Overwhelmed by Grace

by Mitzi Brown

I was listening this morning to my favorite Christian radio station when they were interviewing an artist who has recently released a new album. Something they said resonated with me – so often people I meet with say they feel like forgiveness and God’s loving kindness, protection, provision, etcetera is for everyone else. Like God has singled them out as unworthy of love. What a lonely, defeated place to live. That kind of thinking surely stems from some earthly person’s influence – I find nothing in Scripture that supports this. But sadly, our broken parental or caregiving figures often shape how we perceive God.

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... sadly, our broken parental or caregiving figures often shape how we perceive God.

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I was thinking about how much it cost Jesus to forgive me. Just my sin alone is enough to kill. Romans 6:23 (NIV) says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in[a] Christ Jesus our Lord”. Imagine that not only my sin but the sin of every person – billions or trillions of people who have lived on earth from now until the day of Jesus’ second coming – were crucified with him. That’s a lot of sin.

Just one person’s sin is enough to kill. But He took all of it – everyone’s. And all of that was not enough to hold him in the grave. His love is stronger than the whole world’s ugliness! He rose back to life, conquering billions of deaths – not just His own. He conquered my death and yours.

Let’s paint a picture. Sin is gross, so let’s use something most of us will find kind of gross to illustrate. Let’s say the sin of one person is like having to clean up the contents one full septic tank – the place is full of human excrement, paper products used to wipe away excrement from skin, urine, mold, mildew, and bacteria. Yuk! And that’s just one. Imagine the contents of billions of septic tanks dumped on one man. Disgusting, right? But this God-man is so blamelessly perfect that even though the impact of this enormously disgusting pile of human waste is enough to kill him, it is not enough to keep him in the grave. I cannot even fathom how high and wide this pile of filth would reach. But His love is more perfect and cleaner than all of it. And mere contact with him wipes all of that junk out. It’s vanished! Gone! Not a single sign of the horrible mess remains! Jesus is like the Tide pen of sin! (All the women got that …)

Romans 8:1-4 (NIV) says, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you[a]free from the law of sin and death.  For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

Yes, His love has conquered for me and you! For believers in Jesus – that He is the only way, the Son of God, who lived, died as is raised to life – there is no real death. Sure, this body perishes, and there is suffering for all who walk through life outside of Eden. And it hurts – not minimizing that. Nobody escapes unscathed. But thankfully, this is not all there is.

When that moves from head to heart, I am overwhelmed by His grace. #grace

Re-flect Rather than De-flect, or How to Cultivate Intimacy

By Mitzi Brown

So often in relational conflict our instinct is self-protection rather than self-reflection. This instinct results in the “yeah, but” mentality – you know, when the first words out of our mouths are “yeah, but you do ….”

Sound familiar?

Probably somewhere along the line most of us have done this. If we have not said the words aloud, in all likelihood, we were thinking them. And thinking them still affects our attitude and prohibits self-reflection.

While nobody wants to hear criticism or feel blamed for the relational problems, the reaction of deflection is not life-giving for any relationship.

Wait. We are looking for intimacy, right? We want closeness, trust, etc.? Just checking. Because if you’re looking for relationship-destruction, then carry on with that deflection stuff.

But if you want intimacy, keep reading. Nobody likes criticism. Honestly, inside of the criticism we hear, there may be a grain of something we might actually benefit from working on.

Let’s think about the goal of our relationships for a moment. We would all, or most of us, agree that we want closeness. We want trust. We want intimacy. We want to feel loved. We want to feel supported. We want to know that the person closest to us in life is for not against us. All or most of that resonate? If that is not what we are looking for, then we are not looking for intimacy, we are looking for someone to use at our convenience if I might be so blunt.

When we deflect rather than reflect, the message sent is that the other party is messed up and I’m on the road to high holy perfection. We’re a lot like those sons of thunder, James and John fighting over who gets to have the place of honor next to Jesus in heaven. Ouch. In reality, we have a heart condition that is not conducive to healthy, trusting, vulnerable, heart-connected relationship. That heart condition will not produce intimacy. Oh, it will be productive all right – so if separation, divorce, wounded feelings, relational distance, and distrust are what you’re after … well, you get the point. Humility and self-reflection breed intimacy and closeness.

Cultivating an environment where all of those positive relational qualities flourish takes intention and effort. Here are some of the things we can do intentionally to cultivate trust, closeness, intimacy, feeling loved, and supported in relationships. If the person you are involved with is unavailable for these, it just might be a great big red flag.

• Speak with kindness and gentleness to one another. Say please and thank you. Ask for your partner’s opinion and expect to get it. Be genuinely interested in what they want. Be complimentary as often as you can – even when it means searching for something to be complimentary about. #kindness #gentleness

• Refrain from criticism, contemptuous talk, defensive talk, and shutting down (or stonewalling). These are four relationship death traps identified by John and Julie Gottman, marriage research experts, as forms of interaction that destroy relationships. How detrimental are they? Well, the Gottman’s call these four tactics the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Yeah. #fourhorsemen

• Learn to listen well. Often, we are already formulating a response or defense before our partner gets half way through speaking. (Deflection is a defensive response.) Cultivate the habit of listening deeply – not just to the words that are being spoken, but for the emotion that your partner is feeling. Often harsh words are a symptom of feeling threatened, alone, disrespected, or hurt in some way. Look for those feelings that are underneath and ask about what your partner is feeling if he or she is not expressing it clearly. Be sure to validate their feelings. That does not mean you agree with their feelings; it does mean you accept their feelings are genuinely being felt by them. When we care about others, we want to understand their hurts, frustrations and empathize. We want them to feel heard and important. Reflecting what they say and feel helps your partner believe you care and have understood them. #listenwell #identifythefeeling #seekfirsttounderstand #James1:19

• Learn to communicate your own desires and feelings without blaming your partner. This means speaking assertively – not aggressively – there is a difference. Assertiveness is communicating honestly about our own desires and feelings. Aggressiveness is imposing our desires and feelings on others. Assertive speaking might sound like this, “I would really like to have Chinese food tonight. That would be really satisfying for me. I wonder what you would like?” Aggressive speaking might be, “I want Chinese food, and I’m hungry now. Could you get a move on?” Assertiveness invites others in. Aggressiveness pushes others out. There’s no intimacy in aggression. #assertivespeaking

• Great relationships are made up of two people who seek to out-serve one another. If my mind set is on how much I can get, my mind is set wrong. Happy couples are excited when they get to do something for one another – whether it is helping in the kitchen, the yard, with the kids, with dinner, leaving a love note on the bathroom mirror, or offering to do an unpleasant take just because you know the other is not fond of it. Serving your partner in their love language is key. (The five love languages are receiving gifts, words of affirmation, physical touch, quality time, and acts of service. You and your other half can take the free assessment to find out your love languages here https://www.5lovelanguages.com/quizzes/). #lovelanguages #Ephesians5:21

• Ask for forgiveness. One of the greatest acts of humility is admitting wrong doing and asking for forgiveness. Running a close second might be granting forgiveness. These are essential skills and practices in intimate relationships in which we want to grow deep in trust. Take responsibility for your own mess and practice the gift of seeking forgiveness.

• Reflect rather than deflect. And last but not least, in great relationships, partners consistently listen when there is a complaint and reflect on how they can do better. They consider how their speech, actions or behaviors have affected the other party and because of deep care and concern, make a concerted effort to change the offending behavior. Reflection allows for personal growth. And me is the only person I have control over. #reflectratherthandeflect #Matthew7:3-5

Of course, changing the way we interact in relationship with others is difficult. It takes a lot of practice. Sometimes we need help. That is what relationship counseling is all about – receiving help, correction, insights and skills that help us connect on the level we really desire.

Soul Thirst

Soul Thirst

By Mitzi Brown

Today’s post is based on Psalm 63.1 (NLT), “O God, you are my God; earnestly I search for you, my soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water.” (emphasis mine)

Sometimes life’s circumstances lead me to feel parched and weary. That’s one reason I do not dwell on the daily news. It seems like there’s enough bad news and negativity to go around without spending hours each evening ingesting more. Anyone? For me, it is life-sucking rather than life-giving and can divert my attention from higher matters. Sure, it is good to be informed about the state of affairs locally, nationally and globally – I just need to limit my exposure because it can be really draining. #weary #parched

That is what this verse of scripture averts my attention from– the life-sucking – and toward the life-giving. “O God, you are my God; earnestly I search for you”.#lifesucking #lifegiving

Let’s be honest with each other – we are friends, right? Often there is so much negativity – such depressing stuff – it seems like nothing good is happening. The good certainly is not the headline grabber in the nightly news, right? And God. “My soul thirsts for you”, I want, need, desire, require your hope, filling, healing, absolute goodness to be made manifest and inescapable in my heart, mind and soul.

This particular Psalm, as many other Psalms, was written by David, the King of Israel. The language he was inspired to use here is important. David refers to that dry, desperate, parched feeling of being weary and beaten down. I relate sometimes. Life is hard, right friends? Sickness, persecution, mean people, grumpiness, death, separations, relationship struggles, work problems, financial woes, the list goes on.

David talks about his soul thirsting and his whole body longing, panging, and desiring refreshment that he knows is only available from his good living God. Have you ever been in that place where your emotional pain physically hurt? It sounds pretty desperate and like he is in deep need for God’s touch in this verse. We can all probably relate to moments or seasons of life that feel that way. We wonder if it will ever end and what it might feel like to find that refreshing peace and joy of God again. Really, it does not matter how long you’ve lived – whether a child, adolescent, or various stages of adulthood – every era carries different kinds of heaviness. Different types of wounds and weight. Varying degrees of wounding, pain, dryness, loneliness, and hurt. Those things tend to compound and grow heavier without intentional intervention and the searching that David speaks of in this passage.

The name of my counseling practice, “The Well Therapy”, actually comes from this idea of thirst for God – the living water that Jesus describes in John 4. If you are unfamiliar, Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well. First of all, it would have been culturally inconceivable for a Jew to be engaging with a Samaritan who were considered unclean heretics, and maybe even less popular for Jesus to be having a one-on-one conversation with a Samaritan woman – scandalous maybe even. And this particular woman ventured out to the well for her daily water in the mid-day, not when all of the other women would have gone in the early day before the heat became brutal. You see, this woman was probably scorned and gossiped about - even in Samaritan society because she had been married five times and was currently living unmarried with a man, the sixth man. A shameful situation. She may have been the recipient of uncomfortable sidelong glances from other women – you know the kind. But Jesus did not offer scorn. He also did not sugar-coat her circumstances. He did not make excuses for her to make poor decisions and live in sin because she’d had a rough life or lacked the ability to provide for herself, which might have been a reason for her to be cohabitating with a man who was not her husband – in that time women without husbands and extended family to care for them often did not fare well. He did not do that because there is no justification for sin. Sin breaks God’s heart because it damages our hearts and our relationship with Him. #sin #cohabitation #brokenrelationships

Instead, Jesus offers her a healing relationship that will, if she accepts it, provide refreshing, healing and hope. He offers her living water and tells her if she partakes of this relationship she will never be parched, desperate, longing, lonely, or panging again. He offers her the opportunity to drink from The Well. Not Jacob's Well, The Well -- Himself. #healing

This refreshing is what David speaks of in Psalm 63:1, “my soul thirsts”, “my whole body longs”. Centuries before Jesus was born – probably between 1011 and 971 BC these words were likely penned because that is when David reigned as King of Israel and most commentaries believe the words were written during his reign. I find these parallels in Scripture between David writing of thirst and longing for God and the encounter at Jacob's Well inescapable - not coincidental, rather inspired. #refreshing #inspiredWordofGod

If you are like me, we often feel as David did here – persecuted, rejected, fearful, wounded, hopeless, and deep longing. But David knew precisely where to turn. We have his amazing words inspired by God to guide us today. Be filled. #befilled

Other passages today:

Psalm 27:4 (NLT) The one thing I ask of the LORD – the thing I seek the most– is to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, delighting in the LORD’s perfections and meditating in his Temple.

Psalm 34:15 (NLT) The eyes of the LORD watch over those who do right; his ears are open to their cries for help.

What is God speaking to you as you ingest this? Be filled!