A talk given for church leaders June 9th 2024:
 
God, Neighbor, Self

Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart might mind and strength, and love thy neighbor as thyself.

Then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of the Lord.

God, Neighbor, Self. Good mental and spiritual health involves feeling “confident” with all 3: God Neighbor Self

Do the people for whom you have stewardship (and more-importantly you):

1. Feel confident in their relationship with God?
2. Feel confident in their relationship with their neighbor? (Society, family, friends) Do I have my own “tribe” where I feel comfortable and can contribute? Do I “belong” to others?
3. Feel confident in their relationship with themselves? (Are they living in a manner consistent with their own values? Do they have and like their own “identity?”) Do I “belong” to myself?

These 3 areas are interwoven, inform, and build on each other. It is hard to feel confident with God if you don’t feel confident with your neighbor/tribe or yourself. And vice versa, it’s hard to feel confident with your neighbor/society if you are at odds with God.

Small distortions in the relationship between these 3 things can lead to poor mental/spiritual health.

Examples: Have you heard these kinds of philosophies?

• Only God can judge me
• I’ve talked to God about it, I don’t need to involve anyone else (like my bishop or my spouse, or a support group)
• I have to be true to myself (at all costs) [we don’t usually say the parenthesis out loud]
• My problems are so unique that no one can help me (so I’ll stay stuck)

Satan/our “natural man” will very subtly distort the balance between God, Neighbor, and Self:

Satan: “I’m doing what’s been done on other earths… that’s how God gained his knowledge…”

Emphasis on societal norms. Everyone’s doing it, it’s what’s normal. Everyone will understand, turn a blind eye, wink at it, etc. —> Indulgence/misplaced confidence/courage (fight)

Also Satan: “See you are naked! Run, hide!”

Emphasis on societal judgement (shame). You are the ONLY one doing something so shameful. Keep it secret, hidden. No one will understand. —> secrecy, absence of confidence, shame (flight)

These 2 ideas often follow each other and are in direct logical conflict (everybody’s doing it vs. nobody’s doing it). Satan is actually telling the “truth” in both cases, but he is putting EMPHASIS on the wrong things (and omitting the “full story”).

How to help those (including myself) caught in these distortions:

Social: Please notice that all 3 of these areas are a “social” relationship.

PERSON <—> GOD

PERSON <—> NEIGHBORS

PERSON <—> SELF

Many people’s conception of God comes from their experiences with their neighbor (eg: parents, church leaders/God's mouthpiece/God's representative, etc. “My Dad was mean, so God must be too”). Other conceptions of God come from our understanding of ourselves (“I’m lenient and forgiving, so God must be too”). These can actually be sources of distorted God understanding.

Any social relationship can be a source of shame because shame is about the question: “Am I seen poorly through the eyes of another?” Our natural man is hard-wired to care deeply about these relationships and our status in these relationships. Does God not like me? Does my tribe not like me? Do I really like myself?

Brene Brown has taught that: “Because shame is a social ill, it requires a social balm.” Seeing our work as the repairing of a social problem can greatly influence our approach and effectiveness. Seeing problems from this perspective (fixing a social problem) will also help us eliminate words and practices that contribute to building shame. Ultimately we must build a different kind of society or culture around these topics.

1. Help heal the God relationship (priesthood confession, guidance, involvement). Priesthood leaders stand as proxy/symbol for the God relationship, emphasize and help transmit God’s love and mercy/forgiveness/understanding. Prayer = direct link to the divine. Be careful over-emphasizing “justice” and “judgement” which can drive shame.
2. Help heal the Neighbor relationship (friends, family, tribe). Help individuals open up and be honest with others. Help them invite others into their “inner circle”, fight isolation, be vulnerable. Share who they are so others can demonstrate acceptance and love of them “as they are.” Encourage participation in support groups where they can “socialize” with others who are open and honest and can relate to their journey.
3. Help heal the Self relationship (explore and define their OWN values, outside of, but probably informed by “others” - what do they actually believe and feel is important? “get their own testimony”) Therapy can be helpful in this journey.

Again, work in these 3 areas will be interwoven, inform, and build on each other across the lines of the 3 neat little boxes.

Ex: Knowing that your tribe understands and accepts you, helps you believe more that God can know and accept you, which helps you have more self-confidence.

You can’t be an expert in all 3 of these areas, but good leaders are good “short stops” that know where to route the balls coming in from the outfield to the proper base.

Your focus is on #1, but various church programs & other resources are for #2 and you should be lobbing balls to those bases to really help people with the “Neighbor” piece of this puzzle.

Luke 12:2-3 (Jesus talking about the latter days, and the times near his second coming)

“For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known.

Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.”

We typically see this as a warning that our sins will be “shouted from the rooftops” in a shameful way as a punishment for the wicked. But perhaps this could be read as the kind of mindset necessary in the latter days… more of a commandment… where we are the ones doing the shouting… WILLINGLY sharing those things we’ve been conditioned to be ashamed of, in an open and vulnerable way, and that a society in which such sharing of “what is normally hidden” will be a transformed and Godly society.