Do you feel like quitting?

January 5, 2014 by Leave a Comment

I had just met Jennie , and one of the first things she said to me was- “ I want to quit!”

She was serious.

This was not some false humility moment here, she meant every word.

The irony was, here we were about to start a 2 day film shoot.  She was about to teach a Bible study, like a boat-load of sessions, to a room full of women, and the first thing she said was....” I want to quit”.

I knew at that moment, I liked her.

Can you relate?

Let’s look at the outside.  Here she was a published author, filming on this gorgeous film set, being attended to by a personal make-up artist and hairstylist, and she would rather not, thank- you very much.

Not because she didn’t care about the women in the room.

Not because she didn’t appreciate the opportunity before her.

Not because she was lazy, or any other thing other than the cold hard truth……... obeying God requires a lot from us. No, not a lot- our EVERYTHING!

We can sometimes glaze over the sacrifice part of our relationship with God.  We gloss over the loss and pain of “giving up” those things we want to desperately hold on to.

For so long we have fought to claim “our lives”, “ our place in this world”.  Then God steps in and rocks our world.

His ways are not our ways.  He thinks long-term, short-term, and all in-between.  And we can barely see past the end of our nose.

So, yes- sometimes following His lead makes us want to quit.  We don’t always get it.  We don’t always understand.  We think we know a better way.  And all of that makes us want to just..... quit!

But, we know deep down, that’s not really what we want.

From time to time, we’re just plain tired and overwhelmed with the pursuit. But here’s the good news, God get’s that.

He promised to never ask or require more of us than we can handle.

Duet. 31:6 It’s a promise.

So, if you’re feeling the urge to quit.

I feel you.

I get it!

You’re not the only one.

And most importantly, God understands that feeling - deeply and intimately.

Jennie ,made an incredible turn around that day.  Once she opened up and shared her feelings, we prayed together as a group, and we committed to  follow hard after God - together.

So if you feel like quitting.

1. Admit it.  Say it out loud. It’s okay.

2. Pray to God for strength to be faithful to all that He is asking of you

3. Find some friends who are committed to doing the same, and do life together.

 

What about you?- Ever felt like quitting?

 

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Confrontation vs. Communication

March 1, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Confrontation

  • puts people on the defensive
  • causes a feeling of “victim”
  • raises the walls of resistance
  • lessens the opportunity for change

Communication

  • lowers defenses
  • causes a feeling of “being heard”
  • eliminates the need for resisting
  • opens the heart to embrace change

When we confront, we are operating out of our fears. We are focused on ourselves.

In the book Age of Opportunity, Paul Tripp reminds parents that our goal is to get to the heart of the matter. Our goal is to understand what is really happening in our children’s hearts.

If we arrive on the scene and begin announcing what is wrong and quickly move to declaring our solution, we unwittingly remove the need for our children to be involved in the process. We undermine their opportunity to make any reasonable connections to the situation. Our actions, rather than helping, actually hurt our goal of getting to their hearts.

Tripp supplies a list of questions to use on the spot. Instead of launching into the parental viewpoint, he advocates walking your children through the situation step-by-step to analyze what happened. This simple exercise is training them to process what is happening on a heart level. The effort of getting to the heart requires patience.

My husband and I have used these with great success. These simple questions have created a profound shift in the way we approach our children. Asking these questions has enabled us to remain calm in situations that in the past would have escalated into angry confrontations. Instead we were equipped.

Prior to reading this book, we never realized that instead of helping we were really hurting them. After all, it was our responsibility as their parent to point out everything that was wrong.  Or so we thought.

Once we realized our role was to act as a guide for our children. This allowed a powerful shift to take place. Our children now had the freedom to analyze the problem.  They were challenged to make a connection between their thoughts and actions, which lead to ownership and accepting of responsibility.

5 Questions to Ask for Communicating versus Confronting:

  1. What was going on? (Tell me about the situation)
  2. What were you thinking and feeling? (Heart response to the situation)
  3. What did you do? (Behavioral response)
  4. Why did you do it? (Motive, goals, desires that shaped the behavior)
  5. What was the result? (How their response affected the situation)

Because these questions deal with examining motives, they are best suited for children who can handle that level of thought. We tend to use these with our oldest 3, ages 11 and up.

Filed Under: Blog, Connect to Others, Connect to Purpose, Connect to Your Kids Tagged With: , ,