LEARNING HOW TO BE SAFE (1 of 2)

Good morning and welcome to lesson 16 of our study of ‘Safe People”. We are on the home stretch of our study marathon and I know I’m feeling tired. But it has all been worthwhile, as what we have been looking at has been strengthening our belief system in that we see how God’s word helps us in practical ways our daily lives. This morning each of us here comes to a decision point, am I going to apply what I’ve learned to my own life. Our lesson this week and next covers the topic, “Learning How To Be Safe”. This is the challenge, am I going to work on being safer or am I going to stay right where I am? Let me put it really clearly for you. “Am I going to do what God says to do, or am I going to live in disobedience?”

That was how it was framed in my mind after I reviewed the chapter. After I had read this good stuff, and acknowledged the scriptural basis for it, I was confronted with the reality. This was not just about learning some good personal practices; this was about obedience! I was reminded of one of those small but significant verses, 1 Sam 15:22b-23b:

To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. NASU

What does this mean to you today? (Open for discussion)

With this in mind, we are now going to move into the meat of the lesson. The book, in chapter 12, has six steps for us to take. They are; ask for help, learn to need, work through resistances, invite the truth about yourself, enter into forgiveness, and give something back. We will be looking at the first three today, and the last three next week. Okay let us jump right in!

Ask for help

This is “big”! Our authors are trying to get us to connect with the understanding that asking for help is not about getting our physical needs met, even though that is necessary, it is about getting our Soul needs met. What do I mean by that, what are some of our common “Soul needs”? (Discuss, list) I’ve listed a few here, and I recommend that you write them down somewhere, like in your Bible for a permanent record.

· Comfort, Support, and Encouragement.
· Affection, Affirmation and Attention.
· Approval, Appreciation, Security and Respect.

Do you ask for these? I would like to try a simple “modeling” exercise here, I need two lady volunteers. (Get the two volunteers, we’ll call them Dolores and Kathie, and place them in the center of the class and have them seated opposite each other.)

Dolores: Kathie, I’ve asked you out for coffee this morning because I need some help.

Kathie: Well we’ve been friends for a long time Dolores, how can I help?

Dolores: I’ve gone and done it again, I’ve bought some fabulous Gucci shoes, they were on sale for $499 at Neimans, and I promised Ralph I wouldn’t do something like that again, what should I do?

Kathie: (Go with the flow, which means start trying to meet what you think Dolores needs, keeping you parts of the conversation short

Dolores: (Respond to Kathie – try to keep your parts short too)

(Allow the conversation to go on for a minute or two, then stop it and ask the class for comments)

In the book, the writers list out 5 benefits that come as a result of asking, I’m going to look at two of them here. The ones I’m not covering are, owning our needs, taking initiative and becoming grateful. These are all healthy things to consider but we don’t have time to look at everything.

Asking develops humility – Does anybody here have a problem with asking for something because of personal pride? I do, and I think it is a character defect of mine. Does anybody here this morning relate to this? Let us try to answer the question, “Why is this true, why does asking for our “Soul needs” to be met by others develop humility?” (Discuss) This is very much a “God thing” and from scripture we can see why, Let us look at 1 Pet 5:5d, which is a direct quote from Pr 3:34:

GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE. NASU

What might be a reasonable interpretation of this? For me it says that my pride gets in the way of God doing His work of grace in my life. The application of this is simple, if any of us wants to work on becoming more humble, ask others for help with our ‘Soul needs”.

The second point I want to cover about asking is, asking increases the odds that you will get what you want. We might all think “What a no-brainer”, but the truth is our actions tell us what we really believe. We don’t ask because we are avoiding dealing with difficult things in our lives. Can anybody help us here with some “Soul need” examples?

· I’m depressed, but I won’t reach out because I want people to think I’m actually happy.
· I feel worthless because I really messed up at work today, but I don’t want anybody to know I’m incompetent.
· I feel like a failure, my youngest has been caught taking drugs at school; maybe there is an explanation for it.

Asking takes practice. If any of us this here this morning has a “Soul need”, resolve to call somebody in the class to tell them about it, and ask for help.

Learn to need

We all have needs, some of them are obvious to us, some are not, and some are obvious to others but not to ourselves. Needs are a messy thing to have to deal with. While we can often get our needs met by our own efforts, usually this is only effective for physical needs. When it come to “Soul needs”, it is other people that can help us, and I include God Himself as part of “other people”. We are designed to relate to God and others, and that is just the way it is. We have to be in relationships to get our “Soul needs” met. So, our authors have laid out a few things that we can do to reach out to others for the healthy meeting of our ‘Soul needs”.

First – Confess the inability to need. This might sound strange to you, but it is well put. We all put our needs on the back burner when we can’t rely or depend or trust others. We have to admit this to ourselves, to God and to other people. This is called confession. Let’s refer back to our list of “Soul needs” from earlier, which one is the one you might need to confess to having a hard time admitting? (Open for someone to admit one of these needs)

Second, don’t pretend to have a need you don’t actually have. It is a lie! That is all I want to say on that. Third, keep good boundaries. This is essential in life of course, but here the risk is that you get swamped by well meaning people. A good example is the grief discussion we have talked about here lately. If we express that we are sorrowful at a loss and need some comfort, some people call us a few times a day to see if we are “okay”, well meaning but annoying. Laying out decent boundaries can keep the “comfort” calls to reasonable levels.

Fourth, admit needs that you cannot connect with. For example, you might know that you need accountability partners, but you have never had any in the past. Admit that, and also admit that you can’t connect with this need very well, and require help getting to the point of connection.

Lastly, look for “awakenings”. I’m not talking about some new age mumbo jumbo here. I’m talking about paying attention to how you feel when you talk about your needs. There will be moments when your Soul is touched by a thought or feeling or an action and you sense that a little joy or peace has arrived inside you. It feels like you have “woken up” from something.

A word or two on needs - Scripture talks sparingly, or so it seems to me, about needs. We are all familiar with the scripture (Ph 4:19) that talks about supplying all your needs, and I want to be sure to warn us to not misuse it. It is almost always used out of context, let me explain: It says:

And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. NASU

We have all heard it said like this “My God will” or “God will supply”, but that is not what it says, the sentence begins with “And” meaning something goes before it. This is context, Paul who wrote this was saying that he has asked God to meet the needs of the people who helped him, namely the Philippians.

I’m sorry if I’ve just pricked someone’s bubble, but it is wrong to go around believing that God meets all needs. A simple example is that we would all agree that every person born “needs” to receive the Lord and be saved. God has the power to make that happen, but does he supply that for every person, no, of course not. Let us see what He actually does say about needs, look at Titus 3:13-14:

Diligently help Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way so that nothing is lacking for them. Our people must also learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs, so that they will not be unfruitful. NASU

It appears to be God’s intention that he will supply our needs through the good deeds of ourselves and others. Reflect for a moment how many times throughout the Bible we are exhorted to help meet the needs of the poor, which includes both physical and “Soul” needs. (Open for discussion)

A last word – if you tell someone that their needs will be met by God, and they do not get their needs met, will that build or hurt their faith? Unless you have received a word from God, don’t tell someone in any way that his or her needs will be met, because if you do you are speaking as if you are God, which you are not. All you can say is that you believe their needs can be met by God.

Work through resistances

This subject is all about the barriers that we all have to allowing others to help us with our “Soul needs” and in becoming safer. What kinds of barriers do you either have yourself or see in others to becoming safer? (Open)

· Passivity
· Fear
· Pride
· Hard Heart

These are just some of them. We all have these barriers, and if you think that you are relatively open or “barrier-free” you might consider this scripture 1 Cor 10:12:

Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall. NASU

This comes from a section of scripture that discusses sin in the historical context of the sins of the nation of Israel. That nation constantly thought that had it all together, and did it by their own strength and talents. God allowed them to fall, as he will allow us to fall and fail if we think we can do it alone. We have barriers and we are to work at pushing them aside with God’s help. The authors suggest some things to work on.

Identify them – I think that is obvious, but the key to successfully doing this is to acknowledge and believe that other people can see things in us that we can’t see in ourselves. Ask others what they think our barriers are.

When you know what some of them are, tell a trusted person or two and ask them to help you work at removing them. You have to do the work; the friends can provide encouragement.

Some barriers spring up due to old habits or hurts. You may have to get with a professional counselor to help you identify the underlying issues that cause the barriers to spring up.

Here is one last thing, and I never thought I might say this, and this is in the book. Rebel, fight against the old messages that tell you something unbiblical about your barriers. An example is, “I can do this by myself”, rebel against that type of thinking.

That is it for today. Next week we are going to cover the truth, forgiveness and giving back in learning to be safe.