The Need for an Intervention

Are you familiar with an alcoholic intervention? An intervention is typically initiated by a family member of the alcoholic, most often the spouse, to confront the alcoholic about the truth of their drinking and the need for help. When the spouse approaches the alcoholic’s family for support in the intervention, they are often met with resistance because the whole family system is dysfunctional and blind to the truth of the problem. It takes a great deal of courage for the spouse to push forward, knowing that they will suffer in their efforts to break the dysfunctional pattern and set their loved one free from the bondage of substance use. It is often not till much later that their efforts are appreciated.

To set someone free, you must be willing to suffer. The individual will fight you in order to hold on to their “truth” and will despise you for confronting them. They will call you judgmental, intolerant, and narrow minded. This is why in an intervention many people are utilized to confront the individual. A chorus of truth is harder to argue with than a solo performer.

Let’s now transition to the work of Christ. Is it any wonder why Jesus was despised? He challenged the unhealthy, dysfunctional Hebrew family system and suffered for doing so, just like a spouse of an alcoholic. He was trying to set people free from the bondage of sin, but the family members, the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders, despised him and denied they had any problems, just like an alcoholic does. No wonder he tells us to be prepared to suffer for speaking the truth. We are challenging dysfunction in the same way he did, or a spouse does during an intervention. All truth bearers must initially pay a price for speaking the truth, challenging the dysfunction. This is our calling, to be truth bearers. Is the church teaching us this in this modern era? Typically not. The church grows weaker in standing up for the truth, choosing to be overly tolerant and politically correct. Yes, we need to confront with grace and truth, but these days we've dropped the truth and only offer grace. And so, people live on in dysfunction because no one is willing to perform an intervention.

The bottom line? Christians are failing to love in order to be politically correct or avoid conflict. We have become soft and self-protective. We are failing to care for our brothers and sisters. We are sitting around watching them die, just like a family member watches an alcoholic loved one die from their unchallenged dysfunctional behaviors. No wonder the Bible says we will cry in heaven when we realize how little we did for others. Keith Green’s “Asleep in the Light” is a great song to go with this post. Don’t worry, I’m just as convicted as you.

Go Ground Yourself

God has given us 5 wonderful gifts to use when we are stressed, grieving, and feeling disconnected from ourselves and others. Everyone has them. Do you know what they are? Your 5 senses! Seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling! By concentrating on these 5 senses, you ground yourself to God, nature, this world, and life. When people are stressed they live in their heads. Their thoughts are racing and they are picturing everything in their mind. They are not in this world! They’re “gone!” By grounding yourself, you get out of your head and back into life. It calms your mind, soothes your emotions, and relaxes your body.
Need to ground yourself? Go for a walk in nature and feel the sun on your skin, hear the birds singing, smell the trees and flowers, feeling and hear the dirt below your feet. Take off your shoes and walk in the grass. Why to people love the beach, the mountains, a garden, or a hot bath with candles burning? They are places where people ground themselves. We need to ground ourselves regularly! When I work with anxious kids, I pull out the sandbox in my office, instruct the kids to take off their socks and shoes, and put their hands and feet in the sand. Most kids just climb in the box… and love it! You can just see their anxieties melt away.Throughout your day, ground yourself. Smell and taste the food you eat. Notice the change in seasons, the colors of the trees. Feel the sun on your face, the rain on your hands, the sounds of life around you. Whatever grounds you, do it regularly and give thanks to God for giving you such wonderful gifts.

Rock & Roll and Therapy

Music is very powerful because it by-passes the logical mind and goes directly to the heart. It has the power to evoke memories from long-ago, bring you tears, evoke feelings of love, and draw you closer to God and nature. The Psalms express the full range of emotions through song, love, praise, confusion, anger, doubt, fear.... it's all there... in its raw and intense form.

Can God handle our intense emotions? Is it ok to express them? God does not want us to "let any unwholesome words come from our lips" but that does not mean that we can't express the fullness of what we feel. We need to in order full us to fully heal!

I remember working with someone years ago who was affraid to let out the fullness of her pain. I convinced her that both I and God could handle it. So, she let it rip... and boy did she let it rip! But the process freed her from years and years of pain, supressed because she was told to not speak any negative words out into the air. What terrible, unbiblical advice that kept her in bondage for years! In the West, we're so hung-up about expressing emotions. We need to embrace the styles of the Mid-East or African cultures where they express the fullness of all emotions.

Now, this may surprise some of you, but I'm a fan of Linkin Park, primarily because of their powerful album, Meteora. I don't know the story, but I think one of the band members must have been in therapy to write the songs the album contains. It is a therapy album that expresses the anger, pain, confusion, and hopes of being a young man hurt by his past. It's all there... and the music style captures the distraught mood even more. It's intense, but powerful.
Consider the lyrics of track 6, "Easier to Run" -
"It's easier to run than face all this pain here all alone.... something has been
taken from deep inside of me, a secret I've kept locked away no one else can see
wounds so deep they never show... they never go away
Like moving picture in my head...they never go away."

Consider also the hope expressed in track 3, "Somewhere I Belong"-
"I want to heal, I want to feel what I thought was never real
I want to let go of the pain I've held so long...
I want to find something I've wanted all along... somewhere I belong."

Find some music that speaks to you, something that you can take along with you in your journey.... it helps make the journey a more human, communal experience.

Just some random thoughts...