I get lots of questions about what being a highly sensitive person is all about, how we are different from those who are less sensitive, and how we fit with the rest of the world.

If you wonder any of these things, this post might satisfy your curiosity. Or it just might provoke it further.

What Exactly is the Trait of High Sensitivity?

Clinical psychologist Elaine Aron, who researched, defined, and wrote about the highly sensitive person, says the clinical word for high sensitivity is “sensory-processing sensitivity”.

Essentially, if you’re a highly sensitive person, you have an especially sensitive neurological system. That’s it. Basically high sensitivity is a function of physiology. It’s how your body is wired.

What a highly sensitive neurological system does is pick up incoming stimuli in greater detail and with greater intensity than the nervous system of someone with lower sensitivity.

This incoming stimuli comes both from outside you and from inside you.

• Outer sources include the environment, various energies, and people around you.
• Inner sources are your own thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations.

That’s It?

Well, there is more to the story. The rest of the story covers:

• The benefits and limitations of that physiological makeup.
• How those benefits and limitations play out in your life.
• How you and people at the opposite end of the sensitivity spectrum are entirely alien to each other.

In fact, there’s a whole book of “more”. Elaine Aron’s book, The Highly Sensitive Person, is an excellent primer on this subject. Personally, I find three chapters particularly valuable. In the first two chapters of the book she explains in detail what high sensitivity is all about. In a later chapter she addresses the kind of health issues we tend to have, and our often problematic relationships with the healthcare system and medications.

If after reading this post you still wonder if you’re truly highly sensitive, take Elaine’s insightful highly sensitive person quiz on her website. It’s filled with concrete characteristics associated with high sensitivity and will help you wrap your brain around your uniqueness. She also has a test to help you get a sense of whether your child might be highly sensitive.

The Scope of Sensitivity

The research on sensitivity reveals an entire spectrum of sensitivity – at the one end high sensitivity, at the other those who are “not at all” sensitive.

A significant percentage of people are highly sensitive: about 15-20%. That’s one out of about every 5 to 7 people. Another 20-25% or so are moderately sensitive. At the other end of the spectrum, almost half of the population is not sensitive to some degree.

What’s so interesting to me is that men are as likely to be highly sensitive as women. AND the percentages hold across cultures and throughout the animal kingdom, from mammals down to the tiny fruit fly.

Hm, I Sense a Pattern Here…

We live in a world laced with dissonance, and because of that I don’t believe the widespread presence of a trait is proof that it’s a good, positive thing. But in this case the consistency of the percentages across gender, culture, species, and throughout the entire spectrum of animal life on this planet cause me to suspect that the full spectrum of physiologic sensitivity is an intentional design of the Creator. It seems to me the Creator considers the entire spectrum of sensitivity important in the larger community of life.

But few people on the planet appear to agree with Him.

It seems someone is always marginalizing either the more sensitive or the not so sensitive. Various cultures idealize different levels of sensitivity, and at the same time devalue the opposite. (Yes, surprisingly for us Westerners, some cultures actually idealize the highly sensitive temperament. Who knew?)

What We All (Sort of) Have in Common…

In coming to grips with differing levels in sensitivity, it’s absolutely critical to understand the implications of optimal levels of stimuli. This is where so many misunderstandings arise between people.

The principle is that everyone does best when they are at an optimal level of stimulation. Everyone. We all thrive at an optimal level of stirring, challenging, motivating, engaging stimulation. The consequences of being out of this optimal place are dire.

• When there’s too little stimulation, people sink into an unmotivated sludge of bored immobility.
• When there’s too much, the result is a frazzled and jangled state in which people cease to be effective or pleasant to be around.
• At an optimal level, however, people are capable of being engaged, motivated, and at least relatively pleasant and effective. This is a universal reality.

The complication here is that an optimal level is different for people with different sensitivity needs. It’s highly individualized. And any person will need different levels of stimulation at different times.

What’s important to realize here is there is no level of stimulation best for everyone. What might engage a highly sensitive person may be snoozeville for a less sensitive person. And what is a great time for a not-at-all sensitive person may be unbearable, or even traumatic, for the highly sensitive.

Aliens!

Different sensitivity levels might sound to you like simple, understandable variations between people. But in fact the results are far more dramatic than it might seem.

The sensory-processing differences between people at opposite ends of the sensitivity spectrum create experiences of the world that are so different from each other that they are functionally alien. The realities of those at the one end are virtually unfathomable to those at the other.

People like to believe they are capable of understanding another person’s experience of life, and usually try to do this based upon their own experiences and their imagination. But really, when people are this different, it just doesn’t work.

The Assets of High Sensitivity

Highly sensitive people are equipped to bring exceptional assets to the table. We have the potential to be aware of subtle nuances others are oblivious to. We are wired to be able to see things that tend to be hidden from less sensitive people. We might pick up on little clues others miss. We can be highly intuitive.

We potentially see more shades of meaning than others. We can therefore possibly have deeper and clearer insight into situations, plans, and ideas.

We also have the potential to better understand the implications of any planned strategy, and to foresee consequences of a proposed action. And so we are capable of offering great advice – potentially.

But…

The reason I liberally use the words “might”, “potentially” and such are because these inborn gifts operate well only when we are at a reasonable level of stimulation.

When we are in a state of overwhelm or over-stimulation, we tend not to be aware of anything but the sheer nerve-wracking magnitude of the incoming stimuli. Unfortunately this is a common experience for us.

Being highly sensitive means that, by definition, we are relatively easily overwhelmed by too much noise, too many people, too much time on the go, too much stress, too many demands, and too much of any other stimuli.

And we don’t function particularly well when we are experiencing overload. No one does. We just go there easier than others.

Living in the Asset Zone

When we are not in overload, the world and our personal relationships benefit greatly from the insightful, intuitive, well-considered contributions we highly sensitive people so conscientiously make. Therefore, the key here is to learn how to live in the asset zone.

Highly sensitive people typically try hard to diligently do the right thing. But sometimes we get confused about what the right thing is, especially with the less sensitive world telling us the right thing is to keep up with them.

I propose that one of our highest value priorities is to set our boundaries and sculpt our lives to care for our physical sensitivities. It is just good stewardship to live our lives in such a way that our gifts are free to flow out of us.

But many highly sensitive people don’t feel comfortable doing this, trying instead to get over the bar set by those who cannot begin to comprehend how we experience the world.

And, when we try to measure up by faithfully keeping pace with the lives and expectations of the less sensitive people in our world, all we do is we squander our gifts and hide our light under the proverbial bushel.

The True Gift

People often wonder if being highly sensitive is a Special Gift. My response is, yes, but only if being not-at-all sensitive is also a Special Gift. And every degree of sensitivity in between.

You see, I believe the true gift from God is not one particular flavor of sensitivity, but rather the entirety of the sensitivity spectrum.

It is valuable to understand our own place on the sensitivity spectrum, to make peace with it, and to sow into it. But that is not enough. To actually live out the heart of God here on planet earth, we need to honor the full spectrum of sensitivity.

Anything else – any elistism, any superiority, any lesser valuing of those who are not what we are, any presumption of being more significant or more advanced – falls short of the glory of God.

So come celebrate the full spectrum of sensitivity with me – even if much of the rest of the spectrum still rejects our particular uniqueness.

Forgiving and valuing has to start somewhere. Where better than with us who were created to see deeply and to fathom the finer nuances?

Be blessed.
Gail Ruth

Guest Post by Elissa Starks, a highly sensitive Christian.

I am coming to the realization I have been made “quirky” for a reason. I believe now that God has made us all with so much diversity. This really hit home at a visit to an aquarium.

A consummate fish nerd, I stood in awe at the 1.3 million gallon tank in front of me. It was feeding time, and I was struck by the unique feeding habits of each inhabitant of the tank.

The tuna, weighing 500 pounds or so, are the first to snatch up the food. They bulldoze over everyone (even over the sharks, which was surprising to me.) The sharks are a soft and boneless fish and could be injured or killed by these massive tuna torpedoes, so they hang out and are sometimes fed by the end of a pole. The smaller fish and sardines then eat the crumbs that fall from the huge fish.

My personal favorite was the ray who has to be fed altogether differently. She actually waits until everyone is done and goes all the way to the surface to be fed on the end of the pole.  The commentator explained that over time she has learned to watch for their feet and go to the surface. Then, in dog-like fashion, she rolls over on her back with her tummy towards the feeders and receives her food.

It was such a beautiful picture to me of the diversity and unity within the body of Christ. Same tank, same precious food… different fish. It showed me there are those in their strength that can take the food as it comes and those that need a little more personal touch.

I saw this again on a recent trip to Hawaii. Once again at the aquarium (surprise, surprise!) and this time colors were the rule of the day. There was one particular fish called the Christmas wrasse that made my jaw literally drop. It wore an array of neon colors, some of which I had not seen in such abundance since the nineteen eighties. It was stunning.

In fact, I got the impression with some of these fish that God was purposely going over the top. The more spots, squiggles, stripes and colors, the better and yet not a hint of garishness.

I came away with the distinct impression that these fish were not necessarily more interesting or valuable than the ones elsewhere in the world. They were just different and I would not want one type without the other.

To me these fish tanks are a stark reminder of what I believe God intends for the church: diversity and unity within the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:12,13). I think one of the reasons I have struggled so much over these few years – heck, over my life – is that I am more like the shark or the ray who needs a gentler touch.

I have come to the realization that some of us are just made differently and that is not a bad thing. I want to be able to swim to the depths of God and have a relationship with my Creator. I want to be able to let the tuna and other fish be themselves, and appreciate their beauty without diminishing my own.

story ©2010 by Elissa Starks. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

If you’re a Christian who is highly sensitive or highly sensitive-gifted, you most likely have pains and struggles related to your sensitivity that aren’t addressed at church. In fact for many of you, church might sometimes even stir up some of these pains and struggles.

The difficulty lies in that while the “not-sensitive” half of the world needs to be regularly challenged and stirred up, the highly sensitive person typically thrives in an atmosphere of unpressured peace, where their inner passions and innate inner drive can rise to the surface and propel them forward.

The good news is that God Himself is wooing His highly sensitive ones into a relaxed, heart-based relationship with Him through Jesus, the Prince of Peace. This is what He has done with me, and this is what I share with you.

• If you want to check into what I believe and who I am, read about me.

• If you want to capture the foundational concepts here in the quickest way, read the Essentials posts.

• If you want to access free, in-depth and exclusive resources, sign up to the right for The Highly Sensitive Christian Newsletter. Details here. The newsletter comes irregularly two to four times a month.

• If you like to just generally keep your ear to the ground, I’ve started tweeting the best of what I read on a variety of subjects.

• I invite you to interact with me through the comments* section below each post. Please use email to share private details. I read everything and respond erratically as able.

Above all, be blessed!
Gail Ruth

*TIP FOR BLOG NEWBIES: While some people like using their real name online, others prefer anonymity. For you latter, when leaving comments, feel free to choose a creative name and avoid any identifying information in your comment. And please bless us with your thoughts.

When we read the esteemed old translations of scripture, when we sing those beautiful centuries-old hymns, and occasionally when we pray, English-speaking Christians use the old personal pronouns “Thou”, “Thee”, “Thine”, and “Thy” to address God. For example, as in the prayer, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done… For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.”

For many of us in certain Christian cultures, such wording carries a sense of formality and respect towards this great and mighty God to whom we pray.

And we like these feelings. They’re familiar and comforting, and they feel like how we’re supposed to interact with God, and how those who’ve gone before us have honored Him.

Or so we tend to believe.

A Shocking Little Lesson in Language

Long ago and far away in my first years of college I studied German under a demanding, colorful, and delightful professor, a Berliner whom we called Herr B. And I learned that the German language has two entirely different flavors of the word “you”.

• One form of the German “you” is a polite and formal word that is used to address:
  • authority figures
  • acquaintances
  • strangers
  • bosses
  • teachers, etc.
• The other form has a more familiar, intimate tone reserved for:
  • family
  • friends
  • peers
  • loved ones.

It was when we were learning these concepts that Herr B taught one of the most important lessons I ever learned in his classes. English, he explained, just like German, formerly had two different forms of second person pronouns: “you, your, yours” and “thou, thee, thine, and thy”.

To my utter shock, he explained that:

• “you, your, yours” were of the formal, respectful category.
• “thou, thee, thine, and thy” were intimate, familiar words reserved only for close friends and family.

Yes, you read right. “Thou, thee, thine, and thy” were the words used for those who were closest to a person, most familiar, and dearest to their heart.

But don’t take my word or even Herr B’s for this. You can verify it yourself by a quick perusal of Shakespearean literature. (Shakespeare, by the way, was alive and writing at the time the King James Version was translated). Or do an internet search of “thou”, “thou meaning” or “archaic English pronouns” or some such search phrase.

Getting the “Thou” Meaning All Backwards & Some Astounding Implications

To Herr B, it was just a bit of language trivia. But to me it was an explosive and confusing revelation. This was completely backwards to my experiences in the church. It was mind-boggling to me how this could be.

You see, I had grown up with the King James version of the Bible, with all its Thou’s and Thee’s and Thine’s. Throughout my childhood we sang old Christian hymns using those pronouns. And the more dignified and elevated of our church people even prayed to God in such language.

It was a language that conveyed to my child heart the sense of a formal, solemn God who was somewhere out there watching over us and listening to our prayers.

And now, to think that when these old hymns were written, and when the King James Bible was translated, the “thou, thee, thy, and thine” words were understood to be words reserved for those who were close and dear to someone.

The implications astounded me. So much of what I understood as the right way to relate to God had been based on how those words were used. Their solemn weightiness modeled for me how I was to interact with God.

I found myself needing to reevaluate my entire set of assumptions about God and what a relationship with Him was to be like.

Turned On Its Head

Isn’t it amazing how time can turn everything on its head and send a completely different message? The culture changes, the language changes, and what used to mean one thing comes to mean the complete opposite.

And so words that were once soft and intimate become laced with formality and reserve, and the original message they communicated is obscured.

The reality is that many English-speaking believers today have been directly affected by the misunderstanding of these King James English pronouns. But even those who’ve never read or heard the old King James English have been influenced by this, because they’ve been influenced by other believers who’ve misinterpreted the old speech and have incorporated their misinterpretations into their attitudes about God. And who knows how many other peoples and cultures have been impacted by the English-speaking world’s mistaken thinking about God derived from this one simple alteration in inference?

Unfortunately, this is not some simple little thing in its implications. The formality or intimacy of our foundational religious speech in addressing God affects everything we conceptualize and feel about our relationship with God. It shapes:

• how comfortable we are approaching God
• how near God feels to our heart
• who we believe God is for us
• how our heart connects, or doesn’t connect, with Him.

Just one little backwards implication of a pronoun.

Imagine

Imagine a Christian culture when they were singing these hymns centuries ago, filled with Thou’s and Thee’s, and comprehending the intimacy of these words.

Imagine a time when English speakers understood the closeness with God that was implied each time the scriptures were read.

Imagine them speaking to God, exalting Him as great and mighty, yet in language that defined Him as familiar and in their inner circle of relationships.

The Cost To Highly Sensitive People

If we look today at highly sensitive people, Christian culture, and the effects of this misrepresentation of old language, I suggest it is the highly sensitive population that’s been most severely affected by this shift.

I believe highly sensitive people require an intimate, friendly, heart-based relationship with God in order to thrive spiritually.

A church culture without a familiar friendship with a glorious and loving God violates the very created design of most highly sensitive people.

Restoring Closeness

So how do we address this loss? I’m not sure, but I’m certainly not suggesting you fight a language war in the church.

I do encourage you to persistently seek out the mindset of the intimate heart relationship with God that was available to our forefathers and foremothers through their language.

You might even want to go back and revisit those old Christian hymns and read those King James scriptures with new eyes.

Blessings!
Gail Ruth

Discover How Your Greatest Weaknesses Might Be Clues to Your Created Purpose: Introducing a series of video interviews with respected Christians who have some off-the-grid gifts, sharing how they incorporate their gifts into their spiritual lives.

Off the Grid

We all benefit from having someone who can model and mirror back at us at least a glimmer of who we’re created to be and how we might use our gifts.

When we’re fortunate enough to receive this, it gives us a needed sense of “permission” to be in the world. And it can show us how to be authentically ourselves in a healthy, loving way. It’s even helpful in living out our relationship with God.

But for those of us who are highly sensitive, highly emotional, or sensitive-gifted and who feel different from other Christians, this helpful mirroring is a rare thing to find, especially in the church.

The church doesn’t lack for people who want to model for us who we are to be as Christians, but this isn’t always helpful for people like us. The problem is that people who are harmonious with the Christian cultural norm might not be good-fitting models for us. Their practical expressions of the Christian life are not always relevant for us.

For clarity’s sake, I’m not talking here about core virtues the Holy Spirit grows in us like love, humility, gladness, valuing others, peace, patience, faith, integrity, etc.

I’m talking about your gifts and created design and how they function in practical ways:

• what the expression of who you were created to be looks like in the context of your love relationship with God
• what the expression of your gifts looks like in the realm of serving God and others
• and even what the expression of prayer looks like for you.

Given To Be a Blessing

What this means is that if your gifts and created design fall outside what is culturally common in your stream of the church, you might find it difficult to grow into the person God created you to be.

The reality is that many unique and hidden gifts intended to bless the world, fellow believers, and the Creator’s own heart, are often misunderstood and overlooked, leaving them lying dormant.

And so today I want to call for a treasure hunt, looking for the unique hidden gifts and treasures the Creator has woven into the very core each individual. Yes, even you. You might be surprised what you find.

Gifts & Accompanying Weaknesses

One place to start looking is with what we call our weaknesses. It seems to me that every gift, every trait, every strength, has its accompanying weakness.

What do I mean by weakness? I consider weakness to be part of our unique design, countering our gifts and strengths. To be considered a weakness, our failures in that area are defined as undesirable by ourselves, our culture, or by individuals around us.

Some examples might be:

• a nurturant highly sensitive person’s struggles to interact with others in noisy social environments
• a deep thinker’s poor tolerance for dealing with the physical environment
• a helpful extrovert’s dislike of being alone for long
• a dancer’s inability to sit still in meetings
• a seer’s difficulty in praying out loud in words
• a dawdler’s inability to operate in efficiency mode
• a strong, competent person’s obliviousness to subtleties
• a multi-faceted scanner’s failure to dedicate herself to just one thing
• a hardy, not sensitive person’s incomprehension of details
• a tender hearted person’s uncontainable public tears at the most inconvenient times
• a writer’s low appetite for social relationships

Weaknesses As Signposts

All these weaknesses look unacceptable to at least some people, and you will most likely be encouraged to sow your energies into mastering or eradicating your weakness. But I don’t see God calling us to this in scripture. To the contrary. Our Creator seems to value our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

For those of you who are aware of your weaknesses (a.k.a. “defects”), I’d like to suggest that maybe your weaknesses can be signposts that something wonderful lies hidden deep inside. Something no one has ever mirrored back at us.

This is how I see it. Your gifts and weaknesses are a package deal. Everybody’s are. When you look at one end of the package deal, it looks like a gaping hole that needs to be filled and all you see is what’s missing that you believe is supposed to be there. But if you look at the other end, it looks wonderful and rich and useful and lovely.

Choose Your Focus

The bottom line is that you can either pour your energies into the dud end (trying hard to be what you’re not) or into the treasure end (seeking out your treasure and investing it).

I would like to propose that instead of hating our weaknesses and dedicating our lives to self-reformation, we allow the Holy Spirit to lead us on a journey that will awaken, open up, unpack, invest, and mature our dormant gifts.

It’s truly a treasure hunt. What our weaknesses will show us is not predictable. What they do is provide clues that can send us on a search and a journey with the Holy Spirit. And there’s no one who can teach us who we are like the Holy Spirit can.

How ‘Bout We Stir Up Some Dormant Gifts?

I love to help stir up gifts hidden deep inside people. To this end, I’m doing an inspiring series of interviews with individuals who express their love for God in ways for which many churches don’t offer a grid.

My hope is that one of these people might reflect back at you something that’s never made sense in you. Or maybe their example will send you on your own out-of-the-box journey with the Holy Spirit to see what lies under those plaguing weaknesses of yours.

Come Join the Treasure Hunt

The interviews are free to access. You simply need to be on my mailing list and I’ll send you the links to them as they’re posted. You can sign up in the purple form to the right. And you can read about the interviews on my Goodies page.

I invite you to come join our treasure hunt. May you find priceless treasure both in yourself and in the people around you.

Blessings!
Gail Ruth

Did you know you don’t have to take advice from everybody who sets themselves up as an authority for your life? I propose it is the wise receiver of advice, not the wise giver of it, who needs to be the one who determines if the advice given is good or not.

Bad Advice

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of downright bad advice out there. Descriptive words for such bad advice pop to mind:

• idealistic
• “shoulds”
• controlling
• pat answers
• inexperienced enthusiasm
• superficial solutions
• offensive values
• untested theory.

But what I’m most looking at today is good advice.

Principles versus Advice

To clarify what I mean in this post by advice, and to lay a foundation for our response, let me contrast principles and advice.

Good principles are broad truths or realities. Sometimes it can be hard to figure out how to live out these good principles, and that’s where good advice comes in.

Advice is about implementation. Good advice helps us find specific, practical ways of implementing those good principles. Good advice tells us how those principles might look when they are lived out by someone:

• in a particular culture
• with a particular value set
• with a certain preferred cognitive style
• with a distinct personality type
• in a certain season of life

One example of a good principle is the call to love God with all your heart, your soul, your strength and your mind. Advice takes this principle and suggests practical ways to sow into this love and live it out in our daily lives. You might hear a lot of this type of advice from teachers at church.

Another example is exercise. It’s a wise principle that we humans need movement and physical activity in order to thrive. The specific how-to’s of implementing this principle are the domain of advice. “You need to start exercising” is more principle than advice. “You should sign up for that pilates class with me” is what I mean by advice.

The Limitations Of Good Advice

While certain overarching principles can continue relevant throughout various times and cultures, even the best of wise, practical, experienced advice has significant limitations. The reality is that good advice is rarely useful for those who are different from the advice-giver. This means that a lot of good advice isn’t good for you.

In my mind, it’s important to distinguish the difference between the outright bad advice I mentioned earlier, and advice that doesn’t work for you. I call this kind of advice that’s truly quality advice for someone else “ill-fitting advice”.

Generally, I believe people of one design are unqualified to give nitty-gritty, how-to-live advice to people of another design.

To make that statement more specific to my readers, I encourage highly emotional people to only take advice about how to handle their emotional lives from someone who is also highly emotional and who has made peace with their created design.

The same thing goes for highly sensitive people. Highly sensitive people who take advice about how to manage life from people with lesser sensitivities are setting themselves up for failure and pain.

The reality is that really excellent advice that hugely helps one type of person can utterly devastate another type of person if they persist in trying to make it work.

Good Advice For You

For advice to be good for you, it has to fit you and make sense in your heart.

While there may be global truths in the world of greater principle, advice is never globally applicable. What is good advice for one is ill-fitting for the next. For example:

• the specific foods to eat to be healthy
• the particular exercise form to feel good
• the desirable modality for inner healing
• the style of worship to express love for God
• the prescribed devotional style
• the ideal way to feed on scripture
• the way to express love to another person
• the specific practices that make a marriage work.

Advice cannot be distinguished as good by it’s claim that it promises results. Advice cannot be deemed good just because it seems to work for everybody else. And advice is not made good by some authority’s insistence that it’s the “right way” to do a particular thing or the “right way” to be on this earth.

The reason I’m writing this post is because it seems so many of us highly sensitive people are suckers for people who tell us what we’re supposed to be doing and how we’re supposed to be doing it. We so easily believe people when they claim to know the best way for us be in the world.

My agenda is not to point any finger at those often well-meaning people in our lives who are burying us in ill-fitting advice and instruction. On the contrary. I’m sending this to myself and to you to alert us to the power we give to other people to be “right” on our behalf, and point out the danger of acquiescence.

People are without a doubt going to be giving us advice for our entire lives. We need to learn to deal with that reality.

So How Can You Recognize Good (For You) Advice?

Recognizing good advice for you sometimes works similarly to what I’ve written about the Holy Spirit’s voice – how His voice makes something come alive in us. Good advice can do the same thing.

But good advice doesn’t always feel good. People don’t usually share the Holy Spirit’s skill at making even a correction feel safe and palatable. Sometimes I get good advice that goes strongly against what I want to do, but even then, there’s a deep knowing inside that I’m hearing wisdom for me. My response to such can be something akin to a disgusted, “You’re right. Bummer. That’s not what I wanted to hear.” But I know I’m hearing something that will fit me in a positive way.

Alternatively, a big red flag that I’m hearing ill-fitting advice is if the advice misses the “knowing” spot and hits the guilt/shame/”Oh no! I’m doing it all wrong!” trigger that many highly sensitive people have inside them.

Applying This at Church

So what do you do when you hear specific, detailed advice taught from the pulpit as if it were God’s own mandate? Unless you’re fortunate enough to sit under a highly sensitive teacher who is comfortable with their sensitivity, it’s unlikely that such specific how-to’s will be at all helpful for you. (And in that case the specifics would be a confusing burden for the non-sensitive crowd.)

While prescriptive ministerial advice can be helpful to some, such teachings are likely to derail the lives of those for whom the advice is ill-fitting.

In their defense, ministers who prescribe one-size-fits-all specific courses of action have no understanding of the ramifications of their prescriptions in our highly sensitive hearts. And many will grieve deeply when they do ultimately come to understand. Scripture states that teachers will endure a harsher judgment than other people (James 3:1).

I personally have known a number of highly sensitive persons who spent decades earnestly implementing a prescribed spiritual plan of action that was a good fit only for a far different type of person. Having been given no good alternatives, and wanting to love God deeply, they worked hard to try to please God and measure up to His alleged expectations.

They expected their obedience would somehow lead to abundant life, peace with God, and a flowing, passion-driven purpose. It never did. Instead, what commonly resulted was an inauthentic life of neurosis and distress, often with unresolving physical symptoms, and a subconscious (or conscious) view of God as some demanding, harsh, unfeeling Master.

I’ve had the privilege of sharing in many a slow healing journey as one by one these sensitive hearts have begun to heal and grow into the joy and freedom of a relaxed love relationship with God through Jesus.

The Fly In My Ointment

And so I sit here giving you advice about receiving advice. But many of you are not going to find my advice practically useful.

This post may help you differentiate principle from advice. But it gets sticky when it’s time to start sifting through the advice you get and attempting to evaluate or disentangle yourself from it. The fact is, dealing with advice is actually more of a heart matter than an easily-implementable behavior.

For one thing, it’s hard to stand your ground in the face of someone else’s certainty on your behalf.

More importantly, though, if you view God as harsh, demanding, and judgmental, or if you regularly trash talk yourself, being a harsh, demanding, judgmental god to yourself, you won’t be able to recognize what I call “life”. It won’t be able to get near you. The driving need to measure up and become acceptable will drown out any gentle voice that speaks to you of life and grace.

Unfortunately, the harsh voice speaks with greater authority and sounds more “real” to our senses than does the beauty and kindness of the Creator.

Recommendations and Blessings

I wish I had some good, clear advice to give you. But I don’t. I only have a few general principles.

• Keep asking for, seeking for, and knocking loudly for a personal experiential encounter with the true God of the Bible who loves you, and then walk in relationship with Him.
• Learn to be led by the Holy Spirit.
• Honor the human teacher who is giving you ill-fitting practical advice, and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit for you.
• Accept that the offending advice-givers are fellow fallible human beings.
• Forgive.
• And, whatever it takes, eradicate bitterness and judgment from every part of your heart.

May your heart come alive with the love God has for you, and may you discern His still small voice in Your heart. And so may you learn to weigh the fittingness of every drop of advice you receive.

I bless you on your highly sensitive person Christian journey. May the advice given to you by people not drown out the voice of the Holy Spirit in your heart.

Blessings!
Gail Ruth

If you’ve read my previous post, you’ll understand that I believe Creator God is entirely delightful and beautiful, defined by all that’s good and loving.

So in light of that, today I thought I’d briefly point out a fascinating phrase King David used in one of his ancient poems. He was writing about Elohim (Creator God) and His relationship with people.

He writes, “You give them drink from the river of Your pleasures” (Psalm 36:8). Other translations use the word “delights” instead of “pleasures”.

The River of Creator God’s Pleasures and Delights. Think about it. Who knew God had one of those? Isn’t it exciting that God even has such a river? Nevermind that we get to drink from it with His blessing?

Fast Forward

Fast forward several hundred years. Jesus is on the earth, and He’s telling folks He’s Living Water.¹ And then Jesus goes out into the middle of this crowded feast day in Jerusalem and loudly cries out to everybody in earshot saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink!”²

Do you think maybe Jesus was the living version of the River of Delights that King David talked about? Scriptures do say elsewhere that Jesus was anointed with extreme joy and gladness.³ (Which may be why the regular folks loved Him and many of the religious types hated Him. There’s nothing like extreme gladness to irritate serious people who are preoccupied with developing and showcasing their own spiritual acumen.)

Got Delightful Living Water?

But Jesus didn’t stop there. He went on to promise that for any person who believed in Him, “from his innermost being will flow rivers of Living Water”.⁴

Scriptures clarify Jesus was referring to the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit that would be given after He returned to His Father.⁵ And that the Holy Spirit would well up from inside us with Living Water.

Yes, Living Water flowing out of us. That delightful, thirst-quenching, River of God’s Pleasures kind of Living Water. Which is actually just another descriptor of Jesus Himself!

Blessings!
Gail

¹ John 4:10-16
² John 7:37
³ Hebrews 1:9. Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance explains the word translated “gladness” as “exultation, extreme joy, gladness”.
⁴ John 7:38
⁵ John 7:39

All I know is that God Is Love

In the late summer of 2001, I had a life-changing six week visitation from the Holy Spirit. What totally shocked me was how rich with affection His Presence was. He flowed with the most beautiful emotions I could imagine. Emotions like warm regard, gentle patience, happy kindness, lightness of heart, restful peace, fun playfulness, and wild unflagging LOVE!!

All those emotions swirled in and around and through me day after day for the six full weeks He opened my senses to Him. It was like He was living emotion, living beautiful emotion, of which we in this world have only dull shadows.

One of the first things the Holy Spirit asked during this long visit was for me to take communion and remember with Him the death of Jesus – His body that was broken and His blood that was spilled.

One might wonder why this beautiful, loving God would want to have anything to do with remembering a slow gruesome death through the cruelty of Roman crucifixion. And one might wonder why those of the Christian faith seem to regard this horrible death as such a foundational event.

And so I’ll tell you a story, maybe a story like you’ve never heard before.

A Simplistic Story As I Understand It

Long ago God created a perfect world. Our Creator, deliciously good Himself, declared his creation good. It was harmonious with all the beautiful, loving, happy emotions I spoke of above. Harmony, peace, and joy were defining, as they were defining of the Creator Himself.

The Creator chose a plot of ground on this new earth and planted a garden. It was a wonderful garden – without weeds, pest, blight, or drought.

Creator God then created a man and a woman who reflected His very image and gave them the garden as their home. He dearly loved the man and woman He had created and spent time with them and gave them joyful, satisfying, meaningful work. There was no death, no decay and no unpleasantness. They flourished.

Their occupation was to serve and keep the garden in which they lived. (Keep it from what, I wonder? Maybe we’ll see.) But that wasn’t all. The plan was that, as they procreated and spread across the earth, they were to have dominion over the entire earth and everything in it.

Now, dominion isn’t the same thing as domination. Domination has to do with power over someone or something. But dominion is rulership, and Jesus Himself explained that the role of the leader is to humbly serve (Matthew 23:11).

The Choice

When God planted this garden, He took a great and calculated risk. He placed a Choice in the garden. Why would He do this? Possibly because without a choice these people He loved could never truly be His friends. With no choice they could only be programmed, dominated, or controlled. And programming, domination, and control aren’t within the nature of God.

The essence of the Choice was to honor their Creator’s instructions and be content with the loveliness they lived in and with the satisfying relationship they had with their Creator, or to violate the Creator’s wishes and seek beyond for what might lay outside. He warned them that outside their present reality was death.

My imagination kicks in here. I can picture them in this loveliness wondering what exotic things lay in that realm God said was off limits. Was it better than this? Were they missing out on something they might desire? With no paradigm for anything but harmony, beauty, love, and a world bursting with life, they didn’t know what to expect. And being limited to their own reality, which was defined by the beauty of Who God Is, they could not access any real data for making this decision. They either had to trust this great friend and loving Creator, or they could explore beyond His margins.

The day came that the man and the woman made their Choice, and they chose to explore the reality that was outside this loveliness God had entrusted to them. And there truly was a reality outside of it. It was a reality outside of God Himself.

All the things that were outside the beautiful nature of God were in that reality. I have no clue why it existed. That’s not part of this story. But it was real and it was filled with all the things that were dissonant to the nature of God.

Dissonance

And so humanity chose. It wasn’t God who chose; it was our kind who made the Choice. And in their choosing, they ushered in much that was dissonant to the beautiful nature of God: stress, discontent, broken relationships, shame, injury, disease, death, ingratitude, boredom, resistance, gossip, craving, and yes, even what we call outright evil (such as torturing people to death through crucifixion). Our entire world system was corrupted with dissonance. And since that day, each of our hearts were born tasting dissonance.

Our destiny was now death – physical death, which we know, and spiritual death, which involves ultimately being forever separated from all the beauty that is God.

Thankfully, this did not make us void of good – His image was still the source of our existence. But we were no longer defined by the lovely nature of God. We now had far more in common with what exists outside of God than with what exists inside Him. The innocence of our relationship with Him was disturbed and we were no longer harmonious with Who He Is.

But our Creator never lost interest in us. He never stopped speaking to us, interacting with us, loving us, or providing for us. He wasn’t intimidated or repelled by us. Even at our dirtiest and most dissonant, He never turned away. Throughout the scriptures we see Him interacting lovingly with dissonant people (for example, as in Genesis 4:6). Jesus Himself confirmed this as He explained the heart of the Most High, explaining that God is kind even to those who are ungrateful and evil (Luke 6:35).

He continually poured out His grace and mercy into this alternate, undesirable realm in which we were trapped – this realm that He had so longed to protect us from.

Our end destiny of being forever separated from our delightful Creator was one we had no ability to overcome. And our determined efforts to eradicate dissonance and achieve the paradise we had lost merely resulted in human achievement that took us further and further from the exquisite nature of Creator God, and further and further from an affectionate harmony with Him.

We might have longed for the kind of relationship with God that still somehow echoed in the far recesses of the past, but we were destined to live in a reality that was not His. And we couldn’t fix this with our choices or our behaviors. Our destiny was immutable. There was no win. We were infected with the dissonance that existed outside of God and try as we might, we couldn’t entirely eradicate it and win back to our place of innocence.

Some Want It This Way

Keep in mind that some today consciously prefer living in this present reality. Some might want the beauty, the satisfying work, the kindnesses, and the security of the original creation. But they don’t want to be limited by what is in the nature of Creator God.

They want the freedom to explore beyond Him. They value knowing what is beyond His edges and indulging in what is opposite to who He is. They have no desire to return to the brilliant, rich but naive innocence of earliest humanity.

I have known people who applaud the woman who was involved in making this Choice, exalting her as Goddess and Savior of humanity. They believe this story I’m telling. They just interpret it differently, crediting her with carrying humanity into a new age of enlightenment and rescuing us from the oppressive world of Yahweh. They gladly accept the consequences as worth the freedom from Creator God’s boundaries.

Enter The Plan

But God never stopped loving us. He was terribly concerned about our long-term destiny of spiritual death – being sundered forever from Him and from all that was of Him. He didn’t want this for any of us (2 Peter 3:9).

Creator God didn’t have any tidy options at this point. We had chosen and now we were all infected with death and dissonance (Romans 5:14). He could not simply ignore the dissonance or pretend that we could pick things up where we left off before the Choice. That would be like welcoming the dissonance and death into Himself, which was impossible. Besides, it seems clear to me that even if somehow He was able to return us to the world and the reality He originally created, we wouldn’t stay there; we’d just once again recreate our dissonant world through our choices and inclinations.

He did have a plan though. But it was exceedingly messy, hugely costly, and, most likely, acutely offensive and entirely incomprehensible to those He was trying to rescue.

This messy, costly, offensive, and incomprehensible plan revolved around the concept of Innocent Blood. It seems to me that it works something like this. Each of us carries a spiritual debt to death – one we have no means at all to pay (Romans 5:14, 6:23). The beauty of the gift of Innocent Blood is that if something perfect and innocent is killed in our place, the blood of perfect innocence can be used to pay our spiritual debt to death that would separate us forever from all that is our Creator. At least temporarily. And it covers over our dissonance as well. (Hebrews 9:22).

It’s worth noting that human sacrifice was meaningless: there was no longer any perfect, innocent human blood of any age; it all carried its own debt to death (Romans 5:14). We could die and it would appease nothing. It would merely fulfill the requisite death sentence against us.

So perfect, spotless, valuable, and sometimes beloved animals were carefully chosen and, as humanely as possible, sacrificed. And it not only temporarily held at bay our own death sentence, but it also graphically reminded us of the life-and-death desperation of our personal situation. In addition, it regularly renewed our awareness that we existed in a realm outside the nature of our Creator. Desperate measures for desperate circumstances.

The animal sacrifices plugged a much needed hole, but they were just a temporary fix – and one that required a steady flow of sacrifice to pay for our ongoing dissonance. But this was just a shadow of what was to come.

The One

When the stage was finally set, God moved forward with the permanent fix. And Great Mystery entered the world.

There was One who in the beginning was with God and who also was God. Everything that was created was created through this One. This One was made flesh and lived among us. (John 1:1-14). The fullness of God was in Him (Colossians 2:9). He was entirely harmonious with God, and was in very nature God. However, He did not hold onto that, but made Himself nothing, taking the nature of a servant, and adopting the form of human flesh (Philippians 2:6-7).

And so Jesus was born. His assignment was manifold. He was to immerse himself into this broken, dissonant world, sharing in our suffering, including the suffering involved in being tempted. He wanted to better relate to our experiences and have greater compassion on us (Hebrews 2:17-18, 4:15-16). He was to reveal the Father to us (John 14:9). And most importantly, He was to be the final perfect sacrifice of Innocent Blood that would once and for all restore us to our Creator (Hebrews 10:12).

And Jesus did a wonderful work of embodying God to us. We had so lost track of who God was, forgetting in our dissonance how kind and emotionally beautiful and full of love He was. As Jesus told His disciples, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father” (John 14:9). Because we had forgotten. And we had made difficult, convoluted rules and unlimited demands and said they all had to be followed if we were to earn God’s regard. And we painted Him as harsh and demanding.

But Jesus showed us a far more personable portrayal of God. Scriptures say Jesus was filled with extreme joy and gladness (Hebrews 1:9). That certainly sounds like the Holy Spirit who visited me.

When His other work was accomplished, Jesus became the final sacrifice creation had been holding its breath for – the perfect, spotless sacrifice. His pristine, completely Innocent Blood was spilled out.

No one who loved God could have carried out the sacrifice. And so He further shared in our sufferings by putting Himself into the hands of cruel men (Mark 14:41) who mercilessly mocked and tortured Him, and then slowly murdered Him in public, naked and ridiculed. He was a voluntary victim of the evil that was so utterly foreign to His nature.

It was for us. Our spiritual death debt was paid once and for all. His final word as he was dying, translated “It is finished” (John 19:30), was the same word that was stamped in those days on a debt when it was paid in full.

Because of Jesus, we now have the opportunity to go forth without a destiny of spiritual death hanging over our heads. Because of Jesus, we have the opportunity to walk in restored harmony with our wonderful Creator (Romans 5:1). Because of Jesus.

I am eternally grateful.

Jesus is risen!
Gail Ruth

It was a difficult time in my life. I had been struggling for months to overcome a significant offense and wounding. Like many highly sensitive people I have a somewhat obsessive mind about injustices, and this one was a doozy. It had been inflicted upon me deliberately and publicly by a bewildering source. I felt hurt, dazed, and outraged.

To understand my story, it’s important to know I was fully aware of the spiritual principles of forgiveness and judgment as Jesus taught them. I’ll summarize them here so my narrative will make sense.

Principles of Forgiveness and Judgment

Jesus told a parable about a man who owed a King a debt so large it was impossible to ever repay, and the imminent consequences were terrible. Amazingly, the King had mercy on him and forgave his entire debt, and the man went on his way. He then went to someone who owed him a small debt and demanded repayment. When his debtor couldn’t repay, the newly-forgiven man coldly had this other man thrown into debtor’s prison.

Now when the King heard about this, he revoked the forgiveness and turned that first man over to the torturers. Jesus closed the story with the sad words, “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart” (Matthew 18:35).

Another time, Jesus said, “Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you” (Matthew 7:1-2).

The point of all this is to let us know that if we get a break from God, we are to give that same kind of break to everyone else in our lives – authentically from our hearts. There’s no room in the heart of love for some ”I’m special and you’re not” thing, or “I get mercy but you don’t.” And the principle of sowing and reaping says that what we give we get – judgment for judgment, and mercy for mercy. (James 2:13).

I was trying to take these teachings to heart, and therefore had repeatedly labored to forgive and release my offender to God, seeking healing for my heart. And for a while I would feel fine. But then days or weeks later, all the bewildered, angry, aggressive feelings toward this person would well up again.

Each time it was a bitter struggle against the temptation to just give up the fight and succumb to the compelling outrage and the desire for retribution that assaulted my mind and heart. But I continued to resist, and so the battle went on.

A Dream

One night after months of this I had a vivid dream.

In the dream, I noticed the person who harmed me walking nearby. My indignation flared and I violently wanted to stalk over and punch him hard in the stomach.

Even in the dream I was aware of the laws of forgiveness and judgment as taught by Jesus. I knew that if I retaliated against this man’s harm of me, I would then owe on my debt to God. I considered these laws and weighed them against my burning desire to assault this man.

In my gall, I decided I didn’t care. Anyway, I figured I couldn’t owe that big of a debt to God. I strategized that I could punch this guy, and then brace myself and turn around and take the belly blow I knew would be coming to me in response. I thought, “Even if it hurts, I’ll get over it, and it will have been so worth it.”

So in my dream I marched up to this person and belted him hard in the gut. As he buckled over, I was flooded with satisfaction. That had felt good. Really, really good.

Then, knowing what was coming, I prepared myself to turn around, bracing to take that punch in the gut I had coming, that judgment I knew I was no longer protected from because I had not forgiven.

So I braced and turned, and to my horror saw a huge wrecking ball speeding right for me. I knew instantly I was utterly destroyed.

In the flash before contact, I finally understood. I had thought I was exchanging a punch for a punch. But in demanding a single repayment of wrong owed to me by another person, I had opened the door to owing God on all the debts of my existence, which were far greater than I had comprehended.

And now that I had delivered my judgment, there was no longer any way out. I jerked awake in panic.

And Awake Again

Once again I released the debt to God – and a very large debt it seemed to me – and left it in God’s hands where it belonged without me peeking in to see if I approved of how God was handling it. I still had to struggle for a time with the pain inflicted by this person and the disorienting turmoil resulting from the sheer injustice of the act, but I never again longed to retaliate or see him owe on his debt to me.

Later the season of temptation was thankfully removed, with God suddenly whisking away all the churning emotion and obsessive thought. I was unspeakably grateful.

Here’s to the battle for forgiveness, even in the midst of our pain and confusion. May love and mercy triumph in our hearts!

Blessings!

Gail Ruth

My love for God is valuable and desirable. But I don’t weight-bear on it. I throw all my weight on God – who He is for me and what He’s done for me. And then I can relax.

Being a Christian highly sensitive person, I love better and I respond better when I am relaxed and secure.

Blessings!
Gail Ruth

P.S. For a printer-resolution pdf of the above visual poem, click here.