Are you tired of it?

Do you want it to change?

Is there something you have lived with for a long time, and you’re sick of it?

Habits

Bad Character Traits

Emotional Pain

Grief

Patterns you can’t seem to change

Are you stuck with it the rest of your life, or can you actually change?

Here’s the good news: You can change! Anyone can change! Other people have done it, and you can too!

3 things are needed for change:

1. Recognition that it’s bad. Time needs to go by without change. “I wish this part of me would change.” I tried to change, but there is no change. I realize it’s bad.

2. Respond. There are two responses to a lack of growth:

• Cut it down! The legalistic response to a bad situation is judgment, condemnation, and negativity. If we don’t learn and grow, we get very judgmental! We don’t only judge ourselves, but others as well. We cut ourselves down. We cut others down. Negativity takes over. Judgement is the end of anything good happening. In effect, it’s the “sentencing.”
• Sorrow. “I’m sad about what my lack of growth is costing me.” I have to get out of my shame to see the loss that not growing has cost.

3. Bring in an advocate! Create a safe zone with no condemnation. Stop the judgment. Don’t condemn.

Groups

Groups must be a “no-fly” zone for guilt, shame, and condemnation. When we allow others to experience us, they can step into our voices of shame and break the cycle. A group can save me from my own “cut it down” response.

Groups administer grace!

When we’re alone, we live in a closed system. It’s just us and our thoughts. Groups open the system with new energy to reverse the downward spiral. They provide a path.

Groups allow people to open their hearts, heads, and souls to other people. This is God’s design. This is not Plan B. This is the way it was always meant to be. We were designed to be dependent on each other.

A great group needs to be a place where I am encouraged, and feel free to share things I feel most badly about. People don’t like their brokenness and neediness. It’s hard to say “I’m weak,” or “I need you.”

3 Ingredients for growth:

In Luke 13, Jesus told a parable about a fig tree. The tree hadn’t produced fruit for 3 years and the owner wanted to cut it down. He told the keeper of the vineyard that it was just taking up space. The keeper told him to do 3 things to see if it would bear fruit. Dig around, fertilize, and give it another year.

1. Dig around. We need truth in our lives. What is really going on? Am I willing to look at my life and take responsibility for my situation and what I need to do to change it? I need a reality check. “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalm 139: 23-4)
2. Fertilize. We need grace and we can’t get it from inside ourselves. Groups can provide what we can’t. Groups can be life support for people trying to grow.
3. Time. Give it time. Time does not heal all wounds. Time plus growth, support, and a safe place heals.

Like the fig tree, our growth needs to be free of toxins:

Denial!

People in denial give infections to others through their advice. You can’t help others if you don’t see your own need for growth.

You can only take people as far as you’ve been willing to go yourself.

Looking for a group to allow you this kind of change? Join us in Breckenridge, CO, May 5-7 for our Broken & Brilliant Relationship Group Intensive.

This material taken from a talk on small groups by Dr. Henry Cloud.

This post written by Colorado Life Coach, Carrie O’Toole, M.A.