Too Much? When To Shut Up and Take a Break – Purity 1196

 

Too Much? When To Shut Up and Take a Break – Purity 1196

Purity 1196 11/11/2023 Purity 1196 Podcast

Purity 1196 on YouTube: 

Good morning,

Today’s photo of the sun setting over a beach where
some sit and rest while another walks alone comes to us from Dan Philips who captured
this scene while vacationing in Sayulita Mexico and shared it with a “photo
dump” of many others on social media on November 5^th.  Thanks for sharing, Dan, although I should
caution that “dumping 75 plus photos” all at once may have been a bit “too much”.  

Well, it’s Saturday, and while I can handle all the
photos you want to share on social media, I caution my friend about his possibly
sharing too much, because I recently just happened to receive that message yesterday,
 and while I say it facetiously – it may
in fact not be a joke – because the message I received delivered a powerful
punch of shame, sadness, bewilderment, shock, and some devasting real-life
consequences.  

As I have been blogging about in part for most of
the last year, I currently am attending Deeper Walk International’s School of
Prayer Ministry and have recently been working toward meeting my final
requirements for “graduation” and being certified as a “Deeper Walk
International Certified Prayer Minister but yesterday I received the
devastating news that I would NOT be certified in December as I expected
because it has determined by my cohort leader that I lack one of the “relational
skills” that is essential for a Deeper Walk certified prayer minister to
have.  I require additional time and
training in the area of attuning with other’s emotions and recognizing when
others may be overwhelmed.”  

My instructor has recommended I take ThriveToday’s
course “Building Trust: Attune vs Overwhelm” (https://secure.lglforms.com/form_engine/s/7rF3p2rCo6U8VvidjhujfQ
) and that I seek additional prayer ministry training opportunities with certified
DW prayer ministers to grow in my skills and to improve my use of listening
prayer methods, like Immanuel Prayer and REAL Prayer. 

While I fully accept my instructor’s evaluation and recommendations
and will follow whatever course I have to in order to meet the requirements for
certification, I have to be honest and tell you that this is a heartbreaking disappointment
as I can’t help but see it as yet another failure and rejection in a very long
line of failures and rejections that I have experienced in life. 

While I’ve had my fair share of failures and
rejections in my life, this one hurts quite a bit because I didn’t see it
coming and thought I was not only meeting the requirements for the completion
of this program but thought I was excelling at it.

But I guess that’s part of the problem, I didn’t see
the signs and I thought everything was fine when they weren’t. And so I am
acknowledging and accepting that I need to improve in the area of knowing what “the
emotional atmosphere” is like when ministering to others is and when what I am doing
and saying has ceased helping and is actually “overwhelming others”. 

The instructor observed in my interactions with my colleagues
in the cohort and in the stories I related from my experiences in ministering
to others in the past that in my enthusiasm for “helping”, encouraging, and
instructing others I could fail to recognize when the people I minister to maybe
“overwhelmed” and I didn’t have a good gauge when others might be beyond their
capacity to receive. In essence, sometimes, I talk too much and don’t recognize
when people have heard enough, or too much, and need a break.  

When faced with awkward silences, I fill them with
words instead of recognizing that I should stop.  It turns out that what I thought of as a
skill turned out to be a weakness.

In my previous roles as a teacher for recovery and
freedom ministry, my duty was to deliver “the message”. In a classroom
environment, there will be those who are paying attention and there will be
those who are distracted or totally tuned out. 
In the classroom setting, while you can engage the students to get their
attention from time to time, if you address every student who seems checked out,
you run the risk of losing focus and delivering the material you need to
deliver.  In my freedom ministry classes
that I did in 2021, which I recorded for a podcast, there was increased
pressure to stay on message because I wasn’t just teaching to those before me,
so I have developed the tendency to “keep talking” – “keep teaching” until I
say what I need to say, and while that may or may not have been an admirable
quality in the classroom, I suppose I revert to it when I am in conversations
that go “quiet”. 

Instead of waiting for the other person to speak or
giving them a break, I will keep talking.  

Okay, this is not a conversation but if it were, I
would take a long pause to listen, or at least I would like to think I would.

Also, besides trying to encourage and instruct, I
also try to be transparent about my life. I have learned to try to be as honest
and as forthcoming in presenting myself to others and now I am realizing that I
could be guilty of “oversharing”. 

This was pointed out to me by my instructor’s
comments regarding a paper I submitted regarding our experience as a “prayer
ministry client”, putting ourselves in the shoes of a client for 6 sessions of
prayer ministry, where the paper called for 5-8 pages and I, in my enthusiasm, submitted
14 pages, plus a two-page bibliography, and instead of asking for an extension
or guidance on the length of my paper – I just submitted – apparently overwhelming
my instructor!

I know, way to go M.T.!  Believe me, if I knew then what I know now not
only would I have reduced the word count on that paper, but I would have exercised
the right to remain silent a lot more in class and in sharing my less than
stellar experiences in ministering to others!

I mean think about it, what stories do you share in
life.  Do you share the stories where
everything went fine and not much happened? 
“I lead Bob through the Steps. We finished in 3 hours, and everything
went great –  a good resolution without
incident”  Or  “I had this one client who was manifesting
demons and who took 8 hours doing the steps before we called out to Jesus and
the Holy Spirit finally set us both free!” 
I know 8 hours? I was learning and was along for the ride as much as
leading that freedom appointment. I didn’t push the client through that one, I
was holding on and rolling with the punches.  

So yes in my conversations, I tend to get carried
away in telling the stories of how God has moved in my life and in the life of
others. Because I know how ignorant I was of who I am in Christ and the
possibility of a life of freedom in Christ, I tend to “overshare” what I have
come to know about living in the Spirit.  

And that enthusiasm, and lack of discernment on my
part to recognize that I can “overwhelm” the people I seek to encourage or
help, has resulted in the biggest personal failure I have had since my divorce
in 2018. 

As much as I can see the truth of the errors of my
ways, and acknowledge the need for growth, the pain over the sense of failure and
rejection is sharp.  They say shame is
the sense that not only have you done something wrong, but you feel that there
is something wrong with you and I can’t help but admit that I am experiencing that
today and have known it for all too long in my life.   WHAT” S WRONG WITH ME!?!?!

Besides, what you have admitted to thus far, M.T.,
would you like a list?

No, thanks, I am more than capable of doing that on
my own…

But I know that God loves me – even though I talk too
much.

I know that God accepts me, even though I might be a
“bull in a China shop” of people’s emotions and limited capacities.

And I know that this journey of pain has a happy
ending. 

And I know that today is another day.  And I can’t go back and “shut up” and give
people a “break” but I can go forward and learn to do so in the future.  

So keep walking and talking with God, you won’t overwhelm
Him, but He will probably encourage you to stop and listen when things go wrong
and to you feel like a failure and the whole world rejects you. He will invite
you into His grace to give you the healing and wisdom and strength to keep
going when all seems lost.

I always point to God’s words to Cain when He was
depressed over his failed sacrifice. 

Genesis
4:6-7 (NIV2011) says
⁶  Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry?
Why is your face downcast?
⁷  If you do what is right,
will you not be accepted? …

So,
I’ll cover my broken heart and try to turn my frown upside down and “do what is
right”.  I will accept this failure as an
opportunity to grow and remember my peace and joy is found in the Lord, not in
my accomplishments, and that no matter what the future holds in terms of my
desire to be certified by Deeper Walk International, I am secure, I am accepted,
I am significant, and thank God, I am loved in Christ alone.

——————————————————————————————–

Today’s
Bible verse comes to us from “The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling” By
John G. Kruis.

(
While Bible verses on various topics of Counseling can be found with a quick Google
search, we encourage you to purchase this resource to support the late author’s
work. (https://www.amazon.com/Quick-Scripture-Reference-Counseling-Kruis-ebook/dp/B00CIUJZT2?ref_=ast_author_dp )

This
morning’s meditation verses come from the section on Church, Communion of the
Saints.

Ephesians 4:3-6 (NLT2)
³  Make every effort to keep
yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.
⁴  For there is one body and
one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future.
⁵  There is one Lord, one
faith, one baptism,
⁶  and one God and Father, who
is over all and in all and living through all.

Today’s
verses fall under the first point of our counseling reference guide resource’s
section on Church,
Communion of the Saints.

 1. The church is one.

Today’s verses tell us to
make every effort to be united in the Spirit, and that we should bind ourselves
together with other believers to be assured of the glorious hope for our future
with the one true God.  

Yeah, life can stink. But
God has overcome the world. So regardless of our losses, let’s walk in the
Spirit together and tie ourselves to the enduring hope that transcends the
circumstances of our lives.  

The church can be a place
of pain as we struggle to edify one another and serve the Lord, but when we
keep first things first and let go of our pride, we can have experience the
peace that comes from knowing that regardless of our performance or our
relationships here on earth, we are safe in God’s kingdom forever.

——————————————————————–

As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I
always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to
assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.

Today we are sharing from A. W. Pink’s – The Arthur
Pink Anthology  – a collection of A.W.
Pink’s tracts brought together in one book and dispersed here on the blog for
your encouragement.

As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage you all to purchase A.W. Pink’s books for your own
private study and to support his work.  This resource is available online
for free as a PDF at many sites, but printed copies of collections of A.W.
Pink’s books are available for purchase wherever Christian books are sold. 

The Arthur Pink Anthology – 5

Chosen to Salvation

“But we
are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord,
because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through
sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth”

(2 Thessalonians
2:13)

There are three things
here which deserve special attention. First, the fact that we are expressly
told that God’s elect are “chosen to salvation:” Language could not be more
explicit. How summarily do these words dispose of the sophistries and
equivocations of all who would make election refer to nothing but external
privileges or rank in service! It is to “salvation” itself that God has chosen
us. Second, we are warned here that election unto salvation does not disregard
the use of appropriate means: salvation is reached through “sanctification of
the Spirit and belief of the truth” It is not true that because God has chosen
a certain one to salvation that he will be saved willy-nilly, whether he
believes or not: nowhere do the Scriptures so represent it. The same God who
“chose unto salvation,” decreed that His purpose should be realized through the
work of the spirit and belief of the truth. Third, that God has chosen us unto
salvation is a profound cause for fervent praise. Note how strongly the apostle
express this—“we are bound to give thanks always to God for you. brethren
beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to
salvation,” etc. Instead of shrinking back in horror from the doctrine of
predestination, the believer, when he sees this blessed truth as it is unfolded
in the Word, discovers a ground for gratitude and thanksgiving such as nothing
else affords, save the unspeakable gift of the Redeemer Himself.^[1]

—————————more
tomorrow————————

Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage
Breaker”, “Freedom in Christ” series of Discipleship Classes via the
mt4christ247 podcast!

at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can also find it on Apple podcasts

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These teachings are also available on the
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Email me at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, share your progress, and
to be encouraged.

My wife, TammyLyn, also offers Christian
encouragement via her Ask Seek Knock blog (https://tammylynask.blogspot.com/ ),  her
Facebook Group: Ask, Seek, Knock (https://www.facebook.com/groups/529047851449098 ) and her podcast Ask, Seek, and Knock on
Podbean (https://feed.podbean.com/tammalyn78/feed.xml)

“The views, opinions, and commentary of this
publication are those of the author, M.T. Clark, only, and do not purport to
reflect the opinions or views of any of the photographers, artists, ministries,
or other authors of the other works that may be included in this publication,
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Encouragement
for the Path of Christian Discipleship