Dear friends, hello again and welcome back to God’s Vineyard – the place where we’re invited to grow in God’s glory and share in His wonderful wine, His presence!
Just a quick recap of our last blog to bring us back up to speed. We discussed how in today’s world we’ve been painted a picture that typically people’s marriages are all fine and dandy and they’ve got things figures out. Sadly, this is usually Not the case, but in fact the opposite. So why are there so many challenges, difficulties, and frustrations when it comes to such an intimate, the Most Important relationship here on earth…? Building a marriage – especially an Intimate one, is actually a lifetime pursuit, and there’s a lot of pain and suffering that takes place inside such a relationship, a place where the couples get challenged and stretched to unimaginable pains and tests that they never would have chosen for themselves before time.
But here’s something to think about – relationships are like a rose garden. There are thorns, as with any rose garden, which is just part of the beauty and design of a rose. There will be unpleasant parts to being married to someone plenty of times, and yes, there will be those thorns which we get pricked on. There’s nothing “wrong” with that fact, as we must all come to realize that it is part of this earthly life, in which conflicts are “normal”in this world and it’s ok to expect them as we must Learn to work through them properly in order to get stronger, more mature, and more well-rounded, where we can become more compassionate and understanding, thus thriving in all relationships, especially in a marriage.
Life will produce thorns and we’ll get pricked, yes, but we shouldn’t shy away from talking through or facing those thorns (issues or conflicts). They are here to help us grow, help us learn ourselves, learn to communicate with each other, learn to work as partners – for our struggle is not against each other, not against flesh and blood; but the struggle is of the wicked deceiver who plants those negative thoughts, feelings, and circumstances in us and along our paths in order to cause pain to God – and he’s doing it via God’s children, via you and me, friends, via marriages since the creation of the garden!
Lift up thine eyes therefore, and remember the God which led our forefathers through all kinds of deserts and trials. Realize that relationships will last beyond this lifetime. That’s why we have Eternity placed within our hearts, for Jesus is the strength of marriages, and He invites us to come to Him, because He is low and meek in heart, and when we recognize our weakness and come to Him with a Humble heart, He makes us strong (via Grace, His Power), and all of this is to God’s Glory. Holy Spirit will always first lead us to the emptiness of our flesh and carnal self. Our God is not a god of shortcuts, He is not in any rush, and He will not settle to give you anything secondhand, but reserves only the Best for each of us and will finish the good work He started to make sure we get there. That promise-land will finally be visible as we press into Him.
Today, we will be further building our foundation and diving deeper into who we are. As a common question each of us faces daily or weekly, especially when trials hit, we ask ourself “who am I?”. After one of those such times, I realized something about myself. I realized that I don’t trust people to accept who I am in this life process. I’m the kind of person who wants to present my honest, authentic self to the world, so I often hide backstage and rehearse to myself that I am honest and authentic individual, until the curtain of life opens back up and we face the audience.
Then something else dawned upon me: What if the people whom we consider to be great in this world are actually the most broken? What if during the time in which they seek acceptance or applause from the world they are actually missing out on true intimacy, all because they’ve never learned how to receive it themselves? And here’s the reality which, unfortunately, we’re not usually taught as growing children – to be intimate, we must jump into love and change, we have to let go of the fear of change and the fear of loss of control. We must learn to open our hearts to other people, we must learn how to be close and how to connect to others. But this is very uncomfortable, daring, and most often – straight up painful, thus we hold onto all kinds of varieties of the biggest enemy of all: FEAR.
You see, so very often I find myself beating myself up for not doing something hard or good enough to make someone happy, to make my spouse happy. I see my flaws, my shortcomings, my weaknesses and I just want to hide or stay quiet instead of putting myself out there again, for fear of being trampled on again or somehow rejected or misunderstood. But this is where most often we forget the reality of this life and the truth we’re preached, about WHY Grace showed up in the first place. As we mature in our souls and advance in life, we each have to learn to trust that my flaws are the way through which I would receive grace. We usually never realize and don’t think of our flaws as the glue that binds us to the people we love, but they really are. Grace only sticks to imperfections, and those who cannot accept their own imperfections first, cannot accept grace either.
Friends, the truth of the matter is that human love is Not conditional, in fact no true love is conditional. If love was conditional, it’d be some sort of manipulation impersonating as love. Basically, that is saying that ‘if I only love conditionally, what you’re really saying is I’m not a good enough person to love you if you have a few flaws.’ What we fail to realize (because of pain) is that most people are not as bad as we think they are, we’re just so broken. Yes, because people are tragically misused and even abused that they naturally don’t trusteach other and they see life as a ‘kill or be killed’ drama, so they walk around with a mindset that people are out to get them. No wonder we keep hurting each other.
I often believed that if I don’t make enough money or if other people didn’t think I was successful, that my wife could not love me, or my coworkers or friends wouldn’t accept me. So, I’ve gotten used to putting on a mask and projecting an identity which wasn’t the true me. Ever since I was a child, ever since I became wronged in one way or another, I convinced myself that I had to be bigger and smarter than I really was, so ever since then I’ve been trying to perform, trying to convince people that I was more capable than I really was. As I was growing up and accumulating more pains and perceived rejections, I only perfected those masks to appearbetter suited to the situation at hand.
An interesting fact I’ve recently learned about the company Apple Inc, (yes, the one who puts out Mac’s and iPhones). Apple teaches their team members to trust in the “positive intent” of their customers so that when a customer comes in with a complaint, they don’t want the team members to automatically assume that the customer is trying to rip the company off or trying to get something for free. You see, Apple is in the relationship business, they know that the occasional loss will be offset by the connection that they create with their customers by trusting them upfront. Trusting people is a slow and an organic process. To live out the human story is all about counting the personal cost and considering the reward. What will you pay for integrity? How about for close, true intimate connections in which you can thrive in and actually Enjoy? What are you willing to change in your heart and lifestyle to achieve that?
But let’s also be wise now and careful to grasp another aspect. Almost without exception, the most beautiful selfless people are the ones who experience personal tragedy. Healthy relationships take place best between two healthy people – which is not only about romance, it’s about regular and family friendships, neighbors, and people we agreed to do business with. Therefore we must be able to hold compassion in one hand and justice in the other, and offer them both, for they do Not cancel each other out. There are givers and takers in this life, and we must let the takers go, and when the takers are ready to play by the rules (of honor, respect, and responsibility), only then are they welcomed back, because our heart is worth protecting. Which walls are you willing to address in your own soul first? And then what new ways of healthy and wise boundaries may you consider of implementing in order to help develop that relationship, (not punish the person)?
Here’s the reality, friends… when there are lies in any relationship, it’s not like we’re actually connecting. How have I damaged my own life by mistaking enablement for grace? This is where we must seek a Higher wisdom, one that is Not earthly nature. Remember the story of the rich man in scripture? It’s a story about healthy boundaries. Jesus didn’t give up his purpose and community and life’s calling to spend time with the rich man when the young rich youth decided not to sell everything he’s got and follow Jesus’s calling. This means that while everyone is invited – not everybody is willing to obey/follow. Unless we’re honest with each other we cannot connect, therefore we cannot be intimate. We must realize our own soul pains first and where they’re stemming from; realize which way we are being manipulative (yes, most of us are and are very ignorant of it) and address those areas inside our own heart first. Stop trying to fix or control the other person, spouse, or partner. Only God can penetrate a manipulative person’s heart, and even then, He sits quietly waiting for them to stop running their con show.
In today’s world we are consumers, and that’s being kind. In reality, we are extreme consumers! We binge watch show after show and thrive on Big Box name drama shows. Friends, we must lose the taste for drama. The backside of Hollywood passion is disappointment and loneliness, and more often than not resentment, and the sarcasm about the nature of love itself. We must realize that a marriage relationship is about building more of a symphony instead a pop song – for love is wonderful, and getting to know each other is the harvest of a long season of farming, as an example. True intimacy is just like that, it’s the food you grow from the well tilled ground, and like most things good for us, it’s an acquired taste.
Can you feel the silliness of all your fantasy romantic accomplishments that have taken place inside your head, where in those stories there was no risk, and so no thrill, just a sugar high? There was no space for character changes for they only come when we face the difficulties of reality head on. That’s why our romanticized fantasies only feel like bankrupt stories. Sometimes the real bonding happens in conversations about nothing, and sometimes being willing to talk about nothing shows how much we want to be with each other – and that’s a powerful thing! Relationships matter, and All relationships help us reach your goals. God gave them to us for the same reason He confused the language at the tower of babel, so that in the chaos to prevent us from investing too much energy in the glutinous idols of self-absorption.
Real love stories don’t have dictators; they have participants, for love is an ever-changing, complicated, choose your own adventure narrative that offers the world, but guarantees nothing. Perhaps that’s another reason True intimacy is so frightening, for we must give up control. The root of sin is the desire for control, and what’s driving that control is fear. The reason we all have a rich fantasy life is partially because it gives us a sense of control, and there is no risk in my fantasy and risk is what I feared the most – after all to love somebody is to give them the power to hurt me, and nobody can hurt me if I’m the one writing the script – but it doesn’t work, for controlling people are the loneliest folks in the world. There came a revelation to me where when I had to realize that my spouse was herself, with her own desires, wants, and passions, and there was nothing I can do to control her. Deception in any form kills intimacy, because intimacy is based on trust, and any form of manipulation, control, lies, or deception will eventually break that trust; therefore, manipulation has to be our enemy. And here’s the awareness factor – we must recognize that it’s almost like a default mechanism of being a human!
Very briefly, I wanted to share with you the 5 categories of manipulation and how we most often experience it in our lives.
- Judging – happens when people judge others so that others depend on one thing: the judge always being right. This personality strongly believes in right and wrong, (which is great), but they also believe that they are the ones who decide right and wrong, and they lord it over others to maintain authority and power. When in a religious context, they use the Bible to gain control of others, as it becomes a book of rules that they use to prove they are the right ones (rather than a book through which God introduces Himself to humanity).
- Score Keeping – is when somebody starts keeping score in a relationship. They keep tabs on whatever favors you owe them and call in those favors when they want to control you, for they frame it in any way they want but always in such a way that they’re winning.
- Hero (false) – manipulates by leading people to believe they have something better to offer than they really do. They gain security before a real security can be established, doing it at the expense of others. The dark side to visionary personality is that they can lead people to believethey have a future when it might not be possible or realistic to actualize that vision. Usually too good to be true scenarios.
- Fear Monger – Possibly the deadliest and most dangerous of the manipulators as they make people suffer the consequences of noncompliance: if you don’t submit to me, I’ll make your life a living hell. They manipulate by making people believe they are strong, yet themselves are completely incapable of vulnerability, thus incapable of intimacy, for they establish their dominance to get comfort from dominating the weak. They overemphasize the concept of loyalty, and take a stance of “never question or challenge my Authority”.
- Drama Queen/King – someone who overdramatizes their victimhood in order to gain sympathy and attention. This personality obtains its resources from victims by faking emotional injuries in order to gain control of the people around them, and their thought process is: if people hurt me, they’re in my debt, and I can hold it over to them to get what I want. They are passive oppressors and seek control by making you feel guilty about what you’ve done. They are not interested in any reconciliation, rather control. They choose to stay in relationships for the power it brings them to make you feel consistently responsible for somebody else’s pain.
Friends, I bring this up for two reasons: first in an attempt for us to recognize these personality traits in our own selves, for we all ignorantly tend to lean into one category or a few every so often. If you see any form in yourself, then find the safe people who offer grace, who can believe that you’re a great person who is trying to figure things out, and can politely show you the error of your ways. Someone who can wait for the right time to bring up any faults like a coach coaching an athlete. A safe person is somebody who speaks the truth and grace.
Secondly, the way manipulative people treat others is by attacking their identity, and we begin to doubt who we really are, and more than just feeling like a bad person, the labeling makes it harder for us to connect with people, and thus we start driving ourself out of the community because when we don’t believe we are good enough or lovable, we isolate. If we have such a spouse or any relationship, we must learn to only respond to those people regarding the “issue itself”, quoting the Bible as necessary. But never take it personally. Also, as in the first case above, surround yourself with Godly and Wise counsel, don’t repeat mistakes of the past of gossiping to friends who can support you in your point of view but are not truly able to help your relationship become stronger and your soul heal. We all have these guy or girlfriends who will side with us, but the Lord teaches us to side with Truth and Wisdom instead of facts or feelings.
Not too long ago in my life’s journey, I came to a point where I had some tough questions to face and seek out my heart for true answers. Was I willing to continue further into this thing called marriage (while in the middle of intense pain and misunderstandings) having no idea what the finished product would look like? Can I give up my dreams to merge them with hers and be content, and perhaps even be surprised by what could happen in a shared life? We both must have our independence and freedom, but we may have those things with each other. The people with the healthiest self-esteem are also the greatest at intimacy, because they know they are both good and bad, so regarding others, we can believe at the deepest level that they are really good for people. God created us so that other people could enjoy us, not endure us. I had to learn how to hold my tongue, how to roll my eyes at drama, and awaken to realize that life is more about connection with people than it is about competing with them.
Sometimes (lots of times), when we’re trying to do good and be ourselves and connect, the worst nightmare comes true, we try, and we failed. But the true godly and wise people around us are the ones who shed light and help us see that we actually hit a home run, so thus we should get up and realize that we’ve been lied toor made a few mistakes and that our identity is under siege. We often don’t believe that we could still live in love and connect because we really don’t know who we are and what we’re capable of, we don’t know how to heal and what that’ll be to the people around us because we get shut down. But we must get back up and run to home base because the truth of the matter is – we are already victors in Christ Jesus!
Many of us have grown up in the legalistic religious environment, where there was almost no self-expressionallowed. How many opinions do I have that I want to share but hold back for fear of criticism? What love do I want to express but stay silent for fear of rejection? I must learn to take the occasional blow to find the true people that I can truly connect with. As long as I’m willing to turn the other cheek with the mean ones, vulnerability can give me a wealth of friends. How can we be loved if we are always in hiding? In the last few weeks of a dying persons life, they are able to find a higher level of clarity about what really matters most, and the most common regret of the dying is: they wish they’d had the courage to live a life true to themselves, and not the life that others expected of them. Being afraid to love involves a fear of being known, if you were making mistakes, a fear of being found lacking. We become “careful”. If we used to be the guy willing to say things, willing to say what no one else was willing to say, true stuff all the same, but stuff that most folks hide away for fear of being known. Is there anything more toxic than the fear of being judged? Judgment shuts us down and makes us hide, it keeps us from being ourselves, which keeps us from connecting with other people.
In the previous post I shared about some of my own fears about blogging. But then I realized that in order to have any success in growth, I was going to have to face the fans and the critics, because at some point, we all face the risk of being found out. The risk of being known is also permission to be criticized by some. I couldn’t afford to be afraid to write anymore, for my soul needed to be known, and it couldn’t be known in hiding, so I wrote. I write as if God thinks that my voice matters. I write because I believe the human story is very beautiful, no matter how small the human is. I write because my God has invited me to share my true self with the world and not put up all kinds of guards around my soul anymore. Energy is a two-way street. I got tired of being the Dead Sea. I must allow energy to flow from me as well so that others can be equipped, edified, and encouraged that they are Not alone out there. I stepped out to let people know who I was and the kind of risk It takes to actually connect with people.
I’m learning to preemptively forgive when people attack me, for they attack out of fear. To many people, life is a game of king of the mountain, so when you stand up, they are inclined to take you down. But the greatest leaders are somehow able to turn the other cheek, it’s as though they believe so solidly in love and truth, they have the ability to forgive, and even lose those who attack them. For every person who I have to turn the other cheek to, there are 10 who greet me with a kiss. So yes, it is all worth it. I’ve come to realize that my life wasn’t suffering for fear of being true and honest, rather because I’ve spent so much time trying to become somebody the people will love, rather than just being myself. The most powerful, most attractive person we can be is who we already are: an ever-changing being that is becoming and will never arrive, but has opinions about what is seen along the journey, and a heart to share it with others. I am willing to turn in my work, even if not perfect, rather than to throw it away awaiting perfection. Jesus acted by impulse, not by rules. He did what He saw the Father doing (in His heart) and spoke what He Heard the Father speak (in His heart). So, we too must speak and move and do, and act upon the world and take new ground from the dark forces that work against our unique genius and beauty! Part of God’s message to the world is us, the true and real ourselves.
The more fully we live as ourselves the more impact we will have. “Acting or performing” may get us some of the applause we crave, but taking a risk on being your true self is the only path towards true intimacy. And true intimacy, the exchange of affection between two people who are not lying, is transformational indeed! I don’t believe we are accidents in this world. We are not meant to be actors. I think we were created to be ourselves, and we were meant as a miracle to this world, for our hearts are writing a poem in this world that’ll be turned into 1000 songs! I believe the other people are about as good or as bad as we are. The stuff it takes to be intimate is: honesty, authenticity, and vulnerability. These core values are more than just healthy love stories, they contribute to healthy families, and healthy parenting, and healthy businesses.
Early this year I started on an Intentional journey to live for my family, for my next generation to grow up healthy, wise, and strong leaders. This put me on a journey of self-discovery first of all, and discovering what healthy families consisted of. The characteristics of healthy families are parents who are honest about their shortcomings so that the kids do better in life. Parents who aren’t trying to be perfect or pretend that they are have children who trust and respect them more. Vulnerability and openness act as the soil that fosters security. Parents who don’t admit their faults have children who are troubled and emotionally restless or heartbroken, and often, secretly want to be free from their families, so they can just be themselves in this world.
Parents who are open, honest, and authentic with their kids create an environment in which the children are allowed to be human. However, parents who hide their flaws only create an environment where the kids feel the need to retreat and hide. Most troubled people are raised in fundamentalist environments with parents who felt the need to act more righteous than they really were, and shunned away from authenticity. Environments in which we are encouraged to hide our shortcomings are toxic! It’s important that we may talk freely and openly through whatever problems we’re dealing with, to see your family as a refuge, a safe place where everybody may be themselves with no fear of being judged or criticized.
The defining characteristics of a healthy family are honesty, integrity, and vulnerability. There must be no shadows in my family. I must not hide anything. But that’s a tough place to get to. It takes work and it’s very painful.
I came to a point in my life when I realized that the survival skill of deception had crept into my marriage, and I knew that in order for my family to survive and even thrive, I am going to have to start being painfully honest, with myself and God, with my wife, and with my children. The process of confession was agonizing. You know, there’s a difference between apologizing and asking for forgiveness. An apology is like a statement, almost as informal as a press release statement – but asking forgiveness involves giving power to the person that you’re seeking forgiveness from, the power to choose whether they still want intimacy with me, whether they want to forgive me and release me. You see, God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all, says apostle John. This means that when you’re with God, there is no darkness, no hiding, no pretending, no masks. When you are with God, you have a freedom and courage to be yourself. The conversation is about freedom, about being free to be a human being, honest and true, no matter how dark the truth is. It’s a conversation about intimacy, not only with family, but with myself and with God Almighty, the creator of all.
Health only takes place when we are able to be known, but we have to become the kind of person that others feel safe around so that they can be known too. Unless people feel safe around us, intimacy can never happen. Honesty is the soil in which intimacy grows in – it’s half of the battle to healing. The soul needs to find a safe place where people can share the truth about who they were. The best place a person gets to learn this is within a healthy family structure, from early childhood. The ones to know a lot about their families are 10x better at facing challenges. The more the children know about their own family history, the stronger the sense of control over their own lives, the higher their self-esteem, and the more successfully they believe their families function. Therefore, I’ve decided I won’t judge my kids, no matter what they tell me, I wouldn’t judge them. I may have to discipline them, but I wouldn’t make them feel like lesser people for their mistakes. Whenever they share anything with me, I will listen and then tell them a story from my life and share whatever wisdom I can, and just try to shake it off while continuing life, looking forward and forgetting the past, as Paul speaks of. We must have courage to step out from behind the curtain and give our kids our heart, broken as it may be, so that the family may once again connect so that the family may begin to heal. Building a healthy family is very difficult, yes, but it’s definitely possible. What children really need is it just somebody to show them it’s OK to be human.
When I was young, I believed the lie that nobody would love me unless I was successful. The need for success has derailed my chance at true intimacy. I didn’t want to let go of my need to accumulate money, validation, and influence. The journey of learning to love rather than trying to impress, was affecting more than my relationship with my wife. It started to affect my career, my circle of friends, and the paradigm shift was that it started to affect my ambitions, and the things I wanted to do with my life, and after some of my broken stuff in my identity begin to heal, relationships became more important to me. What man really wants is a deep experience of meaning. Man wakes up, wanting to feel a sense of gratitude for the experience they are having. A sense of purpose and mission and belonging. Truly, it’s not pleasure that mankind seeks first; men only seek pleasure when they can’t find meaning in life. If a man has no sense of meaning, then he will numb himself down with pleasure as a distraction. Therefor every man should have a project to work on, some reason to get us out of bed in the morning, and preferably something that serves other people. I must have a redemptive perspective on life’s challenges, that is, when difficult circumstances take place, recognize all the ways that this difficulty is also serving me. Finally, we must share our life with the person or people who love you unconditionally.
Jesus prayed that his disciples would love each other as he taught them to love. He prayed that they embrace a mission to teach other people to create communities that loved each other, just as they experienced themselves, the way that Jesus loved them. He was calling them into a life of meaning, even the kind of meaning that would involve suffering. Suffering (persecution that aids the flesh to stop sinning), for a redemptive reason is hardly suffering after all. We must stop seeking out earthly validation, and start Ascending in the stuff which really matters: a deep sense of meaning of Life.
The nature of men is to move toward whatever makes them feel competent. We migrate towards something that makes us feel powerful and in control. Few men I know feel competent in intimate relationships, which might be one of the reasons we don’t sit around talking about how well we do or how we don’t get along with the people we love. Men are actually not as bad at intimacy as we are led to believe, it’s just that we often get pressured to go about it in the same ways as our female counterparts do. Specifically, we’re asked to talk about it, and share our feelings. But we get tired of talking about our feelings all the time. God knows every human being is unique, and He created men to do intimacy differently than women, and I think that’s perfectly OK. We must realize that’s how our female friends are designed and allow them that opportunity to share with us in order for connection to take place, yes. The problem is most men are actually great at intimacy, It’s just that we’ve been led to believe we aren’t, and this confusion is costing us all a great deal of unnecessary suffering and pain!
We just came out of the industrial revolution period with generations of men in a crisis of identity, desperately trying to find improve their worth. Men can be tempted to view their career as a path toward masculinity and sadly, children can easily become a confusing hindrance in a man’s journey to find a sense of masculine power. This is where we must awaken while being diligent at our jobs, we must learn to be tender and loving towards our family, the way a coach approaches a team. To build something into the hearts of each member of my family. But I have to be very intentional about it. What I learned in business life is that when it came time to build my business, we didn’t start with the business plan, we started with a life plan. Unless we have healthy relationships, then we’re set up for doom. This is when I realized that I had made a mistake of becoming reactionary in my relational life. I allowed friendships, business relationships, and even my relationship with my wife, take a natural course through life rather than guiding them to a healthy place.
This is when I got serious about my goals and visions for my personal life and family. I then wrote out vision statements for my life and my marriage. I wanted my marriage to be a redemptive marriage, and I wrote down some core values that my wife and I could live by. I wrote down that we’d be a couple that didn’t do the scorekeeping in a relationship, avoiding the temptation to think about who owes the other what. I wrote down to create a home where people could come and be restored, and the place she and I could walk into and feel safe and comfortable. Where we’d be intentional about restoring whatever the world has done to tear us down. In finances to always ask whether that which we were buying would help us restore each other or restore other people. Everything in our marriage would be about restoration, redemption, and reconciliation!
We may have had moments of instability in our relationship, But I’ve learned that we needed to realize firstly that we’re not each other’s enemies, there is a real enemy out there set against us. Secondly, we needed to pick a common point on the horizon and start moving towards that point together. Couples build great families when they pick a place for the families to go, and then they hit the gas pedal, to work towards their vision and build it out together as partners. Relationships have a way of stabilizing when in motion.
There’s something interesting in log fires that I loved watching as a kid, and even to this day I am mesmerized by watching them burn. But, if we take the logs from the fire, and lay them out separately, they will go out within an hour. They just lie there cold. For some reason the logs needed each other to burn, to stay warm. I believe in the power of relationships, we need each other to stay warm. I believe I am to build a family that’s working, doing what a family is supposed to do; converting, potentially neglected kids into relationally, competent and satisfied adults, who are able to give back to people and create a better world. I no longer believe that God is working behind the scenes to make me powerful, rich, or famous. I think I’m supposed to contribute something to the people around me and create an environment where healthy relationships can flourish. And instead of seeing intimacy and family as a sentiment, I began to see it as a project, something meaningful to build. For as men, we are project focused, and I was starting to see an empire of rich, healthy relationships, and I want to build an empire of my own, advancing the Kingdom.
But first, I had to start on a real serious journey of self-discovery and self-healing. What I didn’t realize at first is that I struggled with codependency, and it cost me relationship after relationship. Codependency happens when too much of your sense of validation or security comes from somebody else. I had a few serious relationships I pursued, but never did I realize that no amount of love any of those girls could return would be able to heal the hole in my heart. In my marriage then, I subconsciously reacted from previous programs and toxic strongholds, acting in various forms of manipulation. As I became more aware of this, one by one, I had to change my way of thinking (repenting) and program myself with new, positive and life-giving truth. I had to learn that what goes on in the other persons (my wife’s) soul is none of my business. All I was responsible for is my own soul and nobody else’s. I could express what I wanted in a relationship and see if the other person wants to share in that, but in no way could I manipulate or control them to agree with me and my desires. This was a very difficult lesson, one that I am still in the process of maturing in.
There are two dominant influences that caused me to clinch my fists. The first was the fact I was trying to use women to heal old wounds, and the second was the false assumption that I could be made complete by my wife in the first place. You see, on a subconscious level, we as humans are drawn to the negative characteristics of our primary caretakers, in other words if we didn’t, please our parents then our lunch, shelter, and love was under threat. When we meet somebody later in life exhibit some of the negative characteristics of those early foundational personalities, our subconscious recognizes them as mommy or daddy, with whom we have unfinished business. Literally, our brains become attached to this random person thinking if we could just fix some of those negative qualities in ourselves, we could finally have the security we long for, and never have to worry about food, shelter, or love again. That’s why guys who grew up with controlling mothers are often drawn to controlling women, while girls who have grown up with abusive fathers are often drawn to men who treat them similarly. The more the partner examines the negative characteristics of our primary caretakers the more passion we will experience in the relationship. But I misunderstood the passion or “love”, for it was actually a deep sense that if this relationship worked out, then my oldest wounds might be healed.
Another paradigm shift that allowed me to finally mature in a healthy relationship was that I realize there was a sub-conscience, deep longing in my soul, in my heart that could never be resolved by another human being. Some folks think of it as longing for God. This inner longing will never be satisfied in our lifetime on earth. Every person has a longing that will never be fulfilled and it’s our job to let that longing live and breathe and suffer within, as a way of developing our character. Here’s the thing, even when accepting Jesus into our hearts, we continue to experience the longing. Jesus never offers that completion here on earth, He only asked us to trust Him and follow Him to the metaphorical wedding that we will experience in heaven. Early followers of Jesus experienced pain, trials, and frustrations – hardly a romantic life, but people consoledeach other and took care of each other and comforted each other in the longing experience.
The misappropriation of longing for God has caused a lot of religious people a great deal of pain, because we seek to find resolution for the longing through a spouse, which is a burden that no romantic partner should have to bear. How many relationships have been ruined by two people attempting to squeeze the Jesus out of each other? We must recognize that we will all experience an unresolved longing that neither of us will be able to fulfill, and we must come to agreement that we won’t be tricked into resenting each other for not healing each other’s deepest wounds. That longing is what we feel for ultimate acceptance to be one with something greater than ourselves, and we cannot put that burden of longing onto each other – but instead we need to learn to comfort each other in and through the longing and even love it for what it is, a promise that God will someday fulfill us. It’s a call and a way for each of us to be developed internally, for us to lean into God within and mature as sons and daughters of the Most High! And we can do this together, having someone to sharethe longing with, hold the partner closely while we experience this deep inner longing and walk it out hand in hand.
Friends, becoming capable of intimacy involves deconstructing old habits. Overcoming the desire to please people (codependency). Telling the truth. And finding satisfaction in a daily portion of real love. There is never a reason to overreact. All relationships are teleological, (this means they’re all going somewhere) and they’re turning us into something. Hopefully something better something new, something beautiful. What else changes a person but the living of a story? And what is the story but the wanting for something difficult and the willingness to work for it? And guess what friends, stories are all about conflicts. Review the previous post for details.
What lies between a person and what that person wants is work – hard and diligent work. The old me is slowly dying (transforming) into the new me, the one compatible for intimacy. This slow death and resurrection will likely last the rest of my life. I no longer believe that love works like a fairytale, but rather it’s more like farming. Most of it is just getting up early and tilling the soil and then praying for rain. But if we do the work, we just might wake up one day to find an endless field of crops, rolling out into the endless horizon. There’s no joy in a reward, unless it comes at the end of the story! It’s encouraging to watch what people will do to contributeto a true love story. It speaks tons, that we universally recognize that a union of souls is worth sacrificing for. Of course, getting married is the beginning of a much harder adventure, for a path in which two souls join in love must have a necessity of crucifixion involved.
At the end of many days, I truly I feel as though I am the one who is being rescued, not by my wife, but by God. Rescued from my fear and insecurity that made me so awfully poor at relationships. Rescued from isolation, and from the fairytale illusion about what love really is. There’s truth in the idea that we’re never going to be perfect in love, but we can get close. And the closer we get the healthier we will be. Love is not a game. Any of us can win – it’s just a story that we can all live and enjoy. Children learn what’s worth living for and what’s worth dying for by the story they watch us live. I want to teach them how to be brave, teach them that love is worth what it costs.
Dear ones, as we wrap up today’s post, I encourage you all to keep pressing in. Press into God and your faith. Purify your hearts, leave the old habits that shame us behind. Dig deeper until you hit Rock foundation, and then build on that. The best thing any one of us can do is to stop looking at each other, and even stop looking at yourself in the wrong lens. Lift your eyes higher, spend strategic quiet time praying and meditating, journaling, and writing out your visions and goals. Have a new life’s plan created before your eyes, and be the one participating in that design as the Holy Ghost leads you. What you set your eyes on your mouth will speak, and what you speak your life will gravitate towards. So please, stop speaking blame and shame unto your partners, friends, and situations – and learn a new language which creates beauty instead! That’s what true faith is, calling that which is Unseen into the Seen (manifested) world called earth. You perfect what you practice. Why do you think we’re all so good at negativity? Because we’ve been doing that all our lives, for it’s easier to spot blemishes in others as it makes ourself feel better. Instead, turn your focus on God and see yourself in His eyes, only that brings true healing, peace, and joy!.
> > Friends, check out the new Melodies section for uplifting music, and Resources for life changing books. < <
WRITER – FATHER – SON
