In this brief series, I have chosen three of those types from the book to share with you.

Last week we looked at how a perfectionistic personality naturally creates anxiety. And in this post we explore how the thoughts and emotions of a shame-based individual attract anxiety.

The shame-based person carries a secret. Not a truth… but a secret.

And he or she is tormented by it.

The ability to experience shame is a healthy human characteristic. It is one of the guardrails instilled in us by our Creator to prevent us from, among other things, becoming utterly sociopathic.

Healthy shame nudges us back toward a sane center. It addresses a behavior and, acting only in our best interest, tells us, “That was unfortunate” or “That was wrong of you. Let’s remember to not do that again.”

This is not at all how toxic shame works.

Toxic shame does not speak to an attitude or action. That is, it does not speak to something emanating from you. Its message is much more insidious. Much more damaging.

Toxic shame whispers (or shouts) to you in an ongoing way that you are no good. It tells you that you are fundamentally broken.

Toxic shame tells you that you are unlovable.

In the most literal sense of the word it wants you to believe that you are beyond redemption.

The shame-based individual feels that she must guard this “truth” about herself with all diligence… because if anyone finds out what she’s really like, they will pull away.

(It is beyond the parameters in this article but I will just comment here that the shame-based profile most often has its origins in attachment issues from childhood. Not always, but most commonly. And it is by no means limited to unbelievers.)

A phrase I have heard from more than a few clients over the years is, “I’m afraid that when you find out what I’m really like you’ll be disgusted.”

In every case, their concern is not about something they’ve done, or something done to them. Rather their anxiety comes from what they think will happen if they open up about who they are. (That is, how they see themselves.)

The wording can vary slightly, but the message is always the same with these clients. I can state it like this: When you know who I really am, you will be repulsed by me.

In their mind, he or she is the horrible wound.

A shame wound makes you feel like you live on the brink of vulnerability. One wrong word, one mistake, one behavioral misstep and you will be seen for the broken, misshapen person you really are. You will be exposed. And that possibility of exposure is both terrifying and exhausting to body and soul.

It is easy to imagine the potential for anxiety in the shame-based person. Consider the pressure it puts on someone to carry that kind of burden through life.

Reflect for a moment on the effort it takes to construct a presentable mask to the outside world while feeling so bad about yourself on the inside.

This is not hypocrisy.

Rather, this is someone who believes at all cost that he must hide who he is because he feels wholly unacceptable. He feels broken.

Going through life with a shame wound is the perfect storm from which anxiety can and usually does emerge.

If you are carrying a shame wound, let me offer you some hope.

Let’s go back. Way back.

Do you recall what Adam and Eve did after the Fall? Piteously, they tried to cover themselves. They stitched fig leaves together in the attempt to cover their nakedness.

(There is so much I would like to say at this juncture. But to keep our focus, I’ll move on.)

Why on earth did they do this?

Because they had done something to be ashamed of. Did you notice that? They had done something to be ashamed of. So far, so good.

But in a way both spiritually and psychologically destructive, they internalize the problem. There was a way to do this constructively. After all, they did need to internalize what they had done. They did need to own it.

Unfortunately, they internalized it destructively. (No doubt spurred on by the enemy’s thought poison.)

Adam and Eve take on a self-improvement project. If we cover up, maybe we’ll be okay.

They are now tormented by the very nakedness they exhibited without any qualms whatsoever before, as they walked with God in the Garden (“Who told you that you were naked?”^[1]).

With human effort they seek to fix the problem – a folly still practiced today.

There is but one solution. Be done with fig leaves. Quit trying to be enough.

Rather, embrace the admonition of Paul – Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.^[2] Let His righteousness clothe you like a robe.

Later, Paul carries the imagery even further saying that if we are in Christ we have clothed ourselves with Christ.^[3]

Our shame – both healthy and toxic – are of the old man, the old Adam. If we have been clothed in Christ through redemption we have put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.^[4]

If you want to begin the conquest of a toxic-shame wound and the anxiety it produces, realize that as a believer you are no longer walking about in fig-leaf couture of your own stitching.

Celebrate the reality that you are now clothed in Christ.

There is no shame to be found in that gracious attire.

^[1] Genesis 3:11

^[2] Romans 13:14

^[3] Galatians 3:27

^[4] Ephesians 4:24, which he repeats in Colossians 3:10.

Christians Who Thrive brings together timeless biblical truths with psychological wisdom that equip you to replace the pain and frustration you now carry with personal, spiritual, and relational experiences you long for. ©2026 Growth Resources LLC | Christians Who Thrive. All Rights Reserved.

In this brief series, I have chosen three of those types to explore.

We start with the perfectionist.

As I have often said to clients, I have never met a happy perfectionist.

I have met successful perfectionists, people who have risen to great heights in their chosen profession. They are the set it and forget it type of people. They can always be depended on to do a good job; their internal standards demand it. Such people are a boon to any company or business.

I have met skillful perfectionists. In the arts they turn out beautiful work because they are relentless until they get it “just right.” In music, Steely Dan comes to mind.

One famous example is the recording of the guitar solo on “Peg” from their brilliant album Aja. Fagen and Becker (the core of Steely Dan) auditioned seven different premier session guitarists – the best of the best – for the 30-second guitar solo. They generated dozens of hours of tape in the process. Guitarist Jay Graydon nailed it… after working on the short solo for about six hours.

But it is widely held that the drivenness and relentless obsessive perfectionism of Fagen and Becker is largely the cause of the demise of Steely Dan as well as the burnout and personality problems of nearly everyone who worked on that album. Especially the two principal members.

So as I say, I have met successful perfectionists and I have met skillful perfectionists.

But I have never met a happy perfectionist.

The very qualities that make a perfectionist reliable and excellent in their performance are also the characteristics that make them prone to anxiety.

For the perfectionist you see, the stakes are always high. Very high.

I want to give you an idea of what I am talking about by way of illustration. In the Smoky Mountains it is not uncommon while hiking a trail to come upon a ditch with a bridge fashioned from a felled tree. The ditches are typically dry and it is just a few feet to the grassy ground below. Walking the bridge is no problem, and even if you do fall off it is no big deal. You get up, dust yourself off, and get going again.

This equates to what performance is like for most people.

Not so, the perfectionist.

For the perfectionist, performance is less a ditch and more like the Grand Canyon.

Imagine stepping onto an incredibly long, narrow tree bridge on one side of the canyon and having to walk it to the other side.

Consider some of the points that would be in play:

• you would dread the trip

• you would hate the journey

• you would miss the experience

• you would feel nothing but relief IF you made it, because

• you would realize all that awaits you is another crossing (performance)

That is life for the perfectionist. Put succinctly, the stakes are just too high! And it is an ongoing experience, day after day.

In light of the above, I trust you need no help from me to see why the life of a perfectionist is chock-full of the opportunity for anxiety.

If you are someone who struggles with, and suffers from, the need for perfection, I encourage you to anchor what I am about to say into your heart and mind... and live with it until the truth of it sets you free.

Through the salvific work of Christ, we have been set free from that awful burden we call perfection. A burden, I might add, that is utterly impossible for us to attain. Don’t try to carry that burden. You are doomed to buckle under its load.

Theologically we champion the vicarious atonement of Christ. An interesting word, that. It comes from a Latin word meaning “substitute.” Vicarious refers to a deed or action done for another.

The Master accomplished on the cross what we could never accomplish for ourselves – our salvation.

But there is another way we can look at this truth, a way which sheds light on the subject of this article.

He was also vicariously perfect for us. There were no sins, no shortcomings, no imperfections in Him.

If you want liberation from the drivenness of perfectionism... and the anxiety it carries with it... rest and trust in the one who has already been perfect on your behalf.

Christians Who Thrive brings together timeless biblical truths with psychological wisdom that equip you to replace the pain and frustration you now carry with personal, spiritual, and relational experiences you long for. ©2026 Growth Resources LLC | Christians Who Thrive. All Rights Reserved.

Magic aside, we use a mirror to look at ourselves. It is a useful tool in the physical realm. It is wickedly dangerous in the spiritual.

With smoke, you can’t see. With a mirror you see clearly. But all you can see is yourself. And therein lies the trap.

Proverbs 14:10 tells us, “Each heart knows its own bitterness.”

You know you. You know what you’ve thought. You know what you’ve done. You know the attitudes you have held.

If you can be tricked into keeping your eyes on the mirror... to looking at yourself instead of looking at Christ... you are cooked.

This is a sure road to despair, even depression. It’s a path to being swallowed up by regret and remorse, guilt and shame.

It’s a practice, a habit, that will suck the spiritual energy right out of you.

And, though this is a bit off topic, let me add that mirror-gazing is the chief cause of genuine believers doubting their salvation:

· Have I really believed?

· Is my faith strong enough?

· If I were truly saved would I still struggle with...?

· If I belong to Christ why do I still have doubts?

· Wouldn’t I have more joy?

Virtually all salvation doubts are caused by fixating on the mirror. Look at yourself and most of what you will see is flaws and failure. What you will go away with is doubt.

By way of illustration consider this. In John 3:14 the Master said this: Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

If you know that Old Testament story, consider this. What an error it would have been for one of the Israelites to begin thinking:

· What if I’m too far away? (It’s estimated there were two million people in the migration. Very few of them could actually see the serpent lifted on the pole by Moses.)

· What if I’m not looking in exactly the right direction?

· What if I haven’t prepared myself to look?

· What if this story about a serpent on a stick isn’t true?

· What if it doesn’t work?

What was going on in the mind and life of that particular Hebrew individual wasn’t the issue. The raised serpent was the issue. That is where they were commanded to look.

Here is something we are wise to remember: The closer you look at us – any of us – the worse we look. The closer you look at Jesus, the better, the more beautiful He looks.

Our gaze is to Him. Not at the mirror. The mirror distracts. The mirror redirects.

There is a psychological condition known as body dysmorphic disorder. BDD is a disorder in which an individual is preoccupied with one or more self-perceived flaws or deficits in their physical appearance. Usually these “flaws” are unobservable to others or appear as something only slight and insignificant.

Over the course of my practice I have worked with individuals struggling with body dysmorphic disorder. It is a challenging issue and one which causes a great deal of pain and suffering to those struggling with it.

As you might well imagine, mirrors are the bane of the BDD individual. Mirror checking becomes a behavior that can actually eat up hours of their day.

Why in the world am I telling you this?

Because I have also worked with many Christians who are afflicted with what I call spirit dysmorphic disorder.

These individuals suffer too. And they are just as susceptible to mirrors. Books, podcasts, sermons… even Scripture itself... I’ve seen all of these used in the mind of the Christian with SDD (not an actual diagnosis, merely my working term) as distractions to turn their eyes to themselves and their own shortcomings, and away from Christ and the grace and freedom He has procured for us.

We are told to examine ourselves (2 Corinthians 13:5). We are given no indication whatsoever that God intends us to habitually perform a spiritual autopsy on ourselves.

Jesus has set us free so that we “might have life and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

We will never experience this by staring into the mirror of self-scrutiny. It is only a distraction, a misdirection. A painful one to be sure, but a misdirection nonetheless.

It will only serve to make you solipsistic... caught in a cycle that keeps your mind focused on yourself. For the Christian, a solipsistic habit is usually characterized by fear, doubt, worry... anxiety.

Remember, our enemy is called the accuser. He can whisper accusations in your ear all day long about you and about how you fail to measure up. And much of it will be true.

But he is rendered mute when it comes to accusations against our Lord. And it is to Him we look, not ourself.

We must ever hold before our mind’s eye that the message of our redemption in Christ means exactly this: When the Father looked at His Son hanging on the cross, He saw not the spotless Lamb, but me and my sin. Now, when He looks at me He sees not my sin but the spotless Lamb of God. That is the theology of redemption.

That is what the sacrifice of Christ purchased for us. That is why freedom and joy and a restored relationship to the Father is ours by inheritance.

And that is why psychological or spiritual torment no longer has a rightful claim on us.

Though the author had something else in mind, I want to close with a quote that speaks perfectly to this trap of mirror gazing for believers. I encourage you to read these words slowly and deliberately:

This ridiculous foible is perhaps one of our most fatal characteristics; for is there anything more absurd than to wish to carry continually a burden which one can always throw down? to detest existence and yet to cling to one’s existence? in brief, to caress the serpent which devours us, till he has eaten our very heart?*

* Voltaire, in his novel Candide.

Christians Who Thrive brings together timeless biblical truths with psychological wisdom that equip you to replace the pain and frustration you now carry with personal, spiritual, and relational experiences you long for. ©2026 Growth Resources LLC | Christians Who Thrive. All Rights Reserved.

Misdirection is a harmless and simple way to – when it works, that is – control what the audience sees. Smoke and mirrors, misdirection, is still used in magic today. And, as a tool of entertainment, the distraction and deception it employs is utterly harmless.

We might sum the matter up by saying smoke and mirrors is a technique to keep the audience’s mind away from what is really important. (You might want to keep that sentence in mind.)

In this post I want to talk a little about smoke. It might surprise you to learn that this is an idea chock full of biblical and psychological significance.

Smoke is a tool of the infernal enemy. In 2 Corinthians 4:4 the Apostle Paul says this:

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (ESV)

That word “blinded” in the passage actually carries the idea of “shrouding in smoke.”

The eyes of the unbeliever are not closed. They just can’t see the truth of the Gospel because their vista is clouded in smoke. Smoke provided by “the god of this world.”

It is not only the unbeliever who is affected by smoke. While that same term isn’t used, there are many passages indicating we believers are prone to distraction... to being misdirected from what’s really important.

Like this one: Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? (Matthew 6:25, NIV)

As you likely know, this passage concludes in v. 33 encouraging (and commanding) us with: But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

Elsewhere we are cautioned in a passage that tells us of those who fail to produce fruit because they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. (Luke 8:14, NIV)

Smoke not only blurs and distorts our vision – it chokes us as well.

It is surprising how many times in the New Testament the phrase “the cares of this life” are juxtaposed as a trap and snare regarding spiritual growth and right priorities.

The latter is what earned for Martha a gentle rebuke. “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:41, NLT)

As believers, it is important to recognize that the smoke gets in our eyes too.

To me, this is a very hard thing to get right. I struggle with it more than I wish. We are told we are “in the world but not of it.”

And I believe that.

But it’s a sticky wicket. For indeed we are in the world. And that locative requires a lot of upkeep! It’s tough sometimes, for me at least, to get a sense that I am getting that delicate ratio worked out to the Lord’s satisfaction.

In closing, let me come back to the central point of this whole idea of “smoke and mirrors.” (We’ll look at mirrors next time.)

As I said at the beginning, the entire intent behind it is to misdirect, to distract, to manipulate into not seeing what’s really going on. What really matters.

The magician doesn’t deceive. For every member of the audience who is deceived by the smoke and mirrors, their own mind does the deceiving. The magician just activates the process.

Goethe tells us that all deception is self-deception (in his Maxims and Reflections). If we are being deceived by all the misdirection taking place around us... not just in the world around us, but in our own lives as well... we can do something about this.

We can get in the Word, we can pray, we can worship, we can fellowship, we can think and reflect.

In both Testaments, the word for spirit is also the word for wind. It is no strain on credulity to say that as we practice the spiritual disciplines cited just above we can ask, and expect, that the Holy Spirit will blow the smoke away from our vision. We desperately need to see clearly in these darkening days.

We don’t have to fall for the misdirection because we are not “unaware of his [the ultimate magician’s] schemes,” (2 Corinthians 2:11).

Til next time,

Christians Who Thrive brings together timeless biblical truths with psychological wisdom that equip you to replace the pain and frustration you now carry with personal, spiritual, and relational experiences you long for. ©2026 Growth Resources LLC | Christians Who Thrive. All Rights Reserved.

This mistake involves what I am calling here a cardinal principle of marriage. Despite its important, even critical nature, I see this mistake at least once a day when marriage is the subject of the counseling or therapy.

Because of it’s significance, I want to give you that principle up front, and as succinctly as I can put it:

You cannot maintain a vibrant marriage, let alone experience growth in it, with behaviors that would never have led to marriage in the first place.

I encourage you not to rush by that statement. It is as immutable as the laws of physics.

Just what am I saying?

I’m saying that to keep a marriage in good health, and to grow it into something even greater, the relationship itself must be an ongoing priority for you. It requires the kind of prioritizing you gave the burgeoning relationship when you were dating.

I want you to consider how inconvenient falling in love was to your then current life.

· It distracted your focus

· It rearranged your priorities

· It demanded your time... lots of your time

· It took incredible energy

· It was utterly inconvenient

And it was worth every blissful, wonderful minute of it!

You had found your “pearl of great price” on the human level. And just as in the parable, you gladly sold all that you had to win her or him.

And it was great!

For a while.

Then slowly, almost imperceptibly slowly, focus changed. Mortgage, career, child, finances, the Joneses (you know, the ones people try to “keep up” with) crept in.

I hear all the descriptions from clients: “We feel like ships passing in the night.” “We just seem like roommates.” “I feel like we’re nothing more than business partners.”

The primacy of the relationship has moved to the back of the stage.

You wake up one day and realize you’re in a place you never imagined you would be when you were dating. I know this because I’ve tried to warn so many couples of this danger in their premarital counseling. But they’re so in love they can’t imagine it happening to them.

I’ve heard it many times. It sounds like this.

Dr Ruth I know you know what you’re talking about and I’m sure that happens to a lot of people. But it won’t happen to us. We’re just SO in love.

Uh-huh.

And they are!

But they’re likely wrong in thinking it won’t happen to them.

I can almost tell you for certain it will happen. That is, unless they safeguard against it by attending to the primacy of their relationship as the years unfold.

*So I want to come back to the key principle as I close this post: You cannot maintain a vibrant marriage, let alone experience growth in it, with behaviors that would never have led to marriage in the first place.

You know what to do. You’ve already done it. You did it when you were dating. It will be a different version from then, a more mature version. But the aspects of it will be the same.

Blessings!

Christians Who Thrive brings together timeless biblical truths with psychological wisdom that equip you to replace the pain and frustration you now carry with personal, spiritual, and relational experiences you long for. ©2026 Growth Resources LLC | Christians Who Thrive. All Rights Reserved.

Characteristically, men and women communicate differently and often the anger shows up here. But I don’t want to telescope in to that degree... to just communication.

Instead, I’d like to address a question many wives have asked me over the years,“Why is my husband so angry?”

That’s not a bad question. In fact, it is a very good question! God Himself asked this very question of Cain. “Why are you so angry?” (Genesis 4:6)

Of course, I cannot speak specifically to this as I do not know your husband. But I can make some educated guesses. And I’m pretty sure that one or more of these will apply.

1. Social Psychology
Historically any boy who showed emotions like fear, pain, sadness, and vulnerability were mocked, ridiculed, and called rather unflattering names.

The only emotional expression allowed was anger (and its sibling, aggression).

That anger emotion then becomes ingrained, almost reflexive. Thus the emotional keyboard of most developing boys gets reduced down to one key – anger.

2. Poor Early Bonding
When we are talking about early bonding we’re talking about what is referred to as attachment styles. That subject is too broad for this post, so I will just say this. Men with anger issues tend to have experienced an insecure attachment style with their significant parent.

Real or potential conflict with their spouse – like an argument – triggers this innate insecurity. He feels vulnerable, thus he gets defensive. He gets angry.

3. Unaddressed Wounds
This one relates to #1 but differs from it.

I have worked with so many broken men. The problem is, their brokenness is hidden beneath four inches of tac-welded boiler plate. It is sealed up as if in a vault.

Because of #1, he’s never even been allowed to experience his inner wounds, let alone acknowledge them to another.

Conflict with his spouse rattles those wounds. It bangs against that hidden sense of not being “enough.”

He feels defensive. And so, out comes the one-key piano. He responds in anger.

To the guys out there I would just say this – you have to look inside to discover why you are angry.

You will likely need some help with this journey.

And you have to be willing to feel what you find. Really feel it. Because the way out is through... always through.

Your anger is not the problem. It’s a secondary emotion. It’s your default defense against an inner wound.

And I say this as gently as I can – your wife is likely tired of experiencing it.

Til next time,

Christians Who Thrive brings together timeless biblical truths with psychological wisdom that equip you to replace the pain and frustration you now carry with personal, spiritual, and relational experiences you long for. ©2026 Growth Resources LLC | Christians Who Thrive. All Rights Reserved.

This first entry is characteristically (but not exclusively) seen in wives. Part 2 is characteristically (but not exclusively) found in husbands. And in Part 3 we’ll observe a fault that both husbands and wives contribute to.

A couple is riding down the road on a beautiful spring day. They are sitting quietly, listening to the music on the CD. (Remember those?)

The wife breaks the silence with this. “I just want you to know that I forgive you for what you did to me at Mom and Dad’s.”

The husband responds, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What did I do and when did I do it?”

She answers, “I’m talking about what you said to me at the dinner table on Thanksgiving.”

A brief silence follows while the husband is trying to sort this out in his head. He then says, “Honey, we haven’t been to your parents for Thanksgiving in three years!”

The wife replies, “Yea, I know. I just want you to know I’m ready to forgive you.”

Three years. One hundred and fifty-six weeks. One thousand and ninety-five days.

And her husband had no clue.

This is what I mean by emotional hoarding.

Here’s something important... I would say crucial... to remember about emotions.

If you’re hanging onto a damaging emotion, you have two options.
You can talk about it – or you will behave it.

That’s a cardinal truth.

If you don’t talk about it, you will behave it.

And you will negatively impact your relationship by doing so.

Some years back I developed a technique that will prevent emotional hoarding. I call this technique the DI-DI Principle.

DI-DI stands for Discuss It or Drop It.

Where there is emotional immaturity you will find a third (and indefensible) option. The individual will hang on to the issue – emotional hoarding – and will punish you.

This practice creates a lot of relational disturbance and conflict.

If you wish to avoid this kind of relational conflict, practice the DI-DI principle. Hold yourself accountable to do one of two things when your spouse hurts your feelings or otherwise irritates you.

Choose to discuss it... or drop it. Don’t hoard it.

If you trap those feelings inside, you will (consciously or unconsciously) begin to behave them. And your marriage will suffer as a result.

Let me add one final comment. Not everything is worth discussing. Overdoing this just makes you come across as petty.

In fact, the more you choose to let go of – within reason of course – the freer you become from the actions and attitudes of others.

Letting go doesn’t make you weak, it makes you wise. It reflects back to yourself the belief that your life is too significant to spend it in the weeds addressing trivialities.

That’s real power.

And it’s the way to break the practice of being an emotional hoarder.

Thrive Thought

You can think of emotional hoarding like a harmful bacteria that infects a relationship, at best weakening it and at worst breaking it down over time.

With that in mind, I’d like to offer a few suggestions that may facilitate whichever of the two—discuss it or drop it—you choose.

If you decide to discuss it, take responsibility for how you processed what the other person said or did. In other words, lead with the words, “I felt like you were saying…” or “what you did made me feel like…” instead of “You said…” which is much more accusatory.

If we take responsibility for how what was said or done made us feel, rather than accuse the other person of intending harm (which puts them in a defensive posture), we’re that much closer to a peaceful resolution.

Otherwise, trying to judge their motive or intent just drags the conflict out and often makes it worse.

And if you choose to drop it, just make sure you do, indeed, let it go. Human nature wants to hold onto hurt as a way to justify our pain and even comfort ourselves in it.

We refer to emotion as “energy in motion” or “emotional energy” because it is. And the first law of thermodynamics says that energy cannot be destroyed; it must be transformed. Which is to say, emotional energy needs an outlet of expression.

So if we choose to drop it, that means we need to seek a healthy means of expression if we’re going to be successful at releasing, or transforming, this energy.

Here are some ideas for healthy expression:

• Go for a drive or a walk somewhere you can talk out loud and not be heard by others… and then talk it out with God as if you were in conversation with Him about it. Tell Him honestly how you feel. Or just do the same thing in your prayer time. And then ask Him for the strength and love and forgiving spirit to let it go.

  
  “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).

• And… or… you can express the hurt by writing it out on a piece of paper. Why it hurts. Where it hurts. How bad it hurts. You can even let the paper catch any tears that come. Keep writing until you see and feel the hurt being transferred from inside you to the paper outside of you.
  
  And then shred the paper. Or wad it up and set fire to it. Or tear it into tiny pieces and flush it down the toilet, thereby seeing yourself physically “letting it go.”

• On the other hand, you may just simply be able to drop it. Like a rock you hold in your hand and then open your fingers and just drop… choose to open your heart and release it. Then ask the Lord to fill the hurt spaces with His love, for “love conquers all.” That’s true spiritual maturity.

I hope this is helpful in a really practical way.

God bless,

This week we’ll conclude that delightful scene from Proverbs 8 by zooming in on what, in particular, elicited an even more joyous reaction from Wisdom. Because this is a truth wonderful and powerful enough to reshape both how we see ourselves and how we worship the One who made us.

Wisdom, as Proverbs 8:30-31 tells us, was both God’s instrument in creation and, in poetic terms, an observer of it.

Wisdom frolicked as she saw the beauty and precision of all that God was making. She clapped, she danced, she laughed, she personified pleasure as she witnessed God at work. She was happier than a child at play.

We looked at verse 30 last time from two vantage points – Wisdom’s Presence (30a) and Wisdom’s Pleasure (30b).

Today we conclude with Proverbs 8:31 as we consider Wisdom’s Perception. Verse 31 tells us that as Wisdom looked upon God’s completed creation she was, “rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind.” (NIV)

Our attention is brought to two arenas in verse 31:

The first is creation completed, the second is God’s unique creation –
the one made in His image – man and woman.

When Wisdom observed God’s finished creation she“began rejoicing in His whole world,” the outset of verse 31 tells us. Again, the word rejoicing means “to laugh, to frolic, to celebrate, to dance.”

The picture is that Wisdom is standing back, taking in the beauty, the splendor of all that God has made and she can do nothing else but break forth in unbridled joy and pleasure and happiness. Poetically she is bouncing around like a newborn colt who has just discovered the spring in her legs!

What a beautiful truth for us to envision... and to celebrate!

As one observer noted,

“There is not one blade of grass and there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.”

But then something happens. Wisdom telescopes in and spots something on this home planet of ours. She sees, and instantly recognizes the distinction in something unique. She sees man and woman. At that point she has another spontaneous experience.

She was “delighting in mankind,” the text tells us. Again, as last time, we have a familiar word. The Hebrew word used here for Delight means to take extreme pleasure in something.

When she focuses in and sees the man and woman it’s almost as if her breath is taken. She sees instantly what God has done here. She recognizes at once the image of God in the couple.

This hits her differently. The pleasure is intense but the experience is more inward than outward. It’s almost as if she looks upon the couple and in awe responds with an astonished “Oh my!”

It’s as if Wisdom recognizes that creation has come to its close with a crowning glory – man and woman.

What should our own response be to this splendid cosmic scene laid out for us in Proverbs 8:30-31? Surely seeing this scene aright will have two effects on us. First it ought to fill us with wonder. I mean – what a scene is before us!

This should make our hearts leap within us when we see it... which will naturally lead us to the second response, that of worship.

Wonder and worship. They flow quite naturally from the beautiful truth of Proverbs 8:30-31.

Blessings,

Thrive Thought:

You were particularly crafted by the hand of God... and He rejoices over you.

We know Genesis 1:27 states that “God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” And, of course, we know this references Adam and Eve in particular.

But do we realize that God also specifically made you and me, individually and uniquely?

Consider these verses:

• Psalm 139:13: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”

• Psalm 139:14: “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

• Isaiah 44:24: “This is what the Lord says—your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the Lord, who made all things...”

And I believe we can rightly surmise that... as He did with Adam and Eve... after creating you and me, God saw what He had made, and said it was “very good!” (Genesis 1:31).

Proverbs 8:31 tells us that Wisdom delighted at the sight of humanity for she saw the image of God etched in each one of us. If Wisdom reacts to your existence with admiration and awe, what would it take for you to see yourself with even a fraction of that same holy wonder?

“I bear the image of God. I am His handcrafted joy.”

Unlike the freedom we celebrate as a nation every 4th of July, this freedom is more than just external liberty, as wonderful as that is.

The liberation Jesus came to give us is a soul-deep release from the grip of sin, shame, and brokenness.

Not only that… the gospel also has the power to liberate us from our broken psychology.

How often we live trapped in cycles of guilt, fear, anxiety, and people-pleasing, just to name a few.

Many are haunted by the belief than they are never enough... and never will be.

Self-help books will tell you how you can construct your way out of the kinds of tortuous beliefs and experiences stated above. Not likely.

Why? Because they fail to take into account a pivotal truth, one so pivotal in fact that we might call it the gospel truth:

Personal freedom is not achieved — it is received.

Liberty of this kind, soul-deep liberation, is “the gift of God, not of works,” as Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us.

When we surrender to Christ and turn the reins of our life over to Him, we are not “improved” — we are made new! The Savior breaks the chains we often don’t even know we’re wearing because we’ve worn them so long.

The Holy Spirit rewires our hearts and minds. He quiets our inner critic.

And glorious freedom —

He invites us to live from acceptance and not for it!

The presence of Christ within us anchors our worth, once-for-all established, and guides us into life abundant. Life liberated.

On this great day of celebration for our nation I would remind us all that a personal liberation is being offered us in Christ, right here, right now.

As A. W. Tozer put it, “All that Christ is, all that He has accomplished for us is available to us now if we obey and trust.”

Happy Independence Day!

We are told of wisdom’s connection to the very creation of all that is. In this passage wisdom is portrayed in personification – as an observer to creation itself – and also as God’s instrument in creation.

The passage lays out the particulars of creation in vs 22-29 in a general way and then builds to a glorious conclusion in verses 30-31 that is completely delightful.

And tucked right in the middle of this conclusion is one of the most beautiful truths in all of Scripture, for my money.

“Then I was beside Him as a master craftsman...”
(Proverbs 8:30a, NKJV)

Wisdom’s presence, 30a

Our text tells us that wisdom was there with God during creation as a “master craftsman.” The idea of course is not that there was another being there with God – a being called Wisdom.

Rather, what is being depicted for us is that as God was creating all matter, wisdom was the instrument He used.

Looking at the world around us it’s easy to see the fruit of wisdom in creation. The complexity of nature, the harmony of the seasons, all of creation is full of wisdom’s fingerprints.

As tempting as it is to expand on this, I must leave it to get to our destination. I want to turn to what I am calling A Beautiful Truth.

“And I was daily His delight,
Rejoicing always before Him.”
(Proverbs 8:30b, NKJV)

Wisdom’s pleasure, 30b

As wisdom was there at creation as both His instrument and – in the poetic language of our text – a personified observer, wisdom was overwhelmed by what she was seeing. “I was filled with delight day after day (during creation), rejoicing always in His (God’s) presence.”

Two words: delight and rejoicing. Let’s look at them.

Delight is actually plural – “delights.” The idea is that of extreme pleasure, of amusement. Think of a child skipping through a field or bursting into laughter at something delightful – that’s the image Scripture gives us. Wisdom is pictured as hopping with joy, completely taken with the beauty of God’s work.

Now let’s look at rejoicing. The word means – and I just love this – to laugh, to frolic ... to celebrate, to dance.

And these words together give us our beautiful truth. As wisdom watches creation unfold – being at once God’s instrument and an observer to the process – she cannot contain herself.

She is laughing and frolicking and clapping and dancing and ... celebrating ... at all the wonder before her eyes!

The Message translation has Wisdom saying it like this:
Day after day I was there, with my joyful applause!

Wisdom, older than creation itself is depicted here as frolicking like a child at Christmas over all she has witnessed at creation.

Before sin ever entered the world, before we were even made, the atmosphere around God’s work was filled with joy.

Not just power, not just intent – but also joy. Pure, unadulterated joy!

This, my friend, is the beautiful truth.

Take some time today to observe the world around you through the lens of delight. Notice the glory in a sunrise, the laughter of a child, the birds' morning songs. Let these realities of life remind you that God created everything not just with purpose and intent, but also with pleasure!

A powerful storm came through one day and lightning shattered one of those 100-year-old oaks. The tree was cracked open from the blow, the top two-thirds falling to the ground.

Driving to my unit one day (adult long-term) I noted that all that was left of the tree was sawdust from where the stump had stood the day before. The rest of the fallen tree was now gone as well.

About a month later I had to go to the administration building and in the expansive conference room was a new addition. The room was now hugged in tall bookshelves that looked to my eye to be constructed of cherry wood. They lined three of the four walls in the room and were, in a word, magnificent.

I was stunned because bookshelves like these were far beyond the budget of a state-funded psychiatric hospital.

“Wow! Those are beautiful,” I said to the hospital director, who happened to also be in the room.

“Remember that oak the lightning took out?” he answered. “They came from that!”

Here’s the story.

The large maintenance division of our hospital was headed by a master craftsman. He couldn’t bear the thought of that oak being ground down to mulch.

Instead, he dreamed a dream from dead wood.

He took that dead oak and milled the tree into lumber. So it turns out I was wrong about the bookshelves. They weren’t cherry; they were oak. Hand made with love from the mind and skill of a master.

What this says to me…

It doesn’t matter what you have been through. It doesn’t matter how far you have gotten off track. It doesn’t even matter if you’ve had a (hopefully metaphorical) lightning strike in your life.

There is a Master Craftsman just waiting to get His hands on you. And it just so happens that He, too, was a carpenter.

Put yourself in His hands. Trust Him as He uses the saw, the plane, the rasp, the sander in your life.

Yield to Him.

Surrender (which is a practical translation of “be still” in Psalm 46:10, by the way – “Be still and know that I am God”).

Trust the Master Craftsman. He has a plan. He knows already what He intends to fashion you into.

Paul is alluding to this very truth when he calls us, “His workmanship” (Eph 2:10).

It’s funny, isn’t it. As Christians we readily embrace that Christ died for our sins to restore us to the Father.

And yet, somehow, most of us struggle with believing that God is as active and as interested in our lives as this post implies.

I think G K Chesterton has it spot on: All men matter. You matter. I matter. It’s the hardest thing in theology to believe.^[1]

Although it is hard to believe... dare to believe it.

Dare to believe that you mean that much to God. That you matter that much to Him. Dare to believe He is at work in the vicissitudes of your life... in every detail.

Believe it – and then in the spirit of Psalm 46:10, surrender it all to Him. Just, let it go.

And watch what the Master Craftsman creates in you. And what He creates you into.

^[1] As stated in his Father Brown short story The Quick One.

Sunflowers are one of the unique contributors to that group of plants know as hyperaccumulators. These remarkable plants not only survive... they actually thrive in toxic environs, tolerating levels of poisons that would kill most other plants.

This is why they’re frequently used in cleaning up contaminated land and water (a process called phytoremediation).

Remember the famous nuclear disasters in Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011) which dumped radioactive cesium and strontium, as well as heavy metals like lead and uranium into the soil and water?

Sunflowers were planted in both instances to help with the cleanup!

Which leads me to suggest that the sunflower is an excellent metaphor
for God’s purpose for His children in this world.

Scripture makes it undeniably clear that God plants His children where He places us to have a purifying effect on our surroundings... our environment. Often, that environment incudes regions that are toxic. Poisonous.

Consider the Old Testament luminary, Joseph. Listen to his words:

...God sent me before you to preserve life. For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God;.... (Genesis 45:5-8)

Talk about a toxic environment! Ancient Egypt had more gods in their pantheon than could be numbered. If it existed, you could just about say Egypt had a god for it.

And yet that’s where God planted Joseph.

You are the salt of the earth ... You are the light of the world, says our Lord. (Matthew 5:13-14)

He plants us where He chooses to be people of influence and impact... people He can use to reach and redeem... to rescue others from the toxic environment of the world’s system and alienation from Him.

Too often, we Christians look at a poisonous environment as something God is doing to us instead of as something He wants to do in us and with us.

We take it as punishment. We take it as God being mad at us, or some such.

Rember the words of Joseph, “...God meant it for good.” (Genesis 50:20)

Your environment may be poisonous in some areas. Perhaps it’s your work place. Maybe it is an unbelieving or rebelling spouse. Ill health can be a kind of toxic environment if we let it.

Toxic environments... poisonous places can be hard.

But I encourage you to remember that God isn’t doing this to you. His purpose is to do something in you and through you. That’s why He planted you where you are.

Remember the sunflower. They weren’t planted around Chernobyl and Fukushima in order to kill sunflowers.

Blessings,

Upload a picture of yourself to your preferred AI platform and give it the following prompt. Tell it to change one feature of your face. Pick whatever you wish. You might tell it to change the shape of your nose. Or its size. You might tell it to pull your eyes slightly closer together or change the shape of your lips.

The resulting image will mess with your mind! I’ll tell you why in a moment but first let me explain my experience.

Susan and I were working on cover ideas for our soon-to-be-released book, Anxiety… and how to conquer it. And we wanted to include a picture of yours truly on the back cover.

Despite the fact that we told Chat to leave the photo completely unchanged, apparently it just couldn’t resist. (LLMs are not as “smart” as we think.)

One rendering had me with an “ear to ear” smile showing practically every tooth in my head.

I’ve never smiled like that in my life folks.

That picture really messed with us… and now we come to the reason yours will mess with you as well, should you try this little experiment.

The picture, you see, almost looked like me.

That night in bed I was reflecting on this experience and it brought a passage of Scripture to mind.

I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”^[i]

While we who have responded to the Gospel invitation of Jesus walk about in our day-to-day lives, we almost look like ourselves. Almost, but not quite.

The difference is both quantitative and qualitative. Because once we are “changed,” we will be so much more (complete) but also so much better (a perfect creation).

Our passage tells us this present body is mortal and that it is perishable. That is a more pleasant way of saying it dies and it decays.

But wait till you see how we end up! We will have a body impervious to that great enemy of life. Death.

We are promised that in the coming world we will have a body that cannot die and cannot decay. A reality purchased for us by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus. A reality that includes a body both glorious and eternal.

Then and then only will I look as I was meant to look. Then and then only will I look fully like me. Then and then only will you look like you.

What are some practical implications of this reality? There are surely more, but I would suggest three.

First, we ought to be kinder to ourselves. I don’t mean we should pamper ourselves more or be more self-indulgent. I mean kinder. Which is an aspect of the fruit of the Spirit, by the way.^[ii]

I am into my third decade as a psychotherapist and counselor. I can categorically tell you that I see very little difference between the internal dialogue of a Christian when compared to that of an unbeliever. Generally, it is every bit as toxic and serves only to beat the individual down. A toxic inner dialogue wounds and limits.

Disabling self-talk is the psychological term for this practice.

Second, we should be more gracious to our fellow believers. To everyone certainly, but especially our brothers and sisters in Christ. That’s biblical, you know. Paul admonishes us with these words, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”^[iii]

Remember, they don’t quite look like themselves yet either. Almost, but not quite. He or she will one day be all they were made to be. But they aren’t there yet. And it’s sometimes obviously so... just like you and me.

That’s why we’re encouraged to be patient with one another.^[iv]

Lastly, I encourage you to take hope in that great day of which our passage speaks. We will one day be new people in new bodies! Perfect people in perfect bodies!

The body, the person that is susceptible to decay and death... the body that stoops with age and twists with disease and damage will be long gone.

Our spiritual struggles and psychological brokenness will be a thing of history.

The Bible calls the day this will occur our “blessed hope,” and ties it to the return of Christ.^[v]

And we should be excited about this truth!

Just as Jesus was completely recognizable as Himself after the resurrection, so too will we be. But until that great day I have to content myself with almost looking like me. Just as you have to with almost looking like you.

Can you imagine what it’s going to be like on that great day when we see each other for the first time... really see each other as God intends us to be?

Little wonder that John tells us, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”^[vi]

I wouldn’t be surprised if, on that day, we look at faces so well known to us in this present life and say, “Oh my! So that’s what you really look like!

^[i] 1 Cor 15:50-55, ESV.
^[ii] Gal 5:22-23, ESV.
^[iii] Gal 6:10, NIV.
^[iv] 2 Tim 2:24, NKJV.
^[v] Titus 2:13, NKJV.
^[vi] 1 John 3:2, ESV.

Today we examine how the humble fire poppy can give us hope when life brings pain our way.

The California fire poppy (papaver californicum) is a remarkable little flower. So delicate… and yet strong as a hickory stick on the inside. One might think the name comes from its bright reddish-orange color, reminiscent of flames. But such is not the case.

The fire poppy doesn’t shine until times get hard.
In fact, it doesn’t even appear until times get hard!

Growing in the rocky chaparral land of the American southwest, the plant comes to life after the land has been ravaged by wildfire. Hence the name.

The seed of the fire poppy lie dormant for decades in that hardscrabble environment. The heat and smoke generated by the fire – which destroys most plants – actually stimulates the fire poppy to life! The ash-rich layer the fire leaves behind provides the soil conditions in which fire poppies thrive.

There’s much for us to learn here.

Job tells us that we are “born for trouble as surely as sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). A timely simile given that we are talking about something that doesn’t grow until the fire comes.

And that’s how it is with us, my friends. There are parts of our growth in Christ that will lie dormant for years (not unlike the fire poppy) awaiting the fires God sends our way to germinate them and bring them to life.

Sometimes the hindrances are external.
Sometimes the hindrances are internal.
In both cases, the solution lies in fire.

Externally, the fire burns off the dense vegetation that smothers out the ability of the poppy to germinate. Internally the fire cracks open the tough seed-coating that prevents the flower from springing to life.

Once again we can see how, as believers, we are in the same position as the fire poppy. Those who know their Bible know that we are told of the three enemies we struggle against – the world, the flesh, and the devil.

The world and the devil are external challenges. They are to the believer what the dense vegetation draining the soil of nutrients is to the fire poppy.

The flesh is our great internal challenge. It is akin to the husk that stifles the seed’s potential for life.

God’s solution is fire.

The fire brings pain, no doubt.
But it is a pain that is only for our good and our growth.

This is precisely why Peter (1 Peter 4:12-13) says to us, Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. Instead, be very glad—for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world.

I don’t know what pain you are facing now. It may be physical... it may be mental and emotional... it may be spiritual... it may be relational.

Take heart and take hope, my friend. Think of the fire poppy.

God knows your pain. And He has a purpose in it.

Remember – the fire is not the end. It’s the beginning.

Til next time,

It’s amazing though, that all around us in nature there are lessons and “helps” that actually show us how to handle challenging people.

For example, here’s a true story that’s also a bit humorous illustrating one of those lessons for us…

Erected on Sullivan’s Island to protect the city of Charleston, Fort Sullivan (now known as Fort Moultrie) was a tough nut to crack for the British Navy during the Revolutionary War. In fact, it took them four years to capture it!

Just why in the world did it take the greatest navy in the world at that time four years to conquer a small fort on a small island?

The primary answer to that question lies in the outer walls of the fort. They were made of palmetto logs. That’s right... palmetto logs.

(Now you know why South Carolina is referred to as “The Palmetto State.”)

Palmetto logs behaved very differently to British cannon fire than did stone, brick, or even hard wood.

That’s because palmettos are not like your typical tree. A member of the palm family, palmettos have a soft, flexible, fibrous tissue beneath their spongy husk (bark).

Unlike harder surfaces, when the cannon balls struck the soft palmetto logs - they mostly just embedded into the soft wood. Many simply bounced off.

Try that with brick or stone... or even hard wood!

Difficult, abrasive people have a lot in common with cannon fire, don’t they? For example:

• They often start with a sudden, loud blast

• They typically launch a barrage, not just a single-shot

• The fallout, that is, the consequence from the blast can cause a lot of damage

• After the firing, there’s usually a toxic atmosphere that lingers

When you get fired upon by the human equivalent, I suggest that you respond like Fort Sullivan. Don’t let it shatter you or knock a hole in you. And don’t let it blow you up.

Don’t let it get past your resilient, malleable, flexible husk. You’ll be surprised at how many attempted shots will simply bounce off... and even those that stick will only affect the surface.

If you want to waste a lot of energy and freedom and life, be the kind of person that reacts to every little nick, every little jab, every little insult. Be rigid and inflexible and always on the defensive. Just know that’s a sure path to misery.

We have the freedom to choose how we respond to the cannon fire that comes our way. It can change our mood, wound our spirit, preoccupy our mind, fill us with hurt and anger. Or it can lightly embed in our surface and maybe even bounce off.

It all depends on what our walls are made of.

I thought it might also be helpful, just as a reminder, to consider these three lessons from Scripture about handling difficult people:

1. Never lose sight of who you are in the sight of God.

Your mood, your mindset, and your worth should never depend on the opinions, attitudes, accusations, or behavior of others—whether good or bad—because the reality of Romans 8:31-38 is more than sufficient to counter whatever salvo difficult, deceptive, and destructive people send your way.

2. No matter what you’re given to work with, choose to give love in return. Of course, the Master was, indeed, our Master Model for how to respond to difficult people.

Our first level response should be that of love and not anger or defensiveness, because a “soft answer turns away wrath” (Proverbs 15:1).

And for a deeper level response, try offering to buy your “enemy” a cup of coffee. Or take them to lunch (I Peter 3:9). You might discover over coffee that the reason they behave the way they do is because their burden in life is more than they can manage without spilling it.

Granted, this is hard business. We’re human and naturally want to fire back when we’re fired at. But as His disciples we’re commanded to not only love the “brethren” but our enemies as well (Luke 6:35).

3. And finally, at least for me… I need to remember that it’s the Spirit of Christ who lives in me that makes any of this possible anyway. Because apart from His love shed abroad in my own heart, I may well be that difficult person myself.

We choose how we respond. Let’s choose wisely, remembering the palmetto.

The bridge opened to much fanfare on July 1, 1940. Just four months later as rivets popped and steel twisted, Galloping Gertie collapsed dramatically and plunged into the cold waters of Puget Sound.

Turns out the bridge had a major structural flaw in its design that disallowed it from accommodating winds as low as 40 mph.

Contrast this with the amazing palm tree.

While regal oaks, mighty maples, towering pines, and noble sycamores are splintered, split, and uprooted... the incredible palm tree rides out the mightiest of hurricanes.

Forty miles an hour? Fuggedaboutit. Try 150!

Want to handle the pressures of life like a palm tree?

Here’s what you’ll need:

1. The Right Structure

Unlike the other trees mentioned above, palm trees have an aerodynamic canopy and long, accommodating fronds that can ride the heaviest of winds.

Further, palms have no heavy branches; they grow large leaves (fronds) directly from the top in a relatively open arrangement. In strong winds, the fronds fold up like a fan or bend backward, reducing surface area and wind resistance. This prevents them from acting like sails that catch and amplify force.

What about you? Do you try to take on the heavy winds of life, refusing to accommodate what you cannot control? Do you become a sail for the pressures of life?

Or do you, like the palm, yield to its power?

A wise man once prayed, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.”

2. The Right Substance

Palm trees have a flexible, non-woody trunk... that’s right, non-woody... that is more than a little remarkable.

Unlike typical trees with rigid wood (organized in rings, which adds strength but limits the ability to bend), palm trunks consist of a bundle of tough, fibrous strands scattered throughout a spongy, flexible tissue.

This structure lets the trunk bend dramatically—often 40–50 degrees or more—without snapping! Once the storm has passed, the palm then springs back to its previous state.

When the storms come, is it your tendency to flex, to flow, to bounce back? Or are you more like the oak, maple, pine, and sycamore? Do you try to match external forces with rigidity?

That’s an easy way to end up in the mulch yard of a garden center.

Remember, flexibility is the key.

3. The Right Security

The sneaky-strong palm tree has an extensive, fibrous root system. In fact, many palms develop a wide network of short, shallow roots that spread out and anchor a large mass of soil around the base. This creates a heavy, stable platform.

The advantage of this? It helps resist uprooting.

Isn’t it something that we use the same language for hard times? “It really uprooted my life.”

And this is precisely where our faith comes in. Life is hard. The winds can blow furiously.

But we have Christ’s promise that though shaken, though temporarily bent out of position, we need not be uprooted.

As we sink our roots in His Word, His Promises, His fellowship and communion... we are developing our root system.

This is our strength. This is our security.

Til next time,

My parents were first generation immigrants from a little village in Scotland called Drumnadrochit. While you’ve probably never heard of the village, you’ve certainly heard of the lake lying beside it - Loch Ness.

Just as my parents were first generation immigrants, I grew up as a first generation American. We lived in New York, near the city, and I continue to reside there until this day. Sadly, my parents have both now passed.

All my life I was regaled with stories from Mom and Dad about their beloved Scottish Highlands. They painted so many beautiful pictures in my mind over the years that it seemed to me their memories were my own.

As a young boy my favorite stories revolved around the Highland shepherds and their sheep.

I told myself back then that one day, when I was all grown up, I would take a trip to Scotland and see it all for myself. I wanted to experience the land of my roots, the country my parents so dearly loved.

In 1979 I decided the time was right. I was heading to Scotland! My only regret was that with my parents now dead for a number of years, I would not be able to share my experience with them once I returned.

I flew in to Edinburgh from New York and spent the day exploring that notable city.

The next day I boarded a travel coach for a day trip through the Highlands. Something happened on that day that easily ranks it as the most memorable experience of my life.

Our coach driver pulled into a lay-by to allow us to view one of the Highland’s many postcard-worthy sites... a Scottish shepherd with his dogs and flock. I was excited about this because it was a site I had been waiting my entire life to see.

I’ll never forget what happened next. What I saw absolutely astonished me.

In front of me, I saw one of those storied shepherd scenes. But something wasn’t right. As a matter of fact, nothing was right!

Instead of a languid, gentle scene, what I saw could only be described as pure chaos. Instead of gently moving the sheep about with his crook (staff), the shepherd was sweeping it in a circle over his head and yelping. He looked like an angry whirling dervish!

Those disciplined, obedient sheep dogs? If there was any sense to what they were doing I certainly couldn’t see it! The dogs were running all around the sheep, barking, nipping at their heels.

And as for the sheep - they were freaked out! They were bleating and jumping and running in all directions, obviously filled with fear.

This scene was a mess! Further, it bore no similarity in any shape or fashion to the stories I grew up with - stories told to me by my beloved mom and dad!

To say my mind was blown is an understatement. I was utterly confused. Rattled as I was, I tracked down the driver and asked him if he could explain what I saw.

The driver’s response only added to my confusion. He just looked calmly at the scene then turned to me and said, “Uh-huh, what’s the problem?”

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?!! I said.

I then explained how my parents were Scottish immigrants to America and how they had told me my whole life about the loving Scottish shepherd and the care he bestows upon his sheep.

As I pointed to the scene before us I said, “THAT’S THE PROBLEM! That’s the craziest bit of chaos I’ve ever seen and I don’t know what in the world is going on!”

The driver started to laugh. Now I’m not only confused and frustrated... I’m a little angry.

He must have sensed my mood because he quickly said, “I’m sorry. Let me explain.” And in two brief sentences he cleared up the entire fiasco for me.

“That’s not the shepherd tending his sheep. That’s the butcher rounding them up for the slaughterhouse.”

It perhaps seems obvious for the believer that the shepherd in the story is Jesus and the butcher is “our adversary the devil,” as Peter refers to him (1 Peter 5:8).

We might call this the spiritual application of the story... and it certainly is a valid one.

But this is not the application I typically use with my therapy and counseling clients.

When it comes to our inner life, it helps to remember that two strands braid together – the spiritual and the psychological, the universal and the personal.

And I typically use this story to illustrate the psychological butcher voice each of us carries within us... a personalized tormentor that works in our minds.

This butcher voice almost always has its roots in our developmental years. For example, I was being interviewed on a radio station when my book Shadow Work came out. The host of that program (quite courageously) shared with me and the listening audience the story of how his first-grade teacher called him “stupid” when he answered a question wrongly. The full class erupted in laughter. The host shared how that to this day he would hear a voice whispering to him that he is “stupid” whenever he makes a mistake.

That’s the butcher.

Do you know the sound of your own butcher voice?

It may be that of a censorius parent from long ago. It might be the voice of elementary school peers who mocked you for a weakness or flaw.

Whatever its origins, rest assured... you have a butcher voice (unless you are a narcissist – then you have a bigger problem).

That said, let me suggest some practical steps that will help:

1. Learn to recognize your butcher voice.

2. Come to identify the errors or lies it whispers to you. For example, if your butcher voice tells you “you never do anything right,” that is an obvious exaggerated lie.

3. Challenge the exaggeration or lie. You do not have to embrace the butcher’s message!

4. Replace that message with a true statement (this is where Scripture can be a priceless aid).

5. Behave the truthful statement. For example, you can’t replace a butcher statement like “I’m a failure” with I am “more than a conqueror” in Christ (Romans 8:37) and expect to feel better if you go forward walking with your shoulders slumped and speaking barely above a whisper. That will never work.

6. Cultivate your psychological shepherd voice. Hold yourself accountable, don’t make excuses... but do so in love. That’s what a loving shepherd does.

If you’d like some help working through these steps, please reach out and let us know. That’s what we’re here for.

Til next time,

In doing so He not only secures for us an eternity with Himself, He also desires to transform our here-and-now lives. He wants to enliven our day-to-day existence. He wants to sanctify our ordinary. That is the point of His first recorded miracle in John’s gospel.

So far we have seen in our passage how this miracle:
--reveals our great need,
--manifests God’s concern for that need,
--shows us the importance of obedience.

Today we move on to our fourth and final observation from this passage as we discover that,

This Miracle Revealed Results That Were Amazing

Verses 9-11 tell us: When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

Those at the wedding celebration were astonished by what they experienced when Jesus sanctified the ordinary for them – when He turned common water into the very best of wine.

They were not aware of how He did it. That is not ours to understand. But they got to experience it ... they got to drink that wine, that “good” wine.

It’s easy to understand how guests at a wedding feast would be shocked with this, for it broke with routine custom as the text tells us.

But we who believe should not be surprised that the Master wants to do the very same thing in our lives. Such an outcome fits with the very nature of who He is and why He came.

And it’s important for us to understand that this experience was a direct result of the truth we saw in our last post…

Had there been no obedience to His command to fill the large clay pots with water, there would have been no transformation of that water into wine.

There would have been no sanctifying of the ordinary.

Our Lord came to give us eternal life, just as He stated. But there is a both-then-and-now aspect of eternal life. To His followers Jesus says, The kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21). He wants us to experience the essence of eternal life now as He works in us to transform us ... as He sanctifies our ordinary.

This is why the Amplified translation renders the latter part of verse 11 of our passage, openly displayed His power and greatness.

This is what our Lord wants to do in us and for us,
if we will but walk in obedience to His Word.

I want to conclude both this lesson and this series with a simple but true illustration.

A little girl owned a necklace of plastic pop-beads that she had spied one day while her mom was buying groceries.

They only cost a couple dollars, but she loved those pop beads and hardly took them off.

Then one day her dad came home from work, sat down at the kitchen table, and motioned for her to come over to him.

He asked if she would take off her beads and give them to him. A bit bewildered, she touched them, hesitated a bit, but then did as he asked.

He took her beads and casually tossed them on the table, which both confused and even hurt her a bit … and which he, of course, noticed.

But then her father lifted her onto his lap and gave her a reassuring hug. Next, he reached into his coat pocket and took out a black, rectangular box.

“This is for you,” he said.

She opened the box carefully and discovered, to her surprise, a beautiful gold necklace with her name on it.

Her eyes beamed and her face radiated. “This is for ME?” she asked.

“You bet it is!” her father said, smiling from ear to ear.

“Oh daddy, put it on me, put it on me!” she shouted.

Are you holding onto some aspect of your life … your own version of pop beads … that you don’t trust the Father with? Or what He may give you in return?

Til next time,

But that’s just the beginning. He offers us more, so much more than just a new birth. He wants to transform us ... just as He transformed water into the very best wine in our passage.

So far in this series we have seen that this miracle shows our great need. We have also seen that it reveals Christ’s deep care and concern for us.

Today we move on to our third consideration from this passage:

This Miracle Reveals the Necessity of Obedience

Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. (verses 7-8)

It intrigues me to think that this, the very first of our Lord’s miracles, would likely have never occurred had the servants at the wedding feast not obeyed His instructions.

And note there were no half-measures on behalf of the servants. The Master told them to fill the water jars and they “filled them up to the brim.” There was no thought in their minds of doing just enough, it seems …

… even though, humanly speaking, this command made no sense. The wedding hosts were in need of wine … not water!

What an unforgettable experience the attendees at the wedding would have missed out on had the servants stopped to ponder the reasonableness of the Lord’s command and then debated about whether or not they would do what He said.

We can learn from such obedience.

I believe there is so little spiritual power amid the body of Christ in America because we have turned the reign of Christ into a constitutional monarchy. We call Him king and lord, but He holds little more than ceremonial power in our actual lives. Much like King Charles, the constitutional monarch of the United Kingdom, we bring Him out on ceremonial occasions and special days (like Christmas and Easter), but He exercises no real power in our daily lives.

Christ made no such offer to us. To the contrary He asks, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46)

His point is a clear one, is it not? You have no right to call me Lord if you do not obey me.

I am glad that the servants at the wedding obeyed. There would have been no miracle without it.

I am reminded of another account in Scripture when the Lord gave a command that, humanly speaking, made no sense. You can read about it in Exodus 14.

The children of Israel have left Egypt after 400 years of bondage. They are traveling toward the promised land with pharaoh’s army in pursuit. They get to the shore of the Red Sea and they panic because they are trapped – Egypt’s army behind them, the Red Sea in from of them.

Their leader, Moses, cries out to God and receives a most confounding command in response. God says to Moses – “Go forward.”

How in the world are they supposed to do that? Nevertheless, they obey. And God parts the sea!

If we want to experience God transforming our every day, ordinary life into something extraordinary it is imperative that we remember an essential point of the miracle of His turning water into wine:

The miracle lies on the other side of obedience.

Til next time,

Without this, we are pretty much left with the jaded remark of H. L. Mencken – “The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.”

This is what we’re left with when daily slips from delight to drudgery.

Today we build on that and consider how this miracle reveals God’s concern.

When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no more wine.” (v 3)

Christ became active in their need

Though we should take great comfort in this fact, we should not be surprised by it. After all, does His word not say - your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him. (Matthew 6:8)

What this passage says to me is that our Lord has a much broader definition of the term need than we do.

Were they going to die if they didn’t get more wine? Not at all. This is the point where many of us hear our mind saying, “They didn’t really need it, they wanted it.”

But God is not so austere as we. Socially, they needed it. They would have been the disdain of the community had they run out of wine, as we saw last time. For the success of the wedding, they needed it. For a beautiful memory that would last a lifetime, they needed it.

Christ wants to become active in your life on the level of your need. Thankfully, He is not as limited in His definition of need as we are.

But He didn’t act until asked

Mary’s request comes in the form of a statement, “They have no more wine.”

It is startling to discover how many times in the New Testament we are told to ask. In his characteristic direct style James puts the matter as plainly as it can be spoken: You do not have because you do not ask. (James 4:2)

It pains me to think of what all I might have struggled through on my own only because I did not stop to ask for His help.

While Christ will by no means come into our lives to be used ... He does long to be utilized by every believer.

As we saw last time, our supply runs out. We are not sufficient in and of ourselves. He wants us to rely on Him, on His resources. And we can expect great things when we do.

(By the way, we would do well to note that Mary’s request to Jesus was an intercession. She was asking on behalf of others, the wedding party.)

He demonstrates His real concern – people

This miracle wasn’t about the wine per se. It was about the shame and contempt that would have been heaped on this family ... these people ... had they run out of wine.

G. K. Chesterton is attributed with saying, “All men matter. You matter. I matter. It’s the hardest thing in theology to believe.”

The latter part of that quote resonates deeply with me. In this vast world it can be hard to believe that to God, I matter.

But it’s true. The Bible makes that very clear.

Do you want to see Christ transform your daily into something wonderful? Then I suggest you broaden your definition of need – then ask Him to do what you cannot do. Ask Him to transform it.

Til next time,