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Acceptance vs. Rejection Principle Pt. 2

March 22, 2010 By bwatson Leave a Comment

Ephesians 4:32 (HCSB) And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ.

I realize that it has almost a month since I have posted a blog.  I started with a discussion on Rejection in my last offering and I want to conclude today with how we are to deal with rejection.  First let me summarize part one of this principle of Acceptance vs. Rejection.  I believe from a spiritual standpoint that most depression is caused by rejection.  That rejection can be either real or perceived.  Either way, the rejection always hurts the one that feels it.  Rejection begins a spiraling fall toward depression.  There are several steps on this staircase but the bottom is always depression.  I hope that you will read the remainder of that blog from two weeks ago to fill in the steps of the process.

Let me ask you a couple of questions.  What do our doctors do when we begin to talk about depression?  Most doctors, if not all of them, will prescribe some form of medication to help our moods.  There are many different medications that have the specific job of helping with depression.  There are even new medications to help some of the older medications to work more effectively.  http://www.abilify.com is a website that even gives the names of the medications Abilify works with.  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article3434486.ece and http://www.helpguide.org/mental/medications_depression.htm are two articles that indicate studies that antidepressants are not always effective to treat depression.  Now again, I am neither a doctor nor a clinical psychologist.  I am a pastoral counselor.  I want to help people experience relief from their depression from a biblical standpoint.  If you are on any medication, please do not quit it without talking to your doctor first.  I thank God for the medication that is out there.  I want you to know that I believe that medication is a gift from God.  But I want to emphasize that it is only a tool to help mask the hurt or the symptoms of the depression.  It is not a cure.

Since the medication that is prescribed is not a cure, I want to offer a solution to the hurt that can lead to depression.  Forgiveness. Now I know that might sound like a simple conclusion on the surface, but do we truly understand the biblical view of forgiveness.  When we understand that, we will be well on our way to experiencing freedom from that rejection.

Forgiveness needs to be understood.

1.  It is not for-getting.

2.  You don’t have to feel good about the offender.

3.  You should not wait till you feel like forgiving.

4.  Two Parts of Forgiveness:

a. Decisional

b. Emotional

“Whatever your situation, whatever has happened in your past, remember that you are the loser if you do not deal with an unforgiving spirit.  And the people around you suffer, too.  You have within you the power to forgive, to be healed, and to be set free to live your life to the fullest.”  Charles Stanley

God’s Example of Forgiveness

  1. God’s love has no limits.
  2. God’s love is patient.
  3. God is eager to express His love.
  4. God’s love is focused on the sinner, not the sin.
  5. God receives the sinner back into fellowship joyfully.

What happens when we don’t forgive

  1. We get hurt.
  2. We become confused.
  3. We look for detours.
  4. We dig a hole.
  5. We deny it.
  6. We become defeated.
  7. We become discouraged or depressed.

Three Ways to Know We have Forgiven

  1. Our negative feelings will disappear.
  2. We will find it much easier to accept the people who have hurt us w/o feeling the need to change them.
  3. Our concern about the needs of the other individuals will outweigh our concerns about what they did to us.

“Forgiveness is a process that can be painful and at times seem unending.  Whatever our pain, whatever our situation, we cannot afford to hold on to an unforgiving spirit another day.  We must get involved w/ the process of forgiving others and find out what it means to be really free.  If we will persevere and keep our eyes on the One who forgave us, it will be a liberating force like nothing else we have ever experienced.”  (Charles Stanley, Gift of Forgiveness, pg. 133)

To summarize the above, in order to truly forgive others, we have to accept the pain that has been caused by the rejection or the offense.  Then we have to decide what to do with that pain.  We can either hold on to it or we can let it go.  If we forgive, we let it go.  We do not hold the other person captive because of that offense.  We learn to see the person through the eyes of God, whom separates the sinner from his sin with His perfect love.  Only through the gift of God’s forgiveness can we forgive others.

I believe that once we learn to forgive others and rely on God’s acceptance, we have a totally different outlook on life.  We are able to see beyond the clouds of our rejection and see the clearing that God’s light and love provides.

One final thought on this subject I would like to offer you.  Many people who are on medication have no outlet for the emotions.  They are relying on the medication to do a miracle, but they can’t relate their feelings to anyone.  That is where counseling comes into play.  Our modern mental health philosophy in many circles is just to medicate.  We also need to be able to learn to express ourselves in productive ways.  This is where my profession of a pastoral counselor comes into play.  I am not advertising me per se…well maybe I am, but I am encouraging you to find someone you can talk to that will help you have a biblical perspective of your struggles.

Matthew 6:14-15 (HCSB) 14 “For if you forgive people their wrongdoing, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well. 15 But if you don’t forgive people, your Father will not forgive your wrongdoing.

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Rejection Vs. Acceptance Principle pt. 1

February 25, 2010 By bwatson Leave a Comment

DEPRESSION: What do we really know about depression?  We might be able to look at someone and tell that they are down, blue, or sad on any given day.  We might realize that someone is not laughing as much as they use to or that they are sleeping more.  We might recognize some different symptoms in people close to us as they begin staying in the house more or staying to themselves more.  But do we really understand depression?  Do we know what causes depression or why some people react to the symptoms of depression the way they do.  Depression can have a range from “I’m just kind of blue today” to all the way to “I’m at the end of my rope and I see no hope.”  Some depressed people are diagnosed by their doctor and therefore are prescribed medication to help them deal with their depression.  Others are self-diagnosed or un-diagnosed and are truly struggling with their difficult emotions.  Some depression is seasonal as well as intermittent, while some depression is chronic.  Many articles have been written on depression and living with depression.  Recently there seems to be more and more advertisements for new anti-depressants on the television as well as in magazines.  We live in a very depressed time and people are looking for answers or solutions to their depression.

I would like to offer some of my thoughts on depression today.  Let me begin by offering a disclaimer so that I am not misunderstood.  I know that I am not a licensed professional counselor nor am I a medical doctor.  I am not trying to treat depression from a medical nor clinical perspective.  I am a pastoral counselor as well as a board certified belief therapist.  I believe that God’s Word gives us some principles that can help us learn to deal with our depression.

A good definition of depression is “internalized anger.”  Now the symptoms of depression are much more complex than this definition.  Symptoms can include sadness, grief, fatigue, hopeless, lack of motivation, guilt, over-eating or not eating, and much more than these.  The symptoms can move all the way to suicidal thoughts or even homicidal thoughts.  I have read different articles concerning the cause of depression and many of the authors list causes that range from a biological, genetic cause to trauma and stress in a person’s life.  All of these can be true.  I would like to focus what I believe to be the major cause of depression and that is rejection.  Rejection can be real or it can be perceived.  Rather it is real or perceived; the rejection is real to the person that feels it.  Rejection begins a spiral downward from the initial feeling to the end result of depression.  There are several steps down this spiraling staircase that will descend to the deepest form of rejection if a person does not deal with the root causes.

The first step on this staircase is the initial Rejection.  All rejection hurts and causes us to react or to respond to that rejection.  Many times we begin to think about why someone might have rejected us.  We might ask the question, “Why is that person rejecting me?”  “Or how can I change so I will not be rejected any more?”  When we hurt, we want to get away from that hurt the best way possible or maybe the quickest way possible.  No one likes to be rejected.

The second step on the staircase is Rebellion.  Rebellion is the resistance to or defiance of any authority, control, or tradition. (Dictionary.com)  When a person experiences rejection, they cross the bridge of hurt toward the step of rebellion.  He rebels against even who he is supposed to be in order to change toward what he thinks someone else expects him to be.  This rebellion includes an attitude of change that is not governed by the clear thinking of the individual, but rather is clouded by the hurt he is experiencing.  As his attitude is changing toward rebellion, he then crosses the next bridge which is the fear of not being accepted still.  This bridge leads him to the third step.

The third step of this staircase is Reaching out for acceptance.  As the individual reaches out to others, he is inclined to change his behavior.  He begins acting out of his fear, rather than his knowledge of what is right and wrong.  These actions to not have to be severe, but they are wrong in and of themselves.  Elijah’s actions were not severe, just wrong.  Peter’s actions were not severe, but they were wrong.  These wrong actions begin to lead a person to the feelings of guilt as well as to the next bridge which is the feeling of hopelessness.

Once a person reaches the bridge of hopelessness his next step will be depression.  All of his steps are being clouded more and more by the hurt of the initial rejection.  Many of the steps will provide more occasions of rejection along the way; therefore a person can be at different aspects of this spiraling staircase at the same time depending on the different circumstances.  This depression can lead to a variety of suicides, meaning financial suicide, professional suicide, relational suicide as well as physical suicide.

I believe that an understanding of the principle that rejection can lead to depression can help an individual deal with his own depression.  How a person deals with rejection might lead to how well he deals with his depression.

My next blog will deal with how we are to deal with rejection.  I hope that we all can learn together to look at depression from a different point of view.

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