All posts tagged Trust

Learning to Doubt Our Fears

by brad on October 5, 2012 in Counseling Reflection with 1 Comment

What is the one thing you don’t doubt when you are afraid? Think about it. When we are afraid we will doubt just about everything except our fear. We will doubt things we know to be true (i.e., whether we locked our door or paid a bill, the faithfulness of our spouse, your preparedness for an exam, God’s care, etc…) rather than to doubt our fears.

Our fears are close. When we are afraid nothing feels closer than our fears. This means that whatever information we receive gets filtered through our fears. Whatever truth we hear feels like it is “out there” while our fears are “in here.” This adds to our unwillingness to doubt our fears.

Besides it only feels like a risk if we doubt our fears. Believing our fears feels like we are “playing it safe.” If we doubt our fears it feels like we’d never forgive ourselves for knowing better and not bracing against being hurt or let down. When we’re afraid the world gets twisted; fear becomes wise and peace becomes folly.

Our fears are like the bad friend we hope our children don’t have in middle school. Everything the parent says to point out the bad influence only increases the child’s allegiance. Because we believe our fear is keeping us safe every counterpoint we hear (even when we’re arguing with ourselves) sounds “unfriendly.” We buy the lie that our fears are “for” us and courage is “against us.

What is the point? We must see that fear is a form of trust. We trust our pessimistic predictions of the future. We trust our worse-case-scenario imagination. We trust whatever comes after “what if…” Fear is a fierce allegiance (i.e., trust) to negative messages.

Often in our battle with fear/trust, we try learn to feel peace without doubting our fears. Doubting our fears is an important step that prevents trusting God from feeling like “blind faith.” Ask yourself this question, “What would be different if I truly believed that my fears lied more than they told the truth? What if I was as skeptical of my fears as I was of an infomercial?”

Obeying the command to take “every thought captive” begins with our ability to doubt our fears. Taking your thoughts captive begins with changing the primary question from “What if my fears are true?” to “What if my fears are false?” This is an important bridge to honestly considering, “What if God’s promises were true and care secure?”

Obeying the command to “fear not,” the most repeated command in Scripture (occurring over 300 times in the Bible), begins with the willingness to doubt our fears. When you doubt fear, fear becomes less real so that other things can become more real.

How do I learn to doubt my fear? Now that you’re open to and understand the significance of the question, ask yourself, “How reliable is my fear?” What percentage of the time is your fear accurate? How many of your fear’s predictions come true? Would you trust any other person or emotion with that track record?

Does this mean that I should never listen to my fear? No. Fear is a gift from God meant to alert us to what is really important and dangerous. Simply begin by being appropriately skeptical of your fear; resist the urge to treat your fears as if they were the divinely inspired, inerrant Word of God to interpret your circumstances. Allow them to be the mere temporal assessment of an individual wired for self-preservation.

What do I do after I doubt my fears? What do you do after you get troubling information from any other liar or unreliable source? Talk to someone trustworthy (God in prayer and trusted Christian friends in conversation) about the matter and consult something authoritative (Scripture). As you do this, give weight to the reliable, authoritative sources.

In light of this reflection consider Proverbs 9:10, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Realize that fear is a form of fierce, instinctual trust that feels closer and more reliable than anything else. When you fear the Lord, that allegiance creates a natural doubt in anything or anyone that would speak negatively about your best, most-trusted Friend/Father (Exod. 33:11, I John 3:1-3).

C.S. Lewis on “What Could Have Been”

by brad on September 3, 2012 in Counseling Reflection with No comments

A Counselor Reflects on Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

“When you are talking about God – i.e. about the rock bottom, irreducible Fact on which all other facts depend – it is nonsensical to ask if it could have been otherwise (p. 184).” Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

“Could God have…made a world without cancer… made a world where children never die before parents… made sin less addictive… made nine day weeks so I could get everything done, etc…?” What you want to add to the list probably comes immediately to mind.

The answer is – it’s a broken question. It is most often a very innocent question, like the child who asks their parent, “Can’t we just stay on vacation forever?” or “Can’t we move our house next to Grandpapa’s?”  The child misses the implications of his question and, therefore, deems it reasonable.

The brokenness of the question makes the parent or God seem like the bad guy. The parent is assumed to want vacation to be over or to live far from grandparents. God is assumed to, in some perverse way, enjoy cancer because He is going to bring some “greater good” from it.

The question is worded in such a way that it necessarily erodes trust. Either God could have made things better and didn’t (mistrust of God’s character) or God couldn’t have made things better and is powerless over certain evils (mistrust of God’s ability).

But this type of question-brokenness is based upon a more foundational error in the questions – it assumes that God’s will is like our will. We could have majored in computer science, history, English or business. We considered each, picked one, and now sometimes ask “what if?”

Our will is fickle, short-sighted, and exists inside of time. God’s will is unchanging, eternal, and exists outside of time. Our will is based upon preferences that change as we age. God’s will is rooted in His character that is unchanging. Our will has unforeseen consequences. God possesses all foreknowledge. Our will guesses at the future. God’s will is the foundation of history (past, present, and future).

So when we ask the question, “Could God have [insert action]?” we are actually asking, “Could God be different than He is?” If the answer were yes, then we (who are made in His image) would be so different that the question would no longer be relevant.

We now realize that we only recognize these things as wrong because they offend the character of the God in whose image we are made. We get a finite taste of the offense these effects of sin bring against an infinite God.

We begin to realize what it was like for Jesus to live between the “shame” of bearing the effects of sin and the “joy” of bringing its remedy (Heb 12:2). We realize our question is more personal to God than it is to us. God does not silence our question, He sympathizes with us (Heb. 2:17-18).

Like children who want to stay on vacation because we enjoy the time with our parents, we come to realize that it our parent’s love that compels them home to provide for us. Similarly, we realize that it is God’s character in us that allows us to experience a fallen world as “wrong” instead of “normal” and that it is His image in us that prevents us from being content this side of heaven.

Can We Reason Ourselves Into Assurance of Salvation?

by brad on June 8, 2012 in Application Supplement with No comments

This post is meant to offer guidance to common “What now?” questions that could emerge from Pastor J.D.’s sermon on Hebrews 6:1-12 preached at The Summit Church Saturday/Sunday June 9-10, 2012.

Hebrews 6 is a passage that is notorious for causing people to doubt their salvation. In large part, this is the purpose of the passage – to cause those with false assurance to question whether they have been genuinely converted. But for many people this question cannot be set aside and it plagues them relentlessly.

The general pastoral counsel (which I believe is valid) is to say, “If you fear having fallen away from the faith it is a good sign that you have not. A conscience that is tender enough towards God to fear His absence, especially to a highly troubling degree, is one that longs for God’s presence. That conscience has not been seared (I Tim. 4:2) to despise or be numb to God.”

But that raises another question, “Is logic or reason the best way to appeal to someone who has a chronic fear of having lost their salvation?” By “chronic fear” I mean those who cannot put away their fear of God’s wrath with repentance and then begin to compulsively organize their life around obsessive thoughts of having committed the unpardonable sin, blaspheming the Holy Spirit, or otherwise hopelessly re-earning damnation after having accepted God’s gift of salvation.

I believe the answer to this question is “No.” When the struggle reaches an obsessive level (often becoming an expression of obsessive-compulsive disorder) it is more of an emotional struggle than a cognitive struggle. The central issue is one of trust more than a lack of or inaccurate information.

In the absence of trust, new information, even well-reasoned, practically-applied biblical information, only serves to feed the OCD machine. In the absence of trust there is always an exception and the exception is me. The discussion will become more complex as you answer the fearful person’s nuanced questions. This complexity only feeds their fear that there is a loophole in the gospel somewhere and they’re in it.

Michael Emlet (M.Div., M.D.) recently reviewed the book The Doubting Disease by Joseph Ciarrochi. In this review Emlet summarizes and evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of Ciarochi’s approach to dealing with doubt that has reached an OCD level. Emlet’s booklet on OCD is an excellent resource for more practical guidance.

But there are many who wrestle with this question without being OCD. The question remains, “How do we effectively appeal to them with the hope of the gospel in a way that is rooted in trust more than reason?” Admittedly, all conversation is rooted in reason to some degree or it would be unintelligible.

In short, we quit trying to present the system of salvation and the evidences of conversion. Rather we present to them a person. The central question is no longer, “What have you done (prayer), what do you understand (doctrine), or what are you doing (sin/fruit)?” but “Who is God?” Salvation is not about performing a ritual (i.e., a certain prayer, evidences particular good behaviors, etc…). Salvation is about trusting a person.

In secular therapies, a predominant methodology with OCD is “exposure therapy” – preparing the client to be able to relax himself in presence of the fearful stimulus without his compulsive ritual. According to Martin Luther all of life is “exposure therapy” to the fearful stimulus of sin with the freedom God gives in the gospel. Luther said, “All of life is repentance (in 95 Thesis).”

Luther was a man who was plagued by his conscience while serving as a monk and went through extensive “rituals” to try to resolve his doubts. But God delivered him when he embraced a simple truth, “The just shall live by faith.” Faith is another word for trust. Luther realized who God was and that God could be trusted. Luther realized he would be repenting for the rest of his life, but that God was faithful, patience, and gracious towards sinners because those attributes where “who God was” not merely “what God did.”

The altering of the question allows your focus to change the process from needing a biblical argument that is clearer than your fears are loud, to trusting a Father who would never turn away one of His children who is broken and repentant for their sin (I John 1:9). When we know God for who He is we are free to cast our every care upon Him (I Pet. 5:7), even the fear that He might grow weary of our fearful prayers and failures.

C.S. Lewis on God-Saturated Human Effort

by brad on May 7, 2012 in Counseling Reflection with No comments

A Counselor Reflects on Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

“You see we are now trying to understand, and to separate into water-tight compartments, what exactly God does and what man does when God and man are working together. And, of course, we begin by thinking it is like two men working together, so that you could say, ‘He did this bit and I did that.’ But this way of thinking breaks down. God is not like that. He is inside you as well as outside: even if we could understand who did what, I do not think human language could properly express it (p. 149).” Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

As I reflect on this quote I am in the midst of coaching both my 5 year old’s t-ball team and my 7 year old’s coach pitch baseball team. In many ways I think this can serve as an effective metaphor for what Lewis is describing.

On the one hand, a coach does nothing. A coach does not hit a ball, throw a ball, field a ball, or run the bases. The players do absolutely everything that goes towards scoring a run or getting an out. When a player does a good job, the fans go crazy and cheer exclusively for the player

On the other hand, a coach makes all the difference in the world. While some t-ball coaches may feel like little more than volunteer cat herders, they teach, motivate, and facilitate everything that goes on during the game. There would be absolutely nothing that resembles organized athletics without the coach.

We have just described a scenario in which you can say both parties did nothing and both parties did everything. When a player who didn’t know how to hold the bat hits a home run, who gets the credit for what? How do you differentiate the coach’s motivation from the player’s determination? Where is the line between the coach’s instruction and the player’s coordination?

Being immersed in this situation a second question comes to my mind – who really cares? I do think there is some value to the question, but if we insist on dissecting it too much the patient will die. I’ve seen coaches who try to do everything “just right” and end up being over-bearing, aloof, boring, or motivationally sterile.

Trying to strictly or definitively divide responsibility tends to attack “oneness.” When a coach has to say to a player, “I call the plays. You run the plays,” that usually means something is broken and the team is hurting. Trust and communication are damaged.

Why do we insist on doing this with God? Could I suggest there are two possible reasons: we don’t trust God or we don’t want to have to rely on God. I don’t say to a player I trust, “Promise me you’re going to run to first after you hit the ball.” A player who wants to rely on his coach doesn’t say, “I can do this by myself.”

I believe for many of us our Christian faith would be much healthier if we trusted the mystery of divine-human responsibility and just celebrated the fruit as we actively-relied upon God. God is in us, around us, and works through our natural abilities. We have abilities and responsibilities that we must utilize or fulfill if we are going to experience God’s will.

Let’s not get so caught up in who gets credit for what when the fruit of the Spirit show up in our lives. Let’s celebrate that we were the kid who didn’t know how to hold the bat (or worse “dead in our trespasses and sin”) and now through God’s influence we have been enabled to hit a home run. Let’s run the bases, hug “Coach” as we cross the plate, and celebrate.

C.S. Lewis on Doubting Faith

by brad on March 28, 2012 in Counseling Reflection with No comments

A Counselor Reflects on Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

“Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods… That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods ‘where they get off’, you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist (p. 140-141).” Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Too often we pose the question of faith in spite of doubt as if it were only a Christian dilemma. I couldn’t imagine anyone of any faith, non-faith, or mixed-faith background who did not occasionally, if not regularly, wonder if they had it all wrong.

Is this not true of most every life-shaping decision? Career. Marriage. House purchase. When something impacts your entire life and life is hard, you ask questions. Any honest question in a difficult situation will at times bring doubt.

It just happens that we live in an era of history that values doubt over faith. So in our generation if you hold to faith in the midst of doubt you are frequently labeled a closed-minded hypocrite. However, in previous generations, if you gave way to doubt and relinquished your faith you would have frequently been labeled a weak, faith-weathered soul.

What Lewis is trying to say here is that faith – sticking to a belief against internal opposition – is a necessary attribute for the Christian, atheist, and member of any other faith system. There are at least two reasons for this.

First, we live in a complex-broken world. We don’t live in a simple-broken world. When we ask the questions that challenge our faith they are rarely single-variable questions. When we want to know why something hurts so badly, we get into the free-will actions of other broken people, multiple situational variables, our personality, and other factors.

Any faith system that gives a “neat” answer to such complex situations is going to be too simplistic for an intelligent hurting person to believe. In the midst of that kind of pain and complexity, faith is going to largely come down to trust in a Person. Those who hold to their faith in the midst of hardship most often do so out of relationship more than rationality.

Second, we live in the middle of history. Have you ever tried to explain a good suspense movie you’ve never seen at the one hour mark? If you can explain it at the one hour mark, it’s not a good suspense movie.

We live in the middle of our story in two ways. First, we do not know how far we are from death. Second, we do not know how far we are from Christ’s return which is the only event that will bring meaning to the chaos in which we live.

So we are like children on vacation, and we live asking, “Are we there yet?” with no reference point for the mileage or hours about which we ask. Like children we often doubt whether the vacation will be worth the trip. We doubt.

But, as with the complex-broken world issue, the solution to doubt is relationship. The more the children trust the parent driving the car, the less they doubt (although they still doubt). Likewise, in the middle of our story-journey, we grow in our trust-affection for our Father in order to maintain faith.

The Advantage of Going Second

by brad on January 4, 2012 in Counseling Reflection with No comments

I was recently reminded of how when you talk to someone, it affects the effectiveness of what you are trying to say. When you try to talk to someone who is discouraged after trying to do “the right thing” and failing, anything instructional is often hard for them to receive. They feel like, “Great, here is something else I won’t be able to do.”

Other times you might talk to someone who is desperate after trying to do “the right thing” and failing. They can be like a sponge wanting to know another way. However, their desperation can lead them to quickly dismiss instruction if the results are not as prompt as their emotions demand.

There are many other dispositions with which you might talk to someone who failed and equally as many dispositions after someone succeeds. But the point is, what has just happened “before” affects how they listen. If you pay attention, that can be a real advantage to building trust as a counselor.

For the first person mentioned above, acknowledging how hard it would be to hear “one more thing” you “should have done” would be very encouraging. They would at least know that whatever guidance they receive next would be from a person who understood them.

The second person would benefit from having someone speak to the “pace” of their desperation before speaking to the content of their struggle. Unless this happened the wisest counsel would get lost in the intensity of their “try anything” to “fix it now” mindset which is retention-light and even weaker on perseverance.

I think this is a dynamic we have to be particularly aware of for those believers who sincerely try to please God and are facing a significant struggle of suffering (an intense struggle not caused by their personal sin). At this point, sin has the advantage of talking second.

Sin (here used as a personification that might be negative influencing friend or an escapist habit) can listen to the hurts of the believer and express compassion for their plight. All of the questions raised are questions against (even if only from confusion) the Christian faith.

Sin can respond with the momentum of these questions at its back. It has the advantage of swimming with our emotional current. The thoughts and emotions of the suffering believer are set us to receive what sin has to say and offer.

This is why we must be able to not only give answers but respond to a person. In cases like these, the response will be more soul-winning (used in terms of discipleship more than evangelism) that the content of our answers.

I think this dynamic is equally relevant when we are talking to broken unbelievers. In these cases, all of the previously discussed advantages of sin are working for the Christian faith. The broken unbeliever is asking questions that are against the old life (looking for a new life).

We can now respond and listen to their hurts and express compassion for their plight. We have the momentum of sin’s broken promises at our back. Their thoughts and emotions are looking for something more solid that what they’ve known.

In many ways, the principle is simple – and therefore easy to forget. We must listen and not lose the person in the topic of the conversation. A conversation happens between two points in a person’s life. We must read the momentum if we are going to effectively influence the direction of the ship.

Effects of an Affair

by brad on July 22, 2011 in Counseling Reflection with No comments

We know that the betrayal of an affair hurts, but the intensity of the pain, awkwardness of the subject, and crisis-nature of the disclosure often cause us to neglect asking, “What does an affair do that causes it to hurt so badly?” In this post, we will look at three things that an affair does which account for the level of pain it creates.

Shuffles Our Story

Affairs hide and lie. We live in ignorance. While we may not think things are “great,” we have no idea what is actually occurring in our life story. Innocently, we can live a lie for weeks, months, or years. When the facts come to light we look back on our life and don’t know what parts of our memories are true and what parts are fiction.

Before the facts came to light if someone asked you to tell your life story, you could (although it might be a time consuming request). Now you can’t. That is incredibly painful and disorienting. It makes you feel mentally, emotionally, and narratively naked. We make so many decisions based upon where our life going (tracing the direction of our story). When your story gets shuffled, the ability to make decision can feel paralyzed.

Confuses Our Vocabulary

I love you. I’m going to the gym. Every compliment. Every criticism. Every apology. Any reference to the future. Any reference to the past. What do they mean? What did they mean? Do they mean anything? Obviously I missed the message before and I don’t want to miss it again. Every word becomes a riddle.

It is painful to feel forced to live as a constant skeptic in one’s own house for the purpose of self-protection. This is the marital equivalent of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9). When language is stripped of meaning, then the currency of relationships has its value removed. We can exchange words, but it doesn’t feel like any transaction is occurring.

Makes Trust Seem Naïve

Home is no longer “safe” for the reasons discussed above, and when home is not safe (a place of rest and replenishing) then the whole world feel more threatening. We begin to believe that only pain and bad news can be true. If I get good news and believe it, I am just being naïve like I was before.

This is the pain of lies. We don’t lie to make things sound worse than they are. So when lies have jolted our world, we begin to believe that everything is worse than we have been told. Common sense is something we gain on the other side of innocence. Now that we are “wordly wise” innocence (expressed partly as trust) it is hard to regain and often feared more than desired.

Where Do We Begin?

This picture sounds pretty bleak. It is. Hope enters a dark place when it returns after an affair. Anything that minimizes this fact gives false hope to the offender and places unwarranted pressure upon the betrayed. There is hope, but hope should not be used to minimize the damage.

So what should the offender do? These points are meant to correspond with the relational damage described above. They both assume that repentance towards God has already occurred and examining the lies and deceitful desires you bought into during the affair.

First, join your spouse where they are. You know what happened; they don’t. Do not speak with a confidence that assumes their world is as certain as yours.

Second, seek to understand their experience. Words will begin to have meaning from you understanding them not them understanding you. You should answer your spouse’s questions (with complete honesty), but trust will build from you understanding them not you giving facts to them.

Third, recognize and honor the faith and risk of trust. This honor will be expressed dispositionally through patience, refraining from self-pity, and not getting defensive. Your spouse will likely be repetitive as they put their story back together (like someone who is grieving). This process is the building of trust and you honor it by not making them walk it alone. You are receiving grace from one who bleeds as they give it. Honor the Jesus you see in them.

A "Practical Atheism" Assessment

by brad on April 22, 2011 in Church Resource with No comments

Click “Practical Atheism Assessment“ for a PDF version of this assessment.

It can be hard to know and even harder to admit if I am living as a “practical atheist.” If I’m a nice guy (or girl) who doesn’t hurt anybody and tries to be fair, it seems awkward to think I am not living as if God existed. After all, doesn’t God want me to be nice and fair?

The 20 questions below are meant to describe what it looks like to live as a “practical atheist.” This term is not meant to be derogatory, but merely to capture what it looks like to live as if God’s existence or involvement is inconsequential to their daily life.

_____ When I do something wrong I try harder instead of repenting.

_____ I have to remind myself to pray outside of crisis times.

_____ My level of hope fluctuates strongly with my circumstances.

_____ I fear the future or get caught up in “what if” thinking.

_____ I demand to see justice when I have been wronged.

_____ I neglect reading my Bible, particularly when life is going well.

_____ My casual conversations rarely reference God or I feel embarrassed when they do.

_____ I take tomorrow (and today) for granted instead of viewing it as a gift.

_____ A primary motivation in my life is to please people and make everyone happy.

_____ When I meet new people I rarely consider if they are saved.

_____ I am more comfortable being friends or socializing with non-Christians.

_____ I do not avoid or try to avoid thinking about what is after death.

_____ I struggle to give cheerfully to God through His church.

_____ My parenting focuses on changing my child’s behavior more than their heart.

_____ My advice to family or friends rarely references God or the Bible.

_____ I tend to think that non-Christians are able to have more fun.

_____ I believe “time heals all wounds” instead of considering how God would redeem my suffering.

_____ I explain things as being “lucky” or I am superstitious.

_____ I take credit for good consequences and feel upset about bad consequences.

_____ I expect my close relationships (spouse, kids, parents) to be able to keep me happy.

There is not a scale for this evaluation. If we try to develop a scale for our awareness of God, then the authentic worship of living continually in the awareness of God degenerates into legalism. Instead of “scoring” this assessment, look at each item you checked and consider it as revealing another opportunity to experience God in the details of life.

If you checked a significant majority of the items, examine whether you have ever truly embraced the Gospel and, thereby, truly know God. Have you viewed your life as desperately needing Jesus’ death to pay for your sin and His resurrection to purchase new life? Have you surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus, committing to follow His teaching and doing whatever He calls you to do? If the answer is no, we at The Summit would love to talk with you about the hope of Christ available to you.

 

Crisis Forgiveness vs. Post-Crisis Forgiveness

by brad on March 2, 2011 in Counseling Reflection with 1 Comment
  • A spouse has been unfaithful
  • A spouse hides a major amount of debt
  • A teenager “borrows” the car and wrecks it
  • A friend shares your damaging secret

There are many times when we are called to forgive. Usually the moment when the offense is revealed is a powerful moment. It often feels overwhelming. Frequently, in these times, we can muster up the courage and love to say, “I forgive you and I am willing to do whatever it takes to restore this relationship.”

The time after a statement like that can be trying. We battle with fear, anger, mistrust, shame, and intrusive thoughts. We feel the full battle of redemption. We catch a glimpse of why Jesus had to die on a cross to pay for our sin. Forgiveness is excruciating.

By God’s grace, often the battle lightens. Things become a bit “normal” again. At first that is a relief; a welcomed respite. But then, as our mind and soul recovers, we begin to realize that we are “living as if nothing ever happened.”

When we offend (in lesser ways) the person whom we forgave, we are now the one to repent. Everyday irritants call for patience and grace but we still feel like we have been gracious and patient enough. Our spouse, child, or friend offends us again (in lesser and different ways) and we are called to relate to them independent of the original offense. This is post-crisis forgiveness.

Crisis forgiveness was, in many ways, easier. It was heroic. It was focused. It forced us to our knees in reliance upon God’s strength. Post-crisis forgiveness comes when we are grace-weary. It is mundane. It must cover a multitude of (little) sins, not just one big one. It can easily be distracted by so many things we are trying to catch up on (which we neglected during crisis forgiveness).

Post-crisis forgiveness calls us to appreciate the incarnation as much as the crucifixion. Christ came and lived among us for over three decades. Christ lived in our sin (a fallen broken world with selfish, manipulative, backstabbing friends) in addition to becoming sin for us. Post-crisis forgiveness calls us to emulate this aspect of Christ-likeness as well.

Too often we assume that the restoration process will go directly from forgiveness to peace. However, especially when the offense being forgiven has traumatic qualities, there is a middle stage. If we forget this, we may wrongly assume that we have failed to forgive when we meet these new challenges. Rather, it means that we have moved to a new stage of restoration; from cancelling the debt to restoring trust.

Saying that there is sometimes a middle stage to restoration does not change the necessity or requirements of forgiveness. Nor does it allow the one being forgiven to rush or demand quicker restoration.  It does remind us that the Bible is more than a collection of commands. It is a portrait of our complete life experience captured in the person of Christ and with every struggle we face it is a call to marvel and emulate more of His character.

The Fear of the Lord & The Art of Persuasion

by brad on September 2, 2010 in Counseling Reflection with Comments Off

“Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.” 2 Cor. 5:11

What is the fear of the Lord? That is a question that is larger than can be addressed in a blog post, but I would like to examine one characteristic of fear that may help us experience more of the fear of the Lord (a good thing).

Fear Feature: We tend to focus on and look for what we fear. If someone has a fear of snakes and they walk in the woods, they are looking fervently for snakes. If someone fears rejection, they will listen in every conversation for a negative comment, gesture, or omitted compliment (often hearing one whether it was there or not). If someone fears failure, then each moment is braced against it, asking for some skill or knowledge they do not have (often being paralyzed from doing things they are perfectly capable of doing).

Living in the fear of the Lord then, means to live with a constant awareness of God. What is He doing? What is His will for this situation? How can I express His character in this relationship? How could I please Him in this moment? In this regard, we might say that the opposite of the fear of the Lord is casualness/forgetfulness towards God.

In 2 Corinthians 5 Paul draws a connection between someone’s fear of the Lord and their level of persuasiveness. As we will see in just a moment, Paul was not trying to create the latest, greatest sales technique. Paul was merely putting a reality into w

ords.

The fear of the Lord is the only fear that is not self-centered.  All other fears are necessarily self-centered because their ultimate goal is self-preservation.  The fear of the Lord begins with denying ourselves and dying to our desires (Luke 9:23-24).

This influences our ability to be persuasive in three ways:

  1. People are more apt to listen to someone who is not out for what they can gain in a situation.  Paul had modeled this in his early preaching in Corinth (1 Cor 9:9-12). He would not allow the Corinthians to give him money for his ministry so that they would know of the sincerity of his message. One good question for measuring trust is, “How much does this person fear God?”
  2. We are more able to interpret a situation correctly when the lenses of self are not distorting our motives. We tend to see what we fear/trust.  If we fear/trust money, we see a profit margin. If we fear/trust acceptance, we see rejection. If we fear/trust power, we see opportunities to get ahead. When we actively fear/trust God, we see things as they really are (rather than through the distortion of our fears). When we do not see things accurately people are confused and turned off by the sense that our words are “off.”
  3. Finally, when we fear the Lord we do not require a certain response from the other person as personal validation. Their acceptance or rejection of our message (i.e., the Gospel, a biblical way to resolve a particular conflict, a character quality we ask of our children, etc…) is not personal acceptance or rejection. We can then model a kind of social freedom that is sorely lacking in our insecure culture that hyper-personalizes differences.
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