Tag: Jesus

Intensely Loved, but Definitely Broken, [Reality]

bryondeck-2For everyone who loves Jesus, but yet has had an experience of terrible loss, sickness or the death of a loved one…this post is meant for you.

I am evangelical, a former pastor, and a Bible college instructor. I also have bipolar depression, and a bit of paranoia and delusional thinking. I have been hospitalized in mental hospitals seven times in 10 years.  But, I love Jesus more than anything. And I’ve been told by many who repeatedly insist that He loves me as well.

I have experienced the darkest and most crippling depressions.  There are some weeks (months?) I could not get out of bed, shower or even eat.  For this Bipolar, I must take Lithium, Zoloft, and Lamictal.  These meds hold me in place. I’m being treated for a seizure disorder, and have had surgery to remove a tumor in my brain. I now walk with a cane.

“He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.”

1 Corinthians 1:3

This blog is geared for the mentally ill believer, the terminally ill, habitual sinners and all who are confused and dismayed by their own brokenness. But you don’t need a diagnosis to read this blog.

It seems like failures—

  • the mentally feeble,
  • lame,
  • chronically ill
  • blind, and deaf
  • sinners, great and small
  • and mentally ill have not always been welcome in the Church. I think that is about to change.

I’m honestly convinced that it has been the churches’ loss. How is the Church ever going to learn to love the unlovely without us to ‘train’ them? We the disabled are sprinkled into each fellowship to tutor them through our illnesses.

The church need not look to new ‘fund raising ideas’ or to pave the parking lot, it just needs to reach out to the broken– one at a time.  I think God will bless every church who will do this. This is the work and passion of Jesus. This is what Jesus’ church looks like. “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10.)

The Church needs us, whether it realizes it or not.  It is as broken people that we model our fallenness as the paradigm to intimacy with Jesus.  We often are the first to know that it has never been about our giftedness, but our intimacy. 

We are a witness, a tangled but tangible reminder, of how God’s grace gives His power to the weak and despised (2 Cor. 2).

“For I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” 

Matthew 9:13

“Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

Mathew 11:28-30

I simply can not say anything more. Just please love us.

“The power of the Church is not a parade of flawless people, but of a flawless Christ who embraces our flaws. The Church is not made up of whole people, rather of the broken people who find wholeness in a Christ who was broken for us.”

–Mike Yaconelli

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All scripture quotations are from the New Living Translation.

My Secret Temptations

Adam and Eve in the Garden by Michelangelo
Adam and Eve in the Garden, by Michelangelo

First and plainly, God has never tempted me to do anything evil. All that has come has been a test– to see if I would respond to sin. Whatever has come has me accepting the dark things over the light. God has no intention of seeing me fail in this. By resisting sin, I become strong. It is a gym of the Spirit.

I sin, because I want to. I will not excuse myself in this. I can’t blame God.

There are certain issues that I need to understand.

One, I must know the difference between needs and desires. We have a real need to know all that God has for us. But what I need and what I desire are separate issues. I dare not confuse the two.

Second, I’m to fix my eyes on Jesus. His own trials are meant to give me strength and purpose. He was tempted, but never sinned. His deepest passion is for me to understand this dynamic, We are not supposed to become casualties in this war against sin,.

Third,  admit your weakness over a certain sin. God blesses those who can do so, Power is give to all who admit their weakness. He is waiting for us to admit to all our flaws.

Fourth, there must be a willingness to resist sinning. Many breakdowns will come to thus point. We must want to hate the sin, but many will breakdown at this point. You must resist doing this.

Fifth, we must decide to flee certain things. “Run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts. Instead, pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love, and peace. Enjoy the companionship of those who call on the Lord with pure hearts.” That is up to do whatever you decide.

Sixth, you must ally yourself to those who are focused on this process. Face it, “lukewarm” Christians will bring you down. But real believers will lead you to an authentic intimacy. Become a friend to all who stand against sin.

Seventh, meditate on what awaits you in this. The Word has certain promises for all who seek Him. Find them, and take them up as your own. Believe into them. Only this can truly protect you from sin. It’s like wearing sunscreen on a hot day, these promises help.

Eighth. Rejoice in the realization all this is temporary and victory is guaranteed. These all are only for a brief time. Someday we will be golden and stand clean before our Lord Jesus. Things will be understood, and we will shine like the stars in heaven.

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The Test of a Profound Silence, [Extreme Faith]

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But Jesus gave her no reply, not even a word. Then his disciples urged him to send her away. “Tell her to go away,” they said. “She is bothering us with all her begging.”

Matthew 15:23, NLT

This is exceptional.  Jesus is always engaging people around him.  He teaches and preaches, fully energized by the Holy Spirit.  He is a veritable hurricane of goodness and love.  He heard every request, and healed every disease.  But yet.  On this occasion he is completely silent.

The woman’s piteous crying, and begging was seemingly ignored.  “If Jesus won’t respond to me, I will go to his followers.”  She presses, and cajoles.  She falls on her knees.  Have you ever seen a person truly beg?  It is a very disconcerting experience.  Yet, Jesus does nothing, in spite of being able to do all things.

She is a Canaanite; a pagan widow, and her daughter was demonized.  Curiously, there was a large heathen temple to Eshmun, the Canaanite god of healing, was just three miles down the road.  But her desperate cry was for something real.  Something authentic and real that would heal her daughter’s affliction.  Only Jesus has what she needs.

Jesus is astonishingly silent.  He stands and sees, he hears her cries.  She is sobbing, clutching at the disciples robes, disheveled and distressed.  It was a desperate scene. Very ugly and very sad.

Jesus responds to his disciple’s plea.  Then there is something that seems like a negotiation.  A protracted conversation with a ‘seemingly’ reluctant Messiah.  It is somewhat disturbing as we listen.  Jesus seems to treat her callously.  I have always been mystified by this, troubled by his behavior. I can only conclude that what he did was necessary in some way.

But the Son of God sees through this. 

And then she makes an incredible statement.  Jesus is suddenly amazed at her faith in him.  This faith is what he has been waiting to see. She may have known despair, but that isn’t enough. Jesus leads her from the edge. Until she moved to a position of belief, nothing will change. Faith seems to change everything.  This is key.  It isn’t her words that alters things– it is her heart!  At that moment, Jesus declares a healing for her daughter.  She is now free from the demon’s grip.

So often I have also felt the pressure from the darkness.  I am often embattled and driven into a despair that seems to cripple me.  But Jesus is waiting for me, to come to him through an unflinching faith.  My good works can never, ever be enough.  I’m just like a dog, waiting for food under the table.  I have little, if any, decorum or sophistication.  There is nothing at all, to commend me to him. Nothing at all.

“Our Lord sometimes yet seems to be silent to His people when they cry to Him. To all their earnest supplications He answers not a word. Is His silence a refusal? By no means. Ofttimes, at least, it is meant only to make the suppliants more earnest, and to prepare their hearts to receive richer and greater blessings. So when Christ is silent to our prayers, it is that we may be brought down in deeper humility at His feet, and that our hearts may be made more fit to receive heaven’s gifts and blessings.”

–J.R. Miller

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How God Guides Rascals [Direction]

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These are rough notes I just compiled. They seem to be the different ways God guides the broken believer into His purposes and into His Will. I simply hope you’ll be able to extrapolate off them to find a personal direction. These have worked for me for over 30 years of following the Lord Jesus Christ.

“I will lead the blind by a way they do not know,
In paths they do not know I will guide them.
I will make darkness into light before them
And rugged places into plains.
These are the things I will do,
And I will not leave them undone.”

Isaiah 42:16, NASB

I want to lay out some practical ideas for those who desire to hear God. The following are principles to be considered.

A Rascal’s List of Guidance

  1. Discipline, Hebrew 12:5-11, the “woodshed.”
  2. Wisdom (a.k.a., yours and other people’s mistakes) Ps. 73:24
  3. The Word, logos and rhema— corporate, and personal understanding, Isa. 30:21
  4. Counselors, and advice– Luke 14:31
  5. Supernatural means, dreams or prophecy seen many times in scripture
  6. Peace, joy and brokenness, humility— Ps. 25:9
  7. With His eyes on us, God’s attentiveness to our path
  8. The church, and its pastors and elders. Jeremiah 3:15
  9. Opposing counsel from a respected leader helps you count the cost, Agabus in Acts 21
  10. Family, close friends, relationships (can be secular)
  11. Duty and loyalty, a requirement for future insight, also faithful in little things
  12. Quietness and alertness, through prayer/worship. Wait, and wait some more.
  13. Circumstances, positive or negative, Ps. 32:8
  14. Testing, temptation– toward godliness always
  15. Greater servanthood to be had– which way makes me serve in a greater way?
  16. To give a future and a hope always, Jer. 29:11
  17. The Book of Proverbs (31 chapters in 31 days is no coincidence)
  18. Travel, seeing needs of others, and discerning real needs of overseas work
  19. God’s very nature is to reveal (and He knows your inadequacies)
  20. Away from error, especially religious cults or the occult, horoscopes, etc.
  21. God’s glory and for His honor only, Ps. 43:3

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In discerning the will of God, you should line up as many as possible— not just one, but several. He sees your eager heart, and He will make things clear. Remember, you must proceed in faith, (Hebrews 11:1, 6), “for we walk by faith, not by sight,” 2 Cor. 5:7.

Any deficiencies or short-comings of this list are exclusively my own. I’m certain you can make your own list and a better version. Feel free to distribute or use as you see fit. “Eat the meat, and spit out the bones.” Remember this verse: “It is God’s privilege to conceal things, and the king’s privilege to discover them.” Proverbs 25:2, NLT.

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