A Threat or a Promise

Continuing from my previous note, "Never Will I Leave You; Never Will I Forsake you,"I would like to challenge my Christian brothers and sisters to reach for greater heights in your marriage, to be committed to growth and excellence in this most intimate alliance. It is reported that the root of many marriage problems take root in the first two years and the greatest exodus into divorce takes place at year seven. Clearly leaving things unacknowledged, unresolved and in disrepair can be fatal.

I have been known on occasion to joke with my husband as he leaves our house. In response to his promise to return at a stated time, I sometimes quip "Stop threatening me." All joking aside, our promises to stay with each other forever can feel suffocating if they are not also accompanied by a commitment to personal growth and a proactive approach to nurturing each other. Unlike the comfort and confidence Christ's love and commitment instills, life lived between two sinners requires a great deal of courage, wisdom and reality checking.

In the latter case we can remind ourselves that Christ is both willing and able to fulfill all His promises to His people. We can repose in His self-less love. Our calm assurance is rooted in the fact that Christ is thoroughly good and all-powerful. He has no guile, no sub-consciousness, no deficiency or imperfection. He is so committed to the well-being of His bride that He gave himself up for her.

The first case is littered with landmines. That sinner you married does have blind spots, impaired self-awareness, and triggers. Your spouse has both deficits and defects. Collisions with your blindness, hot buttons, and dysfunctions are inevitable. What are you going to do about these things?

The typical church-goer's response includes seasons of praying harder or trying harder. When that doesn't seem to work the battle intensifies. Shifting into victim mode, we euphemize (not euthanize) our despair with religious platitudes and determine to quietly endure our plight and practice large doses of longsuffering and patience. We embrace our pilgrim status and long for a time when we will live with Christ, who does understand us and love us perfectly.

Unsuspectingly, with Bible verses to back this rigid, judgmental stance we apply the equivalent of a tourniquet. We ensconce ourselves in that which separates us, rather than in our union. We cement ourselves in a pattern of non-growth and we barracade ourselves in our hurt and disappointment....unless we choose another way...another, more biblical, more healthy approach... More to come.

Never will I leave you; Never will I forsake you

All of those allusions to Christ's commitment to us in Scripture and hymns completely expand if we think that the extent of God's commitment to us included a willingness for Him to change Himself forever. He tells us that this change (His union with His people through Christ) is equivalent to the fusion that exists between a head and a body. That is astounding to consider. Marriage is our closest comparison on earth. A dim comparison, to be sure, but think of how utterly compelling and different our lives would be if we could live in total confidence that the mate we joined ourselves to would never leave us or forsake us. Imagine how freeing it would be to be able to rest in the comfort of knowing that this partner would sooner die than to bring us harm or pain. Picture the freedom this would give us to grow toward that person in trust and be changed by that love.

The Jewel of Consistency

Okay, let's face it, a whole lot of what we have in life is the result of consistency. My bank balance is what it is either because I consistently made deposits or habitually withdrew funds. I am either persistently putting things where they belong or chronically leaving them out. My garage, house, and car reflect my choices. If I want to change my outcomes, I can do so right now, and now, and now, and now. See my point?

Through a long string of nows, I can dramatically change my environment, my skills, my attitude and even my relationships. The Karate Kid, classically depicted this principle. By giving Daniel a series of well-chosen, routine tasks, Mr. Miyagi stealthily teaches Daniel to practice the motions required to master martial arts. Daniel repeatedly chooses to exercise trust in Mr. Miyagi, although at times very grudgingly. The prize for Daniel in the end is a dramatically improved set of skills, outlook, and friendships.



The fishmongers of the Pike Place Fish Market promote a philosophy that embraces such personal responsibility to the max. According to Cindy Crother (2004) "It's all over here" is their way of conveying the idea that I am responsible for "what I experience in my life and for whatever future I cause to happen in my life." As Crother describes in Catch, the emphasis is on who we are and what we want. An emphasis that you may recognize from my post on Third Wave Psychology.

I can look at my friends' and family members' successes and choose to emulate them. Or I can summon up a boatload of excuses for why their successes are unique to them and unachievable for me. Another choice I have is to applaud their successes and acknowledge that I have equal successes in different areas because I care about other things. While they learned to climb mountains, I have learned to write about them. While they have logged hours on the golf course, I have logged hours in the class room. While I was experiencing what it is to live in one city after another, they were paying down a mortgage. Spreading wings is as valid as growing roots. Though each produces different outcomes, both require a series of personal choices.

I am who I am and I am responsible.

The Changing Face of ADHD

In Anticipation of the upcoming ADHD Awareness Month, (September), I offer these stats:

Changing Rate of ADHD Diagnoses
1981 - 1-2% of school-age children (Brown et al., 2008; Barkley, 1981)
2000 - +4% (Brown et al., 2008; Barkley, 1981)
2006 - in Michigan alone there is a “ten-fold variation in rates of stimulant prescription from county to county, ranging from 0.25% to 2.8% among all children, and from 0.9% to 11.7% among 10-to 11-year-old boys (the most frequently medicated group) (Nigg, 2006)

Changing Scope of ADHD Diagnoses
1981 - six- to ten-year olds would typically take stimulant meds for approx. 3 years (Barkley, 1981)
Today - preschoolers - secondary school children take stimulants an average of 2-7 years. (Brown et al., 2008, Safer & Zito, 2000, )
65% of children previously diagnosed with ADHD continue to meet the criteria as adults. (Thrash, 2006)

Many professionals are concerned that stimulant meds may be sustaining the pathology and creating dependence on the drugs (Breggin, 201; Eide & Eide, 2006).

Moses or Jesus

We have a choice as parents. We can decide whether we are going to use Moses or Jesus as our model. We can either, like Moses, lay down the law and demand compliance as we stand like judges handing out blessings and curses.

Or we can, like Jesus, come alongside our children, modeling the behaviour we want to encourage in them and supplying them with all the tools they will need to succeed.

Let me illustrate the difference. Say you have a 7- to 10-year-old that has an incredibly messy room. You can order them to clean the room. You can even give them a time limit in which to get it done. You might also hang a series of threats over their heads to "motivate" them. You know, threats such as, "no T.V. until your room is clean" or "you're not having friends over until I approve your work" or "you're going to lose your video games for a week if you don't clean your room now!"

The tension is tight and you've laid down the law. Then you sit back, ready to spring on the slightest infraction, missed sock, or building block. The hammer is ready to fall - fall hard. It's a "do" or "die" situation.

Or

You could walk in the room with your child. You could work with your child to identify the problem areas and the solutions needed. With a how-can-I-help-you-solve-your-problem attitude you can ask the child to decide "do you have enough hangers?" "would a book shelf help?" "do you think this would stay cleaner if we packed away the things you no longer use?"

A messy room becomes an opportunity to transfer life skills to your child. Clean rooms are achieved through using talents like goal setting, prioritization, list making, sorting, team building, and negotiation. With the help of an inexpensive timer, messy rooms present the perfect scenario for teaching time-management skills and self-control. Ask your child to predict how long it will take to make the bed and then use the timer to check accuracy. This will add interest to an otherwise mundane job, and teach your child perspective. This activity also provides a baseline against which progress can be measured and personal "bests" can be improved.

More importantly, using this method becomes an open door for building a relationship with your child instead of a hierarchy. It is fertile ground for extending empathy and forging connections with your child. In the pattern of Jesus, you convey the idea that you can sympathize with their plight and are not asking them to do anything you personally are unwilling to do.

Tension is de-escalated. You are looking for ways your child can succeed. It is a "do this and live" situation.

So which will it be for you? Moses or Jesus?

Christianity and an Existential Perspective

Sometimes I lose sight of the obvious things. I temporarily forget foundational truths that otherwise keep me focused and balanced. Day to day life comes in to overwhelm me. Or things just sneak up on me. Before I realize it I am under a mountain (or at least a molehill) of things I have left unprocessed. My sense of well-being gasps for air under such piles. It is at times like these that friends who will remind me of what I know become such a blessing to me.

At other times, it's the unidentified, emotion-laden baggage that I carry which holds me captive. In this case, it's not propositional truth that delivers me, but a fresh experience of God's grace. It is at times like these when nothing will substitute for a personal message from Him. This is when the existentialist's emphasis on the here-and-now is of utmost importance. Because it is only in the here and now that God's grace is experienced. Right here. Right now.

The thing I find exciting about all of this is that my friend can be a conduit for fulfilling either need. She can remind me of the propositional truths that I am forgetting. Or she can usher in a fresh encounter with God. Solitude is not a requirement for such connections. Sometimes God uses my friend's voice to speak to me. Sometimes He uses mine to convey a tender, personal message to my friend or to the client whom I am serving.

For instance, knowing I will be with this friend (or client) soon, I pray "God, what is it that you want to say to ______?" As I give myself to contemplating our meeting, perhaps a singular thought recurs... A thought such as, "she has a problem, but she thinks she is a problem."

I wonder about the recurrence of this thought, so I venture out and say to my friend, "Do you know that you are not a problem?" If she responds with a blank stare I assume the thought was me-generated and it served no purpose. But if she wells up in tears and tells me she has been plagued by self-doubts and despair, I tell her I have reason to believe that the comment was given to me by God. I tell her, "I think God wants you to know that you are not a problem" and then I step out of the way.

I start to I wonder if I should be slipping off my shoes, because I am pretty sure I am standing on holy ground.

Third Wave Psychology, Cognitive-Behavioral Psychology and Theology

There are parts of the Third Wave Psychology, that sound quite a bit like what Brennan Manning speaks of in his book, Abba's Child. A book I have been enjoying very much.

It seems to me that Steven Hayes, author of Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life, and proponent of the Third Wave is suggesting that we don't cure a problem by focusing on it. Instead, he seems to suggest that we successfully change by acknowledging the negative thoughts that exist in us and then focus on investing our time and energy pursuing our core values.

According to Time magazine, Hayes says. "We should acknowledge that negative thoughts recur throughout life. Instead of challenging them, we should concentrate on identifying and committing to our values. Once we become willing to feel negative emotions, he argues, we will find it easier to figure out what life should be about and get on with it."

I've spent a good portion of my adult years disregarding and devaluing emotions; especially the negative ones that "good" Christians aren't supposed to have. I have come to realize that this method doesn't square with the Bible and it doesn't lead to wholeness. I have come to realize that the more I succeeded with my faulty, unrealistic goal, the more robotic and detached from myself and other people I was becoming. The more stoicism I embraced the less like Christ I was becoming. To be sure, my cognition was faulty, my but transformation began when I experienced a series of new things. An electrical shock tends to generate new thought rather instantaneously.

Manning quotes James Masterson, M.D., "It is the nature of the false self to save us from knowing the truth about our real selves, from penetrating the deeper causes of our unhappiness, from seeing ourselves as we really are - vulnerable, afraid, terrified, and unable to let our real selves emerge." Manning concludes, "Whatever is denied cannot be healed (2002)." Yet, cognition alone will never accomplish the task of change. All the symptom logs in the world won't help an alcoholic to think or behave their way out of their addiction.

The apostle Paul's teaching seems to support Hayes' idea of acknowledging what you don't want, then pursuing what you do want. "Do not get drunk on wine...but be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18)." Paul tells those who have been stealing to start working and sharing; kindness, compassion and forgiveness are to replace bitterness, rage and anger. (Eph.4:28). Paul seems to be saying that the "don'ts" disappear when the "do's" are embraced, assuming the issue of our identity has been addressed.

As with many psychological theories, I find shadows and traces of biblical values in the Third Wave Psychology. I see such a shadow in Zindel Segal's suggestion that we go through the process of "disidentifying with thoughts—seeing them not as who we are but as mere reactions (read more)." It reminds me of what Paul told the Roman believers when he encouraged them to see themselves as dead to sin and alive to God (Rom. 6:11). It also reminds me of Manning's main thrust as he challenges Christians to live out of their identity as God's beloved, Abba's child.