Monday, December 28, 2020

Prayers for a new year after a year like the year that was


This time last year none of us had any idea how tough this year would be.  But even without the pandemic, we do tend to think that each coming year will be better than the last.  If a year goes well, we expect our prospects to be enhanced.  If a year is the worst on record, we hope the year following will be a pleasant relief — more of what we’d find acceptable.

This sort of thinking isn’t really helpful; it doesn’t equip us very well at all for what is inevitably coming.  With that in mind, here’s a prayer inviting a realistic perspective:

Thank you, Father God, that we got through what was a tough year.

Help us to look back at this reflective time of year with gratitude and wonder, especially because You got us through various hard and painful challenges.

Equip us to gain purpose from the challenges that were presented in 2020, seeing that You have ordained life for us, to be an encouragement to others, at such a time as this.

Yes, Lord, endow us with meaning from this year and give us readiness for what’s ahead.

Nourish the spirit of wisdom in us to be able to carefully manage our own resources, especially knowing when and how to say no.  Bless this prayer for longevity, Father.

Give us increased understanding and self-acceptance with our mental health, and capacity for healing this coming year; help us not condemn ourselves when we’re weak and when we fail.

In a year that’s been incredibly tough on relationships, Lord, please furnish us with gentleness, kindness and patience with all those we care about, and every life our lives touch, this coming year.  We’re also praying others will be gentle, kind and patient with us, too.

For the losses that have been endured, help us continue in our recovery and adjustment, and for the losses that will inevitably come this new year, supply us with bravery for the grief we’ll be called to bear.

Give us the capacity and compassion to support those who You will call us to love.  Help us to know when to listen, when to speak, and how to care.  Give us discernment to be IN the person we’re helping, to sense what they need, and to know how to check in with them.

For developments that may shock us in the coming year, prepare us to respond well to whatever development occurs.

For our friends and loved ones, and for all humankind, Lord, protect life as much as possible, be with the scientists, health and hospital workers who work to exhaustion, and give to them what they need, including wise leadership at all levels of society in every country.

Finally, help us to trust You through all the days of this coming year.

AMEN.

Photo by Guilherme Stecanella on Unsplash

Sunday, December 27, 2020

Furtive behaviour, is it for manipulation or protection?


As a minister for Christ, one thing I’ve had to get used to and accept is behaviour from others that lacks transparency.  It’s all too easy to judge such behaviour as being manipulative when very often it can be a sign of self-protection.

How else is someone to prevent further abuse and trauma from occurring when they’ve trusted ‘trustworthy’ types before and been stung?

One thing I say to those I’ve had the privilege of mentoring is, “You must assume if people don’t trust you that they have REASON to be guarded.  Don’t be offended if they don’t trust you.  Take it as your opportunity to be faithful when they’ve not experienced it before.  Make sure that you’re WORTHY of their trust... and indeed, that’s your job: to restore in them not only that [people, leaders, managers, clergy types, counsellors] can be trusted, but to give them faith in their own evoked gift of discernment; to trust their gut first and foremost.  This is a huge battle for most people who have had harm done to them.”

One sure way to prove trustworthy is being able to be wrong.

In fact, getting it wrong can be a great opportunity.  To apologise.  If they feel misunderstood, we can own being corrected.  It does no harm to be corrected, and when we’re corrected most sincerely, we can cause them to think, “Wow, they seemed to listen; they didn’t shout back at me or abuse me or deny or deflect it.  They took it!”

Being capably vulnerable — able to be strong in weakness — is a demonstrative way of building trust.

Even if someone appears to be manipulative, it’s good for us to ask the question: “Are they doing that to protect themselves from harm?”  If it’s a chance they are, we have the opportunity of providing that protection — we allow them the latitude they’re seeking for themselves; behaving that way for the time being whilst also praying for a way to gently restore them.

Ultimately, their manipulative behaviour needs to be called, but we don’t do this with words which are direct and offensive.  It can be done through the respectful safety of subtle boundaries that make their manipulation less potent and less able to succeed.

This is a protection we afford them, all the while building a solid base of relationship connection and safety with them.

In discerning whether it’s manipulation for protection’s sake or not, we also need to be aware that a lot of manipulation is for no such intent.  It’s often manipulation out of entitlement.  This is the manipulation of narcissism.  This is not the kind of manipulation we can afford to tolerate, because it’s dangerous.

Manipulation such as this has no motive of self-protection-for-vulnerability behind it.

It is a devouring manipulation, aggressive in intent, targeted, locked and loaded on the vulnerable.  None of us is beyond being vulnerable in being faced by someone who is bent on having our number.

But the manipulation of a person who does so merely to hold their own, that we can see and know, from perhaps the better equipped position, as simply their volition to square the ledger.

There is nothing wrong with someone protecting themselves when they feel disadvantaged.  If only we can discern their feeling vulnerable and do our best to hold them safe.

Pastoral workers have a duty to hold power well, and to allow the more vulnerable to rise to a level where they feel more equal, all the while ensuring the relationship stays safe — that is, it meets the integrity an observer would wish for it.

Part of the role of someone skilled in helping is to hold all interests safely.  That is, to expect and to sense for what can feel like manipulation from the vulnerable, to understand its motivation (for protection) and to either call gentle awareness to it or to hold protection for safety sacredly.

The key difference between manipulation and protection is the potential harm it does.  Self-protection does little if no harm, revealing a need to equalise the power differential, whereas manipulation feels like a clandestine attack.

Where we can get it wrong is to read self-protection for manipulation and come down hard on the vulnerable to the point where trust is damaged if not destroyed.  This does harm when our goal is to do no further harm.

At the risk of overstating it, when a person behaves furtively it can mean they don’t trust you yet.

That’s not a blight against you; it’s good information about just where the relationship is at.  It’s an invitation to build more safety patiently through respect and integrity.

It’s not something to get offended about, as if, “Why are you dodging me/playing games with me... why don’t you just trust me?!”  This is occasionally a ‘fawn’ response, a common trauma response.  Patient gentleness and acceptance of the status quo is crucial.  The first building block of healing is trust.

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

Friday, December 25, 2020

The day God came to be with us

Light of the World
coming to us like a Star
to those near and far
God’s grace now unfurled.

To live as He would die
born in a lowly manger
in near and mortal danger
incarnate from on High.

A still and lonely birth
He lay there as if awaiting
the world never anticipating
change coming to the earth.

His short life echoed fitness
the Gospel coming alive
the enemy could not deprive
the earth of God’s Witness.

Divine grace coming in
in flesh was the Word
the Gospel ever to be heard
“God’s redemption of humanity’s sin.”

Photo by Chris Sowder on Unsplash

Thursday, December 24, 2020

What many Christians miss about the abuse dynamic


Ignorance is probably the most frustrating thing others have to bear about us, and ignorance with intention is possibly the worst sin of all.

One of the pat questions that comes out of exposing an abuser is, “Well, we all sin; we all fall short of the glory of God...” in other words, “You hypocrite, for pointing out someone else’s sin.”  If only it were that simple.  I get it.

But it’s not that simple, not by a long shot.

Here’s the key issue: it’s not just the abuser’s abusive behaviour we’re dealing with.  It’s their RESPONSE to being called to account which is the main issue.

Consider biblical David’s ‘affair’ with Bathsheba, which was certainly an abuse of his power; in beckoning the wife of Uriah to his palace; in sleeping with her; in taking another man’s wife and betraying them both; in arranging Uriah to be placed in such great danger he would die.

David engaged in sexual abuse and he also used his power to arrange the murder of the husband of the women he sexually abused.

But........... he repented.  In Psalm 51, we read how David came to understand his plight, having been exposed by the prophet Nathan in 2 Samuel 12.  The psalm is a bitter heart cry before God as a guilty person faces the gallows.  Reading Psalm 51 you get the sense that David GOT the impact of his sin.

Many abusers in our contemporary age are NOT repentant when they’re exposed, and there are very few Nathans in our churches who have the gumption to challenge their ‘king’.

When David repented, he received the earthly consequences of his sin, and that’s something that survivors of abuse need to see as the scales of justice are equalised.  Justice is good for the abuser and the abused alike.

It’s much more likely to be the case that the abuser gets away with it, seeing that they groom their fanboys and fangirls as much as they groom their victims.  In cases where abusers don’t groom their victims, they just take their entitlement and do as they please.

Either way, there is no repentance, no contrition, no brokenness, so henceforth, there is NO forgiveness.  You may argue the toss on this one, perhaps, but there is a ton of biblical evidence to suggest repentance is the precursor of forgiveness — but I’m going off point.

David experienced the forgiveness of God in Psalm 32, but Psalm 51 was the precursor.  Everything hinges on repentance where there’s been sin.

There’s no abuse that’s beyond a victim’s forgiveness provided there’s the justice of repentance.

The fact is the lying and denial of wrongdoing is far, far worse in terms of harm done than the original wrongdoing ever could have procured.

That might seem hard to believe in cases of childhood sexual abuse, but the prolonged time of never having justice done involves myriad threads of untraceable pain.  At least when there’s been a confession, the victim can know they’re not to blame.

Victims of abuse often live between knowing what was done to them was wrong and feeling like they contributed to it.  They get to become eyewitnesses of the worst of evil humanity, where their betrayer often taunts them by their public denials, knowing all that went on initially, feeling entitled to it, and it almost feels from a victim’s viewpoint that the perpetrator is laughing at them, as they continue holding malevolent power.

This is what’s so often lost on those do-gooder Christians who want to remind us that we’re all sinners; they fail to consider the iceberg under the water line of the damage done where there’s no confession, repentance, restitution, and restoration of the victim.

Survivors of abuse literally live for the day when the abuser will say, “Please forgive me.”  When there would be an admission of wrong.  Where there would be understanding of the pain conveyed.  Where they would commit to making amends.

Very sadly, it’s very rare that a victim of abuse will ever get justice.  From God’s viewpoint, that’s not good enough.  Though maybe more important than justice for the victim is healing and restoration, and there is much more than one way to that destination.

Photo by @felipepelaquim on Unsplash

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

What narcissistic church-speak sounds like


Gut feels are often trustworthy, and we may have had these regularly when sharing interactions with others around the topic of church — their church or yours.  Try this on for size:

“My/our church is a very special church.”

How often have we either heard this or said this aloud ourselves?  It comes in many forms:

“The way [insert name] runs [insert program] is exceptional.”

Between the lines: the person being commented on no doubt has had success.  Perhaps they are exceptional.  It’s far more glorifying to God to let the opportunity of acclamation pass by being quietly thankful.  Didn’t God give this person everything they have to minister so well?  Arrogance, pure arrogance.

“Our members are exceptionally loyal, faithful to the core.”

Between the lines: somehow this church just forgot that every church is full of people who struggle to be faithful; they forgot Who IS faithful.  This comment is usually made by a senior leader, and it’s actually saying, “We see your loyalty and we’re trusting you’ll remain loyal, approving of what we’re doing, and won’t challenge our wisdom,” OR it can also be saying, “We wish you were MORE loyal; please be more loyal in future.”  This may particularly be the case when they separate out ‘loyal’ ones for special accolades.  Calls to ‘loyalty’ are a RED FLAG.  Calls to ‘loyalty’ are unbiblical, because so often what is meant is loyalty to a person or people — NOT God.  When loyalty is heralded as a value, opposing views are not appreciated.  Arrogance, pure arrogance.  Leaders who call ‘the faithful’ to loyalty to them are really saying, “You are lucky to be here.”

“I’ve never seen any other [church or pastor] do that [exceptional thing].”

Between the lines: again, it smacks of superiority.  It’s like the church or the pastor in focus is not only a walking miracle of God, but viewed by God as the very best in that way.  The reality is many churches and pastors are special in some unique way.  Glory be to God, not them, and when glory goes to God, the praise is saved for a thankful heart.  Arrogance, pure arrogance.

“His [prophetic/teaching/preaching] gifting is amazing, probably the best in the city.”

Between the lines: the fact is his prophecy/teaching/preaching are all gifts from God, and we need to be careful how we ‘thank’ God for the gifts God bestows.  God would never want some to feel not-good-enough, or not-as-blessed, because they don’t bear exceptional gifting.  God gives generously to all.  We really do need to see giftedness through the eyes of God.  As the Bible says, little fingers and little toes in the body are to be lifted high.  Narcissistic churches and leaders never herald the weak, the lowly, the ordinary, unless it will further their own purpose.  Arrogance, pure arrogance.

“Think of the amount of people he/this ministry has saved alone!”

Between the lines: ‘he’ or ‘this ministry’ or the Spirit of God?  Really reflects a ministry where man is doing the work not the power of God, and it cuts God out of the picture, taking divine praise and placing it as an idol in human hands.  Arrogance, pure arrogance.

“The number of baptisms... and he does such an anointed baptism.”

Between the lines: again, this heralds the value placed in performance, as if baptisms are best when they evoke a great deal of emotion and ‘movement of the Spirit’.  God’s Spirit departs when humans begin to put on a show in God’s name.  Arrogance, pure arrogance.

“We support [insert mission or ministry] unlike any other church.  I mean, I’ve never seen anyone else do what we do.”

Between the lines: what this is really saying is, “We’re more generous — and therefore more loving, Spirit-filled, good and godly — than other churches.  Arrogance, pure arrogance.

“I’ve never seen a pastor work so hard and be so sacrificial as ours.”

Between the lines: this statement reveals the stock placed in works — human effort over God’s power.  It sounds like this pastor’s commitment to the church is exceptional because, let’s face it, this church is exceptional and entirely deserving of that level of devotion.  This comment also indicates other pastors have an inadequate work ethic, because the church in focus here has set a new mark.  This comment also says, “Our pastor loves us like this because we’re especially loveable.” Arrogance, pure arrogance.

“Our previous pastor burned out, and since [insert new pastor’s name] has taken over, the ministry here has gone to a new level — we are so blessed!”

Between the lines: pity the poor pastor who burned out.  Imagine the arrogance of a person who puts the brilliance of the new pastor above the welfare of the previous pastor who probably gave blood, much sweat and many tears to their church that possibly discarded them or didn’t support them as they should have.  Arrogance, pure arrogance.

“Our church is on fire for God and we’re doing God’s will at every turn.”

Between the lines: what this is saying is, “We’re a church where sin is not an issue.  We’re especially obedient and faithful, much more than others.”  Arrogance, pure arrogance.

Usually what follows comments like these are, ‘glory to God’ or ‘praise the Lord’, as if saying that puts all the glory in God’s hands and makes the person lauding human achievement and gifting seem genuinely humble.  No, they just TOOK the glory that ought to be God’s.  ‘Glory to God’ and ‘praise the Lord’ was always an afterthought in these situations to make it sound palatable and more Christian.

These comments are usually made by either the leaders or by the fanboys and fangirls of those in charge.

These comments set one church (their own) above all others, and in reality, and unfortunately, many churches and many church leadership teams do this, unashamedly.

Check out the church Facebook page, Twitter, the livestreams, etc.  Evidence enough for all to see.  Any church that routinely calls attention to itself as superior is courting narcissism.

It’s not your church or mine, the mega-church with thousands of devotees or the little one that’s survived decades longer than anyone thought it would, that deserves special accolades; those accolades ought to go the universal church in honour of and for the glory of Christ alone.

Finally, much narcissism comes out in prayer.  If ever there is a place where people are tempted to gush praise full of untruth and exaggeration, it’s in corporate prayer.  Anything that is prayed aloud or in secret that isn’t the truth does not glorify God.  It would be more refreshing to hear words of repentance, of struggle, of vulnerability, of need of God, and of thanks for God’s faithfulness.

Photo by John Price on Unsplash

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Why does God allow abuse to occur?


The answer to the question is easy enough to understand.  Even though God created the universe and everything in it, God has designed life in such a way as there can be no divine intervention in particular matters of life until the end of time.

Whilst this is quite plain and understandable, there’s no comfort there to those for which abuse continues as an echo of trauma throughout the rest of their lives.

No comfort, whatsoever.  Is there anything else that can comfort an abuse survivor who has been betrayed at an existential level?

We can well imagine — knowing the character of God — that God HATES abuse — and knowing that God is omniscient and omnipresent — that God KNOWS everything that happened — every bitter blow in every event in the abuse that took place — that God is saving up the consequences of the abuse that was suffered for an indeterminate time.

It’s the great hope we hold to, that the Judge will judge fairly, and for that matter, harshly when the time comes.  And we can believe that whatever we suffer in this life that cannot be reconciled we will be compensated for when we go to meet God.  We hold to these beliefs by faith.

For the survivor of abuse, there is probably little comfort in the foregoing.  There is a life robbed of the joys and the safety of a life that would have been infinitely better and freer without the scourge of abuse affecting it.

But what is life without faith?  It is a shadow of what it could be.

I urge all survivors to nurture their faith, because even more so is it needed in the time between now and the eternity that awaits, and it will often prove to be enough as we look back.

Perhaps God allows every bad thing that happens to us as a test.  It’s a test for the one inflicting pain and damage on the one made in God’s own image.  That’s a sin that will be judged unless the offender owns it in this life and makes good of restitution, which must satisfy the survivor completely — to the extent of tangible healing.

We can well imagine sitting with a trauma survivor who is sharing their story wondering where God was as they suffered it day after day.  God may not have been able to stop it, but God certainly witnessed it, and as it says in Ecclesiastes 12:12b-14:

“Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.

“Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the duty of all humankind.
For God will bring every deed into judgment,
including every hidden thing,
whether it is good or evil.” 
(bold used for emphasis)

Those who do not fear God — for instance, abusers who will never repent or acknowledge their wrongdoing — WILL pay dearly.  And those who have been abused will receive their compensation.

If you think that’s too long to wait — i.e., eternity — think about how LONG eternity will last for!  The consequences will last forever, even as they appear to last forever for you in this lifetime — which in all reality is just the blink of an eye.

From heaven’s viewpoint, it’s blessed to have been the betrayed, and cursed to have been the betrayer.  The betrayed stand acquitted.  The betrayer stands guilty as charged.

Whether you have faith or not, would you go against an inspired book that has endured for thousands of years?

I don’t know about you, but I’m not taking that risk.

Photo by Patryk Sobczak on Unsplash

Monday, December 21, 2020

We don’t need another hero, we just need to know the way home


A play on the lyrics from the song of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), on the same day as The Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, the title of this article shines a light today, as every day, on the Lord God, Creator of the Universe.

The Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn last occurred on 1623 and is thought to possibly align, timewise, to the Christmas Star event at the time of Christ’s birth.

We have a situation this year, as we had each year for around 2,024 years, where we contemplate the unthinkable — 

God coming into the world, in the flesh, incarnate in all deity and all humanity

§     to live as we live, yet as sinless, 

§     to teach us how to live with a heart of flesh and not a heart of stone, 

§     to point us through signs and wonders to God’s power like nobody before or since,

§     to suffer and be rejected as much as anyone could or ever has,

§     to die on a Roman cross, scourged, vilified, sullied, shamed, and abandoned by all,

§     to rise again on the third day, rebuilding the ruins of God’s Holy Temple,

§     to ascend on High to be with the Father once again.

Each of these seven statements of fact are profound in their remarkableness.  Perhaps the most remarkable fact is, no matter how much we study the life of Christ, we can never tap the fathomless reality of how incredible Jesus is.  Plumb each of the above statements and it simply leaves us in awe.

We don’t need another hero ....

...... we just need to know the way home — to him.

Everything that was established through him revolves around him, just as the planets continue in their orbit, reminding us every now and then of the miraculous nature of the physical universe, as displayed, in the present case, every four hundred years — of his birth.

The physical universe blows our minds.  The more we study it, the more we know, the MORE our minds are blown.

We don’t need another hero ....

..... we really don’t.

Indeed, if this life teaches us ANYTHING, it’s that we’re all destined to get sucked into the vortex of heroes of our own design — sports stars, musicians, TV and movie stars, motivational speakers, our family members, our dreams, our appearance, and even our own lives, etc.

Every single one of us has a worship dilemma — we worship what we shouldn’t and fail to worship who we should.  And it doesn’t matter by and large whether we have ‘faith’ or not.  We’re all prone to devoting our lives to idols.

Christians tend to worship their favourite world famous Christian speakers, and they often hold up their own pastors as heroes.  Evidence of this is pastors are either lauded as exceptional and revered or they’re eventually thought of as ‘average’ — who never ascended to the lofty heights they should have. And then there’s the one who descended into the dirt.  If a pastor has descended to the dirt, they’re there because once upon a time they were placed on a pedestal they couldn’t ascend to; only God could, can and does.  This hero worship ought to make us sick.

Pastor Dale Stephenson once said to a throng of us pastors, “You’re not as good as people think you are and you’re not as bad as people think you are.”

Truth is, we’re all human.  The President of the United States, the Queen of England, the Pope, these people are all human, and they’re all completely unworthy of our worship — respect, yes, but not worship — and, indeed, these offices exist in their most basic form to point us to God, which is to rule with a power of beneficence for all.

We don’t need another hero ....

..... we really don’t.

When we take up a hero in human form, we place our hopes in what can never satisfy us.  We place our hopes in inevitable disappointment for the betrayal we stand to experience when they don’t measure up.  Humanity WILL fail us.  We ascribe to a person too much power.  And we commit to a futile journey.

Every day of our lives we’re on a journey.

We’re not home here on this earth; this earth is here so we FIND our way home.  Everything on this earth is a pointer to something infinitely better.

Worship anyone else other than Jesus and commit to a journey to not only nowhere, but to eternal frustration and to the defeat of our purpose and hope.

You don’t need another hero.  He died for you about two millennia before you were even conceived.  We have a hero; the only one we’ll ever need.  And with Jesus as our hero, we can live equal with all humanity.  And that’s the way life’s supposed to be.