Dealing with Feeling Rejected

   I remember at age 15 finally having the endurance to mow our family lawn in one day. I couldn't wait to show my dad so he would be proud. When he drove up from work, I ran up to the car telling him to look at what I had accomplished. The only thing he said was "You missed a spot". Then he walked in the house. I felt so rejected because of this criticism and many others. (Believing in honoring our father and mother, I got his permission to share this.) Sadly, I inflicted rejection on my wife, also, through criticism the first few years of our marriage. The rejection I grew up with was passed on to my sweet undeserving wife.

   Why do people reject others? It is a symptom of the sins of our own flesh which impact them so negatively. And it often affects the people we care about the most. Romans 8:6 says it this way, "For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace".

   Setting our mind on the flesh is what I call our mental default. We tend to default to how we've learned to cope with life apart from Christ in us no matter how many great sermons we have heard, how much of the Bible we've read or how much we have prayed. This produces "death" in our relationships otherwise known as rejection.

   How can we deal with rejection from others? Sit down with God and be honest about how much the rejection hurt you. Then tell God that you choose to forgive them even if you don't feel like it. When I forgave my dad for the rejection I felt growing up, I found great healing. But there may be a bigger issue at play here. Most of us are hoping that another human being is going to meet our deepest need for acceptance. That is what I was looking for from my dad. That is a faulty focus.

   What if we are the ones rejecting others? We need to confess that to God as sin. But just as important, we need to live confidently in God's unconditional acceptance of us. This is part of what it means to "set your mind on the Spirit". When we consistently believe we are unconditionally accepted by our Heavenly Dad, we will live in and from Christ in us. This is the true source of life and peace. Only then can we express that same unconditional acceptance to the people around us.

   I don't believe God wants us to blame our parents for all of our problems otherwise we will live like we are victims. We are victors in Christ! We can face and forgive the mistakes of our parents or others who have rejected us. Christ in us can catapult us into the destiny God created us for.

   Why don't you pray right now thanking God that He unconditionally accepts you? If you are unsure of this, refer back to my devotion, "Does God Really Accept Us Unconditionally"?

If you are stuck in your feelings of rejection, we can help. For more information, please call us at 704-522-9026 or visit us on the web at www.GraceLifeInternational.com.

Live Free In Christ, 

Mark Maulding, President and Founder 

www.GraceLifeInternational.com 

All Content Copyright © 2013 Mark Maulding

Dealing with Feeling the Fear of Failure

   At age 19, I began to run in the "Fear of Failure" marathon. Like any serious runner, it motivated me to strive to always do more. I compared my success to others keeping a record of who was better and who was worse than I. Self-criticism fueled my relationship with God, with people and my work. This marathon eventually produced so much anxiety that it depleted my body of serotonin. Like a runner who "hits the wall" and can't finish the race, I hit the wall of depression.

   Fear of failure is a common malady. The lie behind this is: "I will have value if I succeed but I will be less valuable if I fail". Value is a God-given need. Yet, most of us find ourselves trying to meet this need our way instead of God's way, which usually ends in conflict and frustration.

   Our way is to train our minds to equate our value with our performance. We think that good performance equals greater value and vice-versa. God's way is to equate our value with what He was willing to give to bring us into His family. He gave the most precious possession He had when He gave His Son to die in our place. Romans 8:32 says, "Seeing that He spared not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not through Him freely give us all things."

   Let me put it this way. It is God's performance which gives us value, not our performance.

   This is actually cool because it liberates us from the weight of performance based value so we can live from value based performance. And we do this best when we are depending on Jesus Christ to perform through us by asking Him to live His life through us daily, and believing He is."

   I recently ran in my first 5K trail race. I thought it was just a fun run until a few days before. I run trails for fitness and wellbeing with no desire to compete. When I found out it was an actual timed race, I said to my wife, "Oh no! I didn't want to run in a race." Then I told her I was just going to have fun. When the race started, I had no ambitions of winning nor was I afraid of losing. I simply wanted to finish the race without stopping! As I approached the finish line, I couldn't catch a 10 year old boy but I finished. I was so surprised when they later announced that I came in 3rd place for my age group. I almost fell to the ground laughing! Because my value is in Christ and not in my performance whether running or otherwise, I can joyfully exclaim, "I'm number 3! I'm number 3! I'm number 3!"

   Rest in your value in Christ today and go perform with Christ living through you. You'll be a much better employee, employer, parent, spouse and friend who can actually influence your world for God's Kingdom.

Live Free In Christ, 

Mark Maulding, President and Founder 

www.GraceLifeInternational.com 

All Content Copyright © 2013 Mark Maulding

Dealing with Feeling Inferior/Superior

   Inferiority slinks into our lives whispering "I don't measure up to ______". Superiority struts into our lives boasting _______doesn't measure up to me". 

   The markers for comparing ourselves to others are: our performance, our possessions, our personality, our position, our appearance, and other's opinions. 

   Years ago, I used to let it "slip" in conversations about how many people I had shared the gospel with or how long I had prayed. It is so weird when I remember back to those days, it's humorous. Apparently, I felt inferior so I worked really hard at being superior. Sick! 

   But I'm not the only one. It seems as though this is very common with everyone. Even the Apostle Paul compared himself to others before He knew Jesus as Messiah. In Galatians 1:14, he writes, "I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions."(NASB) Then, when Jesus came to live in him, his comparison apparently ceased. In writing about people who were the "rock stars" in the church at that time, he wrote in Galatians 2:6, "...what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality..." (NASB) In another letter, he writes in 2 Corinthians 5:16 "Because of this decision we don't evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don't look at Him that way anymore." The Message 

   For each of us in Christ, no one is inferior and no one is superior. Galatians 3:28 says, "In Christ's family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. That is, we are all in a common relationship with Jesus Christ." God has not obliterated roles but He now trumpets the joyful reality that all of us in Christ have the same value! 

   When I was living according to my flesh, I prayed and prayed that I would be a Godly man. I worked very hard at becoming my rendition of a Godly man. In 1991, when God revealed that my identity is in Christ and not anything else, I remember Him speaking this to my heart one day. "Mark, you're already a Godly man." Instantly, I knew that the Holy Spirit was telling me that I could stop trying to become a Godly man, because being in Christ made me a Godly man. Now, having my mind renewed, I was free to live like who I already was - a Godly man! 

   How about you? Do you find yourself easily falling into the comparison game? I did it recently. Though Grace Life International is one of the largest ministries of its kind in the country, I found myself comparing it to ministries who are larger or more international. It doesn't matter! If I stopped being the president of this ministry today, I would not lose my identity because it is in Christ, not in GLI. Let's praise God for who we are in Christ the next time we feel inferior or superior from comparing ourselves. Let's live like the conquerors we already are over this sinful insanity!

Live Free In Christ, 

Mark Maulding, President and Founder 

www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2013 Mark Maulding

Dealing with Feeling Discouraged

   Billy Graham is quoted as saying, "The Christian life is not a constant high. I have my moments of deep discouragement. I have to go to God in prayer with tears in my eyes, and say, 'O God, forgive me,' or 'Help me.'"  I am very grateful for the candor of this man whom God has worked through to share the gospel with hundreds of millions of people.  I can certainly relate.  Can you?

   Discouragement means to lose courage, to lose confidence or to lose "heart".  The mental picture I get is that our confidence in Christ and His purposes for our lives is wrestled away from us.

    When I lost my ability to smell several years ago, developed putrid, moment by moment, "phantom smells", and couldn't taste food, I struggled.  I drifted far too long in the fog of discouragement.  Eventually, God led me to blue skies as I learned to be content in Christ without the pleasure of smell and taste.  Eventually, He also gave me a solution eliminating most of the phantom smells.

    Discouraging thoughts are tempting thoughts.  Agreeing with them quickly disheartens us leaving us feeling like an emotional glob of yuck and muck.

   One of my staff recently shared that they experienced several weeks of discouragement over a family situation that was growing worse by the week.  As they sought the Lord about why they felt so discouraged, He showed them that they were agreeing with tempting thoughts of self-blame, self-condemnation and spiritual passivity.  Once they understood this, they claimed their "already won" victory in Christ and returned to experiencing Jesus as their joy.

     We can be discouraged by many things when we agree with our enemy's interpretation of them. Here are some examples:  a negative comment someone made about us; an unexpected financial need; a child's rebellion; conflict; unresolved loneliness; habitual sin; and more.

    What is God's way out of discouragement?  Simply put, it is to start agreeing with God based on the Gospel instead of our enemy.   First and foremost, because Jesus is our Life (Colossians 3:4), no other person or situation is.   He lives in us.  He is our first love. He is our ultimate source of love.  He is our confidence.  He is our provision.  He rules this world with sovereignty.  He loves us.  We can do all the things God has given us to do through Christ living through us.  Based on these truths, we can pray a prayer telling Him we trust Him, even when we don't feel like trusting Him.

     It's an issue of focus.  For example, I run trails for fitness.  Sometimes when I run, I have pains my wife describes as "niggles".  They are temporary and usually go away as the run continues.  When I first started running, I would focus on these little pains wondering if I had hurt myself.  It seemed the more I focused on the pain, the more intense it felt.  When my wife, an experienced trail runner, explained that it was a "niggle", I learned to disregard it, keep running and soon the pain disappears.

     Discouragement is like that.  As long as we focus on the person or situation, the intensity of our discouragement increases.  However, when we seek the Lord about the source of our discouragement, hear His answer and get refocused on Him as our truth, the discouragement is exchanged for Jesus as our peace.

    When you find yourself discouraged, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the reason why.  It's usually not the situation but the lie(s) we believe about it.  Then, claim your already won victory in Christ over it and confess to Him that He alone is your life, peace, joy, etc.  You'll find yourself  "en"couraged.  But if you get stuck, we would love for you to contact us for a free counseling consultation whether live or online. 

Live Free In Christ,
Mark Maulding, President and Founder
www.GraceLifeInternational.com

Copyright © 2013 Mark Maulding

Dealing with Feeling Shame

   Shame is sometimes confused with the feeling of guilt. Guilt is the realization we have done something wrong. Shame is a feeling of deep angst in the recesses of our soul. Because of our mistake, our sin or someone else's sin, we wish we could evaporate away from being so embarrassed. It is fueled by the belief that there must be something really wrong with us to have done something like ________.

   When I was in junior high school, we had a pep rally for the basketball team of which I was a part. I was placed under a blanket with my legs crossed during the entire pep rally until just before the end. At that moment, I was supposed to jump up and throw the blanket off and the crowd in the gym was supposed to go wild. What actually happened was that my crossed legs became numb so that when I jumped up and threw the blanket off, I fell down in front of hundreds of a packed gym and could not stand for about a minute. The place erupted with convulsive laughter. Talk about feeling shame!

   On a more serious note, before I knew Christ as my Life, I had some real bondage to lust and pornography. It was my inner secret that I hated. Being married during this time and being in full-time ministry, I definitely felt devastating shame at times.

   Today, I discovered that even in the midst of writing this, I had a place of shame I was unaware of. I made many mistakes parenting one of our kids, who are now all adults. I reluctantly faced those mistakes and sins a few years ago when Ellen lovingly told me what I was doing. I had asked for her forgiveness and my child's. And God began to change me in this area as Christ lived through me. Yet, there it was today as Ellen and I talked about that child. Shame was lurking in the shadows of my mind having hidden there for years. I had not recognized it until our conversation. Thank you God for your love in revealing this as I was writing this!

   How does God want us to deal with our shame? For me, I immediately remembered that Jesus had already forgiven me for these parental sins and mistakes. Though I told Him a long time ago that I was sorry for these sins, today I said, "Jesus I accept your forgiveness for them". We know that when Jesus died on the cross for us, we were forgiven for every sin - past, present and future. Colossians 2:13, "You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ. He forgave all our sins". NLT Next, I forgave myself by saying, "Mark, I forgive you for the mistakes you made with ______." Why? We are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Mark 12:31 Finally, I acknowledged to God by faith that Jesus' death on the cross has already removed my shame. 1 Peter 2:6, "For it is contained in Scripture, "See, I am placing on Mount Zion a Cornerstone, chosen, and held in honor, and he whose faith rests on Him shall never have reason to feel ashamed." WEY

   How about you? Have you let the good news of the Gospel of grace pluck your shame from your soul? If not, how about settling that right now? Don't let shame have a place in you any longer! Jesus has exchanged your shame with His forgiveness and peace. Why don't you pray something similar to what I prayed above? If you can't get through this or feel shame about something someone else has done to you, please contact us so we can walk with you.

Live Free In Christ, 

Mark Maulding, President and Founder 

www.GraceLifeInternational.com 

All Content Copyright © 2013 Mark Maulding

Dealing with Feeling Grief

     As we saw the devastation of people who lost their lives, including the precious children in the Moore, OK tornado, all of our hearts grieved. Regarding grief, Jesus said, "You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you". Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you. Matthew 5:4 (The Message) Jesus promises to embrace and comfort us when we grieve. Sometimes we struggle to allow ourselves to grieve which only delays experiencing His comfort.

   When our daughter, Bekah, was born with Down syndrome, Ellen and I grieved for days. Why? Because we had lost a perfect child and there is no cure for people born with that extra chromosome added to the 21 pair.

   Grieving is the deep feeling of loss. It can be the loss of a friendship, our health, a family relationship, someone we loved who died, a child's future, our marriage, a healthy child, all or most of our finances, virginity, the love of a parent, and more.

   Everyone grieves, but we don't have to stay stuck there. Jesus said in our grief that He can meet us and comfort us like no one else can. He comforts us often by what He says to us and His presence in us as our Life.

   A couple of days after our daughter, Bekah, with Down syndrome, was born, I was grieving deeply as I rocked her in my arms. I kept asking God "Why?" He gently spoke a verse of scripture to me that I had not memorized. "The LORD said to him, "Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes him mute or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?" Exodus 4:11. The Lord was saying to me, "I am Sovereign and I am the One who made Bekah with Down syndrome." He was exhorting me to trust Him. That was the beginning of Jesus comforting me and working me through my grief. Later, He reminded me that Jesus is my Life, not a healthy child. That is when my grief was replaced with His comfort.

   Another time, our family was at a lunch for our church small group. One of our boys accidentally kicked another of our sons in the eye when they were wrestling. I spoke with him rather sternly about how dangerous it was to kick someone in the eye. Later, when all of the families were ready to leave, this son was nowhere to be found. We were meeting in our church building and we searched everywhere. Finally, he came walking around the building because he had been hiding in the back. I grieved that he had chosen to respond like that. Yet, as we were leaving, I turned to Ellen and said, "I sure am glad we don't get our identity from our children." You see, in my grief for our son, I was reminded that my identity is in Christ.

   Are you grieving today? Have you let yourself grieve? Jesus in you will comfort and reveal Himself in you in marvelous ways, if you will let Him walk you through your grief. "For when Christ who is our life shall appear, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory." Colossians 3:4

Live Free In Christ, 

Mark Maulding,
President and Founder 

www.GraceLifeInternational.com 

All Content Copyright © 2013 Mark Maulding

Dealing with Feeling Worthless

   Worthlessness is a common feeling which plagues many people. It is at its heart an issue of identity and love. Those who struggle with these feelings have often experienced great rejection or failure. For me, I felt worth in high school when I was voted Mr. Osborne High School as a senior. In college, I felt worth when I memorized more scripture than my friends. As a youth pastor, I felt worth when our youth group grew from 30 kids to 100 kids in three years. I felt a lack of worth later, when the church I was starting failed. I felt a lack of worth when I went through years of depression.

   In God's kingdom, worth is determined very differently than what I once thought. Here is an example. If you had a diamond, how would you determine how much it was worth? You would go to the best jeweler in town to get an assessment. If the jeweler said, "I will give you $500,000" for your diamond, you would be very happy realizing how much it is worth. If you wanted to find out how much you were worth, where would you go? Most of us go to the mirror, our past, our performance, our friends, our spouse, our kids, our car, our clothes, our failures or successes, our parents and more. However, the ultimate expert on how much we are personally worth is our Heavenly Father. How much does He think we are worth? When He looks you over, He assesses you and concludes, "I will give my Son Jesus Christ for you." This is, I will give you the most valuable possession I have. Do you see it? We should be very happy since our value is equal to Jesus Christ being given for us! Romans 8:32 says, "He who did not spare his own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?"

   I challenge you to mediate on this reality this week. In fact, you can pray, "Father, because you gave Jesus to show how much I was worth to You, I believe that I have great worth". I pray this leads you into a deeper freedom in your heart and confidence in life. 

   If you want to talk with someone, call our office at 704-5229026 for free counseling consultation.  We offer, face to face, phone and Skype counseling - all confidential.

Live Free In Christ, 

Mark Maulding, President and Founder 

www.GraceLifeInternational.com 

All Content Copyright © 2013 Mark Maulding