Renewing Your Mind (Victory Series Book #4): Become More Like Christ (11 page)

Mark 10:32–34

Key Point

No crisis can destroy us, but they do reveal who we are.

Key Verse

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

2 Corinthians 4:17

N
obody likes the idea of impermanence. We live every day with the assumption that tomorrow will be the same. We make plans for the future with the thought that we will have our health and the same job, family, and friends. James says otherwise. “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little
while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that’” (James 4:13–15).

Only God is permanent—everything else is changing. We are time-oriented people by nature who are in the process of learning to see life from God’s eternal perspective. On three occasions Jesus told His disciples that He was going to Jerusalem, where He would be betrayed and crucified. The first time the disciples essentially denied Jesus, and Peter even rebuked Him (see Mark 8:31–32). The second time they didn’t understand and were afraid to talk about it (see Mark 9:32).

On the third occasion, the disciples were terrified. Their life as they knew it was soon to be over (see Mark 10:32). We all go through a similar reaction when a crisis abruptly ends an established lifestyle. Usually, the crisis is defined by a significant loss that can be real, threatened, or imagined.

Our first response is denial, which can last for 3 seconds or 30 years. Our initial reaction is a sense of disbelief—
No, not me
! Then we get angry and wonder,
How can this happen to me
? The anger often turns to bargaining
as we think,
Maybe
I can alter what happened
. Finally, we feel depressed when we are unable to reverse the consequences of the loss. Reaction to losses is the primary cause for depression. No crisis can destroy us, but it will reveal who we are.

Learning to overcome losses is a critical part of our spiritual growth. Everything we now have in this temporal world we shall someday lose. The critical questions are whether we are going to choose the path of resignation and allow the loss to negatively affect us for the rest of our lives, or whether we are going to accept what we cannot change and grow through the crisis. A wise person once said, “A bend in the road is not the end of the road unless you fail to make the turn.”

What were the disciples’ reactions when Jesus told them that He was going to be betrayed and crucified (see Mark 8:31–32; 9:32; 10:32)?

How can the loss of health, a spouse, a date, a job, a leg, and so forth lead to depression?

How can accepting what we cannot change lead to growth in character and a better lifestyle than before the loss?

What changes have you had to adapt to recently? In what ways have those changes been unsettling?

How should you move on after a significant loss in your life?

James is not trying to take away our freedom to decide, but he is showing us that it is not just what we want that matters. We need God’s grace to complement our efforts and ought to rely not on them but on God’s love for us. As it says in Proverbs: “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.”

John Chrysostom (AD 347–407)

Job 3:1–26

Key Point

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose” (Jim Elliot).

Key Verse

I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Philippians 3:8

J
ob suffered the loss of everything except his life. He was in the pit of depression and wished he had never been born. He did not accept his present condition; instead, he resigned and gave up on life (see Job 3). We all experience losses in our lives. We need to learn how to accept what we cannot change and grow through the crisis. How well we handle a loss is determined by how we process three mental constructs.

The first mental construct is
permanence
. The speed of our recovery is greatly affected by whether we think the consequences of the crisis will
have a short-term or long-term negative effect on us. The loss is permanent, but it doesn’t have to affect us permanently. There is the potential to grow through every crisis.

Suppose your new employer is irritable. If you think it is just a passing mood, it is a short-term problem and will have little impact on you. However, if you think your boss is always irritable, it is a long-term problem. You can respond to this crisis in several ways. You can decide to ignore him, which is denial. You can decide to be irritable back, which is responding in anger. You can try to appease him, which is bargaining. You can decide you are stuck with this irritable person whom you cannot change, which is depressing. You decide to quit, which is resignation. Or, you can decide to love him and learn to live with him, which is acceptance.

The second mental construct is
pervasiveness
. You will recover slowly if you think your whole life has been ruined as a result of the crisis. If you experience one loss, you are not a loser. If you fail to accomplish one goal, you are not a failure. If you get laid off at work, you are not unemployable. It is natural to grieve for what you have lost, and grieving is an important part of the recovery process. However, a prolonged depression due to losses signifies an undue and unhealthy attachment to people, places, and things that you have no right or ability to control.

The third mental construct is
personalization
. Blaming yourself for every loss will keep you in a rut. If you experience loss in one area, don’t generalize it and create a total crisis. Keep your loss specific. If you experience a crisis today, don’t allow it to affect you tomorrow. Keep short accounts. If the world is disintegrating around you, don’t accept the blame when it’s not appropriate. If you are suffering the consequences of a bad decision, then change what you can, minimize your losses, and move on.

Traumatic losses often cause us to reevaluate who we are, especially if our identity has been tied up with what we have lost—such as when we lose a job or a spouse. A crisis can deepen our walk with God and solidify our identity in Christ. Losses also precipitate the need for new relationships and a change of scenery. These changes are probably necessary for our growth in Christ, but we may not make them unless we are forced to do so.

Read Job 1:13–19. Using Job as an example for a significant loss, how can you reprocess your loss by rethinking those three mental constructs starting with
permanence
?

How can you reprocess your loss by rethinking through
pervasiveness
?

How can you reprocess your loss by rethinking through
personalization
? (Note that Job’s three friends tried to convince him that his suffering and depression was due to his sin!)

As a believer, what can you never lose? How can that truth help you recover from any temporal loss?

Loses will have an impact on believers just like unbelievers. So how can you prepare yourself for future losses so the impact is not so devastating?

In yielding to evils that are brief and passing, they do not destroy the good which is great and eternal, for “the suffering of the present time are not worthy to be compared,” the apostle says, “with the glory to come that will be revealed in us” [2 Corinthians 4:17]. And he also says: “Our present light affliction, which is for the moment, prepares for us an eternal weight of glory that is beyond measure.”

Augustine of Hippo (AD 354–430)

Acts 9:1–31

Key Point

Whether losses are real, threatened, or imagined, the emotional effect is the same.

Key Verse

“Who are you, Lord?”

Acts 9:5

A
fter Paul was struck down by God, he went away for three years. It must have been a time of deep remorse for persecuting the Church, but it was also a time to grieve. He had lost everything he had worked for. His reputation in the Jewish community was gone, and so were all his friends and associates. Eventually, he would consider those losses to be nothing in comparison to what he gained in Christ Jesus.

Most losses are easy to recognize, but some aren’t. Changing jobs or moving to a new location can precipitate depression. Even though both changes could improve your social standing and financial base, there are
losses in the transition. You probably had meaningful attachments to family, church, friends, and familiar places, which you no longer have. Many losses are multifaceted. For instance, the loss of a job could also include the loss of wages, social status, respect, friendships, and colleagues.

In order to move beyond denial and continue the grieving process, you have to identify the losses. Start by separating real losses from those that are threatened or imagined. In a real loss you can face the truth, grieve the loss, and make the necessary changes that make it possible to go on living in a meaningful way. You cannot process an imagined loss in the same way, because there is no basis in reality. Imagined losses are based on suspicions or lies that you believe or presumptions that you make up. If you imagine that something negative will happen and live accordingly, it will have the same effect on you emotionally as though it actually happened. False prophecies and lies are the basis for many depressed people.

Threatened losses have the potential of being real losses, such as the possibility of a layoff at work or a spouse threatening to leave. Such threats can precipitate depressed states of the mind when believed. It is helpful to convert threatened losses to real losses in your mind and ask yourself a question:
Can I live with that
? This prepares you to accept the idea of impermanence. The answer to that question should be,
Yes I can!
Of course you can, because “God will meet all your needs” (Philippians 4:19), and you “can do all things through Christ” who gives you strength (4:13
NKJV
). People all over the world are facing similar crises that are real and have survived. These are growth issues, not terminal issues, if you understand life from an eternal perspective.

The natural process to any crisis is to deny that it is happening, get angry when it does, and then try to alter the situation by bargaining with God and others. The goal is not to try to undo it all; the goal is to make the best of what you have. What you cannot do is bypass the grieving process, but you can shorten it by allowing yourself to feel the full force of the loss. The fact that many losses are depressing and painful is reality. It hurts to lose something of value. To say you are doing fine, or that what you lost had no value, is to deny reality. Funerals honor the memory of loved ones, but they also facilitate the grieving process in a safe environment.

What did Paul lose when he was struck down? How hard do you think it was for Paul to realize that his zeal for God was totally misplaced—leading him to conclude that he was the chief of all sinners?

What are some of the hidden losses when you graduate from high school? Move out of the state? Get dumped by a friend? Lose a limb in an accident?

What happens if we don’t allow ourselves to feel the full brunt of losses?

What imagined or threatened losses have you had to deal with? How did you, or are you, processing that loss?

A prolonged depression can signify an overattachment to people, places, and things that you have no right or ability to control. How can you value those things without becoming overly attached?

The afflictions come not only from enemies but even from our own households and friends. These things are permitted by God, not for our defeat but for our discipline.

John Chrysostom (AD 347–407)