Rationalizations

Nothing can light my fuse faster than for someone to stand there and rationalize their behavior to me. It is one of my major pet peeves, and yet I find myself doing the same thing from time to time.

Dictionary.com defines rationalization this way, “to invent plausible explanations for acts, opinions, etc., that are actually based on other causes.”

In other words we are attempting to avoid admitting what we did, or more importantly why we did it. Because if we actually admitted this we would have to (and I shudder at the thought) change!

I remember being in my early twenties at the beginning of my career in law enforcement standing in my Sergeant’s office as he told me how he wanted me to do something differently. I can’t recall the topic, but I do remember saying something along the lines of, “Yes sir. The reason I did that was…”

I didn’t get to finish my sentence, because he slammed his fist on the desk and said, “Dang it Johnny! You always have an excuse for everything!”

That hit me hard. You see, my intention was to do exactly as he told me to and change my behavior, but I wanted him to know that I didn’t do it the wrong way intentionally. He didn’t hear that; all he heard was me saying, “I was right to do it that way!” It wasn’t the message I was trying to send, but it sure was the one he was receiving!

It was then I learned if someone in authority wants a reason why I did something they will ask, otherwise I need to acknowledge what they are saying make the necessary changes. (A little side note, learning something and having it perfected in practice are two very different things!)

The problem with rationalization is that it flies into the face of right and wrong. We will spend hours pretending that we aren’t wrong and coming up with all sorts of rationalizations that prove our point. We will even go as far as to find other people who agree with us; all the time knowing, deep down inside, that we are wrong.

Our rationalizations can also hurt the people we love. If my wife said to me, “When you raise your voice in an argument I feel belittled,” and I respond, “Well, it’s the only way you will listen!” I am avoiding the issue by rationalizing. I may even go into a history lesson proving, based on the past, that it is necessary to raise my voice. And all I have done by defending myself is to hurt her all over again.

When we find ourselves rationalizing our behavior it needs to be a red flag, a warning for us to take a deep look at ourselves and see if there is something we are doing that needs to be changed. You could probably find a hundred reasons why you don’t need to do that, but then you would just be rationalizing!

Johnny Walker is a Christian Counselor and the founder of Family Works Counseling. You can reach him at (770) 456-5547.

Why Bad Things Happen

The emotional scars our pasts leave us with are oftentimes difficult to overcome. Many hurting people turn to the church for help, searching for answers to questions that haunt them. “Why did my child have to die?” “Why was I raped?” “Why do I feel so alone?”

These questions don’t have simple answers, and yet well meaning Christians often try to help by offering one: “It was God’s will.” “The Lord knows what you are going through.” “God is in control.” And my personal favorite, “Everything happens for a reason.”

Unfortunately, these types of “kind words” often leave more questions than answers. Can you imagine your child being murdered and have it explained to you that “God is in control,” and “everything happens for a reason?”

What kind of God would want a child to be harmed? What kind of God would “allow” someone to be raped? Suddenly a loving God can appear cruel and distant.

I believe that God does know what we are going through. I also believe that “all things work together for the good” for those who are following our Lord. But this doesn’t mean that God wants bad things to happen.

The answer to these questions lay with our enemy, Satan, and his demons. Bad things happen because sin is in the world. God created a perfect place for us to live, the Garden of Eden, and gave us freedom to choose. In the midst of perfection we unbelievably chose sin, and through our choice brought evil into the world. We have made the same choice everyday since.

Bad things happen because evil rules this world. Jesus called Satan “the prince of this world.” God gave it to us, and through our choices we gave it over to the enemy.

This is so important because we can’t fight the enemy if we don’t first identify him. When people suffer, it may not be because of their specific sin, but it is because mankind’s sin gave rule of this world over to Satan.

All those things we tell hurting people are true, but if they don’t understand who the author of the problem is, then they will turn around and blame God.

It is also important for us to explain that one day God will remove evil from this place, but until then he offers us a way to make it through the pain and suffering. He offers us peace in the midst of the storms, not the promise to remove all the storms from our lives.

I can’t count the number of people who have come into my counseling office who have “tried the religious route,” but it didn’t work. They tried masking their pain with good works; throwing themselves into the work of the church believing that somehow, someway, it would ease the pain. They were taught to bury their problems instead of being taught how to deal with them.

The church is ill prepared to deal with the emotional issues that face society today. There are more rapes, homicides, assaults, and divorces than ever before, but we have not increased our abilities to deal with the emotional fallout that inevitably follows.

What we need to do goes deeper than the typical Sunday school class takes us. We need to learn more than just information about God’s word; we need to learn how to apply it to modern day problems.

Instead of requiring people to come to us and then trying to make them fit our molds, we need to be preparing to go out into society with real solutions to real problems!

We need to train our people with basic counseling techniques to meet basic emotional issues, and we need to train them to refer the larger crises to trained professionals. We need to have trained counseling professional on staff, because every church has dysfunctional marriages and families as members.

We need to offer godly financial counsel to combat the ever increasing debt that our people are enslaving themselves to. We need to offer help to widows by meeting basic needs such as cutting grass, changing the oil in their vehicles, and changing hard to reach light bulbs on a regular basis.

We are great sprinters of the faith! We think of these things on occasion and help out for a weekend or on a mission trip, but we are failing to meet these needs long term. We are not training marathon Christians! We run the race one Sunday at a time, one Bible study at a time, one mission trip at a time, instead of running it on a daily basis!

We hear about hurting people, or see a need and offer to pray for them, but we fail to act, and oftentimes we even fail to pray for them.

Ministering to hurting people takes discipleship, prayer, and time. We have to be willing to take the time to minister instead of offering pat answers and quick fixes to them so we can get back to what we want to be doing.

We need to train our people to become true disciples, true ministers. That’s what Jesus did, and that is what we are required to do!

Johnny Walker is a Christian Counselor and the founder of Family Works Counseling. You can reach him at (770) 456-5547

Being Remembered or Making a Difference

I think a lot of people want to be remembered. In high school I was a pole-vaulter. I can remember looking at the school records for all the track events on display over the coach’s door near the weight room and thinking, “I want my name to be up there.”

I spent a lot time and energy practicing to make that happen, only to have someone else beat my record the next year. I can still remember my disappointment when I realized my name didn’t last.

As I walked the halls of my old high school that day I came to the realization that it was no longer my high school; it belonged to the teenagers who were already there. I still knew quite a few of the students there, but it wouldn’t be long before no one would know who I was or that I even attended the school at all.

The desire to be remembered can be a strong one. When I was at my twentieth reunion I saw a guy named Brian who I had a few classes with. I remembered his surprise when I was able to remember the musical instrument he played in high school. When someone remembers us it makes us feel important.

The problem is when we make being remembered our goal we place our feelings of importance in the hands of others. When we do this it doesn’t matter how good a job we did if someone doesn’t remember, suddenly we are not important. Our self esteem is suddenly at the mercy of others.

On the other hand, if we change our motivation to making a difference the outcome changes dramatically.

By focusing on making a difference in the lives of others we focus on meetings someone’s needs. Being remembered is no longer important, only that we make a positive difference.

That is what the Christian walk is all about, meeting the needs of others. James 2:16 says “If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? “

As we grow as a Christian we are supposed to be denying ourselves more and allowing God to replace our self centered desires with the desire to further His kingdom. When our focus is on being remembered we are focused on ourselves. When our focus becomes making a difference we begin to open ourselves for God to change us and to make His cause our cause.

What is your motivation? Are you more focused on being remembered or on making a difference? The answer to that question can make all the difference!

Johnny Walker is a Christian Counselor and the founder of Family Works Counseling. You can reach him at (770) 456-5547.