Now we are finally getting down to the place where “The Rubber Meets The Road”, we are about to look at what we can realistically do with ALL the things we have been learning. It is time to change! Are you ready?
First, let us take a quick look at where we have been.
We have learned that the DNA of Relationships is made up of three strands:
1. We are designed for relationship.
2. We have been given the freedom to choose.
3. We have responsibility for ourselves.
We have come to understand that how we internalize these three basic truths will determine the quality of all our relationships. The author of our study guidebook has given us some practical tools to use, which can help us improve our relationship situations. These are:
· Take Personal Responsibility.
· Create a Safe Environment.
· Keep Your Battery Charged.
· Listen With the Heart.
· Adopt a No-Losers Policy.
I want to be sure that we notice that these tools are all personal action items. Each of the five statements begins with an “action verb”, and each speaks to something we have personal control over. This is where today’s subject of change begins, with personal control.
I like what the author says about change:
· There is no guarantee of success.
I agree with him that this needs to be said. When we start a process of change in our lives, we can set our expectations. If we set them in high places we are more likely to experience frustration or even pain when our change goal(s) are not met. If we set our eyes on progress and not a target we can more easily deal with how our attempts at change are going.
What is missing from this entire chapter is this:
· No change, guaranteed failure.
Definitions and quotes:
Webster’s – To become different.
John Kennedy - Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
M. Scott Peck - The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Life is a progress, and not a station.
Unknown - Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.
On that lighter note is it finally time to really get down to it. Let us begin by asking a few questions:
· Is change something that God wants from me? Yes!
· If it is, then what does He want me to change?
· What does He want me to change to?
We are going to focus for the next few minutes on the “what does He want me to change” question.
I want to take a look at three scriptures here, Rom 12:2, Ph 2:12-13 and Eph 1:18.
· In Rom 12:2 we see Paul using the word “transformed” where “changed” could have been used. We all know and understand that to transform is to change, so why is this change put this way? The answer to this is found in the original Greek, Paul used the word “metamorphoo” from which we get “metamorphosis”, and that signifies a radical change. A good example would be a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.
· Ph 12:12-13 talks about “working out our salvation”. This scripture gets to the heart of what Godly change is about; we work, on our own, salvation. The Greek word used here (soteria) can be used in the sense of salvation, as in “being saved”, but also in another meaning, becoming healthy or sometimes, being delivered. It can be used in both a physical or moral sense. The message here is that change involves our own effort, our own being, and our own body and soul in our actions.
· Eph 1:18 discusses our need to have our hearts changed, or enlightened, so that we know the hope of His calling. The word calling refers to His plan for us.
· I also want to point out that all three of these scriptures refer to this “change” as being within God’s will. More on this in a few minutes.
Notice that the three scriptures refer to three different aspects of our inner being. Rom 12:2 covers the mind, Ph 2:12-13 focuses on our will (or purpose) and Eph 1:18 identifies the heart. It is with this knowledge that we make the following statement.
· It is God’s will for me to change.
Since this is true, we can also make another statement:
· It is NOT God’s will for me to NOT change.
Having established that God wants us to change, we can now look at “what” He wants us to alter. The answer to this has already been spoken about today. We identified three aspects of our inner being. The mind, heart and will; and what are these usually called when combined together? The soul!
So now we know that God wants us to change, and what about us He wants to change. The next question we would like to have an answer for is the third one from earlier in the lesson:
· What does He want me to change to?
The answer to this is really very straightforward. Let us take a look at Col 3:10. After we read it I will quote it from the Living Bible, which has an excellent paraphrase of the verse.
You are living a brand new kind of life that is continually learning more and more of what is right, and trying constantly to be more and more like Christ who created this new life within you. TLB
See, I told you it was easy. God wants us to become more like Christ. He wants us to “try constantly” and “continually learn”. This brings me to a more definitive statement about change, which I have written in the first person.
· I know it is God’s will for me to continually try to change my soul to be more and more like Christ.
I want to spend just a moment now on a little theology. When God created us, he said in Genesis 1:27, that He created us in His image. We know that God is spirit, Jesus Himself said this in Jn 4:24. This means that we were created in His image, but in a spiritual sense. Because of our disobedience our spirit, or soul, became damaged, and was no longer the exact image of God. The intimate connection between man and God was broken. But God had a plan! He sent Jesus to us, and He lived, as a man, a perfect and righteous life, demonstrating how we can be, if we choose. Jesus had an intimate connection with God the father. God has therefore, through His son, Jesus, shown us how to get back to being “the image of God”. We are to become like His son, Jesus. If any of us desire a more intimate connection with God, we must work at becoming more like Christ, we must change by moving toward Him. Finally, God knows how hard it is for us to throw off the chains of sin, so not only did he tell us to work on changing, but He gave us a helper, Himself, in the form of the Holy Spirit. What a God we have! If you have any questions about this subject I would be glad to address them now.
At this point I think it is highly, and I mean highly, important to say something. I am now holding up my Bible, and I am going to make a statement for you.
· Nowhere in this book does it say I can change another person!
Why is it that we believe the great lie that we can change somebody else? That is actually a question that we will cover in our next study, starting in two weeks time, called “The Control Freak”.
Now I’m going to look at some of the points the author covers in the change chapter.
Serendipity
This word comes from the Persian fairy tale of the “Three Princes of Serendip”, where these three characters were always making valuable and beneficial discoveries when they weren’t looking for them. Change brings “Serendipitous” events.
By agreeing with God that personal changes in one’s life are necessary, or put another way, realizing that we need to stop the insanity of repeating our failing behaviors or decisions; we are opening our lives up to changes that God wants to make. When we say to the lord, “I’m going to try to do it your way”, we break down the barriers of disobedience and rebellion in our lives, allowing Him to work in us, and just as the Philippians scripture we read earlier says. When we work at change, and He works with and in us, wonderful things can happen. After all God promises He will never do anything to harm us, let’s look at James 1:17 and Ps 119:68.
The book uses an example of a wife who spent years trying to change her husband into something she wanted. When she finally “got it”, which means she realized that she can only change herself, she started to spiritually mature. Then her husband found that he didn’t have to spend a great deal of his time and emotional energy on dealing with her constant whining, so he was able to focus more on his own actions. Then under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, he changed, and it was better for both of them!
Guarantees
There are none! When we embark of a journey of change, we may set sail with a particular destination in mind. Sometimes we simply cannot get there. An example could be, we take up running, intending to run a marathon after some training, but you develop bad knees, and have to give up your dream. The change you were making was a healthy choice, but the reality of bad knees stopped you. If you had set yourself a high expectation of running the big race, and couldn’t do it, you are setting your heart up for a bad experience. What if you had said, I’m going to begin running, and see how I do. You have begun the same journey, but you are allowing the road you travel to tell you how much you can do. When your bad knees get to you, you can say, I’ve gone as far as I can on this road, I need to take a new one. That is when you could take up swimming, which is also a healthy road.
The book says this very well on page 177; I’ve modified it slightly:
If you choose to travel down the road of personal transformation, the worst that can happen is that you will end up with a life that is far more enjoyable, satisfying, fulfilling and helpful to others than the one you have now.
It is important to understand that even if you desire to change into someone that is more honoring to God, it doesn’t mean that it is guaranteed to happen. As an example, I love praise and worship music, and I desire to be able to play an instrument and more importantly, be able to sing strongly and with perfect pitch. It hasn’t happened yet!
Personal Power
When we decide to change, we must be careful to only work on ourselves and the things we actually have control over. You only have the personal power to deal with your “stuff”. I think the serenity prayer says it so well:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.
Do you accept the things and people around you, just the way they are? Or are you a perpetual victim, not changing the things you can? Do you have the wisdom to be able to differentiate one from another? These are questions you can ask yourself later.
Motivation
I want to say a few words here about the “why” of change. In is important to be honest with your self about why you desire to change. Let us look at a very instructive verse from the book of Jeremiah, Jer 17:9. We have probably all heard that before, and I think it is smart for us to consider what it is saying before we begin changes. What is our real motivation? Is it to change to other person, is it to manipulate somebody, and is it for selfish gain?
The best example of I could think of in the area of motivation is found in Ps 51, let us read Ps 51:1-12. Do you remember the background to this Psalm? It is found in second Samuel, chapters 11 and 12. It is the story of David and Bathsheba.
In this Psalm, David is heartbroken because of his actions, and in verse 10 asks God to create in him a “new heart”. He asks God to destroy his old motivations and replace them with something pure. He wants to change, and he comes to God confessing his sin and seeking cleansing and purifying from God so that he can be made into somebody new.
Couldn’t that be the motivation and goal of our change? To have a clean and pure heart, made that way by God Himself. Just like David, our desired changes ought to involve only two people, God and ourselves.
That concludes today’s lesson on change. Next week we’ll be tying it all together, with our concluding lesson for this series. The week after we will begin our new study, which is called “The Control Freak”.
Showing posts with label Personal Responsibility. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Personal Responsibility. Show all posts
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Sunday, June 10, 2007
TAKING PERSONAL RESPONSIBILTY
THE DNA OF RELATIONSHIPS
LESSON FOUR – PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
Welcome to lesson four of this 10 part series on, ‘Discovering How You Are Designed For Satisfying Relationships”. This morning’s lesson covers the issue of taking personal responsibility for one’s thoughts and actions. In this lesson we are going to start to build on the groundwork laid out in the first three classes, it is time to begin to establish right thinking about how to change our relationships, and lives, for the better.
I will start with a simple overview of what we have covered so far.
In Lesson One: We learned that “Life Is Just Relationships, The Rest Is Just Details”, said another way, “Everything In Life That Truly Matters Can Be Boiled Down To Relationships”. In God’s account of His creation of mankind, found in chapter two of the book of Genesis, He (God) summed it up this way, “It is not good for man to be alone” (Gen 2:18). This is a very big statement, as it is the only thing that God said was not good in the whole creation story. We were made for relationship!
In Lesson Two: Also from chapter 2 of Genesis we identified the three principles that God designed us to live by, our book calls these “The DNA Of Relationships”:
1. We are designed for relationship.
2. We have been given the freedom to choose.
3. We have responsibility for ourselves.
We also looked at Genesis chapter 3, and showed how the fall of man and the introduction of sin into the world was a direct result of not following these principles combined with God’s one simple instruction, (don’t eat the forbidden fruit).
In Lesson Three: We began to see that as a result of the fall, fear was introduced to the human soul. As Adam said it in Gen 3:10, I was naked and afraid. We identified how it is some basic or core fears that rule how we react or respond in problem situations in relationships. The author calls these responses a “Fear Dance” since it always involves at least two people.
Now we come to the beginning of learning how to dance a different dance. It is time to learn new steps; the first one is “Take Personal Responsibility”.
We have all heard this mantra before, although very few of us actually follow this fundamental recommendation. Before I get into six concrete actions we can take to truly follow this in our lives, what are some of the most common barriers to doing this?
· Our culture – We live in a “victim hood” world, we have all seen it, how one person blames another for what they are actually responsible for.
· Our values and beliefs – Do we really believe we have a big say-so in our own lives? Do we believe what God says about it?
· Our reactions – How often do we respond to situations with a negative or a “woe is me” attitude?
· Our Past – The personal experiences and baggage of our past can often result in our inability to accept personal responsibility.
These and many others we could come up with definitely make “Taking Personal Responsibility” a difficult task. So where do we start?
I think we must start with acknowledging that we have the freedom to choose, this whole subject was covered in Lesson two, so I won’t go over it again. What I do want to say is that not a single person will make substantial progress in their life unless they internalize the following belief:
· I have control over how I respond to every situation. (Gal 6:5)
The author has a good example of how this can be shown to be a truth, if you have your book, let’s go to p65, about two thirds of the way down the page, the name calling story. (Read it through) We can very obviously see that we have control over our response, and as the book states, our response must come from inside our mind not from any external factor. If a person can honestly absorb this belief about self-control it will truly empower them in all facets of their life and most especially in relationships. How does this happen? It is by the recognition that a person controls how they think!
When we choose what we think, it means we can choose how we feel and choose how we react. That may sound like it doesn’t make sense, because so often we seem to just react to situations. This usual “quick reaction” response we have disguises what is really going on inside us. We generate a thought as a result of a situation, we then begin to feel emotions and then exhibit a behavior, all of which can sometimes happen in a millisecond! We are now going to look at six things we can do to start changing the way we respond to life. I am going to name these “The Six Tactics”.
Tactic #1 – Take Control of Your Thoughts, Feelings and Actions
Whenever we focus our attention on other people involved in a situation, or on what they were doing, we give away something called “personal power”. We have made a choice to spend our personal internal energy and power on someone else; we have made a choice to become weak. By focusing on others, we are going down the road of trying to control other people and may even be trying to change them. This is a sure way of achieving failure in a relationship!
It is in our nature, and it began with Adam and Eve, to blame the other person for our own shortcomings and behaviors. Sometimes we try to get them to change how they interact with us, we coerce, we manipulate and we beg. This type of response might even work for a while, but in the end we’ll be right back to wherever we started. That is because real change can never be imposed from the outside, but can only be generated from the inside of those we relate to.
Wouldn’t it be better to try to control what we actually can, which is our response in any situation. Taking “Personal Responsibility” means that we refuse to focus on what the other person has done! This doesn’t mean that we can’t acknowledge a grievance, just that we will not allow it to dominate our reactions. PR, then, means we must take a hard, serious and honest look at our part of things that happen. It means we must take control of our thoughts on any and all situations. We can and must choose to exercise that great fruit of the Spirit, self-control, of our mind.
Let’s look at what Scripture says about this. Earlier I spoke of “empowerment”, and this is clearly what the Apostle Paul had in mind when he wrote Romans 12:2. He said this:
· Don’t be conformed to the world – In our context, that means focusing on others actions, on blaming or finger pointing.
· Be transformed by the renewing of the mind – Take personal responsibility for your thoughts and you will be transformed, the Greek word he uses here is “metamorphoo”, which is a word indicating a change into something of a higher order, like a cocoon into a butterfly.
· So you can prove what God’s will is – By doing this you will demonstrate the goodness of God Himself because of your changed and better life.
Don’t we all want that changed and better life? God says, and so does our book, that it starts in the mind. Now we come to why this is true.
What we think prompts and initiates feelings, and then we act. It is as simple as that. Let us consider an everyday scenario. You are traveling down I-10 at sixty, somebody cuts you off, almost hitting you, and he is going only 55. What do you think, feel and do?
· That *******, he cut me off, that makes me angry, I’m going to blow my horn and give him a piece of my mind. (And maybe the bird!) Or do you think?
· I almost hit him, I was going too fast, that was a little scary, and I had better slow down so if it happens again it won’t be such a near miss.
Do you see the difference? By focusing on your part, your response was entirely more mature; in fact the other driver’s behavior wasn’t even an issue.
This brings us to the phrase to remember:
MY THOUGHTS CONTROL MY FEELINGS AND MY REACTIONS
And this brings us to our next tactic.
Tactic #2 – Take Responsibility for Your Buttons
I imagine we all know the expression, “he/she pushed my buttons”. Did you ever wonder what a “button” is? It is very simply a combination of values, beliefs and attitudes. When this combination is violated we respond in negative ways. Of course we know from the previous tactic that the process of coming to a negative action starts with one or more thoughts, is followed by emotions and then the action. So how can we reduce or even stop ourselves from getting our buttons pushed?
It starts with acknowledging that the buttons are our possessions, we have 100% ownership of them, and we are totally responsible for them. We have control of them! This means that when a button gets pushed, we can choose how we respond, since we have control. Let me demonstrate this. We have all pushed the power button on a TV remote, the TV comes on, we change the channel, turn up the volume and watch it react. Now, suppose that you go home and try doing that, but nothing happens because the kids have unplugged it, who is in control? Yes, the TV, not you the button pusher! You see, if someone pushes our buttons, we can cut off the power of the button pusher and be in control of how we react. Take back your buttons! Our phrase here is:
YOU ARE IN CHARGE OF YOUR BUTTONS
Just for fun, I’ve included a button pushing incident from scripture here, Mt 21:12-13, what happened and whose button got pushed? Was it appropriate?
Tactic #3 – Don’t Give Others The Power to Control Your Feelings
The essence of this is don’t let others tell you what to think. Even God Himself doesn’t do that, although He does make strong suggestions! Let us look at a two of them, Ph 4:8 and 2 Cor 10:5.
In Philippians 4, Paul is exhorting us to excellence, in verse 8 he encourages us to “let our minds dwell” on certain things, and the list doesn’t include “whatever your significant other says”. In 2 Cor 10:5, we are exhorted through his example, to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. In our PR tactic, this means to match our thoughts against what Christ says. By doing this we know that Jesus will lead and guide us in our thinking, and then we will be able to exercise control over our emotions.
Tactic #4 – Don’t Look To Others To Make You Happy
Our culture feeds a great myth into us from an early age, and that is that other people can make us feel happy. This is what I call one of our enemy’s “big lies”. He is delighted when we have this as a belief, because he knows it will always result in relationship conflict. Now, I am not denying that we often feel happy with certain people we hang out with, but that emotional condition is not caused by them. It is a product of you applying your values and your mind’s attitude to the situation. Let me give you an example.
Let us say that a friend says, “How about going to see a movie?” So you both go to a “chick flick”, and because you like such movies you are happy. And then you go to four or five in a row getting happier by the visit, but then one week you head off, and end up watching a horror film. You don’t like that kind of violent thing and are appalled, and unhappy. Same conditions; good friend, relaxing time, plenty of popcorn, but different outcome. No pun intended, but do you get the picture? It was never this person that made you happy. Your happiness came from your internal response to the situation. This brings us to a major truth:
Relying on others for your happiness leads to a relationship trap called co-dependence.
In fact God has basically told us in His word that only He can meet our needs, which includes our “need” for happiness. Let’s look at Ph 4:19. In this verse Paul is telling us that God will supply all our needs. If we combine this information with the understanding that every person is less that perfect (Rom 3:23) and fallen short of the glory of God, we can realize that nobody can meet our wants/needs all the time. It is simply smart to rely on God in all things. Doing this, which is doing it God’s way, puts your happiness, or emotional well being, under your control.
Tactic #5 – Become The CEO Of Your Life
The call to us here is to live life as an adult. In I Cor 13, which is known as the “love chapter” there is a curious verse tucked away, let us look at it now, verse 11. What does this mean to you? For me one of the truths I get out of it is that, in the context of love, as laid out so eloquently here, we must grow up if we are to be able to experience it (love).
The book author has an excellent definition of what an adult is, “An Adult is someone who is fully capable of taking care of themselves, and who fully accepts that responsibility”. Note that second point, an adult fully accepts responsibility. Now contrast that with a grown-up who is capable of taking care of them self, but does not take responsibility for doing that, he or she is acting as a child.
This section of the book contains a couple of good points on correctly setting expectations and turning negative experiences into positive outcomes. If you get a chance read these through, they are worth spending time on.
Tactic #6 – Recruit Assistants
Taking PR has one major drawback; we sometimes get to the point where we think we can handle anybody and anything. This could even be an unthought belief that lurks in our sub-conscious. It is, of course, not a smart thing to believe, because it will eventually lead to some kind of significant failure. In fact Scripture calls it “Pride”, and Pr 16:18 confirms what I just said. But don’t worry; God has a plan to deal with it. Let us take a look at Pr 15:22 and 11:14. What do these two verses say to you?
I can’t say enough about putting a personal consultative team in place to help you take responsibility for your life. Can you think of some of the reasons or benefits of surrounding yourself with people who care about you?
· Help with making tough decisions.
· Pray with you.
· Hold you to account.
· Listen to you.
· Help with life’s tasks.
I am going to conclude our lesson at this point and briefly recap what we have discussed this morning.
1. We reviewed the first three lessons, and reiterated that we are all designed for relationships, we have all been given the freedom to choose and we all are responsible for ourselves. That is the DNA of Relationships.
2. We saw how the “fall of man” introduced fear and shame into the world, resulting in each of us going into what the author calls a “dance of fear”, which then leads to difficulties in our relationships.
3. In this lesson we saw how we can six practical steps to a higher and more effective level of “Personal Responsibility” in our lives.
And that, as they say in show biz, is a wrap!
LESSON FOUR – PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
Welcome to lesson four of this 10 part series on, ‘Discovering How You Are Designed For Satisfying Relationships”. This morning’s lesson covers the issue of taking personal responsibility for one’s thoughts and actions. In this lesson we are going to start to build on the groundwork laid out in the first three classes, it is time to begin to establish right thinking about how to change our relationships, and lives, for the better.
I will start with a simple overview of what we have covered so far.
In Lesson One: We learned that “Life Is Just Relationships, The Rest Is Just Details”, said another way, “Everything In Life That Truly Matters Can Be Boiled Down To Relationships”. In God’s account of His creation of mankind, found in chapter two of the book of Genesis, He (God) summed it up this way, “It is not good for man to be alone” (Gen 2:18). This is a very big statement, as it is the only thing that God said was not good in the whole creation story. We were made for relationship!
In Lesson Two: Also from chapter 2 of Genesis we identified the three principles that God designed us to live by, our book calls these “The DNA Of Relationships”:
1. We are designed for relationship.
2. We have been given the freedom to choose.
3. We have responsibility for ourselves.
We also looked at Genesis chapter 3, and showed how the fall of man and the introduction of sin into the world was a direct result of not following these principles combined with God’s one simple instruction, (don’t eat the forbidden fruit).
In Lesson Three: We began to see that as a result of the fall, fear was introduced to the human soul. As Adam said it in Gen 3:10, I was naked and afraid. We identified how it is some basic or core fears that rule how we react or respond in problem situations in relationships. The author calls these responses a “Fear Dance” since it always involves at least two people.
Now we come to the beginning of learning how to dance a different dance. It is time to learn new steps; the first one is “Take Personal Responsibility”.
We have all heard this mantra before, although very few of us actually follow this fundamental recommendation. Before I get into six concrete actions we can take to truly follow this in our lives, what are some of the most common barriers to doing this?
· Our culture – We live in a “victim hood” world, we have all seen it, how one person blames another for what they are actually responsible for.
· Our values and beliefs – Do we really believe we have a big say-so in our own lives? Do we believe what God says about it?
· Our reactions – How often do we respond to situations with a negative or a “woe is me” attitude?
· Our Past – The personal experiences and baggage of our past can often result in our inability to accept personal responsibility.
These and many others we could come up with definitely make “Taking Personal Responsibility” a difficult task. So where do we start?
I think we must start with acknowledging that we have the freedom to choose, this whole subject was covered in Lesson two, so I won’t go over it again. What I do want to say is that not a single person will make substantial progress in their life unless they internalize the following belief:
· I have control over how I respond to every situation. (Gal 6:5)
The author has a good example of how this can be shown to be a truth, if you have your book, let’s go to p65, about two thirds of the way down the page, the name calling story. (Read it through) We can very obviously see that we have control over our response, and as the book states, our response must come from inside our mind not from any external factor. If a person can honestly absorb this belief about self-control it will truly empower them in all facets of their life and most especially in relationships. How does this happen? It is by the recognition that a person controls how they think!
When we choose what we think, it means we can choose how we feel and choose how we react. That may sound like it doesn’t make sense, because so often we seem to just react to situations. This usual “quick reaction” response we have disguises what is really going on inside us. We generate a thought as a result of a situation, we then begin to feel emotions and then exhibit a behavior, all of which can sometimes happen in a millisecond! We are now going to look at six things we can do to start changing the way we respond to life. I am going to name these “The Six Tactics”.
Tactic #1 – Take Control of Your Thoughts, Feelings and Actions
Whenever we focus our attention on other people involved in a situation, or on what they were doing, we give away something called “personal power”. We have made a choice to spend our personal internal energy and power on someone else; we have made a choice to become weak. By focusing on others, we are going down the road of trying to control other people and may even be trying to change them. This is a sure way of achieving failure in a relationship!
It is in our nature, and it began with Adam and Eve, to blame the other person for our own shortcomings and behaviors. Sometimes we try to get them to change how they interact with us, we coerce, we manipulate and we beg. This type of response might even work for a while, but in the end we’ll be right back to wherever we started. That is because real change can never be imposed from the outside, but can only be generated from the inside of those we relate to.
Wouldn’t it be better to try to control what we actually can, which is our response in any situation. Taking “Personal Responsibility” means that we refuse to focus on what the other person has done! This doesn’t mean that we can’t acknowledge a grievance, just that we will not allow it to dominate our reactions. PR, then, means we must take a hard, serious and honest look at our part of things that happen. It means we must take control of our thoughts on any and all situations. We can and must choose to exercise that great fruit of the Spirit, self-control, of our mind.
Let’s look at what Scripture says about this. Earlier I spoke of “empowerment”, and this is clearly what the Apostle Paul had in mind when he wrote Romans 12:2. He said this:
· Don’t be conformed to the world – In our context, that means focusing on others actions, on blaming or finger pointing.
· Be transformed by the renewing of the mind – Take personal responsibility for your thoughts and you will be transformed, the Greek word he uses here is “metamorphoo”, which is a word indicating a change into something of a higher order, like a cocoon into a butterfly.
· So you can prove what God’s will is – By doing this you will demonstrate the goodness of God Himself because of your changed and better life.
Don’t we all want that changed and better life? God says, and so does our book, that it starts in the mind. Now we come to why this is true.
What we think prompts and initiates feelings, and then we act. It is as simple as that. Let us consider an everyday scenario. You are traveling down I-10 at sixty, somebody cuts you off, almost hitting you, and he is going only 55. What do you think, feel and do?
· That *******, he cut me off, that makes me angry, I’m going to blow my horn and give him a piece of my mind. (And maybe the bird!) Or do you think?
· I almost hit him, I was going too fast, that was a little scary, and I had better slow down so if it happens again it won’t be such a near miss.
Do you see the difference? By focusing on your part, your response was entirely more mature; in fact the other driver’s behavior wasn’t even an issue.
This brings us to the phrase to remember:
MY THOUGHTS CONTROL MY FEELINGS AND MY REACTIONS
And this brings us to our next tactic.
Tactic #2 – Take Responsibility for Your Buttons
I imagine we all know the expression, “he/she pushed my buttons”. Did you ever wonder what a “button” is? It is very simply a combination of values, beliefs and attitudes. When this combination is violated we respond in negative ways. Of course we know from the previous tactic that the process of coming to a negative action starts with one or more thoughts, is followed by emotions and then the action. So how can we reduce or even stop ourselves from getting our buttons pushed?
It starts with acknowledging that the buttons are our possessions, we have 100% ownership of them, and we are totally responsible for them. We have control of them! This means that when a button gets pushed, we can choose how we respond, since we have control. Let me demonstrate this. We have all pushed the power button on a TV remote, the TV comes on, we change the channel, turn up the volume and watch it react. Now, suppose that you go home and try doing that, but nothing happens because the kids have unplugged it, who is in control? Yes, the TV, not you the button pusher! You see, if someone pushes our buttons, we can cut off the power of the button pusher and be in control of how we react. Take back your buttons! Our phrase here is:
YOU ARE IN CHARGE OF YOUR BUTTONS
Just for fun, I’ve included a button pushing incident from scripture here, Mt 21:12-13, what happened and whose button got pushed? Was it appropriate?
Tactic #3 – Don’t Give Others The Power to Control Your Feelings
The essence of this is don’t let others tell you what to think. Even God Himself doesn’t do that, although He does make strong suggestions! Let us look at a two of them, Ph 4:8 and 2 Cor 10:5.
In Philippians 4, Paul is exhorting us to excellence, in verse 8 he encourages us to “let our minds dwell” on certain things, and the list doesn’t include “whatever your significant other says”. In 2 Cor 10:5, we are exhorted through his example, to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. In our PR tactic, this means to match our thoughts against what Christ says. By doing this we know that Jesus will lead and guide us in our thinking, and then we will be able to exercise control over our emotions.
Tactic #4 – Don’t Look To Others To Make You Happy
Our culture feeds a great myth into us from an early age, and that is that other people can make us feel happy. This is what I call one of our enemy’s “big lies”. He is delighted when we have this as a belief, because he knows it will always result in relationship conflict. Now, I am not denying that we often feel happy with certain people we hang out with, but that emotional condition is not caused by them. It is a product of you applying your values and your mind’s attitude to the situation. Let me give you an example.
Let us say that a friend says, “How about going to see a movie?” So you both go to a “chick flick”, and because you like such movies you are happy. And then you go to four or five in a row getting happier by the visit, but then one week you head off, and end up watching a horror film. You don’t like that kind of violent thing and are appalled, and unhappy. Same conditions; good friend, relaxing time, plenty of popcorn, but different outcome. No pun intended, but do you get the picture? It was never this person that made you happy. Your happiness came from your internal response to the situation. This brings us to a major truth:
Relying on others for your happiness leads to a relationship trap called co-dependence.
In fact God has basically told us in His word that only He can meet our needs, which includes our “need” for happiness. Let’s look at Ph 4:19. In this verse Paul is telling us that God will supply all our needs. If we combine this information with the understanding that every person is less that perfect (Rom 3:23) and fallen short of the glory of God, we can realize that nobody can meet our wants/needs all the time. It is simply smart to rely on God in all things. Doing this, which is doing it God’s way, puts your happiness, or emotional well being, under your control.
Tactic #5 – Become The CEO Of Your Life
The call to us here is to live life as an adult. In I Cor 13, which is known as the “love chapter” there is a curious verse tucked away, let us look at it now, verse 11. What does this mean to you? For me one of the truths I get out of it is that, in the context of love, as laid out so eloquently here, we must grow up if we are to be able to experience it (love).
The book author has an excellent definition of what an adult is, “An Adult is someone who is fully capable of taking care of themselves, and who fully accepts that responsibility”. Note that second point, an adult fully accepts responsibility. Now contrast that with a grown-up who is capable of taking care of them self, but does not take responsibility for doing that, he or she is acting as a child.
This section of the book contains a couple of good points on correctly setting expectations and turning negative experiences into positive outcomes. If you get a chance read these through, they are worth spending time on.
Tactic #6 – Recruit Assistants
Taking PR has one major drawback; we sometimes get to the point where we think we can handle anybody and anything. This could even be an unthought belief that lurks in our sub-conscious. It is, of course, not a smart thing to believe, because it will eventually lead to some kind of significant failure. In fact Scripture calls it “Pride”, and Pr 16:18 confirms what I just said. But don’t worry; God has a plan to deal with it. Let us take a look at Pr 15:22 and 11:14. What do these two verses say to you?
I can’t say enough about putting a personal consultative team in place to help you take responsibility for your life. Can you think of some of the reasons or benefits of surrounding yourself with people who care about you?
· Help with making tough decisions.
· Pray with you.
· Hold you to account.
· Listen to you.
· Help with life’s tasks.
I am going to conclude our lesson at this point and briefly recap what we have discussed this morning.
1. We reviewed the first three lessons, and reiterated that we are all designed for relationships, we have all been given the freedom to choose and we all are responsible for ourselves. That is the DNA of Relationships.
2. We saw how the “fall of man” introduced fear and shame into the world, resulting in each of us going into what the author calls a “dance of fear”, which then leads to difficulties in our relationships.
3. In this lesson we saw how we can six practical steps to a higher and more effective level of “Personal Responsibility” in our lives.
And that, as they say in show biz, is a wrap!
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