Enabling is Not Love

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Hey, welcome to Self Talk. I'm your host, me, Dr. Ray Self. Cannot believe it, but this is my 218th episode of Self Talk. I want to thank everybody who's been following me and sharing this podcast. I hope it's been a blessing to you. I appreciate you very, very much. Uh, the show is sponsored by the ministry that I founded over 25 years ago, and that is the International College of Ministry, icmcollege.org. I encourage you to check it out. If you'd like to help us sponsor, uh, you know, we, we have schools in India, uh, Africa, Peru, and plus we, we also give scholarships out to a lot of needy people here in America. My heart is those that want to get a college degree, want to get equipped for the ministry, but are struggling financially; we help them with our financial hardship scholarship fund. So any donations go to that fund. I would appreciate it. You can donate at icmcollege.org/donate. Thank you in advance for that. Also helps us continue the podcast. But today I'm talking about enabling. And it's a tough subject, but I want you to pay attention to this because it can change your life and the life of those around you. Heavenly Father, I thank you for this show. I thank you for this time together. I thank you for the privilege of using technology to get your message out. In Jesus name. Amen. So, let's get started.

So, I'm a very compassionate guy, and I like to help people. And I've been around ministry a long, long, long time, and I've helped a lot of people. But actually, sometimes I realize that my helping was not helping, was actually enabling. So, I want to talk about enabling and why it is so easy for us as Christians to enable, and what is so bad about it. So enabling in, in principle, is taking away natural consequence. Now, you know if you've lived any life at all, you know that there's consequence to our behavior. We also know that consequence teaches us a better way. We know that God actually uses consequence to teach us, to sometimes chastise us, and also show us the right way to go. We've all suffered consequence. But the enabler, which was kind of me because of our compassion, we want to rescue people and assist people when actually our assisting is doing harm. Let me give you a great example of this, and this is kind of a tough story, but a very true story. So, I knew a lady, one of my church members from many years ago, her name is anonymous. And, she had a, years ago, she was telling me about her husband, who was a severe alcoholic. And this man had an amazing ability to get off work, go to a local bar, get completely drunk, drive home. He would usually make it to the driveway, pull in the driveway, and then he'd pass out in his pickup truck. So, being the dutiful, faithful Christian wife, she would see her husband passed out in the truck in the driveway. She would go, open the door, literally help him out of the truck, and assist him into the home, help him change clothes, and put him to bed. Then the next morning, he'd, he’d have a terrible hangover. He'd be too sick to go to work. She would call in to the boss and say, "My husband's too sick to come in. It must be a virus, must be the flu. Can you please forgive him? He needs to take a sick day.” Well, this is a classic case of enabling. 

So, what she was doing was, what seemed like love, she was actually rescuing her husband and keeping him from the consequences of his behavior. Now, years later, in talking to her, I said, "You know what the best thing, the most loving thing you could have done for your husband is to left him in the truck." She said, "But it was cold out there." That's all right. This is the consequences of his behavior. And when you overdrink, and you do these things, and you're an alcoholic, there are consequences to it. And one of the consequences is you get to sleep in the truck. You see, her enabling rescued him. And by rescuing him, it actually enabled and assisted him in his behavior by the fact that he didn't suffer any serious consequence for his behavior. She even called in work for him the next day because of his not suffering the consequences of his behavior; it actually assisted his behavior to continue. She was actually helping him with his drinking problem. To continue his drinking problem. That's a classic case of enabling. 

So, to get to the bottom line, enabling is the removal of natural consequence. You do the crime, you do the time. That's the way it works with God. The Bible says, you know, we should share each other's burdens, but that's talking about things that are too heavy for us to carry. But the Bible also says in Galatians that each one shall bear, Galatians 6:5, each one shall bear his own load. So that means is we all have responsibilities. Give you another, another story. Um, say you have a, a child in elementary school and they, they play outside too long, and they don't do their homework. So the next day they want you to write a note to the teacher and, and make an excuse for them for not doing their homework. You know, “Will you please tell the teacher I was, daddy, will you please tell the teacher I was sick, or can you help me out here?” And you know, you want to you feel sorry for them. You really want to help them, but that's the worst thing you can do. You say, “No, I'm not going to cover up for you for your failure. You have to suffer the consequences of your failure.” The Bible talks about this in a very unusual scripture, which I've quoted several times, in the book of Jeremiah. In the book of Jeremiah, chapter 31, there's an unusual scripture that explains the new covenant. It actually talks about enabling, foretelling enabling. So if you look to Jeremiah 31:30, well, just start at 29. Jeremiah 31:29. “In those days they sh–” “they shall say no more, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.’” Verse 30, “but everyone shall die for his own iniquity. Everyone who eats sour grapes, his teeth will set on’” age-- "'edge.'” “'Every man who eats sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge.'” Well, that's a funny thing about sour grapes. What's the, what's the deal there? He said, well, so what he's saying is in the old covenant, there was a respon–the family could be held accountable and responsible for the father's actions or behavior. But in the new covenant, he says, and this is a prophecy about the new covenant, “each one shall die for his own iniquity. Every man who eats sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge,” which means all of us will be held responsible for our own behavior. And that's what…that's what enabling takes away. 

Enabling says you do the crime, I do the time. You mess up, I take away your punishment. You do something you shouldn't do, I take away your sin. I remove the consequences from you. I rescue you. I take care of it for you. And it seems so loving and so nice and so kind, but actually, what you're doing is you are helping them to continue their actions. The thing about human behavior is that if there are no consequences to our behavior, we will generally continue that behavior over and over and over again. Um, I've seen this in so many, so many instances. And of course, the easy one, the most obvious one to talk about, is when you're dealing with a drug addiction, alcohol addiction, and allowing them to suffer the consequences of their behavior. And uh, sometimes it's tough, you know, if you continue to drink or do drugs, you cannot live in my house. Okay? Allowing someone to stay in your home even though they're doing drugs and they're drinking, or their behavior is unacceptable, is enabling. 

So, enabling means rescuing someone from their natural god-given consequence. And now in, in uh, in the rehabilitation, you know, ministry, they will say allow the person to hit bottom. Do not rescue them from bottom. What is bottom? Maybe because of a person's addiction, they end up losing their job. Don't help them get another job. They end up losing their car, don't buy them another car. They end up losing their marriage, don't rescue their marriage. They end up losing their health. All these losses are hitting bottom. And you see these consequences cau– cause pain, but the pain makes us reach out and reach for help and do something to change our behavior. And, and we, when you're down and out, and you're on the bottom, the only place you can do is look up. Look up to God. And that's what we want. And that's actually love. So it seems like love when a person gets in trouble - maybe it's a family member - does something they shouldn't do, or has some destructive behavior, or a life-controlling issue. And here you come in, and you want to help them, and actually, by helping them, you are actually assisting them in continuing their destructive behavior. A guy loses his job because of his addiction. So here you come. You want to support them financially. Well, he lost his job, and I'm going to, so I'm going to give them all this money, and I'm going to help them, and I'm going to support them. What you're doing is you're just feeding the crime. There's no consequence. There's no, there's no real desire for change. There's no real need to change because in other words, they got away with it. They got away with the crime because you took the punishment. You took the punishment away from them. You enabled them. And it seemed like, oh, it was such a kind and nice thing to do. But actually, it's not love. It is enabling. Enabling is taking away consequence of behavior. So ask yourself this: What is the natural consequence for behavior? Allow people to experience their consequence. God works through consequence. Maybe, for instance, you're in a relationship with someone who is toxic. Uh, maybe they're verbally abusive. Well, there's consequence for that. When someone's verbally abusive, people don't want to be around them. 

That's…now, to, to stay in the relationship or to stay in the vicinity of the verbal abuse is actually enabling the abuser to continue their behavior. But when you set a boundary, and you say, "You know what? Your behavior is unacceptable. I'm not going to be around this behavior anymore," and you remove yourself from that situation, you're not enabling them, you're allowing them to suffer the consequence of their behavior. What's the consequence? Well, if your behavior is toxic, you lose relationships. You lose friendships. People don't want to be around you. And that's good because it, maybe it'll put a wakeup bell, cause a wakeup bell. So there's so many things that are unhealthy, but what we tend to do as Christians is, you know, we're going to turn the other cheek. We're going to turn the other cheek. And we think, well, that's, that's a loving thing to do. But in turning the other cheek, what you're really doing is giving a person a pat on the back and going, "Yeah, your behavior's okay. Uh, I'm going to, I'm going, I'm going to love you in– I've got this unconditional love. I'm going to forgive you." Well, you can forgive someone and love someone and not enable their behavior. And not– enabling again is allow people to experience the consequence of their behavior, because if you don't do that, you can get away, you can get in the way of God. See, God works in our lives. 

So many times I, I've made mistakes. I, I've gone down the wrong path, and God was trying to show me something. God was trying to redeem me. God was trying to put me on the right path. If I had been rescued, I would have continued down that wrong path. But you see, allowing me to experience the consequence of my mistakes can be the most loving thing you can do for me. Now, I hope this makes sense for you because that's what the essence of not enabling is and not rescuing. Now, there are people who need help. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't help a homeless person. I'm not saying you shouldn't help someone who's destitute and lost their job. Of course, you should. But what I'm talking about is when somebody has unhealthy, destructive behavior and you continually rescue that destruct– that person in their destructive behavior, you're not really helping them, you're actually assisting them in continuing that behavior. And that's what you have to ask yourself. Now, there are situations where people need help. They need your money. They need yo– a place to stay. They need, they need your help. But there's other time, when you're actually not helping them. Your rescuing them is enabling them to continue that destructive lifestyle. And that's where you have to get wisdom. Are you enabling or are you really assisting them? You know, Jesus allowed people– you remember the rich young ruler who, “Lord, what must I do to be saved?” And Jesus told him what he should do, and love God with all your heart, you know, and love your neighbor. “Yes, I do that.” Then He said, “Sell all your goods and come and follow me.” And the rich young ruler got grieved, said, "No, no, no. I'm out of here." Well, Jesus didn't go rescue him, go, “Hey, no, no, it's okay. You don't really have to sell your stuff and come follow me. It's okay. Okay, here we'll make another way for you.” No, He let the rich young ruler experience the consequence of his behavior, and he, he made a big mistake. But mistakes teach us. Pain is a great teacher. Not all pain is harmful. You know, I had a big dental appointment last week. It was awful, but I needed it. 

So, ask yourself this question: In my relationship, is my behavior taking away the consequence for their actions? Am I enabling them and assisting them in continuing destructive behavior? Or am I really helping them get on the right path? And that's a question only you can ask. But enabling feels like love because you're assisting someone. But actually, your enabling can be the most harmful thing you can do for them. Hope this makes sense to you. This is Dr. Ray Self, thank you for listening to my show. Not a long show today, but kind of a tough show. And uh, listen, I've enabled people. I've enabled my kids. And I've been guilty of what I'm talking about here. I'm not perfect at this. But setting healthy boundaries is also not enabling. And you know, you've heard a lot about boundaries. You know, what you allow, what's acceptable, what is not acceptable. But toxic people have to be allowed to suffer the consequences of their behavior. Alcoholics must be able to suffer the consequences of their behavior. Drug addictions, drug addicts, okay? People who make mistakes. Now, sometimes there's an honest mistake, and people honestly need help, I get it. But there's other times when your rescuing them is only feeding the problem. And you got to use discernment and wisdom for that. So Lord, I thank you for everyone listening to this show. I pray this show has been a blessing to them. And Lord, we just ask for your Holy Spirit to touch everyone who's downloading this show right now. And Lord, we give you praise and honor. In Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen. 

Don't forget to go to the website for the show, icmcollege.org/selftalk. You can look at every episode, subscribe. If you write a review, that really helps us get more downloads. Um, and share it, share this episode with people. It's not easy– it's not hard to do. Anyway, I appreciate you listening; that's the main thing. God bless you. This is Dr. Ray signing out. Sayanara. Hasta la vista, baby. Bye-bye.

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