Showing posts with label hurt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hurt. Show all posts
Friday, February 1, 2013
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
It doesn't matter how, just come...
The woman caught in adultery was forced to His feet by her sin and accusers. (Jn 8:1-11)
The woman ailing from constant bleeding for 12 years came desperate, but quietly confident in His power. (Mk 5:24-34)
The paralyzed man, lowered by his friends from the roof, was led there (actually carried) by other faithful believers. (Mk 2:1-7)
Read Full Post at ApproachGod.com
Monday, November 29, 2010
REPOST: Hurt People, Hurt People. Loved People, Love People. (HPHP/LPLP - Part 5)
Here is the final blog in the 5 Part Series. The first 4 can be seen here (Pt. 1, Pt. 2, Pt. 3, & Pt. 4). This is a repost of the original posted on July 8, 2010. I wrote it initially as a stand alone post, but there was so much more to this (hence posts 1 through 4). So this is the precursor & culmination of this series...enjoy.
I was listening to a song by Manafest called "Wanna Know You" and there is a line in the second verse that really got me. It says, "Loved people, love people. Hurt people, hurt people." I recently read a book (for one of my counseling classes) by Dr. Sandra Wilson called, "Hurt People, Hurt People." It was about understanding why people that have been hurt continue to hurt others.
With that and for the last six months God has been really working on me about what it means to love people and ultimately Him. So that line in the song really struck me as something that is important for everyone that claims to follow Christ to understand.
Hurt People, Hurt People
I get SO tired of hearing how Christ's people are "done" with someone because they hurt them while they were "trying to love them." News flash...people that are hurt are not there to love you, it's the other way around.
Here's the thing, in going in to love someone that is hurting, you have to expect some resistance. You have to expect them to be somewhat leery of your intentions, because they were just hurt. People that are hurt or hurting are that way because someone they cared for either left them (whether it be intentionally i.e. divorce/break-up or unintentionally i.e. death), betrayed them or broke their trust some how. So you have to understand that they may not be so readily accepting of what you want to give them.
We are called to love people, to comfort the hurting and even pray for those that persecute us. If you are the recipient of Christ's amazing love, you have a responsibility to give it away to others and you have to understand that in trying to love them, you may get hurt. My friend, Grant Clark, has a saying that goes, "Where there's people, there's poop." The idea being that caring for people can get messy and if you are actually engaged in their lives, you WILL get messy.
On the other side of that coin...
Loved People, Love People
The Bible is very clear on this point. 1 John 4:20-21 says:
If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their Christian brothers and sisters.
So, loved people, love people.
I'll close with this...How badly did we hurt Christ (and still do at times) while He was trying to love us? What if He would have given up on us because He got hurt?
I Will Love Regardless,
Bruce
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Hurt People. (HPHP/LPLP - Part 1)
Quite some time ago (specifically July 8th) I posted a blog titled, Loved People, Love People. Hurt People, Hurt People (HERE). I originally intended for it to be the only posting on that subject, but a couple days later I (and I mean that God impressed on my heart) decided it would be the last (created first like in the Star Wars Saga) of a series of 5 posts. I hadn’t figured out how I was going to put it together until this morning after a friend posted a verse from Ecclesiastes 4:1. That verse broke my heart and sealed this post.
The last few months God has been wrecking my heart about some very specific stuff, culminating in a Holy Spirit induced melt down last Thursday morning. Some great conversations and amazing appointments came from submitting to what I strongly felt God telling me to do. In the coming weeks I’ll share what that stuff was, but for now…I’m going to watch God unfold it. What I can tell you is this…man does God want us to love the hurting and man are there a lot of hurting people out there to love.
I saw the tears of the oppressed, with no one to comfort them. There are SO many people that are hurting. I look around and see family after family ravaged and torn apart by divorce; children trapped in violent and vile situations; women told that they are worthless and useless, abused and mistreated, men trapped in their addictions to pornography, helpless to get out and incapable of leading their family; young men and women told that they’ll never amount to anything because of the part of town they live in and they are all helpless. They are bound by their oppressor, ensnared in the lie that there is no hope and it tears my heart to shreds.
As if all that isn’t heart wrenching enough, what about the other hurting people? What about the people that don’t even look like they’re hurting? The people that on the surface look like they have it all together, but deep down they are a mess. They are broken, rejected, torn apart by life and bitter against it. What about those people? The earlier mentioned group might be easier to spot on occasion, but how do you see the other group?
Sadly our culture has allowed us to become content with just showing up to church. If we do that, then we can check it off our “Christian To Do List” and go about our week feeling good about our “holiness.” But there is no commitment in that, ZERO! Just because you drug yourself out of bed at 8:30 to make the 10:00 service so you can get on with the rest of your day ISN’T commitment, it’s self righteous and self serving (key word SELF). The problem is that if we do anything more than that, if we get too close to people we may realize they are hurting or have issues. If that happens we may be obligated (maybe even compelled) to step outside of ourselves and give to that person. We may have to care about someone else and that takes away from our “me” time.
While we sit in our cozy homes, watching NFL ticket on or 50 inch flat screen, eating our coma inducing junk food, there is a world of hurt people literally right outside our doors. I’m not saying that you can’t have that stuff, but at what point does that stuff become pointless? At what point does the fact that people are hurting matter?
Here’s the bottom line, there are hurting people all around us…some sitting literally in the chair next to you. They are helpless victims in a world of oppressors. They are crying out, tears not always visible, but there nonetheless (sometimes those are the worst kind). Without Christ they are hopeless. Without hope, there is nothing.
The last few months God has been wrecking my heart about some very specific stuff, culminating in a Holy Spirit induced melt down last Thursday morning. Some great conversations and amazing appointments came from submitting to what I strongly felt God telling me to do. In the coming weeks I’ll share what that stuff was, but for now…I’m going to watch God unfold it. What I can tell you is this…man does God want us to love the hurting and man are there a lot of hurting people out there to love.
Ecc 4:1 says, “Again, I observed all the oppression that takes place under the sun. I saw the tears of the oppressed, with no one to comfort them. The oppressors have great power, and their victims are helpless.”
I saw the tears of the oppressed, with no one to comfort them. There are SO many people that are hurting. I look around and see family after family ravaged and torn apart by divorce; children trapped in violent and vile situations; women told that they are worthless and useless, abused and mistreated, men trapped in their addictions to pornography, helpless to get out and incapable of leading their family; young men and women told that they’ll never amount to anything because of the part of town they live in and they are all helpless. They are bound by their oppressor, ensnared in the lie that there is no hope and it tears my heart to shreds.
As if all that isn’t heart wrenching enough, what about the other hurting people? What about the people that don’t even look like they’re hurting? The people that on the surface look like they have it all together, but deep down they are a mess. They are broken, rejected, torn apart by life and bitter against it. What about those people? The earlier mentioned group might be easier to spot on occasion, but how do you see the other group?
Sadly our culture has allowed us to become content with just showing up to church. If we do that, then we can check it off our “Christian To Do List” and go about our week feeling good about our “holiness.” But there is no commitment in that, ZERO! Just because you drug yourself out of bed at 8:30 to make the 10:00 service so you can get on with the rest of your day ISN’T commitment, it’s self righteous and self serving (key word SELF). The problem is that if we do anything more than that, if we get too close to people we may realize they are hurting or have issues. If that happens we may be obligated (maybe even compelled) to step outside of ourselves and give to that person. We may have to care about someone else and that takes away from our “me” time.
While we sit in our cozy homes, watching NFL ticket on or 50 inch flat screen, eating our coma inducing junk food, there is a world of hurt people literally right outside our doors. I’m not saying that you can’t have that stuff, but at what point does that stuff become pointless? At what point does the fact that people are hurting matter?
Here’s the bottom line, there are hurting people all around us…some sitting literally in the chair next to you. They are helpless victims in a world of oppressors. They are crying out, tears not always visible, but there nonetheless (sometimes those are the worst kind). Without Christ they are hopeless. Without hope, there is nothing.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Somebody To Love?
This post is kind of a follow up to my last post, Loved People (HERE). Not really intended to be a part two, but more of a continuation. I've been thinking a lot about the whole "Loved People, Love People. Hurt People, Hurt People" idea lately.
Without argument, as I'm sure many would agree, that trying to show love to someone that either doesn't care or blatantly rejects it, is often very difficult...who talks like that, it outright SUCKS. So recently I found myself wrestling with that idea and actually said out loud to God, "This is hard. I just want to love someone that will reciprocate that love!" God's response to my heart was, "Me too." Ouch...straight punch to the face. That's when He started speaking this idea of loving without expectation to me (He spoke it through a friend). The intent being that you love people without any expectation of them. Not that they'll love you back, not that they'll be grateful, not even that they'll come to Christ. In fact, not only do you love them regardless, but we should expect to be rejected or hurt, at least in the beginning.
So then I started working on theVISION series for theSHIFT (website HERE). We’re talking about: Who We Are, What We Do and Why, When God Calls-How to Answer and Where We’re Called To. In preparing for this series, God keeps bringing me back to this unexpectant love idea. This week we talked about “What We Do and Why” and God broke my heart, like His does every day, for His people.
Without going too far into detail, here’s the jist of what we talked about.
God has called theSHIFT to do three things for the college/20 something in Cheyenne (Laramie County), WY.
They are:
1. To connect with them where they’re at in life.
2. To provide a community of acceptance, where love is experienced.
3. To challenge them to grow.
After that I really struggled to put to words why we do what we do and this is what God revealed (again, three reasons).
1. We love them.
2. We’re called to it.
3. We see a need.
Reason # 3 (above) is what broke my heart. In researching the need for Christ in this area I came across a 2007 report that listed Wyoming #4 in the US (we moved from #1 in 2006) for suicides. Of those, about 10 percent were between the ages of 15 to 24. Aside from that I poured over report after report that talked about hundreds of thousands of college age adults that (self admittedly) drink enough to be diagnosed as alcohol abusers, almost half a million that routinely have unprotected sex (a quarter of which were too intoxicated to remember if the even consented), and identified nearly 2,000 that die in unintentional alcohol related accidents every year. I also read a report that 76% of college age adults admit that they are looking for meaning and purpose in life.
Here’s the truth, 76% of college age adults are searching for meaning and when they don’t find it, they turn to drinking, sex, and some of them give up looking and end it. They are hurting each other, hurting themselves and they are literally DYING for what we have! We CANNOT and will NOT keep Christ to ourselves! That is what we are ALL called to…to share the love that Christ has poured out on us without exception or expectation. You want somebody to love? Look around...they're right next to you.
Without argument, as I'm sure many would agree, that trying to show love to someone that either doesn't care or blatantly rejects it, is often very difficult...who talks like that, it outright SUCKS. So recently I found myself wrestling with that idea and actually said out loud to God, "This is hard. I just want to love someone that will reciprocate that love!" God's response to my heart was, "Me too." Ouch...straight punch to the face. That's when He started speaking this idea of loving without expectation to me (He spoke it through a friend). The intent being that you love people without any expectation of them. Not that they'll love you back, not that they'll be grateful, not even that they'll come to Christ. In fact, not only do you love them regardless, but we should expect to be rejected or hurt, at least in the beginning.
So then I started working on theVISION series for theSHIFT (website HERE). We’re talking about: Who We Are, What We Do and Why, When God Calls-How to Answer and Where We’re Called To. In preparing for this series, God keeps bringing me back to this unexpectant love idea. This week we talked about “What We Do and Why” and God broke my heart, like His does every day, for His people.
Without going too far into detail, here’s the jist of what we talked about.
God has called theSHIFT to do three things for the college/20 something in Cheyenne (Laramie County), WY.
They are:
1. To connect with them where they’re at in life.
2. To provide a community of acceptance, where love is experienced.
3. To challenge them to grow.
After that I really struggled to put to words why we do what we do and this is what God revealed (again, three reasons).
1. We love them.
2. We’re called to it.
3. We see a need.
Reason # 3 (above) is what broke my heart. In researching the need for Christ in this area I came across a 2007 report that listed Wyoming #4 in the US (we moved from #1 in 2006) for suicides. Of those, about 10 percent were between the ages of 15 to 24. Aside from that I poured over report after report that talked about hundreds of thousands of college age adults that (self admittedly) drink enough to be diagnosed as alcohol abusers, almost half a million that routinely have unprotected sex (a quarter of which were too intoxicated to remember if the even consented), and identified nearly 2,000 that die in unintentional alcohol related accidents every year. I also read a report that 76% of college age adults admit that they are looking for meaning and purpose in life.
Here’s the truth, 76% of college age adults are searching for meaning and when they don’t find it, they turn to drinking, sex, and some of them give up looking and end it. They are hurting each other, hurting themselves and they are literally DYING for what we have! We CANNOT and will NOT keep Christ to ourselves! That is what we are ALL called to…to share the love that Christ has poured out on us without exception or expectation. You want somebody to love? Look around...they're right next to you.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Hurt People, Hurt People. Loved People, Love People. (HPHP/LPLP - Part 5)
So I haven't blogged in what seems like forever. And the last time I did blog, I was on this "community" kick and had a series of 5 blogs that revolved around what community is supposed to be. I am still on that kick and still intend to write those blogs, so soon I hope.
With that said I had to make time to write this one.
I was listening to a song by Manafest called "Wanna Know You" and there is a line in the second verse that really got me. It says, "Loved people, love people. Hurt people, hurt people." I recently read a book (for one of my counseling classes) by Dr. Sandra Wilson called, "Hurt People, Hurt People." It was about understanding why people that have been hurt continue to hurt others.
With that and for the last six months God has been really working on me about what it means to love people and ultimately Him. So that line in the song really struck me as something that is important for everyone that claims to follow Christ to understand.
Hurt People, Hurt People
I'm not actually gonna say anything about why or how hurt people, hurt people. I am, however, gonna direct this toward those that have accepted Christ's love (the secret is - and it's actually not a secret - Christ loves us all, all the time...we just need to accept it).
I get SO tired of hearing how Christ's people are "done" with someone because they hurt them while they were "trying to love them." News flash...people that are hurt are not there to love you, it's the other way around.
Here's the thing, in going in to love someone that is hurting, you have to expect some resistance. You have to expect them to be somewhat leery of your intentions, because they were just hurt. People that are hurt or hurting are that way because someone they cared for either left them (whether it be intentionally i.e. divorce/break-up or unintentionally i.e. death), betrayed them or broke their trust some how. So you have to understand that they may not be so readily accepting of what you want to give them.
We are called to love people, to comfort the hurting and even pray for those that persecute us. If you are the recipient of Christ's amazing love, you have a responsibility to give it away to others and you have to understand that in trying to love them, you may get hurt. My friend, Grant Clark, has a saying that goes, "Where there's people, there's poop." The idea being that caring for people can get messy and if you are actually engaged in their lives, you WILL get messy.
On the other side of that coin...
Loved People, Love People
If you are a person that has surrendered your life to God and seeks to follow Christ, this is you. If you are actively engaged in a relationship with Christ, in which He is pouring out His love on you, you will love people. In John 15:12 Jesus says, "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you." Jesus was telling us that the way He loved us was an example of how He expected us to love each other. If you are truly the recipient of Christ's love, you WILL love others.
The Bible is very clear on this point. 1 John 4:20-21 says:
If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their Christian brothers and sisters.
So, loved people, love people.
I'll close with this...How badly did we hurt Christ (and still do at times) while He was trying to love us? What if He would have given up on us because He got hurt?
I Will Love Regardless,
Bruce
With that said I had to make time to write this one.
I was listening to a song by Manafest called "Wanna Know You" and there is a line in the second verse that really got me. It says, "Loved people, love people. Hurt people, hurt people." I recently read a book (for one of my counseling classes) by Dr. Sandra Wilson called, "Hurt People, Hurt People." It was about understanding why people that have been hurt continue to hurt others.
With that and for the last six months God has been really working on me about what it means to love people and ultimately Him. So that line in the song really struck me as something that is important for everyone that claims to follow Christ to understand.
Hurt People, Hurt People
I get SO tired of hearing how Christ's people are "done" with someone because they hurt them while they were "trying to love them." News flash...people that are hurt are not there to love you, it's the other way around.
Here's the thing, in going in to love someone that is hurting, you have to expect some resistance. You have to expect them to be somewhat leery of your intentions, because they were just hurt. People that are hurt or hurting are that way because someone they cared for either left them (whether it be intentionally i.e. divorce/break-up or unintentionally i.e. death), betrayed them or broke their trust some how. So you have to understand that they may not be so readily accepting of what you want to give them.
We are called to love people, to comfort the hurting and even pray for those that persecute us. If you are the recipient of Christ's amazing love, you have a responsibility to give it away to others and you have to understand that in trying to love them, you may get hurt. My friend, Grant Clark, has a saying that goes, "Where there's people, there's poop." The idea being that caring for people can get messy and if you are actually engaged in their lives, you WILL get messy.
On the other side of that coin...
Loved People, Love People
The Bible is very clear on this point. 1 John 4:20-21 says:
If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their Christian brothers and sisters.
So, loved people, love people.
I'll close with this...How badly did we hurt Christ (and still do at times) while He was trying to love us? What if He would have given up on us because He got hurt?
I Will Love Regardless,
Bruce
Monday, April 6, 2009
My Testimony – "The Snake Bite"
I fully intend this to be my last super long post. But the way this one played out and with everything that has happened, this one could've been WAY longer.
So in part one titled “My Testimony – The Shipwreck” (can be read HERE), I talked about all the stuff that had happened in my life and marriage up to September 9, 2008. That was the date that my entire world changed. Just to recap on the person I was…I had been a “Christian” for 20ish years. Probably more accurate to just say I knew who Jesus was and what I had to do to spend eternity with him, but I chose not to live that way. I presented the public image of Christianity very well (I thought), but didn’t live it that way in my family or private life.
Now, understanding that from 2000 to 2005, I had been continually trying to “make up” for my earlier betrayal (2000). I knew that I had to prove that I deserved to have Dana and her love back, so my focus (at least I had convinced myself) was making sure I gave her the life she asked for. At the time I equated that to being the same as giving her the love and attention she deserved (I know now, that is NEVER the same thing). When I realized, in 2005, how severely I had and continued to betray my family (mainly my wife), I set out to change that. I turned ALL my focus on pleasing Dana. I gave her what she asked for, I told her I loved her all the time (and I really did mean it deeply), I made sure to tell her how beautiful she was, I tried to be romantic, all of it. But my focus was still wrong; it wasn’t on God. I know now, had I focused on my relationship with Christ, put God first in my marriage and been the spiritual leader I was meant to be in my home things probably would have turned out very different. That is not to say Dana would have never left (she has free will and had to be willing to accept Christ in our marriage too), but I truly believe the likelihood would have been far less. Had I done that, God would have made sure I was the husband and father my family and He needed me to be and He would have covered the rest. Hindsight, right? These are the character building moments you can never plan (maybe never want to plan).
So, September 10, 2008, SHIPWRECKED! With everything Dana told me that night, I just knew the probability of us coming back from it was slim. Although slim, at that point all was not lost. I tried to convince Dana we could survive. No dice, that night Dana did some stuff that landed her in the Behavioral Health Hospital. That was the catalyst for the most difficult, hurtful, emotional, life changing, enlightening, oddly wonderful and exciting (I know it sounds weird, but you’ll understand shortly) time of my life. That hospital admission was the beginning of my snake bite.
Up to this point, I had only visited Element Church once. We got here in July ‘08, but I avoided going. I tried three other churches and was actually kind of scared at a couple. So, I finally decided to check Element out and I loved it instantly. After my first and only visit to Element, all that crap with Dana happened. I was so angry at God. I had busted my butt making sure that my wife had everything she wanted and at being a “good” husband, how could he take that away from me? We had a plan, we had it all figured out and we were happy…I thought. I was so confused, angry, hurt, you name it. Because I was angry I decided I didn’t need to go to church anymore (that’s genius right – running farther from God would absolutely fix it, right?)
Then my kids asked if we were going back to church. Out of the mouths of babes. I couldn’t set that example for my boys, so I told them we would. When all this heartache began, I truly thought it would take FOREVER, to get past it. I knew I had to “deal” with it and be strong for my boys, but I didn’t understand why this happened and I definitely did not trust that God had a plan that would make any of this ok. I continued to go to church and prayed for months for God to bring her home, to make it better. Then in the middle of his “Heart – It’s What We Bleed” series, our Lead Pastor, Jeff (Blog love HERE) called an audible and delivered a sermon on “A World of Uncertainty”. With that sermon I realized that I had been praying for the wrong thing. I realized that I was praying and going to church, but I was simply trying to convince God I was a “Good” Christian in hopes that he would make it all better. I didn’t really believe that he would fix it or that he could pull anything good out of it. That day I stopped praying for him to fix it and bring her home and started praying for him to take control and gave him my marriage. I also began praying for strength and healing for Dana. I wish I could say that I began reading my bible and praying every day, but I didn’t. But he was just getting started… Soon after that I joined a Life/Small Group and that became a source of great strength. I found myself hungering for this relationship with Jesus that I saw everyone else had. I had been a “Christian” for twenty years and I never remember having “that” relationship. So I started praying and reading his word a little more, still not consistently, but more. That’s when I realized the whole thing about not putting God first in my marriage.
Then came the sermon series Jeff called “Dirty Santa”. One of the installments of that series dealt with forgiveness when a family member hurts you. That broke my heart. It was like Jeff was talking right to me – all of it. I wanted to forgive Dana (I didn’t want that hate in my heart), I even wanted to tell her. But then Jeff said treat her undeservedly. All I could think was, “How dare you”. I kept telling myself that he had no idea what I was going through. Before the end of the message, I realized that it wasn’t Jeff Maness’ message, it was God’s and He knew exactly what I was going through. I got up, wrote “Dana, My Wife” on the paper and put it in the bowl. That day I walked out of Element and decided I was going to forgive her. Since then I have done everything I can to treat her undeservedly. I have gone out of my way to be kind to her. I’ll tell you that you can say you forgive, but without the action associated with it, you can’t even convince yourself you have. Since then I have an unimaginable amount of peace (that’s not to say I’m not hurt, I still hurt and there’s still some anger there), but I’ve started feeling that calm I longed for. It’s amazing how God puts thing in order, it seems like all the sermons I needed to hear were delivered in a very specific order (weird, right? That God, so organized.). The next step was Jeff’s “21” sermon series, specifically the Devotion sermon. After Dirty Santa, I continued to pray for healing and protection for Dana and my boys, but my prayers for me turned to asking God’s direction for me. I was pretty much past the “Why did this happen?” part and had gotten to the “Now what?”
In that sermon, Jeff had talked about making time for intentional, consistent (and the right) connection with God every day. He said through that devotional time God will reveal his direction. That was exactly what I’d been asking for so I figured I’d give it a shot. I started that Sunday afternoon. I sat in a Burger King, while Dana visited with the boys, and began to read. The results were immediate. That Sunday afternoon, I opened to Philippians (my book mark was there because the last thing I read was Ephesians). Imagine my surprise when I read 3:13-14, “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
I had been praying for direction and I heard loud and clear where God wanted me to go…FORWARD! Seemed like a good direction to go, so I kept on. I read Monday and Tuesday morning. Then it happened, after devotional time on Tuesday, I was in the shower shaving and I felt completely over whelmed. I actually had to sit down and actually started crying. Then I heard a voice in my head and this feeling in my heart that I never had before. The voice asked, “When are you going into ministry?” I actually sat there and had an out loud argument about why I couldn’t and why it was nonsense. I argued in my head all day Tuesday. I had felt like God was calling me for the last 5 or 6 years, but I constantly had an excuse why I couldn’t. “Dana doesn’t even like church, she can’t be a pastor’s wife”; “I don’t live good enough to minister”, etc. (there were hundreds). But that Tuesday, I had literally run out of every excuse, I had NONE. So I asked God to confirm it to me, if that is what he wanted me to do.
Wednesday morning I got up, put on a pot of coffee, prayed and began to read 1 Thessalonians. Four verses in I read, “For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.” That was it! God gave me EXACTLY what I asked for because I made intentional, consistent and the right connection with him. I could have just read my bible and not really ever connected with God. It’s not about how long you’ve been reading your bible, or doing devotionals. It’s 100% about REALLY, TRULY and DEEPLY seeking God’s face. I have NEVER had a relationship with Jesus like I do today. That day in the shower, I got my WOW moment and the Holy Spirit finally got ALL of me. I cannot imagine EVER going back to a place where I do not have this kind of relationship with Jesus. When God told me ministry was his plan for me, it didn’t make sense. Me? Why? I never gave it any consideration, because it was not what I wanted to do, but now I can’t imagine doing ANYTHING else.
It took all of that for me to realize some very important truths. My number one relationship is and has to be with Christ. As long as I have that, all my other relationships will be right. I am a COMPLETELY different person than I was 7 months ago; emotionally, spiritually and physically (all the stress caused me to drop nearly 45 lbs in 5 months - unhealthy I know!). We really do serve an AWESOME and WONDERFUL God. He really does shine a light of hope and blessing into the darkest pit of despair and sadness. God took my shipwreck and snakebite and set up the divine appointments in the exact order and with the exact people He needed to orchestrate the incredible change He had in store for my life.
Never Going Back,
Bruce
Sunday, March 8, 2009
My Testimony - "The Shipwreck"
I had previously said that I would eventually share my testimony, today I felt like God was telling me it was time. This is gonna be a two parter because, for one it’s long (I know you’re shocked) and two, there are two very distinct parts of this testimony. This first part is what God used to help me understand who I had become and where I was at. The second is what God used to tell me who He wanted me to be and where he wanted me to go.
For the last five weeks Element has been going through a series called Wild Goose Chase, (you can listen to the series’ podcast on Elements home page HERE) based on the book of the same name by Mark Batterson (Lead Pastor, National Community Church, Washington D.C.). If you’ve never read it, great read…pick it up, it’ll be life changing. Anyway, today’s cage was the Cage of Failure. Not moral failure (like sinning huge), but as in failed plans or divine detours. Where I am now, is NOWHERE close to where I planned on being one year ago, or even five months ago. As Jeff put it, “God will frustrate your plans” and boy will he.
My testimony actually starts when I was first saved, something like twenty years ago, when I was eleven or twelve. From that point on I knew I was a “Christian”, but I had NO idea what that meant. I never lived anything like Jesus, didn’t even have a relationship with him. Thought the Bible was the equivalent to a large novel (same as War and Peace). I learned to read it as a penance for when I did something wrong, so I grew up thinking that it really was just a collection of stories, not the inspired word of God that He uses to communicate everything to us (I know that now). I was so disconnected to what Christianity was that I actually faked tongues in youth service once, because I thought we were supposed to do that. Bottom line, I had a much skewed view of Christianity and a very surface level presentation of it.
In October 1995, I met my wife Dana and we married on August 13, 1996. We soon had two wonderful boys, James in April 1997 and Andrew in May 1999. Four years after we married, I’m ashamed to say it was shortly after our fourth anniversary, I became involved with another woman. The details aren’t really important, just that I betrayed my wife, emotionally, physically and spiritually. I had failed as a husband and father. Dana went home to Alaska taking my boys with here. I knew as soon as she left the mistake I had made, but I had no idea of the impact that would have in the coming years. I eventually called Dana, said I was sorry and asked her to come home. By the grace of God she did. After she came home, my physical affair ended, but mentally I continued it in my head. As time passed, I wasn’t able to include the “other woman” in my fantasies as easily. So I started looking at pornography on the Internet. At the time it didn’t seem like a big deal. It wasn’t often, once a month or every couple months. But I was only doing it when Dana wasn’t around. It took me 4 ½ years to realize and accept that I was doing something wrong and that it was hurting our marriage. I again had failed as a father and husband. I should say that I truly did love my wife and there was no other reason for me doing it except I was selfish. I had EVERYTHING I needed and wanted at home, but I thought I deserved more - SELFISH! Toward the beginning of 2005 I quit, with a few relapses, but I quit. I started to focus all my attention on pleasing Dana. But my focus was still not right. Recently I told her all this and she said she didn’t know about the porn at the time, but she did feel the gap it caused in our relationship.
Fast forward to January 2008...I thought things were great in our marriage. I was due to separate from the military in June and we had everything planned out. Then Dana mentioned re-enlisting (seven more years and I had a retirement). She said it was the best thing for our family, so reluctantly I agreed and re-enlisted on February 13, 2008. On February 16th Dana told me she wasn’t happy and wanted a divorce. I was devastated. All I could think was I just re-enlisted, now my wife may leave me and I’m stuck in the military and I was the one that didn’t even want to stay in. Eventually Dana agreed to go to counseling, we got orders to move to Cheyenne, WY, and things seemed to be getting better. We arrived in Cheyenne on July 27, 2008. Things were good, until September 9th. That was the day that everything fell apart. Dana admitted she still wanted a divorce and never really intended to try. A lot of stuff came out that night (needless to say she confessed a lot of stuff to me that she did, which hurt more than I can say...I'm sure it's close to how she felt in 2000). What she told me was devastating, but it’s not my place to confess it for her…just know that it changed everything! ALL of our plans were dead in the matter of one night. This was my shipwreck (Mark uses this in the WGC, it is a reference to the detour God gave Paul in Acts 27). This was the event that God used to show me who I was. This was the detour God was going to use to change the course of my life and set up some divine appointments with people he would use to help me “get it”.
For the last five weeks Element has been going through a series called Wild Goose Chase, (you can listen to the series’ podcast on Elements home page HERE) based on the book of the same name by Mark Batterson (Lead Pastor, National Community Church, Washington D.C.). If you’ve never read it, great read…pick it up, it’ll be life changing. Anyway, today’s cage was the Cage of Failure. Not moral failure (like sinning huge), but as in failed plans or divine detours. Where I am now, is NOWHERE close to where I planned on being one year ago, or even five months ago. As Jeff put it, “God will frustrate your plans” and boy will he.
My testimony actually starts when I was first saved, something like twenty years ago, when I was eleven or twelve. From that point on I knew I was a “Christian”, but I had NO idea what that meant. I never lived anything like Jesus, didn’t even have a relationship with him. Thought the Bible was the equivalent to a large novel (same as War and Peace). I learned to read it as a penance for when I did something wrong, so I grew up thinking that it really was just a collection of stories, not the inspired word of God that He uses to communicate everything to us (I know that now). I was so disconnected to what Christianity was that I actually faked tongues in youth service once, because I thought we were supposed to do that. Bottom line, I had a much skewed view of Christianity and a very surface level presentation of it.
In October 1995, I met my wife Dana and we married on August 13, 1996. We soon had two wonderful boys, James in April 1997 and Andrew in May 1999. Four years after we married, I’m ashamed to say it was shortly after our fourth anniversary, I became involved with another woman. The details aren’t really important, just that I betrayed my wife, emotionally, physically and spiritually. I had failed as a husband and father. Dana went home to Alaska taking my boys with here. I knew as soon as she left the mistake I had made, but I had no idea of the impact that would have in the coming years. I eventually called Dana, said I was sorry and asked her to come home. By the grace of God she did. After she came home, my physical affair ended, but mentally I continued it in my head. As time passed, I wasn’t able to include the “other woman” in my fantasies as easily. So I started looking at pornography on the Internet. At the time it didn’t seem like a big deal. It wasn’t often, once a month or every couple months. But I was only doing it when Dana wasn’t around. It took me 4 ½ years to realize and accept that I was doing something wrong and that it was hurting our marriage. I again had failed as a father and husband. I should say that I truly did love my wife and there was no other reason for me doing it except I was selfish. I had EVERYTHING I needed and wanted at home, but I thought I deserved more - SELFISH! Toward the beginning of 2005 I quit, with a few relapses, but I quit. I started to focus all my attention on pleasing Dana. But my focus was still not right. Recently I told her all this and she said she didn’t know about the porn at the time, but she did feel the gap it caused in our relationship.
Fast forward to January 2008...I thought things were great in our marriage. I was due to separate from the military in June and we had everything planned out. Then Dana mentioned re-enlisting (seven more years and I had a retirement). She said it was the best thing for our family, so reluctantly I agreed and re-enlisted on February 13, 2008. On February 16th Dana told me she wasn’t happy and wanted a divorce. I was devastated. All I could think was I just re-enlisted, now my wife may leave me and I’m stuck in the military and I was the one that didn’t even want to stay in. Eventually Dana agreed to go to counseling, we got orders to move to Cheyenne, WY, and things seemed to be getting better. We arrived in Cheyenne on July 27, 2008. Things were good, until September 9th. That was the day that everything fell apart. Dana admitted she still wanted a divorce and never really intended to try. A lot of stuff came out that night (needless to say she confessed a lot of stuff to me that she did, which hurt more than I can say...I'm sure it's close to how she felt in 2000). What she told me was devastating, but it’s not my place to confess it for her…just know that it changed everything! ALL of our plans were dead in the matter of one night. This was my shipwreck (Mark uses this in the WGC, it is a reference to the detour God gave Paul in Acts 27). This was the event that God used to show me who I was. This was the detour God was going to use to change the course of my life and set up some divine appointments with people he would use to help me “get it”.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Forgiveness: It’s Not Just for Them.
Recently I have had a huge life change. Let’s just say that after 13 years of marriage, the single life seems quite daunting. To clarify, the idea for divorce was not mine and it came virtually out of nowhere. Both my sons and I were equally confused about my wife’s sudden and abrupt departure. But out of the devastation, God revealed so many wonderful and new directions.
I think the most important is the relationship that developed between my boys and I. We have such a better understanding of each other. We spend more time together, talk more, and just the way we deal with each other is different in ways I can’t explain. Also, God has called me into ministry. It’s something that he’s been saying for years, but I always ignored. Since my wife left, I’ve heard him loud and clear. In fact it is so loud that he is really moving me to leave the military at 17 years (three years short of a retirement check) to go into full time ministry. Sounds crazy I know, but that’s another blog. The other direction he has moved me toward is the way I look at and deal with…well everything! From anger, to helping others, my language, the way I think, what makes me happy and how I handle and offer forgiveness.
Jeff (my church’s lead pastor) did a sermon series on exposing the real issues surrounding Christmas (awesome series called “Dirty Santa”, you can find it at Element Podcasts ). One of the sermons had to do with how to handle forgiveness when a family member hurts you. At the point of that sermon, my wife had only been gone 3 ½ months. Her leaving was too new for me to even be thinking about forgiveness. Both of my sons and I were still very hurt and very angry (we still are but its different now). But as always I tried to keep an open mind and heart to what Jeff was about to say.
He started out by explaining that the hurt and anger caused by a family member’s betrayal can very easily turn to hate and bitterness and poison our souls. Basically, if left to fester, hurt and anger turns into hate and bitterness and seethes inside us until it destroys us and those close to us. The only way to prevent this destruction is through forgiveness. The basic idea was sound and really didn’t sound different from what I kind of already knew. Then Jeff talked about three things you needed to do to get past that hurt (involving forgiveness). The first was to make the decision to forgive that person. He said it is not enough to just be “cordial” or “nice”. It needs to be more than that. It needs to be a real and conscious decision to forgive. Second, you have to act on that decision. Just deciding to forgive them isn’t enough; you have to tell that person. Even if they don’t care, or accept it, or even if they respond with anger you have to tell them. Ultimately you are not forgiving them for them. You are forgiving them for you. That person may NEVER accept your forgiveness, but the fact that you offered it and freely gave it, releases you form the bond of that anger and eventual hate. Again, the destructive power of unforgiveness is to devastating to not offer it. The third thing really made me angry. Jeff said to treat them undeservedly. Literally, treat that person in a way that they don’t deserve to be treated. In the case of my wife, with the way she ran out and the hate and meanness she displayed toward me, she definitely deserved to be treated with nothing less than anger. But Jeff stood in the pulpit and said I had to be nice to her and not just be nice to her, do nice things for her. I was angry to the point that I almost turned him off. But I quickly realized that it wasn’t Jeff Maness’ instructions, it was God’s. So I walked out of church that day determined to forgive her.
I didn’t know how, but I figured I’d start small. I changed the way I spoke to her. I bought her a gift card for a grocery store (I knew she was struggling financially) and I even brought the kids to see her when she had her truck taken by the bank. Through all that I figured out how forgiveness is supposed to really work. I think there are two different types of forgiveness inside us. There is the rational brain level forgiveness and the emotional heart level forgiveness. It is so much easier to convince the brain that it is important and time to forgive. In our consciousness we know it is the right and healthy thing to do. But our heart takes a bit more coaxing. Dependant on the depth of the wound, if you wait for your heart to be ready to forgive you may never get there. That is why I think it is important to move forward with the actual act of forgiveness without the heart being on board.
I really believe, much like real true love, forgiveness is an action more than a feeling. If you make the decision to forgive and do the things that show that you are forgiving, then eventually you will start to feel like you are forgiving. There is a tremendous amount of peace that comes with doing the right thing. Eventually your heart forgiveness will sense what the brain forgiveness is doing and will feel the disconnect. To me it kind of seemed like the heart felt like it was left behind and wanted to be on the same level as the brain, so it was forced to catch up. I think a lot of it is actually the whole “do something for a certain amount of time and it becomes a habit” thing. If forgiveness is more of an action, then doing the act of forgiveness over a certain amount of time forces it to become a habit. Once it is a habit, it becomes a normal part of who we are.
It’s only been 5 months since my wife left us, but I feel like I am so much farther than I should be in the healing process. At least farther than I thought I would be. But just over that last month and a half of treating her undeservedly, making the conscious decision to forgive her and telling her I did, I have a peace that I didn’t think possible. The grace of God is an amazing and unexplainable phenomenon. Truly without that grace and mercy, forgiveness for anyone wouldn’t be possible. But through His great example of forgiveness, we can learn how we are supposed to forgive. After all, without the action of giving up His son for sacrifice, forgiveness wouldn’t be there.
I think the most important is the relationship that developed between my boys and I. We have such a better understanding of each other. We spend more time together, talk more, and just the way we deal with each other is different in ways I can’t explain. Also, God has called me into ministry. It’s something that he’s been saying for years, but I always ignored. Since my wife left, I’ve heard him loud and clear. In fact it is so loud that he is really moving me to leave the military at 17 years (three years short of a retirement check) to go into full time ministry. Sounds crazy I know, but that’s another blog. The other direction he has moved me toward is the way I look at and deal with…well everything! From anger, to helping others, my language, the way I think, what makes me happy and how I handle and offer forgiveness.
Jeff (my church’s lead pastor) did a sermon series on exposing the real issues surrounding Christmas (awesome series called “Dirty Santa”, you can find it at Element Podcasts ). One of the sermons had to do with how to handle forgiveness when a family member hurts you. At the point of that sermon, my wife had only been gone 3 ½ months. Her leaving was too new for me to even be thinking about forgiveness. Both of my sons and I were still very hurt and very angry (we still are but its different now). But as always I tried to keep an open mind and heart to what Jeff was about to say.
He started out by explaining that the hurt and anger caused by a family member’s betrayal can very easily turn to hate and bitterness and poison our souls. Basically, if left to fester, hurt and anger turns into hate and bitterness and seethes inside us until it destroys us and those close to us. The only way to prevent this destruction is through forgiveness. The basic idea was sound and really didn’t sound different from what I kind of already knew. Then Jeff talked about three things you needed to do to get past that hurt (involving forgiveness). The first was to make the decision to forgive that person. He said it is not enough to just be “cordial” or “nice”. It needs to be more than that. It needs to be a real and conscious decision to forgive. Second, you have to act on that decision. Just deciding to forgive them isn’t enough; you have to tell that person. Even if they don’t care, or accept it, or even if they respond with anger you have to tell them. Ultimately you are not forgiving them for them. You are forgiving them for you. That person may NEVER accept your forgiveness, but the fact that you offered it and freely gave it, releases you form the bond of that anger and eventual hate. Again, the destructive power of unforgiveness is to devastating to not offer it. The third thing really made me angry. Jeff said to treat them undeservedly. Literally, treat that person in a way that they don’t deserve to be treated. In the case of my wife, with the way she ran out and the hate and meanness she displayed toward me, she definitely deserved to be treated with nothing less than anger. But Jeff stood in the pulpit and said I had to be nice to her and not just be nice to her, do nice things for her. I was angry to the point that I almost turned him off. But I quickly realized that it wasn’t Jeff Maness’ instructions, it was God’s. So I walked out of church that day determined to forgive her.
I didn’t know how, but I figured I’d start small. I changed the way I spoke to her. I bought her a gift card for a grocery store (I knew she was struggling financially) and I even brought the kids to see her when she had her truck taken by the bank. Through all that I figured out how forgiveness is supposed to really work. I think there are two different types of forgiveness inside us. There is the rational brain level forgiveness and the emotional heart level forgiveness. It is so much easier to convince the brain that it is important and time to forgive. In our consciousness we know it is the right and healthy thing to do. But our heart takes a bit more coaxing. Dependant on the depth of the wound, if you wait for your heart to be ready to forgive you may never get there. That is why I think it is important to move forward with the actual act of forgiveness without the heart being on board.
I really believe, much like real true love, forgiveness is an action more than a feeling. If you make the decision to forgive and do the things that show that you are forgiving, then eventually you will start to feel like you are forgiving. There is a tremendous amount of peace that comes with doing the right thing. Eventually your heart forgiveness will sense what the brain forgiveness is doing and will feel the disconnect. To me it kind of seemed like the heart felt like it was left behind and wanted to be on the same level as the brain, so it was forced to catch up. I think a lot of it is actually the whole “do something for a certain amount of time and it becomes a habit” thing. If forgiveness is more of an action, then doing the act of forgiveness over a certain amount of time forces it to become a habit. Once it is a habit, it becomes a normal part of who we are.
It’s only been 5 months since my wife left us, but I feel like I am so much farther than I should be in the healing process. At least farther than I thought I would be. But just over that last month and a half of treating her undeservedly, making the conscious decision to forgive her and telling her I did, I have a peace that I didn’t think possible. The grace of God is an amazing and unexplainable phenomenon. Truly without that grace and mercy, forgiveness for anyone wouldn’t be possible. But through His great example of forgiveness, we can learn how we are supposed to forgive. After all, without the action of giving up His son for sacrifice, forgiveness wouldn’t be there.
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