level, of this word.

Yes, both Google and Wikipedia capture the way the word is often used, but that’s not what it means. It is used in these ways because of what it means. So let’s find out what it really means.

Merriam-Webster reaches back a little further than the birth of the Internet. While listing similar definitions to Google and Wikipedia, Merriam-Webster also says this, which is the real definition of sacred:

  • Entitled to reverence and respect
  • Highly valued and important

Sacred is often used for religious meanings because we traditionally have considered God, and the things of God, worthy of respect and highly important. But sacred really means entitled to and worthy of reverence and respect, highly valued and important. Irreplaceable. Something you don’t mess with.

That’s your life. That’s my life. That’s our lives. That’s all human life. Human life is sacred, not to be messed with, because we’re created in the very image of God (Genesis 1:27). None of the animals were, only people. We alone are this unique blend of physical and spiritual life.

Human life is sacred. You don’t mess with it. When we forget this truth, or ignore it, we make devastating consequences for ourselves. We deal ourselves a huge loss.

During her American visit in the ‘90s, when Bill Clinton was president, Mother Teresa was asked by Hillary Clinton, “Why haven’t we had a women president yet?” Mother Teresa didn’t even blink, “She was probably aborted.” HRC was not amused.

Every life has a tree of life attached to it. Children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc. And that’s just heredity. Think about impact. We all touch thousands of lives. That touch matters, for good or ill. Those lives will never be the same.

Who’s inspired you? Who has pulled you back from the brink? A parent? A teacher? A coach? An author? A friend? Where would you be if that life never existed?

It’s a Wonderful Life, the black ‘n’ white movie with Jimmy Stewart, is more than just a drippy Christmas movie. It’s an amazing example of this concept. You know the story. George Bailey, at the height of his despair over his own failed life, gets the tremendous gift of seeing what the world would be like without him. Turns out he’s not a failure after all. His life held back tremendous evil in his town, hugely affecting everyone in ways they would never know. Hundreds of men would’ve died on the other side of the world during WWII, because his medal-of-honor war hero brother wasn’t there to save them, because George wasn’t there to save him when he fell through the ice when they were children. Every life matters.

Life is sacred. You don’t mess with it.

The worst of humanity comes out when we lose sight of this truth. The Nazis. ISIS. North Korea. Stalin’s purges in the old Soviet Union. Abortion.

We’ve lost over 60 million lives due to abortion in America alone (which is a small number compared to the rest of the world). To put it in perspective, the Holocaust was 18 million. Our numbers are 3 times that, and counting.

If you count not just the deaths, but the devastation left in abortion’s wake, it’s at least 180 million. Because there’s a mother whose maternal nurturing identity was devastated with the death of her child. There’s a father whose paternal provider/protector identity was cut to the heart, replaced by a false identity of failure. And we haven’t counted grandparents or siblings yet, who also lost a family member.

The lie in the culture is about quality of life over sanctity of life. Do any of these lies sound familiar?

“It was for the best, she’s got three kids on welfare already.” It doesn’t matter how poor the mother is. Do we really believe only rich people deserve to live? I thought money couldn’t buy happiness?

“The ultrasound and amniocentesis show the baby has Down’s syndrome. You should abort.” Have you ever known a child with Down’s syndrome? I have. These precious children bless the lives of everyone who meets them. Yet some countries have aborted almost every one of them, to their great loss. The eugenicists of the ‘20s would be so proud. God forgive us and lead us to repent.

“She had her whole life ahead of her. She had to abort. Now she can go to college and her life can get back to normal.” Had to abort? That doesn’t sound like a choice. The truth is, her life will never get back to “normal,” whatever that means. Once she’s pregnant, she’s a mother. She can either be a mother who has a child, or a mother who lost one. But she will never again not be a mother.

All of these common excuses for abortion reflect quality of life, not sanctity of life. Life is sacred. You don’t mess with it.

If one life, especially the most vulnerable—the unborn who have no voice of their own to stand up for themselves—is not valued, then no one’s life is safe.

The culture of death does not stop with abortion. It starts there. Here’s the slippery slope:

  • Abortion
  • Assisted suicide
  • Euthanasia for the comatose
  • Euthanasia for the elderly
  • Euthanasia for the disabled
  • Euthanasia for the “undesirables”
  • The Final Solution

Sound familiar? Have you seen this movie? Haven’t we already had this nightmare? How many times do we have to stumble blindly down this road?

Let’s not let history repeat itself again. We can stop this.

Speak up for life. Support your local crisis pregnancy center. Help an unwed mother. Be the change we want to see. God will always strengthen us for this and answer that prayer. Perhaps we were born for such a time as this.

If you have had an abortion, or fathered an aborted child, get healing. Jesus loves you and has so much healing for you, but you can’t walk through it yourself. You need help, and it’s so available, just waiting for you. Here are some resources to help you find a Christ-centered, post-abortive recovery program in your area. And if you can’t find one, email us. We’ll walk through it with you.

http://www.rachelsvineyard.org/weekend/sites.aspx

http://hopeafterabortion.com/

https://optionline.org/after-abortion-support/

http://afterabortion.org/help-healing/

https://www.healingafterabortion.org/mission–vision-statement.html

So who’s made a significant impact in your life? Where would you be if that person wasn’t there? Tell us in the comments. And please share on social media if you think this post would bless someone else.

How to Agree in 3 Questions

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We know agreement is a key to any kind of successful partnership, whether it’s in business, a marriage, or a creative partnership. Unity is a powerful thing that can weather any storm. When troubles destroy a relationship, be it a marriage or a business or what have you, it’s not the troubles that actually destroyed it. It was the lack of agreement. The circumstances just exposed the area of disunity.

Here’s a radical statement, but it’s true. Human agreement is even strong enough to thwart the plans of God. Now just give me a minute here, and I’ll prove it. It’s one of in the craziest stories in the Bible. It’s in Genesis 11, the Tower of Babel.

The backstory is God, when he created people, gave us the charge to, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the whole earth and subdue it.” (Genesis 1:28) God’s plan was for humanity to scatter itself over the whole face of the earth.

But we had a better idea in Genesis 11:4: “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower reaching to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the earth.” They had agreement. They had unity. Done deal.

Now this is the crazy part. In Genesis 11:6, even God admits their human agreement was stronger than his plan: “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing will be impossible for them.” Translation: “I’d better do something here.”

And he did. God intervened. Basically, he cheated. Those of us who know God chuckle at this, because we know he so does this, all the time. He came down and confused the languages. No communication, no agreement, problem solved. Look at Genesis 11:8: “So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth.” God’s plan wins after all.

Now this is a negative example of the power of agreement and unity. Just imagine how strong agreement is when it’s actually for something God is doing. Imagine how powerful agreement can be if, along with agreeing with each other, we’re also in agreement with God! Obstacles, get out of the way, you’re about to be road-kill!

So why is agreement so hard? How often has this conversation happened:

Husband (or business partner or wife): “Don’t you see the logic of this decision? A implies B implies C, botta bing, botta boom, and there you go!”

Wife (or other business partner or husband): “Well, I guess it does make sense…”

Husband (or first business partner or wife): “Great! We’re in agreement! Off we go!”

And it results in disaster. The wife (or business partner #2) was never in agreement with the decision to begin with. They feel bullied and steam-rolled over. Meanwhile, the husband (or business partner #1) is flabbergasted and shocked, because he was sure they were in agreement. He went out of his way to talk about it with the other person before implementing the decision!

The problem is, while they were in logical agreement, they were not in agreement. The thing many people don’t realize is this: There are 3 parts to agreement.

(1) Logical Agreement.

“Do you THINK this is the right thing to do?”

In other words, you both agree on the logic. Unfortunately, many people stop right there thinking they’re in agreement with the other person, but they aren’t yet. Yes, you do need to have logical agreement, but if that’s all you’re going on, it’s a lose-lose and you’re headed for a crash. One gets steam-rolled and the other is shocked to find himself (or herself) in the middle of a huge disagreement over something he (or she) thought they both agreed on.

(2) Emotional Agreement.

“Is this what you WANT to do?”

Even if the other person sees your logic, if it’s not what they want to do, you’re not in agreement yet. If it’s not what both of you want, then maybe there’s some piece of logic you missed. We can twist logic to arrive at almost any foregone conclusion. God often speaks through that nagging feeling that we just don’t want to do a thing, but we can’t put our finger on why.

(3) Spiritual Agreement.

“Do you have a PEACE in your spirit that this is what God wants you to do?”

You both truly have a sense that this really is God. Yes, you know this is what God wants you to do. It passes the peace test. “Do you have a peace about this decision?” Both people need to have an uncoerced “yes” to be in agreement.

If you both answer “yes” to all of these 3 questions, then you’re in agreement and you can move forward. If not, time to go back and pray more, separately and together, over the decision, asking the Lord for agreement. God often gives each spouse (or partner in a business) a piece. So often, working out the decision together with the other person leads to a better solution than either would’ve come up with on their own.

Now this assumes both parties are healthy, seeking connection in their marriage or partnership, rather than seeking a safe-distance. Sometimes fear and wounding prevents agreement, and you’ve got to go the way God’s leading you anyway. But I wouldn’t recommend that without specifically hearing from the Lord. Pursue agreement for a God-defined season first.

So what do you think? Does this ring true? Have you been in agreement with someone that really wasn’t agreement? How’d that go? Or, do you have a successful strategy in pursuing agreement? Tell us in the comments; someone may benefit from your story. And please share on social media if this would bless someone else.

Why We Really Don’t Want Fairness but This Instead

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“It’s not fair!” said every person everywhere, at some point in their lives. Some of us live in that unhappy place of constantly striving for fairness and never seeing it. Some of us sink there when bad things happen. We see it all over our political system—the constant cry for fairness, for everyone to be treated the same. The truth is, that’s not what we really want.

What?!? Why would I not want fairness? You really don’t. Let me prove it to you. Have you ever, when you saw someone getting a speeding ticket, pulled over and said to the officer, “Please write me a speeding ticket also. It’s not fair for only that guy to get a ticket when I was speeding too. In fact, better make it reckless driving. I was going 15 mph over the limit.” Said no one ever. We only want fairness when it’s in our favor. Think about that. It isn’t really fairness then, is it?

God has opinions about fairness. This is very counter-intuitive, but, believe it or not, fairness is actually prohibited in the Bible. In fact, God feels so strongly about this, it made the 10 Commandments. God put it this way:

“You shall not envy your neighbor’s house. You shall not envy your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Exodus 20:17

Envy. Often our cry of “it’s not fair!” is just a mask for envy. Someone else has something we want.

Fairness means everyone’s treated exactly the same. Although it sounds great on paper, it’s not really a good thing. Everyone’s different, so treating everyone the same is actually an injustice. We all have different backgrounds, different skills, different strengths, different weaknesses. Imposing artificial fairness would drown out our diversity. Diversity is the colorful beauty of life. Why would we want to drown it out with gray fairness? The Soviets tried that for 70 years. It was a dismal failure.

Fairness does not exist in the Kingdom of God. And that’s a good thing. Out of his goodness, God has something much better. It’s called justice. Often, when we cry out for fairness, we’re really crying out for justice. Justice totally exists in the kingdom of God, and it’s way better than fairness.

I know this is a pretty out-there post, so here’s an example to show how justice is better than fairness. When I was in high school, my parents built and owned a preschool and my mom was the director. The worst thing a child can do in a preschool is harm another child. But with 3 and 4-year-olds, it occasionally happens.

One day, one child bit another. This particular biter hated vegetables, especially carrots. So my mom went to the kitchen and got a big carrot. “If you want to bite something, bite this,” she said as the biter got his time-out in the corner. The biter was really wishing he’d chosen different behavior and did not bite again. Having to eat a carrot did the trick.

Meanwhile, across the room, another kid who loved carrots came to the false conclusion, “If I bite someone, I get a carrot!” So he turned and bit the kid next to him. My mom brought this second pair of children into the kitchen, the biter and the crying kid who got bit. The biter was smiling and eagerly awaiting his carrot. My mom took out a big carrot, and right in front of the biter, gave it to his crying victim. The child stopped crying, thrilled to be given something special. Meanwhile the biter had time to figure out what went wrong during his time-out in the corner. He also never bit another child.

My mom did not treat these children fairly. But in her wisdom, understanding the needs and hearts of each child, she treated them justly. My mom’s preschool justice was in the best interest of all the children, where strict fairness would not have been.

God is like that. As his people, we need to be like that, too. As the people of God, we should work for justice in the face of injustice. Righteous anger, and the action it inspires, is the correct response to injustice. That’s what anger is for.

But let’s not misuse our God-given anger crying out for fairness because we didn’t get what we wanted. That’s just a cry of envy from an entitled people.

Did this post resonate? How has God brought about justice in your life? What have you learned from it? Or are you still waiting for it? And please share if this would bless someone else.

How to Succeed by Deciding to Fail

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At a recent writer’s conference (Jeff Goins’ Tribe conference), I heard a speaker, Joseph Michael, author of the online course Learn Scrivener Fast, say he was thankful for his failures. I’d always known intellectually that failures are good for you. As long as you learn something, failures are learning experiences. They’re a necessary part of moving forward in life.

I’m not talking about moral failures here. We call those sin, and that’s never good for you, although our gracious Father in Heaven often works good out of them when we repent. But that’s a whole other topic. I’m talking here about mistakes. Or maybe it wasn’t even a mistake—stuff we tried that just didn’t work, for whatever reason. The house plant died. The stock price didn’t rise; it fell. The book didn’t sell.

It wasn’t even Joseph Michael’s main point. He just said it in passing. But when he said he was thankful for his failures, in that moment something leaped the long twelve inches from my head to my heart. I felt the Holy Spirit’s conviction that I need to fail more. I set a goal to fail at 4 major things in 2019.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not setting out to fail. I’m going to try my best. But if my goal is to succeed, I won’t even try unless success is assured from the outset. “Well, c’mon,” my brain says, “with anything important or worthwhile, success is never guaranteed.” But my heart’s not going near that risky goal. The cost of personal failure is too great; it hurts too much. So I sabotage myself and never lean into my calling. Can you relate?

Some people could phrase this goal as trying 4 new/risky things in 2019. Probably most people don’t have to use the f-word, FAIL, in their goal. But I do. God is healing me from severe Performance Orientation, where I get my sense of value from what I do. If I internally said try in my goal, and it didn’t succeed, I’d tell myself the story that I didn’t try hard enough, and the heart-crushing failure would set in.

Avoiding failure avoids risk, which avoids success. My avoidance of failure keeps me safe from risk, but also from the wild success that is only possible through trying risky things.

But if internally my goal is to fail, then my heart feels free to take that risk, because I know I can meet that goal. Just the way my brain, or maybe my heart, is wired. Anybody else, or is it just me?

For some people, setting a goal to fail would mean they’d not do the work, or do it substandard, setting themselves up for failure. Those people are wired differently from me and that’s fine. For me though, I don’t have that problem. If I try something, I’ll do everything I can, the best I can, to achieve success. That’s just who I am.

For me, setting the goal of failing is the permission my heart needs to try something risky. Then if it fails and the self-condemnation loop starts, I can say “hey, I met my goal” and stop it. And if the thing actually succeeds, then, wow, Bonus! I exceeded my goal.

So get ready, 2019, it’s going to be a fun year. I’m going to actually try things I wouldn’t previously even vocalize. How about you? Are you up an adventure? Do you dare give substance to that dream in your heart? What’s the first baby step? Take it.

And who knows? Maybe failing at 4 things in 2019 will be a really hard goal to meet because everything actually works! Wouldn’t that be a great problem to have? Please share this post if you think it would inspire someone else.

How to Tell Yourself a Different Story

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Recently we were at a conference and Janet ran into a friend who told her, “I’m so nervous about wearing something that looks good I brought 3 suitcases of clothes.” Now this young woman is gorgeous and would look beautiful in anything she wears. But that’s apparently not the story she tells herself.

The negative story she tells herself is different than the positive story everyone else tells themselves about her. Everyone else thinks, “She always has it so all-together! I wish I could be like her.” But she’s filled with self-doubt and second guessing.

How often do we tell ourselves negative stories that no one else does? On the one hand, it’s good to be our own worst critic. It drives us toward excellence and doing our best work. We’re the only ones who hear the passion our heart is silently screaming to release. We know when we nailed it. But far too often we’re our own worst nay-sayer instead.

We need to hear the story the Holy Spirit says about us. We need to hear the song God sings about the identity he uniquely created us to inhabit. And we need to keep hearing it. We need it on a loop playing over and over again in our heads, because it’s so easy to dismiss and forget what we don’t agree with. It’s so much easier to agree with all the negative loops we hear playing over and over in our head.

The enemy constantly echoes our mistakes back to us. But we don’t need his help to be negative about ourselves. I can shoot down my identity all by myself, thank you very much. I’m a great shot. I hit my heart every time.

To be positive about negativity, it thinks it’s doing us a favor. It’s protecting us from risk. But by doing so it’s also protecting us from living. Life is a dangerous place, a painful place, a risky endeavor. But God is good; not necessarily protecting us from the pain, but being with us in the middle of it, and working his beauty in our lives out of it.

We empower what we agree with, and it’s time to start empowering God’s truth about us instead of all the lies, from whatever source. So here’s the most powerful way to start hearing God’s identity for your life. Are you ready?

Tell someone else God’s truth about them.

You know the truth I mean. Tell them the positive qualities you see that God’s put in them. It’s so obvious to you, how can they not know? But honestly, so often they don’t. Let’s start telling others the positive qualities in them that we take for granted. Because they honestly don’t know.

This is a principle in the Bible. God gives us what we give away, with increase. (See Matthew 7:2, Mark 4:24, Luke 6:38.)

  • Do you need to be encouraged? Encourage others.
  • Do you need a financial breakthrough? Up your giving.
  • Are you lonely? Be a friend to others.

We constantly need to be telling our brothers and sisters God’s story about them, how we appreciate them, the truth about their identity. And pretty soon, we will find people encouraging us.

Let me conclude with a beautiful story of what church is supposed to be. I retell this story often on this blog—so apologies if you’ve heard it before—but it’s so good it bears repeating. There’s an African village where, when a woman gets pregnant, she and other women go into the wilderness away from the village and pray, until they discern the “song of child”. Then they return and teach the song to the rest of the village.

The village sings the person’s song to them at significant events in their life—their birth, their death, their wedding, after great achievements or victories within the tribe.

But there’s another time when the village sings the person their song—when they mess up (often in adolescence). They put the person in the middle of the tribe with the whole village around them, and they say, “You’re not acting like yourself. Let us remind you of who you are.” And they sing the person the song of their identity that their mother got for them before they were born.

That’s what church is supposed to be. A place where people tell us the truth about who we really are that we’ve forgotten. A place where we remind each other who we really are.

TODAY’S ACTION STEP: Tell someone else today about some godly quality you take for granted and appreciate about them. Does it surprise them? Did they know this about themselves, or do they tell themselves a different story? In the process, what different story did you hear about yourself? Tell us in the comments what happens!

How to Tell the Difference between 3 Types of Emotional Pain We Feel

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Pain is something we don’t understand very well, especially here in the West. We avoid it, medicate, and ignore it, none of which actually fixes it. But pain is important. It’s telling us something’s wrong that we need to address.

Pain is like the idiot light on your dashboard. What if the oil light comes on in my car, and I say, “I can fix that. I’ll just cover it with a piece of electrical tape. Problem solved!” And I can pat myself on the back for my cleverness. A one penny piece of electrical tape is way cheaper than a $30 oil change (or $100 if you’re using synthetic oil!) Aren’t I clever? For a moment.

This is so ridiculous you’re probably laughing, “Until the engine blows up, dude! Then it’s not so clever anymore. That $30-$100 oil change is way cheaper than the $2500 (at least!) engine repairs you’re in for.” And you’re right. But we do this all the time with our pain.

Our problem is we treat pain like the problem. Just like the oil light on my dashboard isn’t the problem, our pain is not the problem. The pain is trying to tell us something. The thing causing the pain is the problem. And that’s what we need to deal with. The pain is just the fruit. We need to deal with the root cause.

Here’s an everyday example we’re all familiar with of dealing with the bad fruit and not the root causes. My parent’s generation took all sorts of medicine as they got older. People still do today. Blood pressure medicine, cholesterol medicine, heart medicine, arthritis medicine, etc, are all very common. Some people had/have so many medicines they can’t remember them all. They have a pill box with a compartment for each day of the week. Have you seen those? The pharmacist just fills them up with what they’re supposed to take that day.

But we’re learning now that many of these issues can often be corrected through changes in diet. Yes, medicines still have their place, but people going gluten-free, dairy-free, GMO-free, etc., are experiencing a lot less need for all these medicines. They are dealing with the root issue, and the fruit (their health) is taking care of itself.

Ready to learn how to do this with the pain in our lives? Let’s explore three types of emotional pain, and how to go to the root of each.

1) Pain from Wounding

In a certain season of my life, I was feeling a lot of emotional pain that I just couldn’t shake. I cried out to the Holy Spirit, “Why am I hurting so badly? What’s wrong with me!”

He answered quickly, “There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re wounded.” Being wounded from someone else’s actions really hurts. Their sin against us is not our fault. It’s not fair, but we often get to experience the repercussions and the pain of other people’s actions. There’s no such thing as a victimless crime. There’s no such thing as private sin that doesn’t hurt others.

While the sin against us isn’t our fault or our responsibility, our sinful response to it is. So often we respond by making false judgments about the world, others, ourselves, and God. These are bitter root expectations. Our agreement with them gives them power over our lives and they become self-fulfilling prophecies.

  • “People will always reject me.”
  • “God doesn’t love me.”
  • “No one’s going to protect me.”

Then we make inner vows to protect our heart, instead of crying out to God for his healing.

  • “I’ll reject them before they reject me.”
  • “I’ll always be good so people love me.”
  • “I’ll take care of myself.”

We get healing from wounds from others with three steps:

  1. Repenting of our judgments and inner vows.
  2. Replacing them with God’s truth.
  3. Grieving the loss.

We’ve got lots of posts on inner vows. (Just type “inner vows” into the site’s search field up above.) So I want to talk here a little bit about grieving the loss.

The original wound was a loss in our lives that we need to grieve. Maybe a loss of innocence. Maybe a loss of trust. Maybe those who should’ve protected us didn’t. Maybe it was a brutal welcome into a cruel world, designed to short-circuit our true identity God created us to walk in.

There are five phases of grief:

  • Denial
  • Anger
  • Bargaining
  • Depression
  • Acceptance

They can go in any order, and they can repeat. But we need to work through these. Find a trusted friend, pastor, counselor, mentor, parent, spouse—someone you trust—and start grieving what you’ve lost. Be honest about it. Start by naming the loss—articulate it. Then start working through the five phases.

2) Pain from Our Own Stuff

It could be sin, or it could just be a mistake. Mistakes aren’t sin. If I clumsily fall down the stairs, that’s just a mistake and it’s not a sin. But I’ll still have pain from it, at least some bruises, if not a broken bone of two.

We don’t need the world’s help to hurt ourselves. We’re perfectly capable of doing it on our own, thank you very much. Living a sinful lifestyle is a great example. Janet and I see this all the time in the crisis pregnancy center where we volunteer. People want relief from the pain in their lives, but they want to continue the behavior that’s causing the pain. It just doesn’t work that way.

If you want relief from your headache, stop banging your head on the brick wall. Trying to find a better helmet so you can keep head-banging won’t help. You need to stop the behavior that’s causing the pain. “Don’t judge me!” Translation: “I know you’re right, but I don’t want to hear it.” Hey, I’m just saying.

Similarly, if we want to eliminate the bad fruit in our lives, we have to eliminate the root that’s causing it. Often that root is our own sin.

Here are some lifestyles that will cause you tremendous pain in your life, whether you believe it or not:

  • Sleeping with someone you’re not married to
  • Addictions (drugs, alcohol, pain killers, etc)
  • Workaholism
  • Raging at God and his people
  • Narcissism
  • Trying to earn love through performance

Healing comes when we admit our sin is actually sin and repent of it. Repenting doesn’t mean feeling sorry for it, or sorry for getting caught. It means “to turn around.” It’s like we’re walking East, we do a U-turn, and now we’re walking west. We stop doing that thing.

We were designed to be in community. If this is you, find someone you trust, and get help breaking out of this self-destructive cycle. Usually people can’t do it alone. There’s nothing wrong with you.

3) Hurting for Others

You can be hurting for others without being wounded by them. I’m talking here about a godly sorrow, a pain we feel on behalf of someone else. Maybe they’re causing havoc in their own lives with self-destructive behavior they don’t want to give up. Maybe they’re suffering from wounding caused by others against them. Maybe both. Maybe one is the root of the other.

Although it hurts, this is a good kind of pain. We are feeling a tiny sliver of God’s heart for them. This is a powerful place to be. This is the time to pray.

Often, when we feel anger, sadness, or other strong emotion at a person or a situation, it’s God calling us to pray for that person or situation. And I mean really pray. Like, for an hour or more. I’m not talking about a half-hearted, half-thinking, “Lord, bless Sally Smotch,” four words and then we go about our business. I’m talking about serious pressing in with intercession. Intercession enters into the Holy of Holies on behalf of someone else, crying God’s heart back to him.

It’s not about performance. It’s not about manipulating God into begrudgingly doing something. “Ok, I prayed for an hour. God owes me now.” No. But there’s something about sacrificial prayer, sacrificing our time, some other activity we’d otherwise be doing, for the sake of someone else that moves the heart of God.

And seeing your prayers answered in the person’s life makes it all worth it. It’s amazing. As intercessors, we live from testimony to testimony.

How about you?

Hurting from wounding, from the logical consequences of our own sin, and hurting for others are three different things. Which have you experienced? Have you transitioned through these 3 types of pain? Where are you in the process? Have you benefited from an intercessor praying for you? How have you seen your prayers for others answered?

4 Ways to Help Grieving People

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As Americans, we don’t feel comfortable around other people’s grief. We don’t know how to act. We don’t have a healthy understanding of grief. Death is a legitimate part of life. We ignore it. We pretend it’s not there. We’ve abstracted it away, and we really don’t know how to deal with it ourselves, let alone help someone else who is grieving a loss. We get really uncomfortable around grieving people because we have no grid for it.

A Brief Look Inside

What are our motivations? We want them to stop hurting. That’s good. But are we wanting that truly for them, or for us, because we feel uncomfortable around their pain? I admit there’ve been times I’ve said something I hoped would cheer them up, so the conversation would get all happy again. It was more about me being uncomfortable around their pain than it was about really caring about them.

We’ve never been taught how to be around people who are grieving. I pray this post gives you a grid for this. We need to learn how to be around other people’s pain. The first step is to understand grief.

We All Need to Grieve Sometimes. It’s OK.

By and large, a lot of stuff happens in this life that we need to grieve. Here’s a brief list:

  • Death of a loved one. Even if they’re saved, it’s never easy.
  • Abortion. Secular society applauds post-abortives, and the church shames them. Neither allows them to grieve.
  • Miscarriage. Never tell someone it was for the best. It wasn’t. They just lost a child.
  • Abuse. Never ok, and never the victim’s fault.
  • Divorce. Devastating.
  • Parent’s divorce. Someone else ripped your foundations apart.
  • Children’s divorce. Just as devastating.
  • Leave a church. Lots of church hurt out there.
  • Loss of relationship. Falling out of relationship with a friend, family member, co-worker, etc.
  • Job loss. Can be shattering to identity.
  • Change of career. Can be scary.
  • Loss of a home. Can be shattering to identity.
  • Health trauma. Car accident, military amputee, physical condition or disease, cancer, etc.

I’m sure you can think of more. All of these things represent loss. Anytime there’s a loss in our life, we need to grieve.

What Grief Is

Most of us don’t even know what grief is. Grief is the process of accepting a painful loss. It’s reconciling the painful things that happen in this world with my sense of being ok.

Grief is going through these 5 phases:

  • Denial
  • Anger
  • Bargaining
  • Depression
  • Acceptance

These aren’t numbered because they don’t necessarily go in order. You can be totally fine with the loss one day (acceptance) and overflowing with anger about it the next. And the next day you’re just sad (depression). And they can repeat. You can come out of sadness (depression) only to be really angry about it again.

That’s ok. That’s normal. That’s healthy. It’s healthy to spend seasons in each one of these emotional phases, sometimes multiple times. The trick is not to get stuck permanently in any one phase, except acceptance, where we eventually want to land.

God gives us as much healing as we can stand at a time. We may have made it to acceptance six months ago and think we’re totally done with grieving. But then, Wham!, something triggers strong emotion and all of a sudden God’s taking us through these phases again at a deeper level, to gain a deeper level of healing.

That’s normal. There’s nothing wrong with you.

4 Ways to Help Grieving People

There’s a really good model for helping grieving people in the Bible. Job’s three friends usually get a bad rap, but they actually got it right for a whole week. Then they opened their mouths, and it was all downhill from there (see Job chapters 4-31.)

Look at Job 2:11-13:

When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.

1) Just Be with Them.

Job’s friends totally got this right. They just sat with him in the ashes of his life. Can you bring someone their favorite latte, and just sit with them, drinking it on the porch? Don’t try to say anything. Don’t try to make it better. You can’t. Just be there. They need your presence more than your words.

Please don’t say Christian-quippy things to cheer them up. You know, things like:

  • “It was for the best.” No it wasn’t! That’s why I’m grieving.
  • “Time heals all wounds.” Thank you Captain Obvious, but now I need to grieve.
  • “You’ll get over it.” Thank you for revealing you’re not a safe person for me to grieve around. I’ll make sure I always wear my happy mask around you.

Don’t try to cheer them up. Just your being there will do that, so don’t try to force it. Let them be sad, angry, whatever (obviously as long as they’re not being a danger to themselves or anyone else. In that event, call 911.) Don’t be afraid of their emotions. It’s ok for them display strong emotions.

2) Acknowledge the Pain and Validate their Grief.

It took Job a whole week to feel safe with his friends. When he finally spoke and expressed his grief, he probably wished he’d waited another week. They immediately launched into how all his troubles where really his own fault. Predictably, that did not help the grieving person. Here are some better examples:

“Job, you’ve just lost your family, your career, and all your savings in a few days. It really hurts, doesn’t it?” Phrasing it like a question invites Job to share his pain.

“You’ve experienced tremendous loss, Job. You need to grieve.”

“I’m sorry you’re hurting. You’ve been through a lot. It’s not easy, is it?”

C’mon, Eliphaz, would that have been so hard?

3) Reflect their Feelings Back

“So you feel like God’s abandoned you?” Try to put the person’s feelings into your own words and ask them if you’re understanding correctly. You don’t even have to be right for this to help them tremendously. Just the fact that someone cares enough about them to try to understand is hugely comforting.

Drawing their feelings out in a safe, non-judgmental, environment helps them process. They may not even know what’s going on inside, and articulating it to you helps them get in touch with those feelings, which helps them work through them.

Get out the thesaurus on your phone. “You say you’re feeling sad. Is that like melancholy or more bitter? Do you feel blue or hopeless?” Invite them to drill deeper into how they feel.

4) Pray & Intercede for Them.

Pray with them before you leave, but also pray for them when you’re alone. Our prayers for others are powerful. People can actually feel us praying for them, although they may not realize that’s where the relief they feel is coming from.

Don’t pray that God would take away the pain or rescue them from it. They need to grieve the loss. Instead, pray that God is tangibly with them in it. Pray that he brings them through it. Ask God to give you his heart for them. Ask him how you can show them they’re loved.

Because that’s what grieving people need the most. They need to know they’re loved in the middle of it all.

How about you?

Did someone help you when you were grieving? Did they do something well-meaning but stupid that really didn’t help? What have you learned about helping grieving people that I missed? Tell us your thoughts in the comments. And please share on social media if this would bless someone else.

How to Tell when It’s a Season to Heal

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Do you ever get confused by the weather? Do you ever think the weather itself is confused? I’m looking out the window watching the rain fall on a completely sunny day! Yes, it’s dumping rain at the same time the sun is shining. Does it do that where you live? It does it here in Virginia. All. The. Time.

It’s like God spun the weather spinner, and it stopped on the line between “Sunshine” and “Dumping Rain.” The angels are like, “Liner! Bummer, Lord. Shall we spin it again?” And the Lord goes, “No, it’s fine. Sunny and rainy, I’m God, I can do that. Watch this.” And bam, I need my sunglasses while turning on my wipers. Crazy!

The changing of seasons in our lives can be like that. Sudden and startling. Contradictory things start happening. Old, secure comfortable ways get uncomfortable. The grace for certain activities is just gone. What used to work no longer works. Ever experience this?

Often God does this on purpose when he brings us into a season of healing. In inner-healing lingo, it’s called “overloading our structures.”

Here’s what happens. We get wounded, which is not our fault; it’s someone else’s sin against us. But we respond sinfully with a false judgement, a foundational lie, about the world, about God, about ourselves, or about how we can expect to be treated.

  • “I’m bad. I’m dirty.”
  • “I’m not lovable.”
  • “Men will always abuse me.”
  • “You can’t trust women.”
  • “God isn’t there for me. He doesn’t care.”
  • “People will always reject me.”
  • “Emotions are bad. Emotions can kill you.”

Based on that judgement, we make sinful inner vows to protect our own heart, instead of trusting God.

  • “I’ll never have emotions.”
  • “I’ll take care of myself.”
  • “I’ll never trust anyone.”
  • “I’ll never be vulnerable.”
  • “I’ll always be the good person so people will love me.”
  • “I’ll always stay in control. Then I’ll be safe.”

Then the enemy says, “Look what they’ve decreed over their own life. I can help them with that.” This is why some people seem to have an invisible bulls-eye on them; for example, abusive partners are just drawn to them. They keep making the same relationship mistakes over and over again.

So events happen in our lives to reinforce that foundational lie, we double-down on our inner vows, and around the track we go again. This builds up a whole spiritual defensive structure around us, effectively defending us from God’s love and his destiny for our lives.

But you might ask, “I don’t want to be out of control. Being in control sounds like a good thing. How does being in control block God’s destiny for my life?” Believe me, if you’re living out God’s destiny for your life, it’s not something you could have planned for yourself. It’s an adventure. You are definitely not in control.

As CS Lewis said in The Magician’s Nephew, “O sons of Adam, how well you defend yourselves from everything that would do you good.”

The good news is, God won’t tolerate it forever. He loves us too much. He often allows it for a season, perhaps as a defense mechanism so a child can survive trauma. But when he knows it’s time for us to receive healing, God brings us into a new season. He knows when we’re ready, even if we don’t even realize there’s a wound at all.

The problem is, the sick way is all we know and we think it’s normal. And it is normal for us. It’s how we’ve lived. It’s how we were raised. It is all we know. But while it may be common, it’s not healthy, and it’s certainly not the Kingdom freedom he has for us.

So God starts overloading our structures. He brings situations, events, and people into our lives where the old coping mechanisms don’t work anymore. How we coped was how we hid the wound, often even from ourselves. But he wants to heal the wound, so he has to expose it, so our coping mechanisms stop working.

When the way you’ve coped in the past no longer works, God is bringing you into a season of healing. He wants to heal that root wound that’s been festering all these years. Rejoice and cooperate with the process. You’re about to experience more freedom than you’ve ever known.

Seasonal transitions can be rough. They drive my sinuses crazy. The weather patterns seem to be at war with themselves. And you never know what to wear. I end up changing clothes twice a day. But God’s healing is worth it.

How about you? Are you going through a transition? Find a trusted friend and share with them what you’re going through. Or your pastor or small group leader. Or email us, although it’s better if you can share with someone spiritually mature in your life. Maybe they can help you identify some inner vows God wants to heal. Often others can see what God’s doing in our lives better than we can, since they’re not so close to it. Tell us your story in the comments. And please share if this post would bless someone else.

Why You Don’t Want to Be the Good Guy

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You don’t want to be the good guy in interpersonal relationships. It’s counter-intuitive, but you really don’t. What?!? Are you saying I should be the bad guy? No, of course not. In the world’s scarcity mindset we fall into so easily and often, those are the only two options. But in the Kingdom, there’s another choice.

The problem with being the good guy is there has to be a bad guy. When I was about 10, I remember overhearing my dad talking to one of his sisters about their mom. My aunt was upset because my grandmother was seemingly irrationally angry with her. My dad reassured her, “Don’t worry, it’s not you. You know how it is with Mom. Somebody’s always the villain. This week it’s you, next week it’ll be somebody else.” He was one of 8 children on a poor cotton farm in Oklahoma. It was a hard life. There were plenty of potential villains.

Life is hard. There are plenty of potential villains to blame. And plenty of real ones. People often do mean and hurtful things. Sometimes unknowingly, but sometimes on purpose. Bad guys abound. But don’t be the good guy.

The thing that trips us up isn’t the evil done to us. It’s our evil response to it. Yes, the evil done to us is horrible. I’m not minimizing that. But it has no power over us, only over our circumstances. What has power over us is our own response.

Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor who went on to become one of the 20th century’s most famous neurologists, said this:

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” – Viktor Frankl

The problem with sitting in the good guy chair is it forces someone else into the bad guy chair. There can’t be a good guy without a bad guy.

But they are the bad guy! Just look at what they did! Look at what they’re doing! Our American society has perfected this into an art form. We categorize everyone into good guys we agree with and bad guys we’re offended by. And our offense justifies all of our wicked, shameful, ungodly memes and treatment of those people we disagree with. We’ve matured as a prejudiced society. We’re not as prejudiced against skin color or ethnicity as much as we’re prejudiced against ideas. Hell couldn’t be more proud.

Do you see it? Do you see the error? Do you see the worldly thinking? They’re doing something bad, so they’re the bad guy! No. We are not what we do. God doesn’t see us like that. He sees us through the lens of who he created us to be, not through the lens of our behavior. Jesus died to make that possible.

God did not see Moses as a hot-tempered murderer, but as an iconic deliverer (see Exodus 2:11-12 and Exodus 3-4).

God did not see Gideon as a hiding coward, but as a mighty man of valor (see Judges 6:11-16).

God did not see Paul as the chief of sinners, a persecutor of the church, but as His personally chosen instrument to bring the gospel to the Gentiles (see Acts 8:1-3, Acts 9:1-15, and 1 Timothy 1:15-16).

God does not see the wicked people in our life through the lens of the wickedness they do. If we believe this Christian life is truly learning to be more and more like Jesus, then we need to learn to see people like he does. And we do that by letting them out of the bad guy chair.

The problem with putting people who hurt us in the bad guy chair is it puts us in the good guy chair. And we really do look good, sitting pretty in that good guy chair. It feels so justified. But there’s a problem. There’s a catch. The good guy chair has another name. A secret, hidden name. The victim chair. And you don’t want to sit there.

So here’s the deal. The only way out of the victim chair is by letting the other person out of the bad guy chair. And there’s only one way to do that. Forgiveness. I wrote a whole post on forgiveness here with two great lists – what it is and what it isn’t.

But suffice it to say here that forgiveness does not mean a lack of accountability, healthy boundaries, or consequences. If someone’s committed a crime against you, unless the Holy Spirit tells you differently, you have a spiritual responsibility to press charges in order to prevent future victims. And bringing that accountability also invites the person to deal with their own actions, and hopefully get healing for the root wounding that’s causing them.

God does not give us a bye on behavior. For example, although God saw Paul as his chosen instrument to bring the gospel to the Gentiles, when he appeared to Paul (then Saul), he said, “Why do you persecute me?” Jesus is like, “I want relationship with you. Here’s the awesomeness I’ve created you to be. But this stuff, your current behavior, acting out of the lies you believe, is in the way. Let’s deal with it together. Let me replace those foundational lies with my truth.” Jesus dealt with Paul’s stuff.

We are totally supposed to judge behavior as good or bad (see James 2:11, 1 Corinthians 5). But we are not supposed to judge people as good or bad (Matthew 7:1-2). That’s up to God alone. He doesn’t even trust the angels with that one (see Matthew 13:24-30).

So how do you forgive someone who’s done horrible wrong to you and is unrepentant? I had someone do something that was devastating to my family. We still are living in the fallout, and probably will for many years, if not permanently. This person is, as far as I know, unrepentant. I’ve never received an apology, let alone any attempt at restitution, and probably never will. My (fortunately few) dealings with them often display the same issues in this person’s life.

I had real trouble forgiving this person. Yes, I tried, I prayed the prayers and said the words. I wanted to forgive. But my heart was angry at the injustice of it all. So I got help. I got some inner healing prayer ministry. While the prayer minister was praying for me, I had a vivid vision of Jesus hanging on the cross. He asked me, “Have I hung here long enough to pay you back for the evil this person did to you? Or do you want me to hang here a little longer?” No condemnation in his voice, just an honest question.

I was undone. The dam burst and the tears could not be contained. I wept openly, letting all that pain of all that injustice go to Him on that cross. I’d always understood Jesus died for my sins against others and against him. But I’d never thought that he suffered and died for others sins against me. I answered him in my thoughts, “No Jesus, you don’t have to hang there any longer. It’s enough. What you’ve already done is enough.” And in that moment, really for the first time, I was able to forgive that person. I was able to release that person from what they owed me. The pain in my life they caused. The pain in my family’s life. The lack of even a simple apology. I don’t need it anymore. Jesus paid it all.

This whole good buy/bad guy thing really goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. This was the original choice we were given then and are still given every single day in every single situation and circumstance. The choice between the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. The choice to categorize people into good guys and bad guys, or to offer Jesus’ life to everyone, EVERYONE, independent of their actions.

So that’s my challenge to us today. Certainly don’t be the bad guy, but don’t be the good guy either. Be the Life Guy. Offer life to a sick, dying and hurting world, as you shine like stars in the heavens (see Philippians 2:15).

How about you? Have you let someone out of the bad guy chair? What difference did it make in your life? Has someone let you out of the bad guy chair? How did that change the relationship? Tell us in the comments. Your story will help others. And please share on social media (convenience buttons below) if you think this would help someone else.

I learned the concepts in this post, especially the good guy and bad guy chairs, from Rev. Jean Trainer of Dominion Counseling and Training Center, in Richmond, VA. Well worth a visit if you’re in the area. You’ll be glad you went.

The 3 Most Dangerous Communication Styles

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The concepts in this post come from Danny Silk’s book, Keep Your Love On: Connection, Communication, and Boundaries. This book has really rocked my world. I wish I’d read it 20 years ago. A short, easy read, it’s one of those books that you want to read every year. I cannot recommend it highly enough. You can get your own copy here. This is not an affiliate link, I get no commission or any other benefit if you click and buy. But you certainly will. It’ll transform your relationships!

What are the three most dangerous animals in the world? The ones we turn into when we communicate from a place of fear, because they damage or destroy our connection with other people. For many of us, we don’t even realize we’re doing it. Many of us grew up with families that communicated this way, and we think it’s normal. It’s all we know so it’s what we do.

But it’s not normal. It damages our connection with those we love. What if you knew there was another way to communicate? What if there was another option?

The premise of healthy communication is this:

“I cannot control another person. The only person I can control, on a good day, is myself.” – Danny Silk

The goals of healthy communication, then, are not to force or manipulate the other person into doing what we want. The goal of healthy communication is first and foremost to understand. Powerful people are not afraid of someone else’s point-of-view. They’re not afraid of someone’s disagreement. They are comfortable and bold being themselves, and they are not afraid to let others be themselves.

But when we get into fear, we start communicating from a motivation to get our needs met, instead of to understand. How many of these unhealthy communication styles have you used? I know I have used them all.

A disclaimer: The word-pictures describing these communication styles are simply to help us understand the intangible by making it a little more tangible. These caricatures describe how the person is behaving, not the person’s identity. We are not what we do.

Suppose the husband is driving too fast around a curvy, one-lane mountain road, too fast for the wife’s comfort at least. She has 4 choices of how to respond.

1) Unhealthy Aggressive Communication – The T-Rex

The T-Rex yells and screams. A big bully, the T-Rex uses intimidation to win the argument and get his or her way. Despite the volume and the bluster, the T-Rex really feels powerless and afraid. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t bully the other party. They don’t trust the other person to care about their need. Terrified their need won’t be met, they use intimidation to get their way. The message of a T-Rex communicator is, “I matter, you don’t matter.”

The wife in our example could choose to play the T-Rex and yell at her husband, using intimation and name-calling, “Slow down, you idiot! You’re going to get us killed! What kind of moron are you, driving like that!”

2) Unhealthy Passive Communication – The Goat

The goat is the opposite of the T-Rex. The goat is just as powerless and afraid of not getting his or her needs met, but instead of hiding that fear with bluster and blather like the T-Rex, the goat hides that fear with silence. Not saying anything at all. They would rather keep the peace then risk saying what they know needs to be said.

They misunderstand Bible verses about sacrifice and dying to self. They’re confused by Matthew 5:9, which reads, “Blessed are the peace makers,” not peace keepers.

The goat’s message through their communication is, “You matter, I don’t.” Counter-intuitively, goat’s and T-Rexes often end up in relationships together, because they both believe the T-Rex matters, and the goat does not. The goat sacrifices body parts (i.e., more and more of their identity) to the T-Rex to keep the peace.

“At the end of the day, the goat ceases to exist, and the T-Rex is still hungry.” – Danny Silk

A wife playing the goat in our example would just white-knuckle the drive, not saying anything. She’d swallow the fear, close her eyes, pray, whatever, anything but start the confrontation that needs to happen.

3) Unhealthy Passive-Aggressive Communication – The Chocolate-Covered Dragon (CCD)

This one is the most dangerous of all, because they look so good to everyone except the person in relationship with them. CCD’s look great on the outside. They’re chocolate after all. What’s not to like? But the other person is the only one who knows how they act in private, when the dragon comes out.

Chocolate Covered Dragons will have a great conversation with you. They’ll contribute, pretend to understand, and appear to agree whole-heartedly. But later, they won’t do anything they agreed to, denying ever making a commitment. They throw it all back on you for “misunderstanding” the conversation. You begin to wonder, “Did we really say that? Am I remembering right? Am I crazy?”

The truth is, no, you’re not crazy and, yes, you’re remembering correctly. The CCD is twisting the facts (and they know it) to manipulate getting their way.

The CCD feels powerless and terrified their needs won’t get met. But they don’t want to go all T-Rex because they know that makes them look bad. Keeping up appearances is very important to CCDs; they are terrified to let the real “me” show. So by lying and manipulation, they make you look bad to get their way and get their needs met.

The CCD’s message to the world through their communication style is, “I matter. You matter; no, not really.”

Back to our example. If the wife of our crazy driver chooses to communicate like a chocolate-covered dragon, she won’t say anything. The whole evening. There won’t be any harsh words, but they’ll be plenty of harsh non-verbal communication.

The husband picks up on it. “What’s wrong, honey?”

“Nothing.” But the atmosphere communicates daggers.

“Seriously, what’s the matter?”

“If you loved me, you would know.” And she makes him pay.

Or there’s another choice.

4) Healthy Assertive Communication – Royalty

The Bible says we are kings and queens (Proverbs 25:2, Romans 8: 17-37, Ephesians 1:18). So often we don’t act like who we really are. We need someone to teach us how to act like kings and queens. In Christian lingo, we call that “sanctification.”

Kings and queens are powerful. They know who they are, so they aren’t threatened by who someone else is. Being royalty, they have an abundance mindset, not a scarcity mindset. They aren’t threatened or jealous of someone else’s success or happiness. If I’m acting like royalty, then in our relationship, I get to be me and you get to be you.

Powerful people communicate assertively. They don’t either hide or bull-doze. They don’t say one thing while intending another. Their message to the world through their communication is, “I matter. You matter.” And they mean it. They live it. They can disagree with someone while still honoring them.

Instead of telling the other person what to do and feel, an assertive communicator talks about how they feel and what they need. They say things like, “I feel _____ when ____. I need to feel ____.” For example, our wife of the crazy driver, choosing to communicate assertively, might say something like this:

“When you drive like this, I feel scared, and my fear makes me angry. I need to feel safe. I need to feel like you’re protecting me, not threatening me.”

Then she trusts her husband to care about her needs more than his own adrenaline rush. Powerful people communicate how they feel and what they need by “asserting” it – stating it. They trust the other person to meet their needs, and allow them do to it on their own terms.

Regardless of how she communicates, our crazy-driver husband now has a choice. He can respond:

  • Like a powerless T-Rex bent on his own way, unable to meet the legitimate needs of another. “Hey, baby, don’t worry, I’ve never gotten into an accident and I know every inch of this road. When you get in the car with me, it’s all sit down, shut up, and hand on!”
  • Like a powerless goat, terrified of someone’s displeasure because they believe the lie they have to earn love. “I’m so sorry. I’ll never speed again. In fact, maybe you should drive. You’re a much better driver than I am.”
  • Like a powerless chocolate-covered dragon, unable to truly meet the needs of another, but coy enough to pretend to. “Oh, I’m sorry. Yeah, I was going too fast there, wasn’t I?” Then they slow down. But the speed creeps back up slowly. If the wife says something again, they act hurt and put-off, twisting it to make it the wife’s fault. “I am going slower! Why won’t you meet me half-way? There’s just no pleasing you!” Technically they didn’t lie, they are going slower. They’re going 59 instead of 60.
  • Like royalty, assertively. “Oh, does that bother you? I’m sorry. I want you to feel safe. Of course I’ll slow down.” And they slow down and keep it down.

But what do you do when you’re doing your best to be assertive, and are constantly met by a T-Rex, goat, or chocolate-covered dragon? How does a healthy assertive communicator respond to these unhealthy communication styles?

How to Assertively Respond to an Aggressive T-Rex

Royalty does not tolerate being bullied. They simply do not accept such treatment. They freely give respect to others, and they expect to receive it. Here are some practical ideas.

Meet them in a public place, like a coffee shop or fast-food, where you pay upfront. In public, there’s social pressure on them to not start yelling. And because you paid up front, you don’t have a check to pay holding you there. You can get up and leave if necessary.

After an unheeded warning (just one), say something like, “I want to talk with you about this, I want to spend time with you, but you cannot talk to me like that. We can try this again whenever you’re ready. Let me know.” Then get up and leave.

Here are some other examples.

  • “I want to talk about this with you, but when you yell and scream I feel disrespected, and I need to feel valued. We can continue this conversation when you’re ready to treat me respectfully.” Then walk out of the room and close (not slam) the door.
  • If you are physically abused, or your spouse is breaking things, call the police. Every time. Royalty does not tolerate disrespect.

How to Assertively Respond to a Passive Goat

Ask questions. Wait for their answer. Get comfortable with uncomfortable silence. Don’t break it, wait for them. Empower them with the question, “What are you going to do?” In extreme cases, you may have to say, “I really value your opinion. I want to understand how you feel about this. I need you to take responsibility for expressing how you feel. Will you share with me?”

You’re inviting them into a place of real intimacy, of being truly valued and loved.

How to Assertively Respond to a Passive-Aggressive Chocolate-Covered Dragon (CCD)

This one can be the hardest because no one else gets it. You’ll have to be prepared to accept only you and Jesus knowing you’re not crazy. Often, writing things down during a conversation with a CCD can help tremendously, because then they can’t twist it and cast doubt on your memory.

The big thing to communicate to a CCD is, “I really want to hear your heart. So let’s table this until you’re ready to tell me what’s really going on.”

How about you?

The reason understanding is the #1 goal in communication is because our ultimate goal is creating a healthy connection with the other person. This does not mean we never disagree or become the goat! On the contrary, it means we disagree whenever we need to. But we do it respectfully, whether the other person does or not.

Guarding our connection means confrontation, not appeasement. I talked about confrontation skills in this post based on a Danny Silk video. The link to that video is in the post (again, not an affiliate link).

Does this resonate with you? Tell us in the comments how you or someone else communicated assertively and it made all the difference. And please share if you think this would bless someone else.