Focus on Mindset Rather than Matter

Recently I was interviewed for a blog entitled, Law of Attraction Network regarding the change in my mindset as I've worked to lose weight. I enjoyed the opportunity to stop and reflect on not only the changes I've made in my diet and lifestyle, but how I now look at myself and my health goals differently. You can read the interview here.

Most of my adult life I struggled with trying to lose weight. Disgusted with how I felt and looked, I'd vow to change. Full of energy, I'd start a new diet or gym, but couldn't persevere long enough to experience significant change. Then I'd accuse myself of being lazy, unmotivated, stupid, etc. As long as I agreed with those labels, I couldn't hear from God about how he loved me and wanted me to love myself.

While sitting on the other side of the counseling couch, God convicted me of bearing false witness against myself and I confessed my inability to see myself through God's eyes. That confession allowed me to humble myself and God spoke truth through his Word and others. My change in mindset came about as I received and believed in truth, giving me the energy and focus I needed to make healthy changes and lose 70 pounds.

In what areas do you struggle? Maybe God is calling you to learn how to better love yourself too.

Revel in Being Loved

Before we can do relationship with others well, we need to revel in how God loves us. That means learning how to close out the world and sit inside God’s heart. Ask God to shut out everything clamoring for your attention and develop a special, unique place in your soul where the two of you can communicate. 

I do this by reading Psalms to hear David talk about God’s loving kindness and feeling Moses’ frustration with stiff-necked Israelites. Be inspired by Peter’s zealousness and go on an emotional roller coaster with John to share Jesus’ last days. Listen to music that stirs your heart. Sad, mad, joyful -- pour out all your feelings and God will share Himself with you. What we gain is a different way to view ourselves and others through God’s eyes.

A good example of this is when Jesus was invited to have dinner with a Pharisee named Simon. A woman anointed Jesus’ feet with her tears and wiped them dry with her hair, kissing his feet and pouring perfume on them. From the Pharisee’s viewpoint, she was a known sinner and he would never have allowed such an unclean person to touch him. Jesus told a parable to help Simon see what the woman already knew about forgiveness and mercy. 

God’s viewpoint always starts with seeing how much He cares for us. Despite our weaknesses, it’s His loving kindness that leads us to repentance and new life. Humankind sets up artificial standards and judges whether people measure up. When we view the world through relationship with God, there is love, grace, mercy, compassion, and acceptance.

Do you revel in being loved by God, even when you see your weaknesses? 

The Bible truthfully reminds me of God's constant, unwavering love. I experience it in my soul when I feel the love I have for my son Ben, knowing God loves me even more deeply. I surrender to the waves of emotion when I'm in the midst of worship. And because I revel in God's love in all these ways, I'm able to believe it by an act of my will when my shortcomings and immaturities are painfully revealed.

Excerpt From the Other Side of the Couch: A Biblical Counselor's Guide to Relational Living

Photos by Judy Lair

Are You Choosing to Live in the Matrix?

One of the most detrimental counterfeits to relational living is the Outcome-based model. It promises a direct correlation between working hard and reaching goals. If I work 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, the outcome-based formula tells me I will receive all the benefits of the “American Dream.” On its surface, striving to reach goals and benchmarks appears to be helpful and motivating. That’s why this model is enticing. It’s much more convenient to independently meet our own needs without relying on God! The “health and wealth” theology uses this same formulaic approach. If I pray and believe hard enough that God wants me to be blessed in specific ways, then God has no choice but to make it happen.

In the Relational model, each person invests in helping one another grow and prosper in loving God, themselves, and others. The Outcome-based model preys on the fear that our legitimate needs will not be met and offers a counterfeit solution to a manufactured problem. Just look at how products are marketed. Instead of focusing on the qualities of a product and letting the consumer decide what they need, commercials appeal to our emotional vulnerabilities. We’re told there’s a direct correlation between wanting to be loved, accepted, admired, etc. and a particular product. 

God’s leadership style is repeated throughout the Davidic Psalms: “His love endures forever.” Leadership without sacrificial love eventually becomes self-centered and punitive. The Bible shows how exasperating and difficult it was for God to lead households and nations of stiff-necked, stubborn, immature people. Trying to lead when you’re immature in loving relationally is exhausting and potentially tempting.

Humankind decided to create a shortcut and instituted their own leadership model. Most outcome-based leaders tell us what goals are godly and institute a set of rules and standards designed to reach those self-determined one-size-fits-all goals. In this model, there’s always a set of negative consequences for broken rules or unmet goals.

God gave us the Ten Commandments to show humankind the futility of using rules to replace relationship. What God wants most is for us to draw near to Him so He can draw near to us. Jesus cried over Jerusalem like a mother hen cries over her missing baby chicks. Our worth and value can only be understood through our soul connecting with our creator. When human leadership creates a general set of standards, it leads us away from God’s heart and we lose our personhood.

Outcome-based systems connect value and worth directly to achievements. In many homes, schools, churches, small groups, etc., you must follow the rules or meet specified goals in order to receive approval and be recognized as valuable, competent, or good. Not living up to those expectations means letting people down, an unthinkable sin. I’m not taking issue with setting up systems to encourage people to grow individually and contribute to the community. The Bible talks a lot about having a vision and pressing onward to run the race well. But when humankind use their own standards to judge worth and value, we are putting ourselves in the place of God.

There can be an internal and external tug-of-war when we’re conditioned from childhood to connect our character, worth, and value to pleasing someone or meeting goals set by someone else. If an authority figure we respect uses guilt and shame to ensure compliance, we get a warped view of what God expects from us. When Adam and Eve chose independence over relationship with God, humankind learned how to deeply hurt each other. Rather than focusing on ways to support, encourage, and care, people became objects to use and manipulate for personal gain.

One of my favorite movies is The Matrix because it beautifully portrays this tug-of-war. Its basic premise is that the world known by most humans is actually a simulation created by living machines to manipulate and control humanity for their own benefit. Computer hacker Neo begins to find and question computer anomalies and he’s recruited by a band of truth-seekers. The most important scene in the movie is when Morpheus tells Neo he has the choice to open his eyes to the simulation. Morpheus warns Neo if he chooses to see the truth, he cannot go back to ignorance. Such an immense decision reveals Neo’s character. Does he want to shut his eyes to seeing the world in bondage and continue to do what is best for him or is he motivated by truth, even if it means personal hardship and fighting against oppression?

Neo chooses to take the truthful red pill and when he wakes up, he finds himself attached to an electrical machine by an elaborate cable system. This is what reality looked like for those humans who were enslaved in the dream simulation. Reality was not as pretty as the dream world, but embracing it showed strength and integrity. Neo makes it his life’s work to help the Zion brotherhood bring truth to the world. The movie shows another man named Cyber who decides he’s tired of living in reality and schemes to return to the matrix so he can live a comfortable, pretend lifestyle. Like Judas, Cyber betrays the Zion brotherhood to the enemy machines for his own benefit.

The price for embracing the outcome-based system is a life of fear and despair. Life is a never-ending worry cycle that you won’t measure up. Every day you work feverishly to reach a goal set by someone else and when you do, you work even harder to stay ahead of the curve. This cycle eventually ends with you crashing in despair, wondering what makes life worthwhile. We keep insanely believing that doing the same things will bring about a different result. Instead, we need to question the beliefs on which we base our life efforts. 

At some point, every person asks the question, “Is this all there is to life?” We may ask it when we’re at the top of the mountain or in a deep pit from which we never seem to climb out of -- but we all ask it. The Outcome-based, logical strategy dangles the carrot, telling us to pull up our boots and to put in extra effort and time. It promises if we work hard, we can achieve all our dreams. Has that been true in your life? For me, all that hard work left me burned out and exhausted.

For Christians, this strategy usually means we throw ourselves into church and ministry. We desperately seek emotional highs during worship and obsessively spend our time giving to others. But even these “good” things leave us feeling exhausted, empty, incompetent, worthless, and desperate for happiness and joy. In such a place, we are vulnerable to manipulation and self-destruction. Rather than continuing to do more, why not re-evaluate your life strategy?

Living an Outcome-based lifestyle means enduring never-ending fear, self-protection, bitterness, and resentment. How do you know which system you are living in? Pray Psalm 51 and ask God to show you if any of these Outcome-based themes are present in your heart and mind on a regular basis:

o   Blaming others

o   Refusing to take responsibility for one’s own issues

o   Living in learned helplessness

o   Taking on the identity of a martyr

o   Giving up on life, living in despair and hopelessness

o   Attempting to fix others through manipulative techniques

o   Demanding obedience while denying personhood

o   Denying the role of emotions

o   Striving to be independent rather than interdependent

o   Living life as Martha instead of Mary

o   Choosing to prioritize ministry at the expense of relationships

o   Denying immaturities and defending them to others

o   Refusing to allow others to know you for fear of being hurt

o   Creating rules legislating worth, value and acceptance

Excerpt From the Other Side of the Couch: A Biblical Counselor's Guide to Relational Living

Realizing We Are Naked

Relationships on earth began the moment God breathed life into Adam. Dysfunctional relationships began the moment Adam and Eve believed the serpent’s lies about God’s character and intent.

Genesis tells us that in the beginning, God walked with Adam and Eve every day. God already knew every detail of his creation, yet chose to experience both Adam and Eve in a personal, intimate way; walking and talking with them, delighting in their enjoyment of all He had created specifically for them. That relational connection allowed them to know and believe in the righteousness of God’s character. Because of that belief, they were able to trust that God’s heart was always loving towards them. Then entered doubt.

Most likely, the serpent had been whispering to Adam and Eve for a long while. Every time they walked past the forbidden tree, the serpent probably whispered doubts about God’s motivation and questioned his trustworthiness.

Did God really want their best? Why did he deny them something that was good to their eyes and not let them make their own choice? What exactly was God’s motive in creating them and giving them such a temptation?

Every human being has these big picture questions, whether whispered deep down or shouted with a fist raised to the sky. Human beings question God’s motives. When circumstances do not line up with what we believe we deserve or what we’ve been taught God should allow, we blame God. Sometimes we tell God he’s unfair. Other times we’re so disappointed, we distance ourselves from him.

The serpent tempted Adam and Eve with the ability to take full control of their own decision-making. Why risk someone else, even God, not having my best interests at heart? I suspect each one of us would have made the same decision to have autonomy and ultimate control over our own life. I know at one time I would have made that decision.

At the moment when Adam and Eve acted upon their conclusion and chose control over relationship, their eyes were opened and the pair realized they were naked. I don’t think this passage was talking about their physical eyes. Instead, this talks about looking at themselves and each other through relational eyes. In that instant, realizing they were cut off from the source of love, all the responsibility for loving well rested solely on each individual. What an unimaginable heavy burden that realization must have been. How, in the name of all that is holy, were they supposed to know themselves, each other, and God so intimately well that they could do relationship perfectly?

I imagine panic set in pretty quickly, especially as they heard God calling for them in the Garden. This was the first relational test on their own and how did they handle it? They hid, lied about it, and then pointed fingers at each other. The ability to be humble, sacrificial, and truthful was decimated when the connection to God was severed. How utterly tragic for them and for all of humankind. The relational consequences experienced by the generations following Adam and Eve’s removal from the garden have been devastating.

Prior to banishment, the relationship between husband, wife, and God was an unending flow of care and love between and among them. Adam and Eve understood who they were and embraced their worth and value from within the relationship with God. Now separated from God, Eve would look for her worth and value from her husband. But Adam’s heart would no longer be turned toward Eve or God as his relational needs could now be met solely by the work of his hands.

Once the connection to God was gone, humankind needed to learn how to love well on our own. Important relational skills needed to be re-learned such as communicating needs, listening to each other without becoming defensive, and moving toward each other when hurt or angry. Without direct access to God’s compassion, empathy, grace, and forgiveness, Adam and Eve must have begun to distance from each other. I can draw this conclusion both from personal and general human experience, but also from looking at the account of Cain and Abel. Children learn from the relational model they see at home. It seems pretty clear that Cain did not know how to communicate and process his hurtful feelings towards his brother and God.

I wish I could have heard what Adam and Eve told their boys about God and their actions in the Garden. Did they take responsibility for their decisions or did they continue to blame each other? What we do know is that each son had a different view of God which showed up in their sacrificial presentation. Abel evidenced his reverent heart attitude by bringing the best sacrifice to God. Cain, however, seemed to be resentful from the beginning. Maybe he was angry at missing out on the positive benefits of living in the Garden. Maybe he thought God judged Adam and Eve too harshly and he was bitter, believing the lies the serpent told about God’s tainted motives.

When Adam and Eve were cut off from all the goodness of God, it negatively affected the physical world and our physical bodies as well. To me, the account of Cain is the first evidence of a person being fundamentally broken. In my definition, broken people have either lost or were born with (and never developed) the capacity to form a relational connection. They do not value the feelings of anyone other than themselves; therefore, they can treat others cruelly without feelings of remorse. Genesis fast forwards in time and shows us what happened when this brokenness spread through the land.

The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. (Genesis 6:5 NIV)

In a comparably short amount of time, humankind become so broken that the Lord was grieved and filled with pain that he had even created life (Genesis 6:6). How heartbreaking for God, whose sole purpose in creating us was to teach us to love. God decided to give humankind one more chance to choose a lifestyle of love, and he sent the flood to cleanse the earth of its brokenness.

Once the ark came to rest, God lovingly began protecting humankind from themselves by giving Noah, Moses, and Abraham guidelines and commandments designed to show us our need for God. Kind of a reverse psychology approach. By trying to live up to a set of behavioral standards we could never meet, we would hopefully recognize the futility of figuring it out on our own.

For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do -- this I keep on doing.”  Romans 7:18-19 NIV.

We hear Paul’s frustration and confession that in and of himself, he cannot live life well. Such an admission leads him to the truth that Jesus Christ came to free us from striving to follow the law so we can live according to the Relational model. This model is based on continuously communicating with God about our self-protective barriers. It’s humbling and embarrassing when I get those light bulb moments and a blind spot is brought to my attention. My first reaction is to defend and cover up -- exactly what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden. But these days I want to receive healing more than I need to hide so I’ve learned how to endure the initial anxiety and welcome the revelation. How about you?

Excerpt From the Other Side of the Couch: A Biblical Counselor's Guide to Relational Living
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