“One thing we know about our panic —we own it.”“What else?”“We are directing it.”“Really?”“Yes, it receives its cues from us in various ways —weakening, strengthening, ebbing, and flowing at our unconscious movements.”“Tell me more.” “It thrives on attention!” In a word from Viktor Frankl he teaches: “a university student complained about being anxious with regard to an oral report to be given —let us say –on Friday. I advised him to take his appointment calendar and to write on every page of the week, with large letters, the word ‘ANXIETY.’ As it were —I asked him to plan for an anxious week. He was much relieved after doing this because now he was suffering from anxiety only, but not from anxiety about anxiety.” “Pressure induces counter-pressure, and counter-pressure, in turn, increases pressure” —another Frankl quote. Let’s reflect: This above example of “paradoxical intention” does what? It relieves a person from…
Category: <span>God’s Psychology</span>
Have you ever met a passive aggressive person? Their blitzkrieg finds an area of release that you vehemently need and refuses it militantly. These are masters of the shut-down, czars of the melt-down, monarchs of the stare-down, and sultans of let-down with swagger. They live for driving people up a tree, frustration’s outer limits, and leave their friends headed toward the nuttery. Really they may be very lonely folk, grown up, but far from mature in some areas —particularly conversation. They don’t know if they can trust you yet to speak their mind; they are afraid that their lousy people skills will potentially turn you off. Could be they are scared of commitments, insecure and suspicious. Often wounded, they move past caring about relationships in general. Because we love these ones, the frustration manifests. A believer who gets converted later in life aggravates the conversing problem. Ephesians tells us of…
For many people, an excuse is better than an achievement because an achievement, no matter how great, leaves you having to prove yourself again in the future; but an excuse can last for life. Eric Hoffer A great statement and wise observation, it grabs us because the folly of human nature often exposes itself so loudly. Hoffer above describes a person who thinks wrongly, but why? We can call him or her a legalistic thinker, because they view life as a proving, a measuring up to a standard, a trying to please or appease a serious onlooker who holds their fate. It’s no shock to us that this law-beaten type of individual must turn their mind toward evasion tactics and ploys of excuse making. Their life is drudgery. They stay with a project for a while and try it on. They wait for the prospect of fulfillment —on their own…
Emotions and the cross of Christ connect uniquely, but rarely. These Feelings follow right thinking and the center of thought is the key. When old patterns of thinking are discarded for Bible-based new ones, the responders rejoice and these are new emotions. So, what of the old feelings? Crucified with Christ, they live, yet not them but Christ lives in them, and consequently they then live by the faith if the Son of God. Cool, huh? See, God wants more for us than just feeling good, or lovely sentiment or even good-heartedness. God sent His Son to crucify the old letter-bound man to create a new one. All things are brand new in Him. We ought not, going forward, think in terms of “how-to,” but in terms of “who I am,” and if my “I am” is in Christ, my old emotions are dead and my new ones are alive.…
Brain-dead, stumped, with empty-headed stupor, I shiver and slap the side of my ear—a futile hope-to-jar-something-loose ritual. I dig deep, but words are not surfacing into consciousness. I scratch aggressively only to overturn more substance-forsaken fragments. “useless to inquire at the bank of ‘rationale,’ nothing of logic answers this event.” It doesn’t make any difference. “It doesn’t make any sense.” A nephew is paralyzed and in a coma after attempting to take his own life and the family calls. A dear friend gets a report that they have 6 months to live. There are no words of comfort, there are no answers. But we must talk, we must call back! Is there a hidden spring of wisdom, applied knowledge, or heavenly utterance to tap? O, The moment requires supernatural help, at the very least. Verily, answers don’t come because the only explanation seems to exist in the sphere of…
For this reason, before the first Passover, God told Moses, “When I see the blood I will pass over you” (Exodus 12:13). The children of Israel were told to apply the blood of the passover lamb to top of the door and on the twodoorposts—a picture of the mind, emotions and will being cleansed.Now, that subjective part has a new opportunity because God doesn’t remember sins. More than that, God’s mercy takes care of theeffects of what other people have done. He removes the effects of all sin. His vicarious death, burial, and resurrection, with the Holy Spirit’spower of cleansing, all work together to purge me and take away the sin, plunging it forever into the sea of God’s forgetfulness. Dr Carl Stevens Ever notice how we have the ability to make words mean something shallow, deep, hollow, trite or weighty etc.? We can use our…
We live out here and have accumulated enough to stay. This is our separation, our disjointing, our escape, or harbor of strength. The great divide between soul and spirit deepens out here. Old world, both goods and bads, detach from emotions and self-imposed exactings; we are free. Our path of insight has taken us wholly apart to Him through His rent veil. He is our refuge and strength in the crimson secret. Our life is hid with Christ in God. Sadly, others seek refuge in a counterfeit way. These want cake, and eating of cake both, a snare of the soul. Nevertheless, evil accommodates the earthly impossibility. Unfortunately, their false “security dream” cannot hold up. Indeed, they are motivated stealthy. Their end, thereof, are the ways of death. “Wisdom” builds a house, “understanding” moves in. Likewise, false wisdom also fabricates a refuge, tearing down the true. The fool moves in. The wise…
An imagination is a picture derived from an image received in the unconscious mind. Though these images are initially abstract, they bring in certain pulsations, feelings or sensations in the physical realm. Then the image begins to form and take shape in the subconscious mind. Finally, it is fully developed in the conscious mind where it receives the full cooperation ofour faculties. Folks waver. They ride the sea of experience which has its polarities. They have triumphant times and times of defeat, times of joy versus times of terror, times of freedom against times of guilt. In all of these the soul gyrates. Moods can swing and emotions fluctuate, as conscience derides us in accusation. Then it excuses us as if a god. Self and “selfless” battle, indecision results. The unconscious mind pushes its way into the conscious, imaginations develop in their darkroom. We fight in self-preservation, blind spots inhibiting, “sight…
But I shall give less thought to the future, I shall work in the present. I feel such work is within my power. For I only succeed in small things, and when I am tried by anxiety, I am bound to say it is the small joys that release me. – Georges Bernanos, Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith. – Henry Ward Beecher, All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership. – John Kenneth Galbraith, Anxiety anxiety, anxiety, where do you hide? With the dead? —no, with the living. Aha, these fear to die —no they fear to live. What is the cause? It is a mystery;…
Lets delve into Job chapter three. We find Job cursing the day of his birth. An interesting idea; have we ever considered doing it? It doesn’t seem rational and actually makes no sense. Job didn’t care about the sense of it, nor what anybody thought at this point. He only knew that according to his own theology, he was being punished by God, must be hated of God, and was terrorized by the thought of a future in God’s hell. So, Job’s right-and-wrong-God-value-system gave way to a world in which comfort, on any level, became the exclusive goal. A fanatical blotting out of his pre-existence, a current death-wish contemplation, a seeking of quiet, a quelling of fear, (ugly and never ending dread) — overwhelmingly replaced the God of Job’s former days, Who is now unfaceable. I have read about post-traumatic-stress disorder. Symptoms reveal the possibility of “hyperarousal” which reflects itself in…