Lynn Jarrett
“I have absolutely no interest or want nothing to do with God…” are the words I heard from a client who experienced a life event that shattered her ability to trust people or God.
Have you ever given thought as to why the word “God” fuels anger, disgust or other automatic negative responses? Have religion or religious people left a bad taste in your mouth? If so, this book will challenge you to think through and answer some of your toughest questions you haven’t bothered to ask because you haven’t really cared.
This book will allow you to explore:
- The perceptions you have used to judge God up to this point in your life.
- How to recognize God in your summer, autumn, winter and spring seasons of life.
- How your life experience and religious upbringing (or lack thereof) negatively and positively impact your view of God.
- How life would continue if you included God vs. not include God.
- How to recognize the purposeful life God has designed you to live.
Lynn Jarrett, M.A., LCPC, is a life and business coach who has been helping people generate, accelerate, and perpetuate their personal and professional goals for over 15 years. Her current work as a coach and former work as a therapist has shown that many people form all walks of life desire to see how and if God fits into their lives.
Lynn lives in Michigan with her husband and three daughters. She can be contacted at Lynn@whybotherlooking.com
CHAPTER 1
Your Road of Life
“Really, I’m not searching!” These were the words of a client who was adamant about not bringing God into his counseling process. He was fed up with religious people who said they loved God, yet seemed to judge everyone and everything. “If these people represent God, then I want no part of it!” he said.
“Well, that’s quite an assumption to make about all religious people. Has something recently happened to spur this anger?”
For the next thirty minutes, he spoke through clenched teeth and a raised voice, recounting a recent experience at a church he had visited with his girlfriend, who had just broken up with him. His eyes conveyed disgust, sadness, frustration, and confusion.
“What happened at this church that made you so angry?” I asked.
“The pastor was talking about the need to turn to God in the good times and the bad and that He knows what’s best for us. I totally disagree! I know what’s best for me, and I don’t need God to direct my life and keep me from what I want to do!”
“And you think that if God is part of your life, somehow you’d lose your freedom?”
“Absolutely! I have done just fine without God all these years. He never was there before, and I pride myself in the fact that I have done everything on my own. I’m successful today because I made it happen, not God!”
Mirroring his resistance (a counseling technique) and reflecting his need for self-sufficiency, I said “Sounds like you’re pretty self-sufficient and you don’t need anyone else. You have it all figured out. No wonder your girlfriend left you.”
Silence. He glared at me, and then shifted his eyes and body. I hit a nerve.
“What brought you here today?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said in a small, shaky voice.
“I seem to have hit a nerve with you and I can understand you don’t want to talk about it right now. Is there anything you’d like to say before we close out this session?” He was silent. “Here’s my card. If you think you’d like to come back at another time to discuss it, my door is always open.” He grabbed my card and stomped out of my office.
One month later, he came back. He stayed in counseling for more than a year. As the weeks and months unfolded, this man was willing to take a look at how his self-sufficiency was a positive and a negative force in his life. He learned how to take care of himself at a very young age because his parents were physically and emotionally absent many times throughout his childhood and teen years. He paid his own way through college. He was able to land a good job with a company that would allow him to move up the corporate ladder. He had a lot of career success, but he was very lonely. He had no one with whom to share his success. For two months he blamed God for not putting a wife and family in his life. His greatest need was to connect with other people on a more personal level. When he discovered he was responsible for his lack of personal relationships, his view of God shifted. He learned to look to God for guidance rather than as the scapegoat. We prayed at the beginning and the end of our sessions. He started sharing more feelings in the counseling sessions, and began to trust that I would be physically and emotionally present – something he never allowed himself to experience because of the precedent his parents set.
By the time this client finished counseling, he was able to take responsibility for his contribution to his unhappy life and what caused him to get there. His contributions included mistrust of others, workaholism, arrogance, belittling people if they couldn’t do the work his way (he was a manager), unrealistic expectations of people at work and in personal life, and being a perfectionist.
The counseling process helped him let go of his perfectionism and his need to work eighty plus hours a week. This allowed him some free time to devote to building relationships. He realized that the way he built his career and got results were very different from how he approaches personal relationships. He opened up his heart and mind to allow God to help him see life differently. He started attending a church that had many different small groups he could join and get to know people at a more intimate level. He saw that those people were not ‘fake’ as he had perceived religious people to be. Once he allowed himself to experience God rather than make assumptions, he learned he could live life rather than just do life.
WHERE IN THE FOREST ARE YOU?
Imagine you are in a forest. In your current life, where would you place yourself in the forest?
A. In the thicket where you see only trees
B. In a clearing in your thicket
C. Out of the forest and on the road to your destination?
IN THE THICKET
A newlywed couple was enjoying their first year of marriage. She trusted him with the finances and assumed he was taking care of the bills. One day when she was cleaning around the house, she saw a stack of unpaid bills, final notices, and statements on his student loans that she thought had been paid off. Along with these notices, she also noticed a stack of receipts for items he bought to spruce up his car. She never realized he spent that much money on his car. When she confronted him on the poor money management, he just brushed it off and said there was plenty of money.
Do you ever have days, weeks, months or years where you can’t seem to see beyond the thicket of your situation(s)? No matter which way you turn to try to gain direction, you find yourself going in circles? The more you try to resolve a situation, the more you find yourself beyond knee-deep and becoming waist-deep in the thicket. You ask yourself, “How did I get here? How do I get out of this?” Frustration, confusion and a sense of hopelessness often accompany a person in this scenario. Maybe your thicket is a bad marriage or relationship, a job you absolutely hate, lingering bitterness towards a person or situation, or financial stress. Perhaps you believe any or all attempts have been made to try to get yourself out of the thicket, but nothing seems to work. You have taken others’ advice, come up with your own ideas, or ignored the situation and hoped it would just go away. But nothing has worked. What is a person to do?
Sometimes in a thicket, you encounter a snake and get bit. A snakebite can be a surprise that seems to compound your problem. What was the snakebite for this couple? It took the husband losing his job to finally get a wake up call that they were financially in trouble. His company was downsizing and the husband was unprepared. He assumed he’d retire at this company. It took him eight months to find another job in his profession.
What were some of the lessons they were forced to learn during their difficult financial crisis?
- Talked to a credit counselor and attended money management classes at their church and learned how to reduce their debt…slowly.
- Had to take a serious look at their lifestyle and where the money was going. The money management classes showed them how to budget, and they realized that the husband’s car habit was costing them an average of $2,000 a month. That money was quickly dispersed to pay off credit cards and bills past due.
- They learned to live lean during those months before he got another job. When they saw how little they really needed to survive, they gained a new perspective on money, and were even more committed to paying off their debt quickly.
Sometimes it takes a snakebite to get you to jump out of your thicket and into a clearing so you can really see and understand your circumstances.
Suggestions for avoiding snakebites in your life:
- Never assume. The husband in the above scenario assumed job security. Being surprised when that assumption is blown away throws you into a ‘crisis mode’ that can give you the sense of helplessness or hopelessness. This can lead to feelings of being ‘trapped’ in your situation and seeing no way out. What assumptions are you currently making about the people and situations in your life?
- Be prepared. This does not mean to live life as if you are waiting for ‘the other shoe to drop,’ but rather it means developing a preventative way of preparing for the “what if’s” in life. Let’s go back to the above couple’s scenario. Had they saved more than they spent, they might have felt less stress and pressure before the husband landed another job. What about the case of divorce, when one partner might be totally unprepared? If all other avenues to salvage the marriage (counseling, mediation, etc) fail, then surrounding yourself with support systems of people, divorce recovery groups and legal resources can help you prepare for the lifestyle change.
- Evaluate yourself. The client I described in the beginning chose to take a step back and evaluate the negative contributions and decisions he made in his life. Ask yourself the following questions:
A. What is my ‘thicket’ situation?
