When You Learn to Think Well …

When You Learn to Think Well …

All of us talk nonstop in our heads, but few of us think well. Our nonstop thoughts are typically negative or downright nasty.

  • “You’re so stupid.”
  • “I just cannot take one more sleepless night.”
  • “Things are never going to change. I’m stuck.”
  • “No one loves me.”

Thoughts are powerful, aren’t they? What we think directly affects our emotions and actions. Consider this Scripture on thought-power: “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7, NLT).

It is wise, then, that we become aware of what we think, and root out the lies we believe and replace them with the truth that sets us free. When we think well, our emotions and actions will line up with God’s Word, and we will become increasingly free of anxiety, worry, anger, despair, and enslavement to everything from pizza and Chardonnay to social media and erotica.

What we believe on, we will inevitably act on.

What is “thinking well”?

To think well you need to continually believe God’s truth. “Continual,” a present participle in the Greek, basically means, now that you believe Christ for your salvation, keep on continually believing Him all day, every day. “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him” (Col. 2:6, ESV).

When you continually believe God, you are thinking well, and your emotions and actions fall in line.

Continual belief is a faith walk. It’s not easy. Consider folks in the Bible who harbored the sin of unbelief; that is, rejecting what God says is true. Among them:

Abraham. He lied. He passed Sarah off as his sister to protect himself against Egypt’s pharaoh. Moses. He murdered. David. He bedded another man’s wife. Yes, adultery. Naomi. She pity-partied. And Eve. She and her husband ate the forbidden fruit and. You know the rest of the story.

CHALLENGE: Imagine how your emotions would soar if you continually believed God and grasped how to think well. Do you want a huge drop in fear or anger or depression or addiction? 

But how do you “think well”?

To think well is to choose thoughts that agree with God’s truth and that result with in action steps. Here are the four parts:

  1. Clue in to your current emotions.
  2. Watch what actions follow these emotions.
  3. Begin to identify the lies you believe.
  4. Replace the lies with God’s truth.

And, lastly, take a specific action step that aligns your life with the God’s truth. As we overcome the toxic, ungodly thinking that distort our emotions, we’ll discover the contentment in Christ. Who doesn’t desire that?! 

If you would like a FREE Think Well chart to help you get stop negative thinking, send me a contact message and mention the chart.

Question: What is one thing that you will do to think well?

7 Tips to Make a Great Apology

7 Tips to Make a Great Apology

When we are under a lot of stress, our anger may bubble over and scorch someone. Then what?

We may think that we are justified in our anger and that the other person deserved our hot words or our icy stare. But Scripture provides a better way: confession leading to forgiveness. In other words: an apology!

Here is an article I wrote for the Biblical Counseling Coalition in the middle of the 2020 pandemic. I hope it helps!

Jack and Jill needed help in making an apology. Yes, they are living the American dream: steady employment, a nice home, two healthy children, and a marriage that has lasted eleven years. But there is a problem. But under his successful veneer, Jack becomes angry when he doesn’t get what he wants and lets his family know it, loudly. Jill also gets mad—a quiet simmering, stewing kind of anger that is just as nasty as her husband’s.[1]

Each has said and done things that, at the time, made sense in the heat of their anger. Their relational pain prompted them to make an appointment with a biblical counselor who showed them from Scripture that an angry heart is the cause of their conflict (Matt. 5:21-22; Mark 7:20-23; Luke 6:43-45; James 4:1-2; 1 John 3:15).

This was news to Jack and Jill, both Christians. He had figured that his upbringing was at fault for his anger problem and that his wife’s monthly hormonal swings had caused her irritation. As they were beginning to each take responsibility for their own sin, Jack and Jill needed to replace their old way of sweeping their anger under the rug, which had only created more problems (James 1:19-20).[2]

It is essential to relational healing for the wrongdoer to confess to the harmed party how he or she failed. We often call this “making an apology.” This blog post covers a sliver of forgiveness—specifically, seven parts of an apology, outlined by Ken Sande, author of The Peacemaker. Making an apology is an art that requires humility. But usually, we mumble a quick “I’m sorry” or say, “Let’s just forget it, okay?” These non-apologies rarely bring about true forgiveness and may deepen resentment.

So, what’s a better way? Consider “Seven A’s of Confession.”[3]

1. Address Everyone Included

First, confess your sin to God (Ps. 32:5; 41:4), then to every person who has been touched by it. Ken Sande differentiates between a “heart sin” and a “social sin.” “A “heart sin” takes place only in your thoughts and does not directly affect others. Therefore, it needs to be confessed only to God.”[4] But often, a sin is not only a heart sin but a social sin that is evident in our behavior. When Jill felt anger toward Jack, for example, she very rarely talked to him about it; instead, she became irritated and sniped at him and their children. In counseling, she learned of her need to confess the sin of grumbling to each of them and seek their forgiveness.

2. Avoid If, But, and Maybe

Using these words negates the confession, for it shifts the blame to others or minimizes guilt. The best example: “I’m sorry if I’ve done something to upset you.” Isn’t it amazing that the tiny word “if” ruins this frequent “confession”? It implies that the person does not know whether there was any wrongdoing in the first place.

Other examples of non-confessions:[5]

“I shouldn’t have gotten mad, but I was tired.”

“I know I was wrong, but so were you.”   

3. Admit Specifically

The more detailed the apology, the better. Rather than saying, “I acted like a jerk yesterday,” you might say, “I’ve been taking out my frustrations on you. I have had a lot of stress caring for the kids, but this doesn’t give me an excuse to criticize you and nag you.”

When possible, identify how you violated God’s will. When you detail your wrong and focus on where you need to change, then the other person is more likely to respond positively to your apology.

4. Acknowledge the Hurt

Acknowledgment may rightly sound like, “I can only imagine that you felt fearful when I didn’t come home until late last night” or “I can only imagine that when you found a porn site in my search history, you felt deeply hurt and angry.” For an apology to be effective and meaningful, you must express sorrow. The sorrow must be genuine, of course: “For godly sorrow produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death” (2 Cor. 7:10). People see through a fake confession, and it simply makes things worse (Prov. 6:16-19).

5. Accept the Consequences

Winston Smith relates a story of forgiveness granted easily to someone who had sideswiped his wife’s car and had left a note on the windshield, admitting wrongdoing and offering to pay for repairs. “After a few phone calls and a trip to the body shop, the car was repaired, and a check from the offender came in the mail. All was forgiven.”[6]This person acknowledged their wrongdoing and accepted the consequences.

We read examples of restitution in the Bible, too. A primary example is the chief tax collector, Zacchaeus, who had climbed a sycamore tree. What made his confession believable was his eagerness to pay back the people he had cheated. When he met Jesus, he declared that he’d give half of his possessions to the poor, and “if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount” (Luke 19:8). The greater your willingness to repair the damage you may have caused, the more believable your confession.

6. Alter Your Behavior

In counseling, Jack and Jill came to understand that their anger arose from a selfish heart. Jack wanted peace and quiet; Jill desired comfort. Jack learned to repent of the evil desires that produced his anger and to receive God’s forgiving grace.[7] Likewise, Jill became aware that she was bitter toward her husband and turned to Jesus in repentance and faith.[8]

As they each confessed their sin to God and thanked Him for His forgiveness, they began to alter their behavior. One change they made was to speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15). A second was to keep no record of wrongs (1 Cor. 13:5). A third was to listen well (James 1:19). Sande recommends a written plan that details the changes you plan to make because it “shows you take the matter seriously and are willing to spend substantial time planning how to change.”[9] He also suggests listing specific goals and objectives so that you have an objective way to measure progress toward the goal of making a heartfelt apology.

7. Ask for Forgiveness (and Allow Time)

Very often, if you’ve completed the previous six steps, when you ask, “Will you forgive me?” forgiveness will be granted readily. The question itself signals that you have completed the apology and that it is the other person’s turn to respond. While Scripture commands believers to forgive (Col. 3:13), sometimes granting forgiveness is difficult. It may take time, especially if the hurt is deep.

Sande makes this suggestion:

If you sense that the person to whom you confessed is simply not ready to forgive you, it may be helpful to say something like this: “I know I have deeply hurt you, and I can understand why you would have a hard time forgiving me. I hope that you will soon be able to forgive me, because I want very much to be reconciled. In the meantime, I will pray for you. I will do my best to repair the damage I caused as quickly as possible… If there is anything else I can do, please let me know.”[10]

If forgiveness is still slow in coming even after you’ve made this appeal, then you may need to go back over the previous six steps to make sure you’ve made a good apology. It is also possible that the other person doesn’t understand the biblical concept of forgiveness.[11] In this case, you may need to humbly provide the necessary information. Another option is to ask for help from a pastor or trusted Christian friend.

Of course, not every apology requires all of these steps. But if the hurt is deep or is a compilation of many lesser offenses, then using this template may prove wise. Do not let the steps themselves become a ritual, however, as had Sande. He confesses, “I have caught myself going through the Seven A’s simply to get a burden off my shoulders and minimize the consequences of my sin. In the process, I heaped greater burdens on the person I had already wronged.”[12]

Truly, making an apology is an art. As God opens your eyes to how you’ve hurt others, He’ll also give you the desire and the grace to seek forgiveness from Him and from the one you’ve offended. While many of us know what forgiveness is, it is always good to understand the parts of an effective apology. These seven steps will help you to avoid a wishy-washy apology and provide an expression of regret that leads to genuine forgiveness and reconciliation.

Questions for Reflection

  1. Which of these seven parts of an apology are either new to you or are difficult for you?
  2. Do you push the person you’ve offended to accept your apology right away? Why is this a wrong way of handling an apology?

 

[1] Robert D. Jones, Uprooting Anger: Biblical Help for a Common Problem (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Company, 2005), 13. Jones uses the fictitious story of Jack and Jill to help the reader understand biblical truth concerning anger. His book is among the very best on the topic.

[2] Ken Sande, The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict, 3rd ed., Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2004, 136-137. Among the many compounding problems are reckless words, grumbling and complaining, lying, slander, malicious thoughts, stubbornness, vengeance, bitterness, defensiveness, and withholding mercy and forgiveness.

[3] Ibid., 126-133.

[4] Ibid., 127.

[5] Ibid., 128.

[6] J. Alasdair Groves and Winston T. Smith, Untangling Emotions (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 204.

[7] Jones, Uprooting Anger, 148.

[8] Ibid., 149.

[9] Sande, The Peacemaker, 132.

[10] Ibid., 133.

[11] This blog post does not begin to cover all of what forgiveness is. One excellent resource I recommend is Unpacking Forgiveness: Biblical Answers for Complex Questions and Deep Wounds (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008). Author Chris Brauns helps his readers understand when and how to forgive.

[12] Ibid., 133.

Stop Food Cravings and Glorify God

Stop Food Cravings and Glorify God

Food cravings can come on quick, right? You’re driving along singing to KLOVE or whataver, and out of nowhere food cravings strike.You may crave a Snickers or chips or a Ding Dong. Or you may crave strawberries!

And up the road a 7-Eleven beckons.

In this short article, let’s look at…

  1. Biological food cravings versus emotional food cravings
  2. A biblical solution to food cravings

Choose Your Choice 

So what should you do when hit by food cravings?

A. Try your very, very best to ignore them.

B. Proceed to the 7-Eleven and get the goodies..

Well, it depends! Biological food cravings differ from emotional food cravings. It’s wise to fill the biological kind because your body needs what is craves. Just think of how delicious a glass of water is when you are super thirsty. So when you fulfill this type of craving, you’ll think and feel better. But fight the temptation of emotional food cravings. If you cave, you’ll feel worse, and you’ll miss out on God’s best too.

So whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10:31

Biological or Emotional?

Here’s a simple what to tell whether your food cravings are biological or emotional:

When you have a biological food craving and fulfill it, you feel nourished. And it doesn’t take much food to meet such a need either. One bagel, a wedge or two of low-fat cheese, or a couple of chocolates–that’s it.

But emotional food cravings aren’t about food. Giving in is an attempt to meet a need apart from God. That’s right: An emotional eater looks for comfort in food. Sometimes it follows “I’m a loser” self-talk.

Solution to Food Cravings

The good news is by obeying and trusting God, you can have victory over food cravings.

You make this break when you begin desiring what God desires and, with God’s help, change your heart. His power helps you make good and godly food choices, straighten out your thinking on food, and practice, practice, practice. A great resource for we who mess up — and this is all of us, right? — is Love to Eat, Hate to Eat by biblical counselor Elyse Fitzpatrick.

God wants you to live life based on truth, not emotions. The truth of who he is. The truth of who you are. His truth is sure.

But our emotions go up and down like an elevator. Now emotions are fine; God gave them to us. Just be sure you don’t let them yank your around. Rather, live out truth.

7 Quick Stop-Craving Tips

Here’s truth talk on healthy eating. Yes, you’ve heard it before … except maybe the last one … but it’s the best.

  1. Choose water over coffee and soda pop.
  2. Shrink your portions by using smaller plates.
  3.  Limit your consumption of sugar.
  4.  Skip foods with ingredients you cannot pronounce.
  5.  Sit down during meals.
  6. Eat slowly.
  7.  Remember eating becomes sacred when it becomes worship.

Remember the Bible verse I mentioned? So whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Let it guide your choices.

And when you do, then everything — from washing dishes and sweeping floors to writing blog posts to selling  — can be worship. As long as you line up your thoughts with God’s, the simplest things become sacred.

And so it is with food.

Counseling Hearts to Hope,

 

Broken Is Better — Here’s Why

Broken Is Better — Here’s Why

Broken is better.

Guest blogger Suzanne Holland — see her page HERE on Heart2Heart Counseling Directory — brings home the truth that your reponse to life’s problems is what matters. And a biblically healthy response is what ultimately brings glory to God. Her article appeared first here and is used with permission. –LAM

In This Life, You Will Have Trouble

Life is full of pain and suffering. In a world of uncertainty, there is only one sure thing: You will have trouble.

Yet man is born to trouble
    as surely as sparks fly upward. (Job 5:7).

The only thing that is optional is your response to that trouble. So you have many choices when it comes to how you respond emotionally to pain and suffering in your life. Now I’d like to talk about a few of those, some or all of which you may have chosen in your time of trial. Then I’d like to share a choice that is always better.

Respond with Fear

First, you can respond to your pain with fear. If you have a chronic or debilitating illness, you may be fearful of a new or worsening pain or symptom. And you may begin to wonder what you will do if it continues to get worse.

How will you cope? Who will take care of you? What will you do when you can’t do what you need to do? Fear of increased pain gangs up with panic about the future. Pretty soon, you have bullied yourself into a fear response. This fear drives you more into yourself, and away from God. (For Help for Fear, contact Lucy. She’s been there and tossed the T-shirt.)

broken

Respond in Anger

Or, you may choose to respond in anger, telling yourself that you don’t deserve this, and that it’s not fair.

This response seems more powerful than fear. Instead of cowering in a trembling heap, you shake your fist at your condition, your doctor, or maybe even at God. This anger gives you a false sense of empowerment from within, and causes you to think that you don’t need God’s power. But this puts distance between you and your great High Priest.

Respond with Despair

A third response that is common among suffering believers is despair. Maybe you’ve been knocked down many times, but have managed, by the grace of God, to get back up again. Now, after many TKOs, you have given up. You just don’t have the fight in you anymore.

Somewhere along the way, you started looking to your own strength for the next round. But now that strength is spent. You can’t get up again, and you really don’t even want to. You are done.

Risk Bitterness

All of these responses can lead us to one very dangerous place: Bitterness. A person who is bitter has probably been through all three of these responses, and possibly several others, before arriving at bitterness. When these fleshly attitudes go unchecked, they inevitably lead us to a place where we have little or no faith in God, and we really don’t care.

We are disappointed, angry, and without hope. We nurture and feed grudges against those who have harmed us, and we curse God, and anyone else, who has denied us what we believe we are entitled to. This is bitterness.

According to Isaiah 43:7, we were created for God’s glory.

…everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made.

If this paragraph describes you, ask yourself, “How does my bitterness glorify God?” If you’re honest, you will have to confess that your bitterness does not, and could never, bring glory to God. In fact, if bitterness persists, and you are just fine with it, you might want to examine whether or not you are even a believer.

A Better Alternative

However, there is another alternative. Rather than becoming bitter, we can confess and embrace the fact that we are broken. Our body is broken. Our heart is broken. We have no strength or power left to fight what God is doing through our trial.

We must submit to His will for us, surrendering our desire to control our situation. So we must hand over our pain, our suffering, our fear, anger, and despair to Him.

He alone is able to handle them. He loves us, and desires to make us more like Him. And he wants to use this pain to bring us into His arms. He wants to take our heavy burden of fear, anger, and despair, and exchange it for His light, easy one.

Plea for Understanding

Dear sister in Christ, you are weak. If you have convinced yourself otherwise, you are deceived. (Jeremiah 17:9). I know you may not like to hear that you’re weak and broken, but please believe me when I say that this is a good thing!

Hear the words of the apostle Paul, who suffered so many things for the sake of the Gospel:

Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:10).

This statement follows Paul’s description of his pleading with the Lord to remove the thorn in his flesh. God’s answer?

My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Do you want God’s perfect strength in your battle against pain and the heartache that comes with it? Do you believe that God’s grace is sufficient for you?

Then embrace your weakness, and give up your fear, anger, despair, and bitterness.

God has given you your weakness as a gift, to help you bring glory to His great name and to make you more like His precious Son! Give in to fear, anger, and despair, and you will be bullied, powerless, and hopeless. Once you get there, you are standing at the doorstep of bitterness.

Turn from these things, my friend, and be broken. Broken is better.

Counseling Hearts to Hope,

Self-Injury Among Teens: Yes, There’s Hope!

Self-Injury Among Teens: Yes, There’s Hope!


Self-Injury among teens (or anyone) doesn’t make sense, right?
But for someone who self-harms, the act of cutting or burning (as well as other forms of mutilation) reduces emotional distress. And it has a root cause. This article by Julie Ganschow, who is listed on Heart2Heart Counselor Directory, first appeared here on The Biblical Counseling Coalition website and is used with permission.

Rebekka, 15, wore a hat, long sleeves, and jeans to our first counseling session. Not so unusual for a teen, except it was a hot August afternoon and the temperature outside was 101 degrees.

As I got to know Rebekka, I learned she was sent to see me because she was self-harming. She had no eyelashes or eyebrows, and her hat concealed large bald spots where she had pulled out her hair. I eventually saw the dozens of scars on her arms and up and down the length of her legs, where she had repeatedly cut herself and picked off the scabs. She also bore numerous burn marks from cigarettes and lighters.

Cutting and burning are the most common forms of self-injury among teens who we see in our counseling center.

Why Do Teens Self-Injure?

The teenage years (when self-injurious behaviors commonly begin) can be traumatic times. This can be especially in our culture, where children are presented with decisions and choices they are not mature enough to handle.

Our teens have greater pressures than at any time in history. College preparation now begins in eighth grade for many students, as they have to make choices about Advanced Placement classes. Many high school students work 20 or more hours per week to save for college. This is in addition to at­tending classes and doing AP homework.

At school, teens receive mixed messages about relationships and sexual orientation. Sexual behaviors are taught in graphic detail and promoted in the popular media. Our children are pressured to be sexually active long before they are emotionally and physically ready. They are thrust into many situa­tions they are not ready to deal with! Some deal with the heartache of a broken home, spend­ing alternate weekends with each parent, and the pressure that comes from being in the middle of divorce.

These are only the “normal” stresses and do not cover the extreme cases, such as sexual abuse by a parent or step parent; drug or alcohol use in the home by par­ents; out-of -control siblings who raise tension in the home; same-sex unions, sexually transmitted diseases or abortion.

Many children and teens come to believe there is little they can count on and nothing that is stable. Who can they talk to besides each other? Who can they really trust? All these factors feed into the world of self-injury among teens, and it becomes their method of dealing with indescribable pain and loneliness.

Like other self-injurers, Rebekka reported that she felt empty inside, stressed, and unable to express her feelings. She struggled to tell me she was lonely, not understood by others and fearful of intimate relationships and adult responsibilities. Self-injury was her way to cope with or relieve painful or hard-to-express feelings.

What Can I Do to Help?

There is no quick fix, no systematic formula to follow in stopping self-injury among teens. I encourage parents to follow biblical principles rather than going the route of psychotherapy and secular coun­seling. Secular reasoning is contrary to biblical methodology. The self-injurer doesn’t have an illness that can be medically diagnosed. Rather, she has is a faulty coping mechanism that has become a sinful habit.

Whenever possible, I involve the parents in the counseling process. We teach the parents how to disciple their child through this turbulent time in life. God entrusted Mom and Dad to care for their child and I am there to support them in teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training their child in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16).

The biblical perspective on self-injury among teens is that it is primarily a heart issue (Matthew 15:11; Matthew 15:17-20; Luke 6:43). Like other self-injurers, Rebekka had an overall focus on herself: her pain, loss, feelings, her wants, and her de­sires.

She learned to examine her heart in light of Scripture (Jeremiah 17:9). The Bible reminds us that per­manent change requires a change of heart brought about by a renewal of the mind (Romans 12:2). We had to identify the root cause of her behavior so true healing could take place.

Run to God with the Pain

I encouraged Rebekka to go to God in prayer and lay down the burdens of her heart.

The LORD hears the needy and does not despise his captive peo­ple (Psalm 69:33).

Directing Rebekka to the Psalms brought comfort and insight about crying out to God in distress. She was reminded that God cares about her, and the weight of guilt, shame, failure, anger, and rejection she carries. Also she was greatly comforted in realizing the Lord Jesus Christ was intimately acquainted with every sorrow and pain she had.

The Psalmist wrote,

Turn Yourself to me, and have mercy on me, For I am desolate and afflicted. The troubles of my heart have enlarged; Bring me out of my distresses! Look on my affliction and my pain, And forgive all my sins (Psalm 25:16-18, NKJV).

In biblical counseling, Rebekka learned the necessity of repentance. She learned about the sovereignty of God, people pleasing, and how to deal biblically with anger, hurt, and bitterness. As her mind was renewed, she began to under­stand the role idolatry played in her behaviors. She realized how worshipping her idols only led to guilt, shame, and deception and that, in reality, self-injury didn’t help with her pain after all.

Initially she experienced many failures and would still revert to cutting or burning herself, but Rebekka persevered in righteousness. She was determined to glorify God and worked very hard to stay in the Word, put the behavior off, renew her mind, and put on the new self (Ephesians 4:22-24).

She made life application of what she was learning and denied her fleshly desires. Six months later, she had eyebrows, eyelashes, and the bald spots on her head were covered with hair. The real triumph came when she gave her parents her “treasure box” of razor blades and burning materials.

Today, Rebekka is free.

So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free (John 8:36, NLT).

Join the Conversation!

Do you believe the Word of God is enough to address even the “hard cases” in counseling?

Counseling Hearts to Hope,

 

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