Henri Nouwen and healing pain’s wounds via eternity’s gratitude

PAIN is the very portent of hope for something different.  The mere presence of pain heralds hope for what is beyond it.  Nobody who is in pain likes being there and remaining in it.  Pain calls us beyond it... into peace... healing... gratitude... joy.

I want to wrestle with some hard truths in this article by the thoughts of Henri J.M. Nouwen (1932 – 1996).  Below, quoted, is Nouwen’s wisdom:

“To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections that requires hard spiritual work.  Still, we are only grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment.  As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for.  Let’s not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.”

This is a very hard thing.  I wonder if you balked at some of this.  We all suspect that the best life is the grateful life.  Yet, in this quote above, Nouwen tells us that in all things — even and especially the horrendous — there’s the redemptive “guiding hand of a loving God.”

Let’s face it, if it weren’t the case, there would be no hope.  To process pain, we need hope.

We must somehow believe that there is a benevolent purpose in all we experience, and where we cannot see it, that it’s faith we show when we believe it must exist.

At the very least, such a challenge to our thinking is bound to stop us in our tracks and compel a sharp reflection.

Rather than dismiss it out of hand, if we can trust the guidance of a master in healing wounds, we do stand to learn something; for one thing, to have our perceptions turned upside down.  Don’t be surprised when this happens.  So many of us testify this is what the journey is life.

Whenever I’ve approached any sort of loss or grief with an attitude that “this, too, is a life experience, and I’m thankful I endured it,” something has happened to allow me to be freer.

Many times, it’s a slow process of allowing those partitions to fall, so we might readily allow those hard nodules of hurt to be massaged through the simple act of letting those experiences be a part of us — not to rip us apart by pain or shame, but that in them being there, they cannot conquer us.  It’s very hard with trauma, but not impossible, just a slower, gentler journey as we gradually learn to accept and manage triggers.

Here is a second quote:

“There are two extremes to avoid: being completely absorbed in your pain and being distracted by so many things that you stay far away from the wound you want to heal.”

The normal journey through pain is inevitably one where we experience the complete continuum — fully absorbed by pain’s ferocity at one end and often distracted by intentional denial at the other.

Being able to FEEL pain — to feel our feelings — is the key to increasing both healing and emotional intelligence.  If we can feel our pain, almost nothing can conquer us in this life.  But if it all becomes about our pain, we remain in it and we don’t move through and beyond it.

Getting to a place where pain has been processed to the degree that there is purpose and meaning springing from it, as life experience I mean, gives us something of a tool for the rest of our lives.  This is the importance of pressing into the pain sufficient that it can be processed, without becoming ultimately consumed by it.

~

I’m fascinated with the concept of gratitude on the other side of pain.  What must be understood about gratitude, however, is it’s an all-consuming superabundantly positive attitude for the reality of all a person has and is and has experienced — in all ways.

When I read Paul in the final throes of Philippians when he says, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me,” and that he, “has learned to be content,” whether he has plenty or is in want — especially in view of all the betrayal, loss and disappointment he experienced — I know Paul experienced what is possible for every person to experience.

That is the capacity to overcome what would normally overcome a human being.

Photo by Paul Gilmore on Unsplash

What does the Ravi Zacharias scandal teach us as disciples?

We all know, I hope, that Ravi Zacharias is not a King David in the ways he responded to the exposure of his sin.  David was exposed and then repented.  We have Psalm 51 to show for it.  And we know David was vindicated for his true remorse because we also have Psalm 32 to show for it.

Ravi stands condemned by human standards when we consider the incalculable wreckage strewn through the lives of his victims.  The eternal assessment we leave with God.

But, besides all the victim-blaming and covering for Ravi over the past several years, there is at least one global lesson for us all as we reflect on his life.

Ravi obviously felt he deserved what he took from the many women he used.

This is just one of the mirages of idolatrous thinking he sowed deeply into.  It’s just one example of the lust of the eye, the pride of his life (1 John 2:16).  There are a whole series of errors that must have led him to the point of dissociating from moral treason.

Pride is a seeing problem.  When pride is an issue, we can only see what is false and self-elevating and ultimately self-deceiving, and we cannot see what is true; what is good for us and others.  Pride is moral blindness.

Pride literally destroys life, but it’s a slow burn, so, like the frog that boils slowly in a pot that’s gradually warmed to boiling point, we don’t see it killing us and others until it’s way too late.

But before I conclude on pride’s opportunity for us all, let me shed some good news abroad for the vulnerable.

Good News for the Vulnerable

There are so many lessons we can learn from David’s life in terms of what went so catastrophically wrong with Ravi’s life.

David was exposed.  Ravi wasn’t.

Ravi clung to every bit of manipulative control he could to squash any hope of truth having its day while he lived.  And he dragged his victims through immeasurable suffering in doing it.

For David, he was instantly broken for his sin.  We well imagine that when we read the bitterly sorrowful opening verses of Psalm 51.

Not from a Psalm 51 viewpoint — feeling shattered for having sinned against the Lord — could David see the Psalm 32 reality of vindication for repentance.  But God’s forgiveness was David’s felt reality, even though there were still consequences for the rape of Bathsheba and the murder of her husband.

That vindication, working in tandem with the outworking of consequences for his sin, could’ve been Ravi’s reality too.

The key message here for any leader caught in sin is, be exposed, because even the most embarrassing and shameful truths when they’re exposed set us free.

We need to acknowledge the forces that would have kept Ravi lying.  Fear!  Control!

The saving grace we all have available to us is being at short account with God — who sees all!  (Read Psalm 139)  It makes sense then to pray the prayer of Psalm 139:23-24 every single day, and many moments throughout.  Being brave enough to be brutally honest, hang the cost, is the only Christian way.

The Back-of-Stage / Front-of-Stage Conundrum

There are so many lessons we can learn from David’s life in terms of what went so catastrophically wrong with Ravi’s life.

But only if we’re open to imagining that Ravi was human, a sinner, like the rest of us.

The moment we place Ravi in a box ‘over there’, as evil personified, we lose grasp over a lesson that will only serve to protect us.

If we truly care for victims, we need to be committed to doing what Ravi did not.  That’s the lesson in this for us all, folks.  No more victims!  None on our watch!

The moment we cast Ravi into the wilderness as a person who acted like we never would, paradoxically we stand apart from learning anything that would prevent the same thing occurring to us — and I know our lapses won’t necessarily be sexual sin, but that doesn’t mean it won’t come out in some other sinful form.

Pride considers we’d never do anything as gross as Ravi.  But there are other gross things that may also entrap us.

The paradox is, it’s only when we admit we’ve got the capacity for evil that we’re protected through humility from the pride of ‘that will never happen to me!’

This pride of ‘it’ll never happen to me!’ is the initiator of the slippery slope.

We all need to be aware that we all live some form of double life — the Christian life promises integrity, but who if any of us matches up to that standard?  That’s the point.  Christ is our perfection, but we need to be good enough not to sin profanely against others and God.  Pastors (I can say this, because I am one), make sure you root out duplicity before it harms people, for it will also harm you.

The best we can hope for is that our integrity is exemplified in us having a transparent relationship with our sin.

Our hope rests in being so acutely aware of the double life that all of us can see when we start to embark on the dangerous trajectory south, so much so that we arrest the slide instantly, so we don’t do anyone or ourselves any harm.

Here’s a Bible promise from Numbers 32:23: “you may be sure that your sin will find you out.”  The fact is, Someone is always watching.

Rather than imagine that the sin is ‘over there’, we truly do best as followers of Jesus to learn and apply the lessons Ravi did not.

Not all of us will sin like David or Ravi, but let’s not forget the tenets of the Sermon on the Mount — Jesus reduced the act of adultery to what we do in the eyes of our hearts.  Who on earth has never sinned there?

Yes, I know, it’s not the same, but let’s judge from a Jesus viewpoint and not from a human viewpoint.  Let’s all do no harm, living at peace with everyone, as far as it depends on us.

NOTE: My thinking here has been informed by David Wood of Acts 17 Apologetics.

A necessary 500-Year reformation – the eradication of abuse

In her book The Great Emergence, Phyllis Tickle used the metaphor of “The 500-year Rummage Sale” to describe the change process the church inevitably needs.  The church needs to “clean house,” she said, and it needs a “giant rummage sale.”  It would be apt to rename Tickle’s book in the present context, The Great Emergency.

One thing we must get rid of in the church is abuse.

If we aim to do that — get rid of the symptom, abuse — then we must get to the heart of the matter, the cause of the abuse, and that is power.  The abuse of power.  The abuse of power causes abuse.

Once and for all we need change from the very top in all denominations.

All denominations need their own first priority ‘do no further harm’ strategies solid enough to be actionable.  Not first priority down the list somewhere, but genuinely this is the number one issue.

This will require Christ-likeness from those at the very top.  In response to this present crisis, which no doubt darkens the image of the church over the centuries, not just decades, we must face truth if we’re to have any chance for change.

If we face the truth long enough, it will cause the church globally to repent in sackcloth and ashes.

If we can’t handle the truth because it ‘guts’ us, we can’t fix the problem — the abuse that runs rife in churches and Christian organisations because of unaccounted power. 

Abuse flourishes and trauma explodes when misuses of power are the silent modus operandi.  We don’t even question it, because power has so become a central part of church culture.

We can’t fix this until we upend the model, and it needs to happen on a global scale.

One of the best articles I’ve read on the Zacharias scandal said:

“Investigators were able to obtain an immense amount of incriminating information from Zacharias’s old phones—including phones that he allegedly refused to turn over to RZIM when the Thompson allegations surfaced in 2016.  In other words, had the ministry conducted even the most minimally competent investigation, they could have discovered (and potentially stopped) almost four years of additional misconduct and abuse.”

Even the most minimally competent investigation would never have gotten baby wings to fly in a culture that so protected its founder.

Cultures of these ‘church’ organisations are thick with evil, principally pointed to protect a person — the leader.  They don’t give a toss about Jesus’ reputation — with every breath of abuse, they not only insult Jesus’ name, but they also set out to kill his indominable Spirit.

If only the church would stand to eradicate misuses of power that allow abuse to flourish.

We need to do it, and we must do it.

Photo by Federico Respini on Unsplash

Don’t forget, many ministers do the right thing

“Let Us Prey,” a 2017 book by Ball and Puls on narcissism in the church suggested that nearly a third of pastors in a North American context were narcissists.  That research has subsequently been challenged.  The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse made findings that a high percentage of religious leaders were not offenders.

It’s clear in the backwash of the Ravi Zacharias, Bill Hybels, etc. scandals that there are Christian leaders who are phony at best, pathologically destructive at worst.

But the majority of those who serve God in a recognised way, do serve God and people faithfully.  I think that’s easily lost in the milieu of outrageously hypocritical leadership.

For those who have pastors who work hard, who listen, who are approachable and relational, who apologise sincerely and regularly — especially for important issues, who give credit where it’s due, who can be reasoned with, who occasionally change their minds, who steward power by giving it away — especially to the weakest, who have no skeletons in the closet, who chase reconciliation with passion, who LIVE the life of their calling, perhaps it’s really timely to tell them how well they’re doing.

We don’t need to heap excessive praise — nobody who serves God needs excessive praise, but just a solid and humble recognition, like we all need from time to time.

Especially if they’re seriously discouraged by the Ravi Zacharias scandal, and the bad rap that ministers may be getting as a result, give them your quiet reassurance that they’re faithful to their calling.

For those who are pastors, and you read these job descriptors of a godly character (1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1), be fair about yourself.  If you genuinely love and do what is good, are self-controlled and disciplined, I pray you experience God being pleased — by your faith to serve diligently as a servant shepherd (Hebrews 11:6).  The treasure that counts is sown up in heaven, and your reward will be much.

The facts of the matter are these — there are generally 50 percent of pastors who don’t make it to the finish line.  Some of these do the wrong thing and are found out.  But most burn out, are abused out of their positions, or find they’re suited better to other work.  There are probably just as many pastors who serve lifelong, who do the wrong thing as there are who are found out, but overall, most of those who have great longevity survive for the right reasons.  And yes, there will always be exceptions!

We know there are many pastors — a significant minority — who give their all and are treated badly; the faithful who are not rewarded, like the old-time prophets, in this lifetime for their valuable ministry.

We could pray for these, who suffered just like their Saviour, who received no justice this side of the eternal cusp.  We could thank God for them, who, like the martyrs were sacrificial in very many ways.  We can also understand the impact this had on their families — many of whom may have long walked away from the church.

Most of all, we all can recognise that the famous few heretics have given the many faithful heroes of faith a bad reputation.  We should save some love for those who are or have been genuinely serving God faithfully.

Christian leaders, for the most part, are not as good as many people think they are, but they’re also not as bad as some may think they are, either.

It can be easy to forget that many Christian leaders genuinely try to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God.  Indeed, there are many who risk much for justice, who behave as mercifully to all as equally as they can, who are humble to a fault.

Photo by Sven Brandsma on Unsplash

The night my world ended, and a ‘new life’ began

Having been involved in the recent Wooroloo bushfires, and knowing there are dozens of families wrestling with the fact that their homes are destroyed, contemplating how to even process that, let alone rebuilding and moving on, reminds me of the night my world ended.

That same night I recognised later that — with deep reluctance — a new life began.

It was 22 September 2003.  I was coming down with a head cold on the day that I learned that I’d been unsuccessful in getting a national occupational health and safety manager’s job with Shell Company (I was a state coordinator applying for a promotion).  Bizarrely, a week before that, as I rode the taxi to the airport from my interview, I had a very prophetic ride that day; the taxi driver reciting a riddle for me that would prove insightful for what was about to occur in my life.  I had absolutely no idea what was coming.

There I was, having put the kids to bed, at 8 pm on a Monday evening, when my wife returns home, and I am about to receive the shock of my life.  The marriage is over.  There’s no coming back.  Couched in terms of temporary separation, but really I knew it was much more dire than that.

That threw me into such a deep spin, and I can tell you, like sliding doors, my world changed instantly, forever, no coming back.  So many who will read these words will say, “Yep, I know exactly what you mean; something like that happened to me, too!”

You never really prepare for such news. Like so many events in life, there is no preparation, like the moment one of your children is born, or that you learn of the sudden death of a loved one, or as the present case may be, it’s the death of dreams and memories and financial viability, and where every physical possession you own is gone to ash in seconds.

Of course, there are no real words for such occasions, as speechlessness carries us into a void of cognisance for numbness.  It’s the very real state of consciousness that seems like unconsciousness except for the driving pain of it all.

Right there, in the thick of muddy mire, the only thing you’re aware of is that you exist, and that is the most painful reality of all; to exist when you least want to.  Sorry if these are deathly words for you, but they are the truth.

I recall many mornings and afternoons and evenings after September 22, 2003, where upon waking, my dread was all too real, as I realised I was waking up into my nightmare, and the amount of panic attacks I had in those days showed me once and for all that there are realities that are far too big for any human to contemplate.

These realities do break human beings, and it doesn’t matter how much faith you have.  The death of dreams, of hopes, and the materialisation of darkest thoughts, without the ability to contend.

Too many people have experienced this kind of existential crisis whereby life is brought to death in a real living sense.  It’s only when you arrive at this point that, if the eyes of your heart are curious, you see the myriads of suffering over the earth.  Nobody likes to see such suffering, but the true blessing is we see, for the first-time, what God sees.

For the person who has lost their home, for the one who has seen every precious possession go up in smoke and remain there either only as a memory or as ash.

On that Monday night most recently, when the fire swept through the area immediately to our north so swiftly it took a lot of people by surprise, we were on Fire Warning level for long enough that we surveyed the house and packed a few items ready for evacuation.

Suddenly it dawned on us both that it was a token exercise; we’re most of us so materially blessed that we cannot possibly save even a small amount of the precious objects we collect throughout our lives.

The more I looked in just about the smallest room in our small house — my study — the more I realised just how many precious items I own; books (over one thousand of them), framed degrees, dozens of precious keepsakes, hundreds of little thank-you memorabilia, and lots of oddments from childhood onward.

The older we get, the more we collect.  Not a day goes past that I don’t contemplate leaving all I possess at my death, but I’d never seriously contemplated losing everything in a fire, flood, tsunami or the like.

But we did collect the token things — photo albums and trinkets — and parked them at the front door and then went to bed.

We were awoken an hour later with a call from a concerned family member.  I shot off a text to a colleague and was soon assured that the fire was far enough away.  Just living with the imminence of such a threat as an imposing sea of radiant heat and burning flames is, however, enough to cause a lot of latent anxiety.

I know there was a whole region in our city — probably 400,000 people or more — who lived with the thought of impending calamity for a week; either for threat of destruction of their own home or being sick with worry about the situation of loved ones determined to defend.

Our hearts break for those who lost their homes.  It’s incredible to also consider those who fought fires in their local brigades AND lost their homes.  There are no words.

And that’s what this article attempts to communicate.

Nothing prepares you for what changes your life in an instant.  Nothing.  No thought either now or anytime in the future.  But when it does happen, suddenly your eyes are opened with such new revelation that that old life burns away in cinder leaving a void that can only be filled with a completely new life.

It’s accepting this new life that we find is our biggest challenge.  Seems simple from afar, but when disaster comes close, we find it’s the hardest thing we’ve ever done.

But when you have no option, you make something of that new life, and hopefully you find your way back to a deeper gratitude.  All this requires a lot of work of surrender.

Enough said.

Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash

Never underestimate the value and power of life experiences

Six months ago, I would never have imagined I’d have a seat at the table of an incident management team on a huge bushfire, but there you go.

I’ll take it as a life experience.

Six months ago, I was having different life experiences — building school curriculum on peacemaking with talented teacher advisors and creatives.  Two years before that, I wouldn’t have imagined I’d be managing a project and coordinating the work of skilled and creative teachers, but there you go.

Wind the clock back a little further and things hadn’t worked out well for me — I’ll save you the sordid details.  So, I found myself working for my ex-wife delivering meals for her catering company.  The work was challenging logistically, I sometimes felt like a complete failure, but we made it work for me, and my ex-wife was a gracious boss.  At the same time, I was a school maintenance man (while I was also the school chaplain).  Having left my trade in 1996, I didn’t think I’d be returning to it 20 years later, but there you go.  That, too, was challenging work, problem solving all things mechanical — definitely out of my comfort zone.

Applying for job after job after job and getting knockback after knockback was a life experience.  For someone who thought they’d never be out of work, I had to contemplate earning less than a third what I’d once earned.  No matter how small and insignificant I felt, that I couldn’t provide for my family, for almost five long years, it was still a life experience.

For three years before that I found myself in the role of a full-time pastor.  These, too, were life experiences.  I think I learned more about humanity in these three years than I’d ever learned beforehand.  Such depth of life experience.

During this time, wedged somewhere very close to the middle, we lost Nathanael.  Now, losing him was a life experience!  The genesis of horrendous pain.  That whole three-year time frame was a massive set of life experiences.  And I’m still learning about their impacts.

Studying counselling in graduate school was a life experience, and in many ways, much like other recent life experiences I’ve had, this life experience stripped me down to the core.  I had to face one of my darkest fears; a fear I had no clue existed until it was revealed to me — in therapy.  When we fool ourselves that we have no deeper, darker fears, we’re being foolish — everyone has them; might as well admit it because there’s no fear in that.  On this occasion, I got to face mine and overcome it.  All it took was the willingness to embrace other men.

Being selected by my CEO (who would just a few years later be my state’s governor) to coordinate the port authority’s safety efforts was a life experience.  To serve the executive and its managers.  I couldn’t have seen it coming.  But it did, and the experience was invaluable while it lasted for the three years it did.

Marrying again was a life experience.  For both of us.  I’m not sure who was most shocked regarding how much work we needed to do to make our marriage workable — my wife or I?  Thankfully, a lot of counselling later and by year four we were making a fist of it.  Another steep learning curve — a life experience.

Being single and alone and making sole-parenting work was a life experience.  I discovered, with God’s help, that I could be a capable sole parent.  Among other things, I learned to enjoy taking my daughters out on day long shopping expeditions for clothing and shoes.  I taught my eldest daughter to drive.  That was a life experience for both her and I.  I didn’t do too bad at bringing my daughters up.

Losing my first marriage was a foundational life experience, and probably where I’ll stop looking back.  It was so pivotal that this life experience completely recast my life in the light of God.  I have never experienced pain this raw or this deep.  The experience literally broke me, and yet, as it would be revealed, I needed to be broken.  The worst thing that could have happened ended up for me to be the best thing.

Every loss, change, challenge, betrayal, disappointment, and battle is a life experience.  Some life experiences are traumatising.  And not all of us experience trauma the same.  Yet, there is a certain truth to the saying, “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”  It’s rather like, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

Whenever we can face hardship as if it’s a lesson, we begin to contemplate what might even break us as a life experience.  Whatever was set up to defeat us can at times be merely the impetus for our overcoming.

But life experience is more than that.  It’s life.  All our experiences.

DISCLAIMER: there are life experiences we can never truly celebrate.  This article isn’t calling us to celebrate what can never be celebrated, but hopefully it helps reframe experience redemptively.

Be encouraged in your losses when you feel all hope is lost

Why should I complain of want or distress,
Temptation or pain? He told me no less;
The heirs of salvation I know from his word,
Through much tribulation must follow their Lord. [John Newton]

A dear friend just posted this lovely reminder, that those who call Jesus their Lord will often face misfortune after trial after distress after suffering and loneliness.

This is a fact of our faith: it is by far the imperative of life to do the right thing than worry about life treating you right.  This is why Daniel’s three friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego encourage us as they enter the promised fire... “even if God does not save us, we will not bow down to your idols.”  (Daniel 3:16-18)

This is something that only the true faithful get about the life that suffers: if we suffer for good, in that we make of our plight what we can without going the wrong way, the Lord promises to come close.

And when the Lord comes close — in that very instant — we recognise we’ve come closer than ever to the abundant eternal life of God’s very real Presence.

It’s like this: in losses and hardships and toil and snare, especially when we’re tossed on the rubbish heap of life, when many would call us a loser, even as we continue to do the right thing, we’re sowing up for ourselves crowns in the heavenly realms.

Understand, we will never see them in this life.  That’s the point.  We’re laying up for ourselves spoil that can never be spoiled.

We know all this by the deposit of a foretaste of the Presence as God comes close when all have scurried away.  So take heart when loneliness is the reward for doing the right thing.

Of course, we always need to search our hearts in that place of communion with the Lord.  But we know we’re right and called holy when our despondency is met with an acceptance, the knowledge that this isn’t all there is.  There is so much more coming that we cannot even see.

The world thinks it’s got the market corner squared away on life.  Couldn’t be further from reality.

In your losses, in your loneliness, in your languishing moment, know afresh that far from anything at all, God has not forgotten you, even as God is preparing a greater purpose and prize for you than you could ever imagine.

It is well.

Photo by joseph d'mello on Unsplash

The True Church is Shepherd after the One and only True Shepherd

“For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out.”
— Ezekiel 34:11 (NRSV)

Having opened the chapter with a scathing attack on Israel’s false shepherds, those who have led the flock astray, Ezekiel prophesies about the True Shepherd.

Oh, how it is that we are pursued by the love of God from that day, and beforehand, until this one, and in all chronological directions, eternally.

God, the True Shepherd, seeks out his sheep. And we may proudly declare we are not sheep; that we are more worthy than sheep. But in truth, we are more sheeplike, and God more our Divine Shepherd, than we could ever vindicate in the reality of our thoughts.

The nature of God’s shepherding work is comprehensive as much as it’s perfect.

Danger draws us back to the True Shepherd

Sheep are easily scattered, and so it is for the True Shepherd to draw back all lost sheep into the flock of the saved.  And we’re not talking necessarily about those who don’t believe in God as the ‘lost’.  More so these days, we’re talking about those who are disenfranchised — the de-churched — because of what church leaders or Christians have done; Jesus talks this in Matthew 18:6-9 — not just literally children, but vulnerable ones, for when Jesus says adults can be ‘children of God’, we also bear the inherent vulnerabilities of children.

While it is our character to scatter away from the Lord, to leave the Divine Presence, it is just the same character of the True Shepherd to draw us back into the fold.  Even if wolves from within the flock, disguised as sheep, push us away or cause us to scatter, we may still feel wooed to God.

We may be confused about why God let it happen, and we may lose our faith.  This is what Jesus spoke about when warning abusers: “Better a millstone be hung around your neck...” 

In terms of grief that comes into our lives, we may wonder about the role of loss, hardship, pain, and every sense of what seems to be cursing.  But these are designed, if nothing else, as a barb to cause us to return.  Danger is the prod, the goad back to God.

Danger from Within the Sheepfold

God is drawing us away from danger from wolves as we return to the flock — the typical default answer would be the sanctuary of church.

But in such a pen, we’re not always safe.  The goal of church, however, is we’re given our own lands of healing, of fellowship, of communion, having been drawn from pain toward God in the ecclesia.

But so many people have been wounded IN the church.  How reprehensible that is!  What do we do when people — (even just one) — are lost sheep because they were chewed up and spat out from the flock?  Or, that they were spiritually mangled, mauled or mutilated, which cannot always be seen.

The moral safety of the church is the Divine destination in this life — despite many attacks from the wolves both from within and from without the church.

In church, we are supposed to be fed in good pasture, the mountain heights of Israel.

God’s words from the pulpit, caring fellowship-of-the-flock within small groups, worship in many ways, discipleship for growth, ministry within the needs of love by the Shepherd’s crook; by all these and more we are fed, nourished, and cared for as we care in the name of the Lord.  Anything less is a blight on the concept of church.

The true character of the True Shepherd

The True Shepherd makes his sheep lie down and rest, having grazed the pasture.

Our Divine Shepherd seeks the lost, brings back the strays, binds up the injured, strengthens the weak, but also condemns the devourer, who is fed Divine justice!

The True Shepherd covenants a bridle of promises that protect the flock in every way from danger.  It is a covenant of peace, beyond threat of wild animals that would otherwise freely devour parts of the flock.  The True Shepherd is a Divine Protector.

The True Shepherd’s protection is an eternal possession, and we’re counselled to not lose heart in this fleeting life.  (See 2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

The True Shepherd discerns sheep of right motive from wolves of wrong motive; he sorts out the true sheep from the sheep dressed up from a wolves’ origin.

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God has promised to save his flock, the true sheep of godly pasture, from the wolves of this dangerous life.  Although this earth seems all there is, eternity is beyond our grasp, though we hold to its mystery by faith.

A day is coming when we shall no longer be ravaged, as God judges the wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing, the false shepherds of Israel.  This is a direct invitation to go and imbibe Ezekiel 34.

The True Shepherd of Israel is seeking us, today, eternally, drawing us back into his Divine sheep fold.

The True Shepherd of Israel is our Gatherer, our Protector, our Provider, our Rest, our Healer, our Very Present Help in time of need, and our Saviour.

To know the true God is to know that God is beyond toxic church experiences; the true God will take you beyond the pain, to a community where the Spirit of God resides in peace.  Yes, the church — if you can stomach the possibility.

The true church functions as a shepherd following after the one and only True Shepherd.

Prayers you never hear prayed, but that are prayed anyway

This is a reality that all Christians can take comfort in. 

There are always times when we richly seek to be prayed for, but never know how to ask.  Other times we do ask, and people do pray for us, but we may always wonder the effectiveness of prayer when we particularly need it.  And sometimes, perhaps unconsciously, we would love to be prayed for, and there are intercessors that do.

One thing we don’t think about very often is the fact that people do pray for us when we least know about it.  I know this about my own prayer life.  God is continually bringing faces and names and needs before me; lives who have touched my life, and those particularly who are no longer part of my life.  God has me wondering about how they are going, what their challenges are, where they need to be encouraged, and so forth.

We really never know when we’re are being or have been prayed for, and we would all be surprised to discover, as only God knows, who is praying for us at any particular point in time.

Think of it this way, just as I alluded to the fact that I would pray for others at least several times a day, not always the same people, and sometimes people I have only interacted with a little, but most often it’s those people who have made a big impact in my life, and it’s not always those who have made a positive impression.

What a great thought it is that we might be prayed for without our knowledge, and that some of those prayers might even be from people we are no longer in relationship with.

This world, of course, believes that prayer isn’t a force for good at all, unless we use the word ‘prayer’ in crisis situations — like, “You’re in my thoughts and prayers.”

When Sarah and I were losing Nathanael in 2014 we often had people saying to us, “I wish I could do more than just pray.”  We understood what was being said, but at the same time it was a devaluing of the power of prayer.  People’s prayers were crucial for us when we were praying for a miracle.  We got our miracle, but it wasn’t the miracle we’d hoped for.

That aside, the power of prayer is knowing that at any point in time we could be being prayed for — people sending their wishes to God on our behalf.

Yet sometimes we also feel inadequate either in our praying, or in our for being prayed for.  I simply put this down to our wobbling humanity, in that we cannot see the divine, and we often cannot see the benefit of our praying or of those prayers prayed for us.

I know it sounds quite nebulous to imagine people are praying for us.  Quite often we discard the idea thinking that we don’t need to be prayed for.  But we really don’t know what’s around the corner, none of us do.  And sometimes we don’t know what is going on in others in terms of their relationships with us.

Prayers we never hear prayed, but that are prayed anyway, are a Godsend, literally.

Imagine the scenario often that you’re often being prayed for.  Because that’s the reality.

Photo by J W on Unsplash