by Lucy | May 24, 2016 | biblical counseling, emotions, identity in Christ, relationships
Do you know that you have total acceptance in Christ?
It’s true, sister! God says so.
Ever met a mean girl or three?. I have. Eighth grade. Me, the new girl at school. Them, clique-y, bratty, “all that.” These mean girls were not God-like, though they acted like royalty, a royal pain in the . . .
God isn’t a mean girl. He welcomes you with open arms.
Many people want nothing to do with God and if that’s you, I get it. From age 8 to young adulthood, I didn’t want to talk with God either. Or attend church. Or wear a cross around my neck.
What I wanted most was the mean girls’ acceptance. Have you longed for acceptance too? What did you do to get acceptance? To belong?
In this article, you learn 1 reason why God accepts you and 3 responses you might choose.
God Accepts You Because He Accepts Jesus
Every Christian is totally accepted by God. Many Christians forget this truth.
Are you struggling with a bad case of spiritual amnesia?
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Isn’t it easy to forget all that God gave you when you believed in Jesus as your Savior?
Now we have received. . .the Spirit who is from God that we might understand the things freely given us by God. (1 Corinthians 2:12, ESV)
When you became a believer, you received an an inheritance. You are “in Christ.” Jesus is your brother (John 20:17), God is your Father, and all believers everywhere are your siblings. Together you share in your Father’s riches.
So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir. (Galatians 4:7, NIV)
Among these riches is peace with God. You have complete peace and acceptance with God. You were once hostile to God, just as I was the mean girls’ enemy, wanting their friendship, hating their rejection.
God knew that you and I were helpless and unable to ever be “enough” or “measure up” on our own. You could spend hours every day trying to please God — volunteering at a food pantry, memorizing scripture verses, writing fat donation checks — but apart from God you can do nothing (John 15:5).
What are two or three ways you’ve tried to earn God’s acceptance? Do you keep running on the spiritual treadmill? Are you ready to get off?
God himself took care of everything you need. Jesus paid for your sins on the cross. His sacrifice satisfied God’s wrath. Now you can approach God, confidently and boldly, knowing God accepts you because his accepts Jesus. He is the only One who could ever measure up.
You may have grown up in a home with the message, “I accept you if. . ..” You may be in a marriage with the underlying that condition, “I accept you if. . ..” This isn’t God’s stance toward you. He is not a mean girl, smirking, chuckling, turning his back. When have you felt rejected by family, friends. . .God?
God Wants You to Delight in Jesus
Knowing God’s wonderful acceptance deserves a response, doesn’t it?
Here are 3 responses you might have. The first one is obvious.
1. Thank God. When I opened an envelope from my Uncle Pat and saw the check inside, I shouted to my family, “Come and see this. Come and see this.” We delighted in the unexpected gift. The next day I wrote my uncle a letter and thanked him over and over.
Have you thanked God for the amazing inheritance he’s given you?
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2. Rest in God’s acceptance. You and I make mistakes every day. When you screw up, do you step toward God and talk with him, or do you try to hide? Since God complete accepts you, you don’t have to act like an outcast. You are his precious daughter and he smiles on you. Agree with him you messed up and thank him that you have been forgiven in Christ.
3. Get to know God better. The God who accepts you wants you to enjoy him. Look outside — do you see the sky? He made the sky for you to know his greatness. Look at your hands — you have beautiful hands and beautiful eyes to see them. Every part of you shows his attention to detail, his plan, his creativity, his care (Psalm 139).
God revealed himself in Jesus and in his written Word. To know God better, why not take time daily to read the Bible? If you’re new to the Bible, begin with the gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which are at the beginning of the New Testament.
God Never Rejects You
When my husband and I welcomed home our eldest child, life turned upside down.
We now had a tiny baby completely dependent on us. She slept through the first three weeks of life, and on day 22, woke up a holy terror. Colic rocked her world and mine. I felt like such a failure.
Why couldn‟t I soothe her? Why won‟t she stop screaming? Am I an awful mom?
Our heavenly Father never ever sees you as a failure. When life gets crazy-bad and you wonder whether he really accepts you, God invites you to get a safe daddy hug. His arms aren’t too big to hold you. He won‟t abandon you. You are God‟s daughter. He accepts you.
Sharing hope with your heart,
by Lucy | Apr 27, 2016 | biblical counseling, emotions, identity in Christ |
Performance-living is a mindset that says what you do determines your value.
It is a lie.
This lie tempts you to save yourself as you give in to its demands. Do you feel weary? Burdened? Exhausted? Then you may have a bad case of performance-living.
And it’s very demanding, a taskmaster, demanding that you get your own straw to make bricks and meet the quota (Exodus 5:6-9). Push, push, hurry, hurry — and look good as you try performance-living.
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It has at least three traps.
1. Performance-living: Achieve!
Performance-living ties your achievement to your value as a person. The more you achieve, the greater your value. What about people who aren’t smart like Steve Jobs? Do they have less value because they aren’t “Person of the Year”? The psalmist says,
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18, NIV
2. Performance-living: Beautify!
It links your looks to your value. The lie is only the young and beautiful matter. Haven’t you used makeup to cover a blemish? Or perhaps Root Rescue to hide gray? Or gone on a diet or exercised to lose weight and tone up?
Believing beauty determines your worth is a treadmill of anxiety and it’s exhausting.
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The apostle Peter writes,
Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. 1 Peter 3:3-4
Beauty is a gentle and quiet spirit. Not liposuction!
3. Performance-living: Be Perfect!
Want anxiety? Derive your value from perfection: well-behaved kids, a gorgeous home, a fulfilling career, and. . .lead a small group, keep a prayer journal faithfully, and read the Bible in a year, every year.
This is what God wants, right? Perfection? Doesn’t Jesus say, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48)? Here Jesus means growth into maturity of godliness. He doesn’t mean super-woman performance-living.
When you “succeed,” performance-living becomes pride.
When you “fail,” performance-living turns into anger, fear, and depression, resulting in all kinds of untoward behavior unbecoming of a Christian woman. Your thoughts morph into ugliness too.
Gospel-Centered Solution
Exchange performance-living for grace-living. Grace-living is believing and acting on the truth of the good news that God loves you and values you.
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Your value isn’t dependent on what you do. God determines your value, and aren’t you more precious to him than a sparrow?
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Matthew 10:29-31
The gospel isn’t something you do. Grace is a gift of God. There is no score card. No boxes to check. No to-do lists.
Your value is anchored in Christ’s accomplishment, not yours. Refreshing, isn’t it?
Counseling hearts to hope,
by Lucy | Mar 15, 2016 | biblical counseling, emotions, identity in Christ, relationships, thoughts
E-Counseling: An upside of the Internet you may not know.
Through e-counseling, God dazzles me with the Christian women from around the world that he has brought my way. I counsel them via Skype.
Would you like to meet a few? (Names are changed for privacy.) By the way, I offer a complimentary, 15-minute consult for you to answer your questions. Contact me to ask for your free consultation.
Stories of e-Counseling
Katie from Tanzania: A teacher originally from the Midwest, Katie works in international schools her entire adult life. She found me through Google for help with relational conflict. Among the truths she’s learning: how to communicate with difficult people in a God-honoring way. She has identified the root issue of her difficulty: people pleasing. She’s now journaling using a 5-step method. This has helped her deepen her faith and have more peace as she lines up her thoughts with God’s thoughts.
Mimi from Hong Kong: Originally from Hong Kong and who attended university in New England, Megan fell for a guy from the United Kingdom, and they wanted to marry. She sought my help because her family was against the marriage and she wanted help knowing God’s will in this situation. Our meetings over Skype sometimes included her fiancee. My counsel focused on marriage, “leaving and cleaving” (Gen. 2:24), honoring parents as an adult (Exodus 20:12), and freedom and responsibility. Their decision: to put their marriage on hold while improving communication with each other and with their families while seeking to put God first.
Sophie from Cambodia: Sophie’s missionary parents contacted me regarding their teenage daughter before the family headed to Cambodia. She was cutting, had trouble believing God loves her, and feared teen boys and men she didn’t already know. Our counseling over Skype focused of her identity in Christ and God’s purpose for her. As our counseling progressed, she shared that a family member had molested her. Her openness led to her understanding in the choices she was making so she could choose God-honoring behavior that flows from right thinking and beliefs.
What Is Skype?
Skype is a way to make video calls with your computer, tablet, or smart phone. You’ll need to download free Skype software at Skype.com in order to run Skype on your device. You’ll also need Internet access as well as a webcam and email.
Skype counseling is a convenient way to receive biblical counseling, no matter where you live. You save on cost of phone-related charges because Skype-to-Skype video calls are free. You only pay for counseling services. See my affordable fees.
The main benefits of Skype eCounseling:
~no travel
~the convenience of home
~more appointment time selections
~no geographical constraints
Would You Like a Skype Appointment?
First, contact me so I can block out an appointment for you on Appointment-Plus, the scheduling software used at Biblical Counseling Center, where I’m on staff. When you contact me, I’m need your name, email address, phone number, street address (and zip code, if you live in the U.S.), your Skype name. Haven’t used Skype? It’s easy and Skype to Skype calls are free.
You’ll need to set up an account at Skype.com. You can download a Skype app to your smartphone too. Generally, you’ll get the best quality using your desktop, laptop, or tablet. I’m glad to walk your through Skype too.
What Should You Expect?
After you
contact me, I’ll email you and and offer days and times for your initial Skype appointment. Some people prefer to begin with my free 15-minute phone consult to ask questions. Just contact me and we’ll set that up.
After each appointment I’ll email assignments to you. All counselees complete at-home assignments as part of the counseling process. The purpose of the assignments is to help you on many levels –foster hope, practice godly patterns, implement solutions, and so on.
The goal is heart change for life change, leading to peace and contentment no matter what struggles you face.
Sharing Hope with Your Heart,
by Lucy | Feb 16, 2016 | biblical counseling, emotions |
Shame hurts. It says that you are…
- inherently defective
- “less” than others
- worthless
- bad
It is feeling bad for who you are. It can also come from what you have done or was done to you.
Does this definition fit of shame you or someone you know? God doesn’t want you under its heaviness. He has freedom for you.
Yes, there’s hope: God understands your pain. He is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18).
Let’s hear a shame story and identify sources of shame. Then we’ll uncover the solutions to overcoming shame.
Also, be sure to read part two “Solutions for Overcoming Shame.”
A Shame Story
Nina experienced shame on two counts, one far worse than the other, and both deeply hurtful.
In grade school, kids teased her. She had a birthmark on her face that she couldn’t hide. Teachers told the kids to stop name-calling. The kids saved the names for the playground. Nina’s parents noticed that she stopped smiling. Switching schools helped a bit but not enough.
When Nina was in middle school, an older neighbor boy pretended to be a friend. She began hanging out with him at his house when no one was home. His first touch on her knee seemed an accident. She didn’t make much of it or tell her parents. His next touch was on her breast. She felt confused. He told her that she was his best friend and that this was their secret game. The following week he manipulated her to touch his genitals.
Her temporary solution: To sign up for after-school activities and avoid him and his house. It helped but she pushed down all of her feelings and told no one.
God’s lasting solution: To debunk shame’s lies while embracing the truth of who you are in Christ. This is your true identity! Please ask for My Identity in Christ handout if you think it might help you to find freedom.
Sources of Shame
Here are common ones:
- Growing up in a highly critical home. For example, a student brings home a report card with all As and a solitary B, and her parent focuses on the B and expresses disappointment.
- Growing up in an indifferent home. In this helter-skelter home, a child could pretty much do whatever she wanted — good or bad — and the parents didn’t seem to care. Perhaps they were alcoholics or busy with work or mentally ill. A word for this is neglect. The child may feel that she was in the way, didn’t matter, or had to figure out life on her own.
- Growing up in an abusive home.
- Being abused, from the verbal taunts of a bully to sexual assault.
- Not measuring up to the cultural norm. Examples: dropping out of high school, growing up poor, becoming pregnant while a teen-ager, and so on.
- Not measuring up to our own standards. Someone who struggles in this regard may think, “I must have more friends to have worth.” Or, “I need more money to matter.” Even, “My work must be perfect.”
- An embarrassing, traumatic event like a parent’s suicide or imprisonment.
No matter the source, shame hurts. It keeps you isolated from others, trying to hide your perceived imperfections.
Whatever trial you’ve faced, you can know triumph. Jesus loves you deeply.
And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love. (Romans 5:5)
Overcoming Shame Action Plan
Main point: You can shake free of shame. Here is an action plan that you could use.
FIRST, share your struggle with a trusted Christian friend or a biblical counselor. You may also turn to a pastor. However, take care to avoid emotional attachment and to meet with him no more than one or two times. Titus 2:3-5 says older women should counsel younger women. When you’re vulnerable the wise words of another woman is best.
SECOND, differentiate true guilt from false guilt. The latter is synonymous with shame and is based on feelings, not fact.
EXAMPLE of true guilt.: When you take home office supplies from work, you have true guilt because you stole. Perhaps you had a reason. Maybe your employer was being unfair and you felt that you were “owed.”
EXAMPLE of false guilt: You tell yourself that you are the worst person on the planet that you took something from your employer without permission and were unrighteously angry. You also call yourself worthless and stupid or other names.
GODLY RESPONSE to true guilt: When you respond properly to true guilt, you will own up to your sin. You’ll return the items and talk with your supervisor. You will also talk with God and ask him to change your resentful attitude. The result? You’ll know that God always loves you and accepts you in Christ, and you’ll have joy that you have forgiven and can learn from this trial and become a woman of integrity and courage.
THIRD, identify your negative self-talk. This is easier to say than to do since self-condemnation has become your default; it seems natural, even right.
Start by identifying the self-condemning words and phrases you say to yourself. List them on paper or in the notes of your phone or computer. Keep adding the the list as you notice them.
EXAMPLES of them include “‘I’m ugly” or “nothing good ever happens to me or my family” or “I’m stuck” or “my life sucks.”
FOURTH, challenge your negative self-talk by searching Scripture
FIFTH, build relationships of mutual encouragement.
SIXTH, use social media wisely. So often Instagram stories tempt up to compare ourselves with others.
SEVENTH, determine to believe what God says about you.
You may also want to check out my helpful eBook 7 Steps to Put Your Past in the Past.
by Lucy | Oct 1, 2015 | biblical counseling, emotions, identity in Christ
May I encourage you to toss your to-do list? It burdens you. It tempts you toward pride, if you get it done on time. Your list tempts you to despair if you don’t. It draws you farther from God. It kills you.
You know the killer to-do list, don’t you? It’s the one that intimates you’re not good enough. That you’re not pretty enough, or smart enough, or fit enough, or organized enough, or accomplished enough. On my to-do list for today are “go for a walk,” “send thank yous to banquet volunteers,” “write posts” (including this one. . .up to three right now) as well as 11 more work-related tasks. So far, I have four checked off and am beginning to feel like a worm because it’s 3:34 p.m. and I know I’ll fail to check them off … again.
And my worm mentality could wreck the rest of my day and steal sleep if I let.
But I won’t. You see, there is something much, much, much better than slavishly checking off my to-do’s. Would you like to know what it is? In a moment, I’ll tell you.
First, may I ask, what does your to-do list usually sound like? You’ll recognize it by phrases like:
- “go to the gym”
- “sign up Emily for karate, Michael for Baby Swim, and Jess for travel basketball”
- “organize the bedroom closet”
- “do devotions”
- “bake cookies for church”
- “email Emily’s teacher about science fair”
and on and on and on to ad nauseum. You may have in stored in your head or written on paper or in your Notes app. Like I said, it’s deadly.
Your To-Do List Sucks You Dry
Your to-do’s are the death of you because when we — you and I — begin measuring our worth against them, we come up short, way short. The messages we scribble on our list come from magazine covers, billboards, Pinterest, Facebook, even church. It’s a just-one-more yes kind of existence that drains and exhausts us and leaves us wanting. And dying.
I tried Pinterest a couple years back and signed up for a few boards, but my grilled veggies never looked as delicious as hers and hers and hers, and my pumpkin display couldn’t get even close, not even in the general vicinity of beauty as hers and hers and hers. So I quit.
Have I told you I have a hangup with jealousy? Do you struggle with jealousy too. Or perhaps worry? Or shame? Or exhaustion?
My crappy solution was to withdraw, which considering my mile-long to-do list, this may have been a good thing, a breather. Oxygen is healthy, right? Still, I had wished I could have done better and berated myself. And now — as I write this and my iPhone is tinging (7 in a row, no joke, I counted), reminding me that I forgot to put “figure out a way to get a spam blocker on my phone” on my to-do list — I’m feeling wormy … again.
This despair of not-enough-ness is my death.
Rather than speaking gospel truth to myself, I am chanting worldly lies. And lies kill. Remember what Jesus said about the thief aka Satan?
The thief comes only to kill and steal and destroy. I have come to give you life, life to the full. John 10:10
The Better To-Do
The better to-do is rather simple. It is believing in your okay-ness but not because your great or anything like that but because Jesus is great and he loves you.
Resist the world’s call to “Do more!” “Work for God!” (yes, a worldly message in church) “Look like 30 at 50!” “Be more!”
Instead rest in God’s truth that you are blessed and forgiven and perfect in Christ. Don’t these gospel truths speak life to your soul? Do they sound too good to be true? The thing is, they are true. The thief doesn’t want you to know that or to believe that. His sick game is to steal your rest and your joy and your peace.
As Elyse Fitzpatrick says, “The gospel is about broken people who are not simply “not okay” but who are more sinful and flawed than we ever dared believe. And although we know in our heads that we should ignore worldly ways of thinking, it’s something we have to work at all the time.”
The gospel — this good news — is right now, just as we are (you and me and every sister in Christ), we are our Father’s beloved daughters. He cannot love you any more or any less because he is love, perfect love.
God loves you and cares for you. He is for you. But your to-do list — the one that condemns us to pride and despair — kill it, embrace your okay-ness, and rest. You’re weary, aren’t you? Why not, relax?
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28
