Are You Afraid of Your Feelings?

July 16, 2013 by journeyintolight

I certainly have been. From my earliest days, I learned to avoid feelings that I did not want to feel. I escaped from feelings of depression and fear that way.

Later, when I studied engineering, my ability to ignore and repress my feelings helped me to be more objective. I commended myself for being able to make rational decisions untainted by emotions.

My ability to run from feelings also helped me as a young Christian. I was not as distracted as some in letting my feelings get in the way of depending on the truth.

So, what’s wrong with running from, repressing, and denying our feelings?

One big reason is that our feelings can be a window into our souls. They cannot always be trusted to tell us the truth about life, but they can be valuable in telling us the truth about ourselves.

For instance, David says in Psalm 27:13, “I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

He knew that if he felt despair, he may not be relying on the truth of God’s goodness. The feelings were a trigger to ask God to search his heart to see what was going on (Psalm 139:23-24). By ignoring his despair, he would also be ignoring putting off unbelief and putting on the truth (Ephesians 4:22-24).

Repressing our feelings can also hurt us physically and spiritually. I have personally suffered much physical pain that was the result of bottling up my emotions. I have had backaches, neck aches, hand aches, toothaches, and knee aches, largely caused by sitting on anger, hurt, or sadness.

We also give Satan an opportunity to create bitterness and hatred in our hearts when we repress our anger and fail to deal with it. “Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity” (Ephesians 4:26-27).

So, are you afraid of your feelings? Do you self-medicate with food, alcohol, and TV to dull your feelings? Do you keep busy all the time to escape from your feelings of guilt and emptiness?

I encourage you not to run from your feelings as much as possible. Face them in dependence on the Lord. Remember, “You can do all things through him who strengthens you” (Philippians 4:13).

May I suggest that you ask God to help you discern two or three strong feelings you have right now. Spend a minute experiencing each one. Then, talk to the Lord about what dependencies, beliefs, or other factors are triggering each of these strong feelings.

Finally, claim his promises to take away your fears, help you, and uphold you as you rely on him and his truth (Isaiah 41:10; Isaiah 26:3).

Posted in Feelings | 4 Comments »

Experiencing God Through Grandma’s House

July 13, 2013 by journeyintolight

“I was glad as I entered Grandma’s house. I began to relax as I realized that I was in a safe place. There was no “Evil Eyeball” roaming around ready to inflict pain on me. They were just real people who genuinely liked and respected me for who I really was. I felt relaxed because it was easy being me.

“So, I began to look inside myself at what I wanted to do. I felt safe when Grandma looked at me. I felt like she liked me and loved me and she always would, even if I was flawed. She didn’t stare, frown, poke at, threaten or push me. She just looked at me and smiled and enjoyed what she saw.

“She put no pressure on me. I felt it was okay to do whatever I wanted, as long as it was not really bad. She had few rules and trusted me enough not to even tell me what they were. She didn’t seem to be trying to make me different. I felt like she thought it was okay for me to be just who I was.”

These were excerpts from my journal entry dated January 14, 2010. I was on an extended retreat and recalling what it was like in my Grandma’s house as a child. I realized that God was using these memories and my imagination to teach me what it was like to live with him in a loving relationship.

God does not criticize. He does not condemn (Romans 8:1). Jesus has already taken the punishment for our sins and flaws. Instead, he tells us, “You are precious, you are honored, and I love you” (Isaiah 43:4).

Again, God does not punish us. He does not try to make us a different person from who he made us to be.

However, he does train us to be more like him in character. “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Hebrews 12:11). We need to be more like him to better experience his love and grace towards us (Ephesians 3:17-19).

God relates to us through eyes of love and grace. My Grandma’s love and grace towards me as a small child helped me to understand and experience God’s love and grace. This love and grace includes “bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, and enduring all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7).

Ask God to show you where he has given you an experience of his love and grace. Ask him to use your memories and imagination, and spend some time re-experiencing God’s love and grace towards you in that scene(s). Then, write in your journal what your thoughts and feelings were.

Posted in Imagination | 1 Comment »

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

July 10, 2013 by journeyintolight

A few years ago I was on a three-week retreat as part of my seminary training. As the time drew near to go home, I became very anxious.

As I wrestled with God one early morning, I  realized that much of my anxiety stemmed from the uncertainty of my future. What was I going to do when I graduated at the end of the year?

I was afraid of a future that I could not see. I was afraid of the dark. As I pleaded with God to give me the plan for the next five years, he refused. Instead, he said “I will lead you step-by-step into your future” (Proverbs 3:5-6).

I wanted the whole future plan. He wanted my daily dependence on him to show me the light of my future.

Not knowing where I am going more than a step at a time is hard for me. I cling to structure and to schedules. They help me feel secure. I easily become afraid of the dark.

I am also a planner and analyzer. I have been doing these things most of my life.  They help bring light to the dark. I like to know where I am going.

But God says, “Trust in Me with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5). “Are you serious, God? You mean follow you into the dark only knowing what my next step will be and a general idea of what direction I am heading?”

Yes, God wants to take us by the hand and lead us step-by-step in the future he has planned for us. “I will instruct and teach you in the way you should go” (Psalm 32:8).

He also wants an interactive love relationship with us. He wants to fellowship with us as we boldly follow his light into the darkness of the future. “But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another (1 John 1:7).

And He promises us a good future (Psalm 23; Psalm 27:13-14). He wants to give us “a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). He wants us to “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8).

But what do we do with the darkness all around? It’s scary! It’s frightening moving forward without being in control of where we are going. All we have to cling to is the truth that our leader is  “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6 NIV).

May this be enough for us to take the risk of following him step-by-step into the darkness. May we take the risk of counting on, “Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:6 NIV).

Posted in Faith | 6 Comments »

Never, Never, Never, Give Up

July 1, 2013 by journeyintolight

When I was in the Air Force in the 70’s, one of my duties was monitoring long-range missile tests. This involved translating coded radio messages of how the missile was performing as it traveled  thousands of miles across the Pacific.

The audience for my translations was several colonels who were in charge of various aspects of the design of the missiles.

One night, a particularly important launch was taking place. A key part of the test was whether or not secondary missiles would properly work. These were called deployments. There were 18 of them.

Several colonels were present as I began my translation of the coded radio messages. Things went well at first. I said, “Deployment 7, successful, Deployment 8, successful, Deployment 9, successful..”

However, somewhere around Deployment 11, I could not keep up with the coded messages and I lost track of what was happening.

I panicked! So, I started to make up what was happening. Forgetting there were only 18 deployments I said, “Deployment 17, successful, Deployment 18, successful, Deployment 19, successful…”

At this point, I was jolted by a loud noise coming from the colonel in charge slamming his notebook on the table. He looked angrily at my boss and said, “Turn that bumble machine off!”

Then, my boss glared at me. If looks could kill I would have been a dead man. He was so mad at me that he publicly chewed me out four times the next day.

However, I persevered. I knew that there was nothing I could do you to undo my boneheaded decision to fake it. I just kept on keeping on doing the other parts of my job as best I could.

And God honored it. I survived! Not only did I survive, but also I received an award for outstanding service a year later.

I could have chosen to give up. I could have quit trying to be successful. But God’s way is to persevere. “In hope against hope Abraham believed” (Romans 4:18). He believed and received the promise in spite of failure after failure to believe.

We need to persevere in our struggle to live the truth. It never comes easy in our struggle against sin. God does not want us to give up. He wants us to persevere (Hebrews 12:1-6).

Listen to Winston Churchill as he sought to inspire his country to persevere in World War II against overwhelming odds. He said,

”Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

His people did not give in and played a key role in beating Hitler. They persevered.

We cannot live a godly life without perseverance. “For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised” (Hebrews 10:36).

A friend of mine, who is a champion long distance runner, said that another runner approached him recently and said he was going to quit. He said he was going to quit because it hurt to run.

My friend said to him, “Hurt! I always hurt when I run. I have learned to run anyway!” He had learned to persevere.

God likens the Christian life to a long distance race. He says, “Lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin that so easily entangles you and run with endurance the race that is set before you” (Hebrews 12:1). God wants us to persevere in our struggle to live the truth.

The good news is that God will give us perseverance as we persevere (Romans 15:5). As we cooperate by persevering, he performs the miracle of changing us into a more persevering person.

  • Ask God to show you a truth that he wants you to persevere in living.
  • Ask him what he wants you to do to cooperate with him as he enables you to live this truth.

Posted in Perseverance | Leave a Comment »

The Search for Significance

June 24, 2013 by journeyintolight

I am currently involved in mentoring a small group of medical students. It is part of a program to help them to integrate their faith into their future medical practice. The curriculum we use for the mentoring portion is the book, The Search for Significance.

Why would we use this book? Why is it important for medical students to know where their significance comes from? Why would over two million people have read this book?

Medical students, like us all, need to feel significant. God made us this way. The problem is that most of us search in all the wrong places for significance.

We often believe that we are significant if we are strong, a high achiever, or approved of by the powerful. However, we never seem strong enough, or achieve enough, or approved of enough to be satisfied that we are significant (Proverbs 27:20).

God says, that these ways are “broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13). These are false ways to becoming significant. They do not satisfy because they are not God’s way to be significant.

God’s way is for us to live in the reality that we are already significant! We do not need to search for it! “You are precious, you are honored, and I love you” God tells us in Isaiah 43:4.

But we say to ourselves, ”This is crazy! This doesn’t make sense! This is not how my life works!”

Of course our life doesn’t work this way. “For My ways are higher than your ways,” says God (Isaiah 55:9). His way is to give us significance as a gift for being his child.

However, we have been trained to earn significance. Medical students in particular have been trained to earn significance through their achievements and the approval of society. “Who needs God to be significant?” they may say to themselves.

So, how can we find significance God’s way? How can we call off the search for it? How can we learn to accept our weaknesses, the disapproval from others, and failure to achieve our goals and still regard ourselves as significant?

Keep in mind it is a journey of a thousand miles. But it does begin with one or two steps. Let me suggest a couple of them.

First, buy and read the book, The Search for Significance.

Then, ask God to help you to recall any incident during the day where you felt insignificant. Imagine yourself back in each of those scenes and thank him for his gift of significance to you.

Posted in Worth | 4 Comments »

The Miracle of Change

June 13, 2013 by journeyintolight

I am excited! God has changed me- for the good!

Let me explain.

There are so many commands in the Bible that are just impossible to obey without becoming a different person. One of these is to forgive others as God has forgiven you (Ephesians 4:32).

I knew that not forgiving others would eat me alive. Not forgiving would cause me to struggle with bitterness and living close to God.

Yet, I wanted revenge for the actions committed by someone who had wronged me. Forgiving was far from what I wanted to do. As a result, I sensed I had to become a different person to forgive.

So, I began to pray daily that God would give me his love and forgiveness for this person. I also reflected on how much I needed God to relate to me in his love and forgiveness.

Then, the other day I unexpectantly met this person for the first time in several months. I was surprised to find that I had no bitterness towards him. Instead, I was glad to see him and felt God’s love and compassion for him.

This was definitely not the old me. This was a new me created by a work of God in my heart.

So, what can we learn from this example?

One teaching is that we cannot live the Christian life by staying the same and trying harder. Improved behavior without change inwardly is being a hypocrite.  “You are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside are full of dead men’s bones” (Matthew 23:27).

Another teaching is perseverance. We cannot just listen to truth and expect that God is going to do all the work to enable us to live that truth.

My growth in forgiveness was a process that required me to pray daily and to do a number of soul-searching exercises. God does the miracle of changing us but he does require us to persevere in cooperating with him.

A third teaching from this example is that God wants us to relate to others with mercy. He does not want us to demand justice for others.

I tend to want mercy for myself, but justice for others. But God says “bear with others, forgiving others who you have a complaint against, as I have forgiven you” (Colossians 3:13).

Who do you need to forgive? I encourage you to talk to God about what he wants you to do. He will give you the power to love and forgive this person as you persevere (Luke 8:15).

Posted in Spiritual Growth | Leave a Comment »

Facing the Truth

June 7, 2013 by journeyintolight

Facing the truth is scary business. It often hurts. So, we often run from truth by pretending that the truth is not the truth. We also try to kill the pain of truth through food, alcohol, and entertainment; we can also suppress the truth from our awareness.

But God wants us to face the truth, down to the core of our being. “You desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part, You will make me know wisdom” (Psalm 51:6).

But how?  How do we face and live painful truth about life and ourselves?

As Christians, we know that no matter how bad we have failed God still loves and accepts us (Romans 8:37-39). Many of us do not really believe this, but meditating on passages like Psalm 23, Psalm 91, Psalm 131, and Psalm 139 can help this truth percolate from our head to our heart.

This awareness that we will never be diminished in God’s eyes by facing the truth about us, gives us the power to face it.

For example, this week I faced a major shortcoming I had in my relationship with my wife. As I am seeking to deal with this shortcoming, it helps me to know that God still loves, accepts, and values me the same. I do not need to beat myself up over admitting this truth. I know I am a flawed but a loved person (Romans 5:8).

Another challenge to facing the truth is our life-long habits of repressing truth we do not like. We unconsciously do this. One thing that we can do to make conscious what is unconscious is to pay attention to our feelings.

Our feelings often are tied closely to what we really believe. By identifying how we feel about certain people, things, and events, we can begin to determine what we really believe about them. This can be shocking!

We then can take the lies that our feelings show we are depending on to God for his help. He will help us to face the truth about ourselves, so that we can live his truth. He wants us to quit hiding and running from the truth and instead, rely on it (Ephesians 4:22-24).

The hardest part of facing the truth is relying on the truth. Knowing the truth is not enough. Good news! God lavishly promises to give us the courage and wisdom to live it.

  • “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13)
  • “As your days are, so shall your strength be” (Deuteronomy 33:25)
  • “Do not fear, for I am with you… I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” (Isaiah 41:10)

So, we do not need to be terrified by the truth. We have what it takes to face it and live it.

Ask God what truth he wants you to face and his help in facing it. Ask him what he wants you to do to cooperate and then do as he leads. He will give you the power to live that truth!

Posted in Self- Knowledge | Leave a Comment »

Can You Handle the Truth? – Part 2

May 31, 2013 by journeyintolight

A reader wanted me to write more on “Can You Handle the Truth?”

Let me start with an example of how I have struggled to handle the truth. In recent years, I have often chosen to hide from myself the fact that I am balding in the back of my head. This deception makes me feel more worthwhile and acceptable.

However, my wife happened to take a picture of the back of my head recently. I was faced with a choice. Do I believe my feelings or God’s truth that my worth is based on being his son?

I chose to believe God’s truth, and thanked him that he would never reject me. I will never be diminished in any way by a failure to have hair.

I resist the truth that I am balding because my worth is still tied to looks deep within me. I am not handling the truth when I look to hair instead of God’s head-over-heals love for me for my worth. I am rejecting the truth that how much hair I have has nothing to do with my worth.

However, if we want a successful life, we must be committed to knowing and living truth.  “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). But as Pilate asked, “What is truth?”

One place to look for truth is the Bible. It is loaded with truth. In fact, any “truth” that conflicts with the Bible is not truth (John 17:17).

From the Bible we learn the truth of how God sees us. How he sees us is wonderfully different from how we often see ourselves. He is head-over-heals in love with us (Ephesians 3:18). Can you handle this truth?

Another important place to look for truth is in knowing ourselves. This helps us to know when we are not handling the truth. This helps me to know that I am putting too much importance on having hair.

So, why is truth so hard for us to handle? Why do many of us choose to live in darkness in so many areas of our lives?

One reason is that we came from darkness. We lived in this darkness until we accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior. Until we came into the light, we accepted many lies as truths. Even now, many of these lies still control us.

Also, we have been trained by our homes, schools, and the culture in general to live many lies. One big lie is that we can make it on our own. We do not need God for we can do a better job of making life work without him.

This training makes it difficult to handle the truth. When we are used to muscling our way through life making things happen, we will have a difficult time handling the truth that “apart from Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) This means that we can do nothing that will stand the test of time unless God leads the way (I Corinthians 3:10-15).

Ask God to show you a truth that you are finding difficult to handle. Why do you think that this truth is so difficult for you to handle?

Next week we will talk more about why it is important to handle the truth and how to do it.

Posted in Self- Knowledge | 1 Comment »

Do You Try To Make Things Happen?

May 25, 2013 by journeyintolight

Our culture teaches us to make things happen. Be a leader! Then we will become an important person.

But God does not want us to make things happen. He wants to make things happen. He wants us to cooperate with him in making things happen (Matthew 11:28-30).

Sometimes I have waited for God to make things happen. For instance, I waited for God to provide me with a wife. He finally made things happen when I was 31 by bringing into my life a wonderful Christian lady.

I cooperated with him by following his guidance and relying on his support during the courtship process. We just celebrated our 36th anniversary of a good marriage!

However, I have not always waited for God to make things happen. Several years ago I wanted to get promoted. I foolishly believed that I would be a more important person if I were promoted.

So, I took matters into my own hands and began adding responsibilities to my job in order to get my position upgraded. And I succeeded!

But I actually failed. I had so many responsibilities I could not keep control of the organization. I suffered through the humiliation of a demotion that left me in a lower position than when I started. I tried to make things happen without God and suffered for it.

God promises us that we can make anything happen that he wants to happen through his strength (Philippians 4:13). He also consoles us that we are already important and do not need to make things happen (Isaiah 43:4).

We are not the only ones who try to make things happen without God.

Abraham jumped the gun and did not wait for God to provide Isaac as the son that he promised. Instead, Abraham tried to make it happen by having Ismael first (Genesis 16).

As many of you know, Ismael became the father of the Arabic nations. Israel has been suffering ever since. There are consequences for not letting God make it happen.

Saul tried to make it happen too. He did not wait for Samuel to arrive and make the burnt offerings as commanded by God. Instead, he jumped to the gun and made the offerings himself. He lost the throne over that foolish decision (I Samuel 13).

So, why are we prone to try to make things happen? Why don’t we wait on the Lord and make things happen together?

It is not hard to understand why. We have been well trained to make things happen. Until God came into our lives, we were the only ones who could make things happen. This habit of making things happen without God still persists after we become Christians (Romans 7: 14-25). We often like it that way too for it appeals to our pride.

So, how can you stop trying to make things happen without God? What is one thing you can do today to grow more in your partnership with God in making things happen?

May I suggest that you ask God to show you one thing in your life today in which you are trying to make happen without his leadership. Ask him what you can do to cooperate with him. And then cooperate with him in making it happen!

Posted in Lordship | 1 Comment »

Do You Cling To Your Past?

May 18, 2013 by journeyintolight

Do you cling to your past? If you are honest with yourself, you will probably answer “yes.”

A person said to me recently, “I would rather face something known, no matter how many times it has beaten me.”  In his mind, he would rather face the hell he knows, rather than the hell he does not know.

How sad! How limiting! How true it is about us!

I see this tendency in me. In the last year, God has led me to another church home that is a much better fit for the direction that he has been taking me in.

But I want to cling to the church of my past.  I want to stay in the traditions, habits and memories of the past thirty-one years.

But God says, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62). He does not want us clinging to our churches of the past. Nor, does he want us clinging to our habits of the past.

God has called us to change. He wants us to stop clinging to the old ways and learn new ways (Ephesians 4:22-24). He wants us to be a disciple. He wants us to be a learner of his ways.

God wants to take us on an exciting adventure of change. “I am the Good Shepherd. Surely goodness and love will follow you all the days of your life” (Psalm 23). Following God is not hell. It is growing in the experience of his love and power.

Yet, we cling to the past. We do not want to take the chance. We cling to the lowlands instead of choosing to soar with the eagles.

Consequently, we fail to please God. “And without faith it is impossible to please him” (Hebrews 11:6). We fail to accept the fact that he will reward us for refusing to cling to the past. We fail to embrace the rewarding future he offers us.

Look what happened to Israel. They wanted to cling to the past. They refused to embrace the exciting and rewarding life God had for them in the Promised Land. They stayed in the lowlands and died (Numbers 14:26-30).

But what can we do to stop clinging to our past ways? How we can embrace the abundant life that God has for us (John 10:10)?

Fortunately, God does not require much from us to take us on this exciting and fulfilling adventure. We just need to take one step at a time in the direction that he is leading (Psalm 32:8).

As you struggle with letting go and letting God, talk to him about it. Even pour out your heart to him about how hard it is (Psalm 62:8).

Ask God to show you one thing from your past that you are clinging to. Give him that thing and ask him to replace it with something new.

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