Dealing With Loneliness: Part 2
Talk Back To Your Emotions Rather Than Letting Your Emotions Talk To You: That's what King David was doing in Psalm 42:5. He was making his will talk back to his emotions. Second Corinthians 10:5 gives us the simple directive that makes this possible: "Take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ." Counselors frequently talk about the importance of our mental self-talk. To be victorious over any emotional struggle, we need to train our self-talk to conform to the truth of God's Word, no matter what we feel or do not feel. Like King David, we make our will talk back to our emotions. Scribbled in one of my first Bibles is a thought the Lord gave me in prayer: "Right choices eventually bring right emotions." I often remind myself and those I love that we do not choose our future. Rather, we choose our habits and our habits determine our future.
Consciously Choose To Convert Loneliness Into Aloneness: Loneliness is that aching, depressing emotion of isolation, but aloneness is a positive experience. Loneliness is depressing, demotivational, self-centered, spiritually debilitating, and takes no emotional energy to create. Aloneness is peaceful, motivational, other-centered, spiritually positive, and takes a choice of my will to create. The two most important words in step three are, "I choose." Far too many of us are content with shallow levels of intimacy with the Lord because we allow loneliness to cripple us rather than choosing to press through the depression and neutrality. It takes work to meditate on the Scriptures when you have no emotional energy. It takes work to control negative self-talk when feeling sorry for yourself is so easy. Those choices genuinely convert loneliness into aloneness allowing it to become a platform for deepened, authentic intimacy with the Lord.Give Away To Others The Emotions You Most Desire: Galatians 6:7 is a scriptural principle. If I give away to others the emotions I most need and desire, God is responsible to see that my needs are also met. Sometimes He meets my emotional needs almost instantaneously as I am reaching out to the other person. Other times the process is slower. God will be no man's debtor. If I take care of others, the Lord will always take care of me.
As a youth pastor, I can almost guarantee that you will have the opportunity to use these principles sooner than you wish. But in truth, some of those painful, isolating times of loneliness will help make you someone in the ministry who has something inside to give to others.
There is a story by Marjorie Williams that depicts this truth. It's called The Velveteen Rabbit. In one passage the toy rabbit and the toy horse are talking to each other:
"What is real?" asked the stuffed rabbit to the stuffed horse. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the stuffed horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the stuffed rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the stuffed horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are real, though, you don't mind so much."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the stuffed horse. "You become real. It takes a long time and a lot of pain. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or who have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and are very shabby. But these things don't matter at all because once you are real, you can't ever be ugly except to people who don't really understand."
So, you want to impact someone's life for eternity? Then welcome to the Velveteen Rabbit Club. You will often struggle as you convert loneliness into aloneness, and you won't do it if you break easily. But the reward is immense. In a world of facades, you will be real. You will have the inward beauty of one who has been with Jesus.
Talk Back To Your Emotions Rather Than Letting Your Emotions Talk To You: That's what King David was doing in Psalm 42:5. He was making his will talk back to his emotions. Second Corinthians 10:5 gives us the simple directive that makes this possible: "Take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ." Counselors frequently talk about the importance of our mental self-talk. To be victorious over any emotional struggle, we need to train our self-talk to conform to the truth of God's Word, no matter what we feel or do not feel. Like King David, we make our will talk back to our emotions. Scribbled in one of my first Bibles is a thought the Lord gave me in prayer: "Right choices eventually bring right emotions." I often remind myself and those I love that we do not choose our future. Rather, we choose our habits and our habits determine our future.
Consciously Choose To Convert Loneliness Into Aloneness: Loneliness is that aching, depressing emotion of isolation, but aloneness is a positive experience. Loneliness is depressing, demotivational, self-centered, spiritually debilitating, and takes no emotional energy to create. Aloneness is peaceful, motivational, other-centered, spiritually positive, and takes a choice of my will to create. The two most important words in step three are, "I choose." Far too many of us are content with shallow levels of intimacy with the Lord because we allow loneliness to cripple us rather than choosing to press through the depression and neutrality. It takes work to meditate on the Scriptures when you have no emotional energy. It takes work to control negative self-talk when feeling sorry for yourself is so easy. Those choices genuinely convert loneliness into aloneness allowing it to become a platform for deepened, authentic intimacy with the Lord.Give Away To Others The Emotions You Most Desire: Galatians 6:7 is a scriptural principle. If I give away to others the emotions I most need and desire, God is responsible to see that my needs are also met. Sometimes He meets my emotional needs almost instantaneously as I am reaching out to the other person. Other times the process is slower. God will be no man's debtor. If I take care of others, the Lord will always take care of me.
As a youth pastor, I can almost guarantee that you will have the opportunity to use these principles sooner than you wish. But in truth, some of those painful, isolating times of loneliness will help make you someone in the ministry who has something inside to give to others.
There is a story by Marjorie Williams that depicts this truth. It's called The Velveteen Rabbit. In one passage the toy rabbit and the toy horse are talking to each other:
"What is real?" asked the stuffed rabbit to the stuffed horse. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the stuffed horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the stuffed rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the stuffed horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are real, though, you don't mind so much."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the stuffed horse. "You become real. It takes a long time and a lot of pain. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or who have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and are very shabby. But these things don't matter at all because once you are real, you can't ever be ugly except to people who don't really understand."
So, you want to impact someone's life for eternity? Then welcome to the Velveteen Rabbit Club. You will often struggle as you convert loneliness into aloneness, and you won't do it if you break easily. But the reward is immense. In a world of facades, you will be real. You will have the inward beauty of one who has been with Jesus.
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In the church world, I think we "motivate" well toward growing closer to Christ, but sometimes don't "lead" well when we fail to give students pragmatic steps for success. Our continual "10 & 10" (10 minutes in the Word and 10 minutes in prayer) challenge is one of our attempts to do just that, but in this Youth Leader's Coach, "Stood Up Again," we take it a step further.
Through a simple but powerful drama, the reading of David's heart cry found in Psalm 42 and the sharing of a transferable illustration involving deer, we try to help students become more aware of and responsive to the Lord's constant presence. Specifically, drawing upon the wisdom of Brother Lawrence, we encourage them to transform their prayer lives by "Practicing The Presence Of God." And finally, in the giving of a 30-day challenge to have a secret, silent, running conversation with the Lord, our hearts' desire is to stir up a deep longing in them to be in His presence and submerged in Him daily, not just in times of trouble.
This message, however, is not just for students...it's for us too! In the chaos of life, I know too many leaders who are better at being youth pastors than they are at being Christ-followers. May this message serve as a reminder to be "Practicing The Presence" ourselves.
Lovingly,
As shocking as it sounds, I actually believe part of the "Playboy Philosophy." As I researched a talk about intimacy, I found this quote by Anson Mount, the co-author of the "Playboy Philosophy." "In the last 20 years, we have not gone through a sexual revolution as much as a revolution in our search for intimacy." How true.
In this Source, "What Playboy Can Never Give You," we address this search for intimacy and how any attempt to find it outside of God's design is futile. Playboy, MTV and Hollywood's shallow and deceptive attempt to fulfill our longing for intimacy only leaves us with empty, lonely hearts. However, while counterintuitive to our culture, God's truth and ways meet this #1 desire of countless surveyed.
Using a humorous video, three memorable stories and some great Scriptures, your students will walk away from this night equipped with biblical keys for building relationships that last and fulfill those emotional crevices that we all have.
Lovingly,
All the statistics affirm that the majority of leaders say they do not even have ONE significant friendship. I'm sure this topic is more "center-stage" for me because of my wonderful husband's stroke and his inability to communicate with me now in the manner we've enjoyed for the past 46 wonderful years of our marriage. But I am ever so grateful that I've cultivated a few significant female friendships who were super important in my life before my husband's stroke...now, even more.
In this month's Youth Leader's Coach, "What Ever Happened To Real Adult Friendship?," I'm navigating the concept of covenant friendship as illustrated in the Old Testament through the story of David and Jonathan. What a pivotal lesson in a lonely leadership world!
Lovingly,
When people have asked me over the years what the number ONE enemy of my ministry run has been, I have one consistent answer: "My own MIND GAMES!" Statistics tell us that we speak at a rate of 200 words per minute, but think at approximately 1,300 words a minute. That's a lot of "self-talk" going on in my own head. More often than not, the ME inside of my own mind is pretty full of mental battles that could kick me to the curb if I allow them. However, if I choose to take control of my own head, with the help of Christ and His Word, I really can grow past these emotional traps.
That's why this ALLIANCE is a really important one. Ministry for a lot of us can be pretty lonely as we try to navigate through the warzones in our own heads. Our prayer for this Alliance is that it is a safe place for youth pastors and youth leaders to share candidly with each other on this life-impacting topic. In a world of surface level relationships in ministry, please make this ALLIANCE a place of authentic friendship and healing honesty.
The church world was recently shocked with the devastating news of Senior Pastor Andrew Stoecklein, who took his own life. His suicide is bringing attention to all the pressure on men and women in the ministry. One prominent senior pastor wrote about his death, "Depression is real and pastors are not exempt or defective who experience it. In this generation, pastors are expected to be business savvy, Instagram quotable preaching celebrities, fully accessible, deeply spiritual, not too young, not too old..."
Though in this Youth Leader's Coach, I don't focus on suicide...I talk about something I have dealt with myself that led to Pastor Andrew's tragic decision, depression and anxiety, which is experienced by many of God's finest in ministry circles. Listen in as I share three root causes of depression and anxiety, why we in ministry circles deal with it so often, and then give you ten ways to help, if you or someone you are counselling is dealing with this issue.
So listen in. Even if you've never had to deal with depression or anxiety, I promise someone in your world probably does. Never underestimate the importance of learning to be a caring friend who is willing to simply listen.
Lovingly,
