Category: mental illness

When I Condemn Myself, [Guilt]

Understanding how to forgive is one of the most essential truths we must learn. We learn that we must forgive others– if we want forgiveness for our own sins. But we jump right into it when we pass judgement on ourselves.  This self-condemnation is insidious and very dark.  And yet incredibly, it is also quite prevalent in the Church.

We determine that we are guilty.  It doesn’t take a lot of imagination, as the sin is everywhere, it overwhelms us.  It meshes into us, and weaves into our very being.  We soon come to the point where we can no longer tell the difference between  what is our sin, and our personality.

If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 

1 John 3:20, NIV

Examining our own hearts, we start by probing the depth of our own evil.  There is now little room for any kind of self-deception– for we understand our darkness in depth.  It is at this crucial point when God steps forward and exercises His authority.  His understanding is complete.  He knows us inside and out.  He sees everything. We can do nothing cosmetically to “improve the corpse.”  He sees us without any ‘make-up’.

When we commence judging ourselves, it may seem appropriate and timely. And certainly, we must respond to the Holy Spirit’s conviction. But this is different!  This is unbelief of God’s Word, that rapidly becomes foul and fleshly, and opens the doors to despondency and despair.

But soon the ‘dark ones’ come, and the blackness becomes insurmountable.  We mournfully provide the chains, which they gleefully use on us.  Self-condemnation twists us and we become malformed and misshapen spiritually.

Guilt is a warning light that says something is wrong. Yet when it persists too long, it energizes Satan’s lies and strangulates spiritual growth. 

“For innumerable evils have compassed me about; my iniquities have taken such hold on me that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart has failed me and forsaken me.” 

Psalm 40:12, Amplified

When we look into the mirror, what do we see?  Are we besieged and battered by our sin?  I’m grieved for the many believers are walking as ‘zombie Christian lives’, more dead than alive, with little hope for any kind of escape. Jesus comes to bring us to life.

Brother, sister– Jesus has come to release you completely.  He completely understands your situation.  He is not surprised by your evil.  Your brazen, and dedicated love for your sin does not shock Him.

“But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.”

1 John 1:9, NLT

A Thought For the Truly Desperate:

“Here’s how to beat condemnation.  Confess your sin to God.  Then believe in Him.  Exercise the gift of faith that God has given you to believe that Jesus died for the very sins you’re being condemned for.  The punishment He received was for you.  His resurrection is proof that God accepted Jesus’ sacrifice.  The sins of your past and the sin you just committed were all atoned for; you need carry their weight no more.”

C.J. Mahaney

ybic, Bryan

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Evaluating Jesus Truly, [CS Lewis]

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“The Difference Jesus Makes,”  from C.S. Lewis

What are we to make of Jesus Christ? This question…has, in a sense, a frantically comic side. For the real reason is not what are we to make of Christ, but what is He to make of us? The picture of a fly sitting deciding what it is to make of an elephant has comic elements about it. But perhaps the questioner meant what are we to make of Him in the sense of  “How are we to solve the historical problem set us by the recorded sayings and acts of this Man?” This problem is to reconcile two things. On the one hand you have got the almost generally admitted depth and sanity of his moral teaching, which is not very seriously questioned, even by those who are opposed to Christianity….

The other phenomenon is the quite appalling nature of this Man’s theological remarks. You all know what I mean, and I want rather to stress the point that the appalling claim which this Man seems to be making is not merely made at one moment of his career. There is, of course, the one moment which led to His execution. The moment at which the High Priest said to Him, “Who are you?” “I am the Anointed, the Son of the uncreated God, and you shall see Me appearing at the end of all history as the judge of the Universe.”….

On the one side clear, definite moral teaching. On the other, claims which, if not true, are those of a megalomaniac, compared with whom Hitler was the most sane and humble of men. There is no half-way house and there is no parallel in other religions. If you had gone to Buddha and asked him “Are you the son of Brahman?” he would have said, “My son, you are still in the vale of illusion.” If you had gone to Socrates and asked, “Are you Zeus?” he would have laughed at you. If you had gone to Mohammed and asked, “Are you Allah?” He would first have rent his clothes and the cut your head off.  If you had asked Confucius, “Are you heaven?” I think he would have probably replied, “Remarks which are not in accordance with nature are in bad taste.”

The idea of a great moral teacher saying what Christ said is out of the question. In my opinion, the only person who can say that sort of thing is either God or a complete lunatic suffering from that form of delusion which undermines the whole mind of man. If you think you are a poached egg, when you are looking for a piece of toast to suit you, you may be sane, but if you think you are God, there is no chance for you….

Now, as a literary historian, I am perfectly convinced that whatever else the Gospels are they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legend and I am quite clear that they are not the same sort of thing. They are not artistic enough to be legends. From an imaginative point of view they are clumsy, they don’t work up to things properly…

[Take, for example] the strangest story of all, the story of the Resurrection. It is very necessary to get the story clear. I heard a man say, “The importance of the Resurrection is that it gives evidence of survival, evidence that the human personality survives death.” On that view what happened to Christ would be what had always happened to all men, the difference being that in Christ’s case we were privileged to see it happening. This is certainly not what the earliest Christian writers thought. Something perfectly new in the history of the Universe had happened. Christ had defeated death. The door which had always been locked had for the very first time been forced open. This is something quite distinct from mere ghost-survival. I don’t mean that they disbelieved in ghost- survival. On the contrary, they believed in it so firmly that, on more than one occasion, Christ had had to assure them that He was not a ghost. The point is that while believing in survival they yet regarded the Resurrection as something totally different and new. The Resurrection narratives are not a picture of survival after death; they record how a totally new mode of being has arisen in the universe. Something new had appeared in the universe: as new as the first coming of organic life. This Man, after death, does not get divided into “ghost” and “corpse”. A new mode of being has arisen. That is the story. What are we going to make of it?

The things He says are very different from what any other teacher has said. Others say, “This is the truth about the Universe.  This is the way you ought to go,” but He says, “I am the Truth, and the Way, and the Life.” He says, “No man can reach absolute reality, except through Me. Try to retain your own life and you will be inevitably ruined. Give yourself away and you will be saved.” He says, “If you are ashamed of Me, if, when you hear this call, you turn the other way, I also will look the other way when I come again as God without disguise. If anything whatever is keeping you from God and from Me, whatever it is, throw it away. If it is your eye, pull it out. If it is your hand, cut it off. If you put yourself first you will be last. Come to Me everyone who is carrying a heavy load, I will set that right. Your sins, are wiped out, I can do that. I am Re-birth, I am Life. Eat Me, drink Me, I am your food. And finally, do not be afraid, I have overcome the whole Universe.” That is the issue.”

– Asking Them Questions, Third Series, edited by Ronald Selby Wright (OUP, 1050), also reproduced inUndeceptions (Geofffrey Bles, 1971) and God in the Dock, Chapter 9 (Fount, 1979)
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Wounded and Healed, [Self Awareness]

I have a dear friend, Pastor Jim F. I have known him for over 20 years.  He has a real gift for understanding relationships. It is a knack that he has. Recently he made this observation, it is worth considering.

“The unhealed wounded, wound. The healed wounded, heal.” 

 You might have to read it slow.   But it seems that regardless, pain is the atmosphere we live in.  We can adjust, a certain degree at least.  But this planet remains a dangerous place.  Yet, healing does happen.  And we can than avoid  afflicting our pain on others.  It is possible.

There is little complexity in being wounded.  It is a word, a comment an inconsiderate act.  It happens quick, and its usually is not very sophisticated at all.  Children riding the school bus pierce the hearts of their classmates with frequency.  Husbands, crush their wives, and wives harm their children’s hearts.  We are seldom unscathed by the poison of each other.  We have mastered the art of hurting, and then call it social intelligence.

As Broken Believers we don’t have a monopoly on wholeness.  It may have given us an awareness, and may even have some remorse.  But it’s like we have the flu, we are intensely contagious.  Everyone who draws close, or crosses my path is infected.  I can be the “Typhoid Mary” of the Spirit.  At times, I seem to sicken everyone I meet.

I must be healed. My own wounds from over the years have accumulated.  They have been exacerbated–  made worse over time.  They say that time heals all wounds.  That seems logical, and encouraging even, but it simply isn’t real.  Maybe in an unfocused way, but much of the major woundings become much more painful.  I hurt worse now than ever.

I have has an ulcer on my tongue that won’t heal.  I have had it for the last 18 months.  It is painful, it wakes me up at night.  The sore rubs against my teeth and I start feeling like amputating my tongue to get some relief.  I am always aware of it, or so it seems.  My unhealed ulcerated tongue lowers me into reality.  On my heart there is another kind of ulcer.  Unkind words that have been spoken, hurtful things that have been done.

I guess I think it is both fitting and funny, for a preacher like me to be afflicted in this way.  I am being made aware that I speak words that sometimes harm and hurt.  Much of the things I say are simply normal, and maybe a bit boring.  But I can also speak venomous things.  And it is made worse because I carry the title of “pastor.”

We must be healed, we must be made whole.  We simply cannot continue to roll through people’s lives like we have for so long.  We must want to be healed, our hearts must be fixed, we are broken people.  If we are to bring healing, our own personal wholeness must first go to “the Great Physician.”  We cannot find strength in any other way.

ybic, Bryan

 

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(Lord, have mercy on us)

Unfixable Things, [Desperation]

sisyphis-bwLife is jam-packed with problems.  Money, marriage, children, work, health, church and so much more.  In Greek mythology, we find lessons from a man named Sisyphus.  He was the king of Corinth, and known to be a rascal. He was conniving and arrogant  (a good description, “hubris”). The gods hate hubris in people.

Somewhere along the line, he really ticked someone off and he was condemned for all eternity to roll a huge boulder up a large hill.  He would toil and sweat, to reach the top, only to have that boulder roll down the hill.  He would have to start all over again– endlessly repeating this work. Up and down– forever and ever. (Apparently– he’s at it today.)

I suggest that there are quite a few things that are inherently unfixable. It certainly seems like we are going to resolve them.  It may even seem like we’re making some headway.  When we get close, our boulder rolls down the hill. And we stand there looking dumbfounded, wondering what we can do differently next time. Often when we are aware of the tedium and the monotony– the repetitive effort; it seems about time that we do something different.

But there are also hard, and ghastly things, issues that we will never change.  We try, and then we try harder.  But it is apparent we can never make things so they click.  These are simply unfixable from our point of view. We’re completely– “over our head.” And, guess what?  We really are.

But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things. 42 Only one thing is important. Mary has chosen the better thing, and it will never be taken away from her.”

Luke 10:41-42, NCV

Making things work should never be your top priority.  We face problems that in ourselves we will never correct.  I must tell you this, we can’t turn these issues into our primary focus.

  1. The Lord Jesus is to be all that we seek.  He is our first priority. We are to concentrate on His dear presence– above all else.
  2. Perhaps, instead of seeking solutions for our lives, we should be seeking His face?
  3. Apart from His power we will forever labor and toil.

“Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.”

Philippians 4:13, MSG

We are to talk to Him about these things that perplex us. I would suggest that these convoluted problems are the Fathers’ way of driving us to Him.  Eternity is now our real home, and we must come to the place in God where we seek Him now, just like we will in heaven.  We can quit rolling our boulder up the hill.  We will cease and desist. Instead we will trust and seek His face.

“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. ” 

Ps. 32:8, ESV

“But we are citizens of heaven and are eagerly waiting for our Savior to come from there. Our Lord Jesus Christ 21 has power over everything, and he will make these poor bodies of ours like his own glorious body. ” 

Phil. 3:20-21, CEV

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