Their Responsibility or Mine?

Do you ever worry that someone you love, will one day cease to love you back? Do you ever question whether your best friend, wants to stay your best friend? Does your mind race with doubt of whether the person you look up to, thinks you have what it takes?

I am sure all of us, on more than one occasion, has doubted that our loved ones will love us always. Part of the reason why we doubt, is we have experienced hurt or heart ache more than once; so it's easy to believe it will happen again.

The real question we need to ask ourselves, is what do we do when those types of thoughts come rushing in?

Often times our knee jerk reaction is to simply ask the people around us, "Do you still love me?" "Will you always be my friend?" "Do you think I have what it takes?"

Seems like an easy, nice and tidy fix.

The problem is, when we deal with feelings in this way only, we are putting the pressure to resolve our feelings on someone else. Most of the time, it is our own responsibility to work through those thoughts and feelings with God.

If I feel insecure, it is not my wife's or my friend's job to encourage that insecurity out of me. If I feel unsure of someone's respect for me, it is not their job to constantly remind me they respect me until I am no longer unsure.

Often times, the negative thoughts or feelings we are experiencing in our relationships are a reflection of something in us that needs to change.

If you find yourself constantly wondering if your friends and family value who you are, take a moment and process that with God, in light of His Word.

In Matthew 10, Jesus is talking to the disciples about how to deal with their fear of persecution. He reminds the disciples that not even a bird falls out of the sky dead, without God knowing about it. So if God is that concerned and attentive to the birds of the air, how much more is His mind toward us, the pride of His creation?

Matthew 10:31 "Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows."

To put it plainly, you are incredibly valuable. When you don't feel valuable, you're wrong... you are valuable. If your friends or family treat you like you have no value... they are wrong to do so, you are valuable.

This may seem like a over simplified approach, but I encourage you to try it. When your mind gets stuck on one of those ugly thoughts, and you begin to reach out to ask someone else to put your mind at ease; pause first, take it to God, and see what He says about the issue.

I believe you will find, that not only will God help you through that one moment, He will help you avoid future moments like that one. He will remove the root of your doubt or fear, so those types of thoughts no longer return.

Broken, But the Good Kind

I remember when I was younger I would listen to my older brother Geoff pray. I could hear him as he would pray just over his breath, and he would always finish his prayer with, "thank you for dumping my family."  

Night after night, I would listen to him trying to figure out the context, discovering how dumping our family is a good thing. Finally one day, I decided to be brave, and try it out at the end of my prayer and see how things went. My mom was listening, so I figured some feedback might help. So in closing I said, "and God, thanks for dumping my family." My Mom was thrown a bit back, asking why I would say such a strange thing. I told her, "Geoff always says that at the end of his prayer." Without skipping a beat, my brother yelled from across the room, "thank you for what you've done for my family!" 

I'm not sure how I got that so mixed up... but hey, it happened. 

In the same way, we say things in the church, that are completely mysterious to someone visiting church for the first time, or new to church life. I think worship leaders are the best at this... "Thank you Jesus, we are broken before you, bowing at your feet, extolling You with the highest praise." I think to most of us in the room, we have tuned out such language as church language, but to the new family, that kind of prayer, at best weirds them out, at worst, it scares them a bit. 

Changing how our worship leaders pray is a discussion I will avoid here, but I do want to focus in on one saying we hear a lot in the church. 

Broken before God. 

When you first hear this, it sounds like this painfully uncomfortable and aggressive thing. There may be some who disagree with me, but that's not at all what I picture when I think about being broken before God.

To me, broken before God is the choice to abandon all our normal plans and ideas of how we face difficult moments in life. 

Here is what that prayer sounds like for me.

"God, I take all the temporary things I place my trust in, and throw them to the ground, like clay jars full of misplaced hope, I let them fall to the ground, shattering into pieces.  Not my plans, not my strength God. Those things are broken, I stand before You trusting You, I am broken and waiting before you God." 

Brokenness before God is actually a wonderful relief. 

How have you viewed brokenness before God? What other "church phrases" have you come across that you aren't sure about?