Emotionally Healthy Church Part 5: Limits & Losses

Sermon Notes Emotionally Healthy Church Part 5: Limits & Losses Pastor Brad Julihn Nov. 7, 2010 I. Intro.: We have been stretching ourselves over the last few weeks to understand and walk a little further on the path toward emotionally maturity. If we are going to become fruitful and effective followers of Jesus Christ, emotional maturity is required because you can t grow to spiritual maturity and remain emotionally immature. Loving much and well is the key distinguishing mark of Jesus followers. But as we have seen, Loving much and well is directly connected to emotional health. Principle #1: Learn to look within by paying attention to your emotional responses. Principle #2: Take a Look Back to See How the Past Affects Present. Principle #3 Step Down From Your Tower To Live In Brokenness And Transparency. Today we come to Principle #4: Learn to Accept Your Limits and Grieve Your Losses. II. Accepting Limits: Many of us were raised by parents who told us You can be anything you want to be. I don t suppose there is anything wrong with saying that. It is intended to get kids to think beyond the box, to dream big, and to attempt more than they might otherwise try. But in reality, that is a half truth. Although, we have great freedom in choosing our path in life, there are also significant limits to what we can do. It doesn t take most little boys too long to figure out that their dream of a career as a pro athlete is merely wishful thinking. Most little girls figure out all too quickly that their desire to be a model or movie star is not going to happen. We may get that job we wanted, but discover that we are not as good at it as we thought, or that we are unable to change the world in it the way we expected we would. All of us are limited. We are limited in physical strength. We must pause to eat and sleep. We are limited by marital status: We are limited by whether we have children or not. I don t want to move away from our kids. We are limited in talents and gifts. eg. Music, craftsmanship, leadership We are limited by time. You only have one life to live. You can t do everything. Up through High School and the first year or two of college, you are making education choices which broaden your opportunities. But after that, you have to specialize and that forces you 1

to begin making choices that narrow your options. By saying yes to this you are saying no to that. We are by finances. We are limited in spiritual understanding. My ways are higher than your ways... While our culture resists the idea of limits, it is critical that we embrace them. They are like a fenced in yard that protects young children. They are the hands of a friend, keeping us grounded so that we don t hurt ourselves, others, or the work of God... It is a myth that I can be anything I desire to be. There are some roles where I do well and flourish. In others I wither and die. p.141 Perhaps you are wondering, how are Accepting Our Limits and Grieving Losses related? The answer is that limits are behind all loss. The loss of a marriage through divorce highlights the limits of our ability to resolve conflict, forgive hurts, and be loved by another. The loss of a job highlights the limits of our ability to control our destiny or guarantee our financial security. Not only are limits behind all loss, but sometimes the loss we most need to grieve is our limitations. I may have to grieve that I am not the husband I thought I would be or that my marriage is not going to be the fairytale I dreamed about. I may have to grieve that I am not the parent I thought I would be and that my children didn t turn out the way I thought they should. I may have to grieve that I don t have the stuff to become CEO of the company, I don t have the skills to make the NHL, I am not going to retire when I wanted to or the in the way I wanted. I m not arguing that we shouldn t dream. But God created us with both strengths and weaknesses, with both abilities and limitations. Losses bring us face to face with our limitations and give us the opportunity to see ourselves more realistically. In accepting our limitations, we accept our need for God, and our need for others. III. The Need To Grieve: A. A Grief Avoided: A man came to me for counseling when I was a pastor in Calgary. I ll call him Bill. There were a number if issues that needed to be dealt with, but the primary issue was conflict between his wife and his parents. During the discussion he told me about his family. He had one brother. His brother had not been following Christ and was frequently in trouble. There was significant tension between this brother and their parents. One night his brother was driving home from out of town and fell asleep at the wheel. His car went off the road and crashed. He was killed. His mother could not accept his death, nor the brokenness of their relationship. She would not face the pain. So, she began to idealize his memory. All she would talk about was what a good son he was. No one was allowed to say anything bad about him. In an almost perfect example of denial, she maintained his room exactly as it had been the day he died. It was almost a shrine. 2

IV. Now that had happened a number of years earlier, but Bill felt like he was living in competition with a perfect brother. There seemed to be nothing he could do to please his parents and especially his mother. Even though he was a responsible adult, with a wife and to children, if he did not do things exactly the way they wanted; he was met with immediate anger and distorted comparisons to how wonderful his brother was. His mother was stuck in a fantasy of the past. The avoidance of the painful loss of her dead son, was creating chaos in her relationship with her living son. B. Generic Funerals: In recent years, especially here on the West Coast, many people have opted not to have a funeral of any kind. The intent is usually good, I just want you to remember me the way I am. But that is exactly what a funeral is supposed to be, a formal process of remembering someone. For it is as we remember the good things and the bad things, the silly things and the unusual things; that we are able to release them. Grief is a process of remembering, that paradoxically enables us to let go. Howard McIlveen was the Chaplain of the Richmond Hospital. He started holding Generic Funerals for people at the hospital. He found many people had experienced the loss of someone they loved and cared about, but never had a way to express their grief and remember them. Howard felt that he had to find a way to help people through it. They were stuck in the pain and unable to move forward. So people were invited to come and bring whoever they wanted with them. Then people were invited to stand and speak to all those gathered about the person they had come to mourn. For many this was vital to letting go and moving on. Both of these examples illustrate the need to grieve losses. Pain needs to be processed or it becomes part of that submerged iceberg that sabotages our relationships with others. Jesus wants to transform the deep inner parts of our lives, not just the surface. Peter Scazzero says; Sadly, the result of denying and minimizing our wounds over many years is that we become less human, empty Christian shells with painted smiley faces! Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, p. 139 Forms of Loss: A. Losses Big or Small?: There are devastating losses like the death of children, the premature death of a spouse, a disability, a divorce, rape, emotional or sexual abuse, a suicide, or a betrayal such as a spouse having an affair. Other losses are considered insignificant, but it is often important to grieve these losses as well. Peter Scazzero says; Stuffed down and denied, they gather in our souls like heavy stones that weigh us down. Unattended over time, they can prevent us from walking freely and honestly with God and others. Emotionally Healthy Church, P.154 One of the problems with loss is that it is impossible to judge how significant a loss may be for someone. For example, you graduate from high school or college and have to begin making your own way. You lose financial and emotional security and quite likely some friendships. Your youthful skin begins to wrinkle. You move and your former friendships fade away. For most, 3

these are small losses. But my son Derian works with Youth for Christ/Youth Unlimited here in Langley. And many of the kids he works with are from families that are broken and a mess. To these kids, their school friends are their real family. So High School graduation is not something to celebrate. They dread it. Because it means that the closest thing to a family that they have known is going to disappear. The same event that means happiness for one person can be a devastating loss to someone else. So, it is impossible to judge how significant a loss may be. It depends on your situation and your previous experiences. A pet is run over: Was the pet mostly a pest, or a dearly loved member of the family? A grandparent dies: Were you raised with them as a loving and active part of your life, or were they distant people that lived in some far off city? Loss is a normal part of life. But if we don t process the pain and grieve the loss whether big or small; we can get stuck, unable to really move forward. B. Resistance to Grief: Many people resist allowing their emotions to get the best of them. Peter Scazzero describes his former attitude toward grieving; I used to believe that grieving was an interruption, an obstacle in my path to serve Christ. In short, I considered it a waste of time, preventing me from redeeming the time (Eph.5:16) for God. Just get over it, I would mutter silently to myself. Forgive and forget, that s what the Bible says. He came to recognize that viewing grief as an interruption was really an excuse to avoid the guilt associated with his pain and his anxiety over losing control of his emotions. One of the greatest obstacles to grieving for me, was that I had created the situations that were now causing such pain for me and others in the church. I was reaping what I had sown. So what good is being sad over it going to do? I d remind myself. Let s fix it and move on. I was also uncomfortable with the lack of control I might have if I allowed myself to feel the depression, the anger, the sadness, and the doubts about God... Unable to mourn, I covered over my losses for years and years, unaware that they were shaping my current relationships and leadership. P.155-156 V. A Model for Grief A. David s Songs of Lament: In the Bible, we find that David was a man after God own heart. I believe that this heart after God was directly connected to the fact that David was in touch with what was going on in his heart. He paid attention to the 90% below the surface. One of the reasons we know this is that David wrote songs, psalms to grieve the losses in his life. He writes what we now call laments. 4

After the death of Saul and Jonathan, he orders the people to join him in singing the songs he has written. He orders that his song of lament for Saul & Jonathan be taught to the thousands of men in Judah. (2 Sam. 1:18) Laments are one of the great unused portions of our Bibles! When was the last time we sang a lament in church? P. 158-159 Why does David force the people to stop and pay attention? Why does he want them to express sorrow over the deaths of Saul and Jonathan? Wasn t there a lot of work to do now that there would be a transition to a new government? I think it is because David understood how indispensable grieving is to spiritual maturity. David knew we are deepened by taking time to grieve our losses before moving on. He knew how important it is for people to stay connected to reality and not run from their pain. We must teach people to lament losses. P. 160 Grieving helps keep us from becoming empty Christian shells with painted smiley faces! Many of us have taken on our culture s pain-denying view of grieving. Perhaps the most popular way in our culture of not paying attention to our losses and pain is by trying medicate the pain. People use work, TV, drugs, alcohol, shopping, food binges, busyness, sexual escapades, even serving other at church incessantly anything to avoid or deaden the pain of life. Year after year we deny and avoid the difficulties and the losses of life, the rejections and the frustrations. People minimize their failures and disappointments. The result is that for many today, there is a widespread inability to face pain. This has led to an overall feeling of superficiality and a profound lack of compassion. P. 161 B. Pay Attention to the Psalms: Throughout history, Psalms has been the most popular book of the Bible... The majority however are far from cheerful. Bernard Anderson writes, Laments far outnumber any other kind of songs in the Psalter. More than half are classified laments... The laments pay attention to the reality that life can be hard, difficult, and sometimes even brutal. They take notice of the apparent absence of God. They notice when circumstances seem to say that God is not good. They cry out to God for comfort and care. Laments wrestle with God s loyal, faithful love (hesed in Hebrew). Since God is good and loving, why is He not doing something? (Psa. 88:6-7) p.160-161 You are God my stronghold. Why have you rejected me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell. Psa. 43:2-3 My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, Where is your God? Psa. 42:3 See also Psalm 77:7-9 5

Illustration: A number of years ago, my wife Carol and I went through a devastating departure from a previous church we had served for almost 17 years. There were accusations made against both of us regarding our style of leadership and even our theology, particularly regarding our understanding and experience of spiritual warfare. To be honest, we have experienced some things that even we find difficult to understand; so the fact that some would have questions about it was not surprising. But what was surprising was the un-brotherly way in which it was handled by those in leadership. The goal of the process was never clarification or correction, but to remove us both from the church and from ministry. While this was painful for me, it was devastating for Carol and for some of our children. When I say devastating, I mean traumatic. It included all the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It has been a long road back out of that darkness for her. She has never spoken publically about it. But God led Carol over the last 2 ½ years to write a book about her journey of healing with God. One part of that journey was writing a Psalm. Here is that Psalm. Application: The first and most important way to apply this understanding about grieving is to stop and pay attention to your losses, large and small, both in the past and in the present. Second, we need to begin to equip people, particularly those helping and serving others, to identify and reflect on losses in their lives and the lives of others. Third, we need to teach the Psalms to give people a biblical framework for grieving. Perhaps you need to write your own Psalm of lament or a poem? VI. The Results of Grieving Startling shifts and inner changes result in us as we take the strange path downward into mourning. It becomes apparent why Jesus taught, Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. (Matt. 5:4) New inner births, or changes, resulting from grieving include: We become more compassionate. Henri Nouwen rightly says grief is the way to compassion. There is no compassion without many tears... We have a greater concern for the poor, the widows, the orphans, the marginalized and the wounded. We are less covetous and idolatrous. Life is stripped of its pretense and nonessentials. We are liberated from having to impress others. We can follow God s plan with new freedom because we are not motivated to please people. We are able to live more comfortably with mystery when it comes to God s plans and purposes. We are characterized by greater humility and vulnerability. We experience an enhanced sense of living in the present rather than postponing life until retirement or simply being to busy to see and to cherish the moments we have. We are more thankful for what we do have. 6