J.S. Park: Question: Social Justice Vs. Deep Discipleship - Hands and the Heart

jspark3000:

Anonymous asked:

How I can move from helping people physically to actually verbally sharing the Good News and tending to people’s spiritual needs? I’m involved in different ways (youth ministry, soup kitchen and I teach a science class at a community college part time). But everything I’m doing seems to just be on the surface level (I hand out soup and bread, make sure the kids don’t kill each other and teach people about gravity). I want to be able to share the gospel but I don’t know how to move into that.

You know, I think you’re doing an awesome work, and while I understand your dilemma, I wouldn’t ever call what you do on the “surface level.”  You’re actually doing what many Christians will NOT do because they see it as second-rate or unnecessary: and that’s why we’re called hypocrites.

The pattern as a full-blooded witnessing Christian will always, always, always be hands first, hearts second.  You’re doing it right.

… (READ IT)

J.S. Park: Question: Helping A Friend With Anxiety & Depression -- What To Do and NOT Do

jspark3000:

Anonymous asked:

Could you share some practical advice for the friends of those who are struggling with anxiety and depression? What should we do and what should we not do to best encourage our brother/sister during such dark seasons?

A great question, and thank you for caring to ask!  You’re already an awesome friend for it.  Thank you also for not diminishing the issue: anxiety and depression are very real, not just “in your head,” and can be completely debilitating.

Much of this will be common sense, but since I also struggle with depression, I have a bit of firsthand knowledge of being on the other side.

First, what NOT to do:

1) Please, no inspirational pick-me-up cliched lectures.

In fact, let’s also skip the innocent sharing of Bible verses.  When someone is anxious or depressed, there’s a crazy-thick shell around their ears that deflects pretty much anything, or will somehow reverse words into something worse.

What’s needed is presence. Even silence.  When Job got totally blown up and lost everything, the best thing his friends did (until they began to lecture him for 30-something chapters) is sat with him in silence for a week.

Please do not jump immediately to spiritual, practical, biblical monologues.  Please do not try to instantly relate and say, “Yeah that reminds me this one time when I also …”  Don’t point to a website or a Bible verse or a doctor (there’s a time for that). It can be very insensitive and it’s also a huge reason why Christians in particular look like robotic cheerleading machines.

2) Invite them out to something fun.

Most people who are Type-A “Fixer” personalities assume that when someone is hurting, then that is ALL they should talk about.  A Fixer presumes that if they just dig enough, use surgical words, have a caring tone, and press persistently, then we can get to the “root of the issue” and be done with it like a math problem.

While part of this is very true and noble, an anxious or depressed person is NOT only composed of their issues.  They are a whole person with likes, dislikes, wants, needs, dreams, hobbies, goals.  They also sometimes just want to eat a burger, watch a dumb movie, replay a YouTube video, listen to loud music, lose at bowling, fall down in a skating rink, catch a frisbee, run a mile, or drink hot cocoa.  Ask them: If you could do whatever right now, what do you want to do?  Then go do that with them.

Eventually you can get to the root stuff, but keep a holistic picture in mind.  When I was at the bottom of depression, I didn’t talk to the guy who kept poking at my hard heart.  I opened up to the ones who brought me candy and their dog to my house.  This is not shallow: because real human beings need a day off, even from their own brains.

3) Overjoyed cheerfulness to compensate does not help.

I’ve met some people who assume that an opposite attitude will lift someone out of anxiety/depression.  So “confidence” can somehow counter an anxious attitude, or “super-cheerful-perkiness” can attack depression. 

No.  I understand the reasoning behind this, but in the long-term it’s actually very painful.  I mean if you told me you wanted to cut yourself and I said, “There’s a sale on belts at Saks!” — that will hurt deep. 

It’s okay to get on the same wavelength even when you don’t understand their pain.  In psychology they falsely teach you to remain distant, detached, and emotionless when you counsel.  That doesn’t help either.  It’s okay to cry together, to agree that life sucks sometimes, to feel their anger, to share their concerns.  It will drain you a bit, but that’s part of being a friend and a Christian servant.

Here’s stuff to consider that you can do:

1) RTP — Rock The Prayer

When the time is right, pray for them on the spot.  I know many of us say, “I’ll be praying for you” and then forget, so just pray for them right there.  It might feel awkward, but most times people DO want prayer and don’t know how to ask.  Some people feel selfish, often thinking, “Oh don’t pray for little old me, there’s bigger stuff out there.”  Take the initiative.  Show them you care, now.  You will also be secretly teaching them how to pray.

2) Firmly speak truth that looks forward.

At some point, the truth has to be said.  We cannot stay in Pamper/Coddle/Spoil mode forever. Let them know: even if they don’t feel like it, they cannot stay crippled by their feelings forever.  They also are NOT allowed to use you as a whining board for self-pity. 

You know how when someone gets a cold, they act a bit sick even when they’ve recovered?  I don’t mean to say that anxiety/depression is the same way, but there has to be movement forward regardless of feelings.  When someone ends up quitting school, their job, their family, their church, or any number of commitments, that’s allowing the problem to win.  When someone can keep going despite their feelings, then they have won another day. Help them towards that victory.

Sooner or later, they must move into a new season of their life, because life goes on.  Anxiety/depression might be a lifelong struggle, but that’s more reason to move forward and not less.

This can be tricky, because we want to be sensitive yet at the same time call out childish behavior.  Don’t enable them to go backwards into pity-party reflexes.  This will require a lot of discernment, but please don’t feel like you’re being mean if you eventually have to pick them up roughly. 

3) Dig it out: heart surgery.

While clinical depression and diagnosed anxiety are formidable unreasonable beasts (see the next point), there are almost always tangible reasons why someone is so depressed or anxious.  Let them know first: it is NOT a sin and it is NOT wrong to feel this way.  But there is some elephant (or circus of elephants) that needs to be confronted, or else they will be paralyzed.

Just listen.  Sometimes when things are said out loud, that’s already halfway to a solution.  It could be family stuff, a stressful lifestyle, a secret sin, a past trauma.  It could be a lie they believe. Let them let it out.

Once you want to tell your friend to confront something, suggest the options.  When I lay out options for people (instead of direct commands), they always figure out the best one themselves.  Since they figured it out, they are more willing to do it AND believe in what they’re doing. 

4) You can always refer them.

Please never assume you’re the only one who can help them.  Sometimes we are in way over our heads.  If it gets very, very bad, you can always suggest medical/professional help.  Let them know there’s nothing wrong with seeing a counselor.  They can go to your pastor, an elder, a deacon, an older Christian brother or sister. I have my own counselor, and really: the world would be a way better place if we all got regular counseling.  Nothing wrong with it AT ALL.

Please do this with sensitivity, too.  It might look like you’re “passing them off,” but remain available.  I wouldn’t suggest this as a first resort, but I know when I’ve met my limitations as a friend.  I myself have been referred to other counselors as well. 

If your friend agrees, tell them you can go with them for the first session or so.  Maybe it won’t work for them or it won’t be the right counselor the first time: that’s okay. This is not a one-time thing.  Persistence and patience.

Great post!

Question: The Ground War Against Depression and Anxiety

Good advice =)

Defeat them lies! Also, this one’s got suiting up in armour =P:

http://thewayeverlasting.com/2012/01/23/the-warfare-of-discouragement/

Unka Glen's Citadel of Enlightenment: When your friends stumble, how do you react?

unkaglen:

Anonymous asked: One of my closest friends broke up with her boyfriend, after they dated for a year and eight months. Her boyfriend is a Christian, and when they started dating, she started going to church and got into God and everything. But now that they’ve broken up, she’s so far from God…

Context is about BGR breakup and backsliding, but it speaks a lot to the sinner in all of us.

Unka Glen's Citadel of Enlightenment: Jed Brewer reblog: How Do I Know If It's God's Will, Or Just My Desires?

unkaglen:

loca-laina asked you:

How does someone decipher the line between REALLY wanting something, and knowing that it’s actually God’s plan for you? There are so many instances in life right now where I feel so strongly that I’m ‘supposed’ to do this or that, but my family and friends believe that…

reblog of unka glen’s reblog of jed brewer. haha.

Really great bible verses too which show why leaving our dreams and desires in God’s hands is infinitely better than grasping onto them and making a mess of them.

(Source: jedbrewer)

Unka Glen's Citadel of Enlightenment: The righteous way of being depressed

thisphaselastsforever said: Thank you, I really needed this!

THIS. My sentiments exactly. Thank you God for using us. And loving us and hearing us when we are sooo screwed up. Sometimes I look at myself and think: God, why did you even bother. =’( Your love is AMAZING!

And thank you soo much for giving us friends who can relate to us and help us through our struggles! <3 S2 !!!

unkaglen:

The only right response that I know is to go to God and simply say, “here’s my funky attitude, here’s my disobedient heart, here’s me feeling like dirt, and I may be wrong on some of it, or all of it, or none of it… I just don’t know”. That’s when the healing can begin. But by trying to act Christian [on the outside, without it coming from inside], you’ve ignored the process that helps you actually become a better Christian.

Jesus had a word for people who focused only on being nice and proper, while being in denial about deeper stuff, He called them: “whitewashed tombs”. Clean on the outside, but dead on the inside.

All this is pretty raw, and I suppose there is a bit of self-focus, but it’s more like David is asking God to have pity on him, rather than David taking pity on himself. Once David knows that God is there for him, he finds it easier to take on a righteous attitude. David took his ugly, raw, and real emotions to God, he didn’t hide them, or wallow all alone in them.

Stay tuned for a semi-related post about armour cooler than the fencing mask + torso vest with the elastic strap some people forgot to loop around their leg, presenting their future children for a little bit of skewering >< ouch!

Devotions to Him.: Tehillah camp post #2 - Heart

Please check it out and comment at the original source!! (click yours-devotion):

yours-devotion:

As promised, here’s my follow on/intro post for my previous post on yours-devotion. (directly below unless someone blogs very soon).

So this study gospel in life (from Tim Keller) is quite confronting. And shows you all the parts of the life you turn a blind eye to unwittingly or not. The parts with problems. And Satan rejoices when you do so. So how to change? The study starts appropriate with - the Heart.

Firstly, in the home-study session leading up to the actual group bible study/DVD discussion, I found it very fulfilling. (Yeah, it’s a pun, you’ll realise soon).

Somethings I need to work on (living the gospel, not religion):

• Motivation should be based on grateful joy, not insecurity and fear
• I should obey God to get God, and delight in and resemble Him. Not to get (even good) things from God. 
• My self-view is not based on moral achievement. I am simultaneously sinfully lost yet accepted in Christ. I am so bad He had to die for me, but He loves me so much that He was glad to. This should lead me to deep humility and confidence.
• My identity and self-worth are not built on my record or my performance, but on God’s love for me in Christ. I am saved by shear grace so I can’t look down on those who believe or practice something different from me. Only by grace am I what I am. - He is all sufficient! =D
• My prayer life consists of gorgeous amounts of praise and adoration! My main purpose is fellowship with God.

One great analogy/check that the study included was one where I told a couple of people, and I probably did an alright and better job verbally, but here goes concise version:

A farmer presented to the king a giant carrot, saying that this was the greatest carrot he had ever grown, and that he wanted to give it to the king out of love and respect. The king was touched and gave him a plot of land next to the farmer’s that he owned. A noble seeing this, thought that he could gain something much more if he offered something of more value than a carrot. So he gave the king a horse. The king just accepted the horse and dismissed the noble. Seeing that the noble was confused, he explained: the farmer gave me the carrot, but you gave yourself the horse. [Touche right? =P]

Yeah, it was Spurgeon’s analogy, and the king reminds me of Solomon =P.

The bible study is a passage from Luke 18:9-14 about the bragging prayer of a Pharisee and the prayer of a tax-collector. Basically, the tax-collector was justified before God, because only God is able to justify (for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God). Main barriers to accepting justification include: pride -thinking you are better than what you really are, beating yourself up, viewing your failures as a barrier and low self-esteem. It doesn’t matter how crappy you are. Everyone needs God to justify them, and Jesus’ sacrifice is infinitely more powerful than your sin could ever be.

From the DVD discussion, we were shown that there were three ways of response to God: looking to God for salvation, looking to religion for salvation (own saviour) and looking to irreligion (own saviour). The DVD talked on the story about the prodigal son. Both the sons wanted the father’s inheritance (things/good things). They just went about it differently. The younger son went ‘irreligious’ and just took it all and wasted it. The elder son went ‘religious’ tried to earn it. Neither were right. But in the end, the younger son wanted the father, and not just his things. He asked the father to accept him and the father did - not letting the son be anything less than a son. What they both failed to see was that the father’s things were theirs as they were heirs. But we need God’s initiating love to see that we need Him. And not His things. Jesus, our true ‘elder brother’ was willing and able to sacrifice part of his inheritance so that the younger brother (us) could be welcomed back home with the feast.

How great is God’s love Agape! Not only does God initiate the loving exchange (even while we were still His enemies and disgusting in His sight)! He sacrifices himself to justify us, clothe us in righteousness and sanctifies us, and gives us an inheritance in Him! Friends, bros and sis’s, be confident in your inheritance in Christ. And humbly and gratefully love and serve the one who first loved us.