Dealing with Personal Baggage

 When counseling, a distinction must be made between marital issues and personal issues.

Marital issues are problems caused by becoming married. This might include finances, discipline of children. Issues that did not exist before marriage.

Personal issues are problems that are emotional issues that a person has before marriage. Problems not caused by the marriage union. These problems are brought into the marriage.

Emotional baggage might be...anger/violence, stubbornness, fear, suspicion, unwarranted jealousy, domineering,  insecurities, chauvinism, skepticism, fear of bonding, fear of intimacy. These are often hidden/ masked during courting, but surface in intimacy of marriage.

Descriptive Terms to help define...

1. Baggage- because it is brought into and unpacked in marriage.

2. Personal- because it belongs to you, not your spouse!

3. Emotional- because these are deep seated feelings. These feelings may be untrue. (anorexia/ inferiority complex/persecution complex) Feelings tend to be LOGIC RESISTANT.

4. Unresolved- because they are not dealt with/not cleared up before marriage.

5. Problem- because it is a problem. It hinders personal development. It damages marital relationships. It negatively affects your kids.

Origins may be...

1. Inherited DNA stubborn/depression/anxiety

2. Learned example- Kids passed around in foster care

3. Absorbed kids grow up believing that their parents are right, some are wrong.

4. Combination of the above.

Whatever the cause, the outcome is unhealthy feelings and leads to improper actions and relational turmoil.

All marriages experience tension. Why tolerate unnecessary tension?

Observations 

1. We all have emotional baggage 

Romans 3:23 (ESV) "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,"

We are sinners who are raised by sinners and we live in a sinful world.

2. Emotional baggage comes in all sizes. 

You might have a little handbag of baggage or a steamer trunk. But even small baggage can do damage. 

Illustration: Tornados average $10 billion dollars of damage in the US yearly. Termites average $30 billion dollars of damage per year. $5 billion dollars is spent each year on termite control. The problem with termites is that they are not visible. It is quiet damage being done. A lot of baggage is the same way, quiet and tearing down the home. 

3. The emotional health of a marriage cannot exceed the emotional health of the people in the marriage. 

"A __________ marriage is made up of _______________ people." 

A healthy marriage is made up of healthy people.

An unhealthy marriage is made up of unhealthy people.

4. The emotional health of 1 partner cannot (fully) compensate for the emotional baggage of the other. 

Marital math: Emotional health of one is 7, the partner is an emotional health of 3...they don't make a 10, they are a 4! It is not addition it is subtraction. The emotional health of your partner can drag you down.

5. Emotional issues in 1 partner tend to create emotional in the other partner. 

If one partner is an abusive alcoholic it can drag the partner down.

6. Emotional issues in the parents tend to create emotional issues in the children.

Who is most likely to be physically abusive in a marriage? One that came from a physically abusive home. Who is more likely to be sexually abusive? One that came from a sexually abusive home. This is where we get "chains of baggage" 

Your emotional health affects 

1. Your personal development

2. Your relationship with others

3. Your influence/impact on others, especially your kids. 

Sin is any attitude, behavior or response outside of or contrary to God's will for you.

The sin is not having emotional baggage, the sin is refusing to recognize and deal with it. 

Unbiblical Response

1. Denial of the problem. Refuse to accept, refuse to recognize the problem.

2. Indifference of the problem.

3. Down playing the issue

4. Stonewalling (I shall not be moved)

5. Blame transfer (Not my fault)

6. Defeatism (I can't help it or I can't fix it.)

Biblical Response  

1. Examine self- in light of God's word.

James 1:23-25 (ESV) "For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who act, he will be blessed in his doing."

Hebrews 4:12 (ESV) "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart."

2. Admit to yourself

1 John 1:8-10 (ESV) "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."

3. Repent 

Military term...about face...turn and go the opposite way.

4. Correct your behavior

2 Timothy 3: 16-17 (ESV) "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."

5. Repeat because this is an ingrained lifestyle. If you need help, get some help.

Question  for you...John 5:2-6 (ESV) "Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids-blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, 'Do you want to be healed?'"

Do you want to get well? A lot of people don't want to get well. They think that they are always right? 

Question... Who is the boss of your life? 

In your heart is a throne. 

1. I am the captain of my own ship. Right now you are on the throne of your heart and Christ is on the outside of your heart and life. You have never accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior.

2. You have asked Jesus into your heart and you have been saved, but you put Jesus at the foot of the throne. He is not the boss, he is just their for salvation and eternal life.

3. Jesus is on the throne and you are at the foot of the throne. This is the way it is supposed to be.

Who is the boss of your life, who is the boss of your marriage, who t is the boss of your parenting skills. The way it is supposed to be. You respond to Christ, not your own logic, not your own feelings, not you raising, not to what your parents taught you unless they taught you according to God's word. 

Touchstone verse: Proverbs 14:1 (NIV) "The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down."

We have a choice to building our home, building our family, building the legacy up....or tearing it down. These issues that we have been talking about make a difference. It does not mean that you are a terrible person if you have baggage, but you will be a better person if you deal with it.

Closing Scripture

Romans 6:11-14 (ESV) "So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you, since you are not under law but under grace."