Christians, Now Is the Time to Empathize with Those Feeling Fear and Rejection

I am thankful to have this post shared on desiringGod.com today:
http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/let-s-rise-to-love-those-left-in-fear

This is the heaviest and most urgent thing on my heart this week. I pray all Christians would consider this. Real people - friends - feel singled out and afraid because of specific words aimed at their race, religion, gender, or group by the president-elect or by people jumping on the publicity. This is not about whether you think these thoughts are overreactions or not. We need to empathize, no matter how we voted and no matter how we personally feel about the results. Loving our neighbors as Christ loved us certainly includes having empathy for their fears.

With Christians being credited as heavily supporting president-elect Trump's rise to the presidency, many people are questioning whether these attitudes reflect our hearts too. It's up to us to show our fellow citizens how Christians care for those who are vulnerable and afraid, and to show them the Gospel doesn't have political boundaries.

A Short, Glorious Life: Jamison and Kathryne Pals Went to Heaven instead of Japan

Your life may be more important than you think. I hope this will show you why, and increase your joy in what The Lord brings you to do each day. I think this is something the Pals family would have wanted. Jamison and Kathryne Pals were a young couple that attended our church. They were preparing to move to Japan as missionaries. They would bring with them their four-year-old son, two-year-old daughter, and a newborn son. Last weekend the whole family was on the road to Colorado for the final part of their training before moving overseas.  

In April, Jamison's blog Joy of Japan included a post with these words which he wrote to his wife Kathryne three years ago:

“I do not know how things will turn out for us.  As a husband I feel obligated to lead our family toward obedience—whatever the end may be.  Whether it is life or death or discomfort or disappointment, it is clear the Lord Jesus calls us not to an easy life.  However, He calls us to take up our cross just as He did to suffer and die.  Perhaps we will toil for years to raise support and never make it overseas.  Perhaps we will go and utterly fail as missionaries from all the worldly perspectives.  Perhaps we will labor for decades without any visible fruit.  Or perhaps through willing obedience many will pass from death to eternal life.” 

That road of obedience led them through Nebraska last Sunday. In the middle of the afternoon, a semi crashed into their car from behind and the impact caused a fire that took the lives of the entire Pals family.

Many people would only see this as a sad and tragic end to their dreams and hopes. Yet while the grief of family and friends is tremendous, there is also a surge of hope rising up in the midst of it. I did not get the joy of knowing the Pals personally, but I know friends who did, and I see that hope rising to the surface for them. In the stories that follow below, you can see that same hope in their parents. Part of the reason for that hope is that we firmly believe that the Pals are in the presence of God now, where there is no sorrow or regret at being welcomed home early. Christians know that the presence of God is unending joy and uninterrupted worship. Forever. That is why Paul says that to depart and be with Christ is "far better" than life on earth. (Phil. 1:23).

Another reason for that hope is that God never wastes our obedience and devotion to Him. Christianity has a history that shows extraordinary results from the humble deaths of people who loved the Lord. Sometimes death can produce a greater impact than a long life, if you leave the right things behind you. There is much that the lives of Jamison and Kathryne may yet do for the people of Japan and others who will be inspired by their story. The news of the accident as reported in the Omaha World-Herald the next day was full of details on the missionary vision for loving the people of Japan that had brought the Pals through Nebraska. Their story has been nationwide news. People magazine ran an exclusive story on its website this week that, again, displayed the heart of the Pals in bringing the Gospel to people in Japan. It also included many quotes from their parents showing their hope in the Lord even while mourning. Their blog Joy of Japan will now be read by far more people than they ever may have dreamed it would. How many of those people will learn for the first time that the 120 million Japanese people in Japan have almost no Christian witness among them? (See the Joshua Project for more.) Imagine if their story caused another 10, or 20, or even more people to dedicate their lives to the Gospel in Japan.

This has reminded me of another missionary, Amy Carmichael. Amy served in southern India from 1895 until her death in 1951. She worked to rescue young girls from sexual slavery and established a school and home to support and train rescued children, named Dohnavur Fellowship. In 1931, as she was concerned about financial support for the school, she suffered a terrible accident. She fell into a pit inside a dark house just rented for the school's purposes, breaking her leg and twisting her spine. It left her bedridden for the rest of her life. She was unable to actively serve in the ministry of the school she had worked so hard to found and support, although she continued to direct and lead it. While confined to bed, she wrote prose and poetry that ended up becoming known around the world. Through this writing, the work of her school and home for rescued children also became known across the globe, and her ministry received enough support that the Dohnavur Fellowship continues today.

Who can say how the Lord may now use the lives of Jamison and Kathryne? Amy Carmichael's personal disaster ended up making the work of sharing the Gospel in India known and funded, also drawing attention to the horror of young girls being enslaved and exploited in the temples. But she likely never imagined her work would gain such attention. She was just doing what she believed God wanted her to do. Just like Jamison and Kathryne followed the Lord in preparing to serve in Japan.

How should we feel after reading such testimonies? Usually we feel impressed, awed, and a little small in comparison. Often we feel guilty, too, as if we aren't doing enough to measure up to such devotion to God. I want to persuade you to set those thoughts of guilt aside. Instead, I think reading about the lives of the Pals and of Amy Carmichael should encourage us about our daily work and study. All they were doing was what they could, no matter how small. They had no idea where it would lead. Amy Carmichael couldn't have known that writing poems to express her feelings and faith would end up creating worldwide interest in her ministry in India and lead to generous giving and support. 

Jamison and Kathryne Pals had the same humble thoughts about what they were doing. And now, because they just kept seeking God first in how they used their time, and did not despise doing small things, holding to the hope that one day that faithfulness might produce a great result, their story is being read around the world. I hope and believe that the kind of impact they wanted to make with their lives and devotion to the Gospel will spread even farther through their unexpected deaths, showing people a faith that is worth living for and losing everything (on earth) for. If we want to honor their lives and their passion, I think we could start by seeing the ordinary things in our lives as vastly important to what God may do some day in the future. Maybe we won't see the future results ourselves, and maybe we will. But just as with the Pals and Amy Carmichael, the important thing is that other people would see, and believe.

For Supporting the Vision of Jamison and Kathryne Pals

Here is a video of the memorial service from Saturday, August 6, at Bethlehem Baptist Church. It was a remarkable service. This is one more way their story can be shared.



If you’d like to help the family with expenses, they have a GoFundMe page to raise money to bring the family’s ashes to Japan. https://www.gofundme.com/joyofjapan

Jamison’s father asked that, above all, people might take some time to read the Joy of Japan blog, and learn what they were truly about. https://joyofjapan.org

Pastor Jason Meyer of Bethlehem wrote this about the Pals. The University of Northwestern-Saint Paul radio ministry, KTIS.fm, shared the words of Jamison's father and friends of Jamison and Kathryne (along with the WCCO article linked within). The People story highlights the thoughts of Kathryne's parents.

Addiction: How to Help Each Other (Part III) – Getting Past Secrecy and Concealment, and Building Trust

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Galatians 6:1

I’ve taken three posts to lay out what I’ve learned about the psychology and entrapment of addiction, in the hope that this will help others understand the thinking and temptations that drive the addictions of people they love

Part I tackled what addictions looks like and how they compare to idolatry, and listed a number of reasons people get trapped in addictions and why they fear discovery and accountability.

Part II covers why addicted people lie and conceal their behavior, and the combination of pride and shame that trap people in addiction.

Part III is a blow-by-blow examination of what concealment and evasion by addicted people looks like, and how to get beyond it and walk with a person through recovery. This post is the longest because I've gone all out to give a playbook for helping a person through recovery. Not all sin is an addiction in the way I’ve described it, but there are many sins that can’t be overcome without understanding the patterns of addiction. If you are trying to help a friend break out of adultery, or alcohol or drug abuse, or pornography, or gambling, or anything else that has taken over their lives, you need to watch out for the patterns below.

Image: valiantrecovery.ca
http://ow.ly/busB302di1C

Not everyone will act like this, because some people who struggle with the things above are not yet controlled by them. So I do not want to mislead anyone into thinking every single person who struggles with these vices and sins is exactly the same. Some people may not be this imprisoned yet, and you may be able to help them work through their repeated abuse of something with cooperation and honesty. But you need to be aware of these patterns of concealment, because the biggest problem in helping many addicted people is that those with severe addictions are very good at making people think they only have a small problem.

I have tried to cover the most common patterns of deception and concealment that addicts use to keep their addiction secret or to resist help and accountability, and how to counter them. This post is uncomfortable to write, because it feels very judgmental. There simply isn’t any polite way to say that your friend with an addiction is going to lie and deceive you. If you suspect a friend has an addiction, and you want to help them, you are going to have to prepare yourself for this fact.

Bracing Yourself to Confront a Friend

Addiction warps our thinking and desires because we have become completely dependent on satisfying the need for whatever we have as an addiction. It changes your personality. A very good picture is the transformation of Frodo in The Lord of the Rings. In spite of the gentlest and most sincere motives and character, Frodo begins to be changed by possessing the One Ring. The Ring has such a powerful attraction for whoever holds it that it becomes the dominant thing in their minds. Frodo changes into a person who distrusts everyone around him, even his perfectly faithful friend Sam. He becomes suspicious that others are trying to take the Ring, and he reacts angrily or defensively if anyone suggests parting him from the Ring. His motives and attitude are reshaped around the single goal of protecting his possession of the Ring.

Image: http://coeurdalenecounseling.com/

This is a glimpse under the surface of addiction. Most people you know who have an addiction will not visibly react the way Frodo did. They usually try at all costs to project an image of being in control and of being normal. But what has happened to their thinking and their personality is very much the same. An addicted person will see anyone who interferes with their addiction as someone to be manipulated. They will be increasingly willing to lie to that person, and to treat them as a person to “work around” instead of a trusted friend or spouse or family member. It is horrendously painful for a spouse or close friend to discover that the addicted person they love is sneaking around behind their back and concealing their behavior. But the addicted person learns a pattern of concealment in order to prevent anyone from hindering their ability to satisfy their need.

So as difficult as it is to examine and test the person you love to see if they are being honest, you have to take courage and do it if you suspect an addiction. They are not going to help you find out what’s going on. The only way to free them is to get past the deception so you know what’s really going on. And they really need your help. So be encouraged that what you are doing is a work of mercy, and a service of love that God encourages: “My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” (James 5:19-20)

1. Common Concealment Patterns:

These are some examples of how people with addictions keep them hidden (which also tells you what to watch out for). In the next part I’ll describe ways to detect and overcome these things. Not every addicted person will show all these behaviors, and of course many people use some of these tactics even without an addiction. But you can expect a combination of these from a person with a serious addiction. So look for multiple examples together that form a pattern.

• Not volunteering information on what they have been doing, and being vague if asked.
• Only giving partial answers - for example, after being at a bar, saying: "I was just out getting something to eat."
• Asking friends to cover for them to meet responsibilities - often without explaining why. Taking time away from work or other responsibilities and having someone else cover for them is a way to sneak in their addiction while keeping it hidden from family.
• Not answering the phone or the door, because it might give away what they've been doing.
• Not showing up to things they previously said they would do, and giving odd excuses afterwards.
• Starting new patterns in how they use their time that allow them extra gaps on their own - heading to the gym every morning or taking a class in the evenings, which allows for unaccounted time away from people who might be suspicious.
• Telling different stories to different people so that no one can see the whole picture of this person's life.
• Compartmentalizing and friend-shopping: addicted persons will often withdraw from people who begin to show suspicions of the addiction, and seek out new friends or a closer relationship with previous acquaintances so they can start fresh with someone unaware of what's going on. This cycle may continue each time people start to guess the truth.
• Co-opting allies: similar to friend-shopping, they may look for people to be "on their side" and manipulate the relationship so this person believes their story and will vouch for them. For instance, arranging an accountability partner who is ignorant of what's going on, and then convincing this person their accountability sessions are really solid and transparent. Then when questioned by others, they can say: "Talk to my accountability partner. He'll tell you it's going great."
• Hiding charges and costs for the addiction by taking out cash instead of using credit cards.
• Deleting things that would give them away: e-mails, social media accounts, files on computers, credit card statements, etc.
• Sneaking money from work, family, or other people whose accounts they have access to in order to feed the need they can no longer afford.
• The "small" confession: admitting to something bad, but much less than what they are hiding, and acting out an apology. They often learn that they can throw people off the scent by making them think they got to the bottom of it, and by humbly apologizing.
• Minimizing: insisting that whatever they did was just a little bit. For instance, in my experience, almost everyone who has abused alcohol will say they only had 1 or 2. It's nearly universal. You can expect an addict to make their behavior seem as small as possible, only admitting what they think they cannot possibly evade.
• Selective memory: in the process of self-justification, you’ll often hear things like “It was just that one time” even when it was actually three or four. Addicted people tend to “forget” or gloss over all the examples of their addiction being out of control, and try to pick just one or two to explain away. You’ll often have to remind them how many times it really happened.
• Using emotions to deflect and evade discussion of suspicions: getting angry when questioned, or falling apart and saying "I can't take this right now!"
• The play for sympathy: when questioned, coming up with something else really heavy or painful that is happening to them and making the conversation all about this difficult thing they're going through.
• In general, simply controlling conversations by steering them to something away from their addictive behavior. There's always something else more important to talk about.
• Hiding the tools of their addiction where they can access them in secret.
• "I'm cured." - when push comes to shove, an addicted person may go through a process of agreeing they have a problem, swearing they will stop/get help, and then saying they are finished with the addiction... then resuming it in secret, while continuing to say they are staying clean.

2. Uncovering the Secrets and Creating Openness and Honesty

A. Figuring Out What's Going On

Helping an addicted person is a team effort. If you try to do the things I've described in this post by yourself, you can easily burn out. Trying to keep up regularly with someone who is not very eager to be accountable, and who needs constant accountability, is exhausting and discouraging. So get all the help you can.

Image: www.helpguide.org
http://ow.ly/MOBT302dkTT

You also need help because detecting and uncovering a pattern of concealment often requires comparing notes with other people in a person's life. You need to be willing to talk to others and express your concerns without allowing yourself to feel like you're betraying your friend. Be selective about who you enlist to help, but make sure you have a complete picture of your friend's life and time. You need their spouse and family to be involved if possible.

Since a person in addiction will do their best to convince you everything is fine, you have to be able to account for what's going on when you're not around. You need to be able to confront them about what they're doing so that they can't talk their way out of it. Building up all this information may feel a lot like you're being self-righteous or judging them, but keep in mind that you're not doing this because you're smarter or more righteous than them: you're doing this because they are blinded by their addiction, and you are still able to see straight. They can't do it without your help.

If you're recognizing some of the behaviors listed above in your friend, that may be enough to confront him or her and challenge them about what's going on. The difficulty is having enough evidence of a pattern of behavior that he or she can't talk their way out of it. Otherwise the conversation goes nowhere. Here are some other things to do:

• Don't accept questionable excuses. If you think something's going on, then when your friend gives an explanation that isn't believable, call them out on it. Look them in the eye and say: "Tell me what's going on."
• Make it clear you won't accept anything less than the full story. Keep pressing for it as long as you suspect they are holding out on you.
• When you compare notes with others, trust them. For instance, if your friend's wife tells you he was out all night and wouldn't say where he was, then when you get to talk to him, don't accept any contradictions from him or let him dismiss what she said. Stick firmly to the facts you've been given.
• Make it clear to the person that you care about them and you can be trusted, but that you can't be manipulated or controlled. Let them see that although you're steadfast in your support for them, you aren't going to let them talk you out of what needs to be done or let them mislead you.
• Take control of conversations if there's an elephant in the room. Don't let your friend change the subject when there are questions in the air about what's going on in his or her life. Steer back to it and insist on talking it through all the way. The more they try to change the subject, the more reason you have to think something's being concealed.
• Stick to your guns. Be firm in your understanding of facts and your memory of what's been happening. An addicted person will often resort to telling you that you're remembering it wrong or that you misunderstood something. Be careful you had your facts straight going in, but once you do, don't hesitate about them. Stand firm.
• Seize moments where things are at a crisis. If you strongly suspect an addiction, then when someone has just lost a job, or had a spouse leave or kick them out, or been arrested, or otherwise accused by a friend of something, this is the time to have a straight talk with them and ask what is really behind this. When the evidence that their addiction is wrecking their life is right in front of them, they are more likely to confess it to a friend and seek sympathy.
• Pin the addicted person down to talking about their addict behavior and the problems it has created. When they try to explain something away that is clearly wrong, press them on it and challenge them on why they aren't admitting that was a problem. This is part of getting them to admit they are addicted and need help. Admitting the symptoms of the problem is one step toward admitting there is a problem.
• Fact-check: as much as possible, try to independently verify what they tell you. Don't take anything for granted. If they tell you a story their spouse or family would know about, check the facts with the spouse or family to see if they told you the truth. This is crucial, because if you catch your friend lying to you, that gives you something to confront them about even if you don't know for certain what is going on with their addiction. It gives you a valid reason to ask them why they're acting like this.
• Don't be self-conscious about telling them you know something's wrong. Even if you can't prove it or spell it out, if it's clear that they've changed and things aren't right, confront them about that. Stand your ground and press them on why things have changed. You don't necessarily have to know what's going on in order to know something's wrong, and they can only make excuses for so long before they realize you aren't going to buy any of them.
• Don't accept being avoided. If they start withdrawing from you or avoiding you when you make your suspicions clear, find ways to pursue meeting with them and talking to them. Coordinate with other friends and family if necessary.
• Don't apologize for trusting your gut. 
• If you become convinced that an actual intervention is necessary, where friends and family confront the person together, get advice from a counselor, doctor, pastor, or someone else trained to deal with addiction and plan it carefully.

Once you have your friend's agreement that they need accountability, it has to be a ground rule that you have total permission to ask them anything and to ask anyone else close to them about anything. You know your friend is serious about accepting help and fighting the addiction when they will agree to this. If they don't, you need to get them to that point by showing them that you can't help them if you can't be sure you know what's going on. You don't have to beat them up about their past deception (and you shouldn't), but you should focus on the fact that they have been enslaved by their addiction and the only way out is total honesty and transparency.

Regular meetings for accountability should include questions you ask the person in order to review how they're doing and find out what they're having trouble with this week. You can find many good examples on addiction support websites and counseling websites like those I've linked to. You want to cover whether they have done any of the things associated with their addiction, and also whether they have allowed themselves to be around triggers and places of temptation for their addiction. You should also go over whether they are following through with things like support group meetings and their other responsibilities, since failing to do this is a sign of backsliding in addiction. And an important final question you should both get used to is: "Have you just lied to me?" This needs to be something that can be asked and answered without defensiveness, so start using it right away and insist on an environment with no excuses or evasions.

B. Creating Openness and Trust

Ed Welch says: “If you want to help addicts, you will create a culture that delights in openness and honesty. Be someone with whom they can speak without fear of self-righteous judgment. Invite them to speak this new language of truthfulness, in which they speak honestly and aim to know the Truth—who is the antidote to all idolatry.” Welch, Two Underused Biblical Resources

A large part of the battle with an addicted person is getting them to not only admit they have an addiction, but be willing to admit it in front of you. People enslaved by addictions fear accountability because it will mean they lose control over being able to satisfy their addiction. They really don’t want to have someone looking over their shoulder, even a trusted friend who loves them and wants to help them. You have to gain their trust by helping them see how badly they need this help, and you also need to show them that they can be transparent in front of you without losing your love and respect.

Whatever else we're addicted to, just about everyone is addicted to other people's approval.

Image: http://ow.ly/gFFg302dlln

So even an addicted person who knows they have a problem and is willing to accept help is still going to be reluctant to admit all the shameful truth and guilty behavior to someone else. You really have to encourage this person that they can trust you to love them no matter what they say, and prove it by doing that even when you get shocked or disappointed. For instance, when you figure out for the fifth time that the addicted person has been lying to you and concealing more addictive behavior, you need to be able to forgive them and keep treating them with patience and love. That doesn't mean there aren't consequences; but it means that you don't start treating them less like a friend and more like a project. Addiction is so humiliating and disheartening all by itself that people trapped in it kind of expect others to give up on them. Often they have given up on themselves. To help them, you have to prove them wrong.

However, you also have to enforce boundaries and consequences. The addicted person needs accountability not only to telling you the truth, but also to staying out of addiction. An addicted person has a million different excuses for why they should give into their addiction late at night, or this weekend, or after a hard day. Accountability that helps them change is accountability to very specific boundaries. The boundaries have to keep them away from even the triggers and temptations that lead them to give in to addiction. For an alcoholic, for instance, they need to avoid all bars and places that serve alcohol, let someone go through their house to remove all alcohol, commit to a support group like Alcoholics Anonymous or Minnesota Adult and Teen Challenge, and change social habits that would put them around alcohol.

And remember, get help from others so that caring for this person is a team effort. Support groups are important because the people there are also struggling with addiction, and so there's no one to impress and no masks necessary to fit in. Getting your friend into a support group so that someone else is regularly providing accountability and encouragement is a high priority.

C. Make No Excuses for Them

This is a critical bottom line: never minimize the problem of addiction, even to try and cheer someone up. Your job is to encourage them, but not by making their problem seem less serious. That is a disastrous mistake that many people commonly make. When they see how depressed and discouraged the addicted person is, especially when talking about their addiction and its consequences, friends are moved to try to encourage them by softening the guilt.

This is pretty natural as a part of sympathy and mercy, and we do it with good effects in a lot of other areas of shame and guilt. Often people who are really broken over their sinful and selfish behavior tend to beat themselves up too much, once they finally get to the point of admitting how bad their actions have been. But with an addict there is a fundamental difference: the addict has been believing all along that he or she doesn’t have a problem, or at least that the problem isn’t serious, and has built up an elaborate web of self-deception. Addicts have gone to great lengths to convince themselves they can handle their addictive behavior. As you can see from many of the habits and actions I described above, virtually all addicts are trying to grasp on to anyone who will help reinforce the illusion that they are not out of control. You must never become that person.

In both previous posts, I gave examples of why addicted people are scared and reluctant to face life without being able to have their addiction to fall back on for escape or comfort. The last thing they want to have to admit and face is that they really have a problem that makes them unable to keep doing what they want to do to get relief. They don’t want to believe they have to stop. They don’t want to believe they have to give up their freedom to choose when and how they get relief. They don’t want to accept that others are right in intervening and stopping them. They don’t want to bear the shame or embarrassment of acknowledging they can't be trusted to use their own time without accountability.

So the thing you absolutely must avoid is reinforcing their desire to minimize the danger and seriousness of the addiction. The most loving thing you can do is not let them deceive themselves at all. You can usually tell a person is doing well in recovering from addiction when they don't make any excuses for their behavior anymore, and don't shrink away from admitting all the worst details. They have to learn to own it. Until they get here, every moment of minimizing or justifying is a step on the road back to addiction.

So when you encourage them, encourage them with other things they have to be thankful for, and other successes in their lives. Don't soften the seriousness of the addiction to be encouraging; focus instead on the other positives in this person's life. Above all, the most liberating and encouraging thing for a person in the shame of addiction should be the constant reminder that they have a Savior and God who accepts them completely no matter how shameful their life has become. They have total freedom to be transparent and honest before this God, because nothing they reveal will change how much He loves them. Of course, He already knows it anyway, but you help them feel the truth of that acceptance by modeling the same sort of acceptance yourself. You show them that they don't have to fear the truth about how bad things are, because they can't lose the love and support from you and from the Lord. Reassure them with the Gospel and the assurance that God's love is not based on how well you perform or how "good" you are.

One of the most successful things you can do in helping your friend is to soak up as much teaching about the Gospel as possible, and use it generously. I have also been very impressed with the insights of the counseling training program from Faith Church in Lafayette, Indiana, which has done training conferences since 1985 and does regional conferences around the country. One of their priorities is to avoid teaching an addicted person to think of their identity as "being an addict." They have to admit they are an addict, but they are much more than an addict. Identity can mold behavior and expectations. So encourage your friend to see himself or herself as a child of God, redeemed, loved, and blessed with unique and important talents from God that are meant to be used in a special calling in this life. They have an addiction problem, which is serious, but their life and identity is much more than their addiction.

A Post-Script and Caution: The Danger of Thinking You're Cured

One of the significant dangers for addicts is that after staying out of trouble for some period of time, and getting things under control, they often start thinking they can relax things a little. That leads to relaxing things a lot. Most addicted people get tired of the limitations and boundaries long before they are actually recovered. I have seen too many people slip right back into their addictions because they weren't willing to keep careful boundaries anymore. So as a friend, you need to resist that mindset every time. You need to remind them why they can't stop taking this seriously. You need to talk against the voice in their head that is trying to justify their own freedom to do what they want.

Alcoholics have reported that no matter how long they have been sober, if they start taking a drink again, they swiftly drop right back to the worst level of alcohol abuse they were at before. The pattern of addiction takes over again, and you don't start back out at a low tolerance, as if the time away from your addiction has reset you to some immunity to the addiction. As an addict, you are never "cured." You are always vulnerable, and always have to be watchful. Keep your friend honest with himself or herself about this. Recovery from addiction is a permanent lifestyle, not a course of treatment.

When Relieving Stress Turns into an Addiction: How to Help Each Other (Part I)

For Part II - Confronting Deception and Concealment, Pride and Shame, click here.

You would probably be surprised at how many people you know who have addictions. When we think of addiction, we almost always think of alcoholics, smokers, or drug users. Those definitely qualify, but there are countless other types of addictions. They affect far more people than we realize because most people hide their addictions very well. In the last 10 years, I have discovered so many types of addictive behavior affecting fellow Christians and others I come in contact with through criminal law that I know this problem is going to show up eventually in the lives of people in your circle of friends, your small group, or the people you care for at church.

Ed Welch, probably one of the most valuable voices on addiction and idolatry in biblical counseling today, has a short post at CCEF (Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation) with extremely good advice for helping confront an addiction. I am going to expand upon his post because I haven't really addressed addiction directly on this blog, and I want this to be a solid starting point. I'll break this up into a couple of posts. I've learned in my law practice and in church counseling participation that addictions have special challenges to achieving accountability and cooperation from the person trapped in his or her behavior. Being aware of these patterns can save a lot of wasted time and discouragement.

Addictions Are Basically Idolatry - and They Enslave People

Virtually anything can become an addiction. What makes it an addiction is the role it plays in your life, and how it negatively affects other things in your life. If you turn to something to escape from stress, or anxiety, or depression, or pain, or loneliness, or fatigue, or fear, or any other problem, and it becomes your "go-to" escape (the thing you turn to again and again for relief), you're in danger of developing a habit of addiction. What makes it cross the line is when you don't have complete control of the behavior anymore: you start using the escape even when you really should be doing other things, or you use it in ways that leave you unable to meet your responsibilities afterwards. Think of the person who drinks too much and can't come into work on time the next morning, or the person watching pornography or playing online games all night and unable to stay awake at work the next day.

Other signs include taking risks in order to get the relief - doing things that a clear head would tell you are wrong or dangerous. For instance, doing things you know are sin in order to get relief, or using drugs illegally (so now you're risking criminal charges), or being under the influence of something while at work, or drinking before driving to go pick up your kids because you're going to be with them all night and won't have a chance later, etc. For people using pornography, already sinking into sin, it may be moving on to chat rooms where they seek interaction with real people, leading to meeting someone solely for sex or following an advertisement connected to prostitution.

What these all have in common is that the person trying to satisfy an addiction is now jeopardizing other things in life to fulfill their need. It is no longer something they do that seems harmless or private; it is now something they need so much that normal common sense doesn't guide their thinking anymore. The addiction must be satisfied, no matter the risk, and even things that are recklessly foolish don't stop the person because the alternative - that you don't satisfy this need - is unthinkable to them.

Welch says: "Addictions continue their upward swing. Given that we live during a time when self-control is not yet prized, our cultural strategy with hardships is to medicate them away rather than stand in the midst of them. And the possibilities for medicating hardships are always increasing. To sexual obsessions, add illegal drugs, then prescription narcotics, then computer games, and there are more to come. With this in mind, the church has a perennial project: to draw out fresh insights from Scripture on modern addictions, and move toward those who are enslaved by them.

"Many of these insights exist within biblical teaching on idolatry, which has both voluntary and involuntary aspects to it. Human beings both purposefully indulge their desires—we sin because we like it—and we are dominated by those desires. We are both in-control and out-of-control." Welch, Two Underused Biblical Resources

You can see that addiction looks just like idolatry: anything can become an idol, and an idol is something we devote ourselves to so much that it takes disproportionate weight and importance in our lives, being fed at the expense of our devotion to God, our marriage, our children, our job, etc. The idol becomes the thing we must have at all costs. Welch and other CCEF counselors like David Powlison and Paul Tripp have done a great deal of work showing the link between sin and idolatry and addiction, and identifying the patterns of behavior that cause us such trouble. Searching the CCEF site on these topics will bring up a host of useful resources.

Idols aren't just 'false gods' like the carved images described in the Old Testament. Here's Powlison on how Scripture describes idolatry:

First, the Bible internalizes the problem. “Idols of the heart” are graphically portrayed in Ezekiel 14:1-8. The worship of tangible idols is, ominously, an expression of a prior heart defection from YHWH your God. “Idols of the heart” is only one of many metaphors which move the locus of God’s concerns into the human heart, establishing an unbreakable bond between specifics of heart and specifics of behavior: hands, tongue, and all the other members. The First Great Commandment, to “love God heart, soul, mind, and might,” also demonstrates the essential “inwardness” of the law regarding idolatry. The language of love, trust, fear, hope, seeking, serving—terms describing a relationship to the true God—is continually utilized in the Bible to describe our false loves, false trusts, false fears, false hopes, false pursuits, false masters. 

If “idolatry” is the characteristic and summary Old Testament word for our drift from God, then “desires” (epithumiai) is the characteristic and summary New Testament word for the same drift. Both are shorthand for the problem of human beings. The New Testament language of problematic “desires” is a dramatic expansion of the tenth commandment, which forbids coveting (epithumia). The tenth commandment is also a command that internalizes the problem of sin, making sin “psychodynamic.” It lays bare the grasping and demanding nature of the human heart, as Paul powerfully describes it in Romans 7. Interestingly (and unsurprisingly) the New Testament merges the concept of idolatry and the concept of inordinate, life-ruling desires. Idolatry becomes a problem of the heart, a metaphor for human lust, craving, yearning, and greedy demand.

From Idols of the Heart and "Vanity Fair"

Addictions Are Idolatry - But They Are Also 'Medication' for a Bigger Problem

Addiction is definitely an idolatry of the heart, a craving for something other than God to satisfy you. But there is an important layer underneath all of that. Virtually all addicts are enslaved to their addiction because they are hiding from something else. They began using the addiction to 'medicate' away something they couldn't cope with. That means that even if you strip out the drug or alcohol or pornography the person is addicted to, there is a problem underneath that is also out of control. Addictions don't just come from selfishly indulging yourself regardless of the damage it does to others (although they certainly look like that too); they come from deep wounds or fear or anxiety or pain or another affliction. The person underneath is suffering, and they have run to the addiction to make that suffering bearable.

To understand how to help a friend with an addiction, you have to be aware of these things:

1. The addict is afraid to give up his or her addiction. What drives them back to their addiction again and again is something else they feel they can't handle, and they are scared to face it without the numbing escape of their addiction.
2. This means the addict does not really believe he or she can face life without using the addiction.
3. In fact, far from thinking their addiction is ruining their life, a person with an addiction probably believes that using whatever they're addicted to is what makes them able to face life. They think it's what keeps them from falling apart.
4. That means that anyone pressuring them to give up their addiction is threatening to them. It feels like an attack on the one thing they are depending on to make life bearable.
5. Often an addicted person will never believe that their addiction is a problem until things collapse so badly that they realize it is ruining their life. That means that the crucial time to get a person with an addiction into counseling or treatment or other help is right after something disastrous has happened (a DWI, a spouse moving out, losing a job, etc.). The window of shock that allows them to see their addiction as a problem is short. Eventually they will 'medicate' away the shock with their addiction.
6. The answer is not only to convince him or her the behavior is wrong or dangerous, but to also convince the person that they can face life and can overcome whatever it is that is underneath the addiction. They need to believe they don't need it.
7. You need to help them figure out what the underlying problem is. This probably means they will need to see a counselor who has some experience helping people with addictions. Your best help to them is probably to convince them to start counseling.
8. If you don't address the underlying problem, this person will not be able to shake off their addiction. Some people may even abandon one addiction under pressure only to take up another because the same root problem is overwhelming them.
9. This is also why people with addictions can seem to be "cured" for a month or a few months, which often causes friends to stop being vigilant. But when the pressure of life gets too heavy again, or the person feels hopeless, they return to the same addictive behavior to cope. They may tough it out for a while, but unless they have learned to deal with life without the addiction, that's what they'll turn to when they can't take it anymore.

For example, this quote explains a lot about how an addict thinks: "Sharon Hersh is a therapist and an expert on addiction. ... Sharon says that addicts believe two things that fuel their destructive behavior. The addict believes she deserves relief, and that she should be able to choose when and how she gets it. In that sense, we’re all prone to addiction." (From Drunk Believers, by Erik Guzman. Guzman presents a thought-provoking picture of someone who may or may not be an alcoholic or addict.)

Therefore, a massive part of overcoming an addiction is helping the person learn to cope with suffering in a healthy and biblical way. It is also essential to remember that the person is vulnerable, and they turn to their addiction out of desperation. They need a lot of encouragement and positive support. The battle to change these patterns of thought and dependence is hard, and it is common for people to fall back into their addiction because they hit a period of hopelessness and despair where it doesn't seem like it matters anymore. Being sensitive to their moods and the life pressures that are happening to them is very important, so that you can perceive when they may be discouraged and help them fight it.

Click here for Part II - Confronting Deception and Concealment, Pride and Shame, which covers what makes addicted people habitually lie and conceal their behavior, and why it takes so much careful work to get them to be honest and open about what's going on.

Spiritual Coffee: Why Read Chesterton? - Challenging Hollywood for Despising Disabilities - How to Spend Your Life on What Matters Most

Here are the top three things that impressed me as worth your thoughts and reflection from the past couple of days. I put some extra thought into summarizing and quoting some of the main ideas and gems because these topics were so interesting. There were several more I came across while out of town, which I'll catch up on posting later this week. In the meantime, past collections of useful links are under Spiritual Coffee.

Why You Should Read G.K. Chesterton (Even When It's Hard), Matt Nelson (Word on Fire blog)
This is the 80th anniversary of Chesterton's death in 1936. Matt Nelson has a nice and simple set of reasons that Chesterton is desirable reading for anyone (especially any Christian), and some good suggestions for how to stick to it even when he may be difficult to grasp. He also links to the American Chesterton Society, which is a goldmine of resources and help for finding a place to start with Chesterton and understanding his ideas. Here are two suggestions of my own for enjoying Chesterton without getting discouraged:
1) There is a sensory expansion that comes by reading Chesterton. You don't have to "get" everything he is saying in order to grow in your awareness. Like learning to recognize certain scents or colors by experience, you can learn to see wisdom even without fully understanding the logic behind it. Chesterton has an extraordinary gift for turning the world around you into a painting or a fairy tale so that you simply see with different eyes. Some of this is just absorbed from spending time in his mind, so that you begin to notice things you didn't observe before. There is even more value, and some protection, in understanding the logic as well, but it's surely worthwhile to get the wisdom even if the logic trails along afterwards. You have to start seeing before you can understand. I wouldn't say this about any writer, but knowing there's so much solidity and brilliance to Chesterton's thinking makes me very comfortable telling people: "Yes, this is definitely the fountain you want to drink from. Trust me on this one."
2) My second encouragement is to simply enjoy Chesterton. Don't feel pressured to work through the meaning of every single thing he is saying. Feel free to just delight in his prose and wit and the wonder of his imagination. He is a giant among storytellers, so by all means just sit and listen to the story. Chesterton's work often refreshes your soul even when you don't work your way through the intellectual ideas, simply because he pours beauty and wonder out of his pen into everything he writes. On some occasions the best use of a work of art is just to admire it and be moved by it, instead of trying to understand it. Feel free to take what comes freely from Chesterton, and at other times ponder over the parts that make you think. Both are full of grace and truth.

[Nelson:] Nonetheless remembering that “angels can fly because they take themselves lightly”, this larger than life apostle of common sense also took himself lightly because he took his faith seriously. He came to know God but he came to know himself better; which made him a better man. He was—to summarize—a joyfully serious thinker and wordsmith whom people loved (and love).Chestertonian scholar, Dale Ahlquist, writes:“There’s a goodness that just exuded from him...The biographical accounts of Chesterton always portray him as being very joyful, and humble, and good, so that everyone was just drawn to that, including his intellectual and philosophical enemies. The people who violently disagreed with Chesterton on the issues were drawn to him as a person because of his charity.” 

Remember that good physical nutrition presupposes “good chewing” to ensure good digestion. Good intellectual nutrition thus also presupposes “good chewing” to ensure good digestion. Chesterton’s words are like steak, not pudding. Hard work will make your head work, and reading Chesterton is hard head work. Hard work in a Culture Of Convenience might seem inconvenient, but adventuring with Chesterton is worth the rigour. As Chesterton himself says:“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” (from “On Running After Ones Hat”)

Would Hollywood Want the Disabled Dead? - John Knight (Desiring God)
Me Before You: Dear Hollywood, Why Do You Want Me Dead? - Ella Frech (Aleteia)
The movie Me Before You, recently released, tells a disappointing and all too familiar tale of a person with a disability who is surrounded by friends who help him make the 'courageous' choice to destroy himself to escape being disabled. Ella Frech, an 11-year-old girl who is paralyzed and in a wheelchair, wrote the most stunningly insightful rebuke of Hollywood's obsession with portraying disabled people as better off dead. Her courage and bluntness, as well as her peace of mind with her life and her clear understanding that there's nothing "wrong" with her, are magnificent. John Knight has some great observations to go along with it, but Ella Frech definitely steals the show here.

"You sit there with your able bodies, and look at people in chairs and think you feel pity for our sad little lives, but the truth is you’re afraid. You don’t want to imagine that you might be one of us one day. You think you can be perfect, and think you’d rather die than have parts that don’t work right. I think that’s sad."

"While you’re sitting in your offices crying about the bravery of this guy who kills himself and leaves everyone else to mourn him, which seems pretty selfish to me, I’m going to be out living the amazing life you didn’t even bother to know was possible. I have friends, and go on sleep-overs, and live a regular life. A life that doesn’t make me want to die. It makes me happy that it’s mine." 

"This could have been a great movie. It could have been the love story of two people and one of them just happens to use a chair. It happens all the time. The people in love don’t think about the chair. It’s the other people who think it’s a big deal."

"You may not believe in God. You don’t have to, and I can’t make you. But I do, and because of that I believe in the value of all people. I believe we are all made in his image and likeness. That’s why I believe all people are worth something. If you believe that people only get their value from each other, then people can take that away. But if our value comes from God, then nobody has the right to say someone who walks is worth more than someone who doesn’t." 

[John Knight:]

Just as interesting are some comments on her article and other articles with the same viewpoint. While the comments for Ella were mostly supportive (who is going to directly attack such an articulate young girl, especially one with a disability?), even her article generated comments that sought to “correct” her perspective. These comments generally fall into one of two camps:

§           * She isn’t qualified to speak on the subject because she has not read the book or watched the movie.

§          * She misses the point about the movie. It isn’t about disability but about “choice.”

Both assertions are absurd. The one who has lived the life doesn’t need to read another book, or watch another movie, to comment on how the culture treats her.

And, of course, the movie is about disability. The whole “choice” argument made by the right-to-die movement is clearly discriminatory against disability. Even the hashtag for the movie (#liveboldly) applies to the lead character who is not disabled, while the one with the disability only gets to die boldly. At least they didn’t have to make up the organization that kills him — that one really exists in Switzerland.

How to Avoid the Worst Form of Failure, Tim Challies (Challies.com)

[Also includes a link to video/audio of his presentation at a Ligonier conference.]
Everyone struggles to keep their time focused on the most valuable tasks instead of the ones that draw away our attention. Smaller, or simpler, or more pleasant tasks that are less important are constantly luring us away from what really matters most. So any help in keeping our discipline is welcome. The quotes below capture why this is such a wise piece of advice. Challies zeroes in on the core of what makes the difference between a productive, or important, task vs. what makes some things less worthy of our time.

Of course, his advice is a general rule of thumb, and sometimes the opposite will be true. But the value of a concept like this is that when we're struggling to decide where our focus should be, it will steer us right most of the time and save us wasted time going in circles or in the wrong direction. That's worth accepting the necessary footnote of figuring out when to make exceptions. 

"Don’t we all live with this fear that we will succeed at the lesser things in life while failing at the greater things? It’s not like those lesser things are always bad things. Some of them are actually very good. It’s just that they are, by definition, lesser things. They are not the matters of first importance. There is an order to life and we all know that sometimes those lesser things can look so attractive. They can be so distracting. They can keep us from giving attention to the things that matter far more." 

"We are so tempted to throw away all the big things to succeed at the lesser things. But we can’t deny it: Succeeding at lesser things at the cost of the greater things is the worst form of failure." 

"The art of productivity is the art of succeeding at things that matter. At its best, productivity is ensuring that you succeed at the things that matter most. It is meant to ensure that you don’t look back over your life someday and realize you’ve only succeeded at the fleeting things, the minor things, the things that just don’t matter." 

"I believe we can read through the Bible and see something like this: Productivity is effectively stewarding your gifts, talents, time, energy, and enthusiasm for the good of others and the glory of God. What matters most in life, what matters most in the universe, what matters most to God, is the glory of God. God calls us to bring glory to him in every way we can in every area of life and especially by doing good to others (see, for example, Matthew 5:16). We do good to others and God gets the glory. That means that the greater things in life are the things we do for others, not the things we do for ourselves. The greater things in life are the things meant to benefit other people. The lesser things are the things meant to benefit ourselves."

Your Display of the Gospel Is Bound to What You Do with Trump

The public face of evangelical Christianity is about to be tested and determined this month.

Evangelical leaders of different ministries and denominations are about to decide what to do about Donald Trump as a candidate for president. A meeting of nearly 500 evangelical leaders is set for June 21 with Trump and his staff. This is a call for all of us to pray, because regardless of what you think they should do, you can pray for discernment and wisdom and faithfulness to God. They will need it. There are all sorts of wrong reasons that could tempt and persuade someone to support a politician, and they will be present in force that day.

It's also time for us to get serious with each other. What these leaders decide to do is going to reflect on Christianity and the entire church. We all have a right to participate in politics and voting as citizens, but nothing can separate the choices we make there from what people see of our faith and our beliefs about God. When people see what you value and support as a Christian, and how you make decisions, you are testifying to them about what is important to you and what you believe is right. Michael Gerson explains why what these evangelical leaders do is going to mark the church, either with the behavior, attitudes, and vices of Trump or with the convictions we stand on in remaining apart from him. The church is much more than just the political involvement of its members and leaders, but we can't convince people to set aside what we do politically as Christians from what they know about our faith and beliefs. Actions demonstrate beliefs. Choices demonstrate values.

We are ambassadors for Christ - each and every one of us - whose entire lives are a witness of the kingdom of God and the Gospel. Every minute we are testifying to what we believe and what the Gospel is about - even when our testimony is false because our actions are out of step with the Gospel. We're still portraying it a certain way to people, and they see the message our actions send even when we are getting the message wrong. Which is why Paul says: “Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel[.]” (Phil. 1:27). The manner of your whole life. Every part. All your conduct, even in how you eat your lunch - as Paul confronted Peter: “But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, ‘If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?’” (Gal. 2:14.)

The nomination for the Republican Party belongs to Trump now, despite all efforts to prevent that. But we don't belong to any party or kingdom on earth. We belong only to Christ, and the first and absolute priority of how we act in this world is to be faithful to Him and display the Christian faith and Gospel accurately. I shared some of my concerns here about how it harms the Gospel when Christians endorse a candidate as "the Christian choice." But even when we don't say we think Trump is a Christian, or we specifically say we don't agree with his statements on religion or his values, we are still showing the world something if we say we support him. Many of these evangelical leaders may go the same way that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and other Republican elected officials have gone, submitting to Trump with excuses or resignation. We have to pray and decide whether we will follow those leaders, or whether the great responsibility and privilege of reflecting the Gospel to the world requires us to take a stand and choose between God and political influence.

I pray we have the courage to be faithful to God, even if it requires us becoming irrelevant politically this year. There has never been a clearer example of a candidate who put us to the test of whether we will do that. As Gerson so clearly articulates it: "Support for Trump involves a massive, disorienting shift, especially given the reputation of the religious right. It is, well, unexpected for evangelicals to endorse a political figure who has engaged in creepy sex talk on the radio, boasted about his extramarital affairs, made a fortune from gambling and bragged about his endowment on national television." 

Yet that's the choice before us. Which is why I wrote a couple of months ago that Christians Must Have the Courage to Lose this Election (if Necessary). I stand by it. Ready or not, now is the time for Christians to prove what they worship and who they put their trust in: men or God. There's no halfway here. Either stand firm in faith, waiting on the Lord, or you are bowing your knee to worldly power and saying that political power and control of government is something you can't bear to surrender even if it tarnishes the image of the church. Even if your associations and alliances become the picture of the Gospel and Christian community that the world sees.

"Put not your trust in princes,
in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation."
Psalm 146:3

"Be strong, and let your heart take courage,
all you who wait for the Lord!"
Psalm 31:24

As you ponder how to respond, I commend Matt Lee Anderson's article here, with which I wholeheartedly agree: Evangelicalism After Trump
This is a good example of wrestling with the reality that our choice about Trump is inseparable from what it means to be a Christian.