What is That Thing That Holds You Back?
Stress Relief Tips for the New Year
What is That Thing That Holds You Back?
Coaching Questions: Take a moment to reflect on your past year of life. What is that thing that held you back? What were you addicted to? Your answer is unique to your life experience. Some common addictions range from physical substances (alcohol, drugs, food, which often requires counsel and solid programs to override the impulse) to relationship attachments (approval, acceptance, acknowledgement, inclusion, power, popularity, fame etc.) or perhaps accomplishment through your “to-do” list to the point of overlooking what you value most? This is between you and God. Know this, when our behaviors do not align with what we value most in life stress increases.
The wise men traveled a long way to reach the manger scene we are celebrating this weekend as we celebrate the gift of God’s Son Jesus. The wise men brought with them gifts to offer to the newborn King of Kings and Lord of Lords. What better gift to offer the Lord this Christmas than something that held us back in 2023. Something that we continued to grip ahold of and focus on more than focusing on God.What is that thing for you? What would you gain by laying it at the manger and trusting God to fill up the part of you that was addicted to something in the world? What would you imagine to be different if you let it go? If you left at the manger what held you back in 2023 from drawing close to God?
The other morning, I was focusing on my “to-do” list and praying at the same time…an odd dynamic I admit. God responded crystal clear in the midst of it all:Rather than focusing on what to do today focus on what to receive from Me in order to do what you do from a fuller place within your heart.It stopped me in my tracks. Of course, if we focus on receiving from God what we need for the day (wisdom, patience, insight, endurance, humor, discernment, peace, love, joy, kindness, self-control) to do what we do and do the things we do for HIS GLORY our tendency to step into idolatry will be weakened.
Sin is when we focus on and seek out the created things over the creator, it’s the first commandment (idolatry:Exodus 20:3: you shall have no other God’s before me). We break the first commandment each time we become addicted to things over God.
Dr. Matthew Petrusek puts it this way:To sin is to live for something in the world rather than for he who created the world. As St. Paul puts it, all those who abide in sin have “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever (Romans 1:25). To Be sure, such worship can include bowing before physical depictions of false gods. Yet more deeply, and more commonly, the false god we worship is both the most familiar and most tyrannical: ourselves. As St. Paul eminently puts it, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. (Romans 7:15,19).
Take Action:
Dr. Petrusek offers two steps to healing and letting go of that thing that holds you back (the addiction or attachment so to speak).
- The first step to healing, rehabilitation programs teach, is to admit you have a problem. In that spirit, the book of Romans is fearlessly candid about the reality of evil in the human heart. Yet this honestly—this intervention–is not to condemn. It is to shake us awake to the possibility of redemption, the up and out of rock bottom, the antidote to self-poison: Jesus Christ. That marks the second step to healing.
- Come to believe that a greater power can save you from yourself. Or, as St. Paul writes, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.” Romans 8:2-3. Trust in this saving God, the God who both creates and redeems us in radical love. The only alternative? Save yourself. Which, any honest addict knows, is a death sentence.
“I Am the light of the world whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” John 8:12
The Chosenis a wonderful series that makes many of the accounts of Jesus when He walked the earth come to life. Start with Season One.
Support Resources to Jump Start Your New Year:
- Listen to the latest Edge God In Podcast: Train Up for Victory in The Ring of Spiritual Warfare
- 99 Things You Want to Know Before Stressing Out! Updated
- Take a 6 Week Journey and become the boss of your thoughts:Emotional Intelligence in Christ 6 Week Study Guide
With Respect and Gratitude,
Trust God, Do Good
