Rescued by My Misfit Church

Two of Mom’s three dogs are “rescues,” that is that she got them from the pound instead of from breeders.  Rescues tend to be mixed breeds, and if not adopted, they will be euthanized.  In many ways, I can relate to rescues because I feel more like a mutt than a pedigreed purebred.  And like the dogs, I was under the sentence of death, but Jesus rescued me.

All my life I’ve felt like a misfit.  I didn’t know precisely what to call that feeling until I moved to Italy.  As a foreigner in Italy, I finally understood this misfit feeling to be feeling foreign.  Yes, all my life I’ve felt foreign in my own country, and even among my own family.  Peter Wagner in his amazing book, Your Spiritual Gifts can Help Your Church Grow, points out that this is a sign of a missionary gift and calling.

I moved to Asheville over a year ago, but in truth I have spent very little time living here.  During this time I have visited a few churches to which I had been invited, but mostly attending Mom’s church and going to Bible studies and services here in the retirement community.

The first church that I was invited to (the day after moving day) was the church next door.  It is a small, very friendly church and the worship style is chandelier-swinging—which I love.  I like worship that is uninhibited and free because then I know that the people behind me (I prefer sitting down front) aren’t shocked by my uninhibited show of love for my Lord.  I have visited some churches where I have gotten comments about the freedom of my worship.  One pair of teenage girls once told me, “Wow!  You just don’t care!”  That could be taken a number of ways, but I prefer to take it as a compliment.

Most of the time I live in Italy.  And because of my traveling lifestyle, even when I’m in the US, I haven’t had a whole lot of opportunities to attend this church or get to know its people.  Until now, that is!  Before going to the conference in Dallas, I attended a Sunday evening service (before Thanksgiving) in which each of us was asked to share what we are thankful to God for.  In hearing about what they were thankful for, I learned that almost everybody there was a rescue like me—rescued first by others in the church, and then by Jesus.  Many of them are misfits like me.

The associate pastor told me that the church’s mission is to help those people who have been wounded by bad church experiences.  Certainly there are a lot of those, not just in Asheville, but all over the US.  It certainly is good to know that there is a place where misfits can fit together and all of us can be rescued—by each other and by the Lord.  I love my misfit church!  God is good!

Betrayal

The Bait of Satan by John Bevere

Day Six

This is day 6 of a 21 day fast for understanding the End Times (now), and knowing how to prepare for the perilous days ahead.  Today I heard a sermon by John Bevere based on his book The Bait of Satan.  The key scripture is Matthew 24:10-12, in which Jesus is speaking of the End Times (NKJV):

And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.  Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.  And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold (emphasis mine).

He pointed out that the word translated as love is agape, Christian love.  So Jesus isn’t speaking of unbelievers, He’s talking about God’s people.  People in the church—Christians—will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.  Lawlessness will abound in the church—among Christians.

Lawlessness means being a law unto yourself, not submitted to God’s authority.  So, not necessarily sinning, but definitely not submitted and following Jesus.  In an atmosphere of lawlessness, of course many will be offended.

Proverbs 18:19 says: “A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city, and contentions are like the bars of a castle” (NKJV).  In those days strong cities were surrounded by walls, also called strongholds.  2 Corinthians 10:3-5 says:

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.  The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.  We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ (emphasis mine).

Instead of the word pretension, the Phillips translation says “every deceptive fantasy and every imposing defence that men erect. . .”.

Bevere said that an offended person’s thoughts become strongholds—arguments, deceptive fantasies, imposing defences—and that is how offense leads to betrayal.  He defines betrayal as seeking to benefit or protect one’s self at the expense of someone you have a relationship with—the ultimate abandonment of a relationship.

Betrayal leads to hatred.  Hatred is not a strong emotion like love or anger, but is the absence of love, lovelessness.

Going back to Matthew 24, verse 11 says: “Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.”  An offended heart is the breeding ground for deception.  They will genuinely believe that they are right, when in fact, they are wrong.

Offense and deception lead people to isolate themselves: “A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; he rages against all wise judgment,” (NKJV, emphasis mine).  Rather than seeking God’s wisdom or the guidance and counsel of their pastor or believing friends, the offended and deceived person isolates themselves and rages against all wise judgment.  They seek only their own counsel.  Isolation happens in the thoughts.  It is very likely that the offended person still goes to church, but remains isolated in their mind, which makes them a perfect candidate for deception.

“. . . because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold,” (Matthew 24, verse 12).  The person is not seeking God, and not submitted to God’s authority, and likely they were already lawless before the offense.  When offended, their love (agape) will grow cold (hatred).

The person who can offend you the deepest is the person closest to you—your spouse, best friend, or pastor.  And it is very likely that the offended person has been genuinely mistreated.  But Bevere points out that if you want to walk with God, you don’t have the right to be offended.

This past year I have seen offense and betrayal up close and personal 4 times, in both marriages and ministries.  Twice I was a participant.  Once I was the party offended.  I had been so angry as a result of the offense that I was literally out of my mind.  It is true that this person genuinely mistreated me, and it is also true that there was no actual sin involved.  My wake-up call came when I couldn’t stop myself from raging at this person to the point of tears and fleeing from my presence.  That’s when I realized that my anger was way out of proportion with the offense.  I sought God and asked forgiveness from Him and from the person, both of whom were gracious to me, and there was a full reconciliation.

In the other incident, I had thought that only the other person was offended by something I had done.  In fact, we were both offended and we both betrayed each other.  I had been so deceived as to believe that I hadn’t been offended and that I hadn’t betrayed this person.  But in prayerful examination, I now see the truth.  The devil had been working both sides of this situation.  In this case, I’m not sure how to be reconciled to this person, but now that I can see my part in it, there’s at least the hope of reconciliation.

Be warned!  The deception is very powerful.  Verse 13 of Matthew 24 continues: “But he who endures to the end shall be saved.”  You can be right as right can be, and still go to hell because of your attitude.  We’ve got to be alert and firm in our love for one another.

To see John Bevere’s full sermon follow this link: The Bait of Satan.  God is good!  He’s also very patient with me!

Lessons in Floating

Last Year – When I was here at the beautiful Adriatic Sea last year, the Holy Spirit told me to go for a swim.  I loved the beach when I was a kid—what kid doesn’t?  But as an adult, I had come to associate the sea with many discomforts: the itchy feeling of salt water dried on the skin, oily sunscreen crusted with sand, fair skin that burns despite the use of sunscreen SPF 45, the sand that gets into places it shouldn’t, and a body that’s white and lumpy and looks better clothed than in a swimsuit—intense body shame.  So it was with all that beach-hating baggage that the Holy Spirit told me to take a swim.

Despite my bags and baggage, I did take a swim.  Leaving my glasses on top of my towel, I walked toward the water.  I saw something washed up on the beach that looked like a dead jellyfish.  I’ve been stung by jellyfish.  It’s like being stung by an electric wasp—definitely an experience I don’t want to ever have again.  But instead of turning back, I just laughed.  If God wants me to swim, then He has a purpose.  “Besides,” I told myself, “it was probably just a plastic bag from somebody’s beach lunch.”

I had decided that my act of obedience meant that I should get completely wet.  So I got about waist-deep, then dove into the waves.  After paddling around for a few minutes, I thought that I was finished.  But the Holy Spirit told me: “Lay back.”  I did, and discovered something wonderful: I float like a cork!  I am so buoyant that I can even float with my head above the water, toes above the water, and bottom down.  But laying back with my ears under the water was incredibly peaceful, and little by little I felt my limbs release their muscular tension.

I took that first swim fully clothed because I didn’t have my swimsuit with me.  I understood that swimming would be something I should do every day while I was here, so I knew I needed to buy a swimsuit.  The only thing I’ve hated more than the beach is buying a swimsuit.  The last one I bought online, and it covered so much of me that it was almost a throwback to the old swimsuits they used in the early 1900’s.  I knew that if I thought too much about it, I would talk myself out of buying one, so I just plunged into a swim shop and bought one.  It’s not bad looking.

A few days after that first swim the wind kicked up, bringing bigger waves.  Thanks to a breakwater, the big waves are tamed into choppy little wavelets before they reach the swimming area by the beach.  During my floating session that day, God (who had never repeated Himself to me before) told me: “Relax!  Relax!  Relax!”  And the little wavelets shook each limb with a different rhythm and out of synch with one another.  It reminded me of a Lamaze exercise in which your coach takes an arm and your teacher takes the opposite leg and they shake them in differing rhythms.  You are supposed to practice releasing the tension in those muscles and all the others in between.  And that memory tickled me so much that I laughed out loud—and a more profound relaxation followed.  God has the greatest sense of humor!

The lesson in physically relaxing taught me to relax when I’m worried about things going wrong.  Without going into detail (which you can read about in my book “Look, Listen, Love,” available from http://www.lulu.com/), I learned that I can relax and let God work out the things that I have no control over.  And when I do really relax and release those worries, God not only works things out, but blesses me in unexpected ways.  And one of those things, you can read about in my blog post: https://europeanfaithmissions.wordpress.com/2012/06/17/god-meets-radical-faith-with-radical-provision/.

This Year – I have returned to the beach, bringing two very dear friends with me.  The three of us have gone to the beach each day, floating and swimming, talking and laughing, praying and praising our Heavenly Father.

A lesson that God has been teaching me recently is to let go of the past—particularly past offenses and betrayals, but also past mistakes or bad choices that I need to forgive myself.  I have been working on it, releasing those people and things to God, forgiving and letting them go.  But every once in a while, the memory of these things comes to mind, robbing me of my focus and trying to rob my peace.  Whenever this happens, I try to release the memory as quickly as possible.

While floating yesterday, the Holy Spirit told me that, just as I had learned to relax my worries into God’s hands, I also need to relax my memories into His hands.  And lying there on the bosom of the sea, I did exactly that.

This morning during my prayer time, once again I found my attention wandering to a painful event.  Immediately, I said, “Let it go!  Let it go!  Let it go!” and I released the memory and returned my focus to God, my Peace.

When it comes to relaxing my grip on those memories, would it be wrong to say that I’m working on it?  I’m grateful that God is a patient Teacher.  God is good!