Listen with LUV (A Healthy Communication Strategy)

by Steven Gledhill for Freedom from MEdom Project

Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.
James 1:19 (NLT)

Before beginning this discussion on healthy communication, it might be good to acknowledge that we all do not think alike. there are differences from one person to the next. In particular, there are differences between how men think and how women think. There are often times stark differences between the way in which men and women view their lives and the world. Mark Gungor has attempted with obvious humor to suggest this contrast from what he calls the Tale of Two Brains. Check this out:

Critical to our applied recovery is the skill of effective communication. One person communicating in a two-person conversation can do a lot to see to it that something is being communicated effectively by actually listening.

“Say what you mean; mean what you say; but don’t say it mean.” —Betty Murray, RN

What does that mean? Often times, particularly in the midst of confrontation, intended messages are not effectively communicated, resulting in misunderstood messages leading to hurt and angry feelings.

Through aeons of time misunderstood communication has evolved from hurt and resentment into broken relationships—from broken hearts to broken nations and split societies. It is essential that we learn how to listen to one another with what Carl Rogers referred to as unconditional positive regard, or better yet, what the Bible refers to as an attitude of grace from a heart of sincere love for our brother and sister,and even to our enemy.

What we tend not to do when communicating is listen well. We hear what we want to hear or what we don’t want to hear but expect to hear; or at the very least, hope to hear. We allow preconceived notions and scenarios to cloud and distort our reception of what is being communicated.

“Confrontation without love is hostility.” —Tony Evans

To communicate with others more effectively we would benefit by learning something about expressing empathy through more effective listening skills through something called active listening, and better yet, something referred to as reflective listening. Active reflective listening sets the stage for reflective responses geared to better understanding of what is being communicated. Better understanding of communication allows for, and encourages opportunity to validate the speaker.

The alternative to healthy functional communication is unhealthy dysfunctional communication. Interaction that is argumentative, judgmental, critical, and ultimately offensive is typically a lose-lose for the combatants… uh, uh… I mean people engaging in conversation.

The video below is a humorous look at active listening being taught in a classroom to parents.

Become an Active Listener

There are five key elements of active listening. They all help you ensure that you hear the other person, and that the other person knows you are hearing what they say.

Pay attention.
Give the speaker your undivided attention, and acknowledge the message. Recognize that non-verbal communication also “speaks” loudly.

• Look at the speaker directly.
• Put aside distracting thoughts (preconceived notions). Don’t mentally prepare a rebuttal!
• Avoid being distracted by environmental factors (turn the TV off, close the book).
• “Listen” to the speaker’s body language.
• Refrain from side conversations when listening in a group setting (referred to as subgrouping at the prison I work at).

Show that you are listening.
Use your own body language and gestures to convey your attention.

• Nod occasionally.
• Smile and use other facial expressions.
• Note your posture and make sure it is open and inviting.
• Encourage the speaker to continue with small verbal comments like yes, and uh huh.

Provide feedback.
Our personal filters, assumptions, judgments, and beliefs can distort what we hear. As a listener, your role is to understand what is being said. This may require you to reflect what is being said and ask questions.

• Reflect what has been said by paraphrasing. “What I’m hearing is…” and “Sounds like you are saying…” are great ways to reflect back.
• Ask questions to clarify certain points. “What do you mean when you say…” “Is this what you meant when you said…?”
• Summarize the speaker’s comments periodically.

Defer judgment.
Interrupting is a waste of time. It frustrates the speaker and limits full understanding of the message.

• Allow the speaker to finish.
• Don’t interrupt with counter arguments.

Respond Appropriately.
Active listening is a model for respect and understanding. You are gaining information and perspective. You add nothing by attacking the speaker or otherwise putting him or her down.

• Be candid, open, and honest in your response.
• Assert your opinions respectfully.
• Treat the other person as he or she would want to be treated.

Expressing Empathy through Reflective Listening

Let’s now define the word empathy and go from there:

The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

Empathy is such a popular term these days, but what exactly does it mean? What are you listening for in the effort to understand and validate the speaker? The truth is that we will not always understand what we are listening to while communicating, making it especially challenging to express empathy. Empathy has more to do with the intent to understand than it does the actual understanding. Counselors and doctors show empathy to their patients by way of statements and questions that reflect understanding. For example, it might go something like, “I understand that you’re concerned about what be going on with you, so it’s important to me that you tell me your symptoms.” All the doctor essentially said is, “You are concerned about your condition and you are important to me.” That is empathy for the patient, having validated the patient no matter how genuine.

As counselors, we often use an approach to empathy referred to as reflective listening. Through reflective listening is the opportunity to listen to, understand, and validate the other person and what they are saying and feeling. Dr. Gary Smalley referred to this effective communication strategy as “LUV talk”. Dr. Smalley spoke of comparing LUV talk to placing an order in a fast-food drive-through lane, that when faced with conflict you should listen carefully to what your mate says about his or her feelings and needs. Then, just like a fast-food worker, repeat back what you hear. This not only helps clarify that you understand, but it also validates and values your mate. Smalley says you don’t necessarily need to agree with your mate’s conclusions in order to understand his or her feelings and needs.

Reflective listening involves repeating back through reflective responses what the person has said in a way that communicates understanding of what is important to the person transmitting the message. Reflective listening involves really hearing and understanding what the speaker is saying through words and body language, and reflecting back feelings and thoughts you heard through your own words, tone-of-voice, body posture and gesture so that the other person knows he or she is understood. Reflective listening and responding requires physically and psychologically attending to the person you are listening to. Whether it is through physical touch, body posture and gestures, or intentionally attending to an active listening environment (i.e., turning the television off or setting the book down).

Other things to pay attention to has to do with following the listening with statements of permission such as:

• Would you like to talk about it?
• Can I help you with your concern (or problem)?
• Would it help to talk about it?
• Is something bothering you?
• You seem upset. Care to talk about it?
• Sometimes it helps to get it off your chest.
• Sometimes it helps to talk about it.

Suggestions for reflective statements in response to the person communicating with you might be:

• What I hear you saying is…
• The impression I get from what you said is…
• What I am hearing is that you appear to be… (i.e., concerned, angry, sad, unhappy, upset, content, satisfied, dissatisfied, confused, wondering, in agreement, misunderstood, etc. – must be accurate or you risk offending the other person)
• It sounds to me like…
• It’s possible that…
• I wonder if…
• I get the impression that…

Generally speaking, reflective responses and statements continue the give and take of effective purposeful conversation. Reflective questions can stimulate further conversation or they can stifle conversation if they appear to the other person to be judgmental and/or offensive, or mistakenly or clumsily become one-sided should one feel the need to inject misguided or misunderstood opinion. That would depend on one’s motivation for the discussion. There can be a tendency to “need” to be understood or validated to the point that even when the speaker is upset or hurting in some way that I respond to the hurting person in a way that suggests I have to be right because, of course, I am right. (That’s what I think.)

Transference and Countertransference

Transference: the phenomenon whereby we unconsciously transfer feelings and attitudes from a person or situation in the past on to a person or situation in the present. The process is at least partly inappropriate to the present.

Countertransference: the response that is elicited in the recipient (therapist) by the other’s (patient’s) unconscious transference communications; responses include both feelings and associated thoughts. When transference feelings are not an important part of the therapeutic relationship, there can obviously be no countertransference.

Typically, the only time transference and countertransference are discussed is in the context of therapeutic relationship between doctor or therapist and patient. I think you will find it interesting how these dynamics are made manifest in our communication with each other in all sorts of relationship; whether between spouses and mates, siblings, friends, professional relationships, and so on. I will not elaborate much on this. I will provide examples of how transference and countertransference might play out between my wife and I, and then how transference and countertransference are brought to life in what Eric Berne diagrammed concerning communication dysfunction.

It would be transference if I unconsciously project some psychological issue I have (i.e., I am experiencing anxiety and stress because of a difficult day at work) that affects and influences my responses to the person who is discussing with me their day, or perhaps an important concern of theirs. Transference directed by the speaker to the listener can provoke countertransference from the listener.

Example A
Let’s say I am talking with my wife, a registered nurse. She says, “It was hard for me to respond to a patient who received some bad news from the doctor about his condition.” I could respond by saying, “I am always impressed that you care deeply for the well-being of your patients.” She says, “My supervisor told me I care too much sometimes.” Then I say, “I understand that you are passionate about your job helping people to help themselves.” Then she replies, “I suppose I could pay closer attention to how I am perceived by those I work with.” I respond, “It is important that you are understood as a caring patient that recognizes her boundaries.” She replies, “That’s my intention… I feel better about it. Thanks.”

From that form of reflective listening and responses my wife arrived at her own solution to a dilemma she may have been wresting with outside of my knowing that she even had a dilemma. Even though the above was a fictitious example, I like the way I handled the situation. It’s too bad it was a script. Maybe one day my talks with my wife will actually work out like that one did.

Example B
But what if my listening is clouded because of my experience today? Let’s say that my day began with the news that a client I counsel who is locked up in prison was informed that his young son was killed in a car accident last night and I struggled to find the right words to say to him. I am still wrestling with feelings of inadequacy myself as my wife tells me about her day: “It was hard for me to respond to a patient who received some bad news from the doctor about his condition.” So in my feelings of inadequacy (my transference) I respond by saying this to my wife, “I know how important it is for your patients to see that you care, which might be difficult to show when you’re not sure what to say.” I might be right on the money with how I responded. It doesn’t matter! My statement to her was more a reflection of what I was feeling than what she was feeling.

Had I said, “I am touched that you care deeply for the well-being of your patients” she might have said, “Sometimes maybe I care too much, you know what I mean? How do you deal with that working at the prison when one of your guys gets bad news?” This isn’t a counseling session, it’s a discussion between a husband and his wife. So I say… and then I share my experience today.

Had I said, “I know how important it is for your patients to see that you care, which might be difficult to show your patients when you’re not sure what to say” she might have answered, “No, that’s not it… your psychobabble sounded good, though” and she picks up her book to read… end of discussion.

In the first scenario, even though I may have still had my day’s struggle on my mind, I kept my focus on listen, understanding and validating my wife’s message with my response. In the second scenario, it’s pretty clear that my attention was distracted and my response had a lot more to do with getting what I needed; validating me. It may have started out alright, but even the beginning of it was really me saying, “It is so important to me that my client believes I care, but I had nothing for him when he needed me to something to say that would somehow ease his pain.” That was my transference, redirecting my attention from my wife back on to me. In the first scenario is the beginning of quality interactive dialogue between us. In the second scenario, my “counselor-speak” could have offended her, sounding as though I judged her as not being able to communicate concern for her patients and freezing under the pressure to say something supportive. Really, all of that was my issue which I transferred onto her.

Example C
So how might countertransference play out in this example? My wife might say to me, “What a day… I’d tell you about it but I really don’t need to hear how I care too much about my patients.” The transference is that my wife has unconsciously transferred the feelings she had with her supervisor onto me. Then I reply to her, “Maybe you could benefit from praying that you will be better prepared to be effective helping your patients deal with the crisis of bad news.” The countertransference is my unconscious feelings of inadequacy helping my client in his crisis. Perhaps had I had quality prayer time in the morning instead of the quicky drive by prayer on my way into work, I would have been ready to better help my client. I projected my feelings into my response to my wife’s communication to me. I did listen to her but through the lens of my concerns and feelings of inadequacy today.

Parent, Adult, Child Communication

In the 1950s, Dr. Eric Berne began developing a theory concerning communication that he referred to as Transactional Analysis. By the early 1960s, Dr. Berne published a couple of books regarding his theory, including the rather famous “Games People Play” in 1964 that serves as the handbook for Transactional Analysis. Dr. Berne suggests that adults communicate from alter ego states, or personas, he called Parent, Adult, and Child.

PARENT:

The Parent persona is the underlying voice of authority conditioned by what we have been taught. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, teachers, clergy, Sunday School teachers, our friends’ parents, neighbors, television and radio personalities, government authority and law enforcement, doctors and nurses, social norms, etc., have instructed, shaped, and conditioned the values of the Parent persona all of our life. External events, said and done, have been ingrained into our psyche, having influenced how we think and feel, and now, as then, drive our attitudes and behavior.

The Parent persona tends to be critical and judgmental, and can be sarcastic, patronizing and condescending. The Parent persona is angry and resentful and can be spiteful and vengeful. The Parent persona wants its own way and is persistent in getting it.

When the Parent persona communicates, it is addressing the Child persona within the adult person the Parent is interacting with.

CHILD:

The Child persona is the underlying voice of experiences felt growing up from early childhood to adulthood. The experiences of external events that have shaped and conditioned the Child persona within each of us evoke feelings of anger, shame, failure, disappointment, rejection, helplessness, resentment, bitterness, isolation, alienation, etc. The Child persona is also influenced by experiences of entitlement, privilege, covetousness, envy and jealousy, selfish greed, etc. As the Child persona is affected by present circumstances and stimuli, the Child reaction is the expression of a lifetime’s evolution of feelings and learned responses that come back into play in adulthood.

The Child persona will react automatically when its senses are cued by the Parent persona that it is communicating with. The manifestation of the Child persona can be an attitude of rebellion and defiance, but can also come from the place of a victim. The Child persona is subject to psychological abuse.

The Child persona reacts to the communication of the Parent persona, but can also react to another person communicating from a Child persona. Spouses fighting can transition from Parent talking to Child, and Child reacting/responding to Parent, to Child exchanging fiery dialog with Child. As the verbal conflict heats up, escalating into something nasty and ugly, the health of communication, and ultimately relationship, deescalates, descending into something bitter and isolating.

ADULT:

The Adult persona in this process of interactive communication relies on reasonable thought. The Adult persona tends to remain rational and sensible while the Parent and Child personas trend toward irrationality, and their interaction is ineffectual and dysfunctional. Since the Adult is relatively healthy and functional, its interactive efforts to communicate are directed to the Adult persona internal to the other person, for the purpose of effective and productive interaction.

Transactional Analysis:

There are four transaction types in Dr. Berne’s Transactional Analysis model. There is Parent to Child transactions, Child to Parent transactions, Child to Child transactions, and finally, Adult to Adult transactions. Parent-Child, Child-Parent, and Child-Child transactions between adults can quite clearly be said to carry there share of transference and countertransference. Sadly, in the analysis of communication patterns, relationships tend to adopt these Parent and Child personas. One of my clients at the prison coined this idea of “psychological domination”. To dominate a person psychologically means that someone is being dominated. The person communicating from the parent persona has assumed the role of dominator, as harsh as that sounds. The person assuming the Child persona responding to the “Parent” is attempting to defend being dominated, trending toward a combative confrontational posture.

Here is an example of Parent-to-Child communication that breaks down even more into Child-to-Child interaction:

• Husband/Initiator: “How many times do I have to remind you not to put my softball jersey in the dryer?”
• Wife/Receiver: “I’m sorry, but I wasn’t paying attention.”
• Husband: “How many jerseys have you ruined this year? I’m going broke replacing them.”
• Wife: “I’ve got the kids laundry… your laundry… it’s too much!”
• Husband: “You’re so careless… I can’t believe you sometimes.”
• Wife: “If you weren’t so self-absorbed…”
• Husband: “You’re the one always complaining.”
• Wife: “Could you be more selfish? You’re impossible!”
• Husband: “You’re an idiot!”
• Wife: “You’re a fool!”

The transference of the speaker initiating communication will contribute to whether the speaker comes from the Parent or Child persona. Perhaps the initiating speaker felt bullied by parents, siblings, classmates, and so on. This person might assume the child persona as a kind of victim in meaningful relationships. Or, this person might seek to “dominate” in the Parent persona compensating for past victimizations, refusing to be dominated, taking the offensive from a self-perceived position of strength. The same can be said for the responder’s countertransference from either position. Initiators of interactive communication who may have been allowed to “dominate” growing up for whatever reason might be insistent in how they communicate from the Parent persona.

There are Child-Child interactions as well that are the result of transference issues that provoke dysfunctional communication patterns. Anything but healthy Adult-to-Adult interactions is ineffective and proves to be dysfunctional.

Here is an example of what began as Parent-to-Child interaction but when the respondent, in this case the wife, refuses to respond in the Child persona, the interaction converts into much healthier Adult-to-Adult communication:

• Husband: “How many times do I have to remind you not to put my softball jersey in the dryer?”
• Wife: “I hear that you’re angry. I’m sorry, I suppose I could have paid better attention.”
• Husband: “How many jerseys have you ruined this year? I’m going broke replacing them.”
• Wife: “I understand that you’re frustrated. I assure you that it was an accident; I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
• Husband: “I understand, too, that you have an awful lot of responsibility around here. I guess it isn’t so important that I tear you apart over it. You didn’t deserve that.”
• Wife: “Thanks for understanding. Do you think you could help me out with a few things I need so I can be more attentive to what you need?”
• Husband: “I know of a few of the things that are important that you need help with. Would you jot a few of the other things down for me?”
• Wife: “Sure, I appreciate your willingness to help.”
• Husband: “Thank you for being so patient with me.”
• Wife: “Because I love you… that’s marriage.”

Notice that the wife does not respond Child-to-Parent, but rather she responds Adult-to-Adult. The husband proceeded to address her Parent-to-Child, but she continued to use empathy in her Adult-to-Adult responses. Her use of empathy changed the tenor of the interaction as her husband’s anxiety was disarmed and his “better side” followed up with Adult-to-Adult responses. It is in the heat of the moment that Adult-Adult interaction is most challenging and difficult, but not at all impossible.

The Parent persona always directs communication to the Child persona. The Child persona always directs communication to the Parent persona, and the Adult persona always directs communication to the Adult persona, even if it is received by the Parent or Child persona within the other person. The critical element of Adult communication is for at least one person to be committed to Adult communication even when the other person is communicating from their parent or child persona. That is what the wife committed to doing in the above example to the point that the interaction was empowered to grow into Adult communication.

LUV Language—Listen, Understand, Validate

This LUV strategy has been taught by Dr. Gary Smalley.

Listen

The Three Basic Listening Modes (Dr. Larry Nadig)

1. Competitive or Combative Listening happens when we are more interested in promoting our own point of view than in understanding or exploring someone else’s view. We either listen for openings to take the floor, or for flaws or weak points we can attack. As we pretend to pay attention we are impatiently waiting for an opening, or internally formulating our rebuttal and planning our devastating comeback that will destroy their argument and make us the victor.
2. Attentive Listening happens when we are genuinely interested in hearing and understanding the other person’s point of view. We assume that we heard and understand correctly, but stay passive and do not verify it.
3. Active or Reflective Listening is the single most useful and important listening skill. In active listening we are also genuinely interested in understanding what the other person is thinking, feeling, wanting or what the message means, and we are active in checking out our understanding before we respond with our own new message. We restate or paraphrase our understanding of their message and reflect it back to the sender for verification. This verification or feedback process is what distinguishes active listening and makes it effective.

It has been said that listening is a skill. Effective listening requires intent on the part of the listener to be engaged in the conversation. Someone intent on really listening is most likely to remove and/or minimize distractions. It may not be enough to flip the book over, or turn the volume down on the television. Instead, mark your spot and close the book, and perhaps set it aside. Turn the television off and commit your attention to the person speaking to you. Effective listening allows the speaker to complete sentences and thoughts. The temptation can be intense to complete the speakers sentences, or briefly summarize what is being said to move the conversation along. The other temptation is to interject unwarranted opinions, advice, and humor as distraction or deflection from active listening. Avoid such interjections until it is asked for or until it is clear that the speaker has completed the expression of their thought. Avoid being preoccupied with what you are going to say, looking for the right spot to jump in, and not really listening to what is being said.

Listening Strategy

• Depending on the purpose of the interaction and your understanding of what is relevant, you could reflect back the other persons:

1. Account of the facts
2. Thoughts and beliefs
3. Feelings and emotions
4. Wants, needs or motivation
5. Hopes and expectations

• Don’t respond to just the meaning of the words, look for the feelings or intent beyond the words. The dictionary or surface meaning of the words or code used by the sender is not the message.
• Inhibit your impulse to immediately answer questions. The code may be in the form of a question. Sometimes people ask questions when they really want to express themselves and are not open to hearing an answer.
• If you are confused and know you do not understand, either tell the person you don’t understand and ask him/her to say it another way, or use your best guess. If you are incorrect, the person will realize it and will likely attempt to correct your misunderstanding.
• Use eye contact and listening body language. Avoid looking at your watch or at other people or activities around the room. Face and lean toward the speaker and nod your head, as it is appropriate. Be careful about crossing your arms and appearing closed or critical.
• Be empathetic and nonjudgmental. You can be accepting and respectful of the person and their feelings and beliefs without invalidating or giving up your own position, or without agreeing with the accuracy and validity of their view.

Understand

To better understand what is being communicated requires attentive listening, meaning that you are paying direct attention to the one speaking to you; not only paying attention to the words spoken, but also being attentive to nonverbal communication expressed through body language and facial expression.

When you are listening, the intention to understand what the communicator is meaning to convey, then, is focused on the nonverbal conversation at least as much as the spoken word. Seek to understand by listening for the emotion driving the communication. While you may not always be able to detect emotions when their delivered in subtlety, you can usually perceive that something is at least important to the communicator.

Validate

Validation is next in the progression of this LUV language of communication. It is the critical piece to reflective listening. Each time your response includes a paraphrase of what has been spoken to you, and identify verbally the emotion of the communicator, the result is validation that he or she is worth your attention, that you are engaged in the interactive communication process, and that you really do care and understand. We all have a built in need to be validated as being worthwhile and important. So when we validate and are validated as a form of interactive exchange, it feels better.

So how do you validate as a way to express empathy through reflective responses?

While you are listening, and you perceive the emotion of anger, you might respond by repeating back in your own words what was said but preface your response by saying, “I sense you’re angry about… ” or conclude your response with, ” … you seem to be pretty upset about it.” The same can be said to identify positive emotions (“you sound really happy about that” or “it sounds like you really enjoyed yourself”)

How do you respond if you sense concern but are unable to identify deeper emotion than that?

Reply with a simple response that does not assume the risk of misidentifying emotion or triggering non-intended emotion: “I can tell you are concerned about that”, or “That is obviously important to you.” Words like ‘concerned’ and ‘important’ usually apply even when you are not sure how or why it is important or of concern. Other validation words that do not necessarily carry as much intensity that are safe include: ‘upset’, ‘disappointed’, ‘feel good’ (“sounds like you feel pretty good about that”), and tend to carry less risk when you are not as certain how to identify deeper, more intense emotions such as: angry, resentful, bitter, shameful, failure, happy, joyful, festive, foolish, and so on.

LUV—listen, understand, validate—when applied in interactive communication can, and should, have the effect of disarming unhealthy defenses while empowering healthy conversation. Disarming because (and this especially true if the raw emotion is directed at you in confrontation) it suggests that you are, at least in part, agreeable, even when you do not necessarily agree; and empowering because of the apparent vulnerability it takes to understand what someone is feeling, communicating access to the part of you that is engaged emotionally in the discussion.

We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.

Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he loved us first. If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their Christian brothers and sisters. 1 John 4:16-21 (NLT)

LUV, when applied in the method of reflective listening and responses, is the open door to Adult-to-Adult interactive communication. Playing on the word ‘love’ with the acronym ‘LUV’ is, of course, no coincidence. It is deliberate and intentional. Even when Carl Rogers coined the phrase “unconditional positive regard”, it was intended as an umbrella of loving grace when applied to and in relationships.

David G. Myers says the following in his Psychology: Eighth Edition in Modules:

“People also nurture our growth by being accepting; by offering us what Rogers called unconditional positive regard. This is an attitude of grace, an attitude that values us even knowing our failings. It is a profound relief to drop our pretenses, confess our worst feelings, and discover that we are still accepted. In a good marriage, a close family, or an intimate friendship, we are free to be spontaneous without fearing the loss of others’ esteem.”

Perfect love is found in relationship with Jesus Christ, the One who demonstrated perfect love through His sacrifice so that we can live according to His example. As you conclude the reading of this article, imagine communicating in your relationships, from those most important to those more casual, freely interacting with people in conversation while applying this LUV strategy of reflective listening and responses.

You can be subtle in your approach to using reflective listening and response as you make it a point to listen with the purpose of understanding so that you can more easily validate the feelings and concerns of those you interact with. You don’t have to be clever about its application, parsing your words as if you’re going to be evaluated or something. No one has to know you’re trying something that could revolutionize how you communicate with people. Try it with someone you don’t know so well; someone who wouldn’t necessarily become curious as to why you don’t seem altogether yourself while you attempt to reflect back what they are saying. See if you can provoke and prompt the person you’re talking with to move a little deeper into a concern or problem. See if by reflecting back what he or she is saying through your responses, the person can sensibly navigate his or her way into a solution or the next step in managing the difficulty.

The tools learned in this article are a vital piece to sustained authentic recovery. I can be active in recovery on so many levels, however, relationship recovery is vital to my recovery from being selfish, particularly as I interact with people through graceful communication. The Apostle John wrote that they will know we are Christians by our love. Is my love for my loved ones and my friends, my neighbors and co-workers, and even acquaintances reflected in how I communicate with them? Can I take my eyes off me long enough to listen to, to understand, and then to validate what is important to them?

We live in such a way that no one will stumble because of us, and no one will find fault with our ministry. In everything we do, we show that we are true ministers of God. We prove ourselves by our purity, our understanding, our patience, our kindness, by the Holy Spirit within us, and by our sincere love. 2 Corinthians 6:3-4, 6 (NLT)

Power of the Least Interested Party… When Love Isn’t Fair

by Steven Gledhill for FREEdom from MEdom Project

Ever wonder why it seems someone usually has the upper hand in a relationship? Between spouses? Between friends? Between teacher and student, employer and employee? Between parents and their children? Who has the upper hand in a relationship with God?

Before there is a debate about who has the power in the relationship (You know, the false humility discussion when he says, “You’re the one in control, babe” and she says, “Come on, really, it’s totally you, dear”) let’s ask and answer the question. Who has the power… the control? Who typically concedes their position in a heated discussion or conflict? Who usually apologizes first? Who concedes the remote control when both are watching television? This is the one conceding the power and control to the one with the power and control. Who usually gets their way when push comes to shove? The one with the power and control.

It still might not be an open and shut case. It might seem that the power in the relationship gets handed over, depending on the time, the place, and the issue at hand. So let’s get into it.

First of all, love really isn’t fair, is it? But that is the thing about sincere love. Sincere love does not seek to have the advantage. Sincere love doesn’t have to be right. It doesn’t keep score. Sincere love declares that, “I love you and you will know it because my love for you is an action that does not require an equal reaction.”

Unfortunately, in most if not all relationships, “I love you because of how I feel loving you.” Really what that means is, “I love me and I love you for what you do for me.” Therefore, my love for you is conditional on the satisfaction I experience in the relationship. When you do not meet my actions and expressions of love with equal or greater actions and expressions of love, I am disappointed. Maybe I am angry and/or hurt. Perhaps I feel betrayed and/or rejected.

Please allow me to say it again: I love me and I love you for what you do for me. I love from a sense of entitlement; deserving of reciprocation and gratification. Love is naturally corrupted by selfishness. So I need the love of God coursing through my being in order to sincerely love someone. Then I can be genuinely compassionate. Then my extension of mercy and grace to another is authentic. So long as I am selfish and not holding every thought captive unto obedience to God in my relationship with Christ, I will continue to want and pursue my own way, which will naturally promote power struggles angling for leverage in my relationships; not excluding my relationship with God.

The Power of the Least Interested Party principle suggests that the person in the relationship who is even a little bit less interested or invested has the leverage (at least the majority of the leverage) in the relationship. The theory suggests that both parties are interested and both even highly invested, but that the one just a little bit less invested ultimately has the power and the leverage in the relationship; and there is the sense that someone tends to be in control, is usually considered to be right since the one most interested tends to give in, accommodate, placate, and so on, to the one in charge of things.

Think about it like this: A noticeably effective employee may in actuality have leverage against their employer because it is clear that, “You need me more than I need you.” The talented star employee can take their services anywhere and be effective. The problem with “marrying up” to someone who is soooooo good lookin’ or who possesses the lion’s share of the resources and wealth is that they tend to know it and understand it and use it to their advantage even though it would still break their heart to lose you. However, the context of the relationship is such that the principle of the power of the least interested party is at work as long as it is allowed to be. It typically is not done consciously or with malicious intent, rather it’s something that just is, like the law of gravity just is. You don’t see it or really think about it but you live subject to it, unable to defy it.

The person that tends to have the leverage in the relationship is typically identified as stronger and more assertive, and then the most interested party will trend toward yielding control and be identified as the weaker partner and passive. Not wanting to rock the boat and spoil the peace, in order to avoid the escalation of anxiety and tension in the relationship, the more emotionally invested party will passively take it, and take it, and take it some more, until what… until he or she cannot take it anymore and then… kaboom! What was passive behavior becomes, not just assertive reactive behavior, but it becomes aggressive. It is as though it becomes not unlike a competition of sorts as though the aggressive behavior is compensating for all of the passivity preceding it. The term for it is passive-aggressive, which you have likely heard of.

This pattern of passive-aggressive behavior in relationship is unhealthy and proves to be most dysfunctional. Passive-aggressive behavior is played out by both partners and if unchanged is a relationship killer. The relationship takes on a life of its own whether it is healthy or quite sick. The passive-aggressive relationship needs help in order to heal. Counseling can be good and it needs to be redirected toward and centered on Christ and godly principles to get right again.

I suppose one exception of the Power of the Least Interested Party principle might be a parent’s love for the child. The love a parent has for her child is usually unconditional and sacrificial. We love our children no matter what. But what happens as our children grow older, think more critically and independently, develop a mind of their own, and not necessarily sharing every value of the parent? Who becomes the least interested party in the relationship? Well, the growing up child is less interested, recognizing that he or she has seized emotional leverage from the parent, and wittingly uses this leverage to the utmost advantage. I suppose kids can be cruel that way, though usually not mature enough to comprehend it as cruel.

(Of course, there are exceptions. There are self-absorbed parents that are neglectful, abusive, and many who do not seem to be aware that their children even exist and have lives with individual needs and dreams. This is especially cruel and, dare I say, evil. Alcoholic and drug-addicted parents that have yielded control over to their drink and drug of choice wouldn’t say that they have emotional leverage over their children. In those cases the addiction has the leverage and needs to be eradicated before these families can begin to recover from severe dysfunction.)

An example of a grown-up child asserting a sense of power in relationship with his parent is the story of the prodigal son’s relationship with his father in Luke chapter 15, and it is the story of Father God’s love for you and me. Yet, in both of these relationships, while the love of the Father is unconditional, the relationship is absolutely conditional. Conditional on what? While the prodigal son and a sinner like me have both been afforded the option of leaving the relationship to do our own thing our own way, the loving Father exercises His option to let me go. While authentic healthy love is unconditional and forgiving, authentic healthy relationship, while forgiving and much to my chagrin, is conditional.

Should my children leave the security of my care into a willfully destructive lifestyle, I can enable them by continually rescuing them, or I can allow them to fall, even crash land, if you will, hoping they will be motivated to change. That is really tough and difficult since they might die or suffer irreparable harm. But like the father of the prodigal son, my Heavenly Father allows me to leave. He allows me to fall, even crash land onto something hard. He even allowed His begotten Son to leave. Jesus left heaven and suffered and died. Not because He rebelled against His Father—after all, He is God. But because I rebelled against the Father. It can be said that as he suffered on the cross, and for three days anguished in condemnation for my selfish disobedient recklessness, his Father let him go. And should I choose to reject being in relationship with my Heavenly Father, He will let me go; not at all out of spite or because He doesn’t love me, but because He respects my ability to choose according to my will.

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in hell, choose it.”
—C.S. Lewis

While this theory about leverage and control in relationships is in fact alive and kicking, it is not love as God intended it for us.

If I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:2-7, 13 (NLT)

We are given this precept from the Word of God about authentic sincere love. “It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever truth wins out.” Love is interested in truth. What is truth? Truth is that right is right and good is good. When the father of the returning prodigal son showed him compassion and generosity from a heart of love it was right and good. When Joseph showed his brothers (who had committed him to years of slavery out of hearts bitter with jealousy) mercy and providence from a heart of love it was right and good. When this love is at work in relationship there is nothing to fear. This love is an invitation. It is embracing and engaging. It is compassionate and compelling. It is genuinely affectionate and attractive.

God in his infinite power, bounty, wisdom, and authority should be the least interested party in relationship with me but love isn’t fair. He has it all and I have nothing, despite my lies to myself to the contrary. God owns it all. He is the creator of it all. He gives it all life and purpose, yet…

Are you ready for it?

I have the power in the relationship. Though I am an invisible speck in the universe, I have the power – the leverage – in this relationship between God and me. I am the least interested party in this relationship. God has invested everything including His Son. How is it possible that I am less interested when I on my own have nothing and He has everything? Even Jesus recognized this truth.

Jesus said emphatically,
“I can do nothing on my own. I judge as God tells me. Therefore, my judgment is just, because I carry out the will of the one who sent me, not my own will.” John 5:30 (NLT)   

Substitute the word ‘love’ for the words ‘judge’ and ‘judgment’ and you really get a sense for the heart of God and of Christ in His love for us, as well as His purpose for us. It would go like this: “I can do nothing on my own. I love as God tells me. Therefore, my love is just, because I carry out the will of the one who sent me, not my own will.” Wow! What if I could love like that?

So why is it that I can be the least interested party in this relationship that is a matter of life and death? It is my life at stake, yet I care less in the relationship than He does. It is less important to me. It must be. God has put everything into the relationship; all of Himself. He gave His life for me. Why am I so unwilling to invest all of me into the relationship? Why? Perhaps because I am like Thomas and the disciples of Jesus before their eyes were fully open about what they were witnessing in the resurrected Savior. I do not fully believe since I have not fully seen with eyes half shut the full and complete truth about God, who is Jesus, and His relationship with me. If I saw and understood God fully it would change everything. I wouldn’t be able to do anything but fall to my knees in worship to the King of kings and Lord of lords. (Measured Faith (Belief Enough) speaks to this problem; this condition)

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9 (NLT)

From my perspective on life and the world, God’s love for me certainly isn’t fair, to Him that is. And yet, He declares profoundly that it is faithful and just to reconcile Himself back into relationship with me. My love for Him is selfish. I am so entitled in my flesh. My love for Him is conditional, if I am really honest about it. I have committed adultery against God time and time again. I worship idols in my world daily… hourly, serving my own interests. God’s love for me is pure. His love for me is unconditional. His love for me is sacrificial. God’s love for me is precious to Him and treasured by Him every second of every day. His Word says that He is jealous for me in hot pursuit of me, standing at the door of every room of my heart and pounding on it. I cannot not even begin to comprehend that from God’s perspective His love for me, and for you, is fair and just since His love for me and for you is the love of God coursing through His being. As the song says, “Amazing love, how can it be?”

What do I do with that? What do you do with it? Accept it and rejoice. Today is the day the Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad in it.

“The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less. I don’t need to notice myself… so often.” —Timothy Keller, The Reason for God

All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he loved us first. 1 John 4:15-19 (NLT)

So how do I apply this truth in my recovery when it comes to relationships, especially in my marriage and family?

Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God. Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s people. Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes—these are not for you. Instead, let there be thankfulness to God. You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and of God. For a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world.
Ephesians 5:1-5 (NLT)

Remember, the problem of selfish love goes like this: “I love me and I love you for what you can do for me.” God has assessed the problem and determined that the solution goes something like this:

In view of God’s mercy, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will… Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. Romans 12:1-3 (NLT)

Easier said than done, right? If I understand the problem, and, I have the solution to solve the problem, why haven’t I solved it? What’s the problem?

It is within the nature to be selfishly ambitious and jealous, the central issues in the principle of the power of the least interested party. In seemingly healthy functional relationships it may be below the surface: that the one with the leverage is primarily ambitious, and the one continually struggling to seize the control is primarily jealous of the other. Both are selfish. The relationship can drift into serious dysfunction before the problem is realized.

For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind. James 3:16 (NLT)

Here comes the “I guess we have to go there” moment. The solution in any relationship, whether it be in marriage, with children, with friends and relatives, and even professional relationships, is submission. There is no getting around it. However, it is not submission to each other in these relationships, it is submission unto God in relationship with Jesus Christ. My attitude in relationship with each another will reflect my posture of submission in my relationship with God.

Ephesians 5:15 So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. 16 Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. 17 Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do. 18 Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, 19 singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts. 20 And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

21 And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

22 For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. 24 As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.

25 For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her 26 to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. 27 He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. 28 In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. 29 No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. 30 And we are members of his body.

31 As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” 32 This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. 33 So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Ephesians 6:1 Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do. 2 “Honor your father and mother.” This is the first commandment with a promise: 3 If you honor your father and mother, “things will go well for you, and you will have a long life on the earth.”

4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord. Ephesians 5:15-32, 6:1-4 (NLT)

“Confrontation without love is hostility.” —Tony Evans

These are the principles of The Power of the Submitted Parties in Relationship. The true power in relationship is most fully realized in the attitude of submission. Imagine how much more children would get from their parents if they submitted to them in obedience. Imagine how much more obedience parents would get from their children if they submitted their undivided attention to their children and made the effort early on to teach these principles modeled in their marriage. Imagine the possibilities.

We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person? Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God.
1 John 3:16-19 (NLT)

The power, control, leverage… whatever you want to call it… is in the hands of the least interested person in any relationship. It is a fact. It’s a law. It is natural as long as we our selfish living in our capacity to sin. Attempting to defy this law is most definitely a climb. However, this climb will never see the peak… unless… unless you are willing to surrender control as well as surrender your right to control, especially if you ain’t got it. Let it go through the principle of submission as unto the Lord in your relationship with Him. While you may not be able to defy gravity, you can surrender your right to control gravity by taking the stairs, or the elevator, or a helium balloon, or a rocket. Utilize the tools God has given you to experience freedom in relationships. Get this: YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE RIGHT!

Be free in your relationships. Celebrate them. Be about recovery in relationships. In this case, it is recovery from entitlement and control and the obsession with being right. Even if this principle of submission in relationship as unto the Lord is rarely if ever reciprocated, you will experience a release into freedom. It’s pretty cool. Try it. If you’re not satisfied, return it, and go back to your way of continually angling for leverage.

If you’re reading this and you are aware that you tend to have the leverage in your relationships, please take a long hard look at how that affects others and the struggles you might have with those in relationship with you because you’ve grown tired of their insecurities, and apparent lack of self-confidence. What can you you do to, through submission as unto the Lord, build them up?

Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Ephesians 4:2

Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Philippians 2:3

But he gives us even more grace to stand against such evil desires. As the Scriptures say, “God opposes the proud but favors the humble.” James 4:6

Focus on your relationship with Christ and surrender all control and leverage unto Him. He yearns desperately for you to give in to Him completely and trust Him.

Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”? James 4:5 (NKJV)

It is in Christ that you are beautiful. It is in Christ that you are intelligent. It is in Christ that you are wise. It is in Christ that you are strong. It is in Christ that you prosper.

It is in Christ that you experience joy. It is in Christ that you have peace. It is in Christ that you are free.

Submit all unto Him and rejoice in your freedom!

Faithful and Just to Forgive (Made Complete in Love to Love)

by Steven Gledhill for FREEdom from MEdom Project

Take your time… This read is a unique Bible Study on the essence and virtue of forgiveness both coming in and going out. My hope is that the examination of some truth concerning the matter of forgiveness and the cost of grace will make it nearly impossible for you to ever again suppress the motivation to let go and forgive… One less burden to carry.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9 (NKJV)

Have you fully considered the profound reality contained in the promise that when you confess your sins that God is faithful and (that’s right) just to forgive you entirely and cleanse you of all unrighteousness?

The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He does not punish us for all our sins; he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve. For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him. Psalm 103:10-13 (NLT)

What an incredible promise, but… what does it all mean for you, and what does it actually require of you, or from you?

Also, did you catch the qualifier in the promise? It’s in there twice. The promise applies to those who fear Him; like a child reveres his father—loyal, submitted under his authority and direction, honoring him, holding him in highest esteem. Children of whom’s fathers are loving, gracious, generous providers, and protective; worship their dad’s; want to be like their fathers, or marry someone just like dad.

First, let’s examine more closely what the promise of forgiveness means for us.

As a child of God, having been reborn in the Spirit of God through relationship with Jesus, I have been renewed into newness of life… a new creation… with new thoughts and attitudes… my new nature being like Christ’s… viewed as holy and pure by Holy God.

Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him,  throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy. Ephesians 4:21-24 (NLT)

How did this come about?

Made Weak

Well, it cost God His very own son. It cost Jesus his divine privilege, having embraced the full nature within a human existence, with all of its inherent flaws.  It cost Jesus his life by way of crucifixion. And most severe, it cost Jesus his human soul, having experienced the full weight of the consequence for sin; the full wrath of God against the evil hostility contained within the sin of all mankind.

For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:3-4 (NKJV)

“Weak through the flesh” means that no one can have relationship with God by way of the law since the law of God is the moral standard that no man, woman or child can live up to. If adhering to the moral standard, according to the law, the old covenant, was the avenue to heaven and relationship with God, no human person would ever see heaven since relationship with God would be impossible. But as long as sin abounded in the flesh of human beings, there needed to be a way to kill it. To be separated from sin meant that sin would be condemned to hell, put away for eternity.

He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”

Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done.” And He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy.

So He left them, went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. Matthew 26:39-44 (NKJV)

Jesus understood the gravity of his circumstance. He understood that “the cup” was the cup of God’s wrath against His enemies. This is huge! It should not be minimized or marginalized. It was more than death on a cross while fully human in the flesh. It was three days in the heart of the earth to experience in his soul of flesh the full wrath of a just God. Within the soul of the Son’s flesh, by way of your sin and mine, was hostility against His Father. He was positionally the same as the prodigal son, who in his reckless hedonistic sinful existence was dead to his father (“My son was dead…”  Luke 15:24). Remember that the father of the prodigal son is not the one who left, forsaking his son; it was the son who left; forsaking his father. This was the relationship between God the Father and God the Son for those three days that Jesus suffered the torture of the cup of wrath in the belly of the earth. It must have been an eternity for them.

It was the price for newness of life for all who receive this gift. When considering that this reconciliation into relationship with God cost Him everything(!), it really goes without saying that salvation cannot be earned lest any man would dare to boast (considering what it cost).

God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. Ephesians 2:8-9 (NLT)

It is in this context of what mercy for sin cost both God the Father and God the Son that we examine what it really means that He is faithful and just to forgive when we confess our sin.

I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. Galatians 2:21  (NKJV)

Does it mean that God is faithful to you and me that He forgives us and purifies us from all unrighteousness? Or does it mean that God the Father is faithful to Himself and perhaps His Son, that the sacrifice for sin would not be in vain… wasted… shrugged off as insignificant? The justice of God concerning our confession is that because He loves us so much, and desperately craves relationship with us that He sacrificed His Son for us, He owes it, not to us, but to Himself to fulfill the purpose of it all by declaring us innocent; holy for that matter.

So, what happened when it all happened?

Made Right

When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God. Romans 5:6-11 (NLT)

Again, when considering what it cost God (the condemnation for sin through the experience of His Son in the heart of the earth), how absurd would it be to contemplate for even a moment that somehow someone could be good enough to be called righteous?

The free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification. For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. Romans 5:15-17 (NKJV)

Even more inane than some notion that salvation can be earned is salvation by way of God’s mercy being taken for granted. Meaning what? Meaning, why sweat sin and selfish indulgence since God is faithful and just to forgive each and every time I confess my sin, as though I merely have a sin problem? I am hooked and cannot help myself. Good thing I have my ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ grace card should I give in to the sudden urge for gratification by way of a selfish action that is sinful.

For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous. Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? CERTAINLY NOT! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Romans 5:19-21, 6:1-2 (NKJV)

Made New, Whole, Complete

The Apostle Paul is clearly informing us that as we have been involved by way of baptism into Christ’s death and resurrected with Him into new life, we no longer live subject to the power of the sin nature, no longer a slave to sin but set free.

He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them. This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!  For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them.
2 Corinthians 5:15, 17, 19 (NLT)

The old life is gone; the new life has begun! I want to believe that but then, oops, I did it again! I sinned again. Disgusting! Why do I continue to be lured by temptation, at times craving what comes with temptation, if the old life is gone, and I have been transformed into this new creation? Or as Paul wrote, why do I keep doing what I really do not want to be doing? He said that it is no longer I doing it, but something else still within me that is doing it.

If I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. Romans 7:20 (NLT)

My friend, Pastor Fran Leeman, has said that the new person, the new creation, is no longer the one sinning. He can’t sin! It is the old sin nature hanging around that sins. If I am in relationship with Christ, however, even though it appears as though the old nature is cunning and baffling—powerful, it no longer owns me or defines me.

Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.

Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. Romans 6:1-8 (NLT)

If I am in relationship with Jesus, having been baptized into his death, buried with him, and then been resurrected—reborn—into newness of life with him, then as He was declared innocent of the sin of all people for all of time, I am declared innocent of all of my sin from this point going back in time, as well as for whatever sins my old nature will commit from today forward. The truth about justification is that it is just if I’d never sinned… EVER!

And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness. Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority. Colossians 2:6-10 (NLT)

Buried with Him in baptism… you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. Colossians 2:12 (NKJV)

You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross. Colossians 2:13-15 (NLT)

Believe it or not, this is indeed a Bible study on forgiveness… being forgiven as well as forgiving. Once it is understood where the power and peace comes from to forgive even the unforgivable, the non-repentant brothers and sisters you come across, you will recognize that mercy is something that emanates from being complete in Christ, who has made you into a finished product, having been filled through your union with Him.

“The glory of God is man fully alive.” —Saint Irenaeus

You and I were broken in our sin until our Messiah came on the scene to pick up the broken pieces, condemn to hell that which was breaking us, and then fill this restored vessel with Himself. To be filled is to be made whole, filled with the pure goodness that is all of the righteousness of God; meaning all that is good; all that is virtuous; all that is the very best of everything God is. It is the essence of grace. It is the fullness of all that is alive.

Resentment is one’s commitment to malice, hostility and unforgiveness.  The glory of God is not something to be suppressed by animus. It should be obvious at this point that an unforgiving, merciless heart grieves the Spirit of God.

Transformed with a New Mind

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him… 
or as I believe it should say, “… as we came to believe in Him.”

As you read the following passage from Paul’s letter to the church in Rome, is there any doubt what inspired the third of the twelve steps?

God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience… receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. Romans 11:29-32 (NIV)

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world (aeon in the original Greek, meaning ‘age’), but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:1-2 (NIV)

Central to living this new life experience in relationship with Christ is experiencing transformation. Paul reminds us that what God has done through the ransom for sin for all who were disobedient, are included in the resurrection and transformed into newness of life with a renewed mindset and new attitude.

There is what I do and there is what God does.

What I do is I offer my life (body, mind and soul) sacrificially as an expression of my gratitude in a spirit of worship to the life-giver. I live as though set apart and anew in clear contrast to the patterns of this age that is mortal, finite, and its end is in sight. What God does is He changes me; restoring me into something He intended from the beginning. I suggest that we are restored since we were created with humanity being something beautiful and wonderful.

It’s like that antique piece of furniture in the junk heap or automobile in the junk yard that was no longer useful and considered obsolete; left for dead. Then someone elects to care for it, applying favor and ingenuity to repair and refinish it with just the right parts and ingredients until it is once again fully functional and better than ever in every way. What was once considered junk and dead is found and alive and esteemed as precious and priceless. The antique could not repair itself. It needed to be and was repaired, transformed into something amazing; renewed into something of highest value.

I cannot change the internal parts of me that are dying and must be brought back to life. I cannot change the defects in my thinking as long as they are intrinsically flawed in me. All I do is what is suggested that keeps me positionally accessible to the work of my Creator.

The word ‘be’ in “Be transformed” is a passive verb. It is what God does to me within me. It is the same as when Jesus says to be perfect and righteous as He and the Father is perfect and righteous. It is not something we do, it is what we are made into in relationship with God.

Now it’s time to examine more closely what the promise of forgiveness requires of us.

Made to Love

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Galatians 2:20 (NKJV)

How is it evident that I am truly in relationship with God through Jesus Christ?

Well, if I commit sin since having been forgiven under the cover of grace, conducting myself as though I have a license to sin… not all that conflicted about it… there lacks sufficient evidence that I know Jesus and that Jesus knows me. If I defy relationship with God “committed” to living in disobedience by way of the flesh, though He loves me, Christ would not be living in me.

Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. Romans 6:16 (NLT)

Having been made into newness of life since Christ is living in me, what does that look like? What do I look like?

Jesus and the apostles throughout the New Testament mandate that the clearest evidence that one is a follower of Jesus Christ is love. Disciples of Jesus are motivated by the love of God coursing through them, expressed to one another through loving kindness and mercy.

Jesus said, “So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” John 13:34-35 (NLT)

There, of course, is a myriad of Scripture in the New Testament on the topic of love and loving one another. Love is the foundation for new life in Christ.

When Jesus was approached about what it truly means to be a disciple, he stated the need to love God with your heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. He identified one’s neighbor as, not merely those you love and gravitate toward, but those who may be unattractive, even offensive to you; offensive being that you might offended by the person or by the situation and circumstance they represent that you are not comfortable with.

Jesus spoke of love as sacrificial, willing to surrender your way of life to serve God through love to one another. He let wealthy people know that loving Jesus means being willing to surrender your wealth and your time to help those in need. Just like the question, “Who’s my neighbor?” comes the question, “Who’s wealthy?” I will leave it up to you to search your heart with God to respond honestly to those questions.

Extend the Blessing

We have been blessed with the gift of new life through salvation, having experienced resurrection with Jesus through redemption into right relationship with God. God loves us so much that He made himself fully human to experience the full impact of the burden for sin. He extended a blessing to us that we can never fully comprehend.

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to
carry this message to others in need, and to practice these principles in all our
affairs.

This is the twelfth of the twelve steps except that I modified it to include “others in need” for the purpose of emphasizing this point. I am called, in light of the spiritual reality of new life from the inside out, to carry the message of hope through newness of life to all who are receptive. I do not (because I cannot) contain the blessing, meaning that as I experience the fullness of God living in me I am unable to keep it to myself. The force from within is like a mighty river from within that will force its way out. It hasn’t left me. It continually flows though me and overflowing from me.

Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” John 7:38 (NIV)

Made for Mercy

“Vengeance may be right but it’s not yours. It doesn’t belong to you.” —Darwin Williams, Chicago, IL

A couple of years back, I was in a circumstance when I was wronged in a big, big way. I was hurt by it, disgusted by it, and when the person who wronged I saw doing wrong, I wanted desperately to get even. It would have been justifiable. I get stirred up inside just thinking about it again, since “the wronging” persists doing wrong in that area of my life. But the anger in me is selfish, corrupt, and infected by my old sin nature. God’s anger is righteous and He is just. I need only to trust Him, and in trusting Him, let go of the resentment that churns and burns from within.

Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, “I will take revenge; I will pay them back,” says the Lord. Romans 12:19 (NLT)

David had been anointed to be the next king and King Saul was having none of it. He wasn’t ready to go anywhere for some time and he wasn’t going to let David hone in on what was his. So Saul and his army went looking for David and his little band of brothers, seeking to kill David and put an end to the momentum David was building to become the next king sooner than later.

David was a smart young warrior of valor, but on one occasion you might say he got lucky. He and his men were sleeping deep into a cave. Saul’s men were too sleeping he recessed into the cave and also lied down for the night. Fearful, angry, and seemingly with just cause, David was poised to put an end to the chase by killing Saul quietly in his sleep and then slipping out with his men. Instead, contrary to the urging of his advisers, David cut off a piece of Saul’s robe swaddled next to him and then showed Saul from a distance away that he had it.

In the daylight of the morning, David called out to his adversary:

“For the Lord placed you at my mercy back there in the cave. Some of my men told me to kill you, but I spared you… This proves that I am not trying to harm you and that I have not sinned against you, even though you have been hunting for me to kill me… May the Lord judge between us. Perhaps the Lord will punish you for what you are trying to do to me, but I will never harm you.”
1 Samuel 24:10-12 (NLT)

To burn with anger and resentment is to entertain for gratification the selfish sin nature. For the new creation full of grace, resentment and the spirit of unforgiveness is in no way a reflection, extension, or expression of the love of God that is the fruit-bearing evidence of the new life in relationship with Him. It is love that bears witness to new life in God. Compassion and mercy is the evidence of the love that reflects Christ.

Testimony Time

I apologize in advance for the ambiguity in this testimony but the details are not important. With what I will disclose, you can fill in the gaps from your own personal experience and relate it to your own issues when it comes to anger and resentment.

I will admit to you that I definitely struggle with resentment and remembering. A couple of years back this really came to a head in meaningful relationships of mine. Things were done and things were said over time that resulted in substantial harm to me. It wasn’t that the relationships were in themselves toxic but there were obvious toxins in the goings on in the relationships in need of a remedy. They could not continue as they were.

The resentment burned and grew like cancer infecting my mood and attitude and spilled out onto valued loved ones in my life, and it was not at all fair to them. It was likely affecting my work as a counselor, especially since it conflicted with the integrity of my recovery and my ability to educate, listen to, and counsel my clients in need of recovery. I doubt I effectively modeled recovery during that time.

One Sunday morning at a worship service, the pastor spoke from Matthew chapter 18 concerning forgiveness:

²¹ Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

²² Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

²³ “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. ²⁴ As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. ²⁵ Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

²⁶ “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ ²⁷ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

²⁸ “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

²⁹ “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’

³⁰ “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. ³¹ When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.

³² “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. ³³ Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ ³⁴ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

³⁵ “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” Matthew 18:21-35 (NIV)

My Challenge 

God began challenging my spirit, though I didn’t know it yet. I had come to the place where my resentment sank so deep into my being that it was feeling like hatred toward people I cared very much about; individuals I love. It was sickening to me how bad it was. I was feeling deep conviction, guilt for that matter, and was feeling pushed from within to do something. But I didn’t know what to do.

Something I understood was that Jesus mandated, “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Matthew 6:14-15 (NLT)

I confessed to God my feelings after service and began to pray in my mind. I sometimes pray my ABC of recovery and did so here walking to my car from church.

I A, admitted to God that the situation was way beyond my ability to control it or change (fix) it and that on my own, I was unable really to do much of anything about it. I admitted to God that even my feelings by now were out of control and that I couldn’t turn them off.

I told God that I B, believed in what He could do since all things in the end were under His control. He has given us each free will but God knows what makes each of us tick and what it will take for each of us to move from where we are in the circumstance, as well as in the relationship with one another.

I told God that C, I committed to turning my will and my life over to His plan for me and for those in this conflict with me. I told God that I will seek not my will in it, and that I will comply with His will and what He tells me to do.

God did tell me. He told me what I needed to do for reconciliation in these relationships. I did not hear an audible voice; never have. I heard the Spirit of God communicate something clear as a bell. Words came to my thoughts. I understood what He wanted me to do and I did not like it.

Anybody want to guess what God told me to do?

Are you ready for it?

He told me to apologize… to tell them I am sorry.

How could I apologize to them when they should be apologizing to me?! They owe me that!

What was I sorry about? How can I say that I’m sorry when I am not sorry?

Then the Spirit of God flooded my heart and mind with conviction about what I was sorry about. He revealed to me that my resentment and unforgiving spirit was sin against God and brought substantial harm to them (and to me) and that it was not justifiable on any level. He told my thoughts that I was entirely responsible for all that I contributed to the mess and ugliness. He informed my mind that my resistance to repentance for my sin was on me, not them.

When I am under conviction about my merciless heart, I wrestle this question: If God is faithful to Himself considering the price He paid to reconcile with me, how can I not be faithful to Him considering the price He paid to reconcile with my brothers and sisters?

While I can never repay my Savior for what He sacrificed for me, I must certainly sacrifice by way of forgiveness for those who have hurt me. I OWE HIM THAT!

That is what is required me; to be faithful and just (meaning right) to forgive.

I might not feel merciful. But that is no excuse. Extending mercy to my brothers and sisters is primarily an act of obedience to my Lord. It is necessary for my relationship with Him to be made right, before it is about them and those relationships to be made right.

At that point, I committed to turning it over to God. I surrendered intellectually, even though my heart was heavy with the weight of the burden. Then came something awesome. The Spirit of God gave me serene peace about the situation and the strength to give up the fight and to let go of the pain I had experienced for several months. It was gone! I had forgiven them, sincerely from my heart. It had no bearing on me whether these people I had felt wronged by were repentant or not. That would be between them and God.

So, I did it that very day; a cold Sunday in January. In separate opportunities, I went to each of them individually as soon as I could. I told them I was sorry… without any qualifiers. The response was incredible. Not simply the response to my words, which was pretty cool; but there was a sustained response to the problem, even though my repentant words to them made no mention of the problem I had (with them). Neither of them said to me, “I’m sorry too.” By then, I didn’t need that. It was clear they each had a problem with me. My attitude toward them had been ugly and ungodly. I was truly sorry for that. God had showered me with all of the mercy and the grace I needed.

The issues surrounding the immense conflict resolved themselves in a number of ways. The problems were no longer problems; not just because I perceived the problem differently, or was merely given enough ‘grace’ to cope, becoming more tolerant and accepting. Things changed! Really! Attitudes were different and better. Altogether, we shared in an authentic grace experience. It was a marvelous thing. To this day, I doubt they know much how miraculous this expression of God’s grace was.

I have received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. 2 Corinthians 12:7-9 (NLT)

What I tend to battle against when it comes to faith isn’t what I believe God can do. I believe in that from my deepest intellectual sensibilities. I combat emotionally in my spirit doubt about God will do. There lies the spiritual conflict for me.

But God is good all of the time!

We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. 2 Corinthians 10:3-4 (NLT)

The Spirit of mercy that He imparted to me put my soul at rest. God’s love healed me.

This cycle now continues for me. It is now a way of life. I will get unreasonably angry and resentful still. But now I have an escape. I have to find the book on the shelf that gains me access to the mysterious passage into God’s healing grace. The Word of God is my path to Him. My ABC recovery from resentment and ill-willed feelings is an ongoing movement within me. My emotional well-being is manageable in God’s hands.

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Ephesians 3:20 (NLT)

The Call

If you have read all of this and you are here, then you are likely mindfully drawn into a circumstance and relationship(s) that is troubling you.

I can do nothing on my own. I judge as God tells me. Therefore, my judgment is just, because I carry out the will of the one who sent me, not my own will. John 5:30 (NLT)

Do what Jesus did.

A) Admit to yourself and to God that you are powerless on your own to the change that is needed.

B) Believe in what God can do in the matter, starting with what God can do in you, even if you doubt emotionally in what God will do.

C) Commit to trusting in what you believe God can do and surrender your life, which includes your circumstances and relationships, into His care His way.

Confess to God your sin. Pray for a spirit of repentance to receive forgiveness. Pray for peace. Pray for the healing of your heart. Pray for an attitude of surrender to let it go. Pray for a spirit of mercy to forgive as an expression of worship to the one who has paid the price to forgive you.

Now, let go and give God all that burdens you. Then wait for God to communicate to your mind and heart what is next for you to do, or not to do. Let God go to work and do what only He can do. Be washed clean in the righteousness of your Savior, Jesus Christ. Soak yourself in His love.

See if God’s grace is sufficient for you.

“When you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.” Matthew 6:6 (NLT), The Words of Jesus

The Harsh Reality

Please know that there is the flipside to forgiveness, that is unforgiving and merciless. Unforgiving grudges, unrelenting resentment and bitterness, and preoccupations with vengeance fueling some persistent pursuit to get even, do not reflect the love, nor even the life of God from within.

I will leave you with the following Scripture from the disciple Jesus loved.

¹⁴ If we love our brothers and sisters who are believers, it proves that we have passed from death to life. But a person who has no love is still dead. ¹⁵ Anyone who hates another brother or sister is really a murderer at heart. And you know that murderers don’t have eternal life within them.

¹⁶ We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. ¹⁷ If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person?

¹⁸ Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. ¹⁹ Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God. ²⁰ Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything.

²¹ Dear friends, if we don’t feel guilty, we can come to God with bold confidence. 1 John 3:14-21 (NLT)

Freedom Fighters (Setting Families Free)

by Steven Gledhill for the FREEdom from MEdom Project 

What does your family look like? Does it look more like the model supplied by our TV Cosby family, cohesive and loving, accepting of one another’s flaws, able to effectively communicate with one another? Or does your family tend to resemble our TV family of severe codependent dysfunction, the Simpsons?

What is so interesting about The Simpsons, a 30-minute show that can be so funny, is that if it were a real life family, it would be miserable and so tragically sad. It has your irresponsible, undisciplined alcoholic husband and father; your codependent emotionally neglected and abused wife and mother; the overachieving ‘carry the weight of the whole family’s inadequacies’ daughter and sister; the irreverent ‘desperate for father’s love’ underachieving problem son and and brother; and last but not least, the most emotionally mature and stable one of the bunch who’s not even old enough to walk. Actually, this TV family does resemble real-life families everywhere.

Somewhere between these two family’s is the Everybody Loves Raymond family that incorporates the dysfunctional codependent relationships with the matter of spouses’ parents and in-laws. The hilarity and tragedy ensues.

But everybody’s smiling for the cameras.

These families have existed since the first families came to be. In the Old Testament are stories of several families that routinely gave in to their ‘me’dom urges, which led to severely dysfunctional behavior breaking down health of these famous families. There was jealousy in Adam and Eve’s family that led to Cain murdering his brother Abel. There was Abraham and Sarah so anxious to have the son promised by God that they concocted a scheme to hasten God’s promise. Abraham committed adultery with Hagar and out came Ishmael. Isaac would be born to Sarah and today this family is still at war with millions of lives at stake. 

When Jacob took more than one wife (Leah and Rachel), jealousy abounded among his sons when it became clear that Rachel’s son, Joseph, was the favorite (Rachel was the wife Jacob loved). Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery and told their dad he’d been killed. Later in the Old Testament, King David yielded to his ‘me’dom urge and committed adultery with Bathsheba. To cover up her pregnancy, David conspired to murder Bathsheba’s husband and then he married her. “Me’dom would persist in David’s family leading to more incest, rape, betrayal and murder. And so it goes. 

‘Me’dom behavior is the malignant undoing of families. Sometimes we read these Bible stories and don’t really put the thought into realizing how devastating the consequences of jealousy and selfish ambition were to those families. Keep in mind that the order of the family was established by God. Jealousy and selfish ambition are evil and are vehicles for disorder in the infrastructure of the family. What is behind a spouse’s wandering eye that can so easily lead to undisciplined choices and problemmatic attention outside the covenant of marriage? What’s behind sibling rivalry? Why so many problems with parents and in-laws? Jealousy and selfish ambition is why. 

For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind. James 3:16 (NLT) 

The teachings of Scripture plainly unveil the truth of invasive infectious self-centered thinking and behavior hastening the procurement of ‘me’dom values as the destructive dysfunction of families. When the infection becomes a cancer it can ruin and destroy families. When the cancer enters into its latest stages husbands and wives who are mothers and fathers experience the death of the cells within their marriage until the marriage dies tearing apart relationships through the tragedy of divorce.

Even the best of families throughout history have been ripped apart because of resentment and jealousy from self-absorbed parents who don’t see the pain being endured by their children through the clouds of their self-centered agendas. It’s happened from the first family, historically speaking, until now. The question is, what are you going to do about it? What needs to change in your family beginning with you?

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your (‘me’dom) desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. James 4:1-3 (NIV) 

Some very famous people and families in Scripture struggled with this in their family systems. It is painfully clear that as they willfully participated in self-centered ‘me’dom behavior borne out of their obsession with their dissatisfaction, those families self destructed. There seemed to be no limit to the lengths they would go to try in vain to achieve contentment. Your family may not resort to incest and murder like King David’d family did to somehow achieve some semblance of satisfaction; you probably haven’t sold anyone lately into slavery like Jacob’s family did; but do you use sarcasm to reduce someone else in order to hopefully feel better? Do you lie to protect yourselves? Do you gossip and triangulate to feel better? 

Triangulation occurs when you are in conflict with someone but feel anxious about confronting the person. So, to relieve the anxiety it becomes “necessary” to bring in a third party. Once you have pulled in a third party, that person tends to share in your feelings about the person the two of you are talking about. Then, based on your story about the person you’re in conflict with, the third party now has a problem with that person as well. Then, when the person you are in conflict with meets the third party, the person you’re in conflict with is now in conflict with the third party. And then you all triangulate with other folks who each have their own ‘me’dom agenda until you have a mess—disorder.

Triangulation is a key ingredient in family conflict and codependency. Family members are withdrawn, distant, and cold. No one is taking unless alliances have formed in these triangles and back-biting and back-stabbing conversations occur in secret. Holidays and family gatherings are full of tension with extended family members walking on egg shells. Perhaps you’re walking on egg shells in your home now. Who’s talking to whom? Who’s on whose side? Ultimately, interactive triangles in the family system reap destruction to the system. Call it “Death by triangulation”. 

Codependency occurs when family members who are emotionally dependent in their own ‘me’dom issues, also become enmeshed in the ‘me’dom issues of other family members. The result is intense anxiety, stress and fear. In order to alleviate your own anxiety, you will fight in futility for control in the lifestyle concerns of others. 

Another word for codependency is co-addiction. I am addicted to me and you are addicted to you. But, I am also addicted to you and you are addicted to me in the system of the family. So, whatever your dependency issues are, because I am addicted to you, I am co-addicted, or codependent, on your dependency stuff. It sounds convoluted, but think about it for a bit and it makes sense. 

When we identify our dependency issues as resentment, unforgiveness, anger, shame, alcoholism, drug addiction, perfectionism, approval’ism’, and so on, then bring in the element of codependency and triangulation, it is not all that difficult for families to be closer to our Biblical examples of dysfunctional families than we’d like to admit. Our families will trend toward quarreling and fighting against each other motivated by jealousy and selfish ambition. We will become stuck coveting out of our dissatisfaction within our family system, killing each other with our words. 

But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. James 3:14-16 (NIV) 

Husbands pray for their wives, and wives for their husbands, motivated by ‘me’dom intentions. Brothers and sisters will pray for each other and for their parents motivated by ‘me’dom desires. And the motives of parents are always pure when they pray for their kids, right? When parents pray sermons at the dinner table for their children to be obedient, and to not talk back, and to make better decisions choosing their friends, it’s always from a purely motivated heart for their well being; or is it? Can we be honest enough to consider that we might be praying for each other according to what we want for each other? Most times, what we want for each other is healthy and right, but there are definitely times when we ask God from impure motives, motivated by fear and anxiety, skewed by anger, adjusted for personal gain, fortified in defense of our own selfish interests. 

What would happen if we triangulated God into all of our relationships—our marriage, our family, our friendships, our acquaintances, and even our professional relationships? This is the core ingredient to freedom from ‘me’dom in our families and all of our relationship interaction. Jesus said that we are to love God with all that we are, and love our neighbors as ourselves. How is this possible, especially when in darker times we don’t necessarily feel love for our spouse, our siblings, our parents, and sometimes even our children? How is it possible to love God with our entire being when we don’t necessarily feel love for God? We are confused and off course when we measure love by our emotions. Love is a matter of the will measured by what we do for God and one another. It is in relationship with Jesus that we are empowered to love and serve our neighbors as ourselves. 

C.S. Lewis writes the following from Mere Christianity:

“The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less… But whenever we do good to another self, just because it is a self, made (like us) by God, and desiring its own happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love it a little more, at least, to dislike it less… Some writers use the word charity to describe not only Christian love between human beings, but also God’s love for man and man’s love for God. About the second of these two, people are often worried. They are told they ought to love God. They cannot find any such feeling in themselves. What are they to do? The answer is the same as before. Act is if you did. Do not sit trying to manufacture feelings. Ask yourself, ‘If I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?’ When you find the answer, go and do it.”

When we commit to living in the will and care of God, we become a disciple of God, following his example and adhering to his teachings. Jesus says, then, that we are friends of his (John 15:12-15). Jesus treasures his friendships. Then, as we desire in relationships what God desires in relationships, we can interact with others with the sincere and fearless love for our family and friends that Jesus has for his family and friends. 

The Apostle Paul describes that kind of love like this:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NIV) 

Finally, Paul says that real love never fails (1 Corinthians 4:8). John writes that love from a pure heart, motivated by godliness, drives out fear (1 John 4:18). Is there reservation in your family—your marriage? Are you afraid to go places emotionally with your spouse, your children, or your parents because there is reservation in the recesses of your heart afraid of what they will think or how they’ll react? 

When it comes to family, God created it, put in order, then when we messed it up, He sent His son to save it without reservation. Jesus loves my family so much more than I ever could. God loves without reservation with nothing to fear. Jesus did something for my wife and my kids I have never done. He died for them. He wants for them things I haven’t even thought of. Over the years, God carried my family through some difficult times, including cancer. He is loving and powerful and is in complete authority over all things. 

Our families have been infected with the ‘me’dom disease. Our families are flawed by ‘me’dom intentions and damaged by ‘me’dom behavior. Instead of fighting each other we would do well to be freedom fighters through submission as entire families to the sensible Biblical strategy for recovery. God’s way of recovery for our families is to let go of our selfish attitudes and ambition and trust God to work his will into our intentions and behavior. 

For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Philippians 2:13, NIV 

The purpose of God is for us to admit that our plans do not work and to believe that God’s plan for our family is exactly what works and then commit to trusting in God’s plan. Stop and imagine for a moment how this would change the way your family does its business. Just as Jesus asked the paralytic if he wanted to get better (John 5), he is asking you and me, do you want your family to get better—to be made well? Jesus came for the sick, the Bible says. Most families are sick and in need of a remedy.

God is a healing God. He desires nothing but good things for your family. When things happen that bring disappointment, and at times, extreme pain, God did not do that to you. Life happens, and sometimes the consequences of an evil world have horrific effects on us. It becomes absolutely necessary then that we do what we know to do through recovery to minimize the damage and maximize the opportunity to be blessed by God. Instead of fighting one another in our families we can be fighting for each others’ freedom by submitting to the will and plan of God with love for each other. Where does this plan start? FORGIVENESS. Obvious, when you think about it, isn’t it?

Pop Goes the Weasel… Managing Conflict, Anger, & Resentment

by Steven Gledhill for NLX 101.com and FREEdom from MEdom Project

Anger, and one’s reaction to it, is treacherous and can gradually sneak up on us or come on all of a sudden. Anger is like blowing up a balloon. The balloon is the constitution within me that holds and releases anger through how I choose to express my anger. The hot air in the balloon is the internal collection of experiences that throughout the course of my life have accumulated into a deep pool of angry emotion flooding my soul. The pin that pokes at my anger balloon are the external experiences of everyday. As the balloon becomes more and more full of hot air it will take less and less applied pressure from the pin pricks to break through the skin of this balloon and cause it to explode.

We all get angry. When we get angry our blood pressure goes up. Our heart rate increases. The rise of blood pressure and heart rate can be substantial. There is a significant surge of adrenalin. There are things happening throughout the body and chemistry of the brain that, if unresolved, can result in unhealthy consequences. Anger increases our level of stress. It is important and necessary that we do something with our anger. The question is, how do we manage our anger in a way that is good for us, as well as for those we interact with while we’re angry?

Anger and, in particular rage, tend to “require” an aggressive response in order to relieve the stress caused by anger. According to Science, there is actually a hormone called cortisol that is released when we respond to anger and rage. It seems as though the more aggressive the response, the more cortisol is released, and the more quickly and easily we seem to come down from the chemical spikes in the brain. Whenever, what scientists call, homeostasis (biochemical and overall physiological balance) is disturbed significantly by stress, we can experience substantial difficulty to our health. Coronary functions can be damaged and weakened. That is how stress and anxiety lead to heart disease. Anger and rage produce stress, and when prolonged, take us down a road of physical and emotional health problems.

Add to this the problem of our selfish sin nature that has severely infected the GO and STOP systems of our brain. Anger and rage fuel the GO system and produce an aggressive response of the STOP system when faced with a threat. This can be a lethal combination when the GO system and STOP system are producing an aggressive response to external and internal stimuli at the same time. The external stimulus can be anything from something threatening you physically to someone saying something to you verbally that affects you emotionally, causing your brain to protect you from the perceived threat. The internal stimuli can range from wanting to be loved and appreciated and everything under your control going your way, to the desire and perceived “need” to conquer, win and be right. The selfish sin nature controls that part of our brain that wants so badly to win and feel good.

So, we can conclude that it is imperative that we have outlets for anger or we’ll burst. The problem is that our brain is set up to automatically react to anger and rage according to our selfish sin nature. We tend to use aggressive vocal inflections, or in other words, raise our voice and yell at someone as an expression of anger. We tend to use verbally aggressive language to express our anger. We might hit something or someone as an expression of anger. Parents may spank and hit their children, or send them to a “time out”, not because it is a reinforcing tool for discipline, but as an expression of anger. Siblings will hit each other. Athletic combatants will utilize aggressive physical contact to express anger, deemed necessary for a competitive edge to resolve adrenalin spikes. It isn’t just vocal volume and physical acts of aggression that attempt to experience relief from anger, but also the content of what is said. We’ll use just the right words to exact our revenge. Of course, there can be far severe expressions of anger and rage that result in more severe consequences. Not only consequences that can land a person in prison or result in someone beaten or killed, but result in terminated relationships—personal and professional.

Resentment

When we get stuck in anger, unable to adequately express it or fully resolve it, we tend to develop feelings of resentment. Resentment is prolonged unresolved anger. It is the holding on to full blown balloons. It is usually directed toward other people. It can just as well be directed toward yourself, which is especially dangerous since at some point someone else is going to pay for it in some way when the balloon explodes all over him or her.

Resentment is a powerful emotion trapped in the biochemical cycles of the brain that can have a serious impact whenever and wherever it is triggered. It is not the point of this lesson to provide a blueprint laying out all of the ways resentment is pervasive in the hearts and minds of even the godliest people. The point is to take you on an exploration of discovery on how unresolved anger is affecting you and the relationships that are important to you. Resentment tends to build and fester in the hidden secret places of your mind and memory.

Here is the thing about the balloon analogy. When the balloon continues to expand as the anger escalates until it can hardly contain another breath of air, it will not take much for the balloon to explode. When explosion occurs, everything contained in the balloon explodes all over everyone in the area of the balloon, which can lead to costly, if not tragic, terrifying outcomes… consequences that can cause long-lasting, perhaps even permanent damage. However, when air is released from the balloon through the use of recovery tools and coping skills to effectively manage anger and conflict, the balloon doesn’t get so full. If there isn’t so much internal pressure, it will take far greater external pressure to cause the balloon to explode. And even should the pin (external pressure) break through the skin of the balloon, when it does pop, there isn’t as much inside to evoke a whole lot of damage.

The following are a series of questions that will help you to explore those places in the mind and soul that represent the air (internal pressure) in your balloon. When answering the following questions it is  beneficial to site examples with your responses:

-How effectively would you say you manage your anger? Explain what typically happens when you become angry.

-How effectively would you say you manage disappointment? Explain how you manage disappointment.

-What are situations from the past when you felt most angry?

• Event
• People involved

-Do you find that you feel resentment toward those who hurt you in the past? Explain what you’re feeling.

-What in your current circumstances and relationships do you feel anger towards? List them.

• What?
• Who?

-How are you able to express your anger in your relationships?

-How are you not able to express your anger in your relationships?

-Are you feeling a bit angry now? Explain.

-Are you wrestling with resentment now? Explain.

-To whom in your present relationships do you feel resentment towards? List them.

-On a scale of 1-100, how intense is the resentment toward each person on the list?

-Do you feel resentment toward those who have caused you feelings of shame in your life? Explain.

-Do you feel resentment toward those who left you feeling wounded? Explain.

-Honestly, what would you say is your penchant for revenge?

-What would you say are your tools for vengence that you are inclined to use when the situation calls for it?

-Do you ever find yourself writing the script in your mind for how arguments, confrontations, and acts of vengeful behavior will be played out? Explain and perhaps provide an example..

-Do you imagine worst-case scenarios? Explain.

The lesson this week is a little different as you are being asked a number of questions that speak to this issue of anger and resentment. Often times we go to God in anger toward others praying from the motivation generated by anger and resentment. We will often pray the way that David the Psalmist did when he pleaded for God to vanquish his enemies. He prayed that way because guys like King Saul of the Old Testament sought to kill David and everybody knew it but did not have the authority to stop him.

What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure. James 4:1-3 (NLT)

It behooves us as weak, vulnerable, self-protective, and able and willing to strike back people, to develop an ACTION PLAN to manage anger and resentment.

Develop an Action Plan

1-Identify a current problem or conflict resulting in anger

• Describe a problem that is present in your life that results in your being angry
• How has the problem led to feelings of anger?
• What does the anger feel like?

2-Recall events and circumstances in play when the problem/conflict started

• When did the problem begin?
• What relationships are involved with this problem?
• What were the events and circumstances leading up to the problem?
• What are the current circumstances as the result of the problem?

3-Examine how you are affected by the problem/conflict

• How are you affected physically and psychologically by the problem?
• How are the circumstances of your life affected by the problem?

4-Examine who else is affected by the problem/conflict

• What relationships are most affected by the problem?
• How would you say those relationships are affected physically and psychologically by the problem as far as you can tell? (Be specific)
• What other relationships are affected by the problem?
• How are those relationships affected by the problem?

5-Examine the first thing you did to try and solve the problem/conflict

• What were you thinking you needed to do to solve the problem?
• What did you think you needed to do to feel better while in the problem?
• What did you attempt to do to solve the problem?
• What did you do to feel better while in the problem?
• Did you solve the problem?
• Did the circumstances around and because of the problem get better, become worse, or stay the same? Explain.

6-Examine other things you did to try and solve the problem/conflict

• What else were you thinking you needed to do to solve the problem?
• What else did you think you needed to do to feel better while in the problem?
• What else did you attempt to do to solve the problem?
• What else did you do to feel better while in the problem?
• Did you solve the problem?
• Did the circumstances around and because of the problem get better, become worse, or stay the same? Explain.

7-Look back to other times when you had a similar problem/conflict

• When in your life did you experience a similar problem?
• How was the problem similar?
• What relationships were involved while experiencing the similar problem?
• What were the events and circumstances regarding the problem at that time?

8-Examine what you recall doing to attempt to solve the problem/conflict

• What did you do to attempt to solve the similar problem?
• How was what you did to attempt to solve that problem similar to what you have done so far to attempt to solve this current problem?
• How was what you did to attempt that problem different from what you have done so far to attempt to solve this current problem?

9-Examine how you and others were affected by that previous similar problem

• How were you affected physically and psychologically by that similar problem?
• How were you affected by what you did to attempt to solve that problem?
• How would you say those relationships were affected physically and psychologically by the problem as far as you can tell? (Again, be specific)

10-Consider how confident are you that you can solve your current problem/conflict without a working action plan

• On a scale of 0-100 (100 being most), what is your confidence level that you can solve your current problem on your own your way without an effectively working action plan?

11-Develop an action plan with a minimum of three very specific steps

• Using as many steps as it will take, begin outlining action steps that you believe are necessary to solve your current problem resulting in you being angry. Be thinking about how you will work the Admit, Believe, Commit strategy into your action steps.
• Be specific! “I will to pray more”, or “I will communicate more effectively with my spouse”, or “I will drink less/quit drinking”, or “I will quit smoking”, or “I will show more respect to my spouse”, or “I will stop this or that” are not sufficient on their own.
• Be specific of what you will do, how you will do it, and when you will do it for each step.

12-Prognosis for resolution of the problem/conflict without your action plan

• What is the best case scenario for continuing the course you were on solving your problem in your way without the steps in your action plan?
• What is the worst case scenario?
• Of the two potential outcomes, which is the most likely scenario?

13-Prognosis for successful resolution of the problem/conflict with your action plan

• What is the best case scenario for continuing the course you were on solving your problem in your way without the steps in your action plan?
• What is the worst case scenario?
• Of the two potential outcomes, which is the most likely scenario?

14-Consider what it all looks like when your problem/conflict is solved having implemented your plan God’s way

• How will working your action steps impact your physical and psychological health?
• How will working your action steps improve your spiritual health?
• How will the affected relationships in your life be better?
• How will your circumstances be better?
• How can you apply the fundamental elements of your action plan to other problems and circumstances?
• How can you apply the ABC strategy from your action plan into an overall approach to daily recovery?
• How would you describe the opportunity for a better future living out your action plan for recovery God’s way?

15-Examine your confidence level that you will solve your problem/conflict working through your action plan

• On a scale of 0-100 (100 being most), what is your confidence level that you can solve your current problem on God’s way through your action plan empowered by the One able, willing, and wanting to help you?
• Since fear and doubt are your human nature, take the time now to pray for an increase in faith so that you can grow in confidence.
• Regardless of your confidence level, begin to implement your action plan immediately.

Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. 2 Corinthians 12:8-9 (NLT)

If you engage and invest with full participation in your action plan, it is entirely possible for you to manage anger and resentment effectively. Take the time right now to pray and ask God for the grace and confidence to carry out your Action Plan to fully achieve your objectives.