What Is Denial?

Denial has been defined as “a false system of beliefs that are not based on reality” and “a self-protecting behavior that keeps us from honestly facing the truth.”

As kids we all learned various coping skills. They came in handy when we didn’t get the attention we wanted from our parents and others or to block our pain and our fears. For a time these coping systems worked. But as the years progressed they can confuse and cloud our view of the truth of our lives. If we retained our childish methods of coping, our perceptions of reality became increasingly more unrealistic and distorted. Our coping skills could have grown into denial, and many of our relationships may have ended up broken or less fulfilling than they could have been.

Did you ever deny that your parents had problems? Did you ever deny that you had problems? The truth is, most of us can all answer "yes" to these questions. For some of us, that denial turned to shame and guilt.

Denial is the “Pink Elephant” sitting in the middle of the living room. They are the things no one in the family talks about or acknowledges. Do any of the following comments sound familiar to you?

• “Can’t we stop talking about it? Talking only makes it worse.”
• “If we don’t talk about it, maybe it will go away.”
• “Let’s pretend that it didn’t really happen.”
• “If I tell her that it hurts me when she says that, I’m afraid she will leave me.”
• “He really doesn’t drink that much.”
• “It really doesn’t hurt when he does that; I’m fine!”
• “She drinks more than I do.”
• “He's been married three times; I’ve only been married twice.”
• “I eat because you make me so mad!”
• “If you didn’t nag me all the time, I wouldn’t ...”
• “Look honey, I have a tough job; I work hard. I need a few drinks to relax. It doesn’t mean that I have a problem.”

These are phases of DENIAL.
To grow and mature we must first face and admit our denial.

“You can’t heal a wound by saying it’s not there!” (Jeremiah 6:14, TLB)

Effects of Denial

• Disables our feelings
• Energy lost
• Negates growth
• Isolates us from God
• Alienates us from our relationships
• Lengthens the pain

The D in denial stands for DISABLES our feelings.
Hiding our feelings, living in denial, freezes our emotions and binds us. Understanding and feeling our feelings is where we find freedom.
tells us:

“They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of destructive habits—for a man is a slave of anything that has conquered him.” (2 Peter 2:19, GNB)

The basic test of freedom is not what we're free to do, it’s what we're free not to do! We find freedom to feel our true feelings when we find Jesus and step out of denial.

The E stands for ENERGY lost.
A major side-effect of denial is anxiety. Anxiety causes us to waste precious energy dealing with past hurts and failures and the fear of the future. It is only in the present that positive change can occur. Worrying about the past and dreading the future makes us unable to live and enjoy God’s plans for us in the present.
We let our fears and our worries paralyze us, but the only lasting way we can be free from them is by giving them to God.

“He frees the prisoners,... he lifts the burdens from those bent down beneath their loads.” (Psalm 146:7, TLB)

If we will transfer the energy required to maintain our denial into learning God’s truth, a healthy love for others and ourselves will occur. As we depend more and more on Jesus Christ we will see the light of truth and reality.

The N stands for NEGATES growth.
We are as sick as our secrets and we cannot grow until we are ready to step out of our denial into the truth. God is waiting to take our hand and bring us out.

“They cried to the Lord in their troubles, and he rescued them! He led them from the darkness and shadow of death and snapped their chains” (Psalm 107:13–14, TLB).

Eventually we come to understand that God never wastes a hurt; God will never waste our darkness. But God can’t use it unless we step out of denial into the light of His truth.

The I stands for ISOLATES us from God.
Adam and Eve are a great example of how secrets and denial separate us from true fellowship with God. After they sinned, their secret separated them from God. Genesis 3:7 tells us that Adam and Eve hid from God because they felt naked and ashamed. Adam tried to rationalize. He said to God,

“The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree” (Genesis 3:12).

First he tried to blame God, saying, “The woman you put here with me ...” Then he tried to blame it on Eve: “She gave me some fruit.” God’s light shines on the truth. Our denial keeps us in the dark.

“God is light, in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:5–7)

The A stands for ALIENATES us from our relationships.
Denial tells us we are getting away with it. We think no one knows, but they do. But while denial may shield us from the hurt, it also keeps us from helping ourselves or the people we love the most. We don’t dare reveal our true selves to others for fear of what they will think or say if they knew the real us. We must protect ourselves—our secrets—at any cost. So we isolate ourselves and thereby minimize the risk of exposure and possible rejection from others. But at what price? The eventual loss of all our important relationships.

What’s the answer?

“Stop lying to each other; tell the truth, for we are parts of each other and when we lie to each other we are hurting ourselves.” (Ephesians 4:25, LB)

It is always better to tell the ugly truth rather than a beautiful lie.

Finally, the L stands for LENGTHENS the pain. We have the false belief that denial protects us from our pain. In reality, denial allows our pain to fester and grow and to turn into shame and guilt. Denial extends our hurt and multiplies our problems.

Truth, like surgery, may hurt for a while -- but it cures.

“I will give you back your health again and heal your wounds.” (Jeremiah 30:17, TLB)

Addiction - A Problem for All People

I came across this on my computer and thought it was excellent...

All people are addicted to something, maintains author Gerald May. "All of us suffer from addiction," May writes in his book Addiction and Grace. "The psychological, neurological and spiritual dynamics of full-fledged addiction are actively at work within every human being," he continues. "We are all addicts in every sense of the word.

Moreover, our addictions are our own worst enemies. They enslave us with chains of our own making." While many people do not have a problem with alcohol, drugs, tobacco or gambling, they may have problems with anger, coffee, computers, or golf -- and the list goes on, May insists. And while some addictions are more physically and emotionally destructive than others, all addictions are spiritually destructive, he says.

That is because all addictions are spiritual in nature, May notes. "I am convinced that all human beings have an inborn desire for God," writes May, director for Research and Program Development at the Shalem Institute in Washington. "Whether we are consciously religious or not, this desire is our deepest longing and our most precious treasure. It gives us meaning. ...

The yearning is the essence of the human spirit; it is the origin of our highest hopes and most noble dreams." Unfortunately, that inborn desire can never be filled in this life, and that places humans at dis-ease.

Many people respond by repressing or misidentifying the longing, May says, but the greatest danger is addiction - when something other than God becomes the focus of attention, energy and desire.

"(Addictions) become preoccupations and obsessions; they come to rule our lives ... ," May says. "(That is) why addiction is the most powerful psychic enemy of humanity's desire for God."
The Bible calls it idolatry, May says.

"Addiction makes idolaters of us all, because it forces us to worship these objects of attachment, thereby preventing us from truly, freely loving God and one another."

"Addiction is when you have no choice," May said in an interview. "You feel compelled. It doesn't
matter what we're talking about when it's a matter of compulsion rather than freedom.

"And the spiritual importance of that is that we're meant to be free. ... So anything that hinders that freedom is a problem." It is spirituality gone awry.

"Saint Augustine once said that God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them," May writes. "If our hands are full, they are full of things to which we are addicted. And not only our hands, but also our hearts, minds and attention are clogged with addiction.

"Our addictions fill up spaces within us, spaces where grace might flow."

May acknowledges that most people would rather see addiction as a disease or affliction that other people have. But he is adamant in his view that addiction is something no one escapes. Indeed, humans are faced with the prospect of struggling with addictions throughout their lives, May says.

There is only one answer - the grace of God, May says.

"Grace is the most powerful force in the universe," May writes. "It can transcend ... addiction and every other internal or external power that seeks to oppress the freedom of the human heart. Grace is where our hope lies."

Some people see dealing with addictions simply as a matter of willpower, May says. Unfortunately, many of these simply fall into the trap of trading a more destructive addiction for a less destructive one. They are reforming behavior, rather than transforming their desires, May says. May calls such transformation "deliverance," which, he says, does not remove one's addiction but enables a person to make a change in behavior. May does not deny deliverance has a miraculous quality. "(But) the real miracle was that avoidance became possible; the person could actually do it. Deliverance does not remove a person's responsibility; it does empower the person to exercise responsibility simply, gently and effectively." How deliverance comes is a matter of mystery, May says. People cannot create such a moment of grace and enabling - but they can pray and be open and ready to respond to God.

They can choose to live openly before God, to admit weaknesses and present themselves to God just as they are, May says. They can choose to live responsibly and to seek and follow God's guidance. Enabled by God, they can choose to stop their addictive behavior, he says - to say "no" and keep saying "no" to temptation. One joins his or her will with divine will and allows God's grace to enable a change. "Here, finally, is the proper place of willpower in the spiritual life," May notes. "We bring our intention, our effort, our strength and all else that we can muster to the cause of love."

People can expect to fail and give in to temptation from time to time, but grace is always present, May says. Some people shy away from that idea, May notes. They look for a God who will come in and deliver them once and for all from addictions and the hardships of life. It does not work that way, May insists. Instead, the call of God is to focus on God as the source of true security and to risk that God is trustworthy. Answering that call takes honesty, May points out. "We have unconsciously been saying no to God in countless areas of our lives all along.

Honesty simply asks if we are willing to acknowledge some of this.

Can we stop hiding our secret desires and start claiming them openly before God, who already knows about them anyway? ...

"Honesty before God requires the most fundamental risk of faith we can take: the risk that God is good, that God does love us unconditionally. It is in taking this risk that we rediscover our dignity. To bring the truth of ourselves, just as we are, to God, just as God is, is the most dignified thing we can do in this life."

HOW TO HEAR THE VOICE OF GOD (IS 30:1-26)

Focus: v. 21 “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’"

3 PARTS: How NOT to Hear; How TO Hear; and the Benefits of Those Who CAN Hear

1. How NOT to hear (Is 30:1-14):

Woe to the Obstinate Nation
1 "Woe to the obstinate children," declares the LORD, "to those who carry out plans that are not mine, forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, heaping sin upon sin;
2 who go down to Egypt [place of bondage -- and where we tend to return to medicate] without consulting me; who look for help to Pharaoh's protection, to Egypt's shade for refuge.
3 But Pharaoh's protection will be to your shame, Egypt's shade will bring you disgrace.
9 These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the LORD's instruction.
10 They say to the seers, "See no more visions!" and to the prophets, "Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions.

2. How TO Hear:

v15: For thus the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said,
‘In repentance and rest you will be saved,
In quietness and trust is your strength.’
But you were not willing,

• It seems to say that salvation is the result of repentance and rest and that inner strength, or maturity, comes from quietness and trust / confidence.
• Following is an attempt to unpack those 4 words: repentance, rest, quietness, and confidence.

A. Repentance -- Shuwbah (shü·bä') – Literally means to return. The metaphorical meaning is conversion.

• Repentance is not only a turning away from sin, but also a turning to God.
• In his book The Wounded Heart, Dr. Dan Allender records some penetrating yet refreshing definitions:
• Repentance is an about-face movement from denial and rebellion to truth and surrender.
• Repentance involves the response of humble hunger, bold movement, and wild celebration when faced with the reality of our fallen state and the grace of God.
• It is a shift in perspective as to where life is found.
• It is melting into the warm arms of God, received when it would be so understandable to be spurned."

B. Rest – Nachath (nakh'·ath) – Literally: a letting down, or letting go. It is a Hebraic reference to death.

• Job 17:16 “resting together in the dust.”
• The invitation to become an active, intentional follower of Christ is to engage an ongoing cycle of death and resurrection.
• That cycle of death and resurrection continues after our initial salvation
• Too understand this is an important key that unlocks growth in Christ.
• Any hope we have of living a life of integrity, wholeness, and health is dependent on dying and rising with Jesus Christ.
• The more we are willing to die to our tenacious control of life, the more God is able to resurrect his life in us.
• When we surrender our moral failures, our sinful choices to him, he will raise out of their ashes a brand-new start.
• When we cry out for help in our problems, he will give us insight and direction we wouldn't have even dreamed possible.
• And when we have challenges that are beyond us, it is Christ’s resurrection power that gives us strength and wisdom.
• And finally, the more we give over our worry about the future---the what-ifs, the worst-case scenarios---the clearer his guidance will become for us. The secret of fullness of life is dying to our arrogant, willful self and allowing the risen Christ to express his life through us.

C. Quietness – Shaqat (shä·kat') – This word speaks to the building, or development, of an ongoing rhythm of rest. It also speaks to the absence of fear. (It is the quiet center that we will be examining in the days ahead in our Deeper Still series.)

• Heb 4:9-10 – “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.”
• It is also about growing a quiet center in our hearts -- where we enjoy communion with God.
• What does communion with God mean? It means that we are creating space in our lives to be with Christ…what does that mean?

1. (Nouwen) says, “To pray is to listen…” To encounter Christ is to learn how to listen. The work of prayer – or growing intimacy with Christ -- is to create that space and to learn how to listen.
2. What are we listening for? To pray is to listen to (or for) the One who calls you, my beloved… -- This is what Jesus heard from his Father when he came up out of the water at his baptism.
3. To pray is to let that voice speak to the center of your being, to your guts, and let that voice resound in your whole being. Who am I? I am the beloved. That's the voice Jesus that Jesus heard throughout his life and his ministry.
4. As a people, a community of Christ-followers, we are called to operate out of the understanding that we are beloved.
5. The definition of obedience… (The church has made “obedience” a “religious” word, not a spiritual word.) The primary action of Christian obedience is for us to make room in our lives to hear God call us beloved.

D. Trust / Confidence – Bitchah (bit·khä') – Confidence

In the early stages of the building of the Golden Gate Bridge 23 people fell to their deaths. The contractor spent $100,000.00 on a net that was stretched underneath the structure. During the remaining construction time only 10 people fell into the net; and productivity rose by 25%. Why? Because the workers had greater confidence!

• OLD TESTAMENT USAGE -- The basic idea has to do with firmness or solidi¬ty. The word expresses that sense of well-being and security which result from having some¬thing or someone in whom to place confi¬dence.
• NEW TESTAMENT USAGE -- The Greek word and its derivative are used a total of 40 times and most often describe a joyful, con¬tented expectation as well as bold and effective speaking.

WHAT PRODUCES CONFIDENCE?

1. Proverbs 14:26 - "In the fear of the Lord (seeing Him as He really is) there is strong confidence." Developing a holy respect and reverence for the Lord will produce confidence in our lives.
2. Acts 4:13 - "Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John, and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were marveling, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus.” Intimacy with Jesus will produce confidence in our lives.
3. 1 Timothy 3:13 - "Those who serve . . . obtain for themselves a high standing and great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus." By serving we obtain confidence.
4. 1 John 2:28 - "Little children, abide in Him, so when He appears, we may have confidence." The Greek definition for the word abide means to stay in a given place, state, relationship, or expectancy. I would expand on that by adding that to abide is to acknowledge our life source. Abiding in Jesus produces confidence.

Isaiah 30:18 – “Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you, And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you For the LORD is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him.”

3. The BLESSINGS accorded to those who can hear:

22And you will defile your graven images overlaid with silver, and your molten images plated with gold You will scatter them as an impure thing, and say to them, "Be gone!"

23Then He will give you rain for the seed which you will sow in the ground, and bread from the yield of the ground, and it will be rich and plenteous; on that day your livestock will graze in a roomy pasture.

24Also the oxen and the donkeys which work the ground will eat salted fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork.

25On every lofty mountain and on every high hill there will be streams running with water on the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.

26The light of the moon will be as the light of the sun [reflective], and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, on the day the LORD binds up the fracture of His people and heals the bruise He has inflicted.

Developing Practical Skills to Love Well

Learning how to love (well) is our vision statement, or theme, for this year. This post will outline some of the practical skills in our quest for an authentic Christian spirituality...

Jesus said, "'Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.' This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.' These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them." Matt 22:37-40 (MSG)

“Love reveals the beauty of another person to themselves” --Jean Vanier, friend and mentor of Henri Nouwen

1. Loving well is the essence of true spirituality – and the culmination of our focus on emotional health from a biblical perspective.
2. Loving well involves authentic interaction (or communication) with God, with ourselves, and with other people.
3. Jesus epitomized – and modeled spiritual and emotional health for us.
4. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were not able to make the same connection with people as Jesus did. They were competent, diligent, zealous, they were absolutely committed to having God as the Lord of their lives…they memorized entire books of the OT, they prayed five times a day, they faithfully tithed off all their increase -- plus gave money to the poor, and they evangelized – yet there is little evidence that they delighted in people.
   

INCARNATIONAL LOVE

“The WORD became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes.” John 1:14, MSG

The word incarnate come from a Latin word that means: in-flesh. The infinite Creator and Sustainer of the universe limited himself to the confines of human history and a human body.
Today the incarnated presence of God is intended to be the Church – identified in the Bible as the Body of Christ –you and me.

3 Dynamics of Incarnational Love…

1. Enter another’s world. James 1:19; Philippians 2:5-8

Understand [this], my beloved brethren. Let every [person] be quick to hear [a ready listener], slow to speak, slow to take offense and to get angry. James 1:19 (AMP)

• What does it mean to enter “another’s” world? It means to be fully present with another person.

To care means, first of all, to be present for each other. --Henri Nouwen

• Put your own agenda on hold
• Look people in the eye
• Practice reflective listening: Allow the other person to speak until their thought is completed and then try and restate their thoughts in your own words
• Don’t try to fix people.
• Be cognizant of body-language (only 10% of communication is verbal)
• Validate people’s feelings. We can validate without being in agreement. (Feelings are neither right, nor wrong, they just are.)
• Try not to become defensive…
  

2. Hold on to your world. Ephesians 2:10; John 15:15

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created we anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for we long ago. Eph 2:10, (NLT)

In EHC Pete Scazzero states that this dynamic (holding on to our world) is the most difficult and challenging principle to apply. He asserts...

“It is the key to conflict resolution. It is the key to responding in a mature loving way when other people push and challenge your desires, values, and goals inside or outside the church. It is the key to serving as a leader, in any capacity…Without this ability to hold on to yourself, it is not possible to be an imaginative, creative leader who breaks from the status quo and leads people to new places.” (p. 185)

What does it mean to “hold on to your world”?

• Recognize that we almost always have a choice. (The choice often involves choosing between “peacekeeper” or “peacemaker.”) Peacemakers create false peace.
• Holding on to your world: Determine and set clear boundaries...
• Identify and be clear about your limits. Don’t allow people to make demands of you. Allow people to make requests, but not demands. If you hear a request that makes you uncomfortable, your discomfort may be a signal that this is an attempt to invade your boundaries.
• Learn to say The Graceful “NO.”
• “Good boundaries attract good friends.”
  

3. Live in the tension of both. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7; Matthew 22:37-40

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. 1 Cor 13:4-7

• Living in the tension of another’s world and your own world happens when we are willing to authentically connect with people across our differences. Civil, or respectful, dialogue
• The space between ourselves and another person is to be considered sacred space.
• When authentic, incarnational Christian love, or spirituality, is released in a relationship God’s presence is manifest.
• When we ignore conflict we create a false peace. Jesus was murdered because He disrupted the false peace all around him. True peacemaking disrupts the false peace.
• We cannot have true peace in the Church, or society, with pretense and façade.
  

A Paraphrase the Lord’s Prayer from Dante's Purgatorio

As we move into our Deeper Still series we are seeking to examine the Lord's Prayer from a contemplative perspective. Following is the prayer of the “proud” in Dante’s Purgatorio from The Divine Comedy (Divina Commedia).

Dante was a Florentine poet of the Middle Ages. His central work is the Divine Comedy which is often considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature. (Dante is also called the "Father of the Italian language" because TDC was written in a new language he called "Italian," based on the regional dialect of Tuscany, with some elements of Latin and of the other regional dialects. By creating a poem of epic structure and philosophic purpose, he established that Italian was more than suitable for the highest sort of expression.)

The Divine Comedy describes Dante's journey through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Paradise (Paradiso), guided first by the Roman poet Virgil and then by Beatrice, the subject of his love (and of another of his works).

It should be noted that Purgatorio can be appreciated without necessitating a belief in Purgatory -- which Catholicism (as well as Methodism and Judaism) sees as a series of after-death purification processes. We can see it as simply grappling with our own tendency toward pride and arrogance...

Purgatorio Canto XI:1-36 -- The Proud Paraphrase the Lord’s Prayer

“Our Father, You who dwell within the heavens—
but are not circumscribed by them—out of
Your greater love for Your first works above,
Praised be Your name and Your omnipotence,
By every creature, just as it is seemly,
To offer thanks to Your sweet effluence.
Your kingdom’s peace come unto us, for if
It does not come, then though we summon all
Our force, we cannot reach it of our selves.
Just as Your angels, as they sing Hosanna,
Offer their wills to You as sacrifice,
So may men offer up their wills to You.
Give unto us this day the daily manna
Without which he who labors most to move
Ahead through this harsh wilderness falls back.
Even as we forgive all who have done us
Injury, may You, benevolent,
Forgive, and do not judge us by our worth.
Try not our strength, so easily subdued,
Against the ancient foe, but set it free
From him who goads it to perversity.
This last request we now address to You,
Dear Lord, not for ourselves—who have no need—
But for the ones whom we have left behind.”

Can the Church Become Post-Racial?

First of all, let my apologize for dropping the ball on a consistent blog during the last few weeks. I'd also like to say, "Way to go..." to those at the Mid-Peninsula Vineyard who fasted during the Lent season. If you have any good stories or testimonies about how God met you, or insights you received -- please let me know. And thanks to Bruce for hanging our "sin-cross" in the sanctuary. I'd like for us to have the opportunity to view it for the next several weeks -- and remember that, "Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ" (Rom 6:5, MSG).

Today I'm posting an interview between Efrem Smith and Spencer Burke dialoguing about the possibilities of a post-racial church. I think it will be helpful to jump-start our conversation about the possibilities. You can download questions for personal reflection or small group dialogue here.