03.24.09
Posted in God Centered, God in general, Pain at 11:04 pm by Administrator
Have you ever been at the end of your rope facing such overwhelming odds or trials that you didn’t think you would overcome them? Just like a muscle is built up unless it is broken down through exercise, so is our faith. I have talked with many people about how they came to faith. Like myself, a lot of people talk about how it was a series of trials or traumatic events that rocked their words and pushed them towards God. Sometimes it can be things that just change our lives such as getting marriage or having kids. But sometimes it can be when the world that we have crafted around us comes crashing down upon us. That was my story. I actually wrote a poem about it called Soliloquy of a Broken Man. Paul talks about this in 2 Corinthians.
We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, 2 Corinthians 1:8-10
So could trauma and trial be ways that God helps us to not rely on ourselves but rather more fully on Him? In my experience, I would have to say yes. All the twelve step programs talk about how people admit that their problem was greater than themselves and that they had to seek a higher power to see them through. Trauma brings pain and we all know how pain has a way of getting people’s attention. So I will end with a thought from 1 Peter where Peter says in 1 Peter 1:6-7.
though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 1 Peter 1:6-7
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02.11.09
Posted in Communication, Pain, love, relationship at 11:43 am by Administrator
I have been going through a very difficult time in my life. The difficulties came to a head last Thursday in an event that took me to a place I never dreamed I would ever go. Yet despite the traumatic event in a rather hard episode in my life, I found God’s hand everywhere I went.
To put it bluntly, I was diagnosed with suffering from Major Depression and ended up in a mental health facility where I was literally locked down for almost a week. Despite the sadness, anger and frustration I was feeling, I was comforted by the strangest of people and found myself talking about God with people I never in my life would have dreamed I ever would. The experience really brought Matthew 25: 34-46 to life.
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
My first thought was that I was locked up with a bunch of crazy people. After all, i was quite normal. I found myself surrounded with people struggling with voices in their heads, those that claimed they had demons in them, bi-polar disorders, addictions, anger management issues, and a myriad of emotional problems. I felt like the sober person at a party full of drunks. But I found I was struggling with many of the same things that they were. A wonderful counselor told us that all of these problems that many of us were dealing with centered around how self centered we really were. We didn’t want to do what needed to be done so we lashed out in our own selfish ways.
Yet many in there were so selfless in so many ways. I was conforted by a lady singing gospel songs who was brought in due to hearing voices and walking down the middle of the freeway. When I was at my lowest, I was conforted by a lady who had nearly overdosed because she felt overwhelmed by the problems of her son, and another who had come in feeling like she was worthless and without hope. I found that all these people were people who wanted and needed love just like you or I. God allowed me to help a young man with anger issues to accept Jesus for the first time in his life and he and I prayed together during most of my stay.
Towards the end, my conversations turned to a man named Mark, who had called in a bomb threat and kept telling me his life was over, I realized that all these people were human and worthy of God’s love. Mark kept saying his life was over and there was nothing left. He was truly hopeless. I shared with him the plight of Jonah in Jonah 2 and he could relate. Yet somehow I knew I needed to tell him that he was a person of worth in my eyes. That he was a person who was loved. He was upset when I left and he came up to me and asked a question that will stick with me for the rest of my life.
“Will you remember me? Will you pray for me like you said you would?”
I told him I would and I would ask anyone reading this blog to also pray for Mark who is in a very dark place. I thank God that I had my issue if only to be that small beacon of light that reached Mark.
So how many of us ask God, “Will you remember me?” “Am I worthy to be remembered?” We ask if our God will come and save us and i believe he does, just not always in the way we expect. I just think it is awesome that in the hardest times, God is there walking with us.
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01.23.09
Posted in God Centered, Pain, love, relationship at 11:12 am by Administrator
We hear a lot of ministering to the whole person. There is a desire to feel complete in our pursuit of life. Yet many of us feel that sense of something that is missing. These kinds of voids are felt in our lives. They nag at us and tear at the joy in our lives.
I am experiencing a time in my life where I am facing a tremendous amount of change in my life. So of these changes have been self imposed or self inflicted and others have been thrust upon me. It is in this condition, I feel the anxiety of life pressing in upon me. Yet how I react to these things is reflective of how well I am dealing with these stressors in my life. I wish I could tell you that I am having no problems dealing with these things, but inevitably I cannot.
Into this situation, I came across the work and ministry of Jonathan Brink and Thrive Ministries . He talked about the search for wholeness through our relationship with Christ. How that is a shared journey. How we need to address our own brokenness through our relationship with our God and with those fellow believers around us. I realized how true that is. How so far of the mark in many ways I myself am. I find myself anxious and fearful and resentful and angry about things going on in my life when in reality all I am truly doing is trying to protect myself and my own brokenness. In protecting myself I am cutting myself off from that which can truly make me whole. The sad thing is that I and many others do these things because we think we are protecting ourselves.
I think of several passages in the Gospel of John that really illustrate this for me. The first is John 14:27
I leave you peace, my peace I give to you. I do not give it to you as the world does. So don’t let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
And again in John 15: 5, 11-13
I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing…… I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
I have someone I love very much that I almost lost because I tried to protect myself and be apart from relationship. It was only when I truly stepped out in love disregarding the possible consequences that I was able to overcome my brokenness and reach this person again. I guess this is my own journey that I am making to get back to the wholeness that we all want.
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01.22.09
Posted in Communication, God in general, Pain, relationship at 9:49 am by Administrator
Fear can make people do many things they never thought they would do. It is amazing how fear can force us to do things that we never wanted to do or intended to do. Yet being driven by fear always seems to run counter to being driven by love.
Recently I saw a couple who loved each other very much spiral out of control to the brink of divorce because they were driven by fear. The words I heard most was “I have to defend myself”. Both were worried about the other hurting them so they were driven by fear to “defend themselves” when what they both wanted was to reconcile and love one another. So I ask this question. How often are we driven by fear to “defend ourselves” when what we should be doing is forgiving and reconciling? How often are problems that we are facing escalated because we react in fear? Fear clouds our judgment as we slip into a mode where all we do is think about ourselves versus what God wants. I think that is what the apostle John is saying when he says in 1 John 4:16-18. I like how the Message paraphrases it best to illustrate this point.
God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.
Fear is crippling as I showed in the illustration of the couple who came to the brink of divorce. Yet I am glad to say that this couple ultimately chose love and backed away from the precipice. Yet we need to look at our own lives and see where fear is crippling us. We need to let God into those places and let his love banish those fears. So where ever your fears resides: in your relationships, in your finances, in your job, or where ever else; let God into those areas and let his love set you free.
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08.26.08
Posted in Ministry, Pain, missional at 2:22 pm by Administrator
I was taught and it has been my own personal experience that one’s mission or ministry in life often stems from the source of one’s greatest trial, pain or suffering. Recently when I was watching a Youtube video of Donald Miller at Point Loma Nazarene College’s Writer Symposium by the Sea, a question towards the later part of the video addressed the area of pain, both in life and as an aspect of his writing. He references a calling to his being a wounded healer to others through his writing by sharing his experiences through empathy and the assurance that people are not only in their experience. Then I thought about the testimony I shared on the Lofter’s Life blog recently on the Teamloft website managed by my friend Bob East. Wasn’t that living the role of the “wounded healer“?
Many of us minister to others through our words, deeds, actions and writing because of the hurts and pains we have suffered and been through. It is the former alcoholic taking an active role in assisting those who are trying to escape the throes of alcoholism. It is like Donald Miller who created the Belmont Foundation to mentor to those who grew up without a father much like Donald. Whether it is greeting people because you realize how greeters helped you to come to Christ or creating a ministry to assist those families with Special Needs children because you had a special needs child yourself and could find no assistance.
Donald Miller references a quote by Bishop Desmond Tutu when he was asked who should be on a committee for reconcilliation in South Africa where he says “the people who should be on this committee are people who are victims. People whose lives have been ripped open and they have gained an education towards empathy. These people should be wounded healers” This quote is found in Antjie Krog’s book “Country of My Skull“
Attached is a transcript of the part of Donald’s interview I found so interesting. The video is about an hour and it’s towards the end.
“There’s a depth to… because my life has had some pain in it….there a broader range of colors with which to paint with. You have had joys and you have had lows, and you understand those things. And so if you want to talk about the human experience, there is a broad range …of tools you can use to do that.
” I think it enhances the work a little bit…. There have literally been times when I have wondered whether God gave me the experiences that I had in order that I could write them down and other people read them and not feel alone in their experiences. And, there have been times I have been pleased at that. That God would do that. And there are times when I’ve not wanted that. You know, I don’t want to deal with this….
” There’s a great line from Bishop Tutu in a book called “Country of my Skull” by Antjie Krog. She is talking about the formation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. And Bishop Tutu was asked, ….., he is putting together a commission to try to… bring parties together, bring groups together, establish the healing or begin the healing process, Tutu was asked by the committee, what kind of person should be on this committee. And Tutu said, the people who should be on this committee are people who are victims. People whose lives have been ripped open and they have been gained an education towards empathy. These people should be wounded healers….
” I read that, and could only receive that as a dignified calling. That God doesn’t say “Look, this stuff happened to you so you’re just a loser or whatever. God says this happens to you. You have a choice here: You can both become a wounded healer and walk other people through it or you can let it take you and drown in it. And I clinging with everything I got to the wounded healer, because girls like it more…”
Donald as usual inserts his humorous style there at the end.
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