Imagine Your Future

My series, Confident in God's Garden, continues with some thoughts about looking ahead at the future. We've learned that, as survivors of abuse or trauma, we can be some of the most fearful people on the planet.

Through this series, we've taken some steps to change our outward appearance so that we feel a little more courageous...better equipped for the battles ahead. If we truly want to become bolder, though, we must change what's on the inside, too.

Imagine a fairy tale ending.
Fairy tales have always been popular, because they give readers hope. The author typically introduces a young girl, trapped in an unhappy childhood, and creates a marvelous future for her. When she achieves her dreams, the reader feels satisfied and uplifted.

Snow White danced around, singing Someday My Prince Will Come. She understood the importance of keeping her eyes on what could be, not what was. Hope gave her the courage to keep on moving through life, dreaming of a better future. Eventually, her dreams came true with the arrival of her prince.

We must imagine ourselves in the future, confident, happy, and satisfied. Getting there won't be easy, but if we think about where we want to end up, we can figure out what we need along the way.

What are God's dreams for our future?
God's got a definite plan for our future with him in heaven. Way back when he created the world, our final destinies were already in his plans. To get us to our end destination, he has orchestrated our arrival on earth at exactly the right time. He placed us in our families--even the most dysfunctional ones--where we would learn the skills that we would need for our future lives.

God knew that we would mess things up and get sidetracked along the way. He realized that we would need tremendous hope to keep on going in this challenging world. That's why he sent Jesus to die on a cross to keep sin from separating us from him. Because of God's great love for us, our futures are clearly defined.

God sent Jeremiah, a prophet, to give the Israelites an encouraging message. This same promise still holds true for us and for our future. I'll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. (Jeremiah 29:11b MSG)

Notice that the final phrase says that God has plans to give us the future that we hope for. So many Christians sit back and say that they're waiting on God to tell them what to do. I think they're wasting a lot of precious time, because they fail to engage their minds to discover their purpose for being here.

God has put desires into our hearts for a reason. Those desires are simply his blueprint for our lives. Anything good that we can imagine, God put there in the first place. Our dreams take us where God wants us to go when we step out with courage and put them into action.

Today's Challenge
Imagine your future self as confident, happy, and satisfied. Write down today what you are doing in your dream. Snow White's specific vision was for a prince to come into her life. What's yours? If you're drawing a blank, pray for God's dreams for your future to become clear to you.

How Can I Overcome My Fears?

We learned last week that we develop fears following traumatic events. Our brains can actually become programmed to respond to conflict with either anger or fear.

Are your fears warranted or are they just excuses?
Some fears are warranted, and we can use them to keep ourselves safe from harm. Other fears become roadblocks to forgiveness, because they give us excuses to avoid taking action.

Before we learn how to eradicate our fears, I want to address perfectionism and worry. They are both cover-up behaviors for fears that can hinder our development as a person.

Perfectionism and worry begin with irrational fears.
When we start telling ourselves that something should happen, we are often setting ourselves up for failure. Shoulds are red flags for perfectionism, which is really a fancy word for the fear of failing. Perfectionistic thinking looks like this: "If I do this perfectly, I can prevent others (abusers, criminals, etc) or situations (similar to our traumatic event) from hurting me."

When we become fearful about certain situations, we also become expert worriers. Worried thinking goes something like this, “If I worry long enough about ____________, I can prevent it from happening.”

I have learned that no amount of perfectionism or worrying on my part will ever control the events that take place in this world. Only God can control what goes on. Worrying is a complete waste of energy. Jesus asked, "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" (Matt 6:27 NIV)

Life goes on, in spite of the losses--both big and small--that we feel. If we become terribly consumed by past hurts or traumas and worry about further pain or become perfectionistic to control outcomes, we lose out on everything that the rest of the world is enjoying. God blesses us every day with lovely things to see, do, hear, taste, smell, and touch. If we want to become fully alive and enjoy the world, we must overcome the roadblocks of fear that masquerade as avoidance behaviors, worry, and perfectionism.

Cognitive restructuring can help us eliminate fears.
We can use a form of self-talk known as cognitive restructuring to overcome our fears. With this method, we replace faulty thinking with something healthier.

For example, I developed an unusually strong fear of riding in cars following a major accident when I was nine years old. I had not been physically injured, but my parents' conversation following the event caused me to believe that our odds of surviving a car ride were slim.

My fear of riding in cars grew as I worried more about the danger. The more I worried, the bigger my fear became. Over a period of months, I became so terrified of getting into a car that I avoided it at all costs. I rode my bike everywhere that the family went. If we took a long trip, my parents had to medicate me first.

It took me nearly forty years before I realized that I had to replace this faulty wiring in my head with more rational thinking. A counselor taught me to tell myself, “Most car rides end successfully. I have taken all the safety measures I can (seat belt fastened, air bag turned on, mirrors adjusted, car maintained). I will trust God to get me safely to my destination in the car.”

Those of you who know me well may be wondering what happened last summer when I took all the safety measures I could and still got hit and injured by a drunk driver. I experienced all the same fears that I had as a child following the accident with my parents. The difference, though, was that I used cognitive restructuring to talk myself back into driving. It took less than a month to tell myself, "Most car rides end successfully. I have taken all the safety measures I can. I will trust God to get me safely to my destination."

We can use cognitive restructuring with any fear that we may have. As survivors of trauma or abuse, we can use it to overcome our fear of the people who hurt us or the situations where the trauma occurred.

Our self-talk to eliminate worry simply needs to state simple facts based on truth, just as I did in the example above. And it needs to be repeated a lot before our brains begins to believe it. Every time we find ourselves becoming worried, we can stop, repeat our new self-talk, and then step out in faith.

Cognitive restructuring works to eliminate perfectionism, too. A replacement thought for perfectionistic beliefs might sound like this: “I will do my best, but if I make a mistake, I will be okay. I can keep a good sense of humor about my mistakes and perhaps learn to laugh at myself, instead of expecting so much.”

Memorizing Scripture helps us put our fears into perspective.
When we are struggling to overcome avoidance behaviors, worry, and perfectionism, we can turn to Scripture for many references that will reassure us. Deuteronomy 31:6 reads, So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.

Isn’t it ridiculous to be afraid of something if the God of the universe is personally walking in front of us? No one is bigger or stronger than God, so what are we worrying about? As far as I'm concerned, a lack of trust in God may be the number one source of all fear. The best remedy for a shortage of trust is to read the Bible. God’s Word can help us to grow in our faith and to learn to trust Him more.

Is it time to ask for help?
If fears are becoming so overwhelming for you that you can't function in a normal way, please find a psychologist or psychiatrist to help you. I lived for nearly forty years with my fear of riding in cars. What a waste of some wonderful experiences involving spectacular trips through the Swiss Alps, our Pacific Coast, and many breath-taking vistas!

In a later lesson, we will work on the skills necessary to confront the people that we need to forgive the most. For now, we just need to become aware of our fears so that they will not prevent us from finding spiritual and emotional freedom along the way.

Today's Challenge
Choose your smallest fear and write out a statement of truth about it. For example, if you're afraid of riding in elevators, you might write: "Most elevator rides end successfully. I can step in, allow the doors to close, ride up, and get off without incident on my designated floor." Repeat this affirmation and visualize yourself fearlessly performing the action. Ask God to help you. In time, you will find the courage to step out in faith and overcome this minor fear. Later, we'll work on the bigger ones.