Moving The Needle
The idea of moving the Needle came from my wife. She is my inspiration and the one that gives me the strength to go on when things are not looking good in my life.
It applies to those with Avoidant Personality Disorder (Avpd) and Normals alike. In our society, and especially in Christian circles, we have a nasty habit of thinking of things in black and white terms.
- Either you are thin, or you are overweight
- Either you are healthy, or you are sick
- Either you are healed, or you are not.
If you are not walking in total 100% instant healing, we think that there must be something wrong.
We think things like;
· Maybe we did not get healed, or cured at all
· Maybe we did not do something right
· Maybe we did something wrong
· Maybe our faith is not strong enough
The last one is the "Get Out of Jail Free Card" that many faith healers use to get them off the hook if someone does not receive the healing they promised. A good example is an old movie called "Leap of Faith".
In this movie, Steve Martin plays Jonas, a faith healer. Jonas calls people down to the alter, lays hands on them and they get instantly healed. If someone does not receive healing, he tells them that "Their Faith Was Not Strong Enough". That is why Jesus was not able to heal them.
Jesus does heal yesterday, today, and forever, but how do we rationalize it when healing does not happen? Here is an example. My wife is a little overweight. She has struggled with this all her life.
Now I can hear you all thinking out there. "O come on Phillip, this is way different than struggling with Avpd, Cancer, or some other horrible illness. People that are overweight got their because they made poor eating choices, don't exercise and don’t take care of themselves"
If you had asked me this a few years back, I would have agreed with you, but my wife has been on a lot of diets over the years and is now in Weight Watchers. She sticks to her diet really closely and works out most ever day, but still, the weight comes off very very slowly, and on some weeks she makes no progress at all.
I have heard this very same story from a lot of women that struggle with trying to lose weight. In fact, after doing some research on this, it’s actually pretty common.
I remember watching the Biggest Looser and seeing those people loose tons of weight by the end of the show. But... did you know that almost none of those people managed to keep the weight off?
The reason for this is simple. When you get something for free, or quick, you don't appreciate it like you would if you had to really work for it over a long period of time, and you really struggled for it.
In the Bible, we actually see quite a few examples of healings that did not happen instantly. All healings take time, some just seem instant because God sped time up to the point that it seemed instant to us.
When it comes to weight loss, we expect that to be instant as well, In most cases, it took many many years for you to put all that weight on, so why would be expect it not to take time to get it off?
God is not going to wave his magic wand, and poof, you are skinny again. Why? Because if he did, the chances of you keeping the weight off are slim to none. You need to change your lifestyle, and do the work in order for that weight to come off. It might take weeks, months, or even years to loose that weight.
The same goes for your Avpd, Major Depression, Severe Social Anxiety, or any other Mental Illness that you are dealing with. It took years for your brain to develop the issues that it has. It is likely going to take months or even years to get rid of it.
Chances are that you won’t see big huge changes overnight. You might need to force yourself to go out with a friend, a family member, or to that event that you really did not want to go to.
You might try introducing yourself to a stranger at work, or church. You could practice going to places that previously scared you.
Whatever you do, it’s not about the big things. I used to be a bowler in a league. Everyone wants to get strikes, but more often than not, they don't. In bowling, the trick to learn is that if you take care of the small things, like focusing on how you throw the ball, and spares, the strikes and your score, will take care of themselves.
It's all about moving the needle one little bit at a time, and keeping it moving.
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