chasing spiritual lies

During my latest blogging rounds, I was challenged by Laurel Anne on a lesson about love.

My enemy longs for me to corrupt love, viewing my "selflessness" as a transaction for receiving love, which is contrary to the point. Honestly, it hasn't worked out very well. Whenever the people in my life outgrow their need of me, multiple dysfunctions can occur:

1. I struggle to maintain the relationship, favoring my time towards those that still depend on me.
2. I feel insecure in their presence, wondering what I have to offer.
3. I become envious of relationships they are able to continue with others.
4. I expect abandonment and begin to emotionally distance myself.
5. I play the victim when the relationship ends.

At the heart of this dysfunction is pride. If I allowed myself to need other people (or felt worthy of being wanted), it wouldn't concern me whether these relationships were dependent on my usefulness. If my pride was broken, and I expressed to loved ones that they are needed, this would be a brand new experience. Have I used these words since I was a toddler? Scary thought.

I've felt that my intimacy with God has been lacking, and I recognize that this lie has crept into our relationship. When God has me on a "useful" altar of sacrifice, I can rely on Him to do the work. In my mind, the transaction is equal -- I'm willing to provide the useful vessel and He uses it. In some twisted way, I operate as if God's move is dependent on me.

However, when God has me on the sidelines, I struggle to admit my need. That's where He has me. The transaction is out the window. Either I depend on Him to be my everything or I am left with nothing.

sending a false signal

Satan is a jerkface.

We know that he feasts upon our insecurities, built on lies that he would have us believe. Within our own mess, we often miss the damage that Satan has done in the lives of others; we form false conclusions about our relationships based on our own perceived inadequacies without considering that both parties may be under complementary attack.

Here's one for you: I hate talking on the phone, and I equally despise making plans. I'm not sure if anyone else can relate with this, but I grew up with a dad that frowned upon bringing the outside world into our household. Having people over was a rare event -- my school friends were allowed to come inside less than ten times during my childhood, and I was made to feel like I had done something wrong whenever the phone rang for me.

I still recall receiving a call the summer before 8th grade. Having returned from an incredible week of church camp, some female campers of a neighboring school got my number from a male friend that attended their church. My dad picked up the phone and handed it to me with an intrusive glare, continuing to watch me as I held an awkward conversation with a girl that was interested in me.

Once I got wheels, the social dysfunction ceased, but only because my social base in high school and college was large enough to regularly have plans made by others. I conquered some of my phone anxiety due to my job and my first girlfriend, but I still don't like calling people that I don't know well in person.

Anyway, I don't share this to cast a dark shadow on my childhood -- my dad's issues make a lot of sense in light of what I know about him today. I bring this up because three unrelated friends have asked me in the past two months if I had cut them off because of something they had done.

The prime evidence: I hadn't called them.

It hurt because I know that each of these friends legitimately missed me. They view me as one willing to share spiritual truth, and they value my place in their lives. Worse, I knew that had any of them reached out to spend time with me, I would have accepted the invitation and enjoyed myself.

Each of them assumed a social and spiritual inferiority with me. While this is an unfounded deception, it fed the belief that I was choosing not to be friends with them anymore. I got this in college a lot: the kid who so easily makes friends couldn't possibly be waiting for anyone to call, could he? In my case, I was...I am. There wasn't isn't a pecking order in my mind; my best friends were are those that were are committed to transcending my insecurities by calling me first.

Want to know the crazy thing? I love introverted people. My favorite friends are those that have demonstrated their trust in me, offering the pieces of themselves that they don't often share. The most profound statements are made by those that save their words for important things; the greatest love is found through those that serve without receiving public reward.

Guess who's not calling me anytime soon...

It angers me that healthy relationships are cast with doubt because Satan plays our lies against one another. One solution is being open about my insecurities; the other is working through them. Being open will hopefully deliver some light in the short term, but I can't count on loved ones meeting me halfway. If these relationships mean something to me, I must continue to chip away at the root. As painful as it has been for God to bring this to my attention, He would not if He did not desire me to work through it. Clearly, I will need His strength; as sure as anything, I will be the timid 13-year-old when I make the call.

two realms

God created many things. He created the heavens and the earth. Angels are as much His creation as a tree or a turtle. Nothing was before Him, and nothing exists outside of His hand, whether physical or spiritual. Large, small, holy, or common: all of creation was effortlessly designed by His good will.

However, mankind is the only creation designed to interact and reside in the physical and spiritual realms. We have been given the faculties to reason through our five senses as well as discern and know spiritual things. The majority of us will choose to ignore or deny the latter. Those that do not will see a world vastly different.

I tell people all the time that there are some things you cannot un-experience. Having shared a room with a demon-possessed man and having seen the power and authority our Lord holds over this has changed me. I can no longer miss the enemy's tactics nor look past the spiritual death of the unbelieving world. When the reality of the spiritual realm is known, we are given the choice to engage or cower in fear. To those that resist its existence, the enemy is best served to maintain their ignorance.

Were you to travel to remote South America or Western Africa, you would struggle to find those that deny the spiritual realm. Witchcraft and idolatry is a daily part of life, and the people cannot question the existence of a spiritual realm. To them, the question is not if, but which one. Which lord demonstrates greater power than another? What is the personal benefit of worshiping that power? How do you not fear such a thing?

People from these countries do not want to be convinced of an Almighty God; they have been ruled by many others that manifested great power. They want to know whether your God holds ultimate authority over any principality that would oppress. Only then can He change their lives.

Consider that most American believers have never encountered their God in this way. We are told we have an enemy in scripture, but he too is a distant idea. All the while, the world is dying. Our ignorance or resistance is at the expense of enemy domain and acquisition; he builds strongholds while we interact with the physical like nothing is amiss. We do not see the lies that bind the world around us, yet we wonder what keeps mankind from accepting our God with open arms. We fight our battles in courtrooms while the enemy claims spiritual space. We gather for coffee and donuts while the dead reside outside our walls.

Without an enemy, we have no urgency. If salvation can be found through a good presentation, this is much easier than freeing the captive from a life of spiritual bondage. If the Christian life is good deeds, this is much cleaner than pleading the blood of Christ over the chained. We can walk away and feel good about our purpose; physically, this is perfectly suitable. But for those that cannot un-see the enemy's diligent hate, it's due time to fight the battle in your own backyard. Trust me, it's just beneath the surface.

desire and envy

The predominant thought on my mind this week:

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:

“God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble.”

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. (James 4:1-10)

I struggle to see things aside from what is black and white; how do I know the difference between the desires He places on my heart and those constructed through worldly motives?

As my work has consumed my emotional energy of late, I've noticed my desire for anything of my own has remarkably dwindled. This has occurred at least three times in my life -- when I offer myself solely to the needs of others, I no longer feel grief for what I lack. But I've yet to determine if this is good or holy...

I don't want to serve others purely as a distraction, nor should I kill my flesh so that I cannot feel. It's hard, because this method has its use. When I forget myself entirely, I deny the reality that I long for certain blessings; I feel the fulfillment of serving without the vulnerability of possessing worldly things.

However, this passage bewilders me. James appears to be encouraging us to mourn for the hopelessness of the world so that God can lift us with joy and blessings of His own. Hence the enigma of v. 2-3: how do we know when we should be asking for the blessings He desires to bestow and when to deny the lustful requests that our own hearts have fabricated?

Anybody have a word out there?

applying makeup

Yesterday morning, one of our residents was not allowed access to her makeup as a result of her poor behavior. She went to school and some stupid boy made a comment about her being ugly. Whether his statement was a response to her uncovered face or a petty, first-grade comeback from a high school student was irrelevant. My resident felt exposed and decided that she would rather skip school for the rest of the day than be seen without her covering.

I'll be honest, I generally hate makeup. I understand its usefulness, and have occasionally seen it applied in ways that accentuate amazing qualities. But as a whole, it seems to be more commonly applied to fix the characteristics that women find least presentable. I understand that a woman desires to be presentable and accepted as beautiful, so I can only speak from a dude-point-of-view: I want to find a woman beautiful as she is, rather than what she must make herself to be.

Later in the evening, I was struggling with another resident that typically gives me the most resistance. The most simple direction can lead her to become frustrated with me, and she approaches our relationship differently than she does with other staff. This time, I upset her good when she was given a consequence for using foul language. After a long rant (to which I did not reply), she sat in a chair to cool down. She finally addressed me in a calm voice, only to ask if she could call someone else since she couldn't talk to me.

I used this moment to address the heart of our problem. She doesn't trust me because she doesn't know me, but she doesn't know me because she doesn't trust me. I began pouring from my heart how her actions -- and my "job obligation" to her actions -- were driving a wedge between us. She had drawn some faulty conclusions about me based on perceptions she had made. She felt she was being targeted, and that I was bent on seeing her fail. Each time she saw my initials next to a consequence, she assumed it was my decision alone, and not one made by the entire team.

As I began to express from my heart the false judgments that were being made, I became a bit glassy eyed. It was "unprofessional" for me to get choked up at work, but for the first time, the resident was able to see that our struggle (and its resolution) meant something to me. I wasn't just a cold body intent on making her life miserable; I was a caring adult that was just as frustrated as she was.

On the way home, I thought about my post from Saturday. I believe that I've taken a sense of pride in being unshaken by the wind and waves, giving others the impression that I do not feel as they do. This is why the "hero complex" has bothered me so greatly: I know that I'm being evaluated on my costume and not the beauty (or mess) inside.

There's a disconnect between the strong, unblemished face we want people to see and the purified face that we want to admire. A superhero rarely gets the girl because he wrestles to uphold the identity and strength of his character while she longs to know the man underneath. In each of these stories, the man determines that the need for a hero outweighs his personal desire to be known unveiled.

If I take off the makeup, I must face the fear of being vulnerable. The world will see my pimples, scars, and discolorations. My bedhead will rest above these puffy, tired eyes. The mask will become useless when I am first exposed, because everyone will know that my strength is a facade. You will not forget the ugly tears that fall upon real flesh.

I'm tired of hating what I've become, while the original image lies beneath.

radical acceptance

My favorite distress skill that we teach our girls is radical acceptance, which is based on the principle that pain + avoidance of reality = suffering. Granted, our therapy is secular, and is far too incomplete outside a work of the Spirit, but I'm in favor of any word that encourages hurting people to accept truth and confront lies.

The truth is, the things in life through which we become most frustrated are often the areas that we cannot control. We cannot accept the fact that something hurtful is outside our control, so we try harder to either resolve the unresolvable or to bury our pain and pretend it never existed. Both of these lead to further suffering: the first directly, and the latter through the alternative life we must live to deny the circumstances of reality.

People get angry when I make direct links between unresolved pain and common worldly patterns of behavior, particularly among believers. Part of what makes the American gospel so attractive to suffering people is the thought that "the past is in the past," and it shouldn't need to be discussed further under grace. However, this is the difference between scripture's pursuit of redemption and the American value of tolerance.

Tolerance says we shouldn't draw conclusions (i.e. "judge") based on reality. Meanwhile, redemption desires to restore all things for the sake of His glory, pain included. Is it easy? Absolutely not -- hence the reason avoiding reality is the path of least resistance. But to truly comprehend God's amazing grace, we must do more than forget the past; we should be touched to such a degree that even our deepest wounds bear an amazing testimony of His restoring power and love.

I don't believe that we can know the truth without Him. Christ is the perfect model for One who knew the excruciating pain of rejection and betrayal that we often mask, yet never hid behind the right to be offended, disrespected, or embittered. Even while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He knew the full score and still chose redemption over His personal rights and comfort.

While most of us have not come close to experiencing this level of persecution, we are still tempted to disconnect our pain, shame, or regret from the sinful patterns existing in our lives. We can become frustrated in battling the symptoms of our condition while avoiding the painful reality that remains. This is truly a life of unnecessary suffering. But God longs to touch those tender areas of greatest resistance and transform us into beacons of light that proclaim His glory through a sometimes unsavory story.

That's some radical acceptance.

i need a hug

Strange indeed.

I feel emotionally drained. After a weekend of runaway kids, crazy moms, road rage, paperwork, phone calls, constant drizzle, and "small favors," it's entirely too quiet returning to this house. I should relish the idea of some time with God to de-stress, and yet I admittedly covet a human to be waiting for me. I don't understand. I spent ten years living independently, with very few concerns about living alone. Unless I spent time around loving couples, I poured my life into disciples and ministry with little distraction.

I have no idea what has awakened this deluge. Honestly, I'd like it to stop.

Is it wrong to miss the days when I didn't consider my own needs? It doesn't equate in my head: I received more intimacy with God than ever before through the opening of my heart -- now, that heart is the very thing that has me feeling selfish, as if unveiling myself has renewed some childish longing that cannot be nurtured. I don't know that I have the capacity to simultaneously long for God and long for a family. I may be too old to understand how they operate together. My old life was functional and satisfied, but the truer expressions of my heart are a mess.

Whatever stirred when I was considered a suitable man for marriage needs to be silenced again, because I'm lost for a solution. How do I look husbandry and fatherhood in the face, and forget it ever occurred? I feel like an idiot for chasing the illusion -- life was good. I worked nights and didn't mind, I ministered to my body without considering myself, and my greatest concern was cleaning the snow off my car. Did I notice as Satan sowed this weed, or is my current longing an act of God? I can't tell anymore.

I once trusted my discernment, and the Spirit affirmed this trust. He spoke to me in ways that were useful to the lives of others. In not asking anything for myself, He offered me wisdom and insight beyond my years and experience. I never had to doubt that my words were His words.

Today, I'm void of spiritual confidence. I feel drawn to prayer, but I constantly question my motivation. Has He called me to intercede, or am I looking for friendship? Have I been given the burden of spiritual insight, or am I drawing false conclusions based on fleshly knowledge? Whereas I previously spoke to my friends with conviction and clarity, Satan is bombarding me with questions regarding my purity, and whether I wouldn't rather find a wife than speak the truth.

It comes back to feeling spiritually unprotected. It seems like open season, and I can't help but wonder if someone has neglected a commitment they made with God to have my back. I know it makes some people uncomfortable when they realize I'm not actually a superhero -- some friends depend on this -- but I need a covering. I need someone who will fight in battle for the clarity and truth of my mind and heart. I need it more than that hug.