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How to Move from Scarcity to Abundance

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Janet and I were at a local restaurant recently. The waiter wasn’t complaining, but it’d been a really lousy Sunday. He was struggling with some things in his personal life, his customers had been grouchy, and he really needed the money he didn’t get it in tips that day. It was his worst shift ever.

It’s well-known in the restaurant business that the Sunday after-church crowd is the stingiest and most demanding crowd of the week. Ask any waiter or waitress you know. These are largely Christians going out after church, still dressed in their Sunday best. We are the most demanding customers and the worst tippers.

This breaks my heart. We give a false testimony of the Kingdom of God when we act like this. We should be the most generous people on the planet, not the stingiest. We should be the most easy-going customers, not the most demanding. Servers should be fighting for the Sunday afternoon shift instead of dreading it.

After the waiter took our order and left the table, Janet and I decided we wanted to make his day. We wanted to bless him. We wanted to turn his day around and make it his best shift ever. So after our $30 meal, we left him a $100 tip. And it hurt financially. I can’t afford to be doing that all the time. But it felt really good because we obeyed the Holy Spirit.

The next time we went in that restaurant, he ran over to our table. He shared his life with us and we had his ear. We told him about the hope Jesus wants to bring to his life. That was $100 well spent.

We’ve actually done this twice. The other time the waiter chased us out into the parking lot to let us know we made a mistake. When we told him it wasn’t a mistake, he was blown away. That was really fun. That waiter also had had a really depressing shift, and we were his last patrons of the evening, and we really made his day.

I’m not patting ourselves on the back here. But I am consciously trying to be more generous with my tipping as a general rule. As royalty, as sons and daughters of the King of kings and the Lord of lords, who has infinite resources, shouldn’t we be the most generous people on the planet?

A standard tip is 18%. I’ve typically tipped 20%, not because I’m being generous, but because 20% is easier to calculate. I can calculate 10% in my head, just shift the decimal point, and then double it for 20%. Easy. And I feel good about myself because it’s more than 18%. The Holy Spirit has shown me recently that it’s all been about my convenience and feeling good about myself, not about blessing the server. So I’m upping my standard tip to 30% to overtly bless the server. Honestly, it hurts. But being more like Jesus is worth it.

What about when you get lousy service and they don’t deserve it? Tip them more. You’ve got the awesome opportunity to demonstrate the unconditional love of God. Think about it. Which is more likely to portray Jesus in a good light:

Option A: When our service is really lousy, make a point and a political statement by leaving a 1 penny tip. (Confession time: I’m not proud of it, but I’ve actually done this. I justified it by thinking if they don’t know something’s wrong, they can’t correct it. So I was really serving them by holding them accountable. Boy, they were sure lucky to have me as a patron that night! Not! Who did I think I was fooling? It may have been myself, but it sure wasn’t the Holy Spirit.)

Option B: Saying to them, “I can tell you’ve had a rough night tonight, so we left you a little extra, because God is for you and wants to bless you.” And then leaving them a lot extra.

Flip it around. Think of the equivalent situation on your job. You screw up. How do you want your employer and co-workers to respond to you? Which one of us doesn’t want something similar to Option B? Then we need to be Option B to the rest of the world. That’s being salt and light.

Generosity is a trademark of the Kingdom of God. It’s the easiest form of evangelism. You don’t have to knock on doors, just leave big tips. If we can bless people into the Kingdom of God, can you think of a better use for money? I can’t.

Bringing someone into the Kingdom is giving Jesus the reward for his suffering. Whoa! That’s a mind blow. So we’re using a temporal resource and reaping an eternal reward. Talk about return on investment!

The opposite of generosity is hoarding. Hoarding comes from a scarcity mindset. “There’s not enough to go around, so I need to protect what I have!” But the Kingdom mindset is one of abundance. We have plenty to share, even if we can’t see it all yet. We know our God will make more. Look what Jesus did with the loaves and fishes, feeding thousands with a small boy’s lunch. This is such an important concept all 4 gospels cover it (Matthew 14, Mark 16, Luke 9, and John 6).

We problem is, when we get saved, we bring our worldly scarcity mindset with us into the Kingdom. Actually, it’s not a problem, it’s natural. We all do it. It’s so ingrained in us we take it for granted and don’t even realize there’s another way to live. The problem is when we hang on to that mindset and refuse to be teachable. That’s a problem. The trick is to replace the scarcity mindset with an abundance mindset.

The best way is just start giving. As both spiritual and physical beings, what we do with our body affects our spirit. So it’s ok to start being generous even if our heart’s not in it yet. One of two things will happen:

  1. Our heart will follow along shortly once we get the hang of it and start to experience the abundance of God’s provision when we’re generous. It’s fun to try and out-give God. It’s a game that’s really awesome to lose!
  2. God will reveal our wounding. Maybe that scarcity mindset is rooted in something deeper. Maybe we have foundational lies God wants to deal with. Maybe we internally believe lies we don’t even know are there but are blocking the abundance of the Kingdom of God in our lives. God wants to heal those areas by replacing the lies with his truth.

The cool thing is, generosity is a way we can overtly practice and show our Christianity without offending anyone! Believe me, even the most hardened atheist won’t be offended if you give him money. When we’re generous, it gets people’s attention, because we’re doing something they can’t. And we’re joyful about it! Radical giving is actually really fun. We’re showing people something outside their normal paradigm and it rocks their world.

What are some practical ways we can be generous? Here’s some ideas I’ve experienced.

  • Leave big tips. However much you normally tip, up it by 10% for 30 days and see what happens. Who’s up for the 30-Day Tip Challenge?
  • The car ahead of me paid my toll once on the interstate (before EZ Pass). It was only 75 cents, but it felt really good! After that, I often paid the toll for several cars behind me.
  • A local Christian radio station in our area frequently has a campaign where they encourage people in the drive-through lane at fast-food places to pay the bill of the car behind them. Brilliant!
  • A church I was at did free car washes. People were blown away. “Why are you doing this?” they would ask. “Just to bless you.” That’s it. No tract, no hype, no hard-sell. A lot of people came to our church through that, and we weren’t even trying. It hurt giving up a Saturday, but it was fun because the Holy Spirit loved it.

I’m sure you can think of many other practical ways to be generous. Post them in the comments! And please share this post on social media if you think it would help someone else.

3 Conversations We as the Church Need to Have

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Church is the place where we come together as a people and celebrate all that God has done for us. Yes, we celebrate our salvation, but the cross was meant to be the beginning of our freedom. God has done miraculous things in all of our lives and continues to do so. Janet and I have received tremendous healing from the Lord, and we know many others who have as well. I bet you have, too. It makes sense to find a lot of happy, joyful people in church. As it should be.

But we shouldn’t only find happy, joyful people in church and, truth be told, none of us are happy and joyful all the time. Janet and I still have significant pain in our lives, and I bet you do, too.

Yes, our joy is rooted in who Jesus is, so it’s deeper than our circumstances. Yes, he imparts supernatural joy in the middle of horrendous circumstances. I’ve experienced his peace in the midst of tremendous pain, in circumstances that should’ve been anything but peaceful. But sometimes he doesn’t bring joy. Not always; not all the time. You can’t box him in or predict what he’s going to do.

What do you do when you pray, when you worship, when you read your Bible, when you’ve done everything right, and you still feel depressed? What if you still have lustful thoughts? Even suicidal thoughts? What if you still feel the pull toward the old addiction?

We shouldn’t feel like we have to pretend we’re happy and joyful when we’re not. We all continue to go through tough stuff. Jesus promised us we’d have trouble as long as we’re in this fallen world (see John 16:33).

What happens all too often is we sit in church thinking, “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I be full of joy like all these people all around me? Just look at all these happy people entering into God’s presence. Why does God come through for everyone else but not for me?”

Want in on the big secret? Many, many other people in the room are thinking the exact same thing. And we probably all have thought that at some point.

What if you’re grieving a loss in your life? Maybe a loved one? Even if they’re saved, it’s never easy. What about a child? What about a marriage? A job loss? A home?

What if you’re caught in a mess of your own making? What if your addiction is crashing your life? What if you’re in a crisis pregnancy? What if you’re going to go to jail, maybe a DUI, shoplifting, drugs, or domestic abuse?

If you can’t go to church when you’re in crisis, where can you go?

Some churches are not safe places to be when you’re hurting. They question your faith if you show any signs of human frailty.

There are conversations we as the church need to have that we’re not having. Let’s go there.

1) Depression

Why are some chemical imbalances acceptable in the church today while others are not? No one would tell a diabetic not to take their insulin. But do we look down on people who need medication for depression as “unspiritual”? Why do we expect God to heal depression but not diabetes?

Everyone is different. We can’t fit people into formulas. Sometimes depression needs counseling, inner healing, and/or deliverance to address the root causes. But what about the people who do all that and still feel suicidal? More counseling? Maybe, maybe not. What’s God doing in that person? Sometimes the person needs medication to be leveled out enough to receive inner healing or deliverance. Sometimes it’s a legitimate chemical imbalance just like diabetes.

I’m not that person and I can’t tell the difference, so who am I to judge? I think I’ll leave that one up to God, and just be their friend, brother in Christ, and let them know how loved they are.

The sticky wicket comes when our method of choice, be it counseling, inner healing, deliverance, or what have you, doesn’t work. Do we blame the person? You don’t have enough faith! You just need to embrace your healing! How dare you break my perfect formula! That’s an injustice that needs to stop. When things that should work don’t work, it just means God’s not done and wants to do something even better in the person. We need to encourage them, not shame them.

We need to have this conversation. How do we act around people who suffer from depression?

2) Post-Abortive

One in three women has had an abortion. Of those, 70% identify as regular church attenders. Janet and I volunteer at our local crisis pregnancy center here in Fredericksburg, VA. The ones that break our heart the most are the ones who say, “Yes, I’m pro-life, but I have to get an abortion because I can’t tell my church.” The shame is too great. This is an injustice that needs to stop.

And it’s not just a women’s issue. Do the math. One in three men has fathered an aborted child. Abortion cuts to the heart of a man’s identity as protector just like it does the heart of woman’s identity as nurturer.

Is it possible that our judgmental attitude and lack of acceptance of girls in crisis pregnancies, especially our own, is what’s funding Planned Parenthood more than Congress? Are we the ones keeping them in business with our shaming and religiosity?

We need to have this conversation. How do we act around unmarried, pregnant young women? How do we act around post-abortive people? Is it safe for people in your church to admit they’ve had an abortion? How would you react?

3) Sexual Purity

Our girls in our churches are getting pregnant with our boys in our churches because we’re not talking about sex in our churches. Sex is part of life, and we should be talking about it in church regularly, from the pulpit, not just in Youth Group. Our silence is letting the media teach our teens and young adults about sex. They’re getting a very skewed, unhealthy, lying, but very slick, deceptive and appealing, message.

“Silence does not interpret itself.” – Father Frank Pravone, Priests for Life

We need to have this conversation. How do we act around teens and talk about sex?

Are You Willing?

… to have the hard conversation?

… to have the uncomfortable conversation?

… to be friends with that person?

… to let those people in your church?

… to admit that we don’t have our act together all the time?

… to come clean about our own doubts and fears?

… to, in vulnerability, be Jesus to the ones who need him the most?

Who knows, if we as the church are willing to do that, we just might find ourselves changing the world.

Please share this post on social media if you agree with starting this conversation.

How to be a Coach Not a Rescuer, and How to Tell the Difference

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As Christians, we all want to be helpful. We’ve experienced the blessing of sacrificing for another person. Unlike the world, most Christians I know really aren’t in it for themselves. We genuinely care about the communities we’re a part of, and we’re willing to sacrifice if it will contribute to the greater good.

We long to be like Jesus. That whole cross thing was pretty helpful, saving the world and all. It sure changed my life, as well as the entire trajectory of the world.

So while we all want to be helpful, it turns out there’s a good helpful and a bad helpful. It can be hard to tell the difference sometimes because often they look exactly the same, from the outside at least. But the inner motivation is different, and over time you can see the fruit on the outside also. 

The Bad Helpful — Rescuers

Rescuers have to be helpful. Of course being helpful is good in and of itself, but with rescuers there is something else going on. Rescuers get their value from helping. That’s why they have to. It’s really not about the person they’re helping at all. It’s all about the rescuer and how it makes them feel.

And actually, there’s even something deeper going on — the inner heart motivation. Rescuers are driven by fear. While looking great on the outside, they’re actually terrified of becoming a victim. “If I’m rescuing a victim, I must not be one, right?”

At first, the rescuer and the victim are thrilled to have found each other. The victim feels safe that someone is finally helping them. And we, as the rescuer, feel all good and warm and fuzzy inside; we feel valued. Nothing wrong with that, per se. But it goes off the rails as soon as the rescuer actually expects something of the victim.

The solution to every problem in life requires us, at some level, to tell ourselves “no.”

The victim is unwilling to tell themselves “no,” at least not the “no” that would lead out of the problem. They’re unwilling to give up the lifestyle or the addiction or whatever is causing the problem. They just want the pain to go away. 

So when we, as the rescuer, require something of them, they turn on us. “Hey, I thought you were supposed to be helping me!” We’ve suddenly become the new persecutor, and the poor victim searches for a new rescuer.

Meanwhile, we, playing the misunderstood rescuer, feel frustrated that all our good advice is going to waste. “I only wanted to help!” We feel devalued because we got emotionally attached to the solution. Since we’re getting our value from solving their problem, when our solution gets rejected, so do we.

Acting as rescuers, our worst comes out. We control and manipulate to force our advice and help into being accepted, because our value is on the line. 

This sounds strange, but when we pop into rescuer mode, we’re actually giving away our power over our own life. Because our value is now in the hands of someone else accepting or rejecting our advice. So when our advice is rejected, it’s off to find another victim to validate us by accepting our advice, letting us control their situation and solve their problem. 

The Good Helpful — Coaches

On the other hand, coaches are the good helpful. Unlike rescuers who have to be helpful, coaches are available to be helpful. 

While rescuers look at the landscape and seek poor victims who won’t make it without them, coaches don’t see victims at all. They see creators who have forgotten who they are. 

In the midst of the storm, people can feel pretty powerless, at the mercy of forces they can’t control. And while this world is full of forces one can’t control, in every situation one can still do something. Coaches restore people’s power with one, simple, empowering question: “What are you going to do?”

As a good coach, if the other person is open to it, we can still offer advice. But we always ask first. There’s no point trying to solve a problem the other person says they don’t have. 

But even when offering advice, coaches are not emotionally attached to the solution. When we’re in coach mode, we may feel disappointed our advice or help was rejected, but it doesn’t wreck us. We give the other person the freedom to reject our advice. 

After giving our best advice, we simply ask them again, “What are you going to do?” As a powerful person, it’s their choice. By giving them the freedom to choose without manipulation, we’re pulling them out of victimhood by restoring their power.

As coaches, our value is in who we are before Jesus, not whether our godly wisdom is accepted or not. Since our value isn’t on the line, we give the other person the freedom to reject our advice if they choose. We honor their choice, even if we know it’ll be bad for them in the long run. We accept that the Lord will walk them through learning that themselves, if they’re determined to go down that road.

Everyone has to live their own adventure.

It can really hurt to watch a loved one go down a dark path. But trying to rescue them won’t work, in the long term at least. You can’t force it. They have to live their own adventure. You can coach them, to the degree they choose to accept it. But working harder on their problem than they do is the definition of codependence, and it never ends well.

How to Tell if We Are Rescuing or Coaching 

Like most things in life, the difference between rescuers and coaches isn’t always black ‘n’ white. Often, we both play both roles at different times with different people. So how can we tell when we’re slipping into rescuer mode vs being a healthy coach? Here are 3 simple clues:

1) You’re owning the problem.

When you’re working harder on the other person’s problem than they are, you’re slipping into rescuer mode. It’s their problem, let them own it. That includes allowing them to deny the problem exists and live with the consequences, if they so choose.

This can be harder than it looks. When they’re in pain, people often don’t want to own their problem. They’d much rather give it to you. Then you’re responsible for the negative consequences of their choices. And they get the added entertainment bonus of watching you try to make them follow your advice. Good luck with that.

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. (Galatians 6:7)

When we take ownership of their problem and rescue people from the logical consequences of their choices, we’re actually interfering with God’s process of sowing of reaping. Don’t do that. 

Yes, we can help. I’m not saying we don’t have compassion and just let people drown in their messes. But we need to stay in a posture of helping them solve their problem, not solving it for them.

2) Where’s your value coming from?

Can you still feel good about yourself if the person doesn’t solve the problem? If you’re emotionally attached to the solution, you’re slipping into rescuer mode. 

I know this can be really hard when a loved one is screwing up their life. But we have to let them live their own adventure. When our value becomes dependent on the success or health of their life, we’ve become a rescuer.

3) Do the potential consequences of this problem scare you?

If the person doesn’t solve the problem, have you failed? If your success as a parent (or spouse or mentor or friend or whatever) hangs in the balance, then you’re in rescuer mode. This is a sign you’re being driven by fear.

Let you be you and them be them. You can still be you and move forward even if they fail at being them. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, especially if they’re a loved one. There’s plenty of pain and loss to go around. But you’re not going to fix anything in the long run by being their rescuer, by being their savior. They already have one, and they need to deal with him.

Does this resonate?

Have you made the transition from rescuer to coach? Is God bringing up relationships where you’re more rescuing than coaching? Tell us your story and your thoughts in the comments. And please share this on social media if it would bless someone else.

5 Steps to Help Anyone with Anything

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We’ve probably all heard snippets of Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s first Christmas album, Christmas Eve and Other Stories, but do you know the theme of that album? If you buy the CD, there’s a story woven between the song lyrics. God sends his tiniest angel to Earth on Christmas Eve to bring back a token of what people do to honor the birth of God’s son. The angel weaves in and out of many people’s lives that Christmas Eve and brings back many tokens, but the upshot is the best honor of Christ’s birth is the wish of one heart for the good of another. That’s all. Simple. Honest. No strings attached. No hidden agenda.

I really believe, by and large, the church is like that. We all want to help people. We really do. It’s been my experience (mostly), that people who really love Jesus, when you strip away all the pain and all the confusion and the deception and the fear they may be living in, really do want the good of the other person.

The problem is, we don’t know how. We haven’t been trained how to really help someone. So we default to the ways of the world, rules and control. So often the church is about sin management instead of practicing the presence of Jesus.

We often try to control people’s behavior with fear of punishment instead of training people how to steward freedom powerfully. God created us to be powerful stewards of the freedom Jesus bought for us on the cross, not powerlessly victims of circumstances, bound by the sin of ourselves and others.

I came across this video from Danny Silk, about how to help someone with a problem. This is the best instruction I’ve ever seen on helping someone solve a problem. And it’ll work for pretty much anything. It’s about 20 minutes, but so well worth it! I’ll summarize it for you in the rest of this post.

When people are stuck, they feel powerless. The beauty of Danny Silk’s method is it restores a person’s power. And it does so by asking questions. As you’ll see, everything’s done with questions. You don’t tell the person anything. You just ask questions. Ready to dive in? Here we go.

Step 1: Empathy – How Do They Feel?

This is where we build trust. We listen to the person’s story. We’re not looking for what they did wrong or what they need to do right. We’re looking for how they feel. And we parrot it back to them as a question. Does that make you feel betrayed? Or maybe, Did that make you angry? Or even something as generic as, Wow, that hurts, doesn’t it?

The beauty of it is, you don’t even have to be right. If you guess wrong, don’t worry, they’ll correct you. In trying to understand how they feel, whether we’re right or wrong, we communicate to them, “You matter. I’m trying to understand.” Everyone wants to be accepted and understood. They know we’re on their side. They can trust us. The walls come down.

Step 2: Empowerment – “What are you going to do?”

We have to realize this is their problem. We cannot solve another person’s problem. God created us all to be powerful people, taking ownership of, and responsibility for, our own problems.

Sometimes, when people are feeling stuck and powerless, they will try to get you to solve their problem. They often would love to get you in a parental role of telling them what to do, and then watch you try to make them do it. It’s then your fault when they don’t do it, and now it’s your problem, not theirs.

“What are you going to do?” is the most empowering question you can ask. It communicates clearly that there’s no confusion about who’s problem this is. And it reminds the person they’re powerful. They can do something.

Often though, they are still feeling powerless and overwhelmed, so they might answer, “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” And that leads perfectly into Step 3.

Step 3: Exploration – “What have you tried so far?”

This is another empowering question. It reminds them they have the power to do something. They may not be able to change their circumstances, but they have the power to choose how they respond.

You’re giving them value by expecting them to make choices and do things. You’ve taken it for granted that they’re powerful. And that rubs off, they begin to feel powerful again going through this with you. And you’re still trying to understand, which builds them up.

Step 4: Education – “Would you like to hear some ideas?”

Finally, we get to the step where we can recommend they take certain actions we think might be helpful. But we still don’t tell them do to anything. That’s not our place. Like Alex Trebek on Jeopardy!, we put our advice in the form of a question. For example, we don’t say, “You need to read this book.” Instead, we say, “Have you read this book?”

If we tell them what book they need to read, even if it’s true, we’re re-lapsing back into control. They will often immediately get defensive and tell you why it won’t work before they’ve even read it. But if you ask, they have all the power. You’re acknowledging it’s ok if they don’t read it. It’s just an idea; it’s their choice, with no pressure.

We don’t just start telling them what they need to hear, as tempting as that is, especially when we know we’re totally right. Instead, ask permission. “Can I share something that’s helped in my life?” Now you’re not preaching at them, they’ve asked for the information. You’re helping them feel powerful again. They can say, “Yes I want to hear” or “No I don’t”.

Step 5: Empowerment – “What are you going to do?”

Yeah, I know, we did this step already. But that’s the empowering thing about this process. We always come back to, “What are you going to do?” This is their problem, and they have the power to do something about it. We’ve put out effort understanding how they’re feeling, we’ve explored what’s worked in the past and what hasn’t, we’ve given them our ideas (if they’re open to it), and now it’s up to them, as a powerful person, to choose what they are going to do about their problem.

We can be part of the solution. We can ask, “Do you want me to help you by giving you a ride to the garage?” They take us up on it or not. Being powerful doesn’t mean they have to solve the problem all by themselves. But they need to drive the solution and own responsibility for the outcome, not blame somebody or something else.

Jesus So Did This.

This method really helped me understand why Jesus asked such seemingly stupid questions. I mean, for the Lord of all the Universe, there are times when he just seemed really dense.

Like when Jesus walks up to a blind guy and asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:46-52) Really Jesus? The guy’s blind, you have to ask?!? What did Jesus expect him to say? “Yeah, I’m blind and all, but really Jesus I was hoping you’d help me change the oil in my camel.”

Or how about when Jesus walks up to an invalid of 38 years at the pool of Bethesda, where all the sick people go to get well, and asks him, “Do you want to get well?” (John 5:1-15). “No, Jesus, I’m just laying here by the pool working on my suntan. Can you flip me over? It’s time to do my back.”

The truth is, of course Jesus knew what these people needed. But he valued them as powerful people by letting them choose it. He didn’t try to control them and force them to accept what they needed. We need to do the same.

This sounds like tremendous fun to me. I love helping people. How about you? Are you game? Has someone done this for you? How have people either empowered you or controlled you into powerlessness? How did that make you feel? Tell us your story in the comments. And please share if this post would bless someone else.

How to Control Your Emotions

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It was every pastor’s nightmare. Pastor Jay was watching a marriage disintegrate before his very eyes in his office, like a slow-motion train wreck. He just stared at this couple he’d known for years and couldn’t believe his ears. Bob and Joan were both saying the same thing, “I just don’t love him/her anymore, Pastor. I can’t help how I feel. I’m just being honest.”

And there is it. One of the biggest lies in our culture. Did you catch it? “I can’t help how I feel.” That is a lie from the pit! The truth is, yes, we totally can change how we feel. We totally have control over our emotions. The sticky wicket is, we can’t control our emotions by trying to control our emotions. Dude, start making sense!

Ok, here’s the deal. If we try to control our emotions by willing them, that won’t work. We can’t force ourselves to feel or not feel something. At best, all we can do is deny and suppress them, but then we’re only fooling ourselves. At the end of the day, there’s no such thing as an unexpressed emotion. It may come out 20 years later, and it may come out sideways, but it’s coming out.

Yet we can totally control what we feel. But before we talk about how, we need to understand some key concepts about emotions.

Acknowledge the Negative Emotion

Emotions are the idiot lights on the dashboard of our lives. They tell us when something’s wrong, and we’d do well to pay attention to them.

Say the oil light comes on in your car. You have a choice. You can deal with the cause, or you can deal with the light. “Hey, I fixed it! I put a piece of electrical tape over that nasty little light. Now the dashboard looks all black. Problem solved!”

Um, really? How’s that going to work out for this person? I have a nagging feeling they’re going to find out the hard way their problem’s not solved. I just hope it’s not in the pouring rain, in the middle of the freeway, in rush hour! That’s a bad place to find out you’ve turned your engine into a boulder. That’s a bad place to find out saving that $30 on an oil change just cost you thousands of dollars in engine repair. And then we blame the car. Doh!

That’s what happens when we don’t pay attention to what we’re feeling. Except instead of days or weeks later like the oil light on a car, we often don’t find out we’ve turned our life into a boulder (or our marriage, or whatever other relationships) until years, if not decades, later. And then we blame the relationship. Doh!

We need to acknowledge the negative emotion we’re feeling, preferably (1) between us and God, and (2) with a trusted friend.

Don’t Serve the Emotion

The idiot lights on your dashboard, although very important, are not the steering wheel. Imagine if you only turned left when the oil light went on, and only turned right when the check engine light came on. Crash! Although the idiot lights shouldn’t be ignored, they can’t drive the car.

If you let your emotions drive the car of your life, you’ll crash, usually rather spectacularly. We all know people who live with no thought for future consequences, driven into doing whatever self-destructive behavior will mask the pain for just one more precious moment. It’s God’s grace in their lives when such a lifestyle can’t be sustained for long.

You can’t change a negative emotion by focusing on it. We become what we behold, so all that’ll do is make the negative emotion stronger. So although we need to acknowledge it and admit it, we don’t want to dwell on it. We need to change it.

“I know, I know! That’s why I’m reading your post! How do I change my negative emotions?”

I’m glad you asked.

How to Change the Emotion –This Is the Key

Pastor Jay had a revelation for Bob and Joan. He said, “You know, when you called me about needing to meet, I’d had a really tough morning. My computer crashed, losing all my sermon notes for Sunday. My secretary’s out sick, the oil light’s on in my wife’s car, and I’ve got a really full schedule this week. I did not want to meet with you guys today. I felt no compassion for either of you. Just saying. I can’t help how I feel. I’m just being honest.”

Bob and Joan just stared at each other. They couldn’t believe their ears. After all, as their pastor, they paid him to be at their beck and call, didn’t they? They each threw $20 in the plate every Sunday, so they knew he had money. “A pastor isn’t supposed to say things like that!” they finally both yelled at him in unison.

“Neither is a husband. Neither is a wife,” Pastor Jay quietly answered them back. “Hmm. Didn’t my honesty comfort you?” he asked them in mock surprise. “Weren’t you impressed by my ‘integrity’,” he made figure quotes, “by being so honest?”

“No,” they both said. “It really hurts that you would say something like that!”

“That’s the hurt your ‘honestly’,” more figure quotes, “just caused each other.” And for the first time, Bob and Joan began to think about how the other person was feeling.

Then Pastor Jay began to unwrap the onion and teach them how to feel the love again. They had a lot of problems in their relationship, mostly stemming from their own unaddressed personal wounding, and Pastor Jay helped them unpack all of that over the coming year. But today, he gave them a good start. He taught them how to control and change, not suppress nor serve, their emotions.

“Had I not told you, would you have known I’d felt negative about you earlier?” Pastor Jay asked.

“No, we felt the warmth of your compassion for us as soon as we walked in the room!” they both answered, still shell-socked by his admission.

“I started getting God’s heart for you both after I agreed to meet with you,” Pastor Jay explained. “I realized this was serious, and I felt the Holy Spirit prompting me to clear my schedule and make room for this meeting. I spent some serious time praying and interceding for you. As I did those things, I started to feel compassion for you. I started to get God’s heart for you. I changed my negative emotions toward you into positive ones by serving you.”

When you serve another person, the byproduct for you is good emotions toward that person.

“But they’ll take advantage of me!” they both objected simultaneously.

Pastor Jay knew neither of these two were narcissists. (When dealing with narcissists, Pastor Jay taught the other spouse how to set and keep healthy boundaries. He had to work with the other spouse because the narcissist usually stormed out of his office never to return when they realized he wanted to deal with their behavior instead of “fixing” their spouse.) But Pastor Jay correctly discerned that these two were each good-willed people, who each were still willing to change, if they believed it would matter.

So Pastor Jay just put it out there and asked them straight, “Do you want this marriage to work? Are you still in? Yes or no.”

Bob and Joan, one after the other, with tears in their eyes, said yes.

“Ok then,” Pastor Jay said. “Die to yourself and ask the Holy Spirit how to serve the other person. For this week, the other person gets a bye on their behavior. You just serve them. We’ll meet this time next week and you tell me how it’s going.”

This was not some quippy, magic-formula-fix for their marriage; that took a lot of hard work on both sides to bring healing to areas of personal wounding that had been festering a long time. But this was a good start. It at least took the gasoline away from the fire.

Bob and Joan began to have good feelings for each other again. Not because they were being served, but because they were serving the other person. It gave them a little more patience and grace for the other person, instead of just reacting. The Holy Spirit used their selfless service to convict the other person’s heart, much more effectively than any nagging, arguing, or “being right” could have done. And that made it easier for the other person to serve them, which made it easier to serve the other person. And around it went, the cycle spinning in their favor for a change.

This post isn’t about marriage. Kingdom of God principles work in all relationships—marriage, work, school, family, and friends, and even in church relationships. Imagine that! J

While we cannot directly control our emotions by willing them, we can totally control them, indirectly, by serving the other person. The byproduct is good emotions toward them for us. This is a Kingdom of God principle that God wove into the fabric of the universe.

Love is Not an Emotion

Love is a choice. When we choose to serve, we choose to love. And we are setting ourselves up to be great in the Kingdom of God. That why Jesus said,

The greatest among you will be your servant. (Matthew 23:11)

Again:

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. (Luke 6:38)

And again:

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45)

When we die to ourselves and serve, we partner with Jesus. So will you ask the Holy Spirit how you can serve that person who’s bugging the tar out of you today? In a way that’s meaningful to them? Ask the Holy Spirit. That’s a prayer he’ll answer quickly.

Does this resonate? Tell us how serving others has changed your world. And please share if this would bless others.

Photo by Kari Shea on Unsplash

Give Yourself the Gift of Not about You

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The Christmas rush. Do I have all the presents? All the food? Are all the decorations done? I hate the crowds, the lines, the traffic, because when I’m scampering to get my last-minute presents, they’re in the way of accomplishing my goal. I do commando shopping: get in, get the target, get out. My focus is on my objective. And that’s my problem. It’s all about me.

My best shopping trips are when I go into the store intentionally focused on making someone else’s day better. Determined to be Jesus to someone, I look for that grumpy face that’s forgotten it needs to smile. I have to be uber-intentional about it or it won’t happen. As an introvert, I can easily and happily slip in and slip out without talking to anyone and be quite happy about it. But I sense the Holy Spirit has a different agenda.

I’ve seen grumpy store clerks completely change their demeanor when I just said something nice to them that built them up, instead of tearing them down (2 Corinthians 10:8). I try to say something both empathic and complimentary. Like how hard it must be to be nice to inconsiderate shoppers all day, and what a good job they do at it. Like how they’re the unsung heroes of Christmas, and we really do appreciate them. Sometimes I apologize for taking them for granted.

It always gets me a smile. That’s become my new objective – to get a smile out of someone who looks stressed, to make someone else’s day. And that’s the best gift I buy for myself at the store – the gift of making it not about me. Best of all, it doesn’t cost me anything but a little intentionality.

I don’t think Jesus is frustrated by the crowds, the lines, or the traffic. But I don’t think about what Jesus thinks about often enough. I look at the crowds and see obstacles. He sees opportunities. He yearns to be with them, while I just want to avoid them. He has compassion on them because they are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36).

Yes, Christmas is about the Father giving us his son. Jesus came to give us his life for our salvation, so we could have abundant life (John 10:10). But that’s only the beginning. He also came to give us his heart so that life would be worth living, by serving others (that’s the “abundant” part).

So, when you run out in a panic to get that last-minute thing, celebrate Christmas’ abundance by going out of your way to make someone else’s day.

Does this resonate? Can you relate? Tell us your story in the comments. And please share on social media if you think this would make someone else’s day. Merry Christmas!

The Blessing of Suffering

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HeadShot Dave 100x100

Brother Yun, a severely persecuted house church pastor in China, was talking prayer requests with Western Christians. (His story is told in the phenomenal book, The Heavenly Man. Totally recommended reading!) They said they’d earnestly pray that the Lord would end their government’s persecution of Chinese Christians.

“On no, don’t pray that!” Brother Yun responded.

The Western Christians were shocked! “Why don’t you want us to pray for an end to your suffering?”

Brother Yun answered, “Because then we’d become complacent like the Western church. Pray instead that we can bear up under it in a way that honors our Lord Jesus.”

Wow, blows my mind. We in the West have no grid for that. But the Bible says to rejoice in our suffering:

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James, brother of Jesus, in James 1:2-4.

“We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and charter produces hope.” Paul, in Romans 5:3-4.

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Jesus, in Matthew 5:11-12.

What if, when we get to heaven, we see Jesus on his throne (see Revelation 4), the most beautiful being in all of existence. Then we get it! “Oh Jesus, you are so beautiful, now I get it! Now I’ll sacrifice for others! Now I’ll be happy to give up my creature comforts to help someone else in need! Now I understand!” But it’s too late. This is heaven. No one needs anything now. There’s nothing we can do to sacrifice for anyone else no matter how much we want to.

In the whole eternity of our existence, God has blessed us with a brief, very brief compared to eternity, 70-80 year window where we have the privilege of sacrificing for someone else, of meeting someone else’s needs at the expense of our own.

Angels never have the opportunity to do that. That’s a blessing God has only given to us. That’s hardly fair.

And it’s even more unfair than that. Our temporary sacrifices here bring us eternal rewards in heaven (see the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:31-46). God has stacked the deck in our favor.

It’s all about perspective, and where we have our eyes set.

When Brother Yun was being tortured in a Chinese prison with an electric cattle prod in his mouth, he had his eyes set on the prize, on Jesus himself. He endured horrific but temporary pain because he had his eyes set on eternity.

Even here in the First World, God blesses us with opportunities to suffer and sacrifice, to meet other people’s needs at the expense of our own. We discover who we really are when we’re willing to go outside ourselves and help others. That’s why it feels so fulfilling.

Have you had this experience? Have you ever begrudgingly helped someone, but afterwards you felt so good, feeling God’s smile, you wondered why it was such a hard decision? Tell us your experiences in finding yourself by helping others in the comments. And please, if you think this post would bless someone else, please share it on Facebook or your favorite social media channel.