Oughts. Ouch! Now I am revealing a message that often plays like a loop in the back of my mind. “What do I perceive people are expecting of me?” And it is a message that is not just a whisper. It can shout like a warning. Warning me that if I do not meet their expectations, they will see the real me. An unacceptable me. And my shame tells me that in my unacceptableness they will want nothing to do with me. They will abandon me. That is incredibly risky. The fear of being abandoned may be the most painful and powerful emotion we can have. That is why performing for others approval has such a captive hold on us. If I don’t work hard enough and perform to their expectations, I feel their emotional if not their physical distance. Abandoned.

So what do I do with the perceived or even actual oughts? There are two shame driven roads I can go down. Both are unhealthy. First I can give in to the oughts and expectations. I will work and work and try harder every day to meet the expectations. In the process I learn that my acceptance and inclusion is dependent upon me. It is so normal that I am desensitized to the pain of it. The wrong of it. And this faulty narrative of how life is to be lived is transferred to my relationship with God. My acceptability to Him is dependent on me. This is a heavy and ultimately unbearable burden. Joy in my life disappears with every trying harder – there is no joy in having to earn acceptance and love. Guess I will look elsewhere.

Another unhealthy path – one that I seldom go down, is to validate and affirm what I perceive you already think of me…not good enough. I live out my unworthiness. I become the victim of my own shame. And because shame is so emotionally painful, there is no joy here either.

Is there an alternative? Can I ever overflow with joy? YES! God tells us that one of the fruits of His working in us is joy; “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace…” This tells me there is a place I can avoid the pain of abandonment and shame. By faith in Christ, I know my identity is not in the acceptability of my performance, but in being a child of God. But it is more than just being a child of God…it is being the unconditionally loved child of God. There is my new life story. That is the message I need to keep hearing. I need to hear it everyday from God and from a community of friends who treat me with the unconditional love of God.

Does this new place create instant freedom from the fear and stress of oughts and expectations.? In reality yes, but in our minds no. Author Curt Thompson in describing one of his counseling patients writes this, “… he found himself quite unable to simply disbelieve the lie he had practiced believing for so long.” My mind is inundated with memories of when trying harder was the only thing that brought acceptance at least for a time, or of incidents that affirmed I was no good. So what do I do?

I need to come into the presence of God everyday and give myself permission to receive His unconditional love and to find joy there. To often I have been taught to come to God to find out what to do to be a good person. To be acceptable. To be loved. To not be emotionally abandoned by Him. To often I come to God with fear and leave with apprehension.

I also need to have a community of friends who remind me of the good news of the gospel, not just with their words but with their actions…and with their emotional responses to me. Don’t have a community? Then find one person. The first person I found was an author and I read him over and over and over. I needed the truth he was telling me. Then as I shared with others what I was learning, I began to discover others whose hearts resonated with the same experiences and truths and slowly a community began to grow.

May the reality that is already ours in Christ become our experience.

 

 

 

This breeding ground of stress existed in me undetected until two years ago. It’s like a computer app that operates in the background – not draining a lot of battery life but always on. And on and on. Always leaking a little power…and more than we think until we are set free from it. What is it? The quiet and unending search for the WHY.

Two years ago our six month old grandson was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder and spent three months in pediatric intensive care. Only two hospitals in the world specialize in little Ezra’s condition, one in Paris, France and the other in Philadelphia, and so he was flown via medical transport from UCLA Children’s Hospital to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Based on tests done at UCLA the plan was for surgery to be performed at CHOP that would cure him. Hope was high as Ezra and his mom were loaded on the medical jet for the flight to CHOP. But it was not to be. As the world renown surgeon began to operate it became obvious that the 5% chance that the tests could be wrong came true. Smiley and happy little Ezra could not be cured surgically.

I have a hunch all of you have a similar story that launched you on a search for a “why?” It might be something that happened to a close friend or family member. It might be something that has happened to you. In all these it is so easy to keep looking and waiting for the missing puzzle piece that will answer the “why.” Sometimes we look to the past for causes. More often I look to the future, to spot the good that will come out of the situation so that can be the answer to the “why”.

Oh I know all the Christian answers. The cliches. God is sovereign. God is loving and He is always good. And then there is the one that keeps me searching into the future, “God works all things for good…”. I believed all of those, but in the background my radar stayed turned on searching for the missing puzzle piece just in case it came floating by. For sure I didn’t want to miss it. After all, mysteries are to be solved.

That all changed one day over lunch with a young millennial named Josh. Josh had walked through some deep times. Times that left unanswered “whys”. As he shared his journey he turned to Proverbs 3:5,6 – “Trust in the Lord…do not lean on your own understanding.” I knew that verse. Had it memorized…to little effect. And then Josh shared a paraphrase he believed God had given him that changed everything. He shared this, “God gives permission to not understand.“

Freedom! I had permission to turn off the radar, to stop trying to solve the mystery. I did not realize how constant and how much quiet effort I was putting into to figuring out the “whys” of life – to understand. God used Josh to change all that. God is okay with me not understanding. Actually he gives me the freedom and permission to not understand. He knows in this life I never will. He wants me to live contented in the mysteries of His will with a restful trust. He loves my trust. The mysteries of life belong to God and so my attempts to understand them will never be accurate. Therefore don’t rely on my understanding. It won’t be trustworthy. I need to “Trust in the Lord…”, the one I can trust with the mysteries and unknown “whys” that fill my life.

God gives me permission to not understand. My rest is not in understanding, but in trusting. And so is yours.

 

 

One way that stress subtly and slowly grows in me is when I ignore what is restorative to me. I shared about that in the last post. We looked at how it is important to know what restores us. And we looked at how God puts His stamp of approval on our paying attention to our personal needs – that it is okay (and right) to be a steward of the body and soul God has given us.

When I finished the post I thought I was done and ready to move on to share another of my inner breeding grounds of stress…one that I have been anxious to share with you. One I wasn’t aware of until about a year ago, and unaware of how much effort I was putting into it and how much it was draining me. Now that waits to next week.

There is something else I need to share about ignoring what restores me…and that is WHY I ignore it. I can answer my “why” instantaneously. Actually I have more than one why and they are no secret to me. They are familiar battles. Here are my top two reasons I ignore what is good for me.

1. I FEEL GUILTY.

Somehow I feel it is wrong to pay attention to my own desires and needs…to what is restorative to me. I feel guilty to lay down in the green pastures and beside the still waters that refresh me. After all, for years I heard it taught it is better to burn out than rust out. Oh how wrong! What if there is another alternative? What if our fire doesn’t have to go out because we have run out of fuel? What if we can thrive and give of ourselves right up to the end because our fuel is constantly being replenished?

“Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden…and you will find rest for your soul.”  (Matthew 11:28,29). God invites me to live restoratively. I do not need to feel guilty.

2. I WORRY ABOUT WHAT OTHERS WILL THINK.

They will think I am lazy. Self-centered and unproductive. Not interested in Kingdom work. When my mind plays these tapes I know I have forgotten that my worth and my identity is not in what others think of me, but in being the beloved child of the Father (I John 3:1). God breaks my slavery to the opinions of others and sets me free to enjoy His protection. I do not have to protect myself from what others think.

 

REFLECTION:  What keeps you from practicing what restores you? What is the lie that has you captive? What is the truth you need to trust? It might be a good idea to put your answers in your journal so you can keep reviewing them.

ACTION:  Let’s help thousands of people discover how the gospel sets them free from stress and how the gospel sets them free from all the holds them captive. Let’s make this good news of the gospel a movement that is transforming people all over the world. Share this with your friends via email, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and encourage them to subscribe to Laying it Down.