May 2012 - The Texas District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

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D TEXAS DISTRICT
Are you helpless?
by the Rev. Dr. John Hirsch
Director of Congregational and Worker Care
We cannot direct the wind but we can adjust
the sails. Author unknown
PERHAPS embellishing on the above
quote, Jimmy Dean is reported to have said, “I can’t
change the direction of the wind, but I can always
adjust my sails to reach my destination.” Each of
the above statements reflects an optimistic attitude
about life. Things happen in life and many of them are
negative, unwanted, seemingly unjust or unfair. We
can feel discriminated against and picked on. We can
feel bullied and experience immoral or even evil behavior
from others. We may be in an abusive relationship
with a girlfriend or boyfriend or in a marriage.
AS A RESULT, we can feel helpless and hopeless.
We can feel others are destroying our life and we have
no place to turn. We can lose our appetites or overeat.
We feel shame and worthlessness. We can become
asocial or antisocial. Life is tolerated but not lived.
IN HIS BOOK, Enjoy Life, Lynn Johnson referenced
Marty Seligman and some research work that
led to the theory of “learned helplessness.” Basically,
it notes that all people experience, stress, pain, disappointments
and losses. All do not have the same
experiences and some have more stressful or traumatic
experiences than others. Some even seem to
have more than their “fair share,” e.g., the couple who
owned a house near Austin that was flooded when
Texas experienced much rain a few years ago. They
chose to avoid this possibility again by moving to Bastrop,
only to have that house burn down in the Labor
Day weekend fires of 2011 two years later.
THE QUESTION is not, do we have pain in life
but how do we react or respond to it? Do we have
to suffer and, if so, how much must we suffer? The
answer is, depends. Depends on our own resiliency.
In general, optimists think bad things are temporary
and good things are permanent and pessimists believe
the opposite. In other words, those who seemed to
be the most resilient were those who also manifest a
more optimistic attitude on life. It wasn’t the good or
bad things that happened, but how they thought about
them. It was how they explained events.
I HAVE always been interested in
the discoveries of the behavioral
Hirsch
sciences and the benefits they can
provide us in living healthier, more productive lives.
But it also fascinates me that these “discoveries”
are only uncovering that which God built into us in
creation. In this case, we read in Rom. 12:2 (NIV),
“be transformed by the renewing of your minds,”
and then Paul lays out an evermore graphic picture,
“Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in
accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were
taught, with regard to your former way of life, to
put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its
deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of
your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be
like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph.
4:21-24 NIV).
PART OF GOD’S PLAN of our living out our salvation
is recognizing the fact that He created us with a
brain with frontal lobes, the place where executive
function takes place. With those lobes, we can think
and with that thinking we can integrate into our lives
His words—words of hope, love, forgiveness, purpose,
passion and value. To Nicodemus, Jesus said,
“do you not understand these things … God did not
send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but to save the world through him” (John 3:10-17
NIV).
YOUR HAPPINESS is not based on fate or what
comes your way. It is not the result of your being unluckier
than others. Your happiness depends on what
you tell yourself about what happens. It is what you
do with what you hear, experience or think. This article
is way too short to address all the issues that can
make us unhappy; but if there are past negative or destructive
events in your life that bind you to the past,
choose to not let this continue. Pray about it and ask
God to remove this burden from you. Don’t be passive
and just accept it and be unhappy. Act on it. Seek help
from a trusted friend, pastor or counselor. Use wisely
the brain God gave you. You may not be able to direct
the wind, but God has given you resources to adjust
the sails.