Get Out of Your Head
Head & Heart
At a recent lunch, a guest who had attended several forums brought up some of the reasons he does not believe.
“I have a real problem with hell. It just does not make sense to me why a loving God would be so judgmental. I also have a hard time believing there is one way to God. It seems like that is pretty arrogant, and again, judgmental of Christians about other people. I don’t really like all this judgment.”
While I believe in giving good answers, and that there are good answers out there, I want to write about what I did and not what I said. Because I think in the end it will be more helpful. So here is what I did.
I got anxious. Anxious? I bet you are thinking, aren’t you a paid professional? Nervous is the best you could do in that moment.
Well, why shouldn’t I be anxious? People talking about what they believe is actually sacred stuff. It is important. There is no one size fits all script. And it is hard to be loving towards others and at the same time have convictions about what you believe is true about life and God. So, being nervous at first is not really that big of a deal. What I did next was.
Here’s what happened next. I recognized that I was anxious. This was a big step for me. Because anxiety is hard to spot, especially in yourself. Typically in these kinds of conversations, my brain does not tell me I am anxious. Instead, it does things like challenge me to come up with the perfect answer. Or, it starts making me wish I read more, or was smarter, or more spiritual. And the whole time the other person is talking, I have stopped listening to the other person and spent most of the time thinking about me.
If you do not notice it, anxiety can take you right out of a good conversation and get you lost in your own head.
So, instead of figuring out an answer, I just sort of noticed. “Hey, this is actually making me anxious.” And once I saw that, I was able to do two things. First, I prayed. And not the desperate God give me the perfect answer kind of prayer. I just prayed the simple “God help me” kind of prayer. And, once I did that, a crazy thing happened. I was just able to listen.
When it was my turn to talk, I was amazed at what came out of my mouth. It was a question. And it wasn’t a trick question or one with some deep agenda, just an honest one. “What about judgment bothers you so much?” We ended up having a great spiritual conversation and I wasn’t as nervous because it wasn’t about me anymore.
Imagine that.
Do you get anxious sharing your faith? Would you like to be better at getting in conversations, asking questions and exploring answers with the people in your world? I would be happy to help you. You will be still be anxious, but that might be a good thing.
God bless,
The Donohues
