We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Someone who is a believer recently commented: "I always felt that I was such a bad person, and if people found out who I really was, they would reject me. I know this is not right, but it’s how I feel. My life therefore has been made up of hiding and pretending – external performance over inward conviction."
What are your thoughts / responses?
14 comments:
As Kris Kristofferson said, "You must've been readin' my mail." I can identify. This is, in part, why the church is said to be full of hypocrits. I wear a mask that only I think cannot be penetrated. And yet, it is a very hard thing to let God love me as I am. Grace is such a foreign concept. I want to be good enough, to deserve it. The hiding and pretending get to be exhausting.
I relate to this person so much. I limped through so much of my spiritual life, especially in my twenties and on a different level, even in my thirties. What truly stands out to me is the accusation this person has felt leading to pretending and hiding. My immediate response to this is I believe God truly honors every step we make toward him, but the enemy of God HATES it and will do everything in his power to defeat the effort. There is a fight, a spiritual warfare that must be engaged in order to move beyond the fear of what others think, pretending and hiding and to a place where we move freely with the help of the Holy Spirit to greater intimacy with Christ, maturity, repentance, humility, thankfulness. This gives confidence that cannot be shaken. I really stinks when people, the body of Christ that is, handle people's sin with hypocritical judgement... especially those that do not believe! This made me so angry for a period of time, what ended up happening was that I would spend a great deal of energy justifying actions of people who willingly disobey God while annihilating and ripping to shreds most everyone remotely "righteous". I have said this before, but I truly believe the church is light... VERY LIGHT on spiritual warfare. Until a christian has a better understanding of the power and authority we have in Christ Jesus, this struggle of authentic living and conviction will continue. Our role as Christians is to pray... to use the weapons we've been given by God - part of which is our ability to see wrongdoing and struggle - to annihilate the ENEMY, not the Church, not our brothers and sisters in Christ - no matter how weak or shallow or out of touch or fill-in-the-blank we might think they are. Christ already won the victory over satan, how do we live in a way that proves this is true?
P.S. We are always loved by Christ Jesus and precious in the sight of the Heavenly Father. This is why Christ was sent/came to earth. It isn't JUST power and authority we have to understand and feel, but sometimes the power and authority has to be applied against the lies and schemes of the enemy in order to understand this love on the deeper levels God desires.
Carter,
Thanks. This is an insightful comment. Grace slowly shapes us and sets us free. Thankfully, when this starts happening hiding and pretending diminish and we can be real.
Being raised in mainline protestant churches in the culture of midwest America back in the 50's and 60' lacked in educating me on being a human being.
Life has shown me that we all suffer from deep wounds of the heart, soul and mind that are not easily explained away as "sin" though I do believe theologically sin is the cause of our fallen nature.
Secrets not only keep us hidden from others but keep us from knowing ourselves. We begin to live lives of lies and find addictions to cope with this fragmentation of life. Be it addictions to substance, emotion such as anger and resentment, and many other self destructive behaviours.
Then the church shows us how to spiritualize life. You have a loss and some misguided soul tells you it is all in God's good plan. You have continued stuggle with an unbelieving spouse and told he will be won without a word and you put up with abuse thinking that is Godly.
So then we have people who have no reality of their own deep brokenness and find it hard to understand others. I think some of this is lack of responsibility in doing the hard work of educating oneself and caring deeply for others in all situations. To walk with others in brokenness reveals our own. We learn compassion and empathy at a deep level.
Greg, I was wondering about the Samaritan woman at the well. Do you think Jesus revealed her secrets to her out of love and compassion to set her free from living a less human life? I know that sometimes just being in a safe space people verbalize a secret and it begins to take the burden off.
Grace and competency is needed to bring healing to all the hurting in the church.
Tamara,
Thanks. Helpful thoughts. It's so true that Christians tend to underplay the significance of the spiritual dimensions and enemies, and also sacrifice the reality of the present work of Christ for engaging in the battle.
There is far too much condemnation that rips through people on the stage of authoritative hypocrisy, where the spirit of fear forces a performance and often reigns over the Spirit of Christ. We should be moving in the directions that show the redemptive love of God in what we say and do. Setting people free where we can and when we are able will serve them.
I think it's also important for this person to be more aware of the power of feeling in shaping one's identity. Feeling is neither always trustworthy, nor always deceptive.
Jeannie,
Thanks. These are wise words and observations.
Unfortunately, we are all too often taught by many a church how not to be human and how not to live a spiritual life.
Educating and living in a way that encourages participation in each others lives, for the sake of Christ and being human, will contribute to producing redemptive orientations in our selfhood perspectives.
In the John 4 context of the Samaritan woman, she is clearly portrayed as an outcast from her community. Jesus' words and deeds of love and challenge free her and set her on the course to being an insider; the first missionary in the gospel of John. The irony couldn't be greater when this story is read in the light of the Nicodemus account in John 3.
Greg, Please elaborate on what you mean by
There is far too much condemnation that rips through people on the stage of authoritative hypocrisy, where the spirit of fear forces a performance and often reigns over the Spirit of Christ. We should be moving in the directions that show the redemptive love of God in what we say and do. Setting people free where we can and when we are able will serve them.
Can you give an example of a stage of authoritative hypocrisy?
Tamara,
What I had in mind was the way some Christians aim to control and manipulate others under the guise of being in positions of authority that supposedly gives them the platform to condemn. Many churches, lamentably, give their leaders this kind of stage.
Manipulate others to do what with what kind of guise of authority? Are you referring to televangelists or on-line ministries? People who claim to have gifts of the Spirit or a more supernatural link to Jesus that give them authority?
and what would they be condemning?
Tamara,
Yes, all of these types and others who dupe people for money or pride. They condemn those who don't perform the ways they do and don't believe what they do.
I believe there is a real difference between an appropriate critique, which is grounded in love and condemnation that is not.
Tamra,
I just noticed I've been spelling your name wrong today. Sorry about that! I'll try to get it right from now on.
"Authoritative hypocrisy"--I think that Jesus was referring to such when he reminded some to get the log out of their own eye before trying to remove the splinter from another's. I once belonged to a church where a convicted felon who served his time was ostracized by the congregation. A soup kitchen was set up on a sub-freezing weekend and some in the congregation objected because the homeless might be using "our" restrooms. "Lord, I thank you that I am not like this tax-collector . . .."
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