See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today Cinthia discusses motivation and inspiration, two concepts that are related but not identical.  She uses a variety of quotes and offers a number of questions to ask ourselves as we examine our own ongoing motivation and inspiration.  The first was the following by Thomas Carlyle: “Let him who would be moved to convince others be first moved to convince himself.”  You cannot motivate others if you are not motivated by your own mission or vision.  Motivation and inspiration are contagious, as are negativity, skepticism, and cynicism. The relationship between motivation and inspiration is somewhat cyclical; Cinthia says, “We motivate to inspire and inspire to motivate.”  Motivation can be intrinsic or extrinsic, but it culminates in an inner drive to do something and behave in a certain way; it is what moves us from desire to will.  Inspiration makes us want to do something or gives us an idea about what to do.  Both are important, and both can be helped by resources from the outside.  But, as Cinthia emphasized, at the end of the day the best motivation and inspiration are the ones we have internalized, the ones that now come from inside of us. As an example, Cinthia described her own passion for therapy, which was her life’s work for decades, and its related services, such as the life coaching and pastoral counseling she now offers.  Cinthia explained that, although she initially did not want to be a therapist, she has come to believe in the process so strongly that no one now needs to coerce or talk her into doing it; she has seen it work so well and so often for so many that she is self-motivated to help others through these methods.  She also noted that her engagement in this broadcast/podcast is intrinsically motivated.  Because she has come to believe in these things so strongly, her deep belief overrides her aversion to having to “sell” things like counseling, psychoeducation, and other passions.  She reports having learned the following: “I can’t produce or sustain outside of me what is not inside of me,” and, “The outside emanates from the inside; we work from the inside out.” So how do we take responsibility for our own motivation and inspiration?  External resources (like this show!) can certainly help, but, in the long run, adults need to take responsibility for their own motivation and inspiration instead of just waiting for the world to inspire and motivate them.  This is especially important for those who lead since motivating and inspiring others can be part of the job. So here are some questions to consider: -What is the purpose of your life?  If you have listened to the show for long, you will know that Cinthia regularly encourages asking your Creator why you were made since He did, in fact, make you uniquely for a reason.  Because you were created by God, you have intrinsic value regardless of your actions, and no one else can fulfill the unique purpose for which you were made.  Are you clear on your life mission and the gifts only you can give? -Are the things you are doing aligned with your life mission and values?  Are you able to explain why you are doing what you are doing?  Do you have passion and desire for what you are doing?  What are you trying to accomplish through it?  Remember what Charles Hummel said: “The need itself is not the call.”  You cannot meet all the world’s needs.  What is your piece to address?  (Such passion can exist at different levels, by the way.  You may not have passion for your current job but have great passion to take care of your family, and the paycheck from this job may do that.  While it is great to seek out ways to eventually move into a job about which you are more passionate and which gives you greater enjoyment, motivation and inspiration do not necessarily have to wait until every task in your life is one you find exciting.) -Are your ways of promoting what you believe simple and authentic to you?  It is okay if people do not like your ideas; sometimes this helps you screen out unrealistic or less-than-optimal ideas, while other times it is important to move forward despite the opinions of others.  Are you communicating your ideas in ways that flow naturally from your own passion, or does it feel forced?  Telling your own story is not the same as selling, but it often helps people understand the value we see in particular methods or ideas.  On a related note, are you willing to receive feedback, and do you know how to sort the feedback you will embrace and the feedback you will ignore? -What motivates you?  What demotivates you?  Often extrinsic motivation does not “stick” as well as intrinsic motivation does, but knowing what internal and external resources are inspirational and motivational to you means you can take ownership of both. -If you are a leader, do you know your people?  Are you committed to them, and can they tell this from your actions?  What are their needs and gifts?  -What is the story of your life?  How are you managing the pain and struggles it involves?  Do you exercise good boundaries, good self-care, not taking others’ feelings too personally, forgiveness, and letting the relational process cause you to mature and deepen?  Do you struggle with perfectionism and control, or are you like the starfish that, when it loses a leg, grows a new one? -On what do you rest your faith?  Is it something that is bigger than you are?  Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”  People are too mistake-making for the pressure that comes with getting all our motivation from one another.  Your faith is far too valuable to be guarded by another person.  What is the foundation of your life? -What is your kryptonite?  Are you sabotaging yourself with habits and behaviors that are unhelpful, or is the good in your life being the enemy of the best?  How do you talk to yourself in your head?  Are you caring for yourself well enough to keep from having to think about yourself all the time?  How do you interact with others?  (Remember, sometimes it’s better to be in relationship than to be right.  It’s one thing to know what is important enough that you will not compromise it; it is another thing to be obnoxious about proving yourself right all the time.) -Am I having fun?  Not every task in life can be fun, but some things should be. Adults cannot depend on the external world to meet their internal needs.  Adults have to own the task of motivating and inspiring themselves, including the task of selecting the external resources that help with this.  Adults who interact with children have to help children create internal worlds in which they can live safely and well, and adults cannot do this well without having learned to do it for themselves.  How is your internal world?  What motivates you?  What inspires you?  How will you incorporate these things more helpfully into your life? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For many of us, the harshest litany in our lives is the stream of self-evaluations running through our heads.  This can seem harmless and even necessary to control our behavior; it is easily confused with appropriately holding ourselves accountable.  But the way we deal with ourselves reveals a lot about our views of reality, and it tends to leak out into our relationships with others, though we may not be aware of that.  Today Cinthia looks at two big (and related) reasons we are so hard on ourselves: unforgiveness and perfectionism. Cinthia states that the following is an important rule of life: We accept forgiveness, and we offer forgiveness.  These two actions often seem separate to us, and most of us find one easier than the other.  The two are bound together, however, as Jesus showed in Matthew 6:9-13, often called “The Lord’s Prayer,” and in Matthew 7:12, often called “the Golden Rule.”  (This last has reflections and corollaries that are found in every major religion, indicating that God has written it into our hearts at a deep level.)  Jesus taught us to pray, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”  He told us to do to others what we would want them to do to us.  And He told us that the second-greatest commandment is to love others as we love ourselves (Mark 12:30-31).  Our relationships with others and our approach to ourselves cannot be separated; this is why unforgiveness on either side of the equation produces sickness and disease in our bodies and souls.  Giving and receiving forgiveness both require an understanding of what forgiveness is not, as well as what forgiveness is.  Forgiveness is not minimizing the offense, dismissing it, condoning it, or saying the offense was understandable or okay.  Forgiving a bad thing does not mean calling it a good thing.  It does not mean we will allow the harm to keep happening or will pretend the harm never happened; remember, trust and accountability are often separate issues from forgiveness.  Forgiveness does not necessarily mean we will forget what happened; in some cases, that would not be safe to do.  Forgiveness means that we turn the debt over to God and let Him handle the accounts.  We stop trying to exact payment on our own, whether from ourselves or others.  We give up the roles of prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner.  We see ourselves and others as valuable in spite of the choices made; we see people (including ourselves) as more than just the sum of actions committed. For those who struggle with self-forgiveness, self-forgiveness can seem wrong, as if it dismisses the seriousness of the choice or the harm done by it.  It seems too easy to let ourselves walk away from what we did.  The problem is that God is the Judge, not us.  He has made a way to forgive us because of what Jesus did on the cross.  Receiving and embracing His forgiveness is not a dismissal of the seriousness of our actions or the harm done; after all, any choice that requires the blood of God’s Son to pay for it is serious.  But adding our own mental self-punishment to Jesus’s sacrifice is not the same as taking our sin seriously; our self-flagellation cannot add ever equal the horror of the punishment He took for us.  If we take our own sin seriously, we must also take seriously what He did about it. Self-forgiveness means that we choose to live at peace with ourselves because God has chosen to live at peace with us.  We may still attempt to repair damage done when that is possible (e.g., acknowledging, apologizing, making attempts to restore what we took from someone else when that is possible, etc.), but we recognize that refusing to forgive ourselves does not repair anything or help anyone.  We choose to walk away from the mental torture of holding onto our sins and mistakes.  We choose to see ourselves as more than our offenses.  Cinthia models a statement like this one: “I am not proud of what I did, and I do not condone or minimize it.  But I am choosing to move forward for the sake of my own health and well-being, as well the health and well-being of those who love me and those I am meant to impact.”  You see, forgiving ourselves affects our relationships in ways we may not expect until we see it happen.  We are to forgive ourselves and others as we have been forgiven.  But, if you struggle with this, remember that forgiveness is a process.  Be patient with yourself, but do more than just resolve to forgive.  Take steps to back up your forgiveness.  When forgiving yourself, this may mean using some kind of meditation or affirmations to work on the way you talk to yourself and cut off the litany of mental self-harm that has become wired into your brain.  It may mean choosing positive self-treatment even when you do not feel deserving of it, choosing to show love toward yourself with some kind of action that makes things better and not worse.  It may mean seeing a therapist or life coach, keeping a diary, or engaging in your faith in a different way.  Sometimes the refusal to forgive yourself becomes so entrenched that releasing it entails a loss of identity; without the self-judgment and orientation around our mistakes, you have to go to God and find out who He meant you to be and where He wants your life to go.  Until now, you have been focused on your sins and mistakes; where will you go when you release yourself from this? For some people, though, self-forgiveness is difficult even when the offense is simply being human or failing to meet unrealistic expectations.  This is perfectionism.  If you struggle with it, consider therapy or counseling of some kind because perfectionism will impact your life and the lives of those around you.  Living our lives in self-loathing often involves making too much of the judgment calls of others, mentally echoing their negative evaluations of us again and again; if we try to get all our good feelings from other people, we will live in constant fear or regret over failing their expectations.  Remember, you do not have to forgive yourself for being what God made you to be, though you may need to forgive yourself for not being what He meant you to be.  Again, find out from Him who He made you to be and what purpose He has for your life.  Make the changes needed to follow the purpose for which you were made.  Have the conversation with God, "Why did you make me?"  Base your self-assessments on the intentions of your Creator, not those of the people around you or your own ideas about who you should be.  If you see yourself as needing to meet a higher standard than others, you probably need to look at this; it can, in fact, be quite arrogant to insist on being better than others.  If surpassing others is what protects you from shame attacks, this is unstable.  God made you a person.  You are unique, even in the ways you mess up.  But if you are evaluating your mess-ups by your own need to avoid the messiness of being human, you will not be able to face your life effectively.  Martha Beck said that "welcoming imperfection is the way to accomplish what perfectionism promises but never delivers."  Incorporate appropriate self-acceptance into your lifestyle, and remember that acceptance does not mean agreeing or condoning all the choices.  Laugh more; laughter is truly the best medicine.  Give yourself some freedom to stop taking everything so seriously.  Living in a state of being unable to forgive requires a lot of energy -- the constancy of hurt and blame is exhausting.  Forgiveness allows you to live in the present instead of in the past.  The only reason we revisit the past is to learn from it, not to beat up on ourselves.  Self-forgiveness and self-acceptance increases our kindness to others.  It allows us to live in the present, which opens the future with purpose; we can build instead of being held back.  Practice accepting your emotions.  And remember, you have no control over what people say and do, but you can choose whether to base your own life on the mixed-up feelings of others.  Someone was hard on the people who were hard on you; break the chain by refusing to be hard on yourself and others.  Learn from the past, and be grateful that you get to move forward.  Take care of yourself.  You are important to God.  You are beautifully and wonderfully made.  Accept this reality, and act on it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today's broadcast had two parts.  The first was an interview with Kevin Sorbo, a well-known actor who has played many roles, including that of Hercules in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and that of Captain Dylan Hunt in Andromeda.  He is currently promoting a movie that will be coming out in August called Firing Squad, in which Sorbo acts along with James Barrington and Cuba Gooding, Jr.  The movie is based on a true story about three men facing execution in Indonesia and the hope and redemption that broke out in a terrible place.  Sorbo also discussed a book he wrote about his own experiences nearly dying from an aneurism and having four strokes as a result; the book is called True Strength: My Journey from Hercules to Mere Mortal and How Nearly Dying Saved My Life and details what it was like to go so quickly from being in Hollywood shape to being unable to get himself out of bed.  Like the movie discussed earlier, the book offers hope and redemption.  The book also describes Sorbo's understanding that God has not promised us easy lives and that blaming Him for the trouble on earth is counterproductive.  He reports that many people have told him his book inspired them to stop feeling sorry for themselves in the wake of legitimately difficult experiences and life changes, and to move forward with hope.  Sorbo and Cintiha discussed themes of accepting the work of the Creator in our lives.  Cinthia stated, "He thought you up.  He knew you before you were born," and she compared the destruction and harm we sometimes level at our own bodies with going into the Louvre and starting to destroy the works of art.  She spoke of the work it takes to undo and redo much of the damage that has been done and that continues to happen.  Cinthia also praised Sorbo's example and portrayal of masculinity as a positive thing.  She stated, "We really need our men to be men... When you emasculate men, everything falls apart... [Men are] made for a reason, and that reason is to take care of the world."  Sorbo also has a book coming out on this topic called The Bare Essentials of Fatherhood, which can be explored through Brave Books.After the interview with Sorbo, Cinthia continued the broadcast, discussing Matthew 19:13-14 in which Jesus told His disciples not to hinder the "little ones" from coming to Him since the Kingdom of Heaven "belongs to such as these."  While acknowledging that Jesus was at least partly speaking about actual children, she also suggested that His meaning went beyond this, that the "little ones" are all those whom we should be protecting.  This includes all those who are vulnerable, including ourselves.  She urges us not to "get in the way of God finding and saving every single human that He has made."  Cinthia points out that we are all little children next to God, that we will never become His contemporaries but become His children when we come to Jesus.  As adults, we often come to rely on ourselves and emphasize independence.  We may get in the way of the "little ones" by shaming them, speaking harshly to them, scorning their dependence in our rush to make them independent.  We may shoo away those whose faith is weak by arguing over biblical interpretations unnecessarily instead of befriending people and allowing the Holy Spirit to do His work.  We may get in the way of our own vulnerable selves through harsh, shaming self-talk or scorning our own dependency needs that lead us to Jesus.Children were brought to Jesus because He was safe, and He insisted that the children be allowed to come to Him.  The vulnerable are very important to God.  He is a loving Father.  He has died and resurrected because He loves us so much.  He would never harm His children.  We need to remind ourselves of His goodness and join Him in His endeavors by being good parents to our own inner children.  We need to handle each other gently.  In heaven's economy, the little ones matter.  The Message version of these verses says that people brought children to Jesus "in hope that He would lay hands on them and pray for them," and He did.  Jesus intervened when the disciples tried to stop the "little ones" from taking up His time.  He did not move to the next thing until He had taken the children on His lap, laid hands on them, and blessed them. The disciples who tried to shoo the children away thought they were helping Jesus.  They thought they were honoring the Lord, and sometimes we think that, too.  We think we are standing up for what is right when we argue fruitlessly about less-crucial doctrinal issues with people who are struggling just to come to Jesus.  We think we are aiding in our own sanctification when we internally shame and speak harshly to ourselves.  We minimize the importance of the least of these instead of laying down a red carpet for them to run to Jesus.  We minimize our own need for Jesus because we think as adults we should have it together.Don't discourage others' hope or minimize your own.  If you can't support others in coming to Jesus, then (as Jesus told the disciples) let them alone.  Jesus said it would be better to have a millstone hung around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea than to cause one of these "little ones" to stumble.  Sometimes God would rather we be quiet than say the things that we do, things that cause each other to stumble.  We must be more careful how we treat God's children--- including ourselves, since we also are vulnerable.  It does not help God to be mean and harsh to ourselves and cause ourselves to stumble.Let us come to Him like little children, for the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.  Lay down your ways of supporting yourself, and allow yourself to come to Jesus with the hope that He will touch your life, that He will lay His hands on you and bless you.  Ask Him to lay hands on you, and acknowledge your need for Him.  Don't add requirements on yourself that He does not place there.  Just come to Jesus and let Him hold you.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I Peter 4:8 tells us, “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins.”  But what does this mean, and how do we walk it out in a healthy way?  Does it mean dismissing sin, hiding abuse and allowing it to continue, accepting ongoing mistreatment without ever setting a boundary? Covering has several dimensions, and God is our example in all of them.  One aspect of covering is forgiveness, which is always associated with love, and the supreme example of this is Jesus taking our sin on Himself and dying for us.  In this way, God did more than just cover our sin; He completely did away with it.  He destroyed it.  He paid for it and satisfied what had to be done in response to it at a cosmic level.  God’s forgiveness of our sin is never a dismissal of its significance; justice and mercy meet in the cross.  So, when we follow His example by loving one another and forgiving as God, in Christ, forgave us, we do not dismiss the significance of how another has harmed us.  We acknowledge it, and we forgive, allowing the God Who alone can bring together justice and mercy to be the One to Whom vengeance belongs – After all, He is the only One Who can be trusted with it. I Peter 4:8 addresses interpersonal relationships.  It gives us directions for dealing with each other day by day in a world where we really mess things up for each other sometimes.  What does it mean to let love cover “a multitude of sins” in our daily lives together?  Well, sometimes it means we let the little things go.  Sometimes as adults we have to learn not to “snag on” everything, or we will unravel. Human beings are so imperfect that addressing every little thing all the time just isn’t practical.  If we are going to have any kind of relationship with one another, we have to learn to let a few things go.  (In fact, Cinthia recommends doing this physically to help ourselves address things with a sense of humor: Cock your head to the left, and say, “Ignore;” then cock your head to the right and say, “Delete.”  This is the Cinthia Hiett Ignore/Delete Button for humans.)  This is particularly applicable when we know the person’s heart was not to harm us, when no malice was intended, when we are not deeply wounded or are simply able to let God heal the scratch without having to address it.  It means that we can refuse to let pettiness rule the day. Some of us are genuinely more sensitive than others, and things may hurt more.  It is okay to acknowledge this pain, but we have to be careful not to overuse our sensitivity or require others to constantly tend to slights we could handle well.  Even if we are highly sensitive, we still have adult brains.  We can use logic, talk ourselves through things toward forgiveness, and differentiate between irritation and harm.  Proverbs 19:11 says that good sense makes one slow to anger and that it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.  Love allows us to overlook minor offenses, tolerate provocations, to see what is big and what just bugs us. Sometimes, though, we do need to address things.  Covering does not always mean ignoring.  Another thing it means is that we can acknowledge the problem but put it into context, taking the other person’s struggles into account.  Love means we can give each other time to allow for the processes of growth and maturation.  Love can acknowledge the reality of what someone has cost us but also allow for undoing and redoing, which can be done by the person who takes his own errors seriously.  This is part of what it means that love protects – love does not shame the person but says, “I have your back.  I am praying for you.  You can fix this.”  Protecting is not sweeping sin under the rug; it just means we don’t throw people out.  The title of today’s show is “God Does Not Cover Up Bad Things; He Covers Us.”  God’s covering on earth is not intended as a ticket to do whatever we want and never consider the consequences for ourselves or others.  Romans 2:4 says that the kindness of God is meant to lead us to repentance.  He does not cover to enable sin but to lead us back to Him.  He gives us time to fix, to undo and redo, to learn and to grow.  And this is what we are to do for one another.  Covering does not preclude setting boundaries; boundaries protect love.  Covering does involve ignoring some things, but there are some things that should not be ignored.  In situations where we are trying to be deeply intimate with another person, there is less room to ignore, particularly if advantage is being taken and there is no effort at improvement. We also have to accept this forgiveness for ourselves, forgiving ourselves as He forgives us; otherwise, our self-hatred takes over our lives and works its way out to others.  God’s forgiveness is not a buffet in which we get to choose forgiveness for ourselves separately from the forgiveness of others, or forgiveness of others but continued vengeance toward ourselves.  God’s forgiveness takes over our lives and changes our approach to all the humans, self and other, by the same Blood and the same Holy Spirit.  It even enables us to accept forgiveness from one another. Cinthia discussed Matthew 18:3-5 several times today, explaining that Jesus used children to teach us about salvation, simplicity, and humility.  He said that we have to become like children in order to receive His kingdom.  Have you ever given a gift to a child?  Did that child refuse the gift, insisting he or she could not accept such extravagance?  Did the child insist on paying you back, complicating the gift by trying to discern what strings you might have attached?  Not likely.  As adults, we can really complicate things, but the heart and mind of a child has had less time to be hardened by the world.  Children simply receive a gift, showing trust in the giver and the giver’s intent.  This is how we have to accept the Kingdom of Heaven in order to receive it at all. As God’s children, we receive His forgiveness, and we extend it to those who hurt us (including ourselves).  We accept His gift of covering for ourselves, and we extend that covering to one another.  This covering is not dismissal of our sin or tacit permission to continue doing whatever we want to do, regardless of the consequences; the One Who bore all our iniquities is not interested in glorifying or dismissing the seriousness of those iniquities.  But His prayer from the cross that God the Father forgive the ones killing Him because “they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34) indicates incredible mercy and amazing patience with human beings.  He knows that we do not understand the depth of the harm we cause (though this does not change the fact that we cause it or the consequences for those we hurt), and He not only pays for our sin Himself but walks us through the process of learning to be more like Him.  One of the ways we give back to Him is by not taking advantage of this; we are not to use His forgiveness as an excuse to do more harm.  We accept His carrying our sin for us, knowing that we cannot carry it ourselves, and we receive His mercy and grace daily as He walks us through the process of learning to follow Him.  We learn to love people, including but not limited to ourselves, as He does.  God is not saying that only little children are good, but that the adult part of us causes us to miss out on the love and chances and support God gives us.  Jesus enables us to be God’s children, and we are little children with God.  So practice being His little kid -- it is good practice for eternity. I Corinthians 13 is often called “The Love Chapter,” and it says that love covers all wrongs.  We misunderstand this verse when we use it to protect sin; it is meant to protect the person, not their sin.  Love does not, for example, hide abuse and enable it to continue in the name of covering all wrongs.  Love addresses what needs to happen next.  Love does, however, refrain from gossiping about the sin; it does not allow us to use our brothers’ and sisters’ offenses as topics for our own entertainment, conversation with others, or superiority over others.  Love provides protection while someone works on fixing, undoing and redoing, learning and growing.  If someone is continually unwilling to do this, it may mean that the relationship is unhealthy.  Intimacy can only grow with a reasonable level of safety.  Putting others before ourselves does not mean that we become irrelevant, though it does allow us to see past a lot of things.  Seeing things in context is not the same as making excuses that justify what must not be allowed to continue. Remember, God is our example of love because He is love.  He paid for our sin Himself, providing the ultimate Covering -- and He still loves us enough to hold us accountable.  He knows what sin does to us and to the world.  He chooses His battles and His timing, and He focuses on what matters most.  He really is covering a multitude of sins all the time, which is the only way we are all still here.  Receive His love, His mercy, His forgiveness, the covering He has provided -- and ask for His help to receive and accept it if this is a struggle for you!  Then ask Him for help learning to extend love’s covering to others.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The topic of abortion is making a huge appearance this election year, but political speeches often distort the realities on the ground.  Misinformation and carefully-crafted language can make it easy to think that a vote for abortion is a vote for the empowerment of women while a vote against it endangers women’s health, dignity, and welfare.  Today Cinthia interviews two women who are involved in the ongoing battle for the lives of babies in the womb and for legislation that truly protects the health of women and girls.  [A note here:  We know that this topic can be deeply painful for many people, but avoiding it only causes more harm and pain.  If abortion is part of your story, please know that there is help and healing available and that God longs to pour out His mercy on us.  You can grieve; you can heal both from what has been done to you and from what you have done.  Please reach out to safe people for assistance.  Look for a safe, healthy pastor, therapist, or ministry that walks people through these journeys on a regular basis; many pregnancy resource centers have support groups or counseling available for those who have had abortions.] Emily Erin Davis is the Vice President of Communications for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.  She is an international communicator, author, and humanitarian who is also the mother of two children born from unplanned pregnancies by the time she was 22 years old.  She recalls being pressured to have abortions in each case, though she was able to withstand that pressure and have both children instead.  Davis confronts the idea that abortion is empowering to women.  She reports that the majority of surveyed women who have had abortions report that their abortions were inconsistent with their own values, with many reporting force or coercion having been used to influence them toward abortion.  Davis indicates that abortion coercion is a reality not being openly discussed, one that is highly relevant to the question of whether individual women’s choices are actually the ones being protected by abortion laws.  The majority report having had abortions for non-emergency reasons that had more to do with a lack of financial or emotional support than with a desire to choose abortion.  “This isn’t even the first choice of women,” says Davis.  “The pregnancy is not the problem.”  She states that women “want lifelines, not life-enders.”  Meanwhile, of women surveyed who considered abortion but chose instead to give birth, Davis reports that the percentage who now state they love these children and are glad they did not abort is in the “high nineties.”  She states that women with unplanned pregnancies often fear that “your life is over” because of the pregnancy, but that this is not the case.  “You are going to get through this,” she states, emphasizing that there are resources available and people who want to help.  “This is not the end for you or your child.”  She also notes, “Nobody complains that they did not have an abortion.” Davis emphasizes that abortion is a human rights issue.  She reports that the United States is one of only seven countries in the world to allow elective abortion past 20 weeks of gestation, making us a “global outlier” and “a pariah” in the eyes of most countries in the world and categorizing us with countries such as China and Vietnam that are known more generally for human rights violations.  Davis is especially attuned to this concern since she grew up in Taiwan, where her father counseled many who had experienced the carnage of China’s abortion laws at that time; she recalls that girls, as well as boys with any kind of prenatal defect, were targeted for abortion at that time and place, though the specific targets of abortion can, she says, “change with the cultural wind.”  Davis indicates that misinformation about the laws on ballots is prevalent right now.  For example, women in Ohio were recently told that they needed to vote for abortion legislation as a way of ensuring they would have access to miscarriage care, though this was untrue.  She says that parental consent and notification laws, conscience laws that protect doctors, etc., are being targeted by proposed laws around the country, particularly the “Women’s Health Protection Act,” which strips any and all protections against abortion (e.g., restrictions on the availability of abortion at any point in pregnancy, parental consent and notification laws, conscience laws for doctors, etc.).  U.S. funding is also being channeled toward Planned Parenthood and away from pregnancy resource centers.  Davis states that Biden, when asked to identify when human life begins, stated that this was “a Republican trap” and that he did not have to answer that.  Davis asks, “At what point does the child in the womb receive human rights?  At what point are they worthy of protection?”  Pelosi referred to abortion being important for our nation’s economy.  Davis encouraged voters to pursue education about this topic and to know where representatives and other politicians stand; she explained that sbaprolife.org has information on each federal candidate, including stances and voting records.  She encouraged those who are pro-life to “lean into these uncomfortable conversations.” Cinthia agrees with Davis that abortion is “sold as a way to fix things and move on” but that it “ignores the impact to the body and mind of the woman.”  She states that how we value the least of these impacts our own self-worth, and that a society that provides abortion on demand for humans but disallows euthanizing an animal without just cause has lost its perspective.  Even societies that sacrificed infants to pagan gods valued their children more than this, she explains, noting, “Babies were sacrificed to gods because they were valuable;” as horrific as those sacrifices were, our nation is devaluing these children even more by treating them as “throw-aways.”  Cinthia states that our society has developed a mentality that wants to make uncomfortable things simply disappear and that we need to understand our actions matter because we matter. Cinthia visits next with Dr. Ingrid Skop, M.D., FACOG, an OB/Gyn who has delivered over 5,000 babies and is the Vice President and Director of Medical Affairs for the Charlotte Lozier Institute. Her bio, available at https://lozierinstitute.org/team-member/ingrid-skop-m-d-facog/, includes publication of research in multiple peer-reviewed articles regarding maternal mortality, abortion, and women’s health; providing expert testimony at the state and federal levels on legislation related to abortion; and opposing politicians who “choose not to follow the science regarding fetal heartbeat and development.”  Dr. Skop reports that misinformation is being used to accomplish political goals and that the reaction to the overturning of Roe v. Wade has been characterized by “fearmongering and lies.”  She states that we have been told maternal mortality is going to increase and that women will not get needed care, but that this is “absolutely untrue.”  Dr. Skop reports that every state with abortion restrictions allows for exception to protect the woman’s life, though this is hardly ever needed.  (Dr. Skop explains that it is necessary at times to deliver a baby early in order to save the life of the mother, but that everything is done in these cases to attempt to save the life of the child; actually needing to abort the child for the sake of the mother’s medical stability is rare.)  Dr. Skop reports that all states with abortion restrictions allow exceptions for ectopic pregnancies, for example, and that the spread of misinformation about these issues is an attempt to “frighten the public,” including pregnant women and doctors.  Dr. Skop explains that 95-97% of abortions in the U.S. are for financial and social reasons; she states that those who describe tragic medical circumstances to protect abortion access do not know or acknowledge that exceptions always exist in the laws for these circumstances.  She also indicates that the current access to abortion pills is itself medically dangerous to women since these medications are being mailed to anyone who requests them with no legitimate screening for risk factors for taking them (e.g., ectopic pregnancy) or for the existence of coercion; 63% of America’s one million abortions last year were performed with these kinds of drugs, though this can occur in ways that are “totally medically unsupervised.”  Even medical data is sometimes used in deceptive ways.  For example, claims are made that chemical abortion is “safer than Tylenol” for the woman, but this is deceptive.   “We have almost no good data,” explains Dr. Skop, because the numbers are not mandatorily reported.  Dr. Skop has cared for many women with physical and mental health complications from abortions, including hemorrhages, infection, and needing surgery.  She has seen the impact on mental health and notes that women are six times as likely to commit suicide in the year following an abortion than if they carry their babies to term.  Dr. Skop reports that women and girls sometimes take abortion pills having been told they are aborting “a clump of cells,” and then are shocked to recognize arms, legs, and a human shape to what is expelled.  She states, “The American public has been gaslighted about this, and euphemisms have been used to the point that people don’t even really understand what is happening.” Like Davis, Dr. Skop emphasizes that the demand for abortion is being misrepresented.  She states that most women who have abortions do not want them but feel desperate because of other circumstances; she notes, “There are so many other ways to deal with social problems” in our society.  She also repeatedly refers to the existence of coercion toward abortion by men and others in the lives of pregnant women.  While she does not state that the American public generally opposes abortion, she does state that it is much closer to pro-life than to the anytime-for-any-reason ideology being advocated by politicians.  She also states that approximately 90% of doctors do not do elective abortions and that their representing agencies are advocating their own ideologies and not those of the doctors they represent.  She states that most obstetricians “know they have two patients and want to care for both.” In her years as a psychotherapist and current work as a life coach, Cinthia has also worked with many women who have mental health complications from abortion.  She states that women are biologically wired to love the child with which they become pregnant, that they “can’t help but love that child no matter what,” and that, when we encourage women and girls to consider abortion, “we are setting up women to be murdering and then have to live with that for the rest of their life.” Cinthia and Dr. Skop both emphasize that women and girls with unplanned pregnancies may be in difficult situations and often do not realize that there are people who want to help. Like other people in difficult situations, these women and girls need people around them who are “strong enough to help them think through what is happening” and access the many resources that exist.  Cinthia emphasizes to clients considering abortion that, while abortion is sold as a way to make the problem disappear and make life go back to normal, this decision will have implications for the rest of their lives; it is not like going and getting your teeth cleaned or having another medical procedure that simply takes care of a medical issue and frees the patient to move forward in life.  Dr. Skop emphasizes that this is not simply a political issue, but “at its root an intensely spiritual and moral issue” which we “should be unafraid to address from the pulpit.”  Cinthia encourages us as a society to stop “searing our own conscience” so that we see things in a way that is upside-down and backwards, allowing ourselves to do what seems like it will make problems go away but which compounds them astronomically. Again, if you have experienced or participated in abortion in any way, we emphasize that there is help, hope, mercy, and forgiveness.  God can heal, and He does it all the time.  Please go to Him.  Tell Him where you are with this whole issue – honestly and completely.  Let Him give you mercy, protection, and courage.  And then, with His guidance, seek help from safe people who know about the aftermath of abortion and who can help you make this journey.  Grace and peace to you.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is attraction something that just comes and goes, completely beyond our control?  Today Cinthia explores attractiveness as a responsibility we have to others, one that is not primarily about our physical makeup.  While she introduces this topic in terms of spouses who are no longer attracted to their spouses, she explores it further as it applies to our interactions with society in general.  How attractive we are has to do with what it is like for others to be around us.  This is why men often appear more attractive when they exhibit “confidence contained.”  In all of us, qualities like kindness, gentleness, mercy, flexibility, nobleness, health, willingness to work hard, etc., tend to be attractive, while disrespectfulness, immaturity, vulgarity, being unaware of your audience, refusing to cooperate with others, and selfishness in general make us less attractive to others.  We are more attractive when we adjust ourselves somewhat to others by learning to “check the temperature of the room;” for example, we can notice whether other people find their jokes humorous and when they do not.  They notice how their behavior is impacting others and adjust to those with whom they interact.   In our society, many people expect that others should be attracted to them unconditionally, as if all of society is obligated to offer them the unconditional acceptance they needed from their parents and continue to need from God.  Sometimes people today expect that their showing up should be enough for everyone else.  However, this is not a realistic expectation for adults to hold.  We offer babies unconditional goodwill no matter how much they scream or how many bodily fluids they deposit on us because we understand that they are babies.  We accept that teenagers are learning to deal with others maturely and may sometimes be difficult to engage; this is because we understand that they are teenagers.  Adults, however, have the ability and the expectation to recognize that their behavior impacts other people.  Our behavior can make us unattractive.  Our hygiene practices can make it uncomfortable for people to come close to us.  To refuse to recognize this is immature, and it is draining for others who have to deal with it on a regular basis.  It takes courage to own the experience others have of us when we interact together, but maturity knows that its decisions matter.  Selfishness and immaturity are exhausting for others.  Pushing boundaries for attention gets old.  Creating awkwardness or discomfort just to get a reaction gets tiresome.  Selfishness, withholding, refusing to share or fill in the gaps for those who cannot do it themselves – these things are burdensome to others.  Don’t confuse assertiveness and selfishness; they are not the same thing.  Owning your impact does not mean being someone that you are not, hiding your feelings all the time, or constantly seeking to meet everyone else’s expectations, no matter how unrealistic or unwholesome.  It simply means recognizing that you are not entitled to show up without showering, use whatever language you want, and expect everyone to be thrilled that you are there.  It means acknowledging that others are allowed to have feelings about the impact of your decisions on them.  As an adult, you can learn to be an attractive person, regardless of whether you possess physiological beauty.  This does not mean our appearance is irrelevant, however; the ways in which we care for ourselves are relevant to the experience others have of us.  The way we dress indicates something about our own willingness to contain ourselves instead of expecting others to deal with the rawest versions of us.  Going to the grocery store in pajamas, for example, may to communicate to others that our own comfort is our highest priority and that we have little concern for the atmosphere we are helping to create.  While the 1950’s had another set of problems, one positive aspect of that decade was the expectation people embraced to show some respect for themselves and others in certain ways, including pulling themselves together when going out of the house.  Our clothes tell a story about us; this is why politicians dress differently when speaking to different groups of people.  (Please note that not everyone needs to work harder at looking good in public.  Some people need to “lighten up” while others need to “tighten up.”)  Taking care of our physical appearances also impacts us personally.  Cinthia discussed an article from Getty Images that addressed this through the lens of play rehearsal in professional settings; it explained that the costumes actors wear impact their embodiment of a character, that the way we dress sends messages to our own brains about who we are and impacts the way we perform.  A study found that increased formality in students’ clothing increased the students’ abstract processing.  This is why people who work from home are often advised not to do so in their pajamas but to put on some level of professional clothing.  People’s brains really do pick up on clues subconsciously, and we really do send messages to others and ourselves.   (Of course, appearance is not the whole story; while a tie may make you look and feel more reliable, you still have to actually follow through and be reliable in order to maintain that impression.) So, returning to the arena of spousal attraction, a similar principle applies.  Expecting your spouse to be endlessly and unconditionally attracted to you regardless of how you look, behave, relate to them, etc., is selfish.  We should not take advantage of those who commit to us in sickness and in health by using their commitment as an excuse to be lazy or thoughtless, to become the worst version of ourselves. This applies in the way we talk to one another, handle our emotions, communicate about important issues, maintain self-care, and address problems.  Ongoing attractiveness is not about achieving or maintaining physical perfection, nor does it mean we will not go through seasons of change.  Rather, it is about taking responsibility to be pleasant company for those with whom we travel through life, just as we want them to do for us.  And, when we know that we are struggling, we can show consideration for those closest to us by thanking them for their patience and acknowledging the impact our struggles have on them. We honor ourselves and others by taking responsibility for our choices.  Our choices matter because we matter and because those around us do, too.  Be someone whose presence benefits others, including those closest to you.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today Cinthia continues a conversation she began a few weeks ago with the episode “Why Don’t You Believe Me?”  Trust is impacted by many factors on both sides of a relationship, and it is difficult to sort out when our fears indicate legitimate warning signs about another person and when they signal our own trust issues or immaturity.  (And sometimes both can be involved!) Believing anything is always a risk.  The only thing that is sure is God, and we have a lot of trouble trusting Him.  But some trust is better-placed than other trust.  How do we know whether our disbelief is warranted?  A commitment to reality is important here.  Deciding we can trust someone just because we hope we can gives us little foundation for confidence; trusting based only on our own hope is not a strong plan.  Trust is different than liking someone, and trusting someone does not ensure that they will become what we want them to be.  However, believing someone is always a risk, and waiting for a guarantee of the future will mean we never engage in relationship.  So when we have some real evidence that someone is trustworthy, we have the option to “trust but verify,” to trust while we wait and see.  Have you ever been “beaten up” emotionally because of someone’s fears?  It really isn’t your responsibility to make another person feel safe, though it is your responsibility to be a safe person.  In any relationship, even with ourselves or God, trust is scary.  Fear is a very powerful emotion, and we have to respect fear to a certain extent.  We have to accept it when someone else is afraid, and, when their concerns are based on things we have done or neglected to do, we need to address this.  We should not demand trust when we have not earned it.  But sometimes people come after us because of their own fear.  Sometimes people just stay afraid no matter what we do, and we reach the what-more-can-I-do stage.  Sometimes the relationship ends by the time the person finally trusts.  When people don’t trust your intentions and keep testing you over and over again, it is important not to let your own reality become skewed.  Remind yourself that that person is having a feeling.  That does not necessarily mean it is true.  Jesus had to die for us before people they believed in His love, even though people needed to believe in Him.  We still struggle with the question of whether He loves us after everything He does for us.  It is exhausting to constantly have to prove yourself.  If you are the one afraid, recognize where your fear is coming from.  Is it about this person because they have given me reason to fear, or even because I don’t know them well yet, or is the fear coming from me because of past hurt?  Take responsibility when your alarm systems are about the past and not about the person in front of you.  Differentiate between the person in front of you and the person who hurt you, especially if they remind you of that person.  Don’t let the person who harmed you get in the way.  Kids constantly want more justification for their belief in you; if you are not a little kid, don’t let your brain believe the fear.  This applies to our relationships with God, as well.  Cinthia explains that she knows she believes in God, that she can hold Him accountable for His words, that He welcomes her challenging Him, and that she does not disrespect Him.  But that does not mean she always feels like she can trust Him or feels like she believes Him, etc., because it’s not just about feelings.  Do you have history with God?  Christ?  The Holy Spirit?  Your friends?  Your doctor?  Your neighbors?  Your spouse?  Can you relax with that person even when you are having an off-day, or does your trust in them change with the wind?  Do you only believe when your feelings line up, or when you get your way?  You can’t have relationship without some level of trust that overrides the up and down feelings.  Cinthia explains, “We trust people more than we trust God.  And I’m with you on it --- I like to be able to see what I’m trusting, too.  I want it to manifest in front of me.  I want it to be a sure thing because I don’t want to get hurt.  But these are important risks to take.”  She explains that, despite her struggles, she keeps putting herself back on track, redoing her thought processes, holding herself accountable for what she chooses to believe.  And, she says, God understands her struggles: “He knows I struggle with belief.  He doesn’t take it personally.  He doesn’t get offended.”  One of the most beautiful things in life is to be able to trust the person that you love and have them trust you.  But trust takes time and work.  Sometimes people will disappoint our expectations.  We can trust more when we learn to deal with disappointment because, if we truly believe someone, we can be harmed, hurt, let down.  Even with God, we sometimes have expectations for Him, and He does not always do what we want Him to do or what we assume or hope He will do.  But what if we don’t believe in anyone, which often means we don’t really trust ourselves?  Belief in something does not make things true, but neither does not believing in them.  We need to be able to relax and enjoy the life we have.  If people let us down occasionally, we can heal.  It is childlike to constantly let trust go up and down with our feelings, and we will get very scared.  Immature relationships can sometimes be recognized by constant questioning (though there are other presentations of this, as well). Some of our trust in God has to be based on the belief that He knows things we don’t, and we will have to be willing to engage with Him honestly and respectfully when we have real feelings.  Even with fallible human beings, trust is not impossible, though it involves learning to expect integrity and not perfection (e.g., the willingness to acknowledge and fix mistakes rather than the ability to never make them).  Even when we claim not to trust anyone, we get through our days by maintaining some level of trust in our cars, our jobs, the grocery clerk, the bank system, the chairs on which we sit.  We go to sleep trusting that we will wake up.  We can trust while we are waiting to see what is going to happen.  Think about the areas of your life in which you do trust. Reality can feel harsh, but we need to live in it.  Believing in anything is a risk, but not believing in anything doesn’t make reality easier.  Trust takes time.  We have to see the evidence.  It isn’t about whether they are doing it perfectly; it’s about time and overall trustworthiness.  There is not a person on the planet who will never hurt you.  We are so vulnerable when we trust, and we have to heal from the wounds when we get hurt.  But difficulty with trust can move into other areas of our lives.  Ultimately, the adult parts of our selves have to make the choices about who to trust rather than allowing our younger parts to decide this.  The adult parts of us have to look for trustworthiness, not perfection.  They have to consider issues like compatibility, communication, respect, and fixing mistakes, as well as emotional intelligence and attempts to understand your perspective.  Only you can decide to take a risk on a given relationship.  Every human is a risk.  However, relationship is a wonderful thing on which to risk.  It is worth being hurt sometimes to have basically-healthy human relationships.  So trust while waiting.  If you have a hard time trusting God, talk to Him about it.  Tell Him all the reasons.  He really loves to come into that conversation. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today Cinthia discussed what it means that we as human beings are made in the image of God.  We say all kinds of things about ourselves, and not all of the things we say are true.  We work hard to define ourselves, to figure out who we are and grasp some kind of identity for ourselves.  But these attempts will never make us free until they line up with the truth about ourselves, which is rooted in Who God is and who He says we are.  We look around for those we can emulate, but, until we know and emulate our Creator, we will not figure out how to be our unique selves.  The more we know God, the more we will want to be like Him, and the more we are like Him, the more we will be the unique creation He meant us to be. Cinthia discussed some of her own struggles to figure out her identity.  She was adopted into a family with which she had little in common in terms of appearance, giftings, etc.  She felt, she says, like she was on a train called “life” and did not know how she got on it, where it was going, or where she was supposed to get off of it.  She even perceived herself to be on this train fraudulently, to be on the planet by some unplanned accident so that God had to figure out what to do with her now that she was here.  Living under the weight of this, Cinthia worked hard to “be something” to justify her existence.  But one day, after many, many conversations about this with God, after repeatedly telling him how she felt and what she thought about it all, Cinthia heard God say to her, “Now you know where you came from.  You came from Me.”  Learning to see God as her reference point and to ask Him who He meant her to be changed life drastically for Cinthia, although it has been a process. While Cinthia’ particular struggle may be most resonant for those who have been adopted, all of us struggle with identity.  Some of this relates to family issues; we may not see ourselves as having much in common with our biological families or may identify with them strongly, happily or not.  We are adopted into God’s family through Jesus, and we don’t always know how to relate to this family.  But, regardless of our experiences with those who reared us or those around us now, human beings struggle to define ourselves (and some might say our society has particular difficulties with this because we are so concerned with defining ourselves individually) because each of us was created by God to be something we cannot understand without Him.  Each of us was His idea, and He was happy that He made each of us.  Regardless of connections with family members or similarities and differences with them, we are still one-time-occurring creations, and there is no one like anyone else.  Until we connect our identities to their Source, we will lack the information and power we need to be who we were meant to be.  In our society, people seem to be struggling with this more than ever.  People are even changing their bodies at drastic levels, but we are not our own creators.  We are not able to create who we want to be, whatever our society may tell us.  Human beings simply don’t have the tools to create themselves.  We have to learn to accept our status as created beings who were not consulted about who we were meant to be, but who are far more amazingly-designed than we realize or know.  Learning to trust our Creator with who we are is difficult because trust is difficult and because we tend to have ideas about who we are, some of which are not accurate and may cause pain.  But we start by learning to trust God when He says we were beautifully and wonderfully made and that He was glad when He made us.  Until we believe Him and ask Him what He had in mind for us, we will not find peace with who we are. You have to find out who you are, and you have to do it by going to your Creator.  Ask Him why He made you.  Even if you identified with your family or were like them in many ways, you are still the only one of you.  (Even identical twins do not have the same fingerprints!)  You are truly original, and you have to find out who you are.  You came straight from God, from His heart, soul, and mind.  He wanted to make you, and He did.  That is where you come from.  He wants to be with you forever.  Think about that: God made you because He wants to be with you forever.  Although He has taken great care with the particulars of your life, God created you for eternity, not just for this life.  He wanted to get you here more than He wanted to make it “the right time” for everyone else.  He used this fallen world to get you into existence, and that for Himself.  The first step in knowing who you are is to know Him; the second is to know the level of value He places on you. Cinthia explained, “If I know God, I know myself better.  If I act more like God, I like myself better.”  Cinthia offered several verses (Revelation 22:13, Colossians 1:15-17, Isaiah 44:6-8) to help us begin looking at this.  He is the First and the Last.  We look at the Son and see the God Who cannot be seen.  We see His original purpose that He started in Him and holds together in Him.  He is the God of Angel Armies. He is all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful.  God is the Doer.  Then she discussed Genesis 1:26-7, which explain that we were made in His image, in the image of the Trinity.  She likens this realization to what it was like for her as an adult who had been placed for adoption in infancy to meet her biological family, to have an “aha” moment in which she realized she looked like them, shared traits with them, and suddenly made sense to herself in ways she had never understood.  God is behind relational success.  God wants us in relationship with Him first and then with others.  This is why relationships impact us deeply whether we are engaging in them or avoiding them, and it is why our relationship with God is foundational to our self-images and to the health of our other relationships, while our self-images other relationships are significant concerns to God.  He made us like Himself, and we can borrow His ways of doing relationship.  Unfortunately, sin makes us less and less like Him.  We are left with our reference point.  God wants us to be like Him, not the other way around.  This is why verses like Matthew 19:4 actually give us permission to be who we are.  God did not miss something when He created you; He made you the way that He made you on purpose.  What you have learned about who you are, what you believe about who you are, what others think about who you are -- those things can be mistaken.  But God is not mistaken about how He made you. Cinthia elaborated by listing some specific ways God made us to be like Him.  We are creative, wishing to continue, expand, and express ourselves.  We are relational.  We are spiritual with a desire for spiritual connection, knowing there is more and desiring to question.  We are emotional beings.  (Yes, God has emotions!  We see that He has always had the capacity for happiness, sadness, and anger, though we do not see Him experiencing the emotion of fear until He became human as Jesus.  God is very emotional and not at all insecure, but, as a human, He opened Himself to this experience.  Even Jesus first indicates fear at facing the cross.  What a brave and strong friend we have in Jesus.)  We have choice.  And there are more ways! Go to God.  Ask Him Who He is and how He wants you to learn this, and be willing to pursue knowing Him as He wants to be known.  Ask Him who you are, who He meant you to be.  Then get to know yourself, to be yourself more fully based on the design by which you were made.  This is what it means to be yourself, and it comes not by performance for Him but through relationship with Him.  Walk with Him, and be everything He dreamed of you being.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today’s title is one that requires some definitions.  First of all, what is an addict?  What is addiction?  Addiction has more than one definition but usually involves becoming physically or psychologically dependent on a substance; it can sometimes apply to compulsive involvement in behavior, such as gambling or sexual compulsions.  Not all habits necessarily qualify as addictions.  At some level, we are all prone to addictions, but some people are much more prone to them than others.  Genetics plays a key role in setting up proclivities to addiction.  Trauma also influences addictions by taking away someone’s ability to regulate his or her internal world.  Anxiety and depressive disorders can create or increase vulnerability to addictions.  Chronic pain and severe injury including head injury, can set up a person for addiction, especially if treatment for these ailments involves narcotics or other controlled substances.  We cannot tell just by looking at a person all the factors that may put that person at risk for addictions, and shaming them for being addicted is generally not helpful.  Addiction is an affliction, not something people plan to have. There is a difference between dependence and addiction, though one can lead to the other.  A person who depends on a particular medication is not necessarily dealing with an addiction.  Sometimes the body cannot do for itself what it needs to do, and medications can be used appropriately to help with this.  Some people become dependent on medications that make their bodies function properly without becoming truly addicted, and sometimes we do not know all that is involved in another person’s medical care plan.  However, dependence can lead to addiction, and signs of this can include lessening attempts to find other coping skills and ways to be healthy.  At this time in history, we have an unprecedented opportunity to use pharmaceuticals in life-giving ways, but it can be very difficult to know how and when to do this.  Medications that were originally meant to help people can sometimes work their way into hearts, minds, souls, relationships, and lifestyles so that they destroy the people they were meant to help and harm others in addition. Another term in today’s title is the word “judge.”  The phrase “do not judge” is frequently cited as coming from Jesus, though not always with proper understanding of the context in which He said this.  In Matthew 7:1-6, Jesus told us not to judge lest we be judged.  The compassion He showed and shows to sinners like us shows us how important a statement like this is to Him.  In our society, however, we sometimes misuse the phrase “Don’t judge,” using the authority of Jesus’s words to mean, “Don’t tell me I’m wrong,” or to imply that all behaviors must be accepted as equally moral.  But Jesus went on to tell us not to give dogs what is sacred or cast our pearls before pigs.  A few verses later He warned against false prophets.  How are we to obey the latter verses without making some kind of judgments?  In fact, the Bible says not to judge ourselves.  How, then, can we make behavioral decisions for ourselves? The answer lies in the difference between judging behavior and judging a person’s heart, between determining that a behavior is harmful (or potentially harmful) and making negative assumptions about what is happening inside a person, between setting boundaries and shaming people.  Jesus says in John 7:24, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”  So, in the verses in Matthew, “do not judge” does not mean that love should be blind or undiscerning; on the contrary, loving well requires even more discernment than the kind of judging Jesus forbids.  It is healthy and right to recognize that some behaviors are harmful and wrong.  It is loving to want someone to be the best version of himself or herself and to encourage this in appropriate ways.  Wisdom often sees where particular behavioral patterns are leading, and love can motivate us to set limits with ourselves and others to avoid or minimize the harm that may be approaching.  Sometimes boundaries are necessary and healthy, and they can be set in ways that are not inherently shaming (though, for some people, encountering any kind of boundary activates their own inner shame).  Even deciding at last to walk away from an unhealthy situation can be done in kinder ways than simply ignoring or avoiding the person.  So today’s title and message can be expanded to the following: “Don’t judge the addict; judge the behaviors.”  Judging behaviors well may lead us to encourage someone to get help or make changes, to pray for them and encourage them.  Judging behaviors well may sometimes lead us to accept that another person has free will and that the only healthy option we have is to walk away from a situation we cannot change.  Other people may sometimes confuse these things with judging in the way Jesus said not to judge, and, truthfully, it is often hard to keep our behavior judgments from intermingling with our sinful tendency to judge people’s hearts as if we were in the place of God.  But loving well requires that we learn to support one another in being the best versions of ourselves, not in using our freedom to justify doing things that cause real harm.  There is a difference between an excuse, which attempts to justify inappropriate actions and make it okay to do things that are not okay, and an explanation, which simply attempts to help us understand the struggle.  Explanations may help us understand one another’s backstories, biologies, and battle strategies.  Exploring the root may help us find a solution.  The Bible is clear about truth.  Truth is inseparable from God’s character.  Anything that contradicts the truth is a lie.  To call something a lie or a sin is to pass on that thing, but only God can pass judgment on the person engaged in that thing.  Sometimes we don’t want to know or act on the truth God shows us, but that doesn’t mean we can redefine truth. If you are struggling with an addiction, do not stop trying.  Don’t give up.  Don’t stop reaching out for help.  You have the rest of your life to live, and it honors God to continue seeking Him and accepting the help He provides in our struggles.  It can be hard for humans to deal with our own freedom; we are free to choose our behaviors but not necessarily to choose their outcome.  Sometimes the things we choose are more powerful than we realized they would be.  Jesus does not break bruised reeds or snuff out smoldering wicks (Isaiah 42:3, Matthew 12:20), and His desire is not to shame you.  But neither does He want you to use phrases like “Don’t judge me” to dismiss the reality that you are more than the addictions that haunt you.  Jesus took our sins, sicknesses, and afflictions on Himself when He died for us; He knows better than anyone how heavy they are and how much they hurt.  If you are His (or if you turn to Him now), He will not leave you to struggle by yourself; He will be with you. If you are not sure whether you are struggling with an addiction, consider some of the following questions: Are you habitually breaking God’s law by doing things He says not to do?  Are you breaking human laws?  Are your relationships suffering, or are you becoming more isolated?  Are you lying, hiding, or deceiving to avoid having your behaviors criticized or limited?  Just because something feels valid or justified does not necessarily make it healthy.  Is there a pattern to what you are doing or when you are doing it?  Is it harming your physical or psychological health?  Is the thing that was intended as a solution actually causing more distress or impairment?  Are you doing more than you used to do?  If someone you love is struggling with an addiction, remember that there is a difference between judging a person and judging behavior.  Jesus gives us permission to make judgement calls on doctrines and deeds, and we are responsible for setting limits accordingly.  Judging whether to hand someone your keys, or even judging whether you can continue to be in relationship with a person in his or her current state of decision-making, is not the same as judging the person’s heart.  But negative assumptions about the person’s heart, etc., are.  You can set boundaries in response to the person’s choices, and you can set boundaries in your own mind regarding how you will think about the situation, what conclusions you will draw, etc.  Ask God to help you deal with the hurt without resorting to hatred.  Accept help from Him and from wise others in determining what limits you need to set.  You are not God, and this means both that you are not the person’s judge and that you have your own limits.  You cannot rescue the person any more than you can judge the heart.  Compassion and codependency are not the same thing. No matter what role you currently occupy in these scenarios, remember that we are not even the judges of ourselves.  God the only Judge.  But He does give us plenty of wisdom for evaluating our own behaviors.  Ask yourself the question, “Who is going to parent me?”  You have freedom to make your decisions, but you cannot choose the outcome of those decisions.  We are held accountable for what we have done.  God wants to make you into the kind of person He wants you to be.  He made you, and He also understands the ingredients He put into you.  He gives us the free will and the strength to say “yes,” “no,” or “wait” to ourselves.  Learn how to judge your own behaviors for your own benefit.  The adult part of you should gently question the wisdom of your actions at times. Be kind to yourself and others as you do this because God is kind.  Humans are a risk.  Take the risk of being the best version you can be.  You are a one-time occurring person, and you only get one life.  What meaning does God want to create with that life?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Twilight seems like a wisp of time; it comes and goes and is gone.  It occurs twice a day, bookending the days and nights.  Is this simply an accident of the Earth’s rotation and revolutions around the sun?  Nothing God creates is without meaning and purpose, and twilight, Cinthia explains, is a beautiful gift to us.  Cinthia explored dictionary definitions of twilight as (for example) “the diffused light from the sky during early evening or morning when the sun is below the horizon and its light is refracted by the earth’s atmosphere.”  Twilight is a time of transition; it gives us time to reflect on the day we have had and to move into night, or to come awake and move into the day.  It is the in-between time when things are ambiguous, obscured, winding up or winding down.  It can be calming, and it can be invigorating.  Imagine life without twilight, life in which darkness fell suddenly as we were driving and dawn broke all at once on our sleeping eyelids.  Twilight gives us the time to adjust, to prepare, to change with the rhythm of the day. Photographer Jacob Lucas has written about the under-appreciated and under-utilized light that comes through the atmosphere at twilight.  This is not just one type of light, either, but breaks into three phases in each twilight.  Civil twilight happens when the sun is just below the horizon and allows for seeing the brightest stars and planets and well as the horizon and objects on earth.  The light is mostly gold and pink.  Nautical twilight is the time when the sun is a bit further from the horizon; light dissipates more quickly, making details harder to see and silhouettes more realistic for capturing on film.  Astronomical twilight is the closest to darkness, and capturing handheld images is nearly impossible in its light. The concept of twilight can extend past the natural, however.  Spiritual and emotional or psychological twilights can exist, as well.  can be natural, spiritual, emotional/psychological. Cinthia explored the twilights involved in the Passion of Jesus.  It was likely sunset as He moved into the Last Supper with His disciples, a time when He washed the feet of His betrayer and tried to tell His friends the last things He wanted them to know before His death.  Twilight led Him into the dark night in which He would sweat blood in Gethsemane, receive His betrayer’s kiss, face the soldiers and officials, and begin six grueling trials that included periods of torture and went through dawn (the second twilight of the Passion).  That morning He carried His cross to the Place of the Skull and was nailed there, but a different kind of twilight came when the darkness of night fell at noon.  That afternoon, another strange twilight came when He committed His Spirit into the hands of His Father; the earth quaked, the veil in the temple was torn in two, and Jesus died.  The darkness was over, but twilight returned as His body was buried at sunset.  This is what God does with us everyday in little and big pieces.  We go through hours, days, seasons, pregnancies, job trajectories, the raising of children, the nurturing of relationships.  We experience process after process; we live in process and go through a multitude of transitions.  These twilights include times it is really dark and times when we see things in clearer, more beautiful lights than we have previously done.  God walks us through these processes with great intentionality.  He Jesus was fully present every moment of His life on earth, though we are usually not.  Twilight is an especially important time to be present because it eases us into the next phases of our life. Twilight is a gentleness from God, a kindness He gives us even though we resist it at times. What twilight are you in?  Is something beginning?  Is something starting to end?  Is there a transition on the horizon?  Stop and hear God saying that He is with you in the process.  Accept God’s grace as He leads you into the change.  Be present in twilight. Twilight is God’s kindness to lead us into change gradually.  There are some changes that are more abrupt, but don’t skip over the transition time He gives you.  Don’t refuse His kindness in leading you through the process His way.  God is creating this process for you to be able to get to the other side safely. Human beings were designed to need rhythms of work and rest, expansion and contraction, sleep and wakefulness, obscurity and discovery.  We need times of preparation and times of repose.  God knows His creation and its need for seasons and rest.  Even He rested on the seventh day after He created the world, showing us this pattern and giving it to us for our sake.  The work was good, He showed us, but the rest was holy.  The Sabbath commandment gets transgressed more than any other, and it has been distorted in every direction.  But its original intent was to strengthen us, and it will still do this if we allow it.  God even gave laws to the Israelites that allowed the land to rest so it could produce more later. Rest is vulnerable.  Rather than trust the Lord, we often want to keep working and pushing.  But breaking natural laws brings consequences.  When we fight against the physiology of our bodies, we will lose.  We will weaken ourselves and miss the healing, the restoration.  We will start too soon, end too soon, or not start or end at all.  Cinthia explains, I need to trust the One Who died for me.  If I resist doing my day, my life, I may miss some hardships but also steal from myself the blessings that are waiting for me. Twilight often requires us to go through the grief and loss process.  Sometimes this is because we are experiencing deep loss.  Sometimes we even have to grieve the loss of something good for something better.  Just as we did not create twilight, we cannot depend on ourselves to travel through it.  Cinthia explains a practice she uses to focus herself and experience her position with God more fully.  The Jesus Prayer, which is more than 1,500 years old, goes like this: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”  Cinthia is one of many believers who have practiced repeating this inside her heart and mind, inhaling during the first half of the sentence and exhaling on the second half.  She wholeheartedly recommended this practice, not because God needs our repetition to hear us, but because we need the repetition to humble ourselves, to ask unceasingly for the mercy He has already given us.  God’s destiny for us is always good but not always comfortable.  We need His mercy to come through it. God has not forgotten us when we are in twilight.  He knows what He is doing even when He allows something good to end or allows us to go into dark nights of the soul.  He leads us to surrender as Jesus did: “Not my will but Thy will be done.”  Often we find that surrender initiates morning twilight, but He is with us the whole time before that, too.  Read Psalm 23.  He will walk us through until we are ready for the full light of day.  Then, after such a night, it is time to rise.  When that time comes, we can trust Him for that, too.  When He raised Lazarus from the dead, Jesus made sure the stone was rolled away and then shouted for him to come forth.  There is a time when the cock crows, signaling dusk or dawn.  Hear the voice of the Lord calling you to come forth, and know that it is time. Where are you in this process?  Have you been in the tomb too long?  Are you refusing to come forth?  Are you needing to stop and reflect but wanting to do something to feel better instead?  What twilight are you in?  Are you ignoring it, lengthening it, trying to get out of it too quickly?  Honor God’s timing, and return to the natural rhythm of how He made us to be.  Twilight is the transition that moves us into the next phase of our calling.  It makes us slow down and find Jesus.  Twilight is crucial.  Don’t miss it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Have you ever told the truth and yet not been believed?  Have you ever struggled to know whether to believe someone else?  Distrust can be painful on both sides, but knowing what to believe can be difficult.  Today Cinthia tackles the dual topic of trusting and being trusted, starting with the statement that everything is a risk.  Trust is necessary for life, and trust is always a risk.  Belief in anything is a risk, but no one can take a step without putting his weight somewhere.  Even our day-to-day tasks require trust in objects, systems, and people.  Relationships require trust, and all of us have had variable experiences trusting others.  That said, some people are better risks than others; some people show us that they are more trustworthy, while others show us that they are not.  Are you a good risk for other people?  What do you show others with your life?  First, make sure that you are a good risk.  Don’t pretend.  If people are trusting you, they are risking on you.  If people are talking to you, they are risking on you.  Be a good risk. Wanting to be trusted is a risk because it hurts to want trust and not receive it, especially when one has worked hard to be trustworthy.  God takes that risk with us.  He is completely trustworthy; we can take Him at His Word.  He even engages with us as we challenge Him, though we should not disrespect Him.  But still we question Him over and over, struggling to believe He exists, wondering if He loves us, grasping for control of our lives because we trust our own plans more than we trust His.  Jesus’s disciples did not really understand or trust His love until after He had died for them and come back to life, and even then they struggled with doubt, confusion, and the need for reassurance.  Human beings have a tendency to think in terms of “If (fill in the blank), then I would really know that he/she loves me.”  We keep trying to figure out the real test that will finally hold down our fear.   But this is dangerous because it is based on our own imaginations; the things we think will satisfy us often do not do so. It takes humility to continue to engage with someone who struggles with trust when you are not the one who wounded them.  In this situation, focus on kindness and try not to make the person’s other-inflicted wounds worse.  The person may have hurt from the past; maybe the person does not know how to get the help he or she needs.  At some point, if the person consistently refuses to risk trusting you no matter how much you demonstrate that you are trustworthy, it may become hard or impossible to have a relationship with that person.  Relationship requires risk. Sometimes, however, another person’s mistrust in us comes from our own actions.  When we have lied to someone, been untrustworthy in a relationship, neglected someone, wounded or harmed someone in some way, etc., it may take a long time to regain trust—perhaps much longer than we hoped.  It may take longer than seems fair to the one who committed the offense, and the one who is trying to trust again may become more comfortable, only to start questioning again and need further transparency and amends.  Sometimes trust has to be re-earned minutes, days, and again years later.  If you have wounded someone deeply, you may have to keep demonstrating your trustworthiness until that person is ok again.  In the absence of glaring reasons not to trust another person, how can the average person decide whether to risk trusting that person?  Cinthia cited the old proverb, “Trust but verify.”  At some point, we all have to risk trusting someone, just as we have to take reasonable risks trusting our brakes, our chairs, our food, and so many other things.  It is impossible not to trust someone or something, and that always involves risk.  We only get to decide in what directions we point our risk-taking.  Believing in someone means that we can be let down, and that is very scary.  But we cannot have relationship without risk.  So we trust while waiting to see, and we increase trust as someone or something continues to prove trustworthy.  Consider how you would feel if you had to prove yourself time and time again without ever being believed, or without the person being able to hold onto his or her belief in you once you leave the room.  Do not keep your loved ones forever in limbo, always trying to earn your trust and never able to do so by any reasonable means.  Look for evidence of trustworthiness, but do not think any human being is going to be risk-free.  So what does it mean to be trustworthy?  When the object of our potential trust is a flawed human being, perfection is not one of the options.  Unless the person you are trusting is Jesus, that person is going to mess up.  (And, for that matter, even though He never messed up, Jesus’s followers were repeatedly surprised, confused, and disillusioned when He did things differently when they were expecting Him to do.)  With flawed human beings, believing in someone does not necessarily mean you are shocked when that person messes up.  Trustworthiness in a flawed human being is more about whether the person is willing to acknowledge an error, take responsibility, and work to make things right.  Expecting perfection from other people will always disappoint us and will eventually drive others away from us.  Who wants to keep trying to gain trust when that trust is simply unattainable?  So pay attention to glaring red flags, but also pay attention to the positive traits of the people in your life.  This will strengthen both you and them.  It will not necessarily make everything feel like it is going to be ok, but it can keep you from having to miss out on relationship entirely.  Look at the evidence as objectively as you can.  Find a good risk, and risk trusting.  Acknowledge that there is a level of risk and decide to go forward.  It is often the inner child that keeps demanding further proof, that keeps imagining he or she will finally feel secure if only the person does [fill in the blank].  The inner child is not the one to consult about these kinds of decisions.  Find the adult part of yourself, and go through the grief and loss process.  The adult part has to decide if another human is a good risk, and this involves risk to find out.  Sometimes we find out we were wrong.  You are going to be let down; we all are.  Trust is hard for everyone, and no one wants to be hurt.  But practice being an adult.  Acknowledge who you are trusting.  Distinguish between childish wishes and adult acceptance of reasonable risk.  Don’t just say no first and make others coax you into relationships.  Trying not to trust anyone is not a good life.  You have choices.  You can say yes, no, ask questions, etc.  Otherwise, you deprive yourself.  The fact for all of us is that, when we refuse ever to risk, we become problematic risks ourselves.  There are situations, however, in which we do well to learn not to trust a particular person.  Sometimes people show us evidence that trusting them is not reasonable.  When this happens, we can acknowledge it and respond accordingly but still move forward in life with joy.  You can be ok, even if it takes time.  God made it possible to move through things, to heal, to keep moving.  You do not have to let that person’s choices tell you what everybody is like.  Are you letting the least-trustworthy people from your past tell you what all human beings are like?  If you have already discovered that those people were not worthy of your trust, they may not make good lenses through which to view the rest of the world.  Ironically, despite the flawed nature of human beings and the perfection of God, we often trust people more than we trust God.  We view people as more of a sure thing because we can see them.  Do you have history with God?  Do you engage with Him?  Do you have reason to believe He is trustworthy?  Do you believe that He wants a relationship with you and that He is patient with your doubts?  Engage with Him.  He knows trust is always a risk, but that refusing ever to trust is always to risk even more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Practice makes perfect, right?  Well, that depends on what we are practicing.  Habits are powerful, and repetition makes them stronger.  This can be a huge advantage when we form and reinforce positive habits; it means we automatically do positive things without the decision fatigue that can come with making so many conscious decisions.  Habits are useful and efficient because they allow us to engage in our day-to-day lives without consciously engaging in a conscious decision-making process for every move we make.  Without them, it would be difficult to get through the day.  But this process can backfire when we form and reinforce negative habits because they become part of our automatic approach to life; they become natural to us.  Our bad habits are powerful and hard to change. Humans develop habits of the heart, habits of the mind, and habits of the body.  Each can be positive or negative, and some can start as positive but become negative as they reach extremes or take on roles they were not meant to play.  Habits of the heart can include patience or impatience, forgiveness or unforgiveness, acceptance or obstinacy, kindness, cruelty, indifference, truthfulness, lying, and so many others.  Habits of the mind can include taking every thought captive (II Corinthians 10:5), policing your own thoughts, self-hatred/self-criticism, judgments of others, lying, and more.  Habits of the body can include reaching for a seatbelt or a cigarette, eating habits, use and misuse of alcohol, nicotine, or other drugs, engaging or not engaging in healthy behaviors like exercise or taking appropriate medications, and physical violence.  Each of these can be positive or negative, and our brains engage with each of these by forming neural nets that become triggered by context and lead us more easily into enacting that habit.  This means that each time we engage in one of these habits, we reinforce it for the next time. Regarding thought habits, Cinthia cited Proverbs 23:7, which states, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.”  She also recommended a book written by James Allen in 1903 called Dealing with the Power of Thought.  We become what we think.  What do you think within yourself?  Into what is it making you?  God’s thoughts are higher than ours.  Habits can be changed, broken, and built, but doing so requires real commitment.  Starting is often the hardest part.  So first, consider your “why:” Why do you want to change this?  Intense change requires powerful motivation.  Incentives and rewards can help reinforce new habits, but engagement in the idea in the first place makes things much easier.  Next, consider the context and dynamics of the habit you want to change.  Put yourself in situations that make it easier to repeat the new habit and resist the old one.  Use your body to get where you need to be.  (For example, if you want to go to the gym but also do not want to go, just stand up.  Standing is not the same as going, and you can still not go once you stand up.  Then walk toward the door.  You still don’t have to go; just walk toward the door.  Perform one part of the process at a time without committing to the next step yet.)  As you progress in your habit formation, find a way to give yourself small rewards such as praise from an accountability partner.  Remove the barriers to success, and get some distance when you need it.  (For example, if you need to get away from the refrigerator, walk around the block, etc.)  Remind yourself that following the new path will get easier.  (Often new habits gain more power after about twenty-one days of consistent repetition.)  Be sure not to shame yourself; remember, your brain thinks it is helping you by trying to direct you toward old habits.  There are costs to new behaviors, such as paying more for vegetables than for unhealthy foods, so find ways to adjust to the costs.  Surround yourself with encouraging messages.  Speak a Bible verse into your phone and play it for yourself throughout the day.  And share the gift: help your children form good habits, positive routines, and healthy self-talk.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The past is hard for everyone.  Some long for the past, while others want to erase or avoid it.  Many of us want to erase parts of our pasts while holding onto others.  But the key to dealing with the past is not romanticizing it or avoiding it; it is learning from it.  Cinthia states today that “time is either a guide into your future or a tormentor that can’t be changed.”  Which will you allow your past to be for you? One of the reasons learning from the past can be tricky is that lots of factors impact our memory of it.  Neuroscientists have found that people rarely remember the past with perfect accuracy.  Sometimes family members seem to genuinely “remember” the same events very differently.  How do we know what is fact and what is simply our experience or perception?  One key is to be gentle with your past.  Remember, the goal is not to live in the past or use it to judge ourselves or others.  We do have to resist what we know is untrue.  Rewriting the past is not helpful.  We can face what we know and find the options we have with those things, like forgiving ourselves and others.  Without facing our pasts, we tend to try to redo the same things over and over again.  What do you need to learn in order to stop repeating the same mistakes and dynamics?  You can borrow from the past, but don’t live there. We honor ourselves and the past when we learn things that help us going forward.  Are there things about your past you can clarify?  Time is something that we experience and observe.  It relates to sequential events and changes.  Memory of the past is useful when we learn from it but detrimental when we use it for self-flagellation.  The past is not for beating up ourselves or others.  Who do you need to forgive, including yourself?  Address the past, but realize that you are in the present.  Repeating the same mistakes and dynamics, continually trying to get what we needed but did not get in the past, contaminates our future.  Resist the compulsion to redo everything; allow the past to be over, even while you face it.  Don’t ignore the past.  Do the work of self-forgiveness.  Judging our past actions and judging our past selves are different things, just as judging others’ actions and judging other human beings is different.  Be willing to learn and forgive.  Remember, rules without relationships produce rebellion, and hypocrisy happens when we cannot live up to our own standards.  God wants to work with you.  He has seen your sin, your mistakes, your errors.  If He Who is perfect can face what you have done, He can help you to face it.  God has power and wisdom to work through all of this.  He is not torn between acknowledging the reality of your evil actions and loving you; He has solved that problem.  So how is God revealing Himself through you or to you?  Is He doing it through your strengths or weaknesses?  He wants us each to ask Him about what He is doing with us.  We all have things in our past.  But we don’t have to let that get in the way of what God wants to do through us.  Don’t let shame get in the way of having a relationship with Him.  Let Him lead you into being the version of you He intended you to be when He made you. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today’s topic is the neuroplasticity of the brain and how we can use it to take charge of our own thought processes.  Cinthia opened today with a quote usually attributed to Albert Einstein: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.”  We see the problems that occur with repeating behaviors that are not working, but what about our thoughts?  Our brains create what are called “neural nets,” or networks of brain cells that learn to fire in succession in response to outside stimuli; these are often compared to superhighways in the brain.  This creates habits of thought that we often do not even notice because we are so used to them.  For example, the phone rings, and you see a particular name on the screen.  What thoughts go through your head automatically?  The stimulus happens, the thoughts begin… and, before you know it, you are traveling down that old familiar superhighway with its familiar assumptions and other habits of thought.  And every time you travel the highway, it gets reinforced, becoming more entrenched and powerful in your brain and your life.  Thus, our brains create these “crazy-fast” reactions to stimuli, but we can take control of this process and retrain our brains to respond differently. Sarah Gibson has written about this concept with the old computer-inspired idea of GIGO: “Garbage in, garbage out.”  We can, she emphasizes, decide what ideas to feed ourselves.  We can decide which thoughts to dwell on.  We can reroute the garbage truck, so to speak, and actively work to take the “trash” out of our brains.  We can create bypasses to help us stop traveling the superhighways that are not helping us.  God made our brains to work for us, not against us.  Are you a lazy thinker?  Challenge your own thoughts and feelings.  Update and maintain your own roads.  Take responsibility for the roads you travel.  Clean up the negativities, the lies, the assumptions.  Reroute the garbage truck.  All of this is easier to say than to do, but it is well worth the work. First, start to notice the neural nets that exist for you.  In what areas do you quickly find yourself starting down a familiar thought/feeling/reaction path?  Cinthia discussed her own struggle with mental “superhighways” related to an eating disorder that began early in her life; for her, there are still triggers to follow a mental track related to fears of being fat, triggers she has to consciously and intentionally resist.  We may have perceptions about why other people do what they do, and our thoughts on this reinforce our judgments and assumptions about others.  Some people have superhighways related to fears of trusting anyone.  Sometimes we think we know what will happen in a situation because we believe that is what “always” happens, but we may actually be overgeneralizing.  What are your superhighways?  What are your triggers to jump on those ramps, and what thoughts and feelings occur in response to those triggers?  Once you identify some patterns, the first thing to do is learn to pause.  To continue our superhighway analogy, pull your mental “car” over into a safe spot and take a minute to examine what just happened and where you are now headed.  Question your immediate emotional response.  Seek different information.  Find out what else there is to know.  Clarify with the person who made a comment; what did they mean by that?  Remember, our brains create these “crazy-fast” reactions based on emotional response.  Remember, feelings are very real, but they are not always true.  Don’t believe everything you think! We can retrain our reactions, but it is also important to recognize that some superhighways in our minds are so entrenched that we may struggle with them for a very long time, just as Cinthia described still having to resist eating-disordered thoughts decades after she has stopped living as an eating-disordered person.  Especially when we are dealing with roads that were formed when we were young or roads that were formed through trauma or deep wounding, roads we have traveled for years or as a way to avoid other painful roads, there may always be a first reaction, an impulse to get on the “ramp” toward the series of thoughts and behaviors the brain has learned to enact in response to parts of life. The brain may still go to the old road automatically, but, remember, you can teach your brain to hit the brakes before heading down the superhighway.  Work on construction of the new bypass system.  Every time you travel the old roads, you make them stronger, but every time you take yourself down a new path, you help to construct and strengthen that new route.  We have more control over our own thoughts than we give ourselves credit for. One thing that can help us as we try to build new roads is a back-to-basics approach toward what is important.  This approach stresses simplicity, focuses on the essentials, and proactively moves us toward the things that make the most difference.  It helps us do what matters instead of getting bogged down in unnecessary complexity.  If you think simplifying life could help you, consider these practical steps: Identify the things that add unnecessary complexity, busy-ness, and overwhelm to your life and work. What really matters to you, and what hijacks your time and energy away from those things?Create a plan to reduce or eliminate those things. (This may involve some grief and loss.)Identify things that are most efficient and effective, the things that make the most difference toward helping you accomplish what really matters.Create a plan to maximize those things.Put boundaries in place to protect these changes. Cinthia shared several verses from Proverbs that offer simple principles we can use to identify what is helping or hurting us, including Proverbs 10:9, 10:17, 14:15, 16:25, 27:6, and 27:12.  She also offered some questions to ask ourselves, such as the following:  Have I considered the possible outcomes for my course of action, or am I just excited about an idea and hoping that it works?  Do I think I am the exception to a rule in some area?  Sometimes we need to relearn basic truths about God in order to be able to let go of things that are getting in the way of what is best for us.  God’s heart is never geared toward depriving us or taking away what is truly good; He wants the best for us.  But sometimes we hold on to what we think is best, and it keeps us from enjoying the gifts He really wants to give us.  So find some verses or sayings and implement them into your life.  Remind yourself of what you know.  Don’t just let life happen to you.  Be committed to yourself—to your actual good, not your immediate gratification.  The more committed you are to yourself, the less it will take to maintain and care for yourself over time. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Human beings are locked in time while we live on the earth, and we used to know it.  The sun went down, and people could no longer see to continue working, which meant they had to end the day’s work and rest.  Time used to pace us, just as our bodies used to do.  Now, however, we seem to be in a game against time.  Our technology allows us to multitask at unprecedented levels.  We move faster and are not even aware of the moments in which we exist.  We regret the past, reliving what we cannot change, and we rush ahead into the future, planning and conquering moments that have not yet arrived -- and, when they do arrive, we are already in the next set of moments.  Our minds can go places that our bodies cannot go, and our bodies are exhausted by struggling and being left behind.  We watch each other dissociate, splitting ourselves and failing to be present where we are; this is hard on our psyches. Time is a set condition, albeit one we fail to honor in the modern era.  Time is on its own journey and has its own calling.  It is bound by Something much bigger than we are.  We are under the impression now that we manage and control  time, but, in reality, we can only respect or disrespect it.  We are arrogant to think that we can control time; this is a containment issue.  It is tragic to die without having lived, but how can we take advantage of time when we do not respect it?  Time is on our side, in a way; its existence means that we each have time.  Would you find it easy to waste what you knew was yours, or would you capitalize on it?  The existence of time gives each of us time to change, time to live, time to seek God, time to spend.  God does not often tell us how much time we each have, but we only have so much.  Time is like a Rubik’s cube; no matter how we work it, we never seem to be able to get it the way we really want it to be. Learning to respect time involves learning to accept the past as something we cannot change.  We must learn to forgive our parents and others who made mistakes that hurt us, and it often helps to recognize that most of them probably wanted to do well by us.  The present can be changed, but the past has to be faced, healed, forgiven, accepted, etc. There is a difference between living and existing.  Learning to respect time means learning to appreciate the amazing fact that God uses us to reveal Himself.  He may do it through our strengths or our weaknesses, but there is no greater purpose.  He is a God of paradox, though not of moral contradictions.  God can work through all or none of what we have.  He is a God of relationship who deals well with the gray areas and the complications, despite His own perfection and faithfulness. Cinthia discussed an article by Steve Bloom in which he pointed out that we often go through our days as if we had no power to change our lives for the better.  Drifting through life can seem like less work, but it is quite lonely and, in the long-run, more difficult than using time well.  Have you ever tried to dance with someone who will not dance?  The difference between living and existing has a lot to do with how much control you have over your own life and from where you see that control coming.  There is a difference between hoping and steering.  We do not get to determine everything that comes our way, but we do get to decide whether we show up and how much control to give to different emotions, etc.  Merely existing can involve staying in lives we dislike simply out of a lack of hope.  Cinthia stated, “I would rather you mess up and have a story about how you messed up than to have no story.”  Coveting others’ lives and blessings can also be a way of wasting our own time. Time is always going the same way, and there will be a day when it stops.  Time is something you own in a sense; it is your time.  We can think of our days as tickets we spend.  Are you learning the lessons that time is trying to teach you so that you can move on to the next lesson?  The hallmark of a fool is that he never hears; he is so caught up in his own way of thinking that he repeats his own folly and just blames others.  Each of us dies as a sole person.   Time is a gift from God, and using time wisely is a way of honoring the Giver.  Do you love the gift more than the Giver?  Do you want His blessings more than you want Him?  What does God have to show you about time?  What most tempts you to waste time? You cannot know how much time you have, but there is a limit.  Time is a friend; it paces us, directs us, shows us the next steps.  There will come a day when there is no time; we will be timeless.  But right now you have today.  Do the things that need to be done in time. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When we do not take responsibility for being the best versions of ourselves, we often move toward pleasure to mitigate the pain.  Now, pleasure is not bad -- it’s great, actually.  But pleasure always has a price.  Sometimes the price is worth paying, but, when we are using pleasure to mitigate pain, we often pay more than we acknowledge ourselves to be losing for our pleasure.  Not only that, but we inflict a cost on others, sometimes without even being aware we are doing it. A primary concept in today’s broadcast is that good character understands and respects the price of pleasure.  Furthermore, good character qualities actually produce emotional, intellectual, spiritual, relational, and physical benefits.  Consider the price of an addiction to yourself and to others versus the cost and eventual benefits of sobriety.  Becoming a sober-minded person also has a cost, but, in the long-run, the gain is larger and the cost (for you and for others) less than that of continuing to be dominated by addiction as a way to deal with pain. Pain is real.  Pain management, when done morally, is the best antidote and possible cure for pain in this living world.  It isn’t easy, though; that’s the problem.  What do you need to do to deal with your pain?  How do you do that?  And what is your alternative?  How much does it cost you to constantly be wanting to feel good, to need pleasure and propping up at all times?  Pain is real, but is your antidote too costly for you and others?  Consistently moving toward pleasure, especially pleasure without work, causes you to be a deductor rather than a contributor in others’ lives.  Do you show up at the party wanting only to receive, or do you show up expecting to contribute in some way to the overall positive experience that people have there?  We can even have this attitude about salvation, appreciating Jesus’s death and resurrection for our salvation but not doing much to help others experience His love since our salvation is covered. Cinthia read II Timothy 3:1-5 from the New Living Translation, which includes a lengthy list of disturbing character traits that would become prevalent in the last days, and an encouragement not to invest our time and energy in relationships with people who primarily influence us toward those things.  Human beings influence one another.  We teach each other by example, give license to each other by what we do.  We learn from each other all the time.  In the modern era we tend to reject the idea that we each have a responsibility to society, confusing it with codependency or carrying the world on our shoulders.  But we each have influence, and we each have a responsibility to own that influence.  We all lead and follow, teach and are taught, even when we strive not to do one of those things.  Doing any of them well requires humility.  Your life really matters.  Even if you don’t want to be seen, that sends a message.  Bad behaviors weaken the person we were meant to be.  You are a once-occurring person in the history of the universe, and you are responsible for the version of yourself that you choose to be and for the ways that influences those around you.  Discernment is important, and we can learn to be more discerning.  Discernment involves learning to see what is beneath the surface, judging well, seeing past illusions into the reality that underlies them.  It involves seeing things that are easy to overlook, things that appear to be inconsequential.  It also involves knowing when to ignore the loudest part of what is happening when that part is only a distraction from more important pieces.  Discernment is considered a virtue in Christianity.  It gives us the ability to identify the voice of Wisdom and follow her at any cost.  James 1:5 says that, if anyone lacks wisdom, he should ask God.  The Holy Spirit can give us wisdom.  One way to practice discernment is to pay attention to information from all three “brains:” the head, the heart, and the gut.  The head helps us with factual information, logic, making sense of things.  The heart experiences feelings, which give us information our brains may not have noticed and help us sort out levels of importance.  The gut can alert us to warning signals of which the head and heart were not aware.  Discernment requires time; it works best when you do not rush into judgments.  Remember, discernment helps us recognize wisdom so we can follow her regardless of the cost.  Crave discernment.  Take your time, and don’t rush into judgment, even of yourself.  Ask God for wisdom, and let your Creator help you to become the version of yourself that He meant you to be.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do you reject compliments, explaining why you don’t really deserve them?  Do you get nervous when someone does something nice for you, turn down offers of help even when you could really use them, or hate the feeling you get when someone forgives you or extends grace and kindness your way?  Today’s show is on letting other people love you. It can be scary and humbling to let someone love you and give you grace.  The enemy (i.e., Satan) will try to exploit this by encouraging you to think that you are in a one-down position.  Sometimes it is easier to accept good things from a stranger because we do not worry there will be an ongoing obligation in the relationship.  But grace, kindness, forgiveness, and help are meant to be gifts of honor.  Do not insult the person trying to honor you by rejecting that honor.  So how do we honor the gifts of love others give us?  Well, if we are gifted forgiveness, grace, and covering, change is the best response.  Grace helps us have energy to get up again and do it right, to fix what we have broken, to undo what we have done.  Allow people to love you when you mess up.  Love covers a multitude of sins (I Peter 4:8).  Covering often sounds negative to us because we confuse it with toxic secrecy or enabling.  The kind of covering that God does for us, however, is not like this; it is a gift of grace meant to protect us while we are working on repentance and change.  Think of covering wounds while they heal; we do not just bleed all over the house and allow the wounds to be open and exposed to further harm.  We cover wounds appropriately to help them heal.  Covering or hiding as a gift of grace means that those who love us choose not to expose our ugliness while we work on repentance and change, knowing that change takes time.  God gives more because He has endurance people do not.  Covering is not permission to keep deepening the wound; covering is beautiful. If we are given courtesy or help, we can offer a sincere thank-you.  Do not insult the person offering good because you are uncomfortable.  Give courtesy and graciousness in exchange.  Accept the gesture and be grateful for the thought.  Good boundaries will help with this; do not try to read the person’s mind or assume their expectations without knowing them.  If there is a motive, you are not obligated to recognize it unless they tell you.  Unless you have real reason to believe they want something in return (e.g., the person has a history of trying to put you in his/her debt, or there are clear signs of a scam in play), then you cannot read minds to figure it out.  You can, however, be nice.  You can be polite, gracious, forgiving.  “Our Father is kind; you be kind [Luke 6:36, The Message version].”  Cinthia continues, “Kindness supports peace, and peace loves to linger.  See, peace is a quality that expands.  Kindness is a quality that is catching.  God is a God of peace.  He’s always going to war with the people that are harming us.  And there needs to be that protection, and He’s able to restore and protect and to save those that are oppressed, harmed, wounded, injured.”  So be gracious in your responses to others, and do not allow suspicion to steal the joy of the gift.  If you find later that someone had ulterior motives (e.g., wanted something in return), you can say “no” then.  You can say, “I wish you would have told me you were needing/wanting something in return.  What can I do?”  And if you cannot do what they want, you can tell the person that you will not be able to accept help from him/her in the future. Cinthia discussed I Corinthians 13 and encouraged little ways to give kindness and spread mercy and truth.  She also encouraged self-forgiveness, explaining, “The only reason for having baggage is not having attended to it; move on,” and, “You’re going to be able to love deeply if you also forgive yourself.” Finally, Cinthia discussed Attachment Theory, which therapists use to discuss how humans attach, and how the motives behind a tendency to reject love often have to do with fear.  She discussed the messages people with avoidant or ambivalent attachment styles can send others, such as, “Come here; go away,” and, “I could take or leave you.”  She discussed both fear of rejection and fear of acceptance, explaining that God has made humans to need connection and that our defensive structures try to protect us from the pain of not being connected, as well as the pain of being connected, which is also threatening.  Our defensive structures protect us too well; our radars give us false readings.  We try to protect ourselves from harm, but we protect ourselves from what we need.  There are scary implications for acceptance – fear of relationship, commitment, being loved or wanted, fear of the future, coming to depend on someone and then getting rejected, etc. – But the attempt to avoid this pain and loneliness tend to encourage a constant level of pain and loneliness.  Are you ambivalent about relationships?  Some part of you really wants connection, but it really frightens another part of you.  Cinthia recalled the “False Evidence Appearing Real” definition of fear and encouraged identifying the core beliefs behind our fears of accepting good from other people.  For example, one might say to himself, “I’m not a good risk.  I’m not going to do this -- all I’ll get is let down.  I’m just going to keep working on myself by myself until I feel confident enough to put myself out there.” Cinthia recalled struggling with her own core beliefs about herself and realizing that part of acceptance was accepting herself.  She explained that God finally said to her, “Cinthia, I didn’t consult you when I created you.  I made you for me.  I’m happy with you.  I like the way I made you.  I’m excited to spend eternity with you, Cinthia.  So you can either get on the same page as me, or you can be miserable until you come home.”  This led her to work on accepting the things she could not control, picking battles differently, getting stuck on fewer things, letting things go, etc. We need to know the God Who loves us and to begin to accept ourselves.  The more I accept myself, the safer I am to other people.  The fears of acceptance and rejection never go away until heaven, so we need to let people love us.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.