De-Wildered and De-Witched

Scripture

(Psalm 145:1,2) I will extol you, my God and my King, and bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever.


Observation
"Extol" comes from the Middle English, extollere (ex = up or out; and tollere = tolerate); and "tolerate" means "to allow to be or to be done without prohibition, hindrance, or contradiction." Thus, every day, I will "tolerate" God's sovereign goodness in whatever way He in His tender mercy decides is best--even when my soul wants to prohibit, hinder, or contradict His design; even when my understanding is tormented or my emotions are confused. Frankly, that's a pleasant gift He provides for people. We are easily bewildered; sometimes we are appropriately bewildered... or so we think.


Application (Personal)
So, is Jesus actually my Lord, my God, my King? Then I delight in praising him, especially when circumstances instead of Truth tempt me to distrust his goodness and faithfulness. Am I bewildered? (How curiously funny that bewilderment immediately precedes bewitch in the dictionary.) Why would I ever choose to "be wilder, confused, or jumbled?" Each day, the Holy Spirit still broods over the dark voids of creation (Genesis 1:1-3), bringing light to darkness and order to confusion and substance to emptiness. Each day, He provides circumstances that help me to love and trust and know him more than previously. That's a pretty fine deal.


Application (Psychological)
Praising God each day isn't for spiritual toadies. And as weird and inordinate as "tolerate" seems in this context), tolerating God isn't a mindless exercise. Choosing to love and trust the Lord in difficult circumstances helps us to more accurately appreciate who he actually is. It helps grow less bewildered by life, more spiritually organized.


Some life experiences (trauma, for example) are truly bewildering and beyond our ability to sort out. Thankfully, my first-hand experience of trauma is almost imperceptible in the scale of human tragedies. Here is how Marion F. Solomon and Daniel J. Seigel explain how true trauma survivors can be helped to sort out their emotional and intellectual chaos:


"To make meaning of the traumatic experiences usually is not enough. Traumatized individuals need to have experiences that directly contradict the emotional helplessness and physical paralysis that accompany traumatic experiences. In many people with PTSD, such helplessness and paralysis becomes a habitual way of responding to stressful stimuli, further weakening their feelings of control over their destiny. The critical steps in treating PTSD can be summarized as follows:

1. Safety. When people's own resources are inadequate to deal with threat, they need to rely on others to provide them with safety and care. After having been traumatized, [it] is critical that the victim re-establish contact with his or her natural social support system. If this system is inadequate to ensure the safety of the patient, institutional resources need to be mobilized to help the patient find a place to recover.
2. Anxiety Management. After the patient's safety has been assured, there may be a need for a variety of psychological interventions. They need to learn to name the problems they face, and learn to formulate appropriate solutions. Assault victims must learn to distinguish between the real life threats and the haunting, irrational fears which are part of PTSD. If anxiety dominates, victims need to be helped to strengthen their coping skills. Practical anxiety management skills training may include deep muscle relaxation, breathing control, role-playing, covert modeling, thought stopping, and guided self-dialogue.
3. Emotional Processing. To put the event(s) in perspective, the victim needs to re-experience the event without feeling helpless. Traditionally following Freud's notion that words can substitute for action to resolve a trauma, this has been done by helping people to talk about their entire experience. They are asked to articulate [1] what they think happened, and what led up to it; [2] their own contributions to what happened; [3] their thoughts and fantasies during the event; [4] what was the worst part of it; and [5] their reactions to the event in detail, including how it has affected their perceptions of themselves and others. Such exposure therapy is thought to promote symptom reduction by allowing patients to realize that: (a) remembering the trauma is not equivalent to experiencing it again; (b) that the experience had a beginning, a middle, and an end, and that the event now belongs to one's personal history.

... Although traditional exposure therapy can be very helpful in overcoming traumatic intrusions, it needs to be applied with care. Some patients, on recalling their trauma, my become flooded with both the traumatic memories and memories of previously forgotten traumas. Increased activation of traumatic memories may be associated with increased shame, guilt, aggression, and increase in alcohol and drug use." (from Healing Trauma: Attachment, Mind, Body, and Brain. 2003, NY: Norton,,188-189)


Prayer
Lord, as a humble corner of Your creation, I eagerly await Your new dawn on this day in my life! Really! Eagerly! Happily! I extol you, my God and my King. I bless your name today and forever.