#RelationshipTools #relationship #relationshipbuilding #BuildingBridges #Harmony #vengeance #prodigal #prodigalchildren #woundedparents #observer #revenge #forgiveness #prodigalyoungadult #ConflictManagement #pain #StopPain #criticalfactors #episode19 #judgement #judge #stories #reconcilation #truestory #restoration #healing #anger #fruitofthespirit #emotion #condemnation #church #listening #friendship #control #godofmyworld #supportgroup
Wednesday 15th, March 2023
Otakada.org Content Count 2,220,904
Podcast link:
Blog link:
YouTube link: https://youtu.be/hZCiLx4mi-s
Partnership with God’s Eagle Ministries (GEM) via this link:
https://tithe.ly/give?c=308311
Series – Perfect Relationship: 24 Tools for Building BRIDGES to Harmony and Taking Down WALLS of Conflict in our Relationships.
Episode 19: Wounded Parent Support Group in Parent and Teenager Relationship – God of my world – If I give you control of my life, I make you my god in Episode 19
Wounded Parents Supporting Each Other
People with physical problems often find strength in sharing their common experiences. Cancer patients, people with heart ailments, and physically handicapped people who learn to use artificial limbs and wheelchairs have discovered unusual resources of encouragement in living and working together in a clinic or hospital. Wounded parents can likewise find considerable strength, wisdom, and encouragement by sharing their journey in a fellowship of struggle. They have a lot to offer each other.
You Are Not Alone
I trust that by the time you have read this far that you, as a wounded parent, are aware of an important fact: you are not alone. Probably there are more of you than you realize, Wounded parents have a tendency to keep their pain to themselves. It is not something they are eager or quick to share, especially in the fellowship of their church.
But let me assure you with double emphasis: you are not alone. In every church with which I have been familiar, I have found several, sometimes many, wounded parents who are depressed and discouraged about their relationship with one or more of their children. They do not know what to do about their particular situation. They often feel ashamed, embarrassed, or humiliated as they try to go on living Christian life before others when one or more of their children did not choose to follow their example. Such parents
often become dropouts from the church, either dropping out of leadership or teaching roles, or dropping out of church attendance altogether.
Wounded parents often reason that if they cannot influence their own children to live a Christian and active church life then how can they (or should they) try to influence other people’s children? Therefore, they choose to withdraw from involvement in the church.
My response is this: the church is engaged in a major spiritual war in the midst of a hostile and secular battlefield, and the church is suffering many casualties. The injured need to and can help each other.
You are not alone. You are not weird, strange, or odd in your situation. Most Christian parents do not experience perfect bliss and conflict-free relations with their children.
All Christian parents have problems; these problems simply vary in kind and degree of intensity. To be sure, some parents are more successful than others, but if you are hurting in some way because of the behavior and attitudes of one of your children, you are not abnormal.
There are several parents like you out there. You need each other. You can help each other. Why not find each other and do something about your situation together?
The Wounded Healer
Several years ago, Henri J. M. Nouwen, who was then
teaching at Yale Divinity School, wrote The Wounded Healer. The title was suggested in an old legend Nouwen found in the Talmud, the collection of ancient rabbinic writings which make up the basis of religious authority for traditional Judaism. The legend is this:
Rabbi Yoshua ben Levi came upon Elijah the prophet while he was standing at the entrance of Rabbi Simeron ben Yohai’s cave…. He asked Elijah, “When will the Messiah come?”
Elijah replied, “Go and ask him yourself.”
“Where is he?”
“Sitting at the gates of the city.’
“How shall I know him?”
“He is sitting among the poor covered with wounds. The others unbind all their wounds at the same time and then bind them up again. But he unbinds one at a time and binds it up again, saying to himself, ‘Perhaps I shall be needed: if so I must always be ready so as not to delay for a moment.” ”
The story reveals that the Messiah is to be found among the poor, needy, and injured, binding His own wounds one at a time, anticipating the moment when His healing care will be needed. So it can be with wounded Christian parents who are growing spiritually through their experiences. They must look after their own wounds, but at the same time be ready to offer healing support to other wounded parents.
Your wounds of disappointment, heartache, and discouragement as a parent can be filled with purpose and meaning as you reach out to other wounded parents to heal their injured spirits.
Arthur and Betsy Wallace found several wounded parents in their new congregation. This pastor and his wife could quickly identify with these others and offer help, based on their own defeats and victories. Pretenses of religiosity were stripped away in an atmosphere of honesty and genuine caring, so much so that even wounded parents outside the congregation gravitated toward the Wallaces for help. The model of ministry established by the Wallaces encouraged several of these parents to become wounded healers themselves.
God of My World
If I give you control of my life, I make you my god.
Matthew 7:4 says, “How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?” (NIV). It seems that we cannot resist the temptation to fix others. Yet, in our attempts to fix, we often destroy. Every day marriages are lost and friendships ruined in people’s futile attempts to fix the other person.
What causes us to hurt those we intend to help?
It is largely because we are blinded by the plank in our own eye. You see, we have our own issues. We, too, deal with sin.
Of course, it is not just the fact that we have sin in our lives that blinds us in helping others. No, the Bible says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves” (1 John 1:8, emphasis added).
The context suggests that it is the judgment in our lives that is the real plank. The idea that I have the “right” to judge is a major problem. Regardless of the other person’s problem, this one is just as big and potentially more destructive for me.
Judgment, when trying to help another, is like a patient going to a doctor and the doctor deciding why the patient is sick without an examination. The doctor may have good intentions for prescribing surgery, but if it is the wrong surgery, it will not be appreciated. Judgment works the same way. We decide why people do what they do. We determine what their “real” problems are, and then we begin to “operate.”
Control Is Not an Option
In the original temptation in the Garden of Eden, Adam was offered the opportunity to be god of his own world. We find this desire at the heart of many of our personal conflicts, subtly embedded in our motives. Of course, none of us thinks we are exercising this as a prerogative. No Christian would dare set himself up as god. Yet it happens daily. The moment I judge or control, I have set myself up as god.
The god of any system is the one who determines what is good and what is evil. So instead of accepting God’s determination of good and evil, we look at what the person did, then ask ourselves why he did it. Then, based on why we think he did it, we determine it to be good or evil. That journey into judgment is the act of enthroning ourselves as god of our system. We all have our own “world system”-it is the system we use to attempt to control our environment.
In our “world system,” not only do we have the right to judge, but our judgment also gives us the right to control. Naturally, we have good intentions in our desire to control. We really think that if the other person gave us control, we could make his or her life much better. Those intentions are usually based on our judgments, however, and it is essential that we realize control is never a suitable option.
To be blunt, control is a form of witchcraft. Paul told the Galatian believers that they had been bewitched (Galatians 3:1).
They had been brought under the control of the Judaizers. Of course, the Judaizers had justification for their control. In their minds, they were acting on behalf of God. The problem is, God never uses control to accomplish His will in the earth. He works through the hearts of people. He leads and instructs us as the children He loves. If control was God’s method, He could solve the world’s problems in one decisive act.
Control Starts with Judgment
Judgment is always a part of the process of control. It is judgment that causes us to feel that we have the right to control others. Judgment justifies any negative or evil behavior we choose to act out. It is the pathway to personal idolatry. Our judgments, when imposed, cause people to bow to our wills.
If you are god of your world, you are living under a lot of stress. If you are the one who imposes changes through control, then you are the one who has to keep all those changes in place.
The most stressed-out person in the family is usually the controller. That individual’s constant lament is, “I have to do everything!”
That complaint may be true. After all, a controller immobilizes people. He or she robs others of the freedom to act independently. So all the decisions fall back on the shoulders of the controlling leader-father, mother, or spouse..
When we usurp the Lordship of Jesus in the life of another, it is impossible for that person to experience God’s grace, which empowers him to make the needed changes. It is a cycle of disappointment and failure. We want our friends and family to change, but we become the main obstacle in their process of change.
Eventually, when people fail to change, we create new judgments about why they are not changing. Those judgments usually bring more pain and disappointment to our own lives. We think they don’t love us. Or maybe they’re just lazy! When we reach a verdict, we begin to carry out our sentencing as if our judgment is reality.
While we are involved in our own judgments, the other person has his own judgments and reactions going. As a result, the relationship is polarized even more, and people push each other farther and farther apart. As the pain level increases, we become less willing to take productive steps. Soon the relationship, friendship, or marriage is over. Sadly, few people ever divorce over the real issues. They divorce over their judgments.
We read these words, and our first thought is of how they apply to others. We think that our desire to do things right excuses us from the wisdom of God’s Word. We falsely assume that a good motive is reason enough to reject that Word. Remember, it does not matter why you are trying to control; it is still wrong! Submit yourself to the Lordship of Jesus. Apply truth to yourself, and let each person answer to God for himself, independent of your control. Stop being god, and free yourself from the pressure!
About Author
