Borderline Personality
Borderline Personality is a common diagnosis for the most difficult cases to solve. Usually these are desperate people who will cling to you, often suggesting that you are the only one who can help them. Good-hearted people will try their best to help them, but they won’t be able to. So they become critical of those who stop trying, and look for someone else to solve their problems. There seems to be one constant in all these cases. They are looking for someone to fix them, and nobody can. As long as they believe that, they will never get well.
I was explaining that to Christian leaders in England, and a young lady approached me when we broke for lunch. She said, “I was diagnosed borderline!” I said sympathetically, “I can see that!” Her arms were scarred from self-inflicted burns and cuts. She said, “What you said is absolutely true. I was searching for someone who had confidence, because I had none in myself.” She called our office in England and was referred to one of their team members. A couple took her in, and taught her who she is in Christ, and that she could do all things through Christ who strengthens her. Now she is living a responsible life in Christ.
There are two related problems to this issue. First, there are those who are self-confident. They have enough natural abilities to rise above the average, and become self-sufficient. They see no need for Christ. They could even be religious like the apostle Paul, before God struck him down. After becoming God-dependent he wrote, “Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God” (2 Cor. 3:4).
Second, there are millions of people lacking self-confidence who will flock to arrogant, self-confident cult leaders and politicians who make incredible promises that they cannot possibly fulfill. Such cult leaders feed off people’s insecurities. They don’t want to empower their subjects, they want to control them. Godly leaders liberate and empower others to be all that God wants them to be.
Dr. Neil
For Spanish, see http://www.ficmm.org/blog
