Sometimes when you
repent or when you simply leave a familiar place that wasn't supposed to be
familiar in the first place, you have a reaction that goes something like,
"Wait. You mean... oh, my gosh. That was WRONG. Wait. Why didn't it feel
wrong? Everybody else was doing it." It's kinda like what happened after I
got saved: I stopped cheating on tests. Yes, cheating was WRONG, and I had deceived
myself into believing that I wasn't even cheating. I think one reason why God
hates dishonesty so much (Proverbs 6:16-19) is that it's a complete
misrepresentation of who He is. Jesus is full of grace and truth. And I'm still
learning how to walk in honesty and integrity. But when you live a life of
deception, you kinda create your own little world with your words and your
actions, and you kindasorta become your own little god in a way. Maybe God
hates it so much because it's all kinds of WRONG all mixed together into a
giant WRONGCASSEROLE. Then people come over to eat, and they're like,
"This tastes terrible. You're the worst chef who ever lived. I've
completely lost my appetite! You should have your chef license revoked!!"
And then the chef tastes the casserole and declares flabbergastedly,
"Wait. You mean... oh, my gosh. This is WRONG. My salt has lost its flavor!"
And Jesus' warning in Matthew 5:13 suddenly explodes in your face. And Jesus comes
to your rescue, cleans up your face, puts His arm around your shoulder, and
says something like, "Hey, squirt, your cooking doesn't have to be that
gross. Let Me make it RIGHT."
On this evening's
episode of Tirzah's Free Therapy Via Blogging, we'll speak about things that
supposedly should have remained unspoken, we'll poop things that supposedly
weren't hiding out in my invisible intestines, and we'll rev up sections of
Tirzah's brain that may have never worked before. Wait. Is "wrongcasserole"
a word?
1) "Let's wait on the Lord." OK, so I know "waiting
on the Lord" comes from places in the Bible like Isaiah 40 and all over
the Psalms. I haven't done my Hebrew research, but just using a bit of common sense
and English, "wait" definitely means that you're waiting for a Person
to speak, arrive, or act. If I wait on the Lord or wait for the Lord, I'm
probably needing Him to answer my question or solve my problem or rescue me in
general. Or maybe I've just come home from a grueling day at work, and He wants
me to calm down a bit before He hangs out with me on my living-room couch and
we whisper sweet nothings to each other and He shows me what HIS living room
looks like, and I spend the rest of the evening trying to stop crying because
He's so close that my heart is boiling and my skin is burning. Then maybe I
wake up the next morning with puffy eyes and a stuffy nose but a huge smile and
a refreshed spirit and a renewed strength that's ready to soar through my next
day like an eagle. Maybe.
When I was leading a
group in a spiritually abusive church, anytime we as a leadership team needed
to make a decision together, the main guy would say, "Let's wait on the
Lord," and we would bow our heads, close our eyes, and be silent for a few
minutes. The idea was to hear God speak and tell us what to do about a
particular situation, etc. When the silence was over, the main guy would ask,
"Did you hear anything?" And usually I would only hear God speak to
me privately about ME, not about our leadership situation, so I wouldn't have
anything to share, and I would sometimes feel a bit left out or inferior. I
don't think the main guy would make me feel that way, and I don't think it was
his intention, but the whole environment that our group was cooking in was just
WRONG.
There's definitely
nothing wrong with declaring a moment of group silence so that everyone can
hear God talking. It's just that the whole
stop-everything-and-wait-on-the-Lord-for-a-few-minutes for every tiny little
group decision was just, in hindsight, weird and creepy. Is that any way to
have a relationship with a Person? you just stop talking and assume that
they're going to speak during the silence? It's like a friendship that I used
to have with a chick who I think tried to counsel me. We'd have conversations
where we'd try to catch up on each other's lives, but she insisted that I do
all the sharing. She would share a teeny-tiny bit about herself, and then she'd
keep asking me questions, and she wouldn't stop. While I would answer her,
she'd get this glassy-eyed look in her face, and I'd run out of things to talk
about. "What else?" "Uh... I think I need to buy new shoes."
Come on. That was not the deep relationship I wanted.
I'm not saying that God
runs out of stuff to say. I'm just saying that the way we approached Him seems
so artificial now. Is His voice just an on/off switch? or can you proceed with
the events of your day, including all the decisions you need to make, while
inclining your spiritual ear for a moment to hear Him speak, and then naturally
flow back into the events of your day? I mean, He isn't the Wizard of Oz. There
isn't a man behind the curtain who's making all the noise. (In fact, a Man
totally ripped the curtain so that you could see where He lives.)
2) Apparently, and unfortunately, I'm not alone in seeing the red
flags. Just out of curiosity, I Googled the name of my previously
spiritually abusive environment and saw several websites dedicated to exposing
the iffyness of my old church. One person created an entire blog that
generated dozens of comments during her recovery. Several people flat-out
asked, "Is this church a cult?" I remember seeing one of the web
forums about a decade ago, and I remember creepily commenting in defense of
that particular church, something like "Eh, I just got hurt by a few
people, but the whole church is good overall." Apparently, and thankfully,
other people saw the red flags, left earlier, and got healed earlier. I have
spent the past 3 years reeling from the shock. No, I don't think that
particular church is a cult per se, but I think the people online who identified
it as "toxic" were correct, unfortunately. I wish I had tasted the
ickiness of the salt-gone-bad earlier.
During my online
research, unfortunately, I saw Matthew 5:13 in action. People wrote about how
ridiculous they thought the worship services looked and sounded. I laughed
because I recognized the stories that the pastor used to share over and over
and over again. I hope I'm not laughing in mockery but in a healing
lightheartedness, because the entire ordeal is flabbergasting: Wait. You mean... oh, my gosh. Our entire approach to doing church was WRONG? Why didn't it feel
wrong? Hmm. Maybe it's because Jesus lets tares grow with wheat (Matthew
13:24-30). If something sprouts and it needs to grow, even if it's growing next
to a weed, maybe in His mercy, He won't destroy the sprout by uprooting it too
early.
3) If unbelievers treat their children better than you do, that's just
plain WRONG. 1 Timothy 5:8 is NOT a fun Bible verse to live out, especially
when you're on the receiving end of, uh, non-receiving. So, you quit your job
to stay home and raise your children. This was so that you could develop a
relationship with them? even though all your oldest remembers is you doing
house chores and shoving her away whenever she tried to open up to you
emotionally? was it to keep her morally pure, even though you were quite meh
about her reporting sexual harassment to you? So, you kept moving the family
around so you could pursue your dream and provide for them financially, but you
used their college fund to pay your regular bills. This was so that you could
support their dreams? even though all your oldest remembers is you scoffing at
her dreams and criticizing her when she didn't know how to clean her own home?
Is this why you neglected to visit her at college on parents' weekend? so you
could solidify the fact that you didn't give a hoot about her? I'm sorry, but
staying at home because you were paranoid about women taking over your church
is a bad excuse for not visiting your daughter. If you really think your church
job is more important than your kid...
Oy vey. I understand
very much now why Jesus was nice to "sinners and tax collectors" but
He ranted and yelled at the religious leaders who eventually crucified Him.
So, the good news is
that Jesus, the One who turns WRONG into RIGHT, was actually spiritually abused
Himself. At least, if I understand scripture correctly, I think He was. In Luke
11:14-23, Jesus was basically accused of cooperating with the devil to cast out
demons. Well, if I'm understanding Hebrews 4:15 correctly, and Jesus was
tempted in EVERY way that I am, then maybe when people spiritually abused
Jesus, He was tempted to doubt His power, His competence, His validity. Maybe
He was tempted to believe a lie that said something like, "Hey, You know
what? All those people getting healed were all just a bunch of coincidences.
The devil is always going to win, and You're helping him now. You're just
another rabbi. You may as well give up, because You'll never amount to
anything." Ouch. I didn't even like typing that as an imaginary
hypothetical.
But I think if Jesus
really was spiritually abused, He can help me overcome it, get healed from it,
and wash all that shame off my newly flintified face. I think He's already done
a ton to help me. I don't feel guilty about having my own opinions or
expressing them anymore. I don't feel like I'm supposed to live inside a cage
anymore. I don't doubt that I know Him anymore. Nope. He's already made all
that RIGHT, and He's gonna keep cooking everything RIGHT, with His perfect
salt, because He's the best, most perfect Chef who has ever lived, who still
lives, and who will live. And I get to hang out in His living room anytime I
want.
Wait. Is
"flintified" a word?
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