Dear friends,
I want to share something with you that has greatly helped me over the years. Not sure where I learned this, so I can’t give credit to the source.
Growing up we learned to use certain behaviors and communication styles as coping mechanisms, as a way to avoid pain or responsibility. But there comes a time when we need to let go of them. They do not belong to God’s higher ways and thoughts.
For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9).
As children, these behaviors and communication styles may have enabled us to survive the rigors of growing up in our family. But now we belong to God, we are part of His family, and He wants us to learn His higher ways and thoughts—ways and thoughts that are life-giving and connect us to the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
The other ways and thoughts belong to the child and are destructive, connecting us to the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2).
When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things (1 Corinthians 13:11).
Here are four behaviors & communication styles that are not life-giving.
The first two are fear-based, the other two, anger-based.
Pray, asking the Lord to show you which ones you are still using.
Two Fear-Based Behaviors—flight & withdrawal
Flight and withdrawal are the behavioral responses to threat and danger. We flee when we view the danger as being greater than our resources and determine that self-preservation is a higher good than engagement with the danger.
Behaviors Animal Communication Style
1. Flight, Run, Escape like the Rabbit Appease, Placate, Distract
Flight—the act of fleeing or running away from danger or expected evil.
a) Appease: to make quiet, calm, still; to satisfy or relieve; to pacify, soothe, conciliate, especially by giving into the demands of another or appease wrath.
b) Placate: to appease or pacify; to quiet the anger of some person.
c) Distract: to divert attention from any point to another point or toward various other objects; to pull in a different direction.
2. Withdraw like the Turtle, Ostrich Super-reasonable, Irrelevant
Mentally & Physically Tune Out
Withdraw—to draw back, retreat, move back; to withdraw into oneself.
a) Super-reasonable: (super—over, above or on top of an explanation) To over justify one’s acts, ideas, etc. To go beyond normal process of giving reasons; offering too much support or justification for acts, ideas, etc.
b) Irrelevant: not bearing upon or relating to the matter at hand; not applicable or pertinent; not relating to the subject or point.
Two Anger-Based Behaviors—fight & control
Anger—a strong feeling excited by a real or supposed injury, often accompanied by a desire to take vengeance or to obtain satisfaction from the offending party; resentment; wrath; ire
3. Fight like a Tiger Violent, Act out, Push others away
to divert attention
Fight—to attempt to defeat, subdue or destroy; to engage in or carry on a war, conflict, case, etc. To strive or contend for victory as in battle; to struggle against; to try to overcome.
a) Violence: to use great force or strength of feeling, conduct or language; show outrage; passionate, vehement, furious. Use physical force to injure or damage; to handle roughly.
4. Control like a Snake, Gorilla Blame, Manipulate others & Coiled like a snake Environment
Control—to exercise authority over; to try to regulate, direct, command; to curb, restrain, hold back.
a) Blame: to accuse a person of being at fault; to condemn for something. To find fault with; to put the responsibility for something on someone or something else.
b) Manipulate: to manage or control artfully or by shrewd use of influence. To change or falsify for one’s own purposes or profit; to rig.
I encourage you to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to make you aware of when you revert back to a childish way or thought. These behaviors and communication styles are deeply ingrained in your patterns.
“Lord, cause us to grow up and mature, becoming life-giving people.”