Learned Helplessness
Scriptures: 2 Timothy 2:15; 1 Corinthians 3:12-13
Introduction:
The title of my message this morning is “Learned Helplessness.” The theory of learned helplessness, in psychology, was conceptualized and developed by American psychologist, Martin E.P. Seligman, at the University of Pennsylvania in the late 1960s and ’70s. The definition of learned helplessness is this: “is behavior typical of an organism (human or animal) that has endured repeated painful or otherwise aversive stimuli which it was unable to escape or avoid. After such experience, the organism often fails to learn escape or avoidance in new situations where such behavior would be effective. In other words, the organism seems to have learned that it is helpless in aversive situations that it has lost control, and so it gives up trying. Such an organism is said to have acquired learned helplessness.” This is the clinical psychology definition.
When I was in school, we had to write book reports. Now I know some of the kids think they really write book reports today, but I want to talk old school and contrast the old way to today. Back in my day, when we had to write a book report, we actually had to leave our homes and go to the library. When you got to the library, you had to go through a card file (with the help of the librarian) to find the author and/or book(s) you needed to obtain the information for your report. After you found the source material you had to check the book out of the library (meaning you or a family member had to have a library card) and you took the book home. Once you got home the fun started as you had to actually write the paper by hand versus a computer keyboard. There were no computers and few families had typewriters. You had to write neatly so that the teacher could read it and it had to be formatted correctly. You also had to read or review the key chapters of the book to find the information you needed as there were no summaries available for you. Imagine having to actually do the research yourself! That was the old way. Today, a child can write a book report without leaving their home or going to the library. All they need is a computer, which most families have, and an internet connection. They can find multiple sources for their report in a matter of minutes. And, for the most part they can find summaries of the materials so they do not have to waste a lot of time actually reading the material. With this easily available information they can sit at the family computer and type their report and be finished in time to watch their favorite shows on TV. In my day it would take up to one or two weeks to get it done because of the amount of time it took to do the research and then to actually write it down on paper. Today it can be done in two or three days. Some would say it’s because of all the advancements we have made with technology, which is true, but the result of our technology is learned helplessness. Our children are not being made to think for themselves and reach their own conclusions. Let me give you a current example from my industry of learned helplessness.
In my industry we tell our representatives that they are the business owner of their geography. They have a defined geography based on zip codes and it is their responsibility to increase sales in their geography. They are the owners of their business – in theory. After we give them that ownership, we tell them which customers to call on; how many times they should see them; what product message they should deliver; how to deliver that message; and, to cap this all off, we send them reports letting them know how they are doing! Part of the reason we operate like this is because I am in a heavily government regulated industry and when things are done wrong, the results are large fines and possible prison time. Because we provide our representatives with all of this data, some of our sales representatives have learned to be helpless. If something is not given to them or they are not told how to do something they are helpless. But they also get to shift the accountability. If they did things exactly how they were told and the results are not there it’s not their fault because they did exactly what they were told in the exact manner they were supposed to do it. So the fault resides with the person who created the plan and not the one who implemented it. Learned helplessness – we have trained them to not think on their own and yet they are to be the owners of their business.
Why is this important when we think about Christians? Christians today are taught to be helpless. It is an accepted fact that most people do not read for themselves and they wait to be told a summary of what they are supposed to know and believe. Think about it. Most people do not read books or “pre-study” anything. They wait until they arrive to class and be told what they should know from the assignment. They have attended enough classes that they know that they do not need to prepare ahead of time because what they need to know will be discussed when they get there – learned helplessness. Why learn something on your own when you can wait and be told? Society knows that most people wait to be spoon fed information so they spoon feed them what they want them to know which leads to their beliefs being shaped by the information they are receiving. One of my former mentors who worked in Little Rock’s emergency response department shared with me how the news media would censor crime statistic in certain “white” neighborhood because of the value of the property. He knew this because he saw all of the crime stats across the city. People who watched the news began to associate “crime” with minority neighborhoods and “safety” with white neighborhood when in reality the crime rates were actually very similar. My point is this, when we get to the point of just accepting what we are being told without question because it is convenient we are living “learned helplessness.” This is an election year, have you been watching the commercials? Those thirty second to one minute sound bites repeated over and over again can shape your thoughts about a given candidate. The same applies to social issues. If we do not read for ourselves, our understanding of social issues is based solely on what someone else has told us.
For many Christians their sole understanding about what it means to be a Christian is based solely on what they have been told by someone else – whether that person was their pastor, Sunday school teacher, friends, a church leader, or the social media. Few people actually spend time studying the Bible and allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal God’s truth to them personally. We do not have time to research for ourselves and therefore we depend on the cliff notes versions of what the Bible is supposed to say. We have been taught to be helpless. We believe that we cannot change a situation so we should just go with it. Why study if I cannot understand what I am reading? Why pray when I cannot change the course of society and what will be will be? We must change this!
Here is one example that was shared with me from one of my former pastors. His pastor had read from John 5:28 which says “Do not marvel at this…” The church members heard what their pastor had read and accepted his interpretation of this verse. Based on his interpretation and the church willingness to follow his interpretation, the kids were not allowed to play with marbles because the Bible said “marble not.”
I was in a church service once when my pastor read Matthew 17:20. It says, “And He said to them, ‘Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.” From this passage of Scripture that pastor told us that if we had enough faith we could live forever and people screamed “Amen!!!” Do you understand what I am telling you? If we do not read and understand for ourselves we are left to accept others interpretation of what the Bible says.
To Change We have To Study For Ourselves
Second Timothy 2:15 says, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (KJV) Timothy was a young pastor who had been dealing with some difficulty Christians – you all know how we can be. Paul told him to study – not to prove to the people that he had knowledge, but for God. Let’s examine this verse more closely.
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God.” Not unto men, as pleasing them; for those who study to please men are not truly the servants of Christ because if you pay close attention to some “learned” men, sometimes those that are approved of by men are disapproved of by God and Christ. We must study to be approved of by God - speaking out the Gospel openly and freely with all sincerity. If you recall when you were in school and you had to do homework, many of us did homework because we “had to.” If it were left up to us we would have been outside playing and having fun. Learning was something you had to do to get through school. But there were some kids who loved to learn. They wanted to learn for themselves versus anyone else so they did not need a push to get their homework done. They desired knowledge; they wanted to know things. While these kids may be in the minority, this is the image I see when I think about learned helplessness. Instead of waiting for someone to tell them something or to give them information, these kids went and found it for themselves because they wanted to know. You can take a “dumb” child in school (if there was one) and place them in an environment with things that interest them and they will show you their intelligence level. They could excel in an area where the “smart” kid would totally crash. Paul told Timothy to study, not for the approval of man, but for the approval of God. Our relationship with God deepens the more we know about Him.
“A workman that needeth not to be ashamed.” The ministry of the word is work and it is a good work. It is not easy and there are times when a minister gets tired, but that’s because it’s work. Do you realize for the layperson they are also called to work for God? When you tell people your story – what God has done for you; When you teach others about Christ through your lifestyle and the words which you speak; when you serve in ministry functions of the Church; all of these activities are work. In order to do any job you must learn the job and the requirements of it. Paul told Timothy to approach his studying of the word of God as a workman would do his work. Why? So that when the finished product is seen he would not have to be ashamed of his work. Paul told Timothy to study so that so he would never need to be ashamed because he did not know something (or where to go find it) or because he got something totally wrong. He was instructing Timothy to take an action – to not wait for something to be given to him. He was to go and seek it out and then continue to share with others what he has learned. It is very difficult to share something that you do not know. The negligent, or unskilled, or ignorant workman will produce work which may well put him to shame. But the true workman loves to produce good work, such as will stand the fiery test of the last day (1 Corinthians 3:12-13). In this verse Paul explains the necessity as to why we need to be workmen who are not ashamed of their work. It reads, “Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work.” How you walk before men as a child of God means something. We have to study to confirm and reaffirm our relationship with God so that when the need comes we can rightly divide the word of truth. In other words, when we speak on God’s behalf, we get it right.
“Rightly dividing the word of truth.” Our mind, heart, and will must be concentrated upon this Word. The Word of God must form the matter of our lives - mold our thoughts and the inspiration of our imagination. We must be able to handle it right – you may not have a lot of Scripture committed to memory, but you should know where to go to find an answer when you need one. We must stop leaving it to chance that the person we go to for answers will be right. To divide the Word right means that we accept/teach/preach it as it is holding nothing back. It is this truth that will secure us until that last day.
Believing My Experiences Versus What The Bible Promises
All of us have experienced “learned helplessness” just not in the same area. I have AAA because I know very little about working on cars. That has never been my interest so today I have to pay someone to do something that others could do for themselves. When it comes to cars I have “learned helplessness.” I did not get here overnight – it took some work. You see I had to fail a few times before I realized that I did not know what I was doing when working on a car. I got tired of failing so I stopped doing it. I learned that I was helpless when my car was broken. Are you seeing this picture? No one is born with this mentality. It is formed as we go through life’s experiences and we start believing our experiences. You see, the Bible says “It will come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear.” (Isaiah 65:24) You see God says He hears my prayer and will provide the answer even as I am speaking it. However, in my experience I have prayed and did not get the answer that I wanted. In my experience God did not hear me. In my experience my prayer went unanswered. Believing my experience versus believing God’s word I no longer need to pray because nothing changes when I do. I am helpless when it comes to bad situations because my prayers do not get answered!
When I am in trouble and feel oppressed from every side my experiences tell me that my life will be filled with troubles. My experiences tell me as long as I am on this earth I will have trouble because it rains on the just as well as the unjust. Since my life is destined to be filled with troubles and there is nothing I can do about it, I can’t stop them. My experiences do not remind me what Psalms 9:9 says. “The LORD also will be a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.” I choose to believe what the Bible says, I do have a stronghold in my times of trouble!
My experiences tell me I will be sick. The Bible tells me that I will be healed. (James 5:14-16; Isaiah 53:5). My experiences tell me that I need to worry about some things but my Bible tells me that the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard my heart (Phil. 4:6-7). In this day and age society is telling me I need to be afraid. I see things and reflect on my past experiences and those of my people and the experiences say I should be afraid. But my Bible tells me that my God did not give me a spirit of fear! 2 Tim. 1:7) Do you understand this? We learn to be helpless when we chose to believe our life’s experiences over what God has said about us and our situation. If I do not know what the Bible says I am left to believe that my experiences are correct. If I choose to study and learn what God has said to me through His word, then my future experiences does not have to be similar to my previous experiences. My response of helplessness to those experiences will not be my future response. Praise God that we can overcome our helplessness!!! Knowing this, I can say the following with all confidence: “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” I believe this – do you?
Learned helplessness is “behavior typical of an organism that has endured repeated painful or otherwise aversive stimuli which it was unable to escape or avoid. After such experience, the organism often fails to learn escape or avoidance in new situations where such behavior would be effective. In other words, the organism seems to have learned that it is helpless in aversive situations; that it has lost control, and so it gives up trying. Such an organism is said to have acquired learned helplessness.”
It is only through the word of God and His Spirit operating through us that we can begin to go through our experiences, even the hurtful ones, knowing that we are not alone and that we will come out on the side. I believe what the Bible says. May God bless and keep you is my prayer.
Until next time, “The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
