While processing and speaking about my Race last year, I often refer to a particular hard season I had as “The Dark Ages.” During that season, I experienced a lot of pain and had no idea what to do with it. I was deep in my emotions a lot, and lived out of the place where “everything sucks.” Instead of pressing in with the Lord, I chose to blame Him and question both His intentions and my own faith.
At the end of this season, God revealed a lot to me about ownership – actually, He taught me about my lack of it. I absolutely love science, and I continue to read research papers and go over books and texts from when I was in school. During this time, I was reading a book by David D. Burns called Feeling Good Together, another one by Andrew Newburg called How God Changes Your Brain, and, of course, the Bible, and those resources taught me a lot.
I got to share a message during our last month, and God kept putting it on my heart to talk about ownership. I decided to put my Psychology background, love for science, and the Bible together to share about how we can lose sight of what we have ownership of in our lives and how taking that back allows us to lead a life in more abundance, especially in relationships.
This is a bit of what I shared (with some doctoring up):
God gives us free will ( Deuteronomy 30:19-20: I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.) which means we do have ownership over our lives. God trusts us to make decisions; to make ones that honor Him, glorify Him, and will bear fruit in our lives.
There are 3 main points I want to focus on us taking ownership over:
Circumstances, feelings, and behaviors.
We tend to have trouble owning our circumstances, especially when they are less than fortunate. We refuse to accept and process what is happening to us, our feelings through it, and then our behaviors.
In Feeling Good Together by Dr. David D. Burns, He explains that we have cognitive distortions based on our experiences in life. This means that our thinking patterns are skewed because of what’s happened to us.
These distortions become what are called “self-fulfilled prophecies.” For example, If I think my friend is a jerk, and talk about my friend being a jerk, I’m going to treat him like a jerk, and that creates an environment where he actually does act like a jerk. Then, I’ll tell myself I’m always right because I knew he was a jerk in the first place. I probably did this as a result of something that happened between my friend and I, and I didn’t process it or have a conversation about it. This has lead me to solely put the blame on him and not own what also needs to change in my character.
So, what’s going on?
Cognitive Therapists believe lack of self-esteem is the biggest wall in taking ownership. If we don’t know who we are and why, we don’t seek to know who other people are and why. This is Biblical! 1 john 4:19 says, “We love because He first loved us. We are people who need to know and accept the love that is freely given to us so we can better love others!
What do we know about this?
Cognitive therapy is based on the theory that if we change our thought patterns, we’ll change the way we feel and behave in certain situations.
Obviously, it’s not very easy to immediately change thought patterns. It feels good to validate ourselves, and we are people who want instant gratitude.
It takes time, discipline, and motivation. We should focus on the change that could be made inside of us before shifting blame to someone else. Taking ownership is self-less because you’re owning your negative or positive impact on the people around you!
Dr. Burns further goes into cognitive interpersonal therapy, which assumes 3 main points:
1. We all maintain the exact relationships we complain about. Luke 10:40 is the story of Mary and Martha, where Martha is busy working and shifts blame to Martha for not helping her. Martha is actually the one who made the decision to do all this work for Jesus, when all He really wanted was for them to fellowship with him. Martha lacked ownership of her over-commitments and shifted blame.
2. We deny ownership because self-examination can be shocking and painful. Matthew 7:5 says, “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” Focusing on others’ faults is easier and way less painful and emotional than diving into our own. I love how this scripture talks about looking at yourself first, and when you can see clearly you can have conversations with others to lift them up and call them higher.
3. We all have more power than we think to transform. Romans 8:11: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” GUYS. WE HAVE HOPE. God wants us to live so fully that His son had to die to allow the Spirit to live in us, transform, and change us! PARTY, PARTY, we all gettin’ saved!
What can we do about all this?
Dr. Burns explains that we have 3 options at any given time:
1. Maintain status quo
2. Cut it off
3. Work to change
I’m not sure about you, but I know I’m not a perfect human, and I want to constantly grow to be more like Jesus to spread the Kingdom. Over the past few years in school, working in ministries, and doing missions, I’ve learned a lot about the importance of abiding, reflecting, processing, and growing.
These are some tools I’ve taken from healing retreats, therapy, studying Psychology, and discipling:
Processing – I’ve seen many different ways of doing this, so it depends what works for you. Journaling, praying in your head or out loud, having a conversation with someone about what you’re going through, typing, art…. Get your thoughts and feelings out!
Read the Bible ? I have met people who don’t claim to follow Jesus (yet), but they’ve still read the Bible. That thing is a gold mine for wisdom and love and how to live a beautiful life. Plus, we get to learn a thing or two about God’s character and faithfulness, and the Gospel that ultimately saves our lives. Just read it.
Prayer – I’m not sure there’s anything quite like fellowshipping with the Holy Spirit and asking God to change our thoughts or reveal what we can change. Don’t forget to sit in silence, or meditate, to leave space for God to answer.
*I’m reading this book called How God Changes Your Brain by Andrew Newburg, and it’s FASCINATING. It has a lot of scientific studies and research of how prayer, meditation, religious practices, and creating a still and quiet space can have lasting, healthy effects on our brain. It stresses doing it for longer periods of time, and that’s lead to the re-wiring of some neurological pathways to improve memory loss in people!
“When prayer is incorporated into longer forms of intense meditation, or practiced within the context of weekly religious activity, many health benefits have been found, including greater length of life. Prayer is also associated with a sense of connection to others, but the reason it may have little effect on cognition has to do with the length of time it is performed. Prayer is generally conducted for only a few minutes at a time, and we believe that it is the intense, ongoing focus on a specific object, goal, or idea that stimulates the cognitive circuits in the brain.”
“During meditation, we become more focused and alert, more empathic and socially aware, and can better control our body movements and emotions. This affects our sensory perception of the world, and this information is relayed to other parts of the brain.”
My prayer is that we will have hearts to want to love one another well by growing in taking ownership of our circumstances, feelings, and behaviors.
