Non-Verbal Statements

February 18, 2011 By 1 Comment

By Cyndi

We’ve all made them and we’ve all picked up on them from others. Non-verbal statements. Our eyes, our facial expressions, our arms, our stance, all have ways of communicating without words. And they can make statements about ourselves.

Not making eye contact with someone or even dropping your head down when others approach can be a non-verbal way of expressing shame or a sense of unworthiness about yourself. Keeping your arms wrapped around you or clinching your fist can be signs of anxiety or tension. Our bodies know what we believe. We are a triune being, spirit, soul, and body, so what happens in one area will naturally affect the others.

Many of us are not aware of what we are “saying” with our body language. As a parent I may verbally agree to something my son wants, yet he looks at me with that, “Are you sure?” look, and I notice my eyebrows are furled and my arms are folded with a defensive posture. If I would take a moment to feel for a little while, I would notice that my heart really needed more time to think about this proposition before giving my consent to it. My body expressed better than my words what my heart already knew.

What about meeting new people at church or at a friend’s house? What is our non-verbal communication saying there? Are we walking around stating we are loved by the King of kings and Lord of lords, that Father God, the Creator of the universe is our loving Daddy, and that the Spirit of God is alive and dwelling in us? Or do we hide alone in a corner not wanting to talk to anyone, hoping everyone will ignore us and not find out who we are.

Now I realize we each have different personalities that God gave us, and I’m not saying we all have to be these boisterous, loud, outgoing party people. What I am trying to communicate here (and if I could physically see you I would be looking directly into your eyes) is that you are so special to God and His thoughts towards you are only good ones (Jer. 29:11). He made you the way He wanted to. You are not a mistake or an accident. Receive His love and reflect it in how you think about yourself. Hold your head high, smile your brightest smile, open your arms to hug those around you. Say it non-verbally: “I am a treasured child of God!”

Filed Under: Emotional Intelligence, Father's Love, Shame Tagged With: , ,

Pragmatism In The Father’s Love

January 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

By Robert

Spooky Love
“You just need an experience in the Father’s love,” is what many teachers give as a pat answer to all challenges in life. And this is wonderful for those who have had that experience. However, it can seem elusive to many that look for it, get prayed for to receive it, try to believe for it, and yet never quite find it.

While I fully agree there is validity to experiencing the Father’s love and believing in it, I struggle when these become a formula for everything. There is a practical, less “spooky” side to this.

Rubber Meets the Road Christianity
Jack Frost taught on experiencing the Father’s love, however, he also put a huge emphasis on walking it out. Examples like repenting for ways we have misrepresented Father’s love to our families and others,  how well we relate to authority–with our parents, spiritual leaders, employers–these were simple ways where he showed how to express the Father’s love in our lives. First the natural, then the spiritual: How can I say I love God and submit to Him, if I cannot do that with man?

Many ministers stand in the pulpit and give all sorts of incredible testimonies and prophetic proclamations, but Jack would always say, “I want to know what the wife and kids think.” If it’s not good at home, then it’s just not good.

There are many practical skills we can learn to walk in and thereby experience the Father’s love. Jack focused on loving our families, making them our first ministry and walking in sonship. If we break that down even further, we can look at dynamics of emotional health. Let’s do that.

Skill Development
Abuse tears down personhood—I say the wrong thing and get slapped or I get that look that says I have no value. The three core rules to survive abuse are:

Don’t talk    Don’t trust    Don’t feel

Don’t talk means not being able to ask for help; it’s not okay to even have a problem. Don’t trust means keeping a wall around my heart and not letting anyone in. Don’t feel protects me from all the painful feelings bottled up over the years. But if I can’t acknowledge my painful feelings, how can I ever resolve them?

A small step is to simply start growing in awareness. Start trying to notice what triggers you, or sets you off, and stop denying feelings so much. Spend time praying it through. Take it to the Lord and ponder, “What bothered me about that? Why did that produce an emotional reaction in me?”

Beginning to be aware of your emotions and what things trigger you from day to day will get you moving in a pragmatic, proactive way toward an experience in the Father’s love.

Filed Under: Emotional Intelligence, Father's Love, Personhood, Prayer Ministry Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Unadorned

December 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

By Cyndi

I’m sitting here writing next to my undecorated Christmas tree. It’s about six feet tall–no lights, no ornaments, no icicles, not even a star at the top yet. Only crookedly poised in its stand, with a lean to the left, and a blanket around the bottom. There it is. Naked and bare, by Christmas standards. Then I thought, “Isn’t this how we stand before God? Naked at the foot of the cross?”

In Psalm 139:14 it says that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Just the way we are. Without ornaments, without ribbons, without lights or flashy commercialized decorations. God loves us. Period.

Isn’t that what Christmas is about anyway? This is the time of year we celebrate God sending His Son, Jesus, to be born in our world as a baby. Just like us. Without hoopla, without formal announcements, without Facebook friends commenting. He came.

He humbly came to reveal His great love for us. We weren’t getting it through the prophets and teachers. We weren’t getting it through the laws and commandments. We weren’t getting it through the kings and priests who were leading us. We needed to see Him face to face, to eat dinner with Him, to laugh at jokes with Him, to know He understood where we’re coming from. He came.

So it’s okay that my Christmas tree is still bare. I’ll decorate it soon. But it’s beautiful just as it is. A reminder. He loves me just the way I am.

Filed Under: Father's Love Tagged With: , ,

Defaulting to Joy

December 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Just Love

Cyndi and I married in our mid-twenties. We’d met at the church we’d been attending for several years. A couple years later, Darren was born. What a moment of joy that was! I’d heard people speak of a love that hits you with the birth of a child. Now I felt it, a love so strong I instantly knew, I would die for that child if necessary.

Love as the Foundation to Joy

We came home from the hospital and I’d just stare at him in wonderment. So beautiful.  So vulnerable. So precious. He didn’t have to do anything for my love. Just looking at him in my arms was incredible. I remember thoroughly enjoying each stage of Darren’s growth. As an infant he first rolled over at my in-laws. Then there was the trip to the mountains when he was four, and we could actually climb the rocks together. So many memories through the past 17 years.

Dr Jim Wilder in The Life Model, “In a child’s first years, the desire to experience joy in loving relationships is the most powerful force in life. Some neurologists now say that the basic human need is to be the ‘sparkle in someone’s eye.’ When you catch a glimpse of a child’s face as he runs toward an awaiting parent with arms outstretched in unrestrained joy, you can witness firsthand that incredible power that comes from ‘being the sparkle in someone’s eye.’ ”

When mom and dad express this basic love, it produces joy–joy at being alive, joy at being valued just for who you are. This is God’s plan, that we feel the love that says we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Joy is to be our default emotion. When troubles come, we should have the capacity to return to joy.

This prepares us to naturally connect with our heavenly Father, who loves us passionately even though He knows everything about us, and to connect again and again to His heart as we face life’s challenges.

Joy Strength

“Having enough joy strength is fundamental to a person’s well being. We now know that a joy center exists in the right orbital prefrontal cortex of the brain. It has executive control over the entire emotional system. When the joy center has been sufficiently developed, it regulates emotions, pain control, and immunity centers; it guides us to act like ourselves; it releases neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin; and it is the only part of the brain that overrides the main drive centers – food and sexual impulses, terror and rage.”

God rejoices over you with joy and singing because He is so thrilled to be your Father! You truly are the apple of His eye.  You are fearfully and wonderfully made! (Zep.3:17; Deut. 32:10; Ps. 139:14)

Friesen, James G., E. James Wilder, Anne M. Bierling, Rick Koepeke, and Maribeth Poole. Living from the Heart Jesus Gave You. Pasadena: Shepherd’s House, 2004.

Filed Under: Father's Love Tagged With: , , , , ,

Only Love Matures

November 4, 2010 By 1 Comment

Empowerment for Maturity

Understanding how maturity occurs is a very powerful tool in our hands for freedom. So many Christians get stuck “working harder” and end up battling condemnation. 1 John 4:18 says that “perfect (mature) love casts out fear.” When love is mature in us, it frees us of fear. All fear is based in some form of not believing we are loved.

Shame – Fear – Control Stronghold

There is a concept called the shame-fear-control stronghold by Chester and Betsy Kylstra. When someone is controlling (whether through overt anger or passive withdrawal) and relationship is cutoff, it is driven by fear. Fear, in turn, is driven by shame. Shame is based in lies we believe about ourselves. These lies are worded as such:  “I’m flawed,” “I’m helpless,” “I’m bad,” “I’m dirty,” and so forth. Prayer Ministry is the tool that can change this.

Love Not Law

It is love that addresses both fear and shame. So in a very real sense, all sin and shortcoming is about a love deficit. There is a lacking, a shortage, or deficiency of love. Something in my heart is struggling to believe that God is good and loving and has the very best in mind for me. Therefore, trying harder, sacrificing, and living “white-knuckle” Christianity does not mature us anymore than shaking an empty piggy bank more violently will produce any coins. Romans 7 says that the law is what stirs up the sinful passions of the flesh, not what restrains it. Knowing we are loved at a deep heart level sets us free from fears and the need to control. It empowers us to rest and to respond to the “unrest” of others with maturity and compassion. Fear will be “cast out” and love will take its place.

Filed Under: Father's Love, Prayer Ministry Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Father Loves You

October 22, 2010 By 1 Comment

By Robert

Jack & Trisha Frost of Shiloh Place Ministries laid such a foundation of the Father’s love in my life. As you read today’s post, see if you heart can embrace God’s passion for you.

God is not ashamed to be called your Father. He delights to be a Father to you and to have you as His child. He is passionate in His love toward you. You are the apple of His eye. He rejoices over you with joy and with singing. He is thrilled to be your Father and to have you as His child. You are the child in whom He loves and in whom He is well pleased, just like Jesus.

He’s not ashamed of you, put out by you, nor disappointed in you. You are not a burden to Him. He loves you. His banner or standard over you is love. His total heart response toward you is love. He never thinks a negative thought about you. His thoughts toward you are good and loving, to give you hope and a future.

All things are opened to His eyes. There is nothing you’ve ever done that He didn’t already know about before He created the heavens and the earth. Your failings and short comings do not challenge or threaten Him in any way. He is all powerful and all knowing. He is fully able to finish the work He began in you. His total heart response toward you is love. He is love!

Filed Under: Father's Love, Love Tagged With: , , , , ,

Brushstrokes

October 8, 2010 By 5 Comments

By Cyndi
Not long ago Robert and I got an opportunity to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art where there were some of the most famous paintings from all of history by Rembrandt, Picasso, Gauguin and so many others. It was amazing to stand and look upon these works of art that were so beautifully and meticulously crafted, such masterpieces. Even more incredible to me was getting closer to these paintings and looking at the intricate tiny details that were put into them.

Up close you can see the individual brushstrokes where the artist would sometimes use a shade of yellow to reflect light, or other darker blends to create shadows. The minuscule details of coat buttons, shoe buckles, and textures of hair were extraordinary. I stood in awe at how a beautiful masterpiece was made up of thousands of small brushstrokes.

As God usually does, He brought the natural realm into the spiritual for me. He reminded me that I am made up of thousands of little brushstrokes too–experiences in my life. Some of these brushstrokes are tragedies—losses, missed opportunities, failures, broken relationships; while others are more positive—celebrations, anniversaries, successes and accomplishments.

The Master Artist paints my life:  there’s a splotch on the canvas as I graduated high school, a line drawn when I failed accounting, a burst of color when my son was born. Hues and shades and textures are added—one-inch brushes, thickening my thoughts and carving out my destiny through college, work, marriage, traveling. There are even occasions where it feels like He is blotting and blurring with a cloth or sponge, leaving me confused and seeking for deeper relationships and knowledge; yet He continues to paint, ever conscious of the final portrait.

Many times I can only see the brushstrokes in my life–little things that don’t seem to be connected or have any significant meaning on their own. But Father God is faithful to help me step back and look at the whole painting. The individual strokes and textures disappear into one big magnificent masterpiece–me. Greater than any Van Gogh, Monet, or Matisse, I am God’s work of art. Each specific stroke is used by Him to create who I am. And He is proud of it. He even puts His signature at the bottom: Isa.43:1–“I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.”

Filed Under: Encouragement, Father's Love Tagged With: ,

In Training

September 10, 2010 By 1 Comment

By Cyndi

Well, it’s training time again. Yes, for all you runners out there, I’ve begun training for my second marathon, which will be in February. I had such a thrill doing it last time, I’m going to go for it again. (It’s the National Marathon to Finish Breast Cancer, so it’s a good cause.) I still consider myself a novice at this, so it takes many weeks for me to prepare my body for running 26.2 miles. And not just physically, but mentally also. There’s so many things to overcome in training—right now, the heat and humidity of Florida is a major one, but stretching, cross-training, nutrition, hydration–all these things are a part of preparing to run a marathon.

If you think of the Christian walk as being like a marathon, there is strength-training involved in that too. Oh, we had our conversion and have begun our conditioning, but there are times when it gets a little hard and fatigue starts setting in. Just as in the natural realm we have to train our physical body to run for miles, I believe in the spiritual realm we have to strengthen our spirits also to endure the “miles” we will cover in our lifetime. We need spiritual cross-training, we need “good food” to feed our spirit with, Living Water to drink from, and “hills” to challenge us and make us stronger.

Our spirits need building up. In Eph. 3:16, Paul prays that we would be “strengthened with might by His Spirit in our inner man,” our spirit. Vs.17— that we would be “rooted and grounded in love,” able to fulfill our destinies and walk out our Christian walk successfully, receiving love and giving it away to everyone around us. Our spirits are in training. And just like training for a marathon, this is a process, it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time and effort–a willingness to suffer the heat, the exhaustion, the work required; but when you do run the race, there is such joy and excitement and confidence that you are ready and prepared.

I ran across this quote, (no pun intended), from an unknown author in Runner’s World:
Spirit has fifty times the strength and staying power of brawn and muscle.

This is in reference to the natural realm—now think of this in the spiritual realm.

Let’s run!

Filed Under: Christianity, Encouragement, Father's Love, Running Tagged With: , , , , ,

Milk and Cookies

July 30, 2010 By 1 Comment

By Cyndi

As my friend and I were having lunch the other day, our conversation began to turn towards all the negativity in the world today and how it would be nice to see more positive things going on.                                                                                                      

This reminded me of something Jack Frost said one time in a meeting. He talked about how most of us older folks (over 40) can remember someone in our childhood years who gave out “milk and cookies.” By milk and cookies, he meant those positive affirmations. Maybe our parents were always fighting or never home, but there was the neighbor’s mom who always let us come over and play making us feel welcomed; there was a grandfather who encouraged us when we struck out over and over again playing baseball; there was the aunt who took the time to teach us to bake, showing patience as we cracked eggs onto the floor and made mistakes as we learned. There was someone, somewhere who loved us and showed us kindness and affection even when we felt like we had failed.

Unfortunately, that is not necessarily the case today. Many young people have no one who expresses love to them in a healthy, Godly way, so all they know is rejection and abandonment. So what is my response? How can I give out some “milk and cookies” today?

I could let my son bring all his friends over after a soccer game and have a cookout. I could have patience and try to help the teenage driver trying to parallel park next to me. I could even volunteer to work with the scouts, a youth group, or a local Boys and Girls Club. Maybe it would just be a smile, a touch on the shoulder, a wink, or a thumbs up to someone–but something to express to them how much Father thinks the world of them and loves them unconditionally.

We are His hands on this earth and we can choose to look for the positives or look for the negatives. Anyone up for milk and cookies?

Filed Under: Encouragement, Father's Love, Jack Frost, Love, purpose Tagged With: , , , ,

The Drawing of the Lord

July 17, 2010 By 4 Comments

By Cyndi

The other day I was reading through John 4 about Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, and I saw such an intricate plan of God revealed in their conversations. First I noticed how Jesus gently engages with her, asking for a drink, and how He entices her with a riddle to prick her mind–”Sir, you have nothing to draw with…where do you get that living water?” He draws her in closer, explaining how wonderful this water is and how there is hope and life in it. She leans into His words.

But then He mentions the issue about her husband, or rather, husbands, and she goes into all kinds of diversions, hoping to avoid the true issue in her heart. She is living in denial, trying to ignore the giant love deficit in her life. It is extremely painful for her to look into her heart and really see what is there, yet Jesus’ mercy and kindness is so pure, she ventures in. He slowly exposes her, all the while tenderly showing His love, even in the midst of the ugliness–but truth–of her past. His compassion finally gets to the core of her being as she uncaringly leaves her water jar at the well and runs back into town.

In this story, the Lord draws this Samaritan woman to Himself and she feels true, unconditional love probably for the first time in her life. Her sins were uncovered, yet she felt a blanket of love around her. This great love gave her the courage to unmask herself to the point that she even tells others about Him, and how He can make them also feel such freedom.

This is such a wonderful example of how the Lord draws us. There are many times when I sense the Lord probing me. Sometimes I am in denial about issues in my life and I’m trying to avoid dealing with them. I don’t like feeling the pain so I stuff them into a corner of my heart with a “Do Not Disturb” sign over them daring anyone to bring up the matter.

But God is faithful to gently draw me to Himself, even as He did this woman. He unveils and exposes me, not to ridicule and shame me, but to cleanse me and heal me.

May we all be attentive to His drawing this week.

Filed Under: emotional responsibility, Emotions, Father's Love, self awareness Tagged With: , , ,
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