THE DNA OF RELATIONSHIPS
LESSON FIVE – CREATE A SAFE ENVIRONMENT
Just as we did last time let’s briefly cover what we have learned so far in the first four lessons:
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.
Last week’s lesson, the fourth in this series, began the process of learning to dance a new dance. We identified the first new dance step, taking personal responsibility for our thoughts. We discovered that by exercising the fruit of the Spirit known as self-control, we could transform our minds, leading to better personal control over our feelings and our actions. We confirmed that this is indeed possible in our lives, and that God encouraged us to do that very thing as we looked at the meaning of Rom 12:2. We learned that we could create a better life for ourselves.
Today’s lesson brings us to the second new dance step to be learned, create a safe environment.
Now, I know this won’t surprise you, but the essence of this whole chapter is really not directly about creating a safe environment. Let me explain, we all have heard of OSHA, well they are charged with creating “a safe working environment” by our government. How do they do it? By imposing rules and regulations on the workplace. We have rules about how big a/cs ought to be, how long we can work in certain situations and what pipe material is used in a chemical plant. We have more rules than anybody can possibly remember. Does this make the workplace safe? (Wait for response) Of course not! And why is that? That is right, the rules help, but it is people that make a workplace safer!
This illustration brings me to my point about this lesson. It is not really about creating a safe environment; it is about becoming “safe people”. The author has listed five steps to safety, each of which involves applying our own personal values, beliefs and attitudes to our interpersonal behaviors. Essentially he is also saying that it is only by becoming a safe person that we can create a safe environment.
Before we get into the meat of our lesson I would like to introduce you to one of my favorite “relationship” books. It is called ‘Safe People”, written by Henry Cloud and John Townsend. For those that might be more interested in developing their understanding of personal safety in the context of relationships I would recommend picking up a copy. I am also handing out a couple of charts outlining some personal and interpersonal traits of safe and unsafe people, with some biblical references. Although these are for your review later, we can take a look at a couple of traits if you spot something that interests you.
I think to begin our actual study we ought to ask ourselves the question “What does a safe environment look like, what are it’s characteristics?
· Encouraging, supporting and affirming.
· Listening without judgment.
· Problem solving instead of problem creating.
· Grace and forgiveness are present.
· Respect, Trust and Mutuality.
I’m sure we can come up with more items for this list, but let us now look at the five steps to a safe environment that the book details.
Step 1 – Respect The Wall (Eph 4:1-2)
The most normal reaction we have to an unsafe environment is to put up a wall. Why do you think we do that? It is for one of two simple reasons, protection and/or self-preservation. Some people put up walls in almost any situation, others rarely use them, but either way we all have to face people who put up walls between them and us.
Walls are frustrating! When we have one erected in front of us our tendency is to want to tear it down or to get out an emotional sledgehammer and knock it down. We might even want to get a demolition team involved! The wall separates us and that just doesn’t feel right, especially if we are used to being close to the other person. It is a natural thing to think, “I have to get rid of that wall”. It is that kind of thought that can lead us to make a big relationship mistake; trying to take the wall down.
I want to assume that we are going to look at this issue as someone shut out by a wall. Let’s go through what we ought to do and develop an understanding of why we should do this:
· Who owns the wall? - The other person. They put it up, they are responsible for it, and they will take it down.
· How do I respond? – Acceptance, it is vital that you support the other person by accepting that the wall exists, and that the wall can remain in place as long as necessary.
· How long do I tolerate it? – As long as it takes! It must be clear to both of you that no progress can be made in the relationship unless both parties feel safe.
· What can I do? – Protect the wall. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it. You are shut out and I’m saying you ought to be guarding the wall. This is a simple act of sacrifice; the other person’s needs (safety) are to be put ahead of yours. Then wait.
The bottom line here is “Respect the wall”.
Step 2 – Honor Others (Rom 12:10)
What does “to honor another,” mean to you? To me it means; ‘to esteem or hold in high regard”. This very idea of holding others in high regard brings with it a very fundamental problem; in fact this problem can hold any one of us back in life in a form of bondage. The problem is this:
When I hold another person in high regard, I put them above me.
This of course is another of those “big lies” I talk about from time to time. We can all say this isn’t true, “we don’t think that”. My contention is that we actually do think this way more often than we are in touch with. This attitude comes out more clearly when we reverse things; some people put down or negatively criticize others so they can feel superior, or in some cases emotionally better about themselves. We all know people like that, and this is a serious character defect, because it is all about the self and not about the other, put down, person.
Our author is trying to help us understand that honoring others, placing them in our minds as worthy and valuable individuals, is a principle of healthy relationships. Think about what we just talked about. If you are around people who consistently put you down, even in subtle ways, don’t you honestly not want to spend time with them? This book encourages us to think every person as unique, gifted by God, made in His image. It is not relevant if they are Christian and go to church, or if they are “good people”, or if they lying scumbags! Everybody is made in the image of God, and it is respectful toward Him, God, if we make a choice to think of others in the same way He does.
This decision to honor others, even when it may seem wrong-headed, is not a decision to hang out with the lying scumbags (In fact we shouldn’t hang out with the wrong people, 1 Cor 15:33). It is a decision to respect God Himself by choosing, out of love and obedience for Christ, His way.
Step 3 – Suspend Judgment (Rom 14:13)
This step goes hand in hand with the previous one. If you are that kind of person who puts others down, you are exercising a judgmental attitude. The book is stating very clearly, stop it! I certainly don’t want to be around judgmental people, do you? I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of the ways we can exhibit judgmentalism.
Words – Let us take a look at Pr 10:19, 15:26 and 19:27-28. There is such great insight in these verses. How have you been hurt, or maybe you’ve hurt others by words? Have you ever been separated from a dear friend by words of judgment? Can you think of some examples of words you’ve heard which you thought of as judgmental?
Actions – What does Scripture have to say about this, let’s go to Hebrews 10:24. Can anybody here this morning give us some examples of “judgmental” actions? Have you personally seen some, experienced some or even done some?
· A sneering look.
· Rolling the eyes.
· A sigh or a “tut-tut”.
· Patting somebody on certain parts of the body.
How does one feel when they been judged by another person who is supposed to love and care for them? When it happens to me I emotionally distance myself, I feel temporarily that the relationship is unsafe. On p99 the author says it very well, “Judgment results in defensiveness and closes down relationships”.
Also on p99 there is a paragraph that begins with the words “Compassion and understanding”, let’s read it now. Great words!
One final thought on this subject. When we behave judgmentally, either through an action or spoken words, we are betraying ourselves. We are demonstrating what is actually in our minds, our thoughts and feelings; we are allowing our hidden values to come out. In Philippians 4:8 we are given some very sound advice that will help us all to be less judgmental. What does it say?
Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. NASU
Step 4 – Value Differences (Rom 15:7)
Easy to say, hard to do! What does everybody think about this and what it means?
I know we have talked about it before, so I hope it is okay if I mention a simple difference between my lovely wife and I. Bed making. She likes to see the bed made every morning, I am unconcerned about this. It used to drive me crazy that it “had to be done” each and every day, but it also used to drive her crazy that I didn’t care what it looked like. We turned a small difference into a big one. It turned out that she has a much higher need for order in her daily life than I did. A difference that caused conflict. I have since learned to appreciate the fact that the bed is made; I even help make it sometimes. I have become an admirer of my wife’s orderliness and I appreciate that difference in us. Does anybody else have a personal story about differences they would like to share?
The book suggests that when we honestly learn to make room for the personality and character differences in a relationship, it becomes a safer place. The other person is not “treading on egg shells” around you, because they are afraid they might upset you with their words or actions.
Step 5 – Be Trustworthy (Mt 5:37)
Trust is defined this way in Webster’s - Assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something b: one in which confidence is placed.
The part of the chapter talks about two aspects of trust. To help create safety in a relationship we must be able to be trusted by the other person, and we must be able to trust ourselves. We have to be “old reliable”.
Let us talk about trust a little; I have some questions for you:
· Can one person demand trust from another?
· Is trust earned or given freely?
· Does trust build quickly?
· Can trust be lost?
Can you think of some words that when added together describe trust:
· Confidence, certainty and assurance.
· Reliable, consistent and dependable.
· Truth, honesty and reality.
· Character, integrity and reputation.
Trust is a big deal. Let us look at Mt 5:37 and then James 5:12. I think the essence of every word we listed above is captured in these two verses.
Let us consider relationships where somebody could be considered untrustworthy. What happens in these situations?
· Communication deficits.
· Avoidance
· Hiding of the truth, lying.
· Failure.
We have now come to end of today’s lesson about creating a safe environment, so I’ll just reiterate the 5 steps we focused on today in the second part of learning the new dance.
1. Respect The Wall.
2. Honor Others.
3. Suspend Judgment.
4. Value Differences.
5. Be Trustworthy.
Simply by looking at this list we can sense something that is important to understand, and that is that these five steps are all action items. Not one of them happens automatically, they all require us to work! So, go and be safe!
Sunday, June 17, 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!
Sunday, May 20, 2007
What is the DNA of Relationships?
Just for fun, let us open with a question or two about DNA.
· What do the initials DNA stand for?
· What is DNA?
· What is the purpose of DNA?
Answers:
· Deoxyribonucleic acid.
· It is a “nucleic acid” molecule, which is a string of chemicals that are connected much like plastic, that is with both a chemical and physical bonding. It has the form of a “double helix” (two springs wound into one another).
· DNA stores the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all living organisms.
Our physical DNA then determines what we grow up to look like, physically speaking. Our study book is applying this concept to our non-physical nature, which we call the soul.
Let us begin by cracking open the Scriptures. We are going to look at Genesis, starting in chapter 2, verse 15 and we’ll stop at verse 25.
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."
18 The Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
23 The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman,'
for she was taken out of man."
24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
We often consider this as part of the account of creation, but if we examine this part of the scripture is actually an instruction on relationships. In these few simple words, the Lord God provides the basic instruction for the man and woman to live in harmony. Let’s break it down a little.
· Go where God wants you. (v 15)
· Do what God has planned for you. (v 15)
· Enjoy your freedom. (v 16)
· Listen to and obey God, for a long and healthy life. (v 17)
· God doesn’t want you be alone. (v 18)
· Only one of God’s creatures is a suitable companion. (v 21-22)
· The companion is equal in value to self. (v 23)
Now let us look at what happened next. Genesis 3:1-13.
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'"
4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?"
10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
11 And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"
12 The man said, "The woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."
13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?"
The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."
Ok, what happened here? Let us look at the sequence.
· The serpent asks a “set-up” question. (v 1)
· The woman clarifies the matter, in innocence. (v 2-3)
· The serpent appeals to the woman’s admiration of God. (v 4-5)
· Both the man and woman eat the forbidden fruit. (v 6)
· Their eyes were opened, they lost their innocence, and hid from God (v 7-9)
· They felt their first negative feelings, the relationships were broken. (v10-11)
· God asked “What happened”. (v 11)
· He blamed God and the woman, she blamed the serpent. (v12-13)
We probably all know the consequence of this first act of disobedience, mankind fell.
Now we come to the point of all this. The book uses three basic principles drawn from this section of Scripture, this is “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.
Let’s take a look at these in a little more detail.
Relationship
In our book there a couple of basic truths that deserve to be highlighted.
On p21, about halfway down it says, “Relationships are not an option”, I have underlined that phrased in my book. What does that mean to you? Yes, we don’t have a choice, we all have relationships. Still on p21, nearer the bottom the author rightly states some clarification, he says:
· We can choose HOW we participate in relationships.
· We cannot choose WHETHER we participate.
· Our only real choice is HOW MUCH we will work at them.
In light of these “truths” let us figure out what we ought to “work” on. In our book’s central Bible passage (Mt 22:36-40) we can identify three primary relationships:
· With God.
· With others.
· With self.
Our relationship with God
A whole yearlong Bible study could be done on this subject, and we have probably all spent time on this, so I am going to only summarize some aspects of it today.
· He is God the Father, loving us as only a parent can love a child. He provides His infinite forgiving and merciful love at all times to all that desire it. His only request of us is to love Him with all our being.
· He is God the Son, our friend who gave up His life because He loved us, just so we could spend eternity with Him. He is our listening ear.
· He is God the Holy Spirit, our ever-present help in time of need, our comforter in times of trouble and our moral guide.
Our relationship with others
This subject is the core reason why any of us are here. We all want our relationship life to improve. Most of the book is about doing that very thing; because of this I’m only going to cover one major point.
How many of us have thought, or probably even said, one of the following statements:
· If only HE/SHE would change our relationship would be better.
· HE/SHE has lots of problems, it is affecting our relationship.
· It is HER/HIS fault, our relationship would be much better if……...
· HE/SHE doesn’t listen to me, we don’t communicate in this relationship
While there may be an element of truth in these statements, there is also an element of denial (or a lie). The book says it very well:
· IT’S NEVER JUST ABOUT THE OTHER PERSON!
And, as the author says, if it was we could all call up an 800 number and have a “relationship repairman” go over and fix the other person. This whole issue will be more thoroughly discussed in lesson 4.
Our relationship with self
At first glance this whole concept of a self-relationship seems bizarre. Then as one begins to think seriously about it, we start to say “oh yeah, that’s right”, we have a little epiphany. Let’s consider a few simple questions:
· Do you believe you are important?
· Do you like yourself?
· Do you accept yourself?
· Do you forgive yourself?
· Do you love yourself?
· Do you take care of yourself?
It is that last question which is truly fundamental to having great relationships. When I say, “take care of yourself” what do I mean? Yes I am talking about all aspects of you! I am thinking about the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual parts of you, and me! Lesson 6 in this study will go into more depth on the issue of self-care.
FREEDOM TO CHOOSE
One of the truths we got out of our Genesis scriptures was that God gave us this precious freedom. We are not programmed robots, or animals living by instinct, we have a freedom to decide who we are and what we do. The book covers a couple of big truths about this that we need to get our head around.
· Making a choice is making a change.
· Not making a choice is making a choice!
Very simply put. If we decide to do something different, a change has occurred. If we decide to not change anything, we have chosen to stay the same. Either way, we have chosen. We can choose to stay the same, for example, we can remain a victim of our past, or we can make a new choice. It might be to forgive, to move house, to go to church, it could be so many things. Are you going to choose to do life differently?
TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF!
In the beginning, Adam and Eve didn’t. When their eyes were opened, it was the beginning of the blame game, and us humans haven’t stopped since. We will be covering this issue in more detail in lesson 4. So let’s just take an overview look.
Allocating responsibility appropriately leads to better problem solving. This is such a true statement, so why don’t we ‘fess up? To me it is a matter of guilt and shame, combined with revenge and punishment. Let me explain.
When we do something wrong, we are guilty, but we often feel ashamed, just like Adam and Eve. Once they knew about good and evil, they were sunk. This is because when you are guilty, there is a consequence, a downside, a punishment. And we sometimes translate our guilt into a sense of “I feel bad about myself”, which we call shame. These feelings can be devastating and debilitating, they can cause us to freeze, emotionally speaking. So we won’t admit it when we do wrong.
God wants things to be so different. I sometimes wonder what life would be like if Adam and Eve and just told it like it was, and said I’m sorry. Why don’t we admit our mistakes?
I think the basic negative feeling we are avoiding is “non-acceptance”, sometimes called unworthiness. God’s word tells us the opposite though, when we admit our faults, healing is possible.
This is where I’m going to stop today. I hope you get a chance to think about your self-relationship, your ability to choose for your self and taking responsibility for your actions over the next few days.
The final word. Just as DNA is a combination of two strands, relationship DNA is also a combination of strands, but it has three! God says it best in Ecc 4:12 (b).
A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.
· What do the initials DNA stand for?
· What is DNA?
· What is the purpose of DNA?
Answers:
· Deoxyribonucleic acid.
· It is a “nucleic acid” molecule, which is a string of chemicals that are connected much like plastic, that is with both a chemical and physical bonding. It has the form of a “double helix” (two springs wound into one another).
· DNA stores the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all living organisms.
Our physical DNA then determines what we grow up to look like, physically speaking. Our study book is applying this concept to our non-physical nature, which we call the soul.
Let us begin by cracking open the Scriptures. We are going to look at Genesis, starting in chapter 2, verse 15 and we’ll stop at verse 25.
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."
18 The Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
23 The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman,'
for she was taken out of man."
24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
We often consider this as part of the account of creation, but if we examine this part of the scripture is actually an instruction on relationships. In these few simple words, the Lord God provides the basic instruction for the man and woman to live in harmony. Let’s break it down a little.
· Go where God wants you. (v 15)
· Do what God has planned for you. (v 15)
· Enjoy your freedom. (v 16)
· Listen to and obey God, for a long and healthy life. (v 17)
· God doesn’t want you be alone. (v 18)
· Only one of God’s creatures is a suitable companion. (v 21-22)
· The companion is equal in value to self. (v 23)
Now let us look at what happened next. Genesis 3:1-13.
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'"
4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?"
10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
11 And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"
12 The man said, "The woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."
13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?"
The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."
Ok, what happened here? Let us look at the sequence.
· The serpent asks a “set-up” question. (v 1)
· The woman clarifies the matter, in innocence. (v 2-3)
· The serpent appeals to the woman’s admiration of God. (v 4-5)
· Both the man and woman eat the forbidden fruit. (v 6)
· Their eyes were opened, they lost their innocence, and hid from God (v 7-9)
· They felt their first negative feelings, the relationships were broken. (v10-11)
· God asked “What happened”. (v 11)
· He blamed God and the woman, she blamed the serpent. (v12-13)
We probably all know the consequence of this first act of disobedience, mankind fell.
Now we come to the point of all this. The book uses three basic principles drawn from this section of Scripture, this is “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.
Let’s take a look at these in a little more detail.
Relationship
In our book there a couple of basic truths that deserve to be highlighted.
On p21, about halfway down it says, “Relationships are not an option”, I have underlined that phrased in my book. What does that mean to you? Yes, we don’t have a choice, we all have relationships. Still on p21, nearer the bottom the author rightly states some clarification, he says:
· We can choose HOW we participate in relationships.
· We cannot choose WHETHER we participate.
· Our only real choice is HOW MUCH we will work at them.
In light of these “truths” let us figure out what we ought to “work” on. In our book’s central Bible passage (Mt 22:36-40) we can identify three primary relationships:
· With God.
· With others.
· With self.
Our relationship with God
A whole yearlong Bible study could be done on this subject, and we have probably all spent time on this, so I am going to only summarize some aspects of it today.
· He is God the Father, loving us as only a parent can love a child. He provides His infinite forgiving and merciful love at all times to all that desire it. His only request of us is to love Him with all our being.
· He is God the Son, our friend who gave up His life because He loved us, just so we could spend eternity with Him. He is our listening ear.
· He is God the Holy Spirit, our ever-present help in time of need, our comforter in times of trouble and our moral guide.
Our relationship with others
This subject is the core reason why any of us are here. We all want our relationship life to improve. Most of the book is about doing that very thing; because of this I’m only going to cover one major point.
How many of us have thought, or probably even said, one of the following statements:
· If only HE/SHE would change our relationship would be better.
· HE/SHE has lots of problems, it is affecting our relationship.
· It is HER/HIS fault, our relationship would be much better if……...
· HE/SHE doesn’t listen to me, we don’t communicate in this relationship
While there may be an element of truth in these statements, there is also an element of denial (or a lie). The book says it very well:
· IT’S NEVER JUST ABOUT THE OTHER PERSON!
And, as the author says, if it was we could all call up an 800 number and have a “relationship repairman” go over and fix the other person. This whole issue will be more thoroughly discussed in lesson 4.
Our relationship with self
At first glance this whole concept of a self-relationship seems bizarre. Then as one begins to think seriously about it, we start to say “oh yeah, that’s right”, we have a little epiphany. Let’s consider a few simple questions:
· Do you believe you are important?
· Do you like yourself?
· Do you accept yourself?
· Do you forgive yourself?
· Do you love yourself?
· Do you take care of yourself?
It is that last question which is truly fundamental to having great relationships. When I say, “take care of yourself” what do I mean? Yes I am talking about all aspects of you! I am thinking about the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual parts of you, and me! Lesson 6 in this study will go into more depth on the issue of self-care.
FREEDOM TO CHOOSE
One of the truths we got out of our Genesis scriptures was that God gave us this precious freedom. We are not programmed robots, or animals living by instinct, we have a freedom to decide who we are and what we do. The book covers a couple of big truths about this that we need to get our head around.
· Making a choice is making a change.
· Not making a choice is making a choice!
Very simply put. If we decide to do something different, a change has occurred. If we decide to not change anything, we have chosen to stay the same. Either way, we have chosen. We can choose to stay the same, for example, we can remain a victim of our past, or we can make a new choice. It might be to forgive, to move house, to go to church, it could be so many things. Are you going to choose to do life differently?
TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF!
In the beginning, Adam and Eve didn’t. When their eyes were opened, it was the beginning of the blame game, and us humans haven’t stopped since. We will be covering this issue in more detail in lesson 4. So let’s just take an overview look.
Allocating responsibility appropriately leads to better problem solving. This is such a true statement, so why don’t we ‘fess up? To me it is a matter of guilt and shame, combined with revenge and punishment. Let me explain.
When we do something wrong, we are guilty, but we often feel ashamed, just like Adam and Eve. Once they knew about good and evil, they were sunk. This is because when you are guilty, there is a consequence, a downside, a punishment. And we sometimes translate our guilt into a sense of “I feel bad about myself”, which we call shame. These feelings can be devastating and debilitating, they can cause us to freeze, emotionally speaking. So we won’t admit it when we do wrong.
God wants things to be so different. I sometimes wonder what life would be like if Adam and Eve and just told it like it was, and said I’m sorry. Why don’t we admit our mistakes?
I think the basic negative feeling we are avoiding is “non-acceptance”, sometimes called unworthiness. God’s word tells us the opposite though, when we admit our faults, healing is possible.
This is where I’m going to stop today. I hope you get a chance to think about your self-relationship, your ability to choose for your self and taking responsibility for your actions over the next few days.
The final word. Just as DNA is a combination of two strands, relationship DNA is also a combination of strands, but it has three! God says it best in Ecc 4:12 (b).
A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
RESISTANCE TO BOUNDARIES
In the last few weeks of our study we have looked at the underlying principles, laws and myths surrounding these things we call “boundaries”. We have learned that “boundaries” are scripturally sound and can be applied in most of life’s circumstances. We have then seen how they are important in all types and levels of relationships, from superficial friends to God Himself. Today, we are going to look at the subject of what cause “boundaries’ to not work as they could. We are going to identify things in our lives that oppose applying boundary principles.
In our guiding text the authors identify that there are two broad categories of things that get in the way of good application of boundaries in our lives:
· Outside resistances – Opposition from others.
· Inside resistances – Our internal barriers.
OUTSIDE RESISTANCES
Let’s begin with the opposition we receive from others when we try to apply boundaries in our lives. Can somebody think of some examples of what others might do to sabotage our boundary setting?
In the book Cloud and Townsend provide a very thorough discussion of this subject. I’m going to list them here, and then we’ll discuss them in a little detail.
· Angry Reactions.
· Guilt Messages.
· Consequences and Countermoves.
· Physical Resistance.
· Pain of Others.
· Blamers.
· Real Needs.
· Forgiveness and Reconciliation.
Angry Reactions.
What do you think this might mean? Yes, it is when one individual gets angry, and uses the anger, to try to control or change the situation for their own benefit. The authors suggest that such a person has a major character problem, what kind of implications does this have for you as a boundary setter?
· Not my problem – The anger is a response to the situation, it is the other person’s anger, it is their problem. This is very hard to remember in the middle of a heated moment, but nevertheless, it is a fundamental truth.
· Separate yourself – Any anger that gets generated as a result of your boundary setting must be put in its proper place. It belongs to them, don’t pick it up emotionally and rescue him or her from it. That defeats the point of the boundary setting. If necessary, physically leave.
· Stand firm – Do not back down, don’t allow the anger of the other person to cause you to reduce your commitment to improving your life.
· Have support – If anger from another becomes difficult to handle, turn to your support system (other people). This implies that you have a system in place before you attempt boundary setting.
· Keep your cool – If another person gets angry at your boundary setting, don’t allow that to lead you to anger in response to their anger.
Note that sometimes an angry responder may go as far as leaving the relationship as they are no longer having things all their own way. Let them go! Scripture is very clear here, Pr 19:19. What does it say?
Guilt Messages.
Has anyone ever received a guilt message? The guilt message is probably the single most important weapon in the arsenal of a controlling person. Let’s see if you’ve heard these before: (p244)
· How could you do this to me after all I’ve done for you?
· It seems that you could think about someone other than yourself for once.
· If you really loved me, you would make this telephone call for me.
· It seems like you would care enough about the family to do this one thing.
· How can you abandon the family like this?
· You know how it’s turned out in the past when you haven’t listened to me.
· After all, you never had to lift a finger around here. It seems like its time you did.
· You know that if I had it, I would give it to you.
· You’ve no idea how much we sacrificed for you.
· Maybe after I’m dead and gone, you’ll be sorry.
And, how about the “God” talk!
· How can you call yourself a Christian?
· Doesn’t the Bible say “Honor your parents”?
· You’re not being very submissive, I’m sure that grieves the Lord.
· I thought Christians were supposed to think of others.
· What kind of religion would teach you to abandon your own family?
· You must have a spiritual problem to be acting this way.
The question I came up with in preparing this lesson was, “How do I deal with this?” So here are a few tips:
· Learn to recognize a guilt message – Probably the single best indicator that you have received a guilt message is that you have a sense of guilt. I know that sounds obvious, but it is really that simple. The real problem becomes understanding and interpreting the sense of guilt you have. Is it real guilt, for some action you have taken, or is it a false guilt, due to past actions or some perception on behalf of the “controller” about what you have done. If you can figure this out, you will halfway to solving the “guilt message” problem. Remember, the deliverer of a guilt message may be trying to control or manipulate you.
· Understand the origins of a guilt message – Such messages can be for control purposes, but they can also be because the sender is in a negative emotional state. They could be angry, hurt, sad or frustrated, and these feelings may have nothing to do with you. You may be able to deflect a guilt message by empathizing with the sender over their negative feelings.
· Don’t blame the sender – If you allow a guilt message to alter your boundary setting, it is your fault!
· No explanation necessary – Only guilty children have to explain or justify their actions. If you’ve set a boundary, and then receive a guilt message, you are not required to explain your action. If you choose to offer an explanation to help another person understand why you have decided on a certain course of action, that is okay, but let it be your choice!
· Be assertive – Stick with your plan, unless there is a very good reason to change it. By this I mean only change the plan if you are going to harm yourself or another.
Take a look at what the Word says about the position we put ourselves in if we don’t keep a grip on our feelings. (Pr 25:28)
Consequences and Countermoves
Sometimes when we lay out a new or stronger boundary there is a negative consequence for us. The boundary setting results in a “countermove” from the individual with whom the boundary is set. The book uses the example of being cut off from the family fortune. This is an issue of deciding who is in control of your life, you or others! Jesus said it best in Mk 8:36, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul”?
When we change or improve a boundary there is often going to be a cost, and I would suggest we all know that before we make a change. The question is then, will we pay it? I believe we must, our personal integrity is very likely to be at stake, and sometimes the future of others, like our children. When we know this is likely to happen, we must rely on God, through His word and prayer, and very importantly, our support system.
For the purpose of getting through the material, I’ll leave discussion of the other “external resistances” to the book.
INTERNAL RESISTANCES
If our lives are to improve, using improved boundary setting, we are going to have to deal with our own limitations. There are many internal barriers to success in implementing decent barriers in our lives. Our text identifies some of these:
· Human Need.
· Unresolved Grief and Loss.
· Internal Fears of Anger.
· Fear of the Unknown.
· Unforgiveness.
· External Focus.
· Guilt.
· Abandonment Fears.
Possibly the biggest self generated barrier to laying out good healthy boundaries is broadly called “fear”.
Fear
Our authors cover three types of fear, and I am going to discuss this subject somewhat in line with what they say. The fear factors I will use are:
· Fear of feelings.
· Fear of the unrevealed.
· Fear of loss.
Fear of feelings – This is where we are reluctant to act in setting our boundaries because we are afraid of how we will feel. Sound obvious? It is, and yet we are all afraid of how we will feel about “things” when we make what we might perceive to be a major change.
· Anger - We could be afraid that we might get angry at the people we care about, or at the situation we are in. We may be afraid of how those around us will judge us or respond, they might get angry. If we have always given way when people around us get angry, this can be a very real problem.
· Guilt or Shame – We can become reticent to put in a boundary because we feel guilty or even ashamed of actually doing this to those we care about. I know it is not a logical thought, but it is how we can be wired if we have been used to guilt and shame messages.
· Pain or Hurt – We may not want to act in setting a boundary because of worry about how painful it is going to be for us. We have learned that change sometimes results in emotional hurt for us.
So what does one do? Unfortunately the bottom line is “suck it up”. This is an issue, (dealing with emotions), that no one can deal with for us. On the other hand, it is something that others, by which I mean our support system, can help us face.
Fear of the Unrevealed – This is a fear of the unknown, where the unknown is “How will those around me react”. It is always true that setting a new or improved boundary creates a new situation. We can never know for sure how people will react. Some observers of this type of fear describe it as irrational, but I want to say it is a real thing. Help is important to deal with this fear in a thoughtful and logical way. This is primarily of issue of faith, as we all have to face unrevealed unknown consequences in our daily lives. Let us combine two scriptures to see how to approach this. (Pr 3:5-6 and 1 Jn 4:18)
Fear of Loss – This is a significant problem. The reality is that we can often lose things we have as a result of setting a boundary. We can lose important relationships, or maybe material assets, or even a job. What can we do about this? Develop a good understanding of what is truly important. For example, losing assets or a job may not be as important as losing our personal integrity. Losing a husband who deals with us abusively may not be as important as protecting the kids. Perspective is so very important. I would say that having safe people help you through this is the key to dealing with this fear. I’m going to return to Mt 8:36 here.
There are so many reasons we have internal struggles with setting appropriate boundaries, but I believe that fear is the biggest hurdle. It is for this reason I suggest that if fear is present inside when we contemplate changing our lives by setting better boundaries, we ought to seek professional advice.
I am going to stop our lesson at this point. We have covered a lot of ground today, and I hope we have acknowledged that setting boundaries can involve overcoming big challenges. There are some great resources available to help us through these challenges. Use them all! These resources are:
· God, His Word, His Spirit and His people.
· A support system.
· Professional Advisors. (Christian Counselors)
I hope that you’ve found the material we’ve discussed this morning useful and will be able to apply it as you try changing and improving your life through the application of strong boundaries in your life.
In our guiding text the authors identify that there are two broad categories of things that get in the way of good application of boundaries in our lives:
· Outside resistances – Opposition from others.
· Inside resistances – Our internal barriers.
OUTSIDE RESISTANCES
Let’s begin with the opposition we receive from others when we try to apply boundaries in our lives. Can somebody think of some examples of what others might do to sabotage our boundary setting?
In the book Cloud and Townsend provide a very thorough discussion of this subject. I’m going to list them here, and then we’ll discuss them in a little detail.
· Angry Reactions.
· Guilt Messages.
· Consequences and Countermoves.
· Physical Resistance.
· Pain of Others.
· Blamers.
· Real Needs.
· Forgiveness and Reconciliation.
Angry Reactions.
What do you think this might mean? Yes, it is when one individual gets angry, and uses the anger, to try to control or change the situation for their own benefit. The authors suggest that such a person has a major character problem, what kind of implications does this have for you as a boundary setter?
· Not my problem – The anger is a response to the situation, it is the other person’s anger, it is their problem. This is very hard to remember in the middle of a heated moment, but nevertheless, it is a fundamental truth.
· Separate yourself – Any anger that gets generated as a result of your boundary setting must be put in its proper place. It belongs to them, don’t pick it up emotionally and rescue him or her from it. That defeats the point of the boundary setting. If necessary, physically leave.
· Stand firm – Do not back down, don’t allow the anger of the other person to cause you to reduce your commitment to improving your life.
· Have support – If anger from another becomes difficult to handle, turn to your support system (other people). This implies that you have a system in place before you attempt boundary setting.
· Keep your cool – If another person gets angry at your boundary setting, don’t allow that to lead you to anger in response to their anger.
Note that sometimes an angry responder may go as far as leaving the relationship as they are no longer having things all their own way. Let them go! Scripture is very clear here, Pr 19:19. What does it say?
Guilt Messages.
Has anyone ever received a guilt message? The guilt message is probably the single most important weapon in the arsenal of a controlling person. Let’s see if you’ve heard these before: (p244)
· How could you do this to me after all I’ve done for you?
· It seems that you could think about someone other than yourself for once.
· If you really loved me, you would make this telephone call for me.
· It seems like you would care enough about the family to do this one thing.
· How can you abandon the family like this?
· You know how it’s turned out in the past when you haven’t listened to me.
· After all, you never had to lift a finger around here. It seems like its time you did.
· You know that if I had it, I would give it to you.
· You’ve no idea how much we sacrificed for you.
· Maybe after I’m dead and gone, you’ll be sorry.
And, how about the “God” talk!
· How can you call yourself a Christian?
· Doesn’t the Bible say “Honor your parents”?
· You’re not being very submissive, I’m sure that grieves the Lord.
· I thought Christians were supposed to think of others.
· What kind of religion would teach you to abandon your own family?
· You must have a spiritual problem to be acting this way.
The question I came up with in preparing this lesson was, “How do I deal with this?” So here are a few tips:
· Learn to recognize a guilt message – Probably the single best indicator that you have received a guilt message is that you have a sense of guilt. I know that sounds obvious, but it is really that simple. The real problem becomes understanding and interpreting the sense of guilt you have. Is it real guilt, for some action you have taken, or is it a false guilt, due to past actions or some perception on behalf of the “controller” about what you have done. If you can figure this out, you will halfway to solving the “guilt message” problem. Remember, the deliverer of a guilt message may be trying to control or manipulate you.
· Understand the origins of a guilt message – Such messages can be for control purposes, but they can also be because the sender is in a negative emotional state. They could be angry, hurt, sad or frustrated, and these feelings may have nothing to do with you. You may be able to deflect a guilt message by empathizing with the sender over their negative feelings.
· Don’t blame the sender – If you allow a guilt message to alter your boundary setting, it is your fault!
· No explanation necessary – Only guilty children have to explain or justify their actions. If you’ve set a boundary, and then receive a guilt message, you are not required to explain your action. If you choose to offer an explanation to help another person understand why you have decided on a certain course of action, that is okay, but let it be your choice!
· Be assertive – Stick with your plan, unless there is a very good reason to change it. By this I mean only change the plan if you are going to harm yourself or another.
Take a look at what the Word says about the position we put ourselves in if we don’t keep a grip on our feelings. (Pr 25:28)
Consequences and Countermoves
Sometimes when we lay out a new or stronger boundary there is a negative consequence for us. The boundary setting results in a “countermove” from the individual with whom the boundary is set. The book uses the example of being cut off from the family fortune. This is an issue of deciding who is in control of your life, you or others! Jesus said it best in Mk 8:36, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul”?
When we change or improve a boundary there is often going to be a cost, and I would suggest we all know that before we make a change. The question is then, will we pay it? I believe we must, our personal integrity is very likely to be at stake, and sometimes the future of others, like our children. When we know this is likely to happen, we must rely on God, through His word and prayer, and very importantly, our support system.
For the purpose of getting through the material, I’ll leave discussion of the other “external resistances” to the book.
INTERNAL RESISTANCES
If our lives are to improve, using improved boundary setting, we are going to have to deal with our own limitations. There are many internal barriers to success in implementing decent barriers in our lives. Our text identifies some of these:
· Human Need.
· Unresolved Grief and Loss.
· Internal Fears of Anger.
· Fear of the Unknown.
· Unforgiveness.
· External Focus.
· Guilt.
· Abandonment Fears.
Possibly the biggest self generated barrier to laying out good healthy boundaries is broadly called “fear”.
Fear
Our authors cover three types of fear, and I am going to discuss this subject somewhat in line with what they say. The fear factors I will use are:
· Fear of feelings.
· Fear of the unrevealed.
· Fear of loss.
Fear of feelings – This is where we are reluctant to act in setting our boundaries because we are afraid of how we will feel. Sound obvious? It is, and yet we are all afraid of how we will feel about “things” when we make what we might perceive to be a major change.
· Anger - We could be afraid that we might get angry at the people we care about, or at the situation we are in. We may be afraid of how those around us will judge us or respond, they might get angry. If we have always given way when people around us get angry, this can be a very real problem.
· Guilt or Shame – We can become reticent to put in a boundary because we feel guilty or even ashamed of actually doing this to those we care about. I know it is not a logical thought, but it is how we can be wired if we have been used to guilt and shame messages.
· Pain or Hurt – We may not want to act in setting a boundary because of worry about how painful it is going to be for us. We have learned that change sometimes results in emotional hurt for us.
So what does one do? Unfortunately the bottom line is “suck it up”. This is an issue, (dealing with emotions), that no one can deal with for us. On the other hand, it is something that others, by which I mean our support system, can help us face.
Fear of the Unrevealed – This is a fear of the unknown, where the unknown is “How will those around me react”. It is always true that setting a new or improved boundary creates a new situation. We can never know for sure how people will react. Some observers of this type of fear describe it as irrational, but I want to say it is a real thing. Help is important to deal with this fear in a thoughtful and logical way. This is primarily of issue of faith, as we all have to face unrevealed unknown consequences in our daily lives. Let us combine two scriptures to see how to approach this. (Pr 3:5-6 and 1 Jn 4:18)
Fear of Loss – This is a significant problem. The reality is that we can often lose things we have as a result of setting a boundary. We can lose important relationships, or maybe material assets, or even a job. What can we do about this? Develop a good understanding of what is truly important. For example, losing assets or a job may not be as important as losing our personal integrity. Losing a husband who deals with us abusively may not be as important as protecting the kids. Perspective is so very important. I would say that having safe people help you through this is the key to dealing with this fear. I’m going to return to Mt 8:36 here.
There are so many reasons we have internal struggles with setting appropriate boundaries, but I believe that fear is the biggest hurdle. It is for this reason I suggest that if fear is present inside when we contemplate changing our lives by setting better boundaries, we ought to seek professional advice.
I am going to stop our lesson at this point. We have covered a lot of ground today, and I hope we have acknowledged that setting boundaries can involve overcoming big challenges. There are some great resources available to help us through these challenges. Use them all! These resources are:
· God, His Word, His Spirit and His people.
· A support system.
· Professional Advisors. (Christian Counselors)
I hope that you’ve found the material we’ve discussed this morning useful and will be able to apply it as you try changing and improving your life through the application of strong boundaries in your life.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FAMILY OF ORIGIN
BOUNDARIES AND YOUR FAMILY
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FAMILY OF ORIGIN
Last week we covered the topic “Boundaries And Your Spouse”, so this week we are going to extend our study to cover the rest of our immediate family. As adults focusing on the issue of boundaries in our lives we can consider our family to consist of two parts:
· The “Family of Origin” we grew up in.
· The “Family of Origin” we are creating or have created.
What does “Family of Origin” mean to you?
In our culture the dividing line between the two is when we marry. In a generalized and practical way, what implications does this have on our ability to apply boundary principles in our everyday lives? Some answers are:
· Two concepts of boundaries – possible conflict.
· Enmeshment – possible conflict.
· Rejection Issues – Loneliness.
· Potential chaos, due to misunderstandings.
Today I want to focus mostly on the “Family of Origin” we grew up in; can anybody think of a reason I might think this is important?
· (My answer) it is because beyond any other influence, it is our “Family of Origin” who determine our boundary setting skills.
So where do we start? I want to begin with a challenging statement:
· You come from a dysfunctional family.
Is that a true statement? If yes, why is it true? What does Scripture tell us on this subject?
Rom 3:23 - for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, NASB
Each of us knows that we are not perfect. It then follows that we come from families made up of imperfect people. Psychologists have a name for these imperfect families, dysfunctional! Therefore we can all acknowledge that if we believe God’s word:
· We come from a dysfunctional family.
Now, I know some are offended by such a statement, that does not mean it isn’t true. A well-trained observer would be able to pick out some form of dysfunction in your life pretty quickly. The issue is never whether the “Family of Origin” is dysfunctional; the issue is HOW DYSFUNCTIONAL IT IS.
At this point I want to take a moment or two to look at a couple of biblical examples of dysfunctional families.
· 1 Sam 2:12-17: Now the sons of Eli were worthless men; they did not know the Lord 13 and the custom of the priests with the people. When any man was offering a sacrifice, the priest's servant would come while the meat was boiling, with a three-pronged fork in his hand. 14 Then he would thrust it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot; all that the fork brought up the priest would take for himself. Thus they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there. 15 Also, before they burned the fat, the priest's servant would come and say to the man who was sacrificing, "Give the priest meat for roasting, as he will not take boiled meat from you, only raw." 16 If the man said to him, "They must surely burn the fat first, and then take as much as you desire," then he would say, "No, but you shall give it to me now; and if not, I will take it by force." 17 Thus the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord, for the men despised the offering of the Lord. NASU
· 2 Sam 13:12-14: But she answered him, "No, my brother, do not violate me, for such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do this disgraceful thing! 13 "As for me, where could I get rid of my reproach? And as for you, you will be like one of the fools in Israel. Now therefore, please speak to the king, for he will not withhold me from you." 14 However, he would not listen to her; since he was stronger than she, he violated her and lay with her. NASU
Did anybody notice any dysfunction there? (Allow a little discussion time)
This is where I am going to take a different approach to the subject of boundaries in the family of origin than our book. I’ve brought along a workbook from a series called “Life Support” put together by the SBC’s publishing arm, Lifeway. It is called “Making Peace With Your Past”.
On Day 1 of Lesson one it starts by defining the “Characteristics of a Dysfunctional Family” We are going to look at this list and address each one in the context of boundaries. Let’s begin by going through the list:
1. A dysfunctional family focuses its attention on an emotionally needy family member.
2. A dysfunctional family places limits on the expression of feelings.
3. A dysfunctional family discourages open talk about obvious problems.
4. A dysfunctional family permits destructive roles for the children in the family.
5. A dysfunctional family fails to provide appropriate nurture for developing children.
6. A dysfunctional family is closed to the outside world.
In listening to that list you may have identified with one or more of these characteristics, but let’s withhold discussion on them for now and start to go through the list one by one.
1. A DF - focuses its attention on an emotionally needy family member.
This is a very common problem in families, but is sometimes hard to pick up. This ENFM is very likely to have an addictive or compulsive personality. This person may have a known or hidden addiction, but it rules their life and consequently affects the family. Examples could be alcohol, pornography or overeating. Does anybody have an example for us?
How does this relate to boundaries?
· It is all about me! With a major CB or addiction the whole life of the family revolves around the ENFM. Every other family member’s needs are less important. A child translates this to “I am not important”. The ENFM is allowing his or her boundaries or boundary gates to be weak, making it easy for bad things to get in. An example would be an alcoholic mother who drinks to try to deal with her loneliness. She then starts to notice that when she watches the soaps, she feels better; she receives emotional input and has good feelings inside. Her gate has been opened to allow “bad” in.
· Other family members become needy too! This is a big one; this is so fundamental to boundary issues and trying to lead a fruitful, victorious and joyful life. The ENFM simply sucks up a major proportion of the family’s emotional energy. The needs of other family members go unmet, maybe not fully, but certainly to a large extent. This results in a family where all the members eventually become “emotionally needy”. This is then followed by the family members seeking to get their personal needs met in other ways. Their boundaries become weak, their gates open, and all kinds of things can be let in. Can anyone think of an example of this? (How about a daughter who “looks for love in the wrong places” because her father has not paid appropriate attention to her as she was growing up.)
The bottom line is an ENFM can start a cycle of CBs in the family, which usually becomes generational. Let’s look at Pr 22:24-25 for support here.
2. A DF - places limits on the expression of feelings. (Rom 15:7)
What does the phrase “places limits on the expression of feelings”, say to us? (Wait for answers) That this characteristic is a straight up boundary problem. Let us try to break it down:
· When one person places limits on another what are they doing? Yes, they are determining the other person’s boundaries. Does anybody have an example? (How about when a child cannot express anger, because dad gets more angry and yells) We can see that this “limiting” action doesn’t have to be an overt spoken limitation. Nevertheless a boundary gets established that doesn’t allow the bad feelings out. So what happens to them? They get bottled up, they get acted out later, they come up at inappropriate times, there are many ways they get dealt with.
· When this happens to a child, their life’s course is set on a more difficult path than it needs to be. For example, they often end up marrying someone who does the same thing, limits expression, because that is what they are familiar with. This is one of those decisions that flies under the radar because it is unconscious, it happens in the heart.
The scripture here is Rom 15:7, which says we are to “accept one another”, it uses the greek word “proslambano”, for accept, which means turn toward and receive in a “whole” way. It is an instruction to be proactive toward our loved ones in as complete a way as we can, just as Christ is toward us.
3. A DF - discourages open talk about obvious problems.
This is a situation where a family is not good about allowing a necessary conflict to occur. It is dysfunctional and ultimately, very damaging, to not deal with problems. This is a choice to keep “the bad in” to avoid the temporary uncomfortable feelings one has in a conflict. Can anyone identify with this? We must all learn to “open our boundary gates” to let the bad stuff of a problem out. James 5:16 tells us to openly admit our problems to one another, so that they can be dealt with.
4. A DF - permits destructive roles for the children in the family.
Anybody have their alarm bells go off with this? What does this mean to you? This is where the child has a role forced on them by the family dynamics, and which should have never been squeezed into their life, and through their boundaries. An example of pushing bad in. Let me give you some examples:
· Surrogate spouse – This, in my opinion, is the most dangerous. This is where the adult leans on the child to get their needs met. The worst aspect of this is when sexual abuse takes place. There are other examples though. When one spouse confides to the child, making the child a counselor.
· Scapegoat – In some families there is often a child that seems to get blamed for everything, including what the parents are responsible for.
· Missing child – This is the child who always seems to somewhere else, even when they are actually in the home. They have made the decision to stay out of the way, because the family has enough problems already.
1 Thes 5:11 instructs us the encourage and build up each other, who needs that in a family more than children?
5. A DF - fails to provide appropriate nurture for developing children.
What does this mean to “fail to provide appropriate nurture”? This is the situation where the family is not teaching the children how to relate to the outside world in appropriate ways. Sometimes we teach our kids strange ideas about love, respect and trust. Examples of the consequences of this are:
· A teenager believes love includes sex.
· That it is acceptable to talk back to authority figures.
· That trust is to be given to every person you meet, until they prove they don’t deserve it.
· What someone wears tells us about their character.
We can see that this is primarily an issue of dropping good boundaries and allowing bad in. How about 1 Thes 5:11 again (build up!) or maybe Eph 6:4, do not provoke your children to anger. We are to nurture, and DFs don’t do that.
6. A DF - is closed to the outside world.
This really relates to a simple and very common boundary problem. The family secret. The family designs life around keeping the bad in, very perverse. Can you think of some examples?
· Mom drinks, to the point of passing out sometimes.
· Dad, rages at the family, yet he is a Bible study leader.
· Junior smokes pot and is shacked up with his girlfriend.
· The pastor is actively homosexual.
I don’t think we need to say much more than this on this subject. (Eph 5:11)
I hope that from today’s lesson we all can see that some of our behaviors, which we can admit are ‘dysfunctional” can actually be understood in terms of boundaries. Which is why understanding boundaries can be so helpful to us in every part of our lives.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FAMILY OF ORIGIN
Last week we covered the topic “Boundaries And Your Spouse”, so this week we are going to extend our study to cover the rest of our immediate family. As adults focusing on the issue of boundaries in our lives we can consider our family to consist of two parts:
· The “Family of Origin” we grew up in.
· The “Family of Origin” we are creating or have created.
What does “Family of Origin” mean to you?
In our culture the dividing line between the two is when we marry. In a generalized and practical way, what implications does this have on our ability to apply boundary principles in our everyday lives? Some answers are:
· Two concepts of boundaries – possible conflict.
· Enmeshment – possible conflict.
· Rejection Issues – Loneliness.
· Potential chaos, due to misunderstandings.
Today I want to focus mostly on the “Family of Origin” we grew up in; can anybody think of a reason I might think this is important?
· (My answer) it is because beyond any other influence, it is our “Family of Origin” who determine our boundary setting skills.
So where do we start? I want to begin with a challenging statement:
· You come from a dysfunctional family.
Is that a true statement? If yes, why is it true? What does Scripture tell us on this subject?
Rom 3:23 - for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, NASB
Each of us knows that we are not perfect. It then follows that we come from families made up of imperfect people. Psychologists have a name for these imperfect families, dysfunctional! Therefore we can all acknowledge that if we believe God’s word:
· We come from a dysfunctional family.
Now, I know some are offended by such a statement, that does not mean it isn’t true. A well-trained observer would be able to pick out some form of dysfunction in your life pretty quickly. The issue is never whether the “Family of Origin” is dysfunctional; the issue is HOW DYSFUNCTIONAL IT IS.
At this point I want to take a moment or two to look at a couple of biblical examples of dysfunctional families.
· 1 Sam 2:12-17: Now the sons of Eli were worthless men; they did not know the Lord 13 and the custom of the priests with the people. When any man was offering a sacrifice, the priest's servant would come while the meat was boiling, with a three-pronged fork in his hand. 14 Then he would thrust it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot; all that the fork brought up the priest would take for himself. Thus they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there. 15 Also, before they burned the fat, the priest's servant would come and say to the man who was sacrificing, "Give the priest meat for roasting, as he will not take boiled meat from you, only raw." 16 If the man said to him, "They must surely burn the fat first, and then take as much as you desire," then he would say, "No, but you shall give it to me now; and if not, I will take it by force." 17 Thus the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord, for the men despised the offering of the Lord. NASU
· 2 Sam 13:12-14: But she answered him, "No, my brother, do not violate me, for such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do this disgraceful thing! 13 "As for me, where could I get rid of my reproach? And as for you, you will be like one of the fools in Israel. Now therefore, please speak to the king, for he will not withhold me from you." 14 However, he would not listen to her; since he was stronger than she, he violated her and lay with her. NASU
Did anybody notice any dysfunction there? (Allow a little discussion time)
This is where I am going to take a different approach to the subject of boundaries in the family of origin than our book. I’ve brought along a workbook from a series called “Life Support” put together by the SBC’s publishing arm, Lifeway. It is called “Making Peace With Your Past”.
On Day 1 of Lesson one it starts by defining the “Characteristics of a Dysfunctional Family” We are going to look at this list and address each one in the context of boundaries. Let’s begin by going through the list:
1. A dysfunctional family focuses its attention on an emotionally needy family member.
2. A dysfunctional family places limits on the expression of feelings.
3. A dysfunctional family discourages open talk about obvious problems.
4. A dysfunctional family permits destructive roles for the children in the family.
5. A dysfunctional family fails to provide appropriate nurture for developing children.
6. A dysfunctional family is closed to the outside world.
In listening to that list you may have identified with one or more of these characteristics, but let’s withhold discussion on them for now and start to go through the list one by one.
1. A DF - focuses its attention on an emotionally needy family member.
This is a very common problem in families, but is sometimes hard to pick up. This ENFM is very likely to have an addictive or compulsive personality. This person may have a known or hidden addiction, but it rules their life and consequently affects the family. Examples could be alcohol, pornography or overeating. Does anybody have an example for us?
How does this relate to boundaries?
· It is all about me! With a major CB or addiction the whole life of the family revolves around the ENFM. Every other family member’s needs are less important. A child translates this to “I am not important”. The ENFM is allowing his or her boundaries or boundary gates to be weak, making it easy for bad things to get in. An example would be an alcoholic mother who drinks to try to deal with her loneliness. She then starts to notice that when she watches the soaps, she feels better; she receives emotional input and has good feelings inside. Her gate has been opened to allow “bad” in.
· Other family members become needy too! This is a big one; this is so fundamental to boundary issues and trying to lead a fruitful, victorious and joyful life. The ENFM simply sucks up a major proportion of the family’s emotional energy. The needs of other family members go unmet, maybe not fully, but certainly to a large extent. This results in a family where all the members eventually become “emotionally needy”. This is then followed by the family members seeking to get their personal needs met in other ways. Their boundaries become weak, their gates open, and all kinds of things can be let in. Can anyone think of an example of this? (How about a daughter who “looks for love in the wrong places” because her father has not paid appropriate attention to her as she was growing up.)
The bottom line is an ENFM can start a cycle of CBs in the family, which usually becomes generational. Let’s look at Pr 22:24-25 for support here.
2. A DF - places limits on the expression of feelings. (Rom 15:7)
What does the phrase “places limits on the expression of feelings”, say to us? (Wait for answers) That this characteristic is a straight up boundary problem. Let us try to break it down:
· When one person places limits on another what are they doing? Yes, they are determining the other person’s boundaries. Does anybody have an example? (How about when a child cannot express anger, because dad gets more angry and yells) We can see that this “limiting” action doesn’t have to be an overt spoken limitation. Nevertheless a boundary gets established that doesn’t allow the bad feelings out. So what happens to them? They get bottled up, they get acted out later, they come up at inappropriate times, there are many ways they get dealt with.
· When this happens to a child, their life’s course is set on a more difficult path than it needs to be. For example, they often end up marrying someone who does the same thing, limits expression, because that is what they are familiar with. This is one of those decisions that flies under the radar because it is unconscious, it happens in the heart.
The scripture here is Rom 15:7, which says we are to “accept one another”, it uses the greek word “proslambano”, for accept, which means turn toward and receive in a “whole” way. It is an instruction to be proactive toward our loved ones in as complete a way as we can, just as Christ is toward us.
3. A DF - discourages open talk about obvious problems.
This is a situation where a family is not good about allowing a necessary conflict to occur. It is dysfunctional and ultimately, very damaging, to not deal with problems. This is a choice to keep “the bad in” to avoid the temporary uncomfortable feelings one has in a conflict. Can anyone identify with this? We must all learn to “open our boundary gates” to let the bad stuff of a problem out. James 5:16 tells us to openly admit our problems to one another, so that they can be dealt with.
4. A DF - permits destructive roles for the children in the family.
Anybody have their alarm bells go off with this? What does this mean to you? This is where the child has a role forced on them by the family dynamics, and which should have never been squeezed into their life, and through their boundaries. An example of pushing bad in. Let me give you some examples:
· Surrogate spouse – This, in my opinion, is the most dangerous. This is where the adult leans on the child to get their needs met. The worst aspect of this is when sexual abuse takes place. There are other examples though. When one spouse confides to the child, making the child a counselor.
· Scapegoat – In some families there is often a child that seems to get blamed for everything, including what the parents are responsible for.
· Missing child – This is the child who always seems to somewhere else, even when they are actually in the home. They have made the decision to stay out of the way, because the family has enough problems already.
1 Thes 5:11 instructs us the encourage and build up each other, who needs that in a family more than children?
5. A DF - fails to provide appropriate nurture for developing children.
What does this mean to “fail to provide appropriate nurture”? This is the situation where the family is not teaching the children how to relate to the outside world in appropriate ways. Sometimes we teach our kids strange ideas about love, respect and trust. Examples of the consequences of this are:
· A teenager believes love includes sex.
· That it is acceptable to talk back to authority figures.
· That trust is to be given to every person you meet, until they prove they don’t deserve it.
· What someone wears tells us about their character.
We can see that this is primarily an issue of dropping good boundaries and allowing bad in. How about 1 Thes 5:11 again (build up!) or maybe Eph 6:4, do not provoke your children to anger. We are to nurture, and DFs don’t do that.
6. A DF - is closed to the outside world.
This really relates to a simple and very common boundary problem. The family secret. The family designs life around keeping the bad in, very perverse. Can you think of some examples?
· Mom drinks, to the point of passing out sometimes.
· Dad, rages at the family, yet he is a Bible study leader.
· Junior smokes pot and is shacked up with his girlfriend.
· The pastor is actively homosexual.
I don’t think we need to say much more than this on this subject. (Eph 5:11)
I hope that from today’s lesson we all can see that some of our behaviors, which we can admit are ‘dysfunctional” can actually be understood in terms of boundaries. Which is why understanding boundaries can be so helpful to us in every part of our lives.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
List of common boundary violations.
A LIST OF COMMON EVERYDAY BOUNDARY VIOLATIONS
EXTERNAL PHYSICAL VIOLATIONS
· Standing too close to a person without his/her permission.
· Touching a person without his/her permission.
· Getting into a person’s personal belongings and living space such as one’s purse, wallet, mail or closet.
· Listening to a person’s personal conversations or telephone conversations without his or her permission.
· Nor allowing a person to have privacy or violating a person’s right to privacy.
· Exposing others to physical illness due to your having a contagious disease.
SEXUAL BOUNDARY VIOLATIONS
· Touching a person sexually without his/her permission.
· Not negotiating when, where and how to engage in sexual activity.
· Demanding unsafe sexual practices.
· Leaving pornography where others who do not wish to, or should not see it, may see it.
· Exposing oneself to others without their consent.
· Staring or looking at another person lustily (voyeurism) without his/her permission.
· Exposing visually and/or auditorily others to your sexual activities without their consent.
INTERNAL BOUNDARY VIOLATIONS
· Yelling and screaming.
· Name-calling.
· Ridiculing a person.
· Lying.
· Breaking a commitment.
· Patronizing a person. (Better than message)
· Telling a person how he/she should be feeling.
· Telling a person what he/she should be, or are, thinking.
· Telling a person what he/she is motivated by.
· Being sarcastic.
· Shaming a person.
EXTERNAL PHYSICAL VIOLATIONS
· Standing too close to a person without his/her permission.
· Touching a person without his/her permission.
· Getting into a person’s personal belongings and living space such as one’s purse, wallet, mail or closet.
· Listening to a person’s personal conversations or telephone conversations without his or her permission.
· Nor allowing a person to have privacy or violating a person’s right to privacy.
· Exposing others to physical illness due to your having a contagious disease.
SEXUAL BOUNDARY VIOLATIONS
· Touching a person sexually without his/her permission.
· Not negotiating when, where and how to engage in sexual activity.
· Demanding unsafe sexual practices.
· Leaving pornography where others who do not wish to, or should not see it, may see it.
· Exposing oneself to others without their consent.
· Staring or looking at another person lustily (voyeurism) without his/her permission.
· Exposing visually and/or auditorily others to your sexual activities without their consent.
INTERNAL BOUNDARY VIOLATIONS
· Yelling and screaming.
· Name-calling.
· Ridiculing a person.
· Lying.
· Breaking a commitment.
· Patronizing a person. (Better than message)
· Telling a person how he/she should be feeling.
· Telling a person what he/she should be, or are, thinking.
· Telling a person what he/she is motivated by.
· Being sarcastic.
· Shaming a person.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Boundary Myths
EIGHT BOUNDARY MYTHS
Before we jump into our study this morning, I want to ask if anybody has a question about what we have looked at up to this point. (Teacher’s pause for responses, also consider seeking any application of boundaries a class member may have made due to something learned, possibly even a small victory)
In today’s lesson we will look at some of the common misconceptions we have about boundaries. I am going to use the general outline of Chapter 6 of our “Boundaries” book, if you want to follow along. Each of the eight cases we are going to look at have some characteristics in common.
· They are not accurate, but they can sound so true.
· People without good boundaries will speak them to us.
· Individuals without good boundaries believe them to be true.
· Those with decent boundaries sometimes believe some of them.
· Misunderstandings of Scripture can lead to these misconceptions.
Well; now let’s jump right into the meat of the lesson.
Myth #1 – If I Set Boundaries, I’m Being Selfish (Pr 11:15)
What do you think this myth means? (Ask class to take a stab at this, there could be several good answers come out of this question). OK, now let’s look at a Scripture I chose to identify the problem and God’s perspective.
He who is guarantor for a stranger will surely suffer for it, but he who hates being a guarantor is secure. NASU
At first glance this verse seems to be a warning about lending money to someone we don’t really know, and it does indeed have that application. However, let us go a little deeper into what this could mean in reference to our myth. What other things that we own could we lend out?
Let me illustrate the deep spiritual significance of this verse. Suppose your parents gave you a large sum of money with the simple instruction “take care of this until I come to get it”. What would you do? Would you lend it out, or let somebody else use it for a while? Of course not, unless you have either no love for your parents, or chose to not obey the “take care of” instruction. Let us now turn this into a deeper issue.
What has your heavenly Father given you, and also every other human being, to “take care of until He comes for it”? (Pause here for the class to respond) One thing and one thing only, your soul!
From our first lesson we learned that one of the functions of boundaries is to protect our soul. In fact it is an imperative from God that we do so, let us take a look at Pr 4:23, what does it say? In the Hebrew way of understanding our innermost being, the heart, mind, strength, will and soul are often used interchangeably. This implies that they are all connected and interdependent, and yet we know they have different functions. In Pr 4:23, God is expressing to us that we need to take care of our hearts (souls), because that is where our “life” flows from. If we don’t take care of our souls by having poor boundaries we won’t be able to experience life fully.
It is not selfish to have good boundaries, it is life giving, it is spirit filled; it is an exercise in self-control. God does not prohibit us from lowering our defenses to “strangers”, but He does advise against it.
Myth#2 – Boundaries Are A Sign Of Disobedience (Dt 5:29)
I have one thing to say about this, “What a crock”! If God didn’t want us to have good boundaries, he would not have established the Ten Commandments, which we identified in our first lesson as the Ten Boundaries.
God gave out the TC’s twice, the second time is recorded in Deuteronomy 5, let us take a look at part of what He said after this second law-giving in verse 29.
Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever! NASU
Does that sound like a God who thinks that setting up clear limits is not a smart thing to do? No, He gave us limits, in part to teach us obedience! That is all I want to say on this.
Myth #3 – If I Begin Setting Boundaries I Will Be Hurt By Others (Pr 4:6)
This is a difficult one, there seems to be a huge element of truth to it. After all, when you start setting up boundaries, there is going to be some form of response, and it will almost certainly be negative. Why can I say this?
I see the problem here as one of “stinking thinking”, meaning that we are perceiving things from the wrong perspective. Allow me to lay out the situation we sometimes find ourselves in.
The myth states “If I Begin Setting Boundaries”. This clearly identifies the real issue; we have one of the following situations:
· No Boundaries
· Fuzzy Boundaries
· Weak Boundaries
Any person in one of these three situations is already being hurt by others, and often by those close to us. Somebody with strong boundaries might get hurt occasionally, but it will almost always be temporary, as this person is secure in who they are.
Our problem is therefore not really about hurt. It is about change. When we start putting in stronger boundaries the old hurts begin to diminish. New hurts may appear, but as we adjust our boundaries, keeping them strong, to meet our needs, these new hurts are less and less difficult to deal with over time.
The bottom line is that I might agree some new hurt may arrive by setting boundaries, given time and appropriate adjustments, these hurts will become easier to deal with.
Myth #4 – If I Set Boundaries, I Will Hurt Others (Eph 6:10-17)
What is the primary misunderstanding involved with this myth? (Pause for responses)
The reason that this myth is not accurate goes back to our first lesson. One of the “Boundary Principles” we established is that “Good boundaries keep good in and keep bad out.” This clearly identifies that good boundaries are defensive in nature!
Let us take a look at a set of boundaries established by God that vividly illustrates this point. Could someone please read Ephesians 6:10-17. What are the six “boundaries” that the author identifies, and can we also say how they defend us?
· Belt of Truth – Helps to understand reality.
· Breastplate of Righteousness – Helps protect our hearts.
· Shoes of Peace – Helps us with our anxieties.
· Shield of Faith – Helps us to fend off attacks from enemies.
· Helmet of Salvation – Helps us to be secure in who we are.
· Sword of the Spirit – Helps us to filter and test what is thrown at us.
It is true that the last item on the list can be used as an offensive weapon, but in the context of boundaries it could not be. If Scripture is used to attack someone it is no longer a boundary, it is a brick from a wall that someone is throwing.
I would like to speak to the issue of “Hurt”. It is true that when a strong boundary is presented, some individuals will respond out of “hurt”. Please listen to the following statements carefully. If someone you have presented an appropriate boundary to says they feel “hurt”, they most likely are telling the truth. Recognize that it is their “hurt”, it is their response and they have to own it. It is not your responsibility to “make it feel better”; it is their responsibility to deal with their feelings.
One last thing on this subject, how a person deals with their response to your boundaries is an outside indicator of their internal emotional condition. Immaturity can rear its ugly head at a time of new boundary setting.
Myth #5 – Boundaries Mean That I Am Angry (Eph 4:26)
This is another difficult one to understand, how could that statement (Boundaries mean that I am angry) seem to be true?
We need to be sure that we understand where anger and other feelings come from. Feelings were created by God to tell us something; they are a response to our environment. For example if we are in a pit of snakes we might feel fear, if we are in a loving embrace we might feel happy, or if our child is gets an F in school we might feel sad.
Sometimes we feel angry, but the problem with this is that it can be our response to many different situations. Anger is always a definite signal that something is wrong! In the context of boundaries, if our boundary is violated, we can respond with the feeling of anger. It is not the boundary that caused the anger, it is the violation.
When we have had our boundaries violated, our personal integrity is under attack in some way, anger is probably appropriate. As is always true with anger, it is not the feeling that is the problem; it is what you do with it. If an individual violates our boundaries, and we feel anger, we must choose to re-establish the boundary or improve it. When we do that, it might seem like we are projecting anger, we very possibly appear angry to an observer, especially the violator. BUT, it is not the boundary that has triggered the anger, it is the violation.
Once the new or re-established boundary is in force and operating well, the violation is likely to have stopped or at least reduced in its effect and any anger will actually become much reduced in intensity and/or frequency. Therefore it is true to say that good boundary habits will tend to lower anger levels. So as the book so wisely states:
· Don’t get mad, set a limit!
Myth #6 – When Others Set Boundaries It Injures Me (Gen 3:1-4)
How crazy is that? This myth fits right alongside myth #4 (If I set boundaries I will hurt others).
We have to make an assumption here, and that is that the boundary that has been set is an appropriate limit. (Ask for examples of inappropriate limits or boundaries) Let us look at Gen 3:1-4 for an example. What was the boundary? Was Eve injured? Was the boundary appropriate? Who was to blame, the boundary setter or the boundary violator?
From our example we can see that one can indeed get injured as a result of a boundary, but it is not the setting that causes the injury, it is the breaking.
As we respond to a boundary that has been set we must realize certain things:
· Our feeling of injury is part of our response to the boundary.
· We are responsible for the response.
· The boundary was set by the other party for their defense from something.
· The “Golden Rule” applies. (Mt 7:12)
· It is a “wake up” call.
Can we think of some real examples of boundaries we might set where someone we care about might feel injured? How about a curfew for a teenager, or taking away the credit cards from a spender, or throwing out the computer of a pornography addict.
Myth #7 – Boundaries Cause Feelings Of Guilt (2 Tim 1:14)
Do you ever get that guilty feeling when you begin to lay out a boundary? That you know you are about to do something that may “cause” others around you to respond negatively. Or that you have a sense that you could be disappointing somebody. We all have had that “guilty” moment, that time of placing ourselves in a quandary about what to do. It is these times that might seem to make this myth logical or true to us. Let me state quite clearly that boundaries do not cause feelings of guilt in the setter or the person viewing the situation.
When a non-existent or weak boundary is replaced with a new or improved limit in our lives, it is because we have made a choice to defend ourselves in a healthier way. We know, either consciously or not, that any person who this affects will react in some way. If that person is close to us, say a family member, we might even be able to predict how they are going to respond. Boundary knowledgeable people will be supportive and understanding. Others may not see things that way, we might experience reactions of hurt, frustration or disappointment, and maybe even anger to the point of raging.
This is where our sense of the guilt we may feel around boundaries becomes very important to clarify and understand. The guilt we feel at a time like this is inside our heart before the boundary is actually set and before others know about it. The guilt and the boundary do not have a causal relationship; they have an indirect bearing on one another. There is an entirely different reason for the guilt. It is caused by our understanding of others expectations of us. Let me repeat that in slightly different words:
· Our feelings of guilt are our response to what we believe others expect of us.
Can we come up with some examples of this in action? (See if somebody has an example)
· You are a newly wed husband, your mother comes over frequently and mentions that your new wife doesn’t seem to keep the house clean on most of her visits. Your wife feels hurt, so you come to the conclusion that you have to ask your mother to visit less and stop mentioning the house. But………you feel guilty. Why?
I do want to say a word about the person who feels guilty when they see a new or improved boundary presented to them. This is real guilt, and it is not caused by the boundary. It is the appropriate response to the realization that something I have been doing has resulted in this new boundary.
For my final word on this issue, let us read my selected verse, one of the all time great “boundary verses”, 2 Tim 1:14. If you believe as I do, that the word of God, the Bible, is completely true. Then you will always know that this verse says to protect your soul, as it is your greatest treasure, and only you can protect your own soul. It is a matter of obedience to God, for which there is no true guilt.
Myth #8 – Boundaries Are Permanent, And I’m Afraid Of Burning My Bridges
I’m just going to say “Not True” here. Boundaries belong to the person setting them, they are responsible for them and they can change them whenever they want. If a boundary violator changes their ways after running up against new and improved boundaries, we can change them back or soften our position. If the boundary violator does alter their behavior, the bridge needs to be burned! Let us look at 1 Cor 15:33 to see why.
Before we jump into our study this morning, I want to ask if anybody has a question about what we have looked at up to this point. (Teacher’s pause for responses, also consider seeking any application of boundaries a class member may have made due to something learned, possibly even a small victory)
In today’s lesson we will look at some of the common misconceptions we have about boundaries. I am going to use the general outline of Chapter 6 of our “Boundaries” book, if you want to follow along. Each of the eight cases we are going to look at have some characteristics in common.
· They are not accurate, but they can sound so true.
· People without good boundaries will speak them to us.
· Individuals without good boundaries believe them to be true.
· Those with decent boundaries sometimes believe some of them.
· Misunderstandings of Scripture can lead to these misconceptions.
Well; now let’s jump right into the meat of the lesson.
Myth #1 – If I Set Boundaries, I’m Being Selfish (Pr 11:15)
What do you think this myth means? (Ask class to take a stab at this, there could be several good answers come out of this question). OK, now let’s look at a Scripture I chose to identify the problem and God’s perspective.
He who is guarantor for a stranger will surely suffer for it, but he who hates being a guarantor is secure. NASU
At first glance this verse seems to be a warning about lending money to someone we don’t really know, and it does indeed have that application. However, let us go a little deeper into what this could mean in reference to our myth. What other things that we own could we lend out?
Let me illustrate the deep spiritual significance of this verse. Suppose your parents gave you a large sum of money with the simple instruction “take care of this until I come to get it”. What would you do? Would you lend it out, or let somebody else use it for a while? Of course not, unless you have either no love for your parents, or chose to not obey the “take care of” instruction. Let us now turn this into a deeper issue.
What has your heavenly Father given you, and also every other human being, to “take care of until He comes for it”? (Pause here for the class to respond) One thing and one thing only, your soul!
From our first lesson we learned that one of the functions of boundaries is to protect our soul. In fact it is an imperative from God that we do so, let us take a look at Pr 4:23, what does it say? In the Hebrew way of understanding our innermost being, the heart, mind, strength, will and soul are often used interchangeably. This implies that they are all connected and interdependent, and yet we know they have different functions. In Pr 4:23, God is expressing to us that we need to take care of our hearts (souls), because that is where our “life” flows from. If we don’t take care of our souls by having poor boundaries we won’t be able to experience life fully.
It is not selfish to have good boundaries, it is life giving, it is spirit filled; it is an exercise in self-control. God does not prohibit us from lowering our defenses to “strangers”, but He does advise against it.
Myth#2 – Boundaries Are A Sign Of Disobedience (Dt 5:29)
I have one thing to say about this, “What a crock”! If God didn’t want us to have good boundaries, he would not have established the Ten Commandments, which we identified in our first lesson as the Ten Boundaries.
God gave out the TC’s twice, the second time is recorded in Deuteronomy 5, let us take a look at part of what He said after this second law-giving in verse 29.
Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever! NASU
Does that sound like a God who thinks that setting up clear limits is not a smart thing to do? No, He gave us limits, in part to teach us obedience! That is all I want to say on this.
Myth #3 – If I Begin Setting Boundaries I Will Be Hurt By Others (Pr 4:6)
This is a difficult one, there seems to be a huge element of truth to it. After all, when you start setting up boundaries, there is going to be some form of response, and it will almost certainly be negative. Why can I say this?
I see the problem here as one of “stinking thinking”, meaning that we are perceiving things from the wrong perspective. Allow me to lay out the situation we sometimes find ourselves in.
The myth states “If I Begin Setting Boundaries”. This clearly identifies the real issue; we have one of the following situations:
· No Boundaries
· Fuzzy Boundaries
· Weak Boundaries
Any person in one of these three situations is already being hurt by others, and often by those close to us. Somebody with strong boundaries might get hurt occasionally, but it will almost always be temporary, as this person is secure in who they are.
Our problem is therefore not really about hurt. It is about change. When we start putting in stronger boundaries the old hurts begin to diminish. New hurts may appear, but as we adjust our boundaries, keeping them strong, to meet our needs, these new hurts are less and less difficult to deal with over time.
The bottom line is that I might agree some new hurt may arrive by setting boundaries, given time and appropriate adjustments, these hurts will become easier to deal with.
Myth #4 – If I Set Boundaries, I Will Hurt Others (Eph 6:10-17)
What is the primary misunderstanding involved with this myth? (Pause for responses)
The reason that this myth is not accurate goes back to our first lesson. One of the “Boundary Principles” we established is that “Good boundaries keep good in and keep bad out.” This clearly identifies that good boundaries are defensive in nature!
Let us take a look at a set of boundaries established by God that vividly illustrates this point. Could someone please read Ephesians 6:10-17. What are the six “boundaries” that the author identifies, and can we also say how they defend us?
· Belt of Truth – Helps to understand reality.
· Breastplate of Righteousness – Helps protect our hearts.
· Shoes of Peace – Helps us with our anxieties.
· Shield of Faith – Helps us to fend off attacks from enemies.
· Helmet of Salvation – Helps us to be secure in who we are.
· Sword of the Spirit – Helps us to filter and test what is thrown at us.
It is true that the last item on the list can be used as an offensive weapon, but in the context of boundaries it could not be. If Scripture is used to attack someone it is no longer a boundary, it is a brick from a wall that someone is throwing.
I would like to speak to the issue of “Hurt”. It is true that when a strong boundary is presented, some individuals will respond out of “hurt”. Please listen to the following statements carefully. If someone you have presented an appropriate boundary to says they feel “hurt”, they most likely are telling the truth. Recognize that it is their “hurt”, it is their response and they have to own it. It is not your responsibility to “make it feel better”; it is their responsibility to deal with their feelings.
One last thing on this subject, how a person deals with their response to your boundaries is an outside indicator of their internal emotional condition. Immaturity can rear its ugly head at a time of new boundary setting.
Myth #5 – Boundaries Mean That I Am Angry (Eph 4:26)
This is another difficult one to understand, how could that statement (Boundaries mean that I am angry) seem to be true?
We need to be sure that we understand where anger and other feelings come from. Feelings were created by God to tell us something; they are a response to our environment. For example if we are in a pit of snakes we might feel fear, if we are in a loving embrace we might feel happy, or if our child is gets an F in school we might feel sad.
Sometimes we feel angry, but the problem with this is that it can be our response to many different situations. Anger is always a definite signal that something is wrong! In the context of boundaries, if our boundary is violated, we can respond with the feeling of anger. It is not the boundary that caused the anger, it is the violation.
When we have had our boundaries violated, our personal integrity is under attack in some way, anger is probably appropriate. As is always true with anger, it is not the feeling that is the problem; it is what you do with it. If an individual violates our boundaries, and we feel anger, we must choose to re-establish the boundary or improve it. When we do that, it might seem like we are projecting anger, we very possibly appear angry to an observer, especially the violator. BUT, it is not the boundary that has triggered the anger, it is the violation.
Once the new or re-established boundary is in force and operating well, the violation is likely to have stopped or at least reduced in its effect and any anger will actually become much reduced in intensity and/or frequency. Therefore it is true to say that good boundary habits will tend to lower anger levels. So as the book so wisely states:
· Don’t get mad, set a limit!
Myth #6 – When Others Set Boundaries It Injures Me (Gen 3:1-4)
How crazy is that? This myth fits right alongside myth #4 (If I set boundaries I will hurt others).
We have to make an assumption here, and that is that the boundary that has been set is an appropriate limit. (Ask for examples of inappropriate limits or boundaries) Let us look at Gen 3:1-4 for an example. What was the boundary? Was Eve injured? Was the boundary appropriate? Who was to blame, the boundary setter or the boundary violator?
From our example we can see that one can indeed get injured as a result of a boundary, but it is not the setting that causes the injury, it is the breaking.
As we respond to a boundary that has been set we must realize certain things:
· Our feeling of injury is part of our response to the boundary.
· We are responsible for the response.
· The boundary was set by the other party for their defense from something.
· The “Golden Rule” applies. (Mt 7:12)
· It is a “wake up” call.
Can we think of some real examples of boundaries we might set where someone we care about might feel injured? How about a curfew for a teenager, or taking away the credit cards from a spender, or throwing out the computer of a pornography addict.
Myth #7 – Boundaries Cause Feelings Of Guilt (2 Tim 1:14)
Do you ever get that guilty feeling when you begin to lay out a boundary? That you know you are about to do something that may “cause” others around you to respond negatively. Or that you have a sense that you could be disappointing somebody. We all have had that “guilty” moment, that time of placing ourselves in a quandary about what to do. It is these times that might seem to make this myth logical or true to us. Let me state quite clearly that boundaries do not cause feelings of guilt in the setter or the person viewing the situation.
When a non-existent or weak boundary is replaced with a new or improved limit in our lives, it is because we have made a choice to defend ourselves in a healthier way. We know, either consciously or not, that any person who this affects will react in some way. If that person is close to us, say a family member, we might even be able to predict how they are going to respond. Boundary knowledgeable people will be supportive and understanding. Others may not see things that way, we might experience reactions of hurt, frustration or disappointment, and maybe even anger to the point of raging.
This is where our sense of the guilt we may feel around boundaries becomes very important to clarify and understand. The guilt we feel at a time like this is inside our heart before the boundary is actually set and before others know about it. The guilt and the boundary do not have a causal relationship; they have an indirect bearing on one another. There is an entirely different reason for the guilt. It is caused by our understanding of others expectations of us. Let me repeat that in slightly different words:
· Our feelings of guilt are our response to what we believe others expect of us.
Can we come up with some examples of this in action? (See if somebody has an example)
· You are a newly wed husband, your mother comes over frequently and mentions that your new wife doesn’t seem to keep the house clean on most of her visits. Your wife feels hurt, so you come to the conclusion that you have to ask your mother to visit less and stop mentioning the house. But………you feel guilty. Why?
I do want to say a word about the person who feels guilty when they see a new or improved boundary presented to them. This is real guilt, and it is not caused by the boundary. It is the appropriate response to the realization that something I have been doing has resulted in this new boundary.
For my final word on this issue, let us read my selected verse, one of the all time great “boundary verses”, 2 Tim 1:14. If you believe as I do, that the word of God, the Bible, is completely true. Then you will always know that this verse says to protect your soul, as it is your greatest treasure, and only you can protect your own soul. It is a matter of obedience to God, for which there is no true guilt.
Myth #8 – Boundaries Are Permanent, And I’m Afraid Of Burning My Bridges
I’m just going to say “Not True” here. Boundaries belong to the person setting them, they are responsible for them and they can change them whenever they want. If a boundary violator changes their ways after running up against new and improved boundaries, we can change them back or soften our position. If the boundary violator does alter their behavior, the bridge needs to be burned! Let us look at 1 Cor 15:33 to see why.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)