Walking Through the Healing Process

So please family was not in a good place.

She was failing as a wife and mother, but her rest was the last primary goal. Never give up helping letting the G on Jim Daly today so these families thrive working together can help rescue and strengthen more families like hers give today@focusonthefamily.com/real family. You have experienced both the sadness and the anger or great disappointment. And you have to talk about it and you have to open up about it and admitted to yourself and when you do that when you're talking about that reality just frees you no matter what type of drama or hurt you face. Whether it was paying for use with the loss of a friend workforce or a shattered dream there is hope today on Focus on the Family Steve Arterburn enjoins us and he'll discuss how you can experience healing even after the worst circumstances in your life, your hostess focus Pres. Jim Daly and I'm John Fuller that John Payne is very real part of life.

That's just a fact. And all of us will go through at some point you may get through many years and not suffer a lot of payment at some point will be loss of some sort may be the death your parents or something.

But you will experience it on my own parents. Many of you know that story. I mean I was an orphan.

By the time I was 12 at already been in foster care for year. It was a tragic situation, but I got through it and I got through it.

Mainly because of Christians who believed in me and loved me, but my football coach or teacher and they inspired me to do more than what I thought I could do and that's what it's about. By God's grace. I'm here today and I think that's true for each and every one of us no matter where you're at. Steve Arterburn has written a helpful book to lead you through the healing process.

It's called Seven ways to choose healing and I'm really looking forward to this discussion today. I like Steve. I'm passionate about seeing how the Lord can redeem someone's story out of the painful circumstance. One of those things I love is often our passion is born out of our pain and that's the theme of today's program.

Let me mention that Steve Arterburn is founder and chairman of new life ministries, which is a national faith-based broadcast counseling and treatment history. He's a speaker reason, author and teaching pastor at Northview church in Carmel, Indiana. Steve walked back to focus. Thank you.

It's so great to be an easier time of pain.

I I hate pain and when I go to the dentist. I asked for Novocain. I asked for an epidural, not just the physical, but I don't like pain. I think there a lot of us that do everything we possibly can to deny it avoided but it is the pain that brings us right back to the Lord and its pain that leads to healing Gilly if you're always avoiding pain. You never get the treatment that you need and I think God is right there with us in our pain and really wants to bring us to him what you've launched right into probably one of the deepest theological point you could launch into in the first couple minutes here. I mean, the idea that pain is a purposeful process and a lot of people don't want to believe that that if I'm living a good, healthy, robust Christian life. I will not suffer. That's not the equation. No, that's not an you know when I was going through seven years of infertility. I had some people that would say to media think that that that's a result of some kind of spiritual problem and it was so painful to go through that and then you know the Lord blessed me with his daughter that just as most of adopted and then I'm telling you, there was nothing that got better in my life theologically or spiritually that landed me one of the greatest gifts in the entire universe, and so people that try to put something on you if you're going through pain, their theology is off and I remember a woman I was speaking in Des Moines, Iowa on toxic fate and I was talking about that sick Christians aren't second class.

She had been kicked out of church because she had an unresolved health issue that never got better in that up in bed and after five years. She finally had the strength to come back to church and it was on the day that I was preaching on sick Christians are second-class in God's kingdom. God uses everything and if we were in the garden, nobody would get sick. Nobody would have pain but I don't know if you noticed where not there anymore and I know in my life. One of the worst things that ever happened is after a 20 year very difficult marriage my wife divorced and I was in pain and you know a lot of people would say well you know how did you contribute to the divorce and all this stuff like that.

While I know this I was a pretty good guy.

I'm am not denying that that I had problems, but a lot of guys are a lot worse than I was, that divorce would never be in their future. I'm just saying that we make these judgments about things that happen and we really need more compassion. Unfortunately for me and my pain. These couples didn't want me to get weird. And so, on Sunday night. They created a group called couples and Steve you going to couples and Steve but it was a time where they didn't kick me out of the cup and it really was a time for healing and so if you're in pain.

You know, yeah, you could have caused something that got you there. But oftentimes it's just a result of a fallen world outside the guard. Or maybe that's the right place after a warm beginning. Maybe we get to the question this way, and I've heard you say before that for the person who's been hurting because of discouragement or divorce like you just said her death or disease. Some trauma that hits us. It's essential that they first decide that they want to be healed.

It's a big emphasis of your book here seven ways to choose healing. You've got to want to let what is that mean one that fifth chapter of John is the story of the guy that was sick for 38 years by the pool of Bethesda and herbicide and Jesus is do you want to be healed. The guy's been there 38 years trying to get in the water to be healed.

But Jesus says do you want to be and so there is this issue of choice. You do have to want and sometimes we get in this place that we call learned helplessness where we think there's nothing that we can do everything, but you can do something about.

We've met these people that no matter what you offer say they got an excuse or some resistance there but you know it goes beyond desire, you have to have this other thing called willingness it was you have to want it so much that you're willing to take a risk and do some things that maybe are little bit uncomfortable for you to get better or to change, and if you're doing the same thing like this.

38 year sick guy. Same thing for 38 years, you're probably good to be done for another 35 Steve, the difficulty in this whole arena night. I don't think that Focus on the Family that we talk much about this because it is difficult because there are people that have prayed for 10, 15, 20 or more years please take this affliction from me explaining and why it may not happen. Yeah, I think there's a verse for them that simply says those who persevere receive the crown of life and sometimes all were called to do is just get through and so many people have afflictions that are so painful and so difficult and that really a day one more day is a victory, and I just want you to know that that God is with you, your angels are in the presence of God, making sure he doesn't ignore what you're going through and he loves you in the midst of that paint and it was not the original plant. It is not the original but yes we do things that hurt ourselves and sometimes were the victim of people hurting us and I'll tell you God's there for you and if you can clean on to him and grow closer to him, rather than abandon him or think he's mad at you, or experience shame or something like that, you will receive that crown of life. He will bless you.

He will comfort you and it's so difficult to minister to those folks that just don't get back well and I appreciate that because I think that's the heart of what were trying to accomplish today is to give people hope in the book you mentioned a girl name Rachel describe her story and what she found while she just became aware that there were some things in her past. She had been abused and so she decides to open up and share and she gets some encouragement to go see a counselor and she opens up to this counselor and then she starts to get better and like so many people and she really didn't know what counseling was all about her thought that was really sick people or something like that and and so many times we don't know that we can be help that we can live a different life until we go out and get some kind of help. I wish I could hear but my why I take Thursday and that's me and my wife. That's our day we go see a marriage counselor. Every Thursday I was telling this to a guy on a golf trip and he was shocked that I will hate I believe in counseling, edit, and it helps and he said that just crazy and then I saw my three much later, he says were going every other week, and their learning some new think I gotta tell you when we are willing to let somebody step in and look at and help us to grow as an individual or couple skies a limit as to what when I appreciate that. And sometimes in the Christian community we get lost in that counseling issue because it can at times you talk about connecting with your childhood door connecting with your feelings and we've had enough comedians make fun of that. But when you look at it from God's perspective. How do you think he expects us to take the pain those fragments of brokenness and in you know the circumstances we go through in life. How does he expect us to patch that together and have a healthy relationship with him first and then with those around us including our spouse or kids, our parents and our friends.

What would he expect us to do is let's lay it out there why counseling is okay in a Christian context while my wife and I do a group at our church North you called take your life back on Sunday night and it's for putting your big toe in the water. It's one step above just going to church and sitting there, so we thought we do question-and-answer and then you have a discussion time there other people that have a wise old soul that they can go to that church was solid in their faith and they can get good advice and wise counsel. But most people don't have those kinds of situations so you find that person feels called by God to learn as much about the Bible, learn as much about the human dynamic and how to communicate and connect with you and provide healing and that person that's called to preach from the pulpit is no more called than the person that sitting in an office inviting people to come in, share their story.

Give them some insight and direction. That's the counselor and I have been so blessed in my life to work with committed dedicated Christians who that was just there calling and to say that counseling is not biblical or whatever you're discounting all these Christian counseling schools and Christian colleges their professors. Although students that are excited about setting that will end the help laboring and all of the help and that's really the bottom line Jim.

What's the result the people to go to counseling now not want to go to church anymore know they cannot heal they want to share that and that's where we take our pain and we process it and we use it with purpose, God doesn't want to waste one ounce of pain as Steve let me go to some of the core principles that you have the book one is trust and trust can be broken. You know relatively easily. It might be serious like infidelity or no apparent child relationship issue, but how can they find that genuine connection so you can trust trusting people that you can be real with people, even if it comes with some risk. Yeah I find so many people are committed to predictability and sameness, and protecting themselves and I think faith causes us to step out and risk and connect with other people. Now in my ministry. One of the things that we deal with is severe broken trust we we don't want to trust people that are trustworthy. We want to forgive them, but that doesn't mean we instantly trust them so you want to watch what people do, not what they say because if the person is broken trust what they say means nothing. They want you want to see them become consistent and congruent and authentic. Then we can now take a a solid good possible risks that might result in a deeper, richer connection, but I gotta tell you, don't assume that every physician knows everything they need to know they have specialists that don't assume that every person that says there Christian knows everything that they need to know to help you in your suggested very good point and I appreciate that you so often I'll talk to a nonbeliever. And they'll say to me.

Christians are bunch of hypocrites. And, you know, the fact is I said one recently. You're right, absolutely because were sinners saved by grace, so we, by definition, are at times to be hypocrites because we can't live up to a perfect standard yet that's the absolute reason Jesus is necessary is to forgive us for our shortcomings in this life and were not to live perfectly. So let me just ask you to forgive me now.

I mean that but certainly don't use that as a reason not to draw closer to God.

What when you write a book and you act like you know everything about a subject mean it's an invitation to hypocrisy and so I always want people to know that yet. I did write a book about healing but I have so many areas I'm working on healing and don't judge Jesus based on the hypocrisy of the people to follow Jesus there doing many of them are doing the best they can, and does not excuse but it is reality and I think for the skeptic.

It's important to realize that Steve would mention this idea of being able to open up. That's important, and to understand what's real, what's true, let's move to the grieving process and I want to mention that because we all go through these painful experiences at some point and there's a story in your book that caught my attention. She's a woman named Karen who was grieving a broken relationship with her father. This is so common, and thus the reason I wanted to touch on it. What was she grieving about and what was the outcome. Well, she was grieving that she didn't have the father that she was supposed to have that she was in. You could say entitled or that we all expected yeah that we all want to have and so a lot of times people say how do I honor my parent that was so dishonorable and I say this. First, let's grieve the loss of that idealized parent or the parent that you expected so that were not waking up every day herding over that parent. So, when used in the end I think grieving has to take place before forgiving so you you let it's a gift from God to read that loss. It heals your future. You don't have to feel it like it happen yes. How does a person do that. How does a person grieve that loss. That's one of the biggest questions of counseling ever. How do I greet you have to experience both the sadness and the anger or the great disappointment and you have to talk about it and you have to open up about it and admitted to yourself and when you do that when you're talking about that reality. It just frees you from having to stay stuck back there as a little child who isn't getting what they want, and you no longer expect this defective parent to step up and do what they never did before. So the grieving frees you to literally accept them as a struggling human being. Now if I see them, like me. We both have broken this. I'm more able to forgive them. Now I can embrace the reality of my life that didn't have that father versus waking up every day feeling sorry for myself or wishing and a lot of people are spending their life wishing and they have dreams that will never come true. We would never expect a person with no legs to run to our aid. It makes no sense, and we expect this defective father to rise up and finally say you're a great man are you're the daughter that I I love not going to happen. So God gives us this gift of grieving and knew Jesus had to grieve. He did greet a man of sorrows and acquainted with the bitterest of grief and I would say the epidemic of the Christian community are un-grieved losses were trying to do this superficial forgiveness thing, but we've never gone back and truly done the work, the grief work and I believe that that's best done with another person that can hear your protest help you with the teachers processes. Yes, because many people have been sexually abused physically abused emotionally abused by a father or a mother and they've never done the grieving and that weight is still on them and I want them to be free.

We all want to be free and Steve, I want to be really clear so people here this who may have. They've yet to grieve that that that really does set the ability for you to forgive.

I want to connect them just like you started because the grieving it tills the soil of your heart to make it so you complaint the seed of forgiveness yes and so what we have to do is we go back and do that hard plowing up of the heart. And then we actually do that, we come to see them in a different light. Because were not holding up some idealized image that they need were just seeing them and accepting them as they are, and that that allows us, and then to move over into this forgiveness mode. Steve, you mentioned in the book is something that really caught my attention a term you called justifiable resound now in the Christian dictionary that doesn't sound very spiritual justifiable resentment what you mean well there two things you don't want to carry around plutonium and justifiable resentment because when you have something that you're upset about, and you tell somebody and they go all you get over that you know that's your problem. Okay, that's one thing but when you tell somebody about your situation and they say oh well, you're of course you are you coming I'd never forgive that I would I be angry forever seat now it's justifiable resentment. But God says get rid of all resentment and when you have a justifiable resentment and use keep that you're killing yourself you're destroying any potential for healing for hope. So I put those two words together because I don't want to discount the pain that you've been through. You are justified in having that resentment but you still must get it out of your system and be free from it.

If you had a father that was abusive or a mother that was abusive and you don't forgiving your justified, and that anger and bitterness then you give them all this real estate in your brain in your life that they don't deserve to have when we forgive we free ourselves of that and now we are free of resentment and bitterness just like God he doesn't tell us get free of it because that's what good people do. He wants the best for us and he doesn't want that kind of darkness inside of you so often Steve if I speak in the speak about my childhood and the difficulties I had an alcoholic father know that some people who were you know in their 40s 50s maybe even 60s will come up to me afterward and I'm sure you have this kind of experience in the say. But how do you do that how do you let go. That's been my whole problem. A whole life and you can see there knotted up and I'm sure people are listening saying okay I hear you, but how do you let go.

How do you let go of that justified resentment.

I've been trying to do that for 20 years.

Steve mean you can hear my nature and any as it speaker sometimes. I have found myself a bit perplexed because so much of it is who you are, how you wired your personality, your experiences, all those things there is no formula to say let go. You gotta let go and I don't know how you are going to do that. I know how I did it but it will be unique to you but you have to do it.

Some people let go. By working the 12 steps. Some people let go by seeing a counselor and some people let go with a great coach or spiritual advisor. I would just say this I don't think you can do it alone. If you could have, you would have and the risk you take a walking into a meeting where other people are trying to let go of things that risk is so worth the risk or opening up to another person.

Finding out where have people gotten help for this, but I want to tell you if you're 65 or 70 years old and you're still knotted up over that it is not too late. I have seen people develop his new life because they finally said, I got a deal without advisor good. And finally, as we end that you talk about the. The two final keys to serve somewhere in many places and to persevere what you mean by those two concepts well and when I serve on getting out of myself and into other serial others yeah and and I become this other centered person and then the persevering through whatever difficulty because I know not everybody has a very very good life. Not everybody has an especially and in Third World countries.

It's hard it's difficult but you persevere and never ever give up that God is with you and call upon God in a supernatural way to comfort you and guide you and in literally, as I said before, that's all that's expected. You will be blessed in some way, but it may not be the way we get we call blessing over here in our Western, I think I might lobby you to add 1/3. Yes, I got serve in persevere. I like the idea of the concept of living in a bigger story than yourself as a Christian. Yes, I mean, that's part of what were called to this is God's narrative yet we are players and that we don't have to be the center stage. Well, there's an upper story that's going on and we got the lower story and one of my favorite stories is Mordechai Hamm who was his evangelist back in the 30s had the tents and people would come and come down the aisle and the crowds dwindled and the people stop coming so much and one of his Crusades in North Carolina. He's back at the hotel, weeping over how sad it is that God is blessing it was that night in that hotel. He was weepy that very few people had come down the one that came down was Billy Graham. Now you never know what God is doing. You feel the upper story could be what's huger than Billy Graham coming to Christ and seeing what he did. So I would just say this God's doing something beyond what you see.

Don't give up on God is not given up on you Steve. That is so good, Steve Arterburn, author of the book 7 ways to choose healing that you have brought the wood to the fire. My man and thank you for putting that flame in our souls to say we can get help. It's there for us. We just need to do some things to open our hearts to allow God to work.

That is the secret. Thank you so much for being with ice limited and for the audience.

Let me ask you to request Steve's helpful guide seven ways to choose healing.

It is so practical and easy to read and in good to have handy words share with others.

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