Today we are taking some time to pause, and reflect on how to apply what we have learned about God’s love for us to our daily lives. How we live is a combination of both “being”, which is our inner thoughts and feelings, and “doing”, which is our exterior behavior. Our “being” impacts our “doing”. As we grow from babies to children to teenagers to adults, our inner selves are shaped by the physical and psychological environments we live in. We receive messages that try to define “who we are” from other people in our lives and from media. The general tone of these messages begins to shape our thoughts and our views of who we are, and of how the world works. Often, the messages are not filled with the assurance of God’s love, which is the way of God, but with fear, which is the way of the world. Messages like:
- You are no good and will never amount to anything. Don’t even try, because you will just mess it up again, and I will have to fix it! OR
- Grab all you can, before someone else gets it. Always be #1 or you are not worth anything. Win at all cost. OR
- Physical abuse or neglect
Eventually, when we receive these messages long enough, we begin to believe them. Our inner being becomes filled with fear, instead of God’s love, and we develop defensive behaviors as a coping strategy. These behaviors are not God’s intended way for us to live, but we are doing the best we can. Even as adults, after our physical circumstances have changed, we sometimes still feel the messages in our souls. We keep playing the same tape over and over in our heads.
It is important to discuss these inner thought and feelings of fear, and the resulting defensive behaviors, because they contribute to how we communicate with others and how we live out our lives every day. We might be living this way right now without even realizing it. There are three common types of defensive behaviors, and each has both verbal and nonverbal parts. People are often a mix of these, depending on the situation, and these are very high-level generalizations and examples. I am by no means of psychologist!
Defensive Behaviors
The 1st fear-based behavior is Passive Behavior. It is basically “not acting” and is inwardly abusive. It sends the message: “I’ll give up anything to avoid disapproval or criticism so others will like me.” Fear of displeasing others puts a passive person in bondage to them, which results in deep, suppressed anger. Examples are:
- Sleeping too much, to avoid dealing with the world
- Keeping quiet and withholding feedback in a relationship
- Pretending everything is okay when it is not
- Lying
- Hinting
The 2nd fear-based behavior is Aggressive Behavior. It is basically acting against others and is outwardly abusive. It sends the message “I have the right to put you down, dominate you, or humiliate you in order to get what I want.” Fear of others hurting them causes an aggressive person to ultimately drive away those whom they really want to love them. Examples are:
- Physical abuse
- Nonverbal Aggression: “If looks could kill”. Facial expressions or gestures showing the thought that what a person just said was too stupid to even consider.
- Verbal Aggression: These turns social situations into war zones
- Insults and Put-downs: used to humiliate or demean another person by calling attention to their faults, especially around others.
- Profanity: It is “you’d-better-listen-to-this-or-else” communication
- Sarcasm: from the Greek word “flesh tearing”. It is always aggressive and hurts in very deep and subtle ways.
The 3rd fear-base behavior is Passive Aggressive Behavior. It is both lurking and attacking and is inwardly and outwardly abusive. It sends the message “I want to hurt you, but I still need your approval.” Examples are:
- Procrastinating, forgetting, and dawdling: People attempt to get their way by inactivity. Despite promises and assurances that they will do their best, they hold back and sabotage the goals and plans of others.
- Pouting: Angry or upset thoughts and feelings are stewing inside someone, but you don’t know what they are. When you ask what’s wrong, they person answers “Nothing!”
- Silent treatment: The person is trying to inflict pain on another person. This is often successful, because to be shunned is to have our existence denied. It says “You’re not even here.”
Passive Aggressive behavior is often very hard to detect, so I will share an example from an incident that I heard about, which is church-related. Imagine that you are a worship leader at a church and receiving a beautiful Christmas card in the mail, with the return address of the church you serve, but no name. Inside are the beautiful words of greeting and a picture of Mary holding baby Jesus and it is signed “Your Church”. Also, hand written on the inside, is a long note, sharply criticizing the plans for the upcoming Christmas Eve service you are planning, with words that are insulting and mean, which is also signed “Your Church”. The person who sent this card was passive by hiding behind an anonymous signature, the church’s return address and a beautiful card, yet aggressive by the insulting note. The behavior in this incident was both lurking and attacking. The proper way to handle this would have been to just talk with the worship leader, sharing your concerns in an honest and open way. I am sure that you can think of many other examples of passive aggressive behavior that you have encountered over the years.
These 3 types of defensive behaviors are all based on an inner being filled with fear. These behaviors continue the cycle of fear. The person gets hurt, so they hurt others, who retaliate, and it never ends. But God has provided a way to break this cycle, a way to start down the path of healing, towards wholeness. Pastor Rom has been preaching about this the last few weeks, because the way is God’s love for us. This love is the path God has provided for us to move from an inner being filled with fear to an inner being filled of love. Over time, God’s love can actually live inside of us, replacing the fear and healing the wounds inside of us and inside of those around us. Please listen to this message of transformation and love from scripture:.
“13 And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. 14 Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. 16 We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.
God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. 17 And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.
18 Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. 19 We love each other because he loved us first.” 1 John 4:13-19 (NLT)
Assertive Behavior
The type of behavior that is based on God’s love is called Assertive behavior. When we believe God loves us, we see ourselves and others as children of God who are important, and who have feelings, ideas and opinions that are worth listening to. Assertive behavior is integral and essential to the Christian lifestyle. It is behavior that:
- honors self while honoring others.
- includes a wide variety of actions, depending on the situation.
- accepts responsibility for choosing our own emotions and reactions.
- is honest, direct, open communication, based on the understanding that we are all loved by God.
Next week I will talk more about Assertive behavior and how Jesus is the example we can follow to break the cycle of fear-based behavior in our lives. For now, let’s spend the next few minutes looking at this message of love from 1 John 4, specifically verse 13: “And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us.”
Breathe
Do you hear, with your heart and your mind, what this verse says? Let me read it again: “And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us.” Through Jesus, God, who is Love, has given us the gift of the Spirit, who will live inside of us. To me, this is a totally amazing and overwhelming statement, which is hard to grasp. So I did a little research and found that the root of the word for Spirit is “breath”. Also, the word “living” in this scripture can be translated as “to breathe the same air”.
This connection between the Spirit of God and breath can be traced back to the ancient Hebrew people, who believed a person’s breath was their life. When someone died, God took their breath away; that is what made them die. If a person lived, it was because God kept putting God’s breath, God’s Spirit, into the person. It was the presence of the Spirit of God that kept the person alive, not physical bodily functions.
With this information, let’s look at verse 13 again, substituting the translations:
“ And Love (God) has given us his breath (Spirit) as proof that we breathe (live) in him and he in us.”
Now breathing is something that I do understand! It is something I do all the time, but it is not something I have especially associated with God before. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. God created all of us, and the air, so when we breathe in air, it is like we are breathing in God’s Spirit of love. And in order for us to have our inner being filled with love instead of fear, we need to be able to really believe that God’s love can live inside of us.
I am a hands-on learner, so in order to really understand something, I need to do it. Maybe some of you are the same way, so I would like all of us to practice this together for a few moments. While you breathe in, be aware of God’s Spirit or breathe, coming into you, bringing you love. While you breathe out, imagine you are breathing out all of your impurities, your fears and your negative feelings. Think of the air as an immense ocean that surrounds you, filled with presence of the Spirit of God, which is love. Please join me by relaxing, closing your eyes and focusing on your breathing for just a few moments.
God’s love is real, always available and ready to help us when we face difficult situations. Being aware of our breathing can be a way to connect to the Spirit of God, which is love, anytime and anyplace. It is simple and free! There are two exercises in the Next Steps on your bulletin insert that I hope will help you focus on God’s love during this coming week:
During your time of private prayer, concentrate on your breathing for a few minutes. Reflect on the concept that the air you breathe was created by God, just as your body was. As you breathe, imagine your whole body becoming radiant and alive with God’s love.
Several times a day, try to really focus on the message and truth of your words. Are your words honest, direct, open, and filled with God’s love for both yourself and those you are speaking with?
I would like to close with a quote from Kenneth Haugk, the Founder of Stephen Ministry, who summarizes all of this very clearly:
“The presence of the Holy spirit gives Christians courage in their personal relationships. As the Holy Spirit fills us with power, we all have a growing ability to make careful choices based on our faith and on our personal understanding of God’s will for our lives. As the Holy Spirit fills us with God’s love, we thank God that we can by God’s power behave selflessly, respectfully and compassionately toward others. And, as the Holy Spirit fills us with self-control, we accept responsibility for our behavior; live a life accountable to God, and approach challenges and life tasks with perseverance. With God’s Spirit alive in us, we can rise above timidity and be faithful and strong in the Lord!” Kenneth Haugk, Speakiing the Truth in Love