Learned Helplessness

In the 1960s, American scientists did cruel experiments on dogs to prove the theory of learned helplessness. I’ll not describe them, but the basic outcome was that some dogs realized that whatever they did, they couldn’t overcome the ill effects they faced and gave up trying. Learned helplessness is resorting to a mindset of “What difference does it make?”

After instructing his audience to add faith, excellence, knowledge, empowerment, perseverance, reverence, familial affection, and love, Peter said,

“These characteristics aren’t present in someone – s/he is blind, sees things dimly, and forgets the cleansing s/he received from his/her old sins.” (2 Pet 1:9)*

Yesterday, I said these characteristics were like musical instruments played at the right time in an orchestral piece. But imagine a piece of music with no instruments – it is not music. (I know pause and silence are part of compositions; I am talking about 20 minutes of nothingness.) Similarly, Christians who lack faith, excellence, knowledge, empowerment, perseverance, reverence, familial affection, and love are not “musical,” that is, pleasant to be with.

Peter saw them causing extra work for others. I grew up on the campus of a blind school with over 150 blind people. My mother was their principal. I loved them, walked with them, led them on field trips, and typed braille for them. Please don’t misunderstand when I say their challenges cause extra work for others. I’ll give an example of what I mean. If I walk with a non-blind person and we must cross a street, we both stop, look to the right and left, and walk if everything is clear. But with a blind person, I must say, “Stop. We must cross a street.” Then I look to the right and left and say, “Okay, nothing is coming. Hold on to me. We will cross.”

Peter wasn’t attacking physically challenged people but was saying that spiritually blind Christians dragged down fellow Christians with their inability to see Christian life clearly. The core gospel was that a believer was cleansed of all his/her past sins. Spiritually blind Christians couldn’t see, or only saw dimly, or couldn’t remember that they were cleansed of all their past sins. Since they didn’t see clearly, they dragged others with them.

Imagine that a friend borrows our car and has a wreck. Our insurance and friend paid for it to be fixed. The car is in better shape than before. But every time that friend visits us, s/he apologizes for the damage s/he did to the car. And every time, we say, “Oh, that’s okay.” Wouldn’t we be worn out and try to avoid seeing that friend? Failure to see clearly that our past sins have been completely forgiven is like that – a drag on us and those around us. Such dredge comes because we don’t add faith, excellence, knowledge, empowerment, perseverance, reverence, familial affection, and love to our lives daily.

The opposite of learned helplessness is perseverance. Once, a million jellyfish washed ashore on a beach. A kind-hearted person picked them up one by one and tossed them back into the water, where they happily swam away. Another saw him and said, “There’s a million. What difference does it make?” (A statement of learned helplessness.) The kind-hearted person picked up a jellyfish, tossed it into the water, and said, “It makes a big difference to that jellyfish.” Let’s persevere and all those awesome characteristics to our lives.

*This is the first of several graphic illustrations in three that Peter said to make a single point.