Destructive Emotions

Yummy cupcakes at the WoW weekend!

I returned home yesterday from a great weekend at the Women of the Word (WoW) conference in Dunfermline, Scotland where I had the privilege of giving three talks from 1 Thessalonians on the theme of encouragement.

Our first session looked at the biblical mandate for giving and taking encouragement as seen in the relationship between the apostle Paul and the Thessalonian Christians. The second session was about learning to live in a way that pleases God while the third session focused on living in hope as we wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to return. Practical application of biblical principles was high on the agenda!

Our prayer and worship times were uplifting and we learnt a lot about the work of the Preshal Trust from Annette Clydesdale during the missionary focus. As this was the 30th anniversary of WoW in Scotland, we had a special “Down Memory Lane” session as part of our evening celebration.

I loved meeting many women for the first time and it was so good to enjoy fellowship with them over the weekend and to share in their joys and sympathise with their struggles.

In addition to “feeding on the Word” we also fed on very tasty meals! For me, one of the food highlights was the delicious cupcakes that appeared just after Saturday lunch. Yummy!

All in all, a great weekend to get in touch with God and with each other.

Thank you, WoW organisers, for inviting me to be your speaker!
 

Are you a worrier? I am. After all, there often seems good reason to worry. Am I not being irresponsible if I don’t worry in some situations? Could it be that, by worrying, I’m actually making it less likely that the thing I’m worried about will happen? Is worry, therefore, serving a useful function? The answer, of course, is NO!

The word worry comes from the Old English, meaning to choke or strangle. It also carries the idea of being pulled in different directions. Worry pulls you apart. It’s very divisive. Have you ever noticed that worry divides your mind? You find you cannot focus on the task in front of you because worrying about something else distracts you and divides your attention. Worry also divides your will. It’s hard to make even the smallest decisions when you’re worried. One minute you’re making one decision, the next you’re pulled in the opposite direction and are considering making a different decision. Worry also divides your emotions. Sometimes it appears you’re in control of your feelings; at other times worry pulls your emotions in all sorts of directions so you end up not really knowing how you feel.

I was reading in Matthew’s gospel recently where Jesus gave some straight talk on worry to His disciples. He told them not to worry about everyday life; or about having enough food, drink and clothes; or about tomorrow. He concluded his teaching on worry by commenting on what little faith His disciples had. This made me wonder about the connection between worry and faith. Did they have a problem with worry because they had a problem with faith? If so, might the same be true of me? Perhaps if my faith were stronger and healthier, worry wouldn’t have such a stranglehold over me. This realisation came to me when I was walking around our garden. Let me tell you about it.

We live in a house with a large garden that is mostly made up of grass. Neither my husband nor I are keen gardeners and, as a result, the quality of our grass is less than perfect. As I looked at the grass on my recent walk-about, I could see all sorts of things growing there that we hadn’t planted, like moss, clover, dandelion, and lots of others I couldn’t name! Somewhere among these weeds was the grass we had planted but it was being crowded out by these invaders. That’s when it hit me – the unwelcome weeds taking over our grass were like worries that choke the life of faith in us.

But what could we do about it? Given the huge size of the garden, there was no way we could pull these weeds out individually. We knew from past experience that new weeds would soon take root to replace the ones we had removed. I had recently read that the key to controlling weeds is to keep the grass as healthy as possible. So, instead of the weeds crowding out the grass, perhaps the grass would begin to crowd out the weeds if we spent more time tending it by feeding and watering it regularly. From that point on, growing a healthy lawn became our main gardening goal! Do you see how this relates to the need to focus more on building up the “grass” of our faith rather than concentrating primarily on getting rid of the “weeds” of worry in our lives?
But how might you do this? Why not try these “faith-builders”:

• FOCUS on the truth that it is impossible to please God without faith (Heb.11:6).
• FIX your eyes on Jesus on whom your faith depends from start to finish (Heb.12:2).
• FEED your faith by reminding yourself of the many promises found in the Bible.
• FILL unoccupied moments with praise to God, for example, while stopped at a red light or queuing at the supermarket.
• FREE up a few minutes each day to appreciate how blessed you are – and then thank God for this!
• FOLLOW through on replenishing relationships by getting in touch with people who will refresh you spiritually and emotionally.
• FINISH the day by thanking God for the faith He has given you and ask Him to show you how you can keep translating it into action.

Let’s make it really hard for worry to choke our faith! 

Adapted from Just Between Us, Winter 2011 (c) Florence MacKenzie 

One of my favourite bible characters is the Old Testament prophet, Jonah. In many ways, he’s not a particularly likeable character and certainly not someone on whom you would want to model your life. Nevertheless, the story of God’s dealings with him throughout the book that bears his name is fascinating in that it reveals not just the self-focused heart of the prophet, but the sinner-focused heart of the God whom he served.

God’s generosity throughout this book is truly outrageous. He is overwhelmingly patient with His rebellious prophet, both before and after Jonah reluctantly embarks on a preaching assignment; He reveals Himself through His awesome power to terrified sailors, who, it seems, respond to Him in worship; and He pours His compassion on the inhabitants of a godless city when they turn to Him in belief and repentance. God’s outrageous generosity in all these incidents is nothing less than gracious generosity. After all, even generosity that’s over the top might sometimes be earned or deserved by its recipients, whereas the essence of grace is that it can never be earned and it is always undeserved. That’s what makes God’s generosity so outrageous.

God’s gracious generosity to the people of Nineveh is truly staggering. Known as ‘the city of blood’, Assyria’s capital was home to the most evil group of people you could ever imagine. They didn’t just kill their victims, they tortured them. Their leader, particularly, knew no bounds to cruelty. When his enemies were captured, they were often flayed alive and he used their skins to cover the city walls of places he had conquered. It wasn’t unusual for him to cut off the noses of his living prisoners and to build huge pyramids with the heads of those he killed. Yet, despite this great wickedness, the king, along with all those living in Nineveh, received the compassion and forgiveness of God. They received grace, which meant they got the forgiveness they didn’t deserve, and mercy, which meant they didn’t get the judgement they did deserve. This outrageous generosity of God was evident as soon as the Ninevites believed and turned to Him in repentance. And, all things being equal, they wouldn’t have repented had Jonah not preached a message of impending judgement to them. You might think that Jonah would have been absolutely thrilled with the outcome of his preaching!

But this successful preacher, who had previously been so reluctant to bring God’s message to the people of Nineveh, was seriously miffed and responded angrily to God’s gracious generosity. Jonah’s anger became turned in on himself and he demonstrated ‘retroflexed rage’. His internalised anger made him depressed enough to want to die. He then became angry over a withered plant. While Jonah lashed out in anger, God poured out His compassion on a repentant people and a rebellious prophet. The people of Nineveh and the prophet of God couldn’t have been more different but, despite this, there was one area of similarity between them – they were all undeserving of God’s magnanimity. It’s the same today in that not one of us is worthy to receive any blessing from God at all, yet He still dispenses it on those whom He chooses. That’s grace. That’s outrageous generosity.
 

Is it really possible to be positive in a negative world? None of us is exempt from negative experiences, so I’d like to share with you three things we can do in order to develop, and maintain, a positive outlook.

We can check our thinking. Many of the problems we experience in life can be aggravated by the way we think. When life takes a downturn, our thought life is often the first thing to get out of kilter and, before we know it, we’ve fallen into patterns of faulty thinking. An example is when we assume things are true when they’re not. In the middle of negative experiences, perhaps you’ve found yourself saying, “God doesn’t care; I think He might have abandoned me.”

We know this is faulty thinking because it cuts across what we read in God’s Word, the Bible. He tells us that He loves us with an everlasting love ; He promises He will never leave us nor forsake us ; and nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ. We need to reject the lies that come from faulty thinking, replacing them with the truth of what God has said.

We can restrict our hearing. In other words, it’s important to be selective regarding the voices we listen to. Psychological research has demonstrated that humans are very susceptible to what other people say. We tend to be influenced to a greater extent by negative words than positive words. It’s reckoned that one negative comment can wipe out the positive effects of three or four encouraging ones. In Mark chapter 5, a father chose to ignore a negative remark which, if heeded, would have had very sad consequences. Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, had begged Jesus to come to his house because his young daughter was terminally ill. On the way there, someone gave the unwelcome news that the girl was dead and added the negative comment that there was no point in involving Jesus any more. But Jairus chose to filter out this information and believe Jesus. When they arrived at the house, Jesus put the mocking mourners out of earshot. What’s the take-home lesson? Let’s choose to listen to God rather than the negative comments of people around us.

Most of us know people who would cheer us on, but there are far too many others whose negative remarks need to be tuned out. I’m not talking about people who, for our own good, are prepared to tell us things we’d prefer not to hear. Rather, I’m referring to those whose ‘mission’ in life seems to be to put a damper on other people’s enthusiasm. Tune them out! Be careful who you listen to.

We can expand our vision. Ever tried to focus, or perhaps refocus, on the big eternal picture? It’s so easy to zero in on things we’re currently involved in, whether it’s bringing up our kids, working at a difficult relationship, or trying to make a success of a new job or ministry opportunity. These can become all-consuming of our time and attention with the result that other issues get sidelined. As a result, it’s the easiest thing in the world to become negative when what we’ve been focusing on goes ‘pear-shaped’.

If I work too long at my computer my eyes begin to get tired. I find it helps to take my gaze off the screen for a few moments and look at something outside my study window. This literal shift in focus from what’s right in front of my nose to what’s going on further away brings a much-needed change in perspective. The same principle operates as far as having a positive outlook is concerned. When we focus on what lies ahead in eternity, the temporal things that have been dominating our vision and sapping our energy tend to lose their tyrannical grip. Hebrews 12:1-2 urges us to keep our eyes on Jesus and we will then be able to “run with endurance the race that God has set before us” (NLT). What better way to have a positive outlook? 

Adapted from "Equipped to have a positive outlook" (c) www.equippedforliving.org
 

Some SBWF ladies having fun!

I returned home yesterday evening from a wonderful weekend in St Andrews where I was the speaker at the Scottish Baptist Women’s Fellowship annual conference. What a great bunch of women! They listened so well to my talks on “Managing Your Emotions” where my topic on Friday evening was “Goodbye Guilt”, followed by “Bitter or Better?” on Saturday morning, and ending with “Anxiety-free Zone” on Sunday afternoon. I thoroughly enjoyed teaching on these subjects and I was overwhelmed by the enthusiastic appreciation shown by the women.

I had a break from teaching on Saturday evening as this is the time when the women really let their hair down and have a fun time. And what fun it was! Various groups from different parts of the country turned the theme of “Holidays” into unique dramatic performances that had many of us laughing till we cried! The X Factor doesn’t know what it’s missing…

We had various praise times throughout the weekend and, during these, the women often sang in harmony which sounded lovely. A quiet time of communion on Sunday morning reminded us again of the bond that unites us all, each one of us saved by the blood of Christ.

I made new friends in St Andrews over the last couple of days and had the pleasure of catching up with old ones as well. Thank you SBWF for a fantastic weekend!