Leaving The Past in the Past is a Present

The definition of a split second: the time it takes for something (a word, a phrase, an action, a look, a song, etc.) from the past to deceive your emotions into thinking it is the present. The feelings can be good or bad, however it has been my experience that the negative emotions triggered are much stronger than positive ones. Triggers from the past make feelings associated with them  become the present. Because we can be overwhelmed by these emotions in the tiniest instant we, as a general rule, are not ready for the range of emotions we suddenly feel and will automatically react in the way we did when the experience first happened.

Maybe I'm the only one who deals with this ... but I doubt it. We all have triggers. When they are negative triggers they are commonly referred to as 'buttons.' Most everyone is familiar with the phrase "pushing my buttons" ... a confession (conscious or unconscious) that we have wounds in our hearts and/or mind that still need healing.

I'm not a psychologist (got kicked out of Christian college before I could get my degree, but that's another story), but I do know something about having to deal with my buttons. During the last year it has become apparent that I have several buttons ... ones I didn't even know were there. I'm a reasonably intelligent human being on most days, so I had to ask myself why I wasn't aware of their existence until this past year. The answer: nobody was pushing them.

Have you ever thought you were "over" something and then found out you really weren't?

That's happened a lot this past year. I married the most wonderful man God ever created and we are coming up on our first anniversary. The other night we laughed about all we've experienced in just one year - it seems like a truckload of stuff has had to be dealt with, on both sides. We have pushed each others' buttons, not even knowing they existed until they were pushed. It took a New York minute to find out they were there! We've gone toe-to-toe on several occasions, reacting to what was said/done as if we were dealing with the person who caused those buttons to exist in the first place.

It amazes me how our minds work. They are the most advanced 'storage device' on the planet! Every experience we've ever had, every emotion, every image we've seen, every piece of information we've ever learned, are all recorded in our brain. We do not consciously acknowledge all that is in there, but it's there nonetheless. All that is needed to access a certain piece of information or a certain emotion is a trigger - the password, if you will.

Suddenly you will find yourself - emotionally - transported in time to the place where you first experienced that emotion in such an intense way that it affected you for life. At least, until this moment in time.

Did you know you can diffuse and disarm the triggers in your life? I know this to be true because I've spent the last year doing just that. A big key is to realize that the people with whom you surround yourself now are not the people who hurt you. (Hopefully you've made wiser choices than you did in the past - I know I have.) It is important to keep your wits about you when a button has been pushed. Do NOT let the old emotions overwhelm you and deceive you into feeling that the past is starting all over again. Once you allow the past to become the present, at the very least it will cause friction with the one that inadvertently pushed the unseen button, and at worst it will take you down The Dark Vortex of the Past and suck you into hopelessness. Neither of these results are good, nor are any of the options in-between.

Here is an eternal truth that cannot be changed: What you feed grows, what you starve dies.

Because everyone's buttons are different, I will leave it to you to apply this truth to your own situation. You may not have anyone in your life at the moment to push your buttons so you don't have a button on which to apply them - or you don't even realize that you even have buttons. If that's the case, enjoy life until such time your buttons are pushed.

If you do find yourself fighting things from your past, now would be a good time to sit down and evaluate the button. Exactly what emotion(s) are you feeling when that button is pushed? What took place that caused the button to be created? Who caused that button to be created? Have you  taken, or are you taking, steps to distance yourself from that person/situation so you can think objectively away from the line of fire? Do you have someone you can talk with - honestly - and who will be honest with you?

These are all important things to consider. But identifying the problem and answering the "whys" is not enough. We need to be healed, not just enlightened. Enlightenment just makes you aware that 1) you have a wound; and 2) the severity of the wound. Enlightenment makes you aware that you need healing, but it doesn't heal. Ditto for time. The old saying "Time heals all wounds" is false. Time puts distance between you and the occurrence of the wound, but it doesn't heal.

There are a few things that do heal wounds from the past: Forgiveness, Love, and the intimately personal touch of God's Holy Spirit.

I've touched on forgiveness in another blog so I won't go into all that. Just know that by forgiving someone you are not saying what they did was OK. It is never OK to hurt someone. What you are doing by choosing to forgive is handing God the permission slip to deal with them as He sees fit for what they've done. You take yourself off of the judge's seat and let God sit in your stead, trusting He will do what's right by you and them. Forgiveness frees YOU!

Love is not a feeling, it's action. It's a choice. We can choose to show love by any act of kindness, generosity, forgiveness, mercy, etc. Warm fuzzies are nice, but feelings are weak and fickle and change with the circumstance. Love is strong. It withstands much and accomplishes more than any fleeting feeling ever will. (Read I Corinthians 13 to see how you stack up in the Love Department)

God's love is the strongest of all. It loves in a way that is supernatural. It is not affected by life's circumstances or how it is treated. It has, does, and always will, stand the test of time. He promised His Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth, and that the truth will set us free. Free from our shortcomings, our sin, our wounds, our failures ... free from our past. He wants a bright future for all of us, and that can't be obtained when we're being paralyzed by the past. Allow God to love you and the Holy Spirit to heal you so you can receive His gift of freedom. Getting rid of the past is quite a present.

WISDOM AND ENEMIES - Part I

Wisdom is something that will save your butt every time. If we take an honest look at the things that have caused us the most pain, and not stopped at the shallow level of blaming someone or something as the cause of the pain, we can get to the bottom line of truth: we didn’t use wisdom and our choices bit us in the butt at the very least and completely chewed it off in some cases.

I was recently asked about the relationship between wisdom and doing good to your enemies, prompted by a verse in the book of Proverbs in the Bible which is quoted by Jesus about doing good to those who hate or persecute you.

While it is true that Jesus wants us to love our enemies by doing good to them instead of repaying evil for evil, He also expects balance. Wisdom says you don’t walk more than once behind a horse that kicks. You can forgive the horse for kicking you (the well-known “70 times 7 Rule” that humbled Peter), but you don’t walk behind him again. To do so would be foolish. Shooting the horse for kicking you would be repaying evil for evil. Forgiving the horse for kicking you and purposely not walking behind him again is wisdom.

The catch seems to be somewhere in between. Most people who have been kicked by the proverbial horse will waste vast amounts of time and energy trying to teach the horse not to kick. This is insanity. When there are so many horses with a compliant and pleasant disposition, why would you waste time trying to change the very nature of the one that kicks? Many years of raising and training horses has taught me this: you can teach a horse not to kick but the amount of frustration and time it takes to accomplish it is not worth it. You will only change the behavior … you will never take his “want to” away. The end result is a horse that will give you the action you desire but will never give you his heart or trust. It will be a continuous battle of wills.

Why would you desire a constant fight rather than a peaceful, pleasant ride? Wisdom says, “Accept the horse as he is, knowing his faults, and work around them. Let him be useful for whatever purpose he was created, but don’t walk behind him.” If you are intent on getting the horse to behave as you think he should, that is not wisdom – that is a dual issue of pride and control. Pride says, “I’m not going to let that horse get the best of me! I’ll show him who’s boss!” Control says, “He just doesn’t understand that it’s in his best interest to (fill in the blank). I know what’s best and he needs to comply. If he would just do things my way, everything would be fine. If he doesn’t do what I want, I’ll make his life miserable until he complies.”

We all know there are times in life that people can seem to be our enemies. Horses are much easier to work with than people! It is especially difficult when a person continues to inflict pain on you despite your best efforts to do them good. This is where God expects us to use wisdom, the root of which is love.   

To be continued …

GOOD FRIDAY (Posted by request)

I wrote this last week on Good Friday. It was suggested I post it here.

Since yesterday I've been telling Jesus how much I appreciate what He had to endure at the hands of man and on the cross to pay for my sin and to redeem me from Hell. My mind cannot really wrap around how expansive, deep, and complete Christ's work is. I just know that the blood He shed was perfect and entire, obtaining salvation and forgiveness for all of us.

It may sound illogical but I really dislike Good Friday. Not because I don't want to celebrate Jesus' overcoming sin, Hell, and death - there is no greater thing to celebrate in this world or the next! - but because of the pain involved. It hurts me in a place I cannot even describe. Every one of those horrible blows Jesus took - every spit in his face, every hair of his beard pulled out, every lash that ripped open His back - rightfully belong to me. Knowing He took all that, plus the weight of every sin of every person of all generations past, present, and future, as He hung mutilated on that cross is more than I can bear at times. Keeping that reality at a safe distance intellectually is how I deal with it most of the time. But not on Good Friday.

This is the day when I force myself to look at the reality of how my Jesus suffered because of me. Because of MY sin. I have to own it, to let it fully sink in and break the Safe Distance Barrier so it transfers from my brain to my heart - to my very soul. After the nausea and heartsickness subsides, and pained prayers have stopped flowing, I realize that it was FOR my very soul that Jesus did what He did. It's personal. It's not a "for the masses" thing - even though it was. It's a very personal, intensely intimate, thing.

I love Him so much, and it hurts me beyond measure to know what He suffered. After all these years, I still can't comprehend that kind of love.

No Man Is An Island ... More Than Just a Simon & Garfunkle Song

Why is it everyone wants the freedom to do or say whatever they want, whenever they want, but don't want to be held personally accountable for their own actions, words or thoughts?

I'm all for freedom and I'll be the first to get my dander up if I feel one of our liberties, rights, or privileges are being infringed upon (yeah, I'm one of "those." I don't like big government, no matter what party it is, and I hold the Constitution of the United States as it was originally written and intended to be one of the most sacred - for lack of a better term - documents we have.) However, I'm not talking about political ideologies.

I post the question on a personal level. I want to challenge people to think about the ramifications of their words, actions, and thoughts because they DO affect all those around them - whether intended to or not. 

Why do we act with such bravado, then get angry when someone asks us to explain ourselves? Are we so distorted by pride that we feel we are above being questioned for our own actions or words? I pondered this thought and came to some conclusions for myself, whether or not anyone else agrees.

We know there are two kinds of pride. One type is the pride you feel in doing something well, or when your child or someone you love has accomplished something at which they have been working, or it is what you feel with the person you love or admire because they exemplify solid character, etc.

The other type of pride is the kind that warps reality. It blinds people to their real condition. Pride is the root cause of not being able to admit when we are wrong. Pride causes us to focus on the faults in others so we can feel better about ourselves. "At least I'm not like so-and-so!" Pride is false confidence, which is why some people get angry when they are questioned about their actions, words, or beliefs.

I would venture to say that anyone who is not willing to be held PERSONALLY accountable for their actions, words, thoughts, or beliefs is acting out of self-centeredness and pride rather than true confidence. When someone truly knows or believes something, they don't feel defensive about that thing. It just IS. Truth cannot be changed. You can disagree with it, dislike it, war against it, or pretend it doesn't exist ... but it cannot be changed.

This brings me back to my original point. Everything we do affects someone or something. We cannot act irresponsibly in the name of freedom, and we cannot refuse to give account for ourselves, for that would be anarchy. We are not demi-gods who have the self-appointed right to do or say whatever, whenever, to whomever, then dare anyone to say one word to the contrary.

This type of mindset and behavior requires no thinking. It stubbornly refuses true self-reflection because it doesn't want to see any personal faults. How do we grow if we don't take an honest self-assessment on occasion? You can't leave rotten fish in the refrigerator without it stinking up the whole kitchen! We are all mortal humans and we all have rotten fish that needs to be thrown out from time to time, and we are not above reproach or beyond question.

Intelligent people question until they find an answer. When they arrive at the truth, they can hold to it with pure confidence. They are not shaken by being questioned and are more than willing to be personally accountable. Truth is never intimidated.