The waters surrounded me, even to my soul;
The deep closed around me. But in my distress
I cried out to the Lord; yes, I prayed to my God for help.
He reached down from heaven and rescued me;
He drew me out of deep waters. He led me to a place of safety;
He rescued me because he delights in me.
He has brought my life up from the pit; my Lord, my God.
Jonah 2:5, 6, Psalms 18: 6, 16, 19
FEATURED: Do the Math! (Measuring the Value of What You Want Most)
“Whatever’s drowning you in fear, in discouragement, in sadness… Give it to Jesus. Whatever’s over your head is under his feet.” —Adrian Rogers*
Before we begin…
If you have come to FREEdom from MEdom Project trying to manage overwhelming anxiety and/or depression on your own, especially if you’re still struggling with trauma, or post-traumatic stress (PTSD), you may need to consider a higher level of care than a blog site. If you’ve been overwhelmed, beset with despair—feeling hopeless—in the absence of joy, you need to tell someone you trust. If you have, or have had, active (with a plan) or passive thoughts—even fleeting notions—of suicide, please tell someone immediately, or dial your community’s emergency number (usually 9-1-1) . You may also choose to click here for additional resources.
If you are reading this page and what you just read is descriptive of anyone you know embattled by depression that you fear or even suspect has had ideas of, or has made comments in any way related to, suicide or self-harm, please seek professional help on his or her behalf. If you’re aware of someone speaking of feeling hopeless, worthless, feeling like they want a way out, perhaps suggesting that they’re a burden and loved ones would be better off if he or she was no longer a burden to them, again, call some one immediately for support about what to do. If you feel that it’s imminent that someone is at risk of attempting to hurt themselves, regardless of age, dial 9-1-1, or whatever the phone number is for emergency services in your area.
If you are giving into the notion that you have sunk so deep into depression that not even the love of God will find you, please know that there is no depth beyond the reach of Christ. You ought continue to pray that God will do something from deep within you to activate healing and deliverance. You can feel you’re far from healed but once in the process of healing, there may be a sense of relief and release from what’s been oppressing and burdensome to this point.
“Your gift of truth may of just brought me back from praying for death. I don’t even wanna deal with me most days… I’d run away, but I would still end up with me, so why run. This might just be the best gift for healing and breaking down some walls I’m custom to building around me to protect myself. It’s amazing to me how much what I have read from this sight might just have saved me.” —Lori L.
It’s awesome to me that someone read something from this site that helped her in a meaningful way. However, this is a blog site that, while there may be worthwhile insights to explore, it is not a substitute for sound therapy. If a therapeutic counseling is what you seek, then please consider clicking on the broad range of resources along the right side of the menu at the top of this page. The therapeutic relationship with a quality counselor can guide you on a path for what you’re looking for.
Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. Ephesians 1:4-5 (NLT)
“It’s great to finally reach out and personally thank you for your assistance and guidance in my spiritual recovery program. The lessons you shared are a treasure that I share with others today. I am eternally grateful… It’s people like you that make it possible for people like me to look deep within and change the mind set to productivity instead of destruction.”—Lesley M., former incarcerated client
The Objective
This page comprehensive and thorough examining the human experience. Therefore, it’s a drawn out summary of the entire website. Whether you go through it all at once or over several viewings, you’ll learn a great deal about why we do what we do, and think the way we think, and what to do about it. Or, it will shed some light on what you already know, and hopefully motivate you to consider changes that need to be made.
I don’t really understand myself. I want to do what’s right, but I don’t. I want to do what’s good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what’s wrong, but I do it anyway. Who will free me from this life?
FREEdom from MEdom Project is not just some pretentious “Christianity versus psychology” narrative on how to cure the addictive lifestyle infested with distorted values, deceptive beliefs, and fraught with destructive behavior headed toward predictably disastrous outcomes. FREEdom from MEdom Project is the union of evidence-based therapeutic principles and spiritual scripturally-centered wisdom. The objective here is to consider our behavioral choices and whether what we do and what we say either draws us closer to what we want and value most in life, or drags us farther away from what we believe to be essential for a quality life experience.
Natural to facing the challenge of what we may already recognize is missing in our life experience is confronting our ambivalence to change. We may want to change what’s been destructive and painful, diminishing our quality of life, but necessary change is also stressful. It might be clear what needs to go (away) but we find ourselves struggling to let it go. Why stop something that feels good, even though the feel-good experience is temporary and inevitably increases discomfort until its painful? What feels good is easier, until it isn’t.
Positive change in your life can be upsetting and hurt before it feels better. Ironic, isn’t it, since destructive self-soothing behavior feels good before it hurts and becomes harmful (even dangerous), recovery into positive change typically feels painful en route to feeling better and steady.
FREEdom from MEdom Project intends to challenge you to address how you’ve interpreted life experiences that have wrought within you irrational beliefs that feed emotion, fuel thinking, and drive behavior. It’s recognizing the truth that, as the Apostle Peter wrote in the New Testament, “We are slaves to anything that controls us”, and as the Apostle Paul suggested, “No matter how hard I try to do right, because I am a slave to the sin that controls me, I inevitably do wrong.”
“I was so obsessed with me and the reasons I might be dissatisfied that I couldn’t focus on other people. When I find myself taking the wrong step, I think it’s because I’m trying to protect myself.” —Barack Obama
MEdom is everything that is about me; or perhaps better said it’s, “It’s all about me.” To say, “That’s not true of me“, is self-deceptive; the denial of fact. MEdom is my preoccupation with me; my obsession with dissatisfaction and discomfort, requiring tireless effort to remedy my experience. So much about me is overloaded with complication, confusion, contradiction, and conflict. Swallowed up by the challenge to try managing what’s beyond my control can feel quite overwhelming. There’s too much yuck. So, how ’bout a pathway to freedom?
Jesus proclaimed, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
The people responded, “We have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean, ‘You will be set free’?”
Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin.” John 8:32-36 (NLT)
Jesus confronted some angry, resentful people subject to generational oppression and slavery with a message of freedom. They responded, “Free from what? When were we ever slaves?” Then Jesus let it be known, “Anyone who has sinned is a slave to sin.” We are free to choose for ourselves according to what we believe we want and need. And so is everyone else. What that means is that given the opportunity, we are inclined by self-centered motives towards selfish thinking and behavior. It also means that we are subject to the selfish attitudes and oppressive behavior of others.
Inherent in all of us being free to choose as we see fit is conflict, due to differences—subtle or stark—in our belief systems as culturally diverse people; whether or not we are civil as a society. We will trend toward hurting ourselves, and will continue to be hurt by the actions of others. Once we accept this truth, along with the truth of liberating grace and deliverance in relationship with God, not only is freedom promised, it’s guaranteed.
“I have gone through the FREEdom from MEdom Project then concluded that it is divine; my heart is deeply touched. I have been touched by your vision for delivering addicted people… May God expand your vision mightily all over the world. I’m moved to pray for this ministry because it is a unique one. I know that this wave shall cause a great revival in our land.” —Pastor Leonard Walubengo, Nairobi, Kenya
FREEdom from MEdom Project exists to inspire hope within hurting people to find healing and redemption through recovery God’s way into the best of a new life experience. Life is meant to be enjoyed by way of relationship. Relationship is meant to be experienced freely, from a place of stability and love, not wrought with disharmony and conflict; crippled by fear.
When embattled in conflict, relationships (even relationships with loved ones) are distressing. Relationships burdened by conditional expectations and unmet need lead to the deflation of confidence in the relationship, as well as the depletion of motivation to overcome ceaseless disappointment. As stressful relationships become increasingly toxic, the contentious noise intensifies until people end up hating the people they love. The value of love is diminished and distorted to the point that it’s unrecognizable.
It is not enough to hopelessly survive the noisy disturbance of another day. It is joy that affords us the opportunity to experience peace while in the worst of times. Joy is not merely some romanticized ideal, but something intended by our creator to be experienced; even while faced with challenges. Joy is meant to be experienced in relationship with God, and relationship with other people in the experience of fearless love. In partnership with joy, love need not be some idealistic figment of the imagination, but experienced in relationship.
Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in (relationship with) Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:4-7 (NLT)
Authentic loves drives out fear abounding in joy, cutting through hardship. Sincere love is accepting and tolerant of flawed imperfections. Purely selfless love is impossible outside of relationship with God, who is flawless. Joyful love experienced in relationship with Jesus, releases us from fear. Joyful love in relationship with Jesus defies description since it really does transcend human understanding.
While it’s clear that relationships are conditional, according to reasonable expectations, conditional love is suspect in nature, quite dreadful, and not really love at all. Relationships are most fragile when absent of trust because of fear. Healing and deliverance is needed before trust is merited in relationships. Who will heal my wounds? Who will deliver from me from bondage? Who can?
The initial step toward FREEdom from MEdom is recognizing that I am helpless to fix myself without help and support. If the best source for help and support includes being empowered by something or someone bigger than me, and bigger than my life and my world, and wants to help me from a place of compassion and generosity, why wouldn’t want I that? I WANT THAT!
The Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. Isaiah 30:18 (NIV)
Unyielding Conflict between Trust and Fear
Truth be told, my greatest challenge is trusting entirely in what I say I believe in. I struggle with doubt, and the anxiety that comes along with it, especially when faced with adversity so intense it’s crazy-scary. It’s easy for folks to say, “Well, just give it to Jesus” or, “Let go and let God,” but all the while I’m wondering, “Will God help me, this time?” I’ve, at times, wrestled with the question, “Where was God when this (and that) happened to me?” In times of intense crisis, this unyielding internal conflict between trust and fear can grip my insides and will not let go.
“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” —A.W. Tozer, Bible Scholar
Did you know that the most famous person in human history sought God for a way out of his torment?
He pleaded three times something to the extent of…
“If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me.” —Jesus Christ
When Jesus was a man truly desperate for divine intervention in the storm of real tragedy, he felt rejected and alone. Feeling abandoned and betrayed by those closest to him, in the midst of such horrific pain and suffering, was in fact his experience. He felt it all as a human being while carrying a burden so heavy I fail to comprehend it.
Jesus said to his closest friends, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death.”
In my life experience, I have been confronted by fierce opposition, and God felt distant to me… disengaged. There have been times that “required” God’s immediate attention to the details; to intervene in the way that only God can; especially those times in my life when the evil raising its ugly head against me seemed to prevail. Where was God when it felt like evil was winning?
Even though I never doubt what God can do, I sometimes think to myself, “God, I believe you can, but will you?”
I felt I was left out there on my own… alone. When my quality of life was threatened, where was God? Where is God? Have you ever felt like that… or perhaps even today, feel like that?
“I wanted nothing to do with faith. That changed the night I tried to take my own life. Never did I imagine that God would answer me. But he did… I was ready to take my own life and instead found myself laid out by God… flooded with a peace that to this day, I cannot fully describe. I felt the resuscitation of grace.” —Alia Joy, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, author of God Saved Me from Suicide
Alone and overwhelmed in the darkened depths of despair, Jesus cried out…
“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
King David, an icon of the Old Testament, often found himself in times of peril, struggling in the teeth of torment wondering how he would survive the immediate crisis. Even David pondered to himself that the universe is so vast, “How can God even see me? Why would God pay attention to me in the midst of this storm in my life?”
O Lord, what are human beings that you should notice them,
mere mortals that you should think about them? Psalm 144:3 (NLT)
David was the anointed King of Israel, perhaps the single most important person on the planet, under attack from enemy forces, when he wrote something to the effect of, “Who am I that you would even know who I am?” He is suggesting that the God of the universe is in fact God and that David, a mere mortal, anointed king or not, is a hardly a blip on the radar, a speck of dust in a ray of light, compared to the awesomeness of God and the vast wonder of His creation.
I’ve wondered the same thing. “Why would God even notice me? Why would God care about my need… the storm in my life?”
Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?” Mark 4:38 (NLT)
It’s overwhelming! It can feel like you’re drowning. Have you wondered at times if God is missing in action? I know I have. I have experienced times of desperate peril when I wondered, “God, how can you allow this to even happen? It’s so much more than I can bear.”
Then, I try to consider what happened to Jesus. I don’t say that glibly. I don’t just suddenly feel “better” recalling what Jesus suffered and endured some two thousand years ago. It helps me to consider Christ’s pain and suffering while in the midst of my own. Maybe, he can sympathize.
Jesus knew from the beginning that the plan was that he would be the sacrifice that would pay the debt of sin for all people to be reconciled back into relationship with God. He was on board with that, motivated by love, confident that the plan was necessary and perfect.
Yet, while in the garden, as Jesus prayed, he sounded like a man drowning in fear, pleading with God for a different plan, anticipating that the pain and suffering on the way would be too much. Carrying the weight of the world, he was overwhelmed and very, very scared. Fear will do that; spawning the feeling that one is desperately alone in the void. Jesus understands, by his own experience, feelings of torment and despair.
Jesus knew what it was to be bullied by a hostile enemy. He was brutally abused to the extreme both physically and emotionally. What Jesus would experience was severe trauma right up until the end when he was put to death. If you’re someone suffering at the expense of someone’s brutality against you, bullied and abused by someone’s spiteful hostility aimed directly at you, Jesus, having been tortured, crucified, and then resurrected from the dead, today identifies with you.
Once the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives within you he will, by that same Spirit, bring to your whole being new strength and vitality. Romans 8:11 (PHILLIPS)
I have also asked myself this question. Is it possible that my suffering and pain precludes or prevents me from experiencing God’s presence to the extent that I do not see, hear, or feel that he is near? Am I so preoccupied with what’s gone, and obsessed with my discomfort—MEdom—that I am deaf and blind to the hope that is in relationship with God, who is so, so much bigger and better than anything I can come up with? Should I be entirely honest about it, I am so caught up in my chaotic mess that makes it especially challenging—scarcely possible—to recognize that God exists, and Jesus is alive. And if he is alive, who am I that he would notice me?
Can I become so preoccupied, and perhaps self-absorbed in whatever it is that seems to be consuming me from the inside, that I don’t see clearly what’s happening on the outside. Are the lenses of my perspective too cloudy to see things as they are, as well as to see God for who God is. If that’s the case what am I missing?
Internal Conflict
The conflict of the mind is the battle between trust and fear. Trust and confidence go hand-in-hand. But so does fear and anxiety; fear and worry. We can be so consumed with fear that it controls us. Fear becomes a barrier that walls someone off from relationships. Controlled by fear, one can feel all alone; compelled to shut it down, feeling like there is nothing left. Isolated and withdrawn, there can be a sense of desertion (feeling like everyone left) that can be so powerful, that drowning in loneliness emotes feeling unloved and unworthy of love.
If I am so undeserving of love, how can I possibly love myself?
Often central to the war within the mind is the notion that feeling unworthy and undeserving of love reflects the absence of self-love. It’s trendy to view self-destructive behavior as a contradiction to love of self, as it would appear to be. However, the reality is that if we did not love ourselves we would truly be indifferent to our own needs. We would never have conflict internally with what we value since we wouldn’t value anything. We’d be indifferent to self-care, whether or not we’re comfortable, and we certainly would be indifferent to the need to self-soothe in order to manage discomfort. To be indifferent to one’s needs to be to not care one way or the other.
“We all engage in attempts at self-care and self-soothing, which, at times, can feel deeply compelling to us even when the activity is in conflict with our values.” —Timothy Harrington, public speaker, Wide Wonder
In my professional work counseling mostly adolescents struggling with severe depression and anxiety, it is often said by patients that they don’t love themselves. This struggle with love of self can lead to feeling worthless, hopeless, and depression into the depths of despair, until possibly feeling inclined to to preserve oneself by the most extreme measure of all to be “free” of the pain.
Upon closer consideration, if someone does not have any love of self, why the need to escape pain and struggle to feel better?
The act of self-remedy, regardless of the extent to which one might go to experience relief, reflects the need to care for and soothe oneself, even if it isn’t healthy and is harmful and destructive. Therefore, the need to escape, even the act of giving into despair through something more permanent, reflects a love of self, as dangerous and tragic as it may be. To hate oneself is in itself passionate in its efforts to reflect such hate through self-destructive behavior.
If we didn’t love ourselves, we wouldn’t know what we’re missing. We certainly wouldn’t comprehend anxiety or stress. We wouldn’t have a care in the world one way or the other. There wouldn’t be a single expectation of any sort. Never a disappointment.
If we didn’t love ourselves, we wouldn’t comprehend love on any level. We wouldn’t know if we are loved or not; nor would we care. There would be no sense of want or need; no desire, no motivation, no intention, no appetite for anything.
It’s because of love of self that we experience deeply the true sense of what we want and need to both survive and thrive. It’s because of self-love that we are aware of what’s missing, and it hurts to one degree or another. Even self-loathing and self-destruction is a form of self-love in the attempt to self-soothe, though as a remedy to relieve discomfort or as a method to cope, it’s doing more harm than good as an unhealthy adaptation of self-love.
Lifestyle choices and behavioral patterns tend to reflect the way we see ourselves, the way we see our lives, and how we see our place in the overall scheme of things. The thoughts we entertain and how we choose to behave reflects our values. What we believe in the core of our being is essential to the experience of being satisfied, fulfilled, and joyful. What we believe in our core can also leave us in a heap of discomfort, feeling empty and unworthy of joy. How we think (overthink) and behave will also reflect remorse and regret, How we think (overthink) and behave will also reflect remorse and regret, grieving over consequences.
What someone values is of the utmost importance and influence. To attribute value to something is to hold it up as intrinsically desirable, having a substantial degree of worth, setting the standard for highest quality and priority; is deemed fair and equitable, in common with what most people would reasonably agree is right, and good.
Here is a common-sense, no doubt about it, fact. Everything we do and everything we say, factors into what we want and value most for our lives. So, ask yourself the following questions:
1) How does what I do and say draw me closer to what I want and value most for my life?
2) How does what I do and say drag me farther from what I want and value most for my life?
The problem we have with these two questions is we tend to ignore what matters most. We’re definitely aware of what we want and perceive we need now, in the moment, but what is it that what we want and value most in the bigger picture; the longer view? To include or exclude the matter of most can flip the answers to these questions that apply to everything we experience, every day of our lives. How does what we do and say direct us to make forward progress to what we want and value most? How does what we do and say take us another direction—perhaps the opposite direction—from what we want and value most?
“Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road.” —C.S. Lewis, Scholar and Author
Do your behavioral choices advance you closer to what you want most in life, or do they distance you from what you value most? Could it be that your response to conflict, especially in the heat of the moment, takes you the somewhere other than where you want to be? Does what you do and say reflect your core values? Or, do you give into distorted logic and react impulsively, leading to even more conflict and tension; bigger problems that lead to increased discomfort?
How has an unhealthy love of self fueled distorted thinking, twist values and beliefs that drive at-risk behavior, and produce unfavorable, regrettable outcomes?
How have consequences brought on by negative behavior piled on to already wounded self-esteem?
How can you hope to be restored in the way you best see yourself and find direction in how you live life with the people you live life with?
Diminished Expectations
I have experienced times of low self-esteem and felt unworthy of God’s attention. I felt that God was not invested in me because I was unworthy of God’s investment in me. It was a reflection of who I was, and where I was in my life. At those times, I may know in my rational mind that God is near, but I struggle to feel his presence. It’s at that time when I may feel unworthy of God’s presence in my circumstance, and highly doubt that God will intervene.
When I am at my weakest, desperate for God to do something about the thing that is wiping me out, why would he? God is holy and I’m not. If God does notice me, isn’t he disappointed? I have struggled with that… even as someone who believes God to be loving and merciful.
I have felt that I am undeserving of God’s favor. I don’t feel that God is willing to forgive me this time. So then, I don’t expect mercy or favor; which can send me reeling. It too is overwhelming, and I cannot seem to shake it.
The high and lofty one who lives in eternity, the Holy One, says this: “I live in the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble. I restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts.” Isaiah 57:15 (NLT)
Crisis and trauma can suddenly sap someone’s strength from the inside out. Personal tragedy and failure can overwhelm anyone, and break one’s will to go on. Cumulative anxiety and stress takes its toll over time, bankrupting a person’s emotional reserves until… (fill in the blank)
If you’re not sure, then simply imagine that God, who made you, loves you as his own child. Imagine that God loves to bless and take care of his children; providing for them. Imagine that God wants to bless and take care of you. What do you need from God? What do you want to ask God for? If it’s true that God loves you and wants to bless you, what keeps you from asking God for what you need and want for your life?
I will be glad and rejoice in your unfailing love, for you have seen my troubles, and you care about the anguish of my soul. Psalm 31:7 (NLT)
Though you may acknowledge God’s existence, how might believing that God is distant (or disinterested) contribute to your sense of dread in times of adversity and crisis? Where was God when blind-sided by sudden tragedy? What if you’ve prayed before during times of severe crisis or conflict and the situation seemed to get worse?
How do you view God in the most difficult of times? How do you see yourself when swallowed up by life’s challenges?
How does managing on your own make any sense when life gets too big for you? Why not take the hand of your savior? Because it didn’t go the way you thought it should go last time? Choosing pride disguised as self-preservation over sound reason is irrational and about as foolish as it gets. Or, maybe there’s some apprehension that there will be a condition attached to being saved.
Unfortunately, the response of so many in times of desperate peril is to reject the out-stretched hand of their savior. Then, when hurt yet again… and then again, there can be the idea that God is somehow responsible for the bad that happens, and the pain that comes with it. God is not some genie in a bottle. God wants relationship with you. If relationship with God is the only condition for blessing you with mercy, healing, deliverance and provision into a better, more satisfying life, how do you feel about that?
Vulnerable to Distortions
What is your experience? What do you see when you look into the mirror? Is what you see a true reflection of who you are in the light of your circumstances and how you see yourself, or is the reflection distorted by the weight of the burden you’re carrying?
How does what you’re dealing with affect how you see things in the world you live in?
Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. 1 Corinthians 13:12 (NLT)
“Sometimes we do not see things as they are, we see things as we are.” —Larry Crabb, Counselor, New Way Ministries
What is true about how your perceptions when it comes to anything spiritual? How have negative religious experiences disturbed what you believe about God? How might your most inward sensibilities influence what you believe about God, particularly when it comes to you? How might unmet expectations and unfavorable experiences affect an impression that God is distant or disinterested, or worse, disapproves of your lifestyle choices?
How have consequences of behavioral choices led to feelings of guilt and shame, remorse and regret? How has a deep sense of self-condemnation—an inability or unwillingness to forgive yourself—fed into a belief that God has condemned you? How does the perception of God as judge, jury, and executioner perhaps distort your idea about faith, that you cannot believe or put confidence in something or someone that will not forgive you, especially if you believe you’re unworthy of forgiveness?
“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16-17 (NLT, Jesus speaking)
What are the lies twisting your beliefs and distorting your values? How does giving in to distortions and lies become treasonous acts against your core values? How has altered values impacted what you believe? How has infected beliefs influenced behavioral choices? How did you once believe that at-risk behavior was a good thing, reinforcing the repetition of those choices? How have behavioral choices that felt good for awhile turned against you, producing (often sudden) adverse consequences? How has at-risk behavioral choices led to chronic pain and suffering?
There is a way that seems (feels) right… but its end is the way of death. Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
How might adverse consequences, pain and suffering (regardless of who’s responsible) poison your perception of who, what, and where God is? Why is God so often held responsible when bad happens, especially when the ones complaining say they don’t believe?
“The human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it. Now error and sin both have this property, that the deeper they are the less their victim suspects their existence; they are masked evil. Pain is unmasked, unmistakable evil; everyone knows that something is wrong when they’re being hurt.” —C.S. Lewis
Another possibility is that there is this idea that God needs to intervene to better my circumstances, but perhaps I haven’t really considered what needs to change in me. And if I have, I might not be so willing yet (if I am able) to do what I can—my responsibility, if you will—to improve what is within my ability to change what I honestly understand needs to change.
It can get interesting when choices are made to commit to behavioral changes that feel necessary to improve the likelihood that you’ll survive a crisis. You may stop something known to be destructive, or start something that feels healthier while trying to manage high degrees of difficulty, because in times of challenge it feels necessary; the right thing to do. It’s done largely for the purpose of relieving discomfort and boosting confidence while in a state of urgency. Once the crisis has been averted and things settled down, you might get a bit lazy about doing the right thing, and fall back into my old familiar ways of thinking about things and doing things that felt good before things went bad, even though you know quite well that they’re were not good for you. Familiar patterns of feel-good, at-risk behavior, means recycling the non-productive ‘normal’ in your life, which likely means triggering the unfavorable outcomes you’re all too familiar with.
Why Do I Need Recovery?
What does it mean to adhere to the sensibilities of godly principles? Is it about obeying commandments and following religious rules, rituals, and traditions.? Or, is it about resisting temptation and desire that carries with it logical, unfavorable outcomes; consequences to my body, my mind, my relationships, and all the rest. Why do I give in so willfully to foolish nonsense, even when recognizing how much better my life is in the clutch of God’s favor? Why resist what is certainly good for me?
What I can do in my relationship with God pales so drastically in comparison to what God can do for me. So, why am I so challenged to my part in this relationship? Why do I have such a problem with that?
When I say I believe fully in what God can do, but tend to doubt what God will do, it’s more likely than not that I’m not entirely willing to do what I know is necessary for the change process to be effective. God wants to meet my need, to go beyond what’s humanly possible to deliver me, but I’m too often unwilling to let go of what’s required of me if I am to experience what’s best for my life. It’s a relationship thing, at that point. Do I trust God in this relationship or not? How confident am I in this relationship? I’m all about what I can get from the relationship, but what am I willing to give to it?
Any chance you can relate to that?
Is it that I don’t trust that God is all in with me?
Or, is it that I struggle to believe that God in it with me to intervene with his favor because I don’t believe that I am worthy of it?
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Romans 8:32 (ESV)
So, in the same way others have left, how can I trust that God won’t leave me as well?
How does that feeling translate into feeling unworthy of God’s attention?
How does feeling unworthy, or worthless, translate into feeling less than lovable?
How does feeling unlovable produce feelings of hopelessness; that you have little to no control over anything, that it’s all a big mess and your life will never improve, or be any better than it’s been?
“What a relief, to be reminded once again, that I am not responsible for everyone and everything. Although I love to take control, it is so overwhelming and I know that it is not mine. That is why the load is so heavy when I try to carry it. I do that because I stop trusting that God will take care of it, and I think that I will feel better and everyone will be better off if I just take over. What a lie!” —Janet
Responsibility and Regret
Are you weighed down by the discontent and unhappiness of others? How might you take on the responsibility for someone else’s discomfort? How might you feel overwhelmed by the stress of all that responsibility? How heavy is the weight of carrying what’s beyond your control?
The stress of responsibility can be overwhelming. The emotion of failing the expectations of others you care about takes its toll over time. Behavior that causes someone harm can lead to the weight of intense guilt. Internalized guilt can feels like a reflection of who you are producing feelings of regret, deep sorrow and shame.
Regret involves events initiated by your behavior, or that of another against you. Regret emotes a deep sense of loss. The damage is done. You’re broken. It can feel like you’ll never recover what’s been lost. The burden of shame and regret is so heavy. How do you get out from something that is crushing you? Shame and regret can have such a profound impact that it’s effect on you is debilitating. You can be so consumed by the burden of guilt that it’s as though you can hardly move.
“The deepest moral issue is always what we, in our heart of hearts, believe about God.” —John Eldredge, Counselor and Author
How can God forgive what I’ve done? Why would he? How can God repair what’s been done to me? How can God piece back together a life that is broken into pieces? How can God restore hope to a dream that’s been shattered? How can God pour life into a well that’s been drained dry? How can God fill a tank that is empty?
As a counselor, I have worked with individuals who tell me in the one instance that they don’t believe in God, and then suddenly from a place of desperation ask, “Why did God make me this way?” The tears flow while expressing their disappointment in the God they deny exists in the first place. They speak of reaching out to God, praying for answers. But the answers never came.
I try to let them know that, while it may have taken longer than they’d hoped, “God brought me to you, right at this moment. And we’ve got work to do.” By then, I have connected with my patients, building a relationship that is trustworthy. I offer them an opportunity to meet a Savior that they have not really known before; not even when they were praying with a broken heart. I want them to know about Jesus who loves them for who they are, where they are; not to concern themselves with whatever hangups they may have with religion, but to get in touch with their healer and deliverer.
For the patients struggling with feeling unworthy of God’s love and forgiveness, presenting them with godly compassion goes a long way toward challenging a twisted belief about the true nature of God. I can see their countenance change before my very eyes as God’s love slips in to provide immediate comfort to their soul, even though nothing about their circumstances has improved yet.
They can get a real sense that God is not sleeping, even while it feels as though he hasn’t noticed them. He is in the midst of the storm they are in, with them, with the power and intentions to calm the wind and the waves.
When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Silence! Be still!” Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. Then he asked them, “Why are you afraid?” Mark 4:39-40 (NLT)
My purpose here is to reveal to you how hijacked beliefs intensify anxiety and fear at the heart of maladaptive thinking and behavior. When beliefs are shrouded in fear, your doubt that God will deliver is front and center. So much of FREEdom from MEdom Project unveils of this mystery of who and what we are, while revealing the truth about who God is; that it’s God’s resolve to ease our minds and to set us free.
So, what about you? Is what you believe about God trustworthy? Does what you believe about God promote courage and confidence? Or, does what you believe about God cast doubt and fear, leading you to feeling like you really can’t trust anyone (enough), internalizing growing insecurities while the anxiety builds about how you will navigate your way through on your own?
I cried out, “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!” Mark 9:24 (NLT)
“There is a sorrow that the soul must go through in letting go of what it thought it loved. We have to come to the place where we truly get it that what God wants for us is GOOD. To some degree, our resistance to his will reveals that we do not really believe it is good—at least not the kind of ‘good’ we want.” —Francis Leeman, Pastor
Let me ask you again. If you could know that God sees you, is interested, wanting to be involved, ready to engage and is listening, what would you ask God for? What might you want from God?
God does see. God is listening. God is engaged. God is waiting for you. ASK HIM!
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:6-7 (NIV)
Why do you need recovery? Recovery from what? What is recovery?
Why Do I Settle for Less?
Ask yourself the following…
“Is how I live my life rewarding, or is how I live costing me too much?”
“What do I want most for my life? What all needs to be better in my life for me to be better… to truly enjoy living?”
“Being entirely honest with myself, what’s all getting in the way of what I want? What burdens are so heavy, they’re crushing me? How am I tempted to settle for anything that feels just a bit better?”
“Does what I do to feel better in the moment work for me over time, or does what I do to feel better lead to other problems or make existing problems that much worse and discomforting?”
How you overcome those obstacles in the way of what you want most—what you value most—IS RECOVERY! To deny recovery is to willingly choose decline and decay until there is little to nothing left.
Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death. So don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters. James 1:14-16 (NLT)
When what I am doing (behavior) consistently drags me farther away from what I want and value most, instead of drawing me closer to what I want (and probably need, for that matter), it is clear indication that I NEED RECOVERY. Baited by what feels right, I am hooked yet again, as if I cannot help myself, one way or another ingesting the toxins that are infecting my mind and body, increasing the distance between where I am and where I want to be. I am settling for less than what I want and value most.
How does what I do to manage and cope with anxiety and stress draw me closer to what I want most for my life? Or, how does my “pain management” applications drag me farther away from what I truly want for my life? How am I better than I was? Or, am I worse for how I cope? Maybe, I’m stuck… in some kind of malaise, spinning my wheels.
How will turning to this or that remedy actually help you? Or, is your antidote for discomfort merely a mirage? The remedy looks good from a distance, but up close, when intensifying your pain, is not so attractive after all. How does settling for counterfeit gains only add to your loss? How does settling for less aggravate your problem, escalating your stress, increasing the severity of your discomfort? The reality is that settling for less pulls you farther away from what you know at your core is best.
“Your freedom gets limited by an internal reality that is a kind of brokenness or weakness or dividedness inside you. If our will is enslaved to our appetites, if our thoughts are obsessed with unfulfilled desires, if our emotions are slaves to our circumstances, if our bodily habits contradict our professed values, the soul is not free.” —Pastor, Dr. John Ortberg, Psychologist
The remedy is the means to escape. The truth is that to leave from a place, is to enter in to another place. To escape from something, is to escape into something else. Is it less painful there? Maybe for a time. But when the remedy includes the logical consequence of increased pain and struggle, the choice is regrettable.
“I don’t care what happens to me.” Disregard consequence? Until when? Until I suffer the consequence. Now I care. Belief, deceived by emotion, fuels choice, driving choice and behavior. “I made my choice. I acted on my choice. Now I have to live with my choice; living with the outcomes produced by my decision.
Sometimes, that’s how it is with choices. You can make an impulsive feeling-driven choice and act on it, only to realize how badly you messed up. You regret the choice once you’re aware of the incoming consequence, and somehow try to undo or unsay what what’s been done or said. Only, it’s too late. Here comes that sinking feeling. Now what?
The more I am separated from that which I truly want, the more it hurts me. I don’t even have to know what I’m missing. Something in me always knows. I’ll buy into the lie that the next big thing I settle for is good enough—even believing it makes me happy—until I experience the hurt connected to what I’ve settled for. The distortions come at a price. Counterfeit pleasure and relief is costly. How much am I willing to pay—lose—before I come to my senses? Must I go broke? Emotionally, relationally, and perhaps even financially, bankrupt?
It turns out what I chose to do or say did not get me what I wanted, or any closer to where I want to be. Not really.
Is what I want most simply to be free? Free from what… sadness, anger, anxiety, stress… hmm… fear? What am I afraid of? Am I bound by insecurities, afraid to be vulnerable? Do I fear risking my already weakened sense of self-worth?
Is what I want most to be free to love… without fear or reservation, holding nothing back, never afraid of being hurt again? Is what I want most to be free of fear so that I am free to truly enjoy my life, especially with those I love?
“Your problem isn’t that you’re afraid. It’s what you do with the fear that really matters.” —Rick Warren, Pastor & author
Enemy #1 is FEAR
F Failed
E Expectations
A Affecting your
R Reality
What we are likely doing more than anything else in our management of anxiety and stress, and coping with discomfort and struggle, is primarily our response to fear. Yes, there is the fear of painful experiences being repeated, but what tends to feed into our fear the most is the not knowing. It’s overthinking “What if?” that feeds into our fear more than anything. The unknowns in life drive fear, suspicion, and doubt. Not to overstate the obvious, but it is fear that disturbs peace and steals the experience of contentment and joy.
When there has been pain, particularly when pain involves trauma, everything and everyone is suspect. How do I know I can trust it? I do I know I can trust you? How can I trust you when I don’t even trust myself?
This lack (or absence) of trust and confidence in the hope that there is good in life, and the people in it, is what breaks the back of hope. Anyone feeling hopeless is stuck in a place of distrust, lacking confidence. Hopelessness is rooted in the fear that most, if not all, is lost.
How can you invest trust into anything or anyone when fearing that anything will ever come of it? How do place confidence in something or someone you don’t believe in? How do you find faith in something or someone you doubt has any potential for growth?
Fear is a hostile enemy in constant opposition to freedom, hope and authentic love. To lose hope is to lower expectations. Expecting less from God is the logical result of investing less in relationship with God. God is all about loving you and, therefore, investing in you. All love is best experienced in relationship with God. So, it suits you to trust that God loves you, and to expect that God wants the best for your life.
Since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory. This hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time. Romans 5:1-2, 5-6 (NLT)
There is a clear distinction between hopeless and helpless. Hopeless is the reality of having absolutely nothing or no one available or accessible to you when you are in a place of desperation. The need is overwhelming and insurmountable, and nobody’s coming, no matter how loud your cry is for help. Helpless, on the other hand, is the reality that you cannot achieve or overcome something on your own without help or any form of assistance or support.
In relationship with Jesus, the same power that raised him from the dead is alive and active within you, as well as in the world you live in. Everyone lives according to their own choices, and the choices of others will continue to have sway and impact on your life. However, the hope you have in relationship with God is what empowers you to overcome the most challenging circumstances and maintain order in your experience. You may still feel hopeless at times, but with Jesus your reality is that the help available to you is genuine and you have direct, immediate access in the experience of your relationship with him.
Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. Romans 8:10 (NLT)
Why believe in God? How can you know convincingly that Jesus is alive? Why consider a relationship with Jesus? What really is it to have faith? What does it mean to have a relationship with God, to know Jesus, personally?
From Fear to Faith
Let’s start with faith. Faith defined is something that is believed with especially strong conviction and assured confidence, with complete trust and loyalty, without question. The Bible describes faith as substantiated by a profound sense of hope from within, authenticated by the evidence of your experience, especially when it’s not clearly seen, and scientifically not likely, or even possible.
“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32 (NIV)
To experience faith is to trust this truth from the Bible, that the truth will set you free, as though your life depends on it. To have relationship with God, is to know his son, Jesus. To know Jesus, you only need to ask him into your life, and then see what happens. It’s okay to let him know that you’re not perfect, since he made you in the first place. Jesus is able and willing to heal, rebuild, and restore the broken places in your life. Like a caterpillar is transformed into a butterfly, your life can and will be transformed—forever changed—into something new… BETTER.
(Since relationship with God is through relationship with Jesus, and Jesus equally divine as God (Philippians 2:5-6)—he is God—the names Jesus and God are applied interchangeably throughout this text.)
So, what is it that do you do? Ask God to help you; to heal you; to do what you know needs to be done. You let go of what you cannot on your own do, and you let God do what only he can to help you. That’s it.
To truly have faith is to experience faith. To experience faith is to embrace relationship with Jesus. Once relationship has been established, simply by acknowledging your self-centered behavioral flaws and imperfections, what the Bible refers to as sin, and then accepting God’s mercy and grace, allowing the spirit of God’s forgiveness to wash you clean, you can realize from deep within that you have established a truly spiritual connection with God in ways that can’t help but change you for the better. You’ll then find it rather easy to trust these truths from the Bible as though your life depends on it; because it does. It is then that the hope in you is your assurance of a new life, and a better way of living it.
Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all. Romans 4:16a (NIV)
A mustard seed, something smaller than a kernel of corn, can adapt and grow in the wild through highly disturbed, most unfavorable, conditions, to sprawling heights of 6-20 feet. When Jesus talked about faith, he said that something as tiny as a mustard seed, with faith, while pushing through obstacles along the way that would otherwise be impossible, can grow into something incredible. Jesus insisted that applying faith will drive through what feels impossible, moving the mountains in your life in a way that allows you to get unstuck and move forward, no longer immobilized by fear and doubt.
“Truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:20 (ESV)
This passage does not indicate the removal of the mountain in your life, though miracles are entirely possible. Jesus said that, no matter how small you feel in the face of your challenge, because you have faith, the mountain in your way will “move from here to there.” Here is in your way, and there is out of your way. What was once daunting and insurmountable is reasonable; challenges once impossible are far more favorable because of who you know is in front of you, leading the way with strength and power to move what left to tackle on your own is impossible.
The fundamental truth is that trusting God comes from being confident in your belief that relationship with Jesus is essential to your well-being. It’s in relationship with him that the fear of what doesn’t seem possible is replaced by confidence in the relationship you have with him.
Perhaps, the most apt definition of hopelessness is faithlessness. What is hope without faith? The absence of faith is a desolation that descends into desperation. Faith in relationship with God transcends our circumstances, challenges, confusion, and contradiction. It’s by faith that we most experience meaning, freedom, and joy.
For some, faith can go dormant. Perhaps, you had faith but somewhere along the way you strayed from it and got lost. That was often the case with the inmates I counseled while working at the prison. In prison, the men didn’t usually find God, they returned to God. Dormant faith revoked the value of freedom; meant to be lived in the experience of peace and joy. Trusting in themselves, they returned to behavior that brought pain and struggle to themselves and others; even loved ones. Incarcerated, the men were once again desolate and bound. Liberty became a stranger. From prison, they valued their freedom. Some of the men would say out loud in therapy groups that they had never felt more free. They found freedom as their dormant faith awoke and once again moved within them.
The men still hopeless and desolate in their faithlessness resented those of faith, and told them as much. So, I encouraged those guys to consider something. If they want what their peers in the joint had, ask them how they got it, rather then despise them for experiencing peace and joy within the walls of prison. More of the men did so and discovered that their prison wasn’t inside those prison walls so much as it was those six inches or so between their ears. Once free there, it changed everything for them.
How did they do it? They asked Jesus to come in and live there.
Jesus is asking you to let him in. Can you hear through the all of the commotion in your head?
“Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in.” Revelation 3:20 (NLT)
So, it comes down to this: Do I trust myself enough or do I give faith a chance? What do I have to gain? What do I have to lose?
The more I am separated from that which I truly want, the more it hurts me. I don’t even have to know what I’m missing. Yet, something in me always knows. I’ll buy into the lie that the next big thing I settle for is good enough—even believing that it makes me happy—until I experience the hurt connected to what I’ve settled for. The distortions come at a price. Counterfeit pleasure and relief is costly. How much am I willing to pay—lose—before I come to my senses? Must I go broke? Emotionally, relationally, and perhaps even financially, bankrupt?
The thing about the metaphor of the mustard seed with genuine faith is that it is resilient. Resilient faith empowers us to overcome anything, against all odds. How large the mustard plant becomes is equivalent to the surrender of control and our trust in God. The promise is that as we let go of what we cannot control, and let God do what only he can as we grow in our confidence in him, he moves the mountain that’s been in the way of what we want and value most for our life.
“If you are struggling with a broken heart, remember that hope is more cognitive than it is emotive. Hold on to your hope. Keep the emotions of your heart from crushing your expectation in God.” ––Pastor, Dr. Charlie E. Dates
Please, do not rush by this quote from Dr. Dates. Cognition is a great deal more about knowing and reason, and a great deal less about the tides of emotion. It’s a huge point to recognize that hope is so much more about what you know and believe, than it is in how you feel. When what you know and believe is built on relationship with God, who is in fact the final authority in all matters, how you feel then rests in what you know and believe. When your hope is built on relationship with God, the circumstances in your life carry less weight in regards to what you trust in and hope for. It then permits you to let go of what you fear, since what you fear pales in comparison to where your hope depends.
“Forget all that—it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.” Isaiah 43:18-19 (NLT)
I don’t need to hit some kind of bottom in order to change my ways, but it’s not in my nature to initiate the change process until I hurt bad enough to need to change. It’s the pain I experience that creates enough contrast between what I really want, and what I’ve been left with. My pain is what motivates me to do something about it. Until I finally want better, why change?
“After that night, however, I began to make excuses… I wanted something to explain away the very real and terrible possibility that God existed and that he wanted something from me… But even with all of my justifications, I couldn’t deny that I felt something I had never felt before. I felt God.” —Alia Joy
Until what has felt so normal fails us, we tend not to dispute what we believe works for us; even when what we believe is working is in fact not working. Let that sink in and then choose to challenge beliefs proven by your own experience to be less than reasonable.
Reach for the only life-changing force able and willing—and wanting—to empower you toward something better… way better. God can and will restore what’s broken. Let him!
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed. Psalms 34:18 (NLT)
Deconstructing Normal
Yielding to feelings that distort beliefs, twisting and bending thinking patterns, driving destructive behavior, has become normal to the point we are slaves to this cyclical reality. The issue at hand is to deconstruct that normal in order to reconstruct a new, better, much healthier normal. Far easier said than done but entirely possible with the right support.
Recovery means regaining what I’ve lost, repairing what’s broke, and restoring what’s worn me down. Recovery fully realized is a transformative, life-changing process; not only improving my quality of living, but having a restorative effect into what I was always meant to be. Its impact can be powerful, like being changed into something new.
“The search for wholeness compels every person, every hour of our lives, whether we know it or not. We ache to be made whole again. And only one person on earth can do this for the heart and soul he himself created.” —John Eldredge
A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength. Proverbs 17:22 (NLT)
Recovery is truly essential to the life I want and hope to experience. Who isn’t flawed? In so many ways over time, life experiences tend to pick me apart, perhaps slowly, but surely. Living life is about being flawed human, affected by other humans, embattled with their own flaws while living in my world. It’s not enough that I make my own mess. Experiencing life with you, I live in your mess too. What a mess!
Living as an imperfect vessel, an imperfect life, with imperfect humans, in a far from perfect world, takes its toll regardless of how long you’ve lived that life. Adults are overwhelmed by a mixed brew of deflating anxiety and stress, and young people are especially overwhelmed by the anxiety and stress their under-developed brains are ill-equipped to manage effectively. Life experiences produce a belief system that is often suspect, to say the least.
The system is broken. Families are broken. We like to call it dysfunction. Communities are infected with jealousy and resentment. Society is unforgiving. People are jaded by foolish ambition and tend to be sorted by greed. Expectations are so often warped by overwhelming anxiety and stress, which at its core is fear.
“Uncertainty breeds fear, and the world is an uncertain place. We live in a world shaken by fear, apprehension, and anxiety. Fear can paralyze us and keep us from believing in God. Historians will probably call our era “the age of anxiety.” Anxiety is the natural result when our hopes are centered in anything short of God and His will for us. Focus, instead, on the steadfast Savior, who ever lives and ever reigns. There is nothing to fear when our faith is in the One who controls it all.” —Billy Graham, Evangelist & author
How has a lifetime’s worth of experiences affected (or should I say, infected) how you see yourself? How have betrayals and resentments held you hostage? What all are you holding onto? What burdens you’re carrying? How have your values been distorted and beliefs twisted by pain and struggle? How has what you’ve suffered fueled feelings of failure and fear, feeding into a deeply rooted sense of inadequacy, and driving misdirected behavioral choices producing undesired outcomes?
Life produces circumstances that are scary enough, but when our own chronic choices produce harmful outcomes, the fear that ensues can be crippling. You’re stuck… frozen in time. You can’t move; even when you know you need to. The disappointment of yet another regrettable decision and/or failure is too much to bear. It’s that fear that produces deep discouragement, depression and despair.
How do you sift through subjective distortions and deceptions to recognize and accept reasonably objective truth?
Even the iconic King David of the Bible, swayed by twisted beliefs and distorted values, repeated regrettable behavioral choices that cost him nearly everything. Burdened by fear, David’s erratic behavior produced increased pain and suffering to himself and others. His addictive behavior literally cost others their lives; and if not their lives, their quality of life. And as stated, it brought incredible detriment to the quality of his life in that for decades, he became a shell of the person he was meant to be.
David wrote the following:
My guilt overwhelms me—it is a burden too heavy to bear. My wounds fester and stink because of my foolish sins. I am bent over and racked with pain. All day long I walk around filled with grief. A raging fever burns within me, and my health is broken. I am exhausted and completely crushed. My groans come from an anguished heart. You know what I long for, Lord; you hear my every sigh. My heart beats wildly, my strength fails, and I am going blind. My loved ones and friends stay away, fearing my disease. Even my own family stands at a distance. Psalm 38:4-11 (NLT)
Regardless of one’s age, at the root core of anxiety, stress, and situational depression is fear. Fear is a logical human response to loss on account of abandoned trust. Fear and loss are at the heart of most of what ails us. Loss identifies the foreboding impact of risk and distrust in our choices and how we affect, or are affected by, others. Fear breeds insecurity and a brooding sense of inadequacy, draining us of motivation and resolve. When feeling broken; that perhaps happiness is merely an implausible idea that’s not realistic, one can sink into feeling hopeless, merely managing another day with a heavy heart.
“Don’t let the curtain of fear drape your heart’s desires. One of the most important things you can do in life is learn to pull back the curtain of fear so you can see it for what it really is—the enemy pressing your buttons. Think about all of the things you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t because of fear. Whenever you’re tempted to doubt your ability to start something new and accomplish something, recognize that feeling as a symptom of fear—it’s not reality. Pull back that curtain of fear and believe that God is working in you and wants to do great things through you.” —Joel Osteen, Pastor & author
Held Hostage
I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life? Romans 7:21-24 (NLT)
This suggests that I need help because I am conditioned to responding to powerful emotional forces controlling my behavioral choices. These emotional forces override intellectual sensibilities that measure reward and consequence against pleasure and pain. Once rationally impaired from within, giving into urges and cravings that detour me from what sensibly is right and good is the conditioned behavior, producing harmful and destructive consequences hurting me and all those affected by me.
Temptation is directed by the compulsion to be free. Because we lose our way, we are misdirected in our search for the right road to somewhere better than where we are. Driven by emotional forces desperate for relief from pain and release from bondage, we are controlled by what looks, sounds and feels like the next best thing. We’ve been bought by the master of all that is selfish and propelled by the need for more.
They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of sin and corruption. For you are a slave to whatever controls you. 2 Peter 2:19
We can be so angry and burdened with resentment for so long that it becomes a serious element of what feels normal to us; so much so that we become numb to it. It constricts are minds to the point that we can cut ourselves off from experiencing any joy in our lives. We cut off opportunities for better relationships when resentment breeds so much distrust that anyone is good. Too much disloyalty, betrayal, and disappointment. Why try anymore?
How does the weight of life’s challenges affect how you approach your day? Why take on the stress of the next challenge when so sure in your gut it will only lead to certain disappointment?
When tireless efforts lead to betrayal and disappointment, wounds run deep and the constant trying can feel so futile; like a dark cloud hovering just above you. The storm of testing is imminent. Every next failed expectation is a harbinger of prolonged heartache and struggle. Perhaps feeling worthless, with damaged self-esteem and diminished confidence, there’s that tendency to isolate, doubting that you can do anything about anything. Who can blame you for giving up? But, how will the behavioral choices associated with giving up truly remedy your discomfort?
Hurt hurts. Wounds are painful, and may go way back. Carrying the burden of pain can be so heavy you feel you’re being crushed under its weight. Their have been people in your life responsible for some of the damage. Specific individuals may have been the source severe trauma in your life. You may be left with memories you cannot shake from your thoughts. You might hate that their faces, their words, and their connection to what happened to you has been painted indelibly into your memory.
Other memories are from experiences of rejection and the failure of the ones who are supposed to love you to behave like people who love you. Maybe it’s been that way for way too long. They have chosen to satisfy their own needs at the expense of yours. It may not be the same as resenting emotional injury from an abuser, but being hurt repeatedly by loved ones still feels violating, breaking the heart of the most important connections in your life.
Resentment as Self-Defense
When does resentment escalate—or sink—into bitterness? Where is the line between resentment and hatred? When does resentment spawn the desire for vengeance? How is resentment a wall of self-defense?
Resentment is the breeding ground for division and all kinds of confusion and disorder since so little is forgiven today. Resentment full-grown is hatred. When resentment is the natural response to deliberate offenses against you, such as abuse, neglect, betrayal and abandonment, protecting the pain feels normal. Resentment is the modus operandi for one’s self-defense.
There is no doubt that there are villains in the world that are evil, leaving victims in their wake. Perhaps, that is your experience, or that of someone you care about. Physical, emotional (relational), and sexual abuse contain within some degree of wickedness. When someone who you’ve expected to love you—someone you trust with your life—turns and betrays you through some form of abuse, it can be traumatic and severely painful. When something good turns bad into something evil, breaking you down to the point that you feel you’ll never trust love again, how do you recover from that?
“When you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too.” Mark 11:25 (NLT)
If someone has been the vehicle for trauma and deep hurt in your life, the mere notion of forgiveness might be enough to make you sick. If someone toxic is consistently making your life miserable in some way, how do you forgive that person? It feels impossible to forgive someone who has been a thorn in your side, and/or has wounded you severely.
The deception is that forgiveness somehow frees the offender from what they did to you. The lie is that the process of letting go through forgiveness will reopen or deepen the wound. The opposite is true. Forgiveness is for the sake of healing wounds through the process of letting go. When the wound involves a loved one, the life of the relationship suffers so long as the hurt festers from within. Mercy is a repositioning of the heart meant for your benefit. Grace is a gift from God to forgive when someone you love has deeply offended you. God desires your freedom from the hurt of the offense. To be released from the burden of resentment is liberating. It’s what ultimately sets you free. As forgiveness from a gracious heart protects and strengthens the life of a relationship with someone you love, it’s something special.
Please understand, however, that there are times when forgiveness of the offender is for your betterment, and yours alone. There are times when forgiving those who have violated you does not involve reconciliation. When the violator is unrepentant, or is someone not directly involved in your life, except for the sole experience of the trauma in your life, forgiving that person is intended for your healing only. You need not reach out to the violator. You need not find yourself in harm’s way, or any place that might reopen a wound. It is your spiritual and emotional restoration that is at stake. You are not meant to reconcile that relationship. The only exception is if God should afford you the kind of miraculous grace that you feel something from deep inside to reach out. You wouldn’t have to wonder about it. You would know with certainty.
As far as your responsibility goes, live at peace with everyone. Never take vengeance into your own hands, my dear friends: stand back and let God punish if he will. For it is written: ‘Vengeance is mine. I will repay’. These are God’s words: ‘Therefore if your enemy hungers, feed him; if he thirsts, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head’. Don’t allow yourself to be overpowered with evil. Take the offensive—overpower evil by good! Romans 12:18-21 (PHILLIPS)
Evil is propagated and perpetuated by those seeking satisfaction through means that does harm to others, and in the end to themselves when there is no repentance. We are instructed to choose right over evil, even to those deliberately causing harm to us. To respond to evil with evil as a means to justice, leads to hypocrisy. To be overcome with evil is to become that which we hate. It would only add to our misery should we diminished by hate; lessening the best of who we are at our core. To abhor evil by doing good does not feel good. It feels wrong. It feels unjust. It’s not fair! If we choose to repay evil with evil (Newton’s “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”), we do so to seek our own need to feel better at the offender’s expense. After all, they deserve it, don’t they? But again, at what cost to us? It’s, as they say, a slippery slope.
Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Romans 12:9 (NKJV)
Released from Captivity to Trust Again
Could it be that when someone’s values are so distorted, and beliefs so twisted, that pursuing happiness and seeking good ranges from satisfying lust and greed to doing whatever it takes to self-preserve and survive? It’s a pathway to evil that includes both the villains and the victims of it. Both are in chains… imprisoned… enslaved by the same master—sin; whether it be their own, someone else’s, or a combination of both. One can’t be trusted and the other struggles to ever trust again.
Allowing God to break you from of your chains allows for the deconstruction of the wall that is resentment growing into hatred. Permitting God to comfort you with his peace is the protective shield of discernment to have the wisdom to risk being vulnerable again; to trust again. The love of God penetrating your being can alleviate fear. When forgiveness is fearless it’s a powerful thing to be experienced.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh, and strength to your bones. Proverbs 3:5-8 (NKJV)
The scary reality of evil is that it doesn’t always look like some monster hiding in the closet. Evil often disguises itself as something quite attractive; beautiful even. The deceit is evil drawing you in, seducing you into believing your on track to obtaining what you want most, while all the while dragging you the opposite direction from what you want and value. And then, evil does what it does best. It takes from you everything that you love and value most. Evil is the ultimate toxin, in all its forms poisoning your life.
To fear the Lord (meaning sovereign authority) is to choose to submit to the one that everything else is subject to; including everything you fear. It’s how we know that God is good and full of love for us; fighting for us. God loves us so much that he has allowed for us to choose to have relationship with him. We can choose to go our own way apart from God, but how has that worked out for us?
“Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you.” Deuteronomy 31:8 (NLT)
The best we can do to remedy the discomfort of anxiety and fear is to invest in relationship with God. The promise is that as we invest in God and his best for us, we will receive everything that comes with the return on our investment (Matthew 6:33). Our problem is that while we don’t always experience God’s best right away in the moment, we tend to rely on our own understanding of what’s best. In doing so, we subject ourselves to less than his best, which apart from God is connected to that which we have reason to fear. If what we want most is to be free to experience joy, why would we attach ourselves to less than God’s best, killing our joy, only adding to what we fear?
To live in the best of God what God has for you, promotes healthy self-esteem and confidence. To trust God with confidence allows you to trust others worthy of trust. You’re more able and willing to trust others again after being hurt when the healing and comfort of God’s presence in your life has wrapped it’s arms around you; when you know God has you and won’t let you go. Should you stray, God is walking with you.
It’s okay to maintain healthy boundaries; to keep your guard up. It’s okay to be reticent about vulnerability; putting yourself out there. A healthy wall of trust has windows and doors so you can see and discern what’s out there, and what’s coming. Let others knock on your door and prove themselves worthy of your trust before trusting enough to let them in.
Foolish or Wise Investment
While considering investing into something spiritual, consider this:
To invest into some kind of a relationship with God, you having everything to gain and nothing to lose. To ignore or to resist (or worse, reject) investing into something with God, you have little or nothing to gain and perhaps everything to lose. Really, think about that.
While never apologizing for that which is sensible about new life empowered by faith in God through relationship with Jesus, FREEdom from MEdom Project is not a slave to religious dogma, and recognizes the hypocrisy of people who say one thing but then engage in behavior inconsistent with their words.
But make no mistake about it. Everything throughout the presentation of FREEdom from MEdom Project hinges on the reality of God’s existence, and God’s connection with all people through relationship with the resurrected Savior of all humanity, Jesus Christ. Jesus lived the human experience, enduring human desire and real temptation. He demonstrated compassion healing the sick (including the mentally ill) and the blind. Jesus was the role model to live as a giver. The only taking Jesus did was taking the penalty for sin off our hands. Jesus suffered insurmountable pain, and died as the necessary sacrifice to redeem all who will acknowledge him as the only one who can and will forgive the contrite, repentant heart.
We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us. 2 Corinthians 1:8b-10 (NIV)
That’s a problem for some. Though they may be in desperate need, with their lives, or at the very least the quality of their lives, on the line. For those who either don’t believe, or refuse to believe in God (typically due to distortions and misperceptions about God), where is their hope? They’ll suggest that clinging to a hope in God is misdirected energy. They may call it “false hope”. Only, because they don’t know. They haven’t experienced God in any way so how can they know?
The hopeful assurance of new life into better living is tied directly to the authenticity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Anyone who believes that there is someone responsible for the collective function of the universe and the originator of everything that lives, whether laying claim to a personal relationship with God or not, does in fact open the door to the resurrection of Jesus, whether it is something they believe or not.
Think about it. To identify as a theist (one who believes in the existence of one God viewed as the creative source of living organisms) is to agree that life is not possible on its own. To be a theist is to argue for the fact that something only exists because it came from something, as opposed to the ridiculous: that something came from absolutely nothing.
The reality is this: if God didn’t always exist, then something else did. Something always existed… had to. So, if God didn’t always exist, what did? It would have to be alive to originate (create) life, and to establish a course—a kind of protocol (program, code)—for life to reproduce. Virtually, every form of living organism reproduces. Even molecules and cells reproduce. That just happened? Or, did something or someone create the pieces, and then put them together in a very specific order to render them functional?
So, what then? What is it that banged some 14 billion years ago? Is it naive to believe in God to be the catalyst for the process of all that exists and lives? Or, is it naive to invest trust into some theory that some thing(s) somehow came into existence from nothing and nowhere, and then the combination of the things that appeared out of nowhere just happened to be explode when brought together, into something fantastically massive that we refer to as the universe, and then somehow randomly (by accident) processed the evolution of all living things (without God), without any whim of intelligence or purpose?
The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God. As the Scriptures say,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.”
So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish. Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. 1 Corinthians 1:18-21 (NLT)
Those who have experienced relationship with God will typically let you know that there is nothing you can say, no argument you can make, to take that away from them. No one believes that Santa Claus is anything more than a fable that makes Christmas special for children. But what if you, a sensibly rational person, late one Christmas Eve night, heard and felt your house shake, followed by someone making a racket in the living room. You get up from your bed, thinking something terrible is happening. But there he is. It’s Santa himself with good stuff for you. You can’t believe your eyes, and then Santa sticks around and spends time with you. He is gracious and generous. You both hit it off. Then the very next Christmas, Santa lands on your roof again; and the next Christmas, does it again, and again, and every time contributing something valuable and meaningful to your life. He tells you how to stay in touch, and now you’re talking and getting together far more often.
People who have encountered relationship with Jesus Christ will tell you that there experience is absolutely real and believable. No one, no matter how smart they think they are, can refute what you know to be true and real because of your experience. No one!
When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths. But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means. 1 Corinthians 2:13-14 (NLT)
The picture of faith is best seen through the experience of a child, dependent on his or her parents; guided by her mother, empowered by his father to do more, and to do better. The young child emulates his father, wanting to be like him. He rebels from time to time, while knowing all the while his life is in his father’s hands. The young child trusts her father; his confidence in his mother’s love never wavers. Mom is always his source from comfort. Dad provides without fail. By faith, we are called by God sons and daughters.
“I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” 2 Corinthians 6:18 (NIV)
Why is it so important to me that you get this truth working in your life that has changed mine?
Imagine that I am your neighbor. You see that I have been digging in my backyard with some serious equipment. You wonder to yourself, “What is Steven digging for over there?” In the meantime, I’ve been thinking that I need to tell you about my discovery. I care about you and genuinely desire for you to have what has brought a wealth of joy into my life. Our eyes meet one day and we come together somewhere between your property and mine. I can’t wait another minute, and so I tell you that I have struck oil under my property. It’s not a secret. The thing about this thing that has brought me so much joy, is that it has strengthened my appreciation and love for you.
The truth is this: If there is an endless bounty of oil under my property, and your my neighbor, does the oil stop at the property line between your land and mine? Of course not! This oil is just as plentiful under your property as it is mine. Can I share my digging tools with you? Do want the same joy in your life that you see experienced in mine?
Or, are you merely happy for me as you continue to dig for some kind of treasure with tools that have no chance of getting through that first layer of rock in your life that you can’t seem to penetrate? Why not receive what I have and want so generously to share with you?
What are the tools to dig for the oil to enrich your life? Prayer, God’s Word (the Bible), and fellowship in the community of like-minded people identified as believers. Where do you find them? You may have guessed it… Church. The Bible tells us that church isn’t a building, or even a religious institution. Church is fellowship in the community, dare I say family, of others desiring to live in the peace and joy found in relationship with Jesus.
What’s sad for those who struggle to believe is that they don’t know what they’re missing. They are lost, missing out on the opportunity and privilege to experience God’s love. They think they know, according to what they know, and more importantly, what they don’t know. So, they will continue to argue according to their empty hopeless reasoning. They will suggest that faith is ridiculous. And, I suppose it would seem to be; that is, until Santa has landed on their roofs, and entered into their lives. Until then, they remain uptight and defensive.
We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. But whoever loves God is known by God. 1 Corinthians 8:1-3 (NIV)
Watch a debate, sometime, between some genius atheist, and someone who has experienced relationship with God. The atheist tends to become anxious, attempting to prove with scientific “evidence” that somehow something came from nothing, banged in a big way, and “Poof!” there is a universe and a planet with things, animals and people living on it. So easy and comfortable, right? SO NOT POSSIBLE!
People say, “I believe in the big bang!” to explain how things initially came into being. Then I ask, “What banged?” They respond to that question with, “I believe in science.” Which begs the question, “What does that mean?” Especially since science bears the burden of proof. Theories don’t prove things any more than someone’s claims that God exists, and the endless possibilities in play because of God’s existence.
Of course, evolution is real, but there is nothing random about it. Evolution without God is nothing more than a ridiculous theory. Evolution with God at the helm is acceptable since it’s now believable. God said, “Let there be light!” and BOOM!!! something banged in a big, beyond spectacular, way into the universe, and then life as we know it evolved under the sovereignty and scrutiny of the one most of us call God. (With new evidence, even the science community shares the opinion that the universe banged into existence instantly—within a fraction of a second.)
Why Faith Makes More Sense
What? You can’t see God? You can’t believe in something you can’t see?
Can’t trust in something, or someone, you can’t see, hear, or touch? We do it all the time. We trust in gravity, nutrients in our food, hot and cold, and so much more that we don’t see, touch, taste, smell or hear everyday, because we trust in the evidence of our experience. What about the confidence you have in your cell phone or laptop to transmit a message anywhere in the world? Did you see the message leave your phone? You do so completely trusting in something you cannot see, touch, taste, smell, or hear. There is nothing naive about that.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV)
Consider everything that has to fit and work together for anything to reproduce, to be alive, to grow, and to sustain itself. From the tiniest of living things to plant and animal life to human beings, all growth and life appears to be an active miracle. Why does some mushy thing we call a brain organize the function of life—the beating heart, lungs that breathe, the absorption of nutrients, intelligence, emotion, logic, love and hate—working altogether with such precision?
“In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.” —Charles Darwin, Theory of Evolution Founder
The ingredients for life are beyond measure and imagination. Conception of life begins a speck when something called sperm bumps into an teeny tiny little egg. From comes the embryo. What’s going in that little embryo? It begins to form and shape itself into something. Uh oh, what’s that? It’s a heart in something no bigger than a dime. It’s beating! Life is a miracle, not an accident of random mutations. Why does any of it work? Even the father of evolution was perplexed by that question when admitting he is not atheist.
“I may say that the impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God.” —Charles Darwin
When solving a jigsaw puzzle, the pieces represent the substance of what you hope for when the pieces fastened together begin revealing the picture on the box. As more of the pieces come together, your hope builds as the evidence mounts that what you’re hoping for is being realized in your experience. When it all comes together, what was only visualized before is finally complete, and indeed satisfying.
You might not always see it with your eyes or hear it with your ears, but once you’ve known the substance and experienced the evidence that something has happened, your experience is the proof, even if proven only to you, that it is indeed real. And no one can take that from you.
God is indeed the life force arranging all of the pieces together making life possible. To accept God as creator and life-maker, is to accept that all things are possible because of God; including the resurrection of Jesus, and the resurrection and healing of anything dead or dying in your life. It’s not only not naive to invest confidence in Jesus resurrected, it is empowering to experience what continues to be evident, life-giving power and strength.
“The more I study science, the more I believe in God. I want to know how God created this world.“ —Albert Einstein
So, What Went Wrong?
If God made you and I to participate in this flawed system known as humanity, did he err in some way? God afforded all living creatures with brains the ability and will to choose. We all have an appetite for what we want and feel—believe—we need. And, since as human beings we are not God, we are prone to be selfish and so our choices reflect that to one degree or another. We are all inclined to pursue what we want and believe we need, even at the expense of the wants and needs of others, and are therefore affected one way or the other by each other’s decisions.
So long as behavioral choices are reinforced, people will repeat the behavior, even if in the long run what feels good is connected to harm against oneself, and against others. People get hurt, and in many cases, entire populations of people are put at risk. There is certainly evil in the world due to the collective selfish thinking and behavior of all of us since the beginning, and we all suffer from its effects. Instead of blaming God for what ails us, no matter how severe the wounds may be, we need empowering strength and comfort from God under the cover of his mercy and grace. Find the hope in that. It’s a beautiful thing.
If you’re willing to invest into relationship with God through his son, Jesus Christ, you’re certainly not alone. You’re one of billions until now who have already experienced empowered, transformed renewal into something immeasurably special, something we were made by God to be. And no matter what we’ve done, or what’s been done to us to break us down, we’ve been restored into what we were meant for from the beginning.
Alright. All that being said, let me remind you that we’re all in the position we’re in as flawed human beings because it’s our nature to trust more in what we feel, even at the expense of what we know reasonably makes more sense. The most intelligent, logical people who ever lived have given in to desire and it’s emotion-driven lure in the heat of the moment. It messes us up. It’s why we need a Savior.
Why is Trusting in Feelings a Problem?
Turn to me and have mercy, for I am alone and in deep distress. My problems go from bad to worse. Oh, save me from them all! Feel my pain and see my trouble. Forgive all my sins. Psalms 25:16-18 (NLT)
If you agree with something you’ve heard or read it’s because you already knew it to be true. You agree since it makes sense to your rational mind. You’re more aware and alert when trusting in what you know, rather than trusting in what you feel. Ever heard the expression, think before you act, or react? When behavior is driven by rational thinking, it tends work out more favorably than a sudden, perhaps impulsive, emotional (and too often irrational) reaction to something.
“Emotions too often drive what we do. This is not God’s plan for any of us. Jesus said, ‘You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.’” —Pastor Rich Wilkerson, Sr.
The truth is that our brains have been short-circuited by the problem of the fallen nature of all of us to be selfish. There is a scientific reality concerning the human brain that dictates—even predetermines—our thinking, feelings, beliefs, and behavior. So, in the context of our nature to be self-centered, we model what we experience growing up, conditioning our emotional sensibilities, shaping our values and beliefs, and influencing how our brains think and process information, which then directs how we behave.
When you get to know people well enough, you’re able to predict outcomes on the horizon because you know how they think, what they appear to believe, and how they react emotionally to situations and circumstances. You’re not surprised by what simply makes sense to you about how they process, emotionally and intellectually, the events of their lives. Of course, that was going to happen to them when they… because they… It’s to be expected.
Clogged Filters & Blocked Pathways
It turns out that the brain is a complex automated system. Neurobiology is the study of cells of the nervous system and the organization of these cells into functional circuits that process information and mediate behavior.**
“I can to some extent control my acts. I have no direct control over my temperament. If what we are matters even more than what we do—if indeed if what we do matters chiefly as evidence of what we are—then it follows that the change which I most need to undergo is a change that my own direct, voluntary efforts cannot bring about.” —C.S. Lewis
We don’t intentionally activate ingestion in order to swallow food. The brain decides then what’s nutritionally useful about food and discards the rest as waste. When faced with sudden driving decisions, before contemplating how to maneuver the vehicle, our brains know to avoid disaster. We’re able react to things before measuring potential outcomes. We just do it, seemingly without thinking.
We also make behavioral choices according to how our brains automatically process information every moment of our lives. We ought to think before we act. Instead, we react impulsively (automatically) to what we feel—believe—in the moment, betrayed by emotion, as if we’re not entirely in control of ourselves. What we believe is shaped by how our brains interpret every experience we’ve ever had. What we believe, according to our interpretations of experience, determines meaning; what we identify as meaningful and significant. It’s indeed our individual and collective reality that raw emotion typically overrides rational thought, and what collective we understand to be common sense, and so we behave accordingly.
“When things are working right, the ‘go’ circuitry and the ‘stop’ circuitry really are interconnected and are really talking to each other to help you weigh the consequences of a decision and decide when to go or not to go… It’s not that they’re separable. They’re interactive. They’re interlinked at all times.” —Dr. Anna Rose Childress, Psychology Researcher at the University of Pennsylvania
Distorted beliefs and values typically fuels feelings that cry out for a remedy driving behavior that so often leads to addiction to one degree or another. Addictive behavior complicates neurobiology in the brain and compels the ‘go’ circuitry of the brain to go rogue and on it’s own bypassing the warnings of the ‘stop’ circuitry as it pursues what it wants when it wants. It becomes a force that cannot be stopped so long as what it wants is pleasurable and rewarding. So long as it feels good, the behavior is reinforced.
At the risk of repeating myself, the following needs to be said to drive home such an important truth about why we do what we do, even though it’s painfully clear that so much of what we do makes so little sense; all in the pursuit of relieving discomfort. Whatever it takes!
It seems we can’t help but to trust our feelings, as fragile as they may be. Therefore, when we act on impulse and react according to what we believe, which dictates how we feel, it might just be what we would later recognize to be an overreaction, in that it defied common sense. When how we interpret an experience shapes how we see ourselves (self-esteem), leading to behavior with the potential for harm to ourselves and/or others, the interpretation likely activated an irrational belief that predicts continuation of the destructive behavior; behavior that continues until the outcome produced by the behavior hurts enough to dispute and challenge the irrational belief.
It’s the bane of this pattern of behavior that produces the consistency of disappointment that leads to deepened discouragement and then into depression that may sink into overwhelming distress (that hopeless feeling). All because we can’t help but to trust feelings fueled by irrational beliefs, betraying what we know rationally makes the most sense.
We need help filtering what we feel through what we truly know rationally makes the most sense.
Of course, the emotional function of the human brain is essential to our life experience. To experience joy we need to feel it for it to mean anything. We were created to feel what we experience. The problem we share is that trusting flawed wounded feelings convinces rational thought to believe in something irrational in the pursuit of happiness. Irrational beliefs trigger impulsive behavioral responses fueling choices that in time, or all at once, produce harmful outcomes that threaten to jeopardize our quality of life.
“Everyone is not okay as they wander through life, and when we know people intimately we will find that much has been stolen from them, that many hearts have dried up and died, and that they cannot find a way out of those prisons by their own power.” —Francis Leeman
The Problem of Irrational Beliefs
Since the fall of the human condition, it is a neurobiological reality that we’re born into selfishness. So we all struggle with an innate sense of what we feel (believe) we deserve. The wires in our brains are entangled to want what we want when we want it, which of course is, well… right now. There is no escaping it, and on our own there isn’t much we can do about it.
We are neurologically inclined to believe that we don’t have to choose between this thing that we want and value most for our lives (to be free in every way), and that thing that we settle for that is attractive—even compelling—that is in the end associated with harm, discomfort, and pain. Our brain trends toward believing that we can obtain and achieve both this and that, even though they inherently oppose each other; the self-deceptive contradiction. Caught up in this vicious cycle, it’s our ambivalence to having to choose that enslaves our minds.
When it’s a choice between this, which is best, or that, which has appeal but pales in comparison (and potentially harmful), betrayed by emotion we’ll too often choose what feels good in the moment to reduce discomforting dissatisfaction, at the expense of what we mindfully know is best. We then regret the outcome we have to live with, grieving the loss of what we know we value most.
What a mess! How do we best identify and examine irrational beliefs? How do we confront and challenge irrational beliefs when we struggle so to accept that they’re irrational? Are we doomed to the logical consequences of our making? Only the One who made us in the first place can fully restore us into what we were created to be… rewire our brains, so to speak. It’s too much!
We need help confronting irrational beliefs feeding into the feelings and thoughts driving behavior.
What FREEdom from MEdom Project intends to be is an honest in-depth study and discussion of the transformative life-changing process; going deep into the process of how we think and behave. It‘s a vehicle to unveiling truth for the purpose of opening doors into a new life experience; targeting proven realistic solutions that you already know rationally make the most sense in your efforts to experience contentment.
I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. Philippians 4:11-13 (NLT)
Why stumble all over the internet when you can find most of what you’re looking for at one location?
The vision for this site has always been to develop one location full of rooms loaded with helpful resources. Contained within each room is an accessible library full of variety and potential for freedom finders to experience something authentically better and hopeful. And most importantly, that freedom finders would come to experience relationship with the giver of new life.
FREEdom from MEdom Project tackles the challenge of determining whether addictive behavior is a disease or a matter of personal choice and responsibility. The spectrum of addictive—“using”—behavior is broad. What is at its root… it’s core? What’s all included when considering what’s referred to as using behavior? Using behavior is any unhealthy, potentially harmful self-soothing mechanism to remedy discomfort.
Reconstructing Normal
I sit in my favorite fake-leather recliner to relax. It has been very familiar and comfortable for a long, long time. What used to look and feel like soft comfortable leather is almost completely gone. The chair is rickety and probably not safe to rock and recline in. The qualities of what looked attractive enough for me to buy it have deteriorated. Couldn’t afford the real deal, so I settled for the counterfeit deal. But it’s sure been comfortable, and has become very normal to me. My wife hates it. It is definitely ugly, and wobbly. But it’s mine. It might one day cause harm to me or someone I care about, should it collapse, but for some reason I continue to ignore the inevitable, and haven’t made the necessary change to something that is far superior and sure to last. I’ve settled for what’s familiar, though likely harmful, dangerous even, at the expense of what no doubt would be best for my life, and the lives of those affected by me.
It can be the same way with how we process what we believe, and advance our belief into how we behave and interact with the world; starting with those we love most. When our normal has produced cycles of conflict, hurting ourselves and others, we may eventually (hopefully) get it and respond to the call for change. Change requires deconstructing what we’ve known to be normal, but then required is reconstruction; a rebuild. We cannot reconstruct our new normal on our own. We need help and support. We need the restorative presence and power that God wants to generously supply.
Peruse the menu above to find a wealth of information from credible sources about symptomatic addictive behavior (Addiction ED) and mental health-related issues and symptoms (MH ED). If you’re feeling overwhelmed by anxiety, stress, depression, and perhaps hopeless despair, there are dozens of helpful resources and access to crisis resources and hotlines. I accumulated data for the educational material in Addiction ED and Mental Health ED from online research to make FREEdom from MEdom Project a kind of one-stop resource center for hurting people in need of healing and recovery.
Have you never heard? Have you never understood?
The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth.
He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding.
He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless.
Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion.
But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:28-31 (NLT)
FREEdom from MEdom Project intends to be a trustworthy resource striving to bridge the divide between clinically evidenced-based therapeutic approaches and biblical truth about recovery. You will become well-informed concerning the true nature of addiction to self from both a clinical and, yes, biblical perspective. The initial objective is to break through thick emotional barriers resistant to change by awakening rational thought relevant to what makes the most sense.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.” Jeremiah 29:11-14 (NIV)
“The fool tries to adjust the truth so he does not have to adjust to it.” —Dr. Henry Cloud, Psychologist and Author
It is wise to adjust your life to the truth. It is foolish to believe you can adjust the truth to your life. FREEdom from MEdom Project goes into the deeper places; and with God’s help and direction, hopes to foster understanding and growth to help you to realize by experience freedom from the places where you feel stuck, trapped, and afraid. The promises in Scripture offer for us direction, unveiling the way out from under the weight of what burdens us. The Word of God is an arsenal with the weapons necessary to fight through the obstacles along the way to experiencing peace and joy as an active participant in your recovery.
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, 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)
Bridge to Better
There are givers and takers in the world. Taking is the pathway to selfish sin. It’s our nature. It’s always been the case. From my vantage point it seems that takers never have enough, and genuine givers seem to not be so wanting. Givers tend to experience true joy while takers tend to be more disappointed and frustrated. If there are givers someone needs to be taking, right? Human wisdom would say so.
But how God wants to change our thinking by the renewal of the mind is to transform us into being givers. And, for every giver, there is a receiver more interested in returning the favor with continued generosity. It’s not semantics. The attitude of the receiver is unique compared to that of the taker. Takers will pursue and chase after what they desire while receivers enjoy reciprocity in relationship with givers, since receivers are themselves givers. In relationship with God, we receive the gift of new life into better living with a changed heart and renewed rational mind. We give back to God by blessing those along the way as we cross the bridge together with them into better living.
There is what you do and there is what God does in this process of recovery God’s way. If it sounds like a relationship that comes with conditions, like any relationship, it does. Recovery has divided responsibilities. Your responsibility is the work of recovery to the extent that you are able. God’s responsibility is being committed you to the extent that he is able. There is what you do to help yourself, and then there is what God does to help you; to empower you beyond what you are able to do. God is always willing. So, the question to be answered is, are you willing?
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:6-7, 11-13 (NIV)
As you trust God through open lines of communication through prayer, you’re allowing God to move in you. That’s what you do. What God does is give you access into blessing beyond your understanding. God gives you strength to handle what you know you cannot begin to manage in your own strength.
“Without the guidance this program gave me, who knows where I would be today. Today, I am happily living out my life. This program laid a foundation that I neglected to build growing up. It gave me real direction and the resources to make clean decisions. My life is in no way perfect. Life still has its problems, but I now can rationally work my way through them.” —Edward Stermin
The love of God in recovery is so much more than the feeling of being loved. God’s love is about acceptance into his family, given freely without reservation, through authentic relationship. God’s love is never suspect, but rather affirming and reassuring. You’ll always know to trust it. God’s love fulfills the need and fuels the soul. It is the experience of God’s perfect, fearless love that makes all the difference and makes it all worth it.
Proven Strategy
Through proven strategies identified here, you will acquire tools to cope and respond better to your world as you experience it, confronting present challenges, empowered to let go of the past and move ahead, as wounds are healed by the touch of God’s mercy, restoring quality of life, tethered to the assurance of hope in the experience of what is profound truth.
Jesus said, “I can of myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is righteous, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the Father who sent me.” John 5:30 (NKJV)
What is so unique about Jesus is that, while he has always had within him all of the authority and deity of the person that is God, there were 33 years living as a human being in the flesh, when he emptied himself of all authority and deity (Philippians 2:6-8). In doing so, Jesus took on all of the weakness that is fragile to the brokenness of the human condition. Jesus needed to depend on God during that time in the same way we need to depend on him today in our condition. Jesus had available to him the authority and power of God with direct access, in the same manner in which you and I have Christ’s authority and power available to us with direct access.
You are encouraged to enter into recovery God’s way, just as Jesus did while fully human, wrought with human temptation, struggle, and intense heartache. Just as Jesus understood it, you need to ADMIT what you’re incapable of; that on your own you’re in trouble and need help. You need to BELIEVE that you can hear from God to judge rightly in your choices. Now be encouraged to COMMIT to your recovery just as Jesus did his; surrendering your will into the will of God; God’s will to bless you with his best for your best. Why would you live any other way? Jesus himself laid out the plans for your redemption; to be reconciled and restored back into right relationship with God; living in the experience of his love.
Since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. Hebrews 4:14-16 (NLT)
“The only way for the soul to be free is for all the parts of our personhood to be rightly ordered. The deeper freedom — the freedom that the soul needs — is the freedom for becoming the person I was designed to be.” —Dr. John Ortberg
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)
The Rolling Stone
Your sin has been removed from your past, present, and future. The stone keeping you in bondage has been rolled away. Resurrection from hopeless to healed is yours. Deliverance from pain into peace is yours. Step out from shame and despair, leaving behind the toxic waste. Step into the awesome aroma that is freedom into new life.
Earlier, I mentioned King David. This is a person who used his authority as king to sexually assault young women, conspired to have one of his own generals murdered to protect his reputation (after impregnating the man’s wife), and likely repeated this abuse of authority to satisfy his lust and greed for decades. How could God forgive someone who behaved despicably, confessed to assuage his guilt, and then did it over and over again?
If God could forgive that guy, who are you to be beyond the reach of God’s mercy? Who are you to be beyond the depths of God’s redemption?
“There is more grace in Christ than there is sin in you. It’s your failure that qualifies you for grace. It would be unjust for God not to forgive you.” —Josh Anderson, Pastor
Unjust? Unfair? Wrong? “Illegal” for God not to forgive me? That might sound bizarre but it’s from the Bible. It is in the equation of grace that God has mandated forgiveness for the sinner who confesses wrong doing, along with the self-centered motivation that triggers patterns of selfish behavior. God did not sacrifice his son as the ransom for sin, only to take it back for one reason or another. God’s unmerited favor is impartial and available and accessible to all who elect to receive it by way of faith. We can never repay this immeasurable sacrifice for sin. However, we can be grateful and choose relationship with Jesus, from whom we have received this gift of undeserved mercy.
Capture the full capacity and scope of God’s favor; that he loves us so much that he will forgive the most egregious of sins. God’s grace is not a license to continue self-centered behavior. What grace is, though, is a fountain of healing and a place of refuge from the reach and grip of everything that binds a person in need of mercy and grace.
For you and me the gavel of the judge was replaced by the cross of Jesus Christ who took the punishment for sin. It is Jesus who declares me—and you—innocent of all charges. Jesus sacrificed everything to have relationship with us.
You must understand that God has not sent his Son into the world to pass sentence upon it, but to save it—through him. Any man who believes in him is not judged at all. John 3:17 (PHILLIPS)
The message to me about David’s confession, repentance, and redemption is this: There are people substantially less sinful than I am. There are others, like David, who have done the unconscionable. Yet, God loves us all equally and forgives us all equally. David declares himself blameless. David’s declaration of innocence is according to God’s righteous favor toward the contrite and repentant.
He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. Psalm 103:12 (NLT)
God no longer holds my selfish sin against me; doesn’t even see it. However, God has blessed me with his Spirit; his divine presence alive and active within me. God is alive in my soul, guarding my feelings and guiding my thoughts, directing my way. God knows when I don’t appreciate my freedom; drawn by the lure of selfish behavior and indulgent folly.
Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” John 5:14 (NIV)
It’s not that God is judging my behavior, so much as it is Jesus alive within me helping me to think more sensibly before I do something foolish that leads me back into captivity. Just as I would be grateful if someone kept me from something bad happening, or about to happen, I am grateful that God does the same for me. It’s what relationship is all about.
Plant your feet firmly therefore within the freedom that Christ has won for us, and do not let yourselves be caught again in the shackles of slavery. Galatians 5:1 (PHILLIPS)
There is an adversary out there trying to draw you in by appealing to your appetite for pleasure. The seductive temptress that is sin is still triggering your craving for satisfaction. It is motivated by the need for gratification right here, right now.
Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun. Psalm 37:4-6 (NIV)
David, having experienced the restorative touch of God’s grace, is now telling us to appreciate that and to take delight in desiring the God’s best. Nothing produced by worldy pleasure compares to what God wants and has for us. We need not seek approval—validation—from anyone other than God. If God is pleased that’s good enough for me.
Experience new life to the full in relationship with Jesus, who said…
“The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10 (NIV)
“When I wrestled with God, he brought me to that same place of weakness. This weakness didn’t leave me more vulnerable before my enemies, real or imagined. Instead, it taught me that, even though we all walk with unsteady feet, we can rely on the God who reveals himself directly to us, a God unmasked, a God who lets us grab hold of him in the darkness. In these times of wrestling, we might find ourselves transformed.” —Alie Joy
Allow God to restore you into what you were always meant to be, free to live in the best of what he wants and has for you. Invite God to move in to live in the deep places within you. Lay the full weight of your burden down and then soak yourself in the healing waters of God’s mercy. Get to know God for who he is. God, who has given you life, loves you, and wants a relationship with you that is authentic, permanent and is forever.
Recovery that Makes the Most Sense
I’m Steven. I am ordained for ministry and work as a professional counselor, certified in addiction recovery. FREEdom from MEdom Project is my journey into what I believe to be authentic recovery. You’ll find me to be transparent in much of what I write. I need to trust God each day in those vulnerable places where I tend to struggle. I am motivated to do and be better in this life experience and so I write about recovery from the broken places. I am willing to “go there” with you, if that’s alright.
It is time to call this for what it really is so that the change process into new life can be realized and experienced in relationship with Christ. It’s time to let go and let God do for us, with us, and through us, what only God does best. Please join me on this wonderful journey into the very best of what God has and wants for us.
If you appreciate something you found helpful, please let me know. Your feedback helps me to better see the fruit of this ministry, and perhaps respond with something you might need. If you see anything you like while you’re here, please feel free to take it with you. What’s mine is yours.
A little online search found me this prayer of faith and deliverance that you might consider today if you recognize your need to live free of the fear that might be keeping you stuck from moving into the life you want to live.
“If you’re tired of being in prison and you want to walk through the door to freedom, you can pray a simple prayer of belief today. Just say, ‘Lord, I bring you the things that have imprisoned me, things I’ve been ashamed of, regrets, resentments, and worries. I don’t want to live that way anymore. I want to live a life of freedom. Today, I want to walk through the door of freedom—your Son, Jesus Christ. As much as I know how, I want to follow you. I ask you to come into my life and fill me with your love and your Spirit. Push all the fear out. Push all the pain out. Fill me with a new sense of hope. I don’t want to live in prison anymore. I want to walk through the doors of opportunity that you have planned for me. I’m asking you today to save me and to accept me into your family. Amen.'” —Rick Warren
Well, then… If you prayed that from a place of need, please tell me in the comment section below. I will respond to you. More importantly, tell people that you know, especially if they are people open to faith in a relationship with Jesus Christ. Ask me or ask them what you should do next. I will be sure to give you guidance on how to move forward, as well as suggestions on how to manage in circumstances that may not have changed for you at all.
I encourage you to seek out the deeper truths of a life restored into the fullness of a far better life; made whole by the One who made you to live in the first place. There’s a lot more here for you. CLICK HERE!
* Original quote from Adrian Rogers was slightly modified for effect
** Original Source: ScienceDaily.com
Feedback from Readers
“Your gift of truth may of just brought me back from praying for death. Thank you. I don’t even wanna deal with me most days and have been pushing everything and everyone out for a good solid 4 years total and I’d run away, but I would still end up with me, so why run. You might just be the best gift this season for healing and breaking down some walls I’m custom to building around me to protect myself. It’s amazing to me how much what I have read from this sight might have saved me.” —Lori L.
“Yep. Appreciate your transparency and vulnerability. I suspect that writing this had a significant degree of healing in itself. Your ability to turn outward toward the end of the writing shows that. Great stuff.”—Rick Selling
“So good, Steve. Excellent thoughts… just excellent.” —Pastor Rich Wilkerson, Sr., Trinity Church, Miami, FL
“This was a wonderful read… it just came alive for me! The beautiful scripture/prayers were so helpful and refreshing. Thank you for all your hard work and for writing in a way that is not only practical, but sweeping and inclusive. God Bless You.” —Deborah Morgan
“wow, wow, WOW! I really get it so much more, you explain it so thorough and scripturally. God has blessed you with an amazing spiritual gift to explain so many things about our selfish nature. All for His glory, Amen!” —Dianne
“I took the time to read your page and it is incredible. I wish you GOD’s blessings on this project. Too many people are building their little “empires” instead of building GOD’s people. Building and investing into lives IS building GOD’s people. I thank you for taking the time to let the LORD use you in such an awesome way to help us deal with the inner core issues that plague our lives when we fail to deal with “ME”. The LORD always knows where to place us. May those in your area of influence be delivered and set free through the power of His Word that brings healing and life to those that find it.”—Narda Goodson, Christian Network Association
“You always put things in a way that makes me think. I appreciate the good read about deferred hope. It’s not a topic that you hear talked about very often. It was very thought provoking. I like that!”—Pastor Aaron Koehler, Community Christian Church, Yorkville, IL
“I am thankful that I was lead to find this expository today. It was not my intent to look for this specifically. I came across it by accident online and I’ve spent over 1 hr and 30 minutes reading it in amazement. It really opened up my eyes and made me understand so many things. Indeed, we are born into sin. We make mistakes daily. But with sincere hearts and constant repentance, God is gracious enough to forgive us. Now, I never want to give up! Praise God!” —Alvin
“Great post! I liked your post: Stuck in the Heartache of Deferred Hope.” —Robert Piccone, President, Clearbrook Treatment Center
“I especially liked the how you tackled the difficult topic of ambivalence and how our addictive behavior runs counter to the intellectual truth of the matter (common sense). It seems, within myself, that it has been a long journey to come to the place where I more readily bow down to the truth—the truth that my selfish direction is completely unfruitful, ridiculous even, and only harmful to myself and those I love… I don’t want to waste more time, and I don’t want to have to learn some of the same lessons over again…To some degree, for the committed Christian anyway, our resistance to His will reveals that we do not really believe it is good—at least not the kind of “good” we want. Good stuff, friend.” —Pastor Fran Leeman, Life Spring Community Church, Plainfield, IL
“I read your essay and it is right on. You did a lot of work and your study was directed by God’s eternal truth from the Bible.” —Pastor Randal Ross, Calvary Church, Naperville, IL
“Your in-depth and intensive expository account on life, addiction, relapse, conviction, and restoration… is well thought through and it was worth my while. I appreciate you and would want to know if possible you may have similar treats for me that would help me further in my study program in theology here in Warri, Nigeria?” —Evangelist Edo
“You cannot begin to understand how timely this is to me. I just had a divine visitation from God about joy and laughter. I open my laptop in search of a song and this website popped up! God bless you for putting this right here for me.” —Bisi Oyarekua
“Waking up this morning finding myself lost in many ways in the process looking for some kind of peace and understanding. I came across this site and reading the Serenity Prayer that gave me some hope that even though I can’t even begin to explain or quite understand, I know whatever it is, has brought me peace of mind and comfort. I might not be able to understand everything at the moment. But I know that in time He will show me the way and give me the courage and understanding in the things that I’m not in control of, to know the difference and know that anything’s possible when I surrender myself to Him.” —Juan
“You speak a great truth here, of course. You clearly note the role of the Holy Spirit as the source of the Power we need to walk free. The principles, because they are girded in scripture, work! Practicing these principles in our daily life DOES provide a degree of energy and “power” to live well. I’m praying more and humbly asking God to relieve me of the bondage to self and to take away my defects of character… If my life speaks loudly of transformation, the Truth about the one True God may begin to draw the doubter into that very truth. And THAT is good enough for me.” —Rick Selling
“Great information. It will help me in my personal spiritual journey. I am also ministering to new believers who are struggling with change.” —Eunice Davis
“Thank you for a very informative website. As a former addict myself, I wholeheartedly agree with the information on your site, especially the part about denial. Stop denying that you do have a drug or alcohol problem (not only to yourself, but also to your loved ones) is a vital step on the road to recovery. In fact, from personal experience and as someone who assists people with drug and alcohol dependency on a daily basis, I firmly believe that if you don’t wholeheartedly admit to your dependency problem, you only compromise your recovery from the addiction.”—Victor McCormack, 2 Oceans Recovery House, South Africa
“Praise God. Well done Steven. My spirit man cries, “Yes and amen.” Thank you for sharing this post. I read several of your posts and each one was a blessing.” —Gary L. Selman, First Call Advisory Group
“It’s great to finally have an opportunity to reach out to you and personally thank you for your assistance and guidance in my spiritual recovery program. The lessons you shared are a treasure that I share with others today. I am eternally grateful… It’s people like you that make it possible for people like me to look deep within and change the mind set to productivity instead of destruction.”—Lesley M.
“Thank you for the sensible critique. Me and my neighbor were just preparing to do a little research about this. We grabbed a book from our local library but I think I learned with more clarity from this post. I am very glad to see such excellent info being shared freely out there.” —Ewangelia
“Praise the Lord, sir! Thanks for the good gospel word you posted. I would love to have you come down here and deliver to us please. God bless you.” —Bishop Omukosi Dickson, Nakuru, Kenya
“Hi! I’ve been following your web site for some time now and finally got the courage to go ahead and give you a shout out from Kingwood, Texas! Just wanted to say keep up the fantastic job!” —Wilfredo
“Beautifully said. Thank you for pouring out so much in this piece. God’s blessings on you, my friend.” —Sandra Cerda, Editor in Chief, New Life Publishing
“I don’t know you but thank God for you because this is right on time. Thank you.” —Bishop D
“I am finding these articles and activities very well written and thought provoking. A good study for ANYONE! Those who go through it will come out with a much better understanding. It really puts things into perspective.” —Sherrie
“I read it; loved it… We often are not really facing how we have accepted a “status quo” Christian existence, plodding through our days not really alive to God… I liked your use of recovery as a synonym for salvation––that could be really helpful for people to take the religion out of the notions of salvation, and infuse the term with a restorative mentality.” —Pastor Fran Leeman
“David has always been one of my favorite Bible characters because he messed up so badly, in so many ways! His emotions were all over the place. One minute he’s chasing after God the next he’s mad at God and then he outright does something dumb. Yet, he was still called a man after God’s own heart. David has always given me hope that, even though I make more mistakes than getting it right, it’s okay. If I keep picking myself up, God’s gonna be there for me.” —Noriyuki
“Greetings in Jesus’ name from India. We have a ministry among the Hindus in a village in South India. We would like to invite you to come over to our place and minister among the people here. We have small church groups in under-privileged areas. We are working towards breaking the bondage in people’s lives and set them free from the clutches of the devil. We would love to have you minister here and bring healing and deliverance in people’s lives and have you speak in Pastors’ conference. We would also love to partner with you in any ministry that you would need help in. We would also love to assist you and work with you if you want to extend your ministry in India.” —Pastor Bernard Shaw
“Thank you, Steven. I thank Jesus daily for His ongoing grace and work in my life. What a joy it was to read this about forgiveness! And what a joy for Pastor John and me to see God working in your life and ministry. I still get updates and ever since you first “came on board” I have been asking God to guide you in his ways.“ —Albertha McArthur
“Thanks Steven. I am going to go to your site to understand it better and consider bringing up some of your studies. We all need to take an honest look at sin from an entitlement standpoint.” —C. Marsh Bull, President, Men’s Group Foundation
“Thank you very much for the forgiveness bible study. There’s a lot to chew on and I do need it. God bless you abundantly my brother and thank you for allowing the Lord to use you as a conduit.” —Lucia
“I would love very much to change and be the woman my God wants me to be. Please pray with me that I will be healed body, soul and spirit. GOD BLESS YOU.” —Grace
“I thank you for putting this out there and making it available for everyone. You have greatly helped me. May God bless you!” —Daniel
