Three Ways God Wants to Use Your Experiences

By

Rick Warren

Christian Post Guest Columnist

I like chocolate chip cookies. I like them so much I know how to make them. I don’t even need a recipe. But if I eat the individual ingredients, they taste like turtle spit! Ever eat a little shortening? Don’t try it. Raw egg? Bad. Salt and sugar by itself? Yuck. Baking soda? Not good. Chocolate chips? Now that’s good. One out of six isn’t bad. Somehow when you mix five bad things with one good thing and stir them up together, it tastes so good that you eat half the dough before you make the cookies.

Pastor, that’s what God wants to do with your experiences. He wants to take bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, good and turn you into Mrs. Fields! He’s a pro at it. God does not want you to waste your experiences. He wants to use them to make you a more effective minister.

There are three ways that God wants to use your experiences to make you a better minister.

1. Use them to minister to others.

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 1:6-7 (LB): “We are in deep trouble for bringing you God’s comfort and salvation. But in our trouble God has comforted us – and this, too, to help you: to show you from our personal experience how God will tenderly comfort you when you undergo these same sufferings. He will give you the strength to endure.”

God comforts us, helps us, and strengthens us when we’re experiencing problems, so then we can comfort, help, and strengthen others when they go through the same things. God helps us, so we can help others. God wants to use every experience that you’ve gone through to help somebody else.

Who can better help somebody going through cancer than somebody who’s been through cancer? Who can help somebody dealing with an addiction than somebody who’s been through the addiction before? Who can better help parents who had a kid who went off the deep end, than somebody whose son or daughter went off the deep end?

God never wastes a hurt. I’ve said that a thousand times at Saddleback. It’s true for pastors as well. He wants you to use them to minister to other people. What you’re most embarrassed about, what you most regret, God wants to use to help others. But, pastor, before that can happen, you’ve got to be honest about it. If you open up about that pain, it can become you’re greatest ministry. You always help people more through your weaknesses than your strengths.

2. Use them to motivate others.

Your experiences can be inspirational to people because you have been through things and been places that they have not. And you can motivate them.

The Bible tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:11 (TEV): “Encourage one another.”A big part of our job in ministry is to help, encourage, and build up others. Your experiences can help do this.

Your experiences give people hope. You show them they can get through their problems.

Give people hope and you take away the fear that plagues them. When you go on a roller coaster that you’ve never been on, it’s comforting when the guy in front of you in line says, “This is a great ride. I’ve been on it five times.” You realize that you’re going to live. If the guy in front of you lived, you’ll probably live too. That’s encouraging!

Pastor, your preaching can do this for people. When you speak from personal experience, it’s always more effective than any other kind of teaching. The most powerful way to say anything is the most personal way to say it. When you speak from your own personal experiences, particularly difficult ones, you’ll motivate others to keep going through their troubles.

3. You use them to model for others.

Paul says in Philippians 3:17 (NLT): “Dear brothers, pattern your lives after mine and learn from those who follow our example.” Paul tells the church of Philippi to follow his example; he’s going to be the model.

Paul knew that we all need models. It is human nature to imitate. Just about everything you learn in the first five years of life you learn by imitation.

There’s nothing wrong with your church members imitating you. You’re not perfect, and I’m not perfect; only Jesus is perfect. But it’s better to have people following you as a model than some Hollywood celebrity who is obsessed with himself or herself. You’re trying to follow Jesus. If you’re trying to follow Jesus, then it’s a good thing if others are following you.

You need to have models in your own life, and you need to be a model. If you’re not being a model, you’re wasting your experiences.

God never wastes experiences – good or bad. He wants to use your experiences to make you a more effective minister. Will you let him?

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Rick Warren is the founding pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., one of America’s largest and best-known churches. In addition, Rick is author of the New York Times bestseller The Purpose-Driven Life and The Purpose-Driven Church, which was named one of the 100 Christian books that changed the 20th Century. He is also founder of Pastors.com, a global Internet community for ministers. Copyright 2005 Pastors.com, Inc. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

The Choice to Forgive: Healing is a Choice (part 2)

 

by Steve Arterburn

Real resentment over real damage by a real person produces a justifiable resentment, and it becomes such a huge part of your life that it feels like a vulture sitting on top of you, a dark and dangerous presence that affects everything that you do. If the resentment was not justifiable, someone could just talk you out of it. A friend could tell you things he or she has told others who had a bad attitude;

1. Stop being so negative
2. Look at the bright side of things
3. Stop seeing the glass half empty
4. Start thinking more positively
5. Look for the good in people
6. Try accepting people for who they are.

These are the things people say to someone who just needs to make a few changes to make herself more comfortable and enjoy life more. But none of those things apply to you, because you have something to hang on to. There is a date and a person and a trauma that really happened. It is your Auschwitz, and those who know of your terrible ordeal support your feelings. That is the problem; no one questions your feelings. Everyone feels horrible for you, so it is easy for you to hang on to the resentment. Anyone would, but you can’t.

You can’t, because it is eating you alive. It is your own internal terrorist that is destroying your life, keeping you from living the best life possible. It is hurting your relationship with God and with others. You will be firmly rooted to your past and to your abuse as long as the justifiable resentment grows within you. Everything you do in life will lean up against your grudge. It will come to define who you are and limit what you can become.

Although it might be very difficult to imagine, you really can be free from that justifiable resentment. You can let it go and experience the healing power of forgiveness. You can choose to heal a very troubled area of your soul by choosing to walk through a path of forgiveness. And if you take this path, something very amazing is going to happen to you one day. One day you are going to awaken and realize that everything in your life has changed. You will sense that you are no longer rooted in your past. You will realize that what once defined your life and your inner thoughts is no longer relevant to how you live your life. You won’t forget what happened, but you will be aware of something with the magnitude of a fly you just swoosh away. That little fly is nothing compared to the vulture that now sits atop your head, talons deeply implanted in your heart. One day you will awaken and that vulture will no longer be there, and you will be free!

The Choice to Forgive: Healing is a Choice (part 1)

 

by Stephen Arterburn

The Seventh Big Lie: “Forgiveness is only for those who deserve it or earn it.”

The fact that you are even reading these words is a miracle, because you have read a lot of stuff on forgiveness and understand everyone’s angle on it, and none of it does one bit of good for you and your situation. You have been abused, mistreated, or neglected in such a severe way that you believe that forgiveness of that person or persons is impossible for you to experience. You are a good and kind and loving person, but there is one person that you harbor a grudge against, and you plan on keeping it. The person does not deserve to be forgiven by you or by God. Anyone looking at what happened would say that you are totally entitled to your feelings.

If what I have described above is the way you feel, or you feel that way to a lesser degree, I am hoping and praying right now as I write this that this could be the time when everything changes for you. I am praying that as you read on I can help you walk through some steps and help you make some choices that lead you to the choice to forgive the unforgivable. And if you are someone who has not been hurt deeply, I pray that you will use these words to minister to someone else who is struggling because he or she is unable or unwilling to forgive. I pray that in the future if you are ever hurt deeply, you might come back to this and use it to walk out the anger, bitterness, and resentment.

The Most Dangerous Thing on Earth
We live in a world where danger and terror are all around us. We live with uncertainty each new day because we never know what might befall us. Since9/11 most of us have a little more fear of terror in the world that might one day intersect with our personal world. There is something much more dangerous than a terrorist somewhere out there in the world that may or may not harm us one day. There is something worse, much worse than that. It is worse because it can exist within us and affect everything we do and the very person we become. That internal terrorist is called a “justifiable resentment”.

A lot of people have resentments. Some just seem to have a bad attitude about life, and they lean toward resenting everything. They resent paying taxes, paying more than a dollar for a gallon of gas, or being asked by their church to give money to support the new building campaign. They resent the person they are living with. That person is not bad, but the “resenter” collects little things done over time and walks around with a huge collection of little things to hold against the person. It makes him feel a bit superior, so he hangs on to everything he can find. Resenters go through life pretty negative on anything and everything. They have a problem, but it is nothing like what I am going to describe. These petty resentments are real resentments, but they are not the type that will kill you.

A justifiable resentment is the type of resentment that will kill you. It is not about anything petty. It is about real and horrible abuse or mistreatment. It is about a real life event that anyone would say was terribly wrong, and most anyone would tell you that you are totally justified in feeling the way you do. Tenderhearted people will cry with you over it, and many probably have. All the evidence supports your feelings of anger, resentment, bitterness, and unwillingness to forgive. The other person does not deserve it, and no one wants him or her to have it. That is what I call a justifiable resentment.

Twelve First Steps to Controlling what’s Controlling You

 

by Excerpted from Take Control of What’s Controlling You: A Guide to Personal Freedom by Steve Arterburn

1. Make a list of the areas where you are not demonstrating self-control. Consider all appetites, even if your struggle is only moderate. Don’t get overwhelmed by this list—you are not going to try to fix them all at once. But the list will give you something to prioritize and start working on.

2. Make a list of the lies you have been telling yourself. What lies and excuses are you using to allow yourself to continue in an unhealthy pattern? Admit them and stop using them. Here are several examples:
· “I don’t deserve to be loved.”
· “I’ll never amount to anything.”
· “I’m damaged goods.”
· “I really love him, so sex is OK.”
· “I can stop this whenever I want to. I just don’t want to.”
· “Everyone’s doing it.”

3. Evaluate your self-talk. You need to become more aware of what you are saying to yourself because your self-talk can have a big influence on how you feel and act. If you are constantly cutting yourself down and criticizing yourself, either in your head or out loud to others, you will have difficulty liking yourself or believing that you are capable of successfully making the necessary changes. However, if you are positive about yourself and your ability to change, you are halfway there.

4. Make a list of healthy activities that bring you pleasure. Include the small day-to-day things that make you smile as well as bigger events you look forward to. The more items you can come up with the better. This list is going to help retrain your brain. The more you can engage in the things you enjoy that are healthy for you, the more your brain will push you to act on these activities in times of stress so that the old, unhealthy behaviors remain a thing of the past.

5. Confess, repent, and seek. Before you can grow spiritually, you must remove all barriers that stand between you and God. You must admit that you have been struggling with controlling your appetites and that these activities are sinful. As you identify these sins in your life, you must confess and repent (decide to stop doing it). Take time to seek the help of the Holy Spirit by asking for the strength and power necessary to make these changes.

6. Grow in wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. If you hope to become more Christlike, you must know what Christ is like. Study God’s word on a daily basis and do your best to commit portions of it to memory so you will have it readily available to you when temptations come. It is through God’s word that we gain an understanding of what He commands us to do, how the Holy Spirit works in our lives, and the promises God provides to us.

7. Draw closer to God. There are two major benefits to drawing closer to God. First, as we draw closer to God and get to know Him through spending time with Him, we will begin to see sin and the things of this world as they really are. Second, as we get to know and trust God more, we will notice that we are being transformed to a closer likeness of Him. Our desires will change to match what His desires are for us.

8. Engage in spiritual warfare. See the enemy for who he is and fight him with the weapons you have been given. Stop being deceived either through temptations or by believing that you are powerless in this battle. Remember, you are a child of the King, and He has made everything available to you to succeed in this fight with the enemy.

9. Take control of your thoughts. The battle for control of your appetites begins in the mind. If you learn to control your thoughts, your battle can end right there. The problem most of us have in this area of thought control is that we don’t catch our thoughts soon enough. Many thoughts that eventually turn negative may start out seemingly innocent. This is part of Satan’s deception. If he can get us to entertain the little thoughts, then he can gradually grow them bigger and bigger right under our noses. Wrong thinking cannot lead to right doing. We must have right thinking if we want to engage in right doing.

10. Determine to work on one appetite at a time. One of the biggest culprits to being unsuccessful in making changes comes in the form of becoming overwhelmed. Pick one appetite where you would demonstrate more self-control and start there. Don’t start on the others until you have achieved sufficient success on the one you chose.

11. Stop feeding your flesh. Make a plan of action as to how you will go about changing your behavior and fulfilling this appetite in a healthy way. Be sure that the goals you set are realistic and that you give yourself a sufficient amount of time to see changes. Remember, you didn’t get to this place overnight, and you won’t get out of it that way either. Some psychological research has shown that it takes approximately twenty-one days to break an old habit and form a new one. So be patient and persevere.

12. Discover your state when your appetite is under control. Look at your life. Examine yourself. Discover where you are in control of your longings and impulsive urges and reflect on how you feel. Determine to spread those feelings to all areas of your life.

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