It may sound strange, but when Jesus declares \u201cI must preach the Good News of the Kingdom of God\u201d (Luke 4:43) He is also inviting us to enter His school of the martial arts\u2014His \u201cDojo.\u201d In the martial arts we learn to use the momentum of our enemy and redirect it in our favor. It\u2019s the skill of defusing the assault of what seems a much larger attacker by using the force of that attacker against him. And this is the problem facing the Trinity\u2014the \u201cmuch larger attacker\u201d of humanity is separation from God through death, the consequence of our original sin. And the grace won by His sacrifice on the cross is the redirection of the assault into redemption.<\/p>\n
In the martial arts, one strategy emphasizes a \u201chard\u201d approach\u2014match violence with violence. But the second strategy is \u201csoft,\u201d and it is more shrewd, more Jesus-y: \u201cThe goal of the soft technique is deflecting the attacker\u2019s force to his or her disadvantage, with the defender exerting minimal force and requiring minimal strength.\u201d If we consider our twisted schemas and distorted narratives (the natural consequences of our brokenness) as the attackers they are, then perhaps we can learn from Jesus how to counter their influence in our thought life, redirecting their force using strategies that reflect the soft technique of the martial arts.<\/p>\n
We see God practicing this soft technique in the life of Joseph. After the envy and cruelty of his brothers, who sell him to slave traders and lie to their father about his fate, Joseph confronts them with the truth. They are desperate and needy now, because a famine has spread across the world and only Egypt (because of Joseph\u2019s prophetic leadership) has the food reserves to survive it. So the brothers come to Egypt to beg for help, at first unaware that their fate is in the hands of the brother they left for dead. When Joseph reveals himself, the brothers (naturally) fear for their lives, especially after their father Jacob dies. But Joseph tells them:<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t be afraid of me. Am I God, that I can punish you? You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. No, don\u2019t be afraid. I will continue to take care of you and your children\u201d (Genesis 50:19\u201321, emphasis added).<\/p>\n
Joseph\u2019s Organizing Principle (the lens through which we see all of life) would\u2019ve included \u201cEven Personal Pain Can Be Redeemed For Good.\u201d Here he is relating more than his own experience of God\u2014he is describing a martial-arts pattern in the way God relates to all of us. God will take what is intended to harm us and redirect its momentum into a life-giving, redemptive outcome. But we have to bring Him the harmful thing in our life\u2014the destructive momentum of our self-narrative\u2014so He can \u201creapply\u201d the force of it to bless instead of curse. Jesus is inviting us to give Him the raw material of our pain; He won\u2019t waste the impact of that pain if we actually give it to Him to work with. He will then take the momentum of our shattered life and treat it as clay, the medium He\u2019ll use to fashion a new work of art. He is a martial artist. And here is how we can partner with Him in this work:<\/p>\n
I (Rick) have a friend who experienced debilitating trauma when he was young, and was having great trouble overcoming the narrative seeds planted in his soul as a result. His counselor advised him to start telling his story to those in his close Christian community, but he resisted at first: \u201cMy counselor at the time was encouraging me to share my story of abuse with others, but I was reluctant because it seemed like asking a lot of those around me to \u2018carry the weight\u2019 of that story. My counselor reminded me that part of the calling of true community is to bear the burden of one another\u2019s stories. It was transformative for me to realize I needed my community to help me bear my story, just as they needed me to help them bear theirs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clinical psychologist Todd Essig adds: \u201cIntrospection is a closed system. Patterns of growth only emerge by opening yourself to input from others. Can you imagine doing a search on an iPhone with no network connection? Even the best search strategy, i.e., introspection alone, would be terribly limited. So too with cognition, feeling, and desire.\u201d We who represent the \u201cnetwork connection\u201d (the Body of Christ) to those whose interior narratives hold killer intent can \u201cbe Jesus\u201d to them by asking questions that might seem like \u201cprying\u201d to our risk-averse sensibilities. I (Rick) often ask people lots of follow-up questions about their story, using cues from what they share to take the conversation deeper. When I explain to others what I do, their first response is that I must get a lot of awkward, pushback responses. But the opposite is true\u2014most people are so starved for someone who will pursue their story as if they actually care about it that I\u2019ve never, ever had someone balk at my pursuit.<\/p>\n
Learn to question your self-narratives. Jesus, who physically left the earth so that the Spirit of Truth could enter our hearts and influence us from the inside out, plants in us a love for truth in all its forms. We can join the Spirit\u2019s work in our life by questioning the \u201cgivens\u201d of our interior narratives, using the force of their arguments to expose their weak foundation. That means we ask ourselves questions like these:<\/p>\n
-Is this true in light of what I know about Jesus? (Is this the sort of way Jesus would really talk or act? Can I imagine Jesus urging people to get on board with this?)<\/p>\n
-Is this a truth universally embraced by the Body of Christ? (Jesus insists on a diversity of gifts and perspectives in his \u201cBody,\u201d so how would a \u201cfoot\u201d or a \u201chand\u201d or an \u201ceye\u201d weigh in on this truth?)<\/p>\n
-Is it biblically true? (Is this truth consistent with what Jesus says and does in the gospel accounts of His life, and is it congruent with the \u201cmeta-narrative\u201d of the Bible\u2019s message?)<\/p>\n
-Is it true based on what I already know is true about the Kingdom of God? (Jesus told parables to help us understand how things work in the Kingdom of God, so does this truth fit with what his parables have already revealed, or would it violate something Jesus has already made clear?)<\/p>\n
-Is it true on the face of it? (If I scratch the surface of this truth do I find a wellanchored foundation or a thin veneer under it? How quickly does it fall apart under closer scrutiny?)<\/p>\n
-Is the source of this truth healthy and Jesus-centered, or does it come from a distorted, unreliable source? (Is this truth obviously serving a twisted, damaged, or pre-determined agenda?)<\/p>\n
-Is it the full truth, or does it represent only disconnected snippets of truth? (What has been left out, accidentally or on purpose, in the description or context of this truth?)<\/p>\n
-Is it a culturally bent truth that serves a self-centered agenda? (Is it a truth that makes sense no matter where I come from, or has it been reconfigured to support a narrow cultural perspective?)<\/p>\n
-A \u201cVictim\u201d OP might generate this thought: \u201cThis world is out to get me. That person\u2019s random comment was meant to hurt me.\u201d Label: That\u2019s my Personal-Attack story.<\/p>\n
-A \u201cClueless\u201d OP might generate this thought: \u201cI\u2019m really just a Poser\u2014I don\u2019t really know what I\u2019m doing, so I fake it.\u201d Label: That\u2019s my Poser story.<\/p>\n
-A \u201cNever Enough\u201d OP might generate this thought: \u201cNo matter how hard I try, or how much effort I throw at things, it never seems enough.\u201d Label: That\u2019s my Poverty story.<\/p>\n
-A \u201cTry Harder to Be Better\u201d OP might generate this thought: \u201cIf I can just reach the goals I\u2019ve set for myself everything in my life will be okay.\u201d Label: That\u2019s my Overachiever story.<\/p>\n
The idea is to get in touch with the common way you deal with struggles or hurts or disappointments in your life, identify the story you tell yourself, then give that story a label. Then, in the middle of that repetitive narrative cycle in your head, simply speak out that label, then treat it like a bird you\u2019ve captured and let it fly away. Better yet, when you\u2019ve identified the story and given it a label, ask Jesus to take it from you and release it \u201cinto the wild.\u201d Do this as often as you need to during your everyday life\u2014there is no \u201cacceptable limit\u201d for the number of times you may need to repeat this \u201cjailbreak\u201d habit.<\/p>\n
Yes, Jesus will help us define our identity directly and indirectly through His Body, and He will \u201cedit\u201d our OP as we \u201cput away childish things\u201d (1 Corinthians 13:11). But this process will not have traction in our life until we write it all down. Consider this a quest to develop your personal mission statement\u2014the purpose of your life, and the way you are determined to live with your relationship with Jesus at the center of it. It\u2019s a preemptive shift to living more intentionally, rather than drifting with the current of your default OP.<\/p>\n
Dr. Daniel Emina is a child\/adolescent and adult psychiatrist, the associate medical director of Amen Clinics, and the co-author of <\/strong>The Suicide Solution <\/strong><\/em>(Sept. 14, 2021).<\/strong><\/p>\n Rick Lawrence is an award-winning author, journalist, cultural researcher, editor, national speaker, and the co-author of <\/strong>The Suicide Solution <\/strong><\/em>(Sept. 14, 2021).<\/strong><\/p>\n Excerpt taken from\u00a0The Suicide Solution: Finding Your Way Out of the Darkness\u00a0<\/em>by Dr. Daniel Emina and Rick Lawrence. Available Sept. 14, 2021. Used by permission of Salem Books.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n It may sound strange, but when Jesus declares \u201cI must preach the Good News of the Kingdom of God\u201d (Luke 4:43) He is also inviting us to enter His school of the martial arts\u2014His \u201cDojo.\u201d In the martial arts we learn to use the momentum of our enemy and redirect it in our favor. It\u2019s … Continue reading “Rewriting Your Narrative”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33099\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}