Archives for March 2017

When I hide and fail to self-disclose what is true about me I have migrated from the breeding grounds of stress to a far more dangerous place. It’s a place of isolation, lies, and fear. It is a place where I descend into the exhaustion that pretending inevitably produces. I am unknown in the midst of friendly people.

I thought hiding would keep me safe. It didn’t. It lead me to unceasing anxiety, burnout and depression.

Why? Here are four truths I personally discovered.

1. What I hide always remains unresolved. My hiding never solved anything. In my hiding I intentionally distanced myself from those who could bring healing truth to me.
2. What I hide grows bigger. What I bury I bury alive. And in that buried darkness it grows. Failing to tell God and others the truth about me is sin and sin is not passive. It grows. It leads to more sin. This is why hidden addictions can’t be controlled.
3. What I hide becomes more controlling. It has had a longer lifespan. It is more defining of me. Now it requires more vigilance and energy to keep it hidden…and that need controls me. All the time.
4. What I hide increases my shame. What I hide may be hidden from you, but I see it. I know it is there. And it is unresolved, increasingly defining me, and requiring more of my attention. Finally, I feel like I have become what I am hiding.

So what do I do to break the downward spiral of hiding? Two very important things.

1. Come into the open with God. I Him the truth about me. He longs for me to trust Him enough to do this. And as we do this, we make a life-changing discovery, He still loves us – just as we are, not as we should be (Brennan Manning).
2. Come into the open with a friend...but a very special kind of friend. Come into the open with someone who when I tell them the worst there is to know about me, they will love me more, not less. A friend who will come closer and hold us tighter – and in that tight grip will walk with us into the light of God’s healing truth.

As followers of Jesus, lets walk in the light, not because we should, but because we now can.

Are there ACTIONS you need to take? With God and with a trusted friend? You will be surprised at the freedom you discover in the light. It is a freedom Jesus died for you to experience.

 

 

 

 

Comparison. I do it. You do it. I compare everything. Clothes. Houses. Cars. Success. Popularity. Age. Looks. Weight. Intelligence. And then there are the “little” comparisons that weird me out: things like the neighbor’s lawn vs. mine and the student’s thick head of hair vs. my thinning scalp. Want more? I have them and there is no end to my list.

So what’s the problem with comparison? It’s the three places it usually leads me:

• Pride. Pride is probably a more frequent result than I realize. But because it makes me feel good, it doesn’t particularly bother me or stress me out. I’m feeling pretty good about myself compared to you.

• Covetousness. Jealousy. This is my most common destination and the one that stresses me out. It brings out my sense of shame, not-good-enoughness, failure, laziness…and a whole bunch of other condemning accusations. This reaction is as deeply planted in us as pride…but we feel it more. I feel my failure and/or don’t like the “fairness” God has handed out. Why did I get the short straw? We see it running deep in the apostle Paul’s life when he confessed that when the law told him not to covet he found he couldn’t stop (Romans 7:5,6).

• Contentment. Really? Is this really a stressful destination? You bet. And why? Because a contentment rooted in comparison is a contentment based on circumstances. This type of contentment has pretty shallow roots. Maybe none at all. When my contentment is rooted in the circumstances of my life – that is a scary place to be. I know ultimately I can’t control the circumstances of my life no matter how hard I try. That leaves a constant backdrop of uncertainty that never leaves. I can’t quite relax. Always on guard. Alert.

And so if contentment based on acceptable circumstances is not the answer to de-stressing my life, what is? Dependence. Dependence on something firm. Unchangeable. Steady. Protective. And I will never find that in a thing, only in a person – God. “In you, O Lord, do I take refuge…be to me a rock of refuge, to which I may continually come” (Psalm 71:1,2). John Owens, probably with Hebrews 6:19 in his mind, wrote:

We have an anchor that keeps the soul,
Steadfast and sure while the billows roll;
Fastened to the Rock which cannot move,
Grounded firm and deep in the Savior’s love.

Where do I go to de-stress?  To my rock, to my refuge, to my anchor. And the more time I spend there with Him, the more I know I can trust Him. And in that trust of a God who I increasingly know, I find a new kind of contentment. Not a contentment based on the shifting circumstances of life, but a contentment that is anchored on an unchangeable rock. Anchored in God himself.

 

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