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Encouragement for Those Who Feel Helpless

I began this week feeling a bit helpless. I was struggling with a cold. It’s one of those colds where it’s not so bad you have to lay down, but you’re not sure if you should go full steam ahead and risk making it worse.

Because of that, I felt a little bit helpless. For me, the feeling of helplessness is the feeling that you have when you feel that you don’t have the power or strength to do the things you need to do.

So, I started working on my sermon. This week, my sermon is on the work of Jesus Christ as outlined in the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (15:1–11) and in the Apostle’s Creed. The Creed states that we believe in one Lord Jesus Christ who was “conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate . . .” It concludes with the confession that “He will come again to judge the living and the dead.”

I began to think about each statement of the creed. I was helped in this by remembering the Heidelberg Catechism.

I was first introduced to the Heidelberg Catechism when I attended a Reformed Church during college. In many Reformed Churches, they still preach through this catechism roughly every year.

A large part of the catechism is a series of questions and answers about the Apostle’s Creed. Here are few examples:

Q & A 38. Why did he suffer “under Pontius Pilate” as judge? A. So that he, though innocent, might be condemned by an earthly judge, and so free us from the severe judgment of God that was to fall on us.

Q & A 39. Is it significant that he was “crucified” instead of dying some other way? A. Yes. By this I am convinced that he shouldered the curse which lay on me, since death by crucifixion was cursed by God. . . .

Q & A 49. How does Christ’s ascension to heaven benefit us? A. First, he is our advocate in heaven in the presence of his Father. Second, we have our own flesh in heaven as a sure pledge that Christ our head will also take us, his members, up to himself. Third, he sends his Spirit to us on earth as a corresponding pledge. By the Spirit’s power we seek not earthly things
but the things above, where Christ is, sitting at God’s right hand.

I had never really thought much about these sorts of details before I studied the catechism. In addition, I began to see how each thing Jesus does is for us.

As I remembered all this and began putting this together in my sermon, I realized that I didn’t need to feel helpless. Jesus is alive. He has ascended to heaven and is reigning. He is interceding for me at the right hand of the Father. He is for me and wants to partner with me in bringing the effects of His reign into this world. Not helpless at all.

It all reminded me of a statement by Presbyterian Pastor Dr. Lloyd John Ogilvie: “We are not a powerless minority in the face of evil. We can change the course of history, we can alter the trend of evil in our society, we can liberate people–if we will pray in the name of Jesus Christ.”

I found myself so encouraged by meditation on what Jesus has done and is doing for me, I thought, “I should think about this every day.”

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Is Jesus God?

This question must seem very strange to modern ears. Sorta like asking, is George Washington God, or is Abraham Lincoln God?

For modern people, the question may seem absurd, but for those who first heard it, it was blasphemy.

When Jesus said to the people of his day, “I and the Father are one,” here was their response: they picked up stones to stone him. Here’s what they said: “We are not stoning you for any good work . . . but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”

To the Jews, the first article of their faith was that God is one. If Jesus claimed to be God, then he was, in their mind, attacking this fundamental article.

On the other side, when Jesus’ followers went out into the Roman world and claimed divine status for Jesus, this would have seemed neither strange nor improbable to Roman ears. The Romans believed in many gods, and the distinction between gods and humans was not that great. So, what would be the big deal with adding one more god to the pantheon?

The trouble for the followers of Jesus in the Roman world was that they claimed that there was only one God and that Jesus was that God. “He is the true God and eternal life” (1 Jn. 5:20) and “the Word was God. . . . Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (John 1:2–3). Paul wrote: “we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ . . .” (Tit. 2:13).

The early Christians believed, prayed to, and trusted in Jesus as the one true God.

So, how to explain that Jesus is God and the Father is God? The church had to struggle long to think through this relationship and express it clearly.

One possibility is that the Father and the Son are just different manifestations of the one true God in a similar way to the fact that I am a father, son, friend, and husband. I’m the same person, but I play different roles.

This just did not do justice to the New Testament revelation. For example, Jesus said, “In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me” (John 8:17–18). No, the Father was one person and Jesus another, yet there was not two gods but one God.

From this, it’s not a far jump to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. We believe that there is one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is hard to understand, but should it really surprise us that there would be something about God that is way above our understanding of God? It would almost be surprising if this wasn’t the case.

But the key question is, is it true? Is Jesus really God?

Let me suggest three things to consider.

First, everyone believes that Jesus is a great teacher. Even non-Christians throughout history have looked at him as a great moral teacher. Yet he claimed to be God and the Lord of all. Could a good teacher make such a claim? If I said that what my word that you are reading on this blog are the words of me, the one true God, would you continue to read my blog? No, you would think I was crazy or a charlatan. But Jesus is not the sort of person you can write of as a crazy person or charlatan. He is one of the greatest people who ever lived. So, how can you put those things together?

C.S. Lewis, the atheist turned Christian apologist, put it this way: it is a trilemma. He is either a liar, lunatic, or lord. You can’t say he’s just a good teacher because Jesus has shut that door. Those are really the only options. Which one makes the most sense?

Second, He rose from the dead. He said he was God, and he proved it by rising from the dead. I believe that this is not only a belief, it is historical fact. You can read the evidence for this claim here and here, but I’ll just say this. All of his followers believed he rose from the dead, and they staked their lives on it. They gained very little in this life for this belief, and most of them paid for believing this truth with their lives. If they made it up, would all of them have gone to terrible deaths for its truth? To me, that does not seem at all plausible. So, the only conclusion I can come to is that Jesus actually rose from the dead.

Third, all over the world, people from diverse cultures, regions, socioeconomic backgrounds, intellectual levels, and so on have come to Jesus. They have done this without any apparent gain in this world. They have done it often in the face of the greatest persecution. In China, as one example, all of the missionaries were expelled when the communists took over, decades later, Christianity was exploding all over China in the face of often terrible persecution. How did this happen? In my mind, it is only the power of the resurrected Christ that provides an adequate explanation.

Whether you find this convincing or not, I hope that you will consider this crucial question that Jesus asked his own followers while he was on earth: who do you say that I am?

If you are convinced that Jesus is God, let me ask you to consider the significance of this truth.

First, God wants to connect with us. If He became a human, He is not some distant, far off being. He is one who comes, very close. He wants to connect with us and have a relationship with us.

Second, he is accessible. How do you relate to an infinite being? Hard to conceive. But what if He comes down to our level to relate to us? If you’ve seen Jesus, you’ve seen the Father. You know God.

Third, he can sympathize with us. It would seem that God is remote from us and immune to all our problems. But if He became a human, then He has experienced all of our struggles and is able to sympathize with us in our weaknesses. He suffered. He died. He experienced rejection. He can sympathize with us.

He has come close to us and invites us to come close to Him. That is the implication of the glorious truth that Jesus is God.

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God . . . the Father

God. He’s so far above and beyond us.

When I think of God, I think about how He is bigger than the universe with its billions of stars in millions of different galaxies. The universe is so immense, I wonder if God created it to give us a visual picture of what infinity is like.

At the same time, He designed the smallest units of life. He wrote the code that organizes biological organisms and causes them to operate. The level of complexity on even the “simplest” cell is staggering.

He is greater than the universe yet intimately involved in the smallest details of life.

Of course, I am not the first to stand in awe of our Creator. Our tools have enabled us to see things on a larger and smaller scale than our ancestors, but they too stood in awe at the Creator.

In some ways, they might have seen Him better because they were in more direct, regular contact with what He had created in an agrarian and pre-industrial society.

One of the songs of David, the shepherd turned king, went like this: “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” (Psalm 8:3–4). I’m sure he sang that many times as he went to sleep outside under the moon and stars.

In light of all this, it would be easy to think of God as distant, as One who had no interest in humans at all.

But that’s where Jesus comes in. How does He speak of God? As Father.

Jesus taught us to think of the infinite, almighty, all-wise Creator in intensely personal terms: the Father.

He did more, though, than just teach us to call God “Father.” He taught us what this means. That’s good because we all bring different things to the table when it comes to the word “father” or “dad.”

Here’s what He taught us to think about our heavenly Father.

1. The Father will take care of us: “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” (Mt. 6:26).

2. The Father wants to give us good things: “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Mt. 7:11).

3. The Father wants us to imitate Him: “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Mt. 5:44–45).

4. The Father gives us guidance: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven” (Mt. 16:17).

5. The Father wants us to believe in His unique Son: “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

These are just some of the ways Jesus taught us to think about our Father in heaven. You can read what else Jesus said about it here.

I think the reason that Jesus put such a strong emphasis on God as Father is because He knew that He was the unique Son of the Father. Jesus is a Son of the Father in a way that no one else is.

He said, “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

However, Jesus said that we also should think of God as our Father. When He saw Mary after His resurrection, He said, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (John 20:17). In other words, Jesus wants us to think of our relationship with God in the same intimate way in which He thought of it.

The God who made the universe is our Father. That’s worth thinking about . . . every day.

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Be an Encourager

Our brain is like Velcro for the bad and Teflon for the good.

This year, I started a new practice. At the end of each week, I have written a summary of that week. And what comes to my mind immediately when I start writing? The bad. I have to look back at my calendar and think harder to remember the good things. The good thing about forcing myself to do this is that by the end of the exercise I usually feel much better about the week!

The bad things tend to stick; the good things fade away.

The same is true with people. We notice the things in people that bother us. We think about them . . . over and over again. But the good things about them? Often not a passing thought.

Then, we either say the negative things or distance from people based on our negative views. Our relationship deteriorates. When we need to talk about something important, there is only a negative context for the discussion. Then, we blame the other person for not listening!

The result is a crazy cycle of negative reaction and counter-reaction where we never really get anywhere.

Is there a better way? I believe that God wants us to reverse this tendency. He wants us to focus on the good and put much less emphasis on the bad. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Eph. 4:29).

Be an encourager.

What is encouragement? Encouragement is saying something that will help build people up and take the next steps in their journey.

How do we encourage people? Let me suggest five ways.

1. Help people see how much God loves and cares for them. It’s easy to see God as distant and uncaring about what we do, but He loves us more than we can imagine (Eph. 3:14–19).

2. Help people see that God’s power is available. He is able and willing to do more than we could ask or imagine (Eph. 3:20–21).

3. Help people see that suffering is part of life. Suffering can lead us to give up. Stories wisely and gently told about our own suffering can remind people that suffering is part of life and not completely bad. Suffering provides opportunity for growth.

4. Help people see the good that is in them. If you see something good in someone, tell them. Period. There’s simply no downside to doing so.

5. Help people see the resource they already have. We have brains, skills, and people in our lives that can help us take those next steps. Blindness to our resources inhibits forward movement in our journey.

I enjoy hiking. I have hiked all 5 trails that ascend to Mount LeConte. To hike up and back from Mount LeConte is a minimum of 10 miles and a 1-3,000 foot ascent.

On two of my hikes, I have taken some of my children with me.

Before those hikes, none of my children had hiked that far. They would often want to quit hiking after walking a mile, yet they chose to take the bold step of hiking 12-14 miles (variation based on the trail).

They chose to try it, and they succeeded.

Now, whenever I look at the Southern horizon in our county, I can point to Mount LeConte and say, as I often do. “There’s Mount LeConte. Do you remember how you climbed it? You have a lot more in you than you think you do.”

And what happens when we become encouragers? We help other people. The wisdom of God says, “Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones” (Prov. 16:24). We have the power to heal with our words.

But what also help ourselves. If we are encouragers, then what happens when we need to talk about difficult or important issues? The way opens. When people know we are for them, they are much better prepared to listen to any concern we bring up.

So, be an encourager.

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How to Talk About Anything at Any Time to Anyone

When the stakes are high, why is it so difficult to have good conversations?

One thing that keeps us from having a conversation is failing to see that a conversation has two parts. There is the content of the conversation, but there is also a context for the conversation.

The content is the thing that we want to talk about. The context is how we feel about the conversation and the people involved in it.

If someone feels disrespected or threatened (context), it is virtually impossible to discuss what we want to discuss (content).

Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler in their book Crucial Conversations use the metaphor of a pool to explain a conversation. As long as people feel free to put into the pool any of their thoughts, facts, or feelings, the conversation will keep going well. However, as soon as safety and respect break down, people don’t feel like they can freely put their thoughts and feelings into the pool, and the conversation collapses. Once this happens, you have to restore safety and respect in order to resume the conversation.

When you read the Bible, you will find that the Bible encourages us to speak openly about the difficult issues of relationships, morality, and religion. However, it always cautions us to do this with gentleness and respect (1 Pet. 3:15, cf. Gal. 6:1, 2 Tim. 2:24–25 and 4:2). This is the same idea.

So, how do we convey safety and respect in our conversations? Patterson et al. provide a lot of practical wisdom on how to establish safety and respect. Here are a few of their ideas:

  1. Use contrasting to avoid misunderstanding. For example, you could say to your wife: “When are you getting a haircut?” She could easily take this as a criticism of her hair. You can use contrasting to avoid this: “I’m not saying you need to get a haircut, but I remember you saying that you wanted to. I’d like to know what day you plan to do that so I can make sure the car is available for you.”
  2. Be tentative. Try to state how you see things in a way that invites people to talk about the issue. Let’s say you’re dealing with theft in a business. You can talk to the employee that you suspect of stealing by saying, “I’ve looked in the books, and it seems like there is $10,000 missing. Have you noticed that? Do you have any sense of why it might appear that way?” You don’t accuse. You start with the facts and invite someone to give you their understanding of the facts and their interpretation. That’s being tentative in a way that invites conversation on a difficult matter.
  3. Apologize. If you say something in a way that does not communicate safety and respect, apologize. If you show by your facial expressions or words that you don’t respect someone, just say you’re sorry.
  4. Establish mutual purpose. I remember hearing about a couple discussing where they wanted to move. One wanted to move to Kentucky and another to Vermont. Seems like two very diverse goals. However, as they talked about it, they realized that the real reason why the one wanted to move to Vermont was to live in the country and the reason why the other wanted to move to Kentucky was to be near their family. Once they realized that, they could establish a mutual goal of living in the country and near relatives. Our goals are often closer or more compatible than we realize. Step back a little bit, and you may find more mutual purpose than you thought possible

For me, this all means that I need to think not only about what I want to say but how I say it. I need to think about what’s the best way to say what I want to say and not merely the content of what I want to say. Giving attention to the context of a conversation enables me to talk about anything at any time to anyone.

Note: I’ve written a fuller explanation of these same principles in an article that you can read here.

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