When a Voice Says: "Hurt Back"

We have been considering voices that tell us the wrong course. Yesterday, we traced the voice all the way back to the Garden of Eden, where we know the owner of the voice is the serpent, or Satan.

The voices we hear often belong to that enemy, which is actually an organized legion of many.

Dr. Scott Peck, psychiatrist and best-known as author of The Road Less Traveled, bravely sought to raise evil--as the myriad manifestation of these voices--to a level of actual, psychiatric diagnoses.

As we know, in the world of medicine, a diagnosis begets treatment, and he became an expert in treating the angst caused by these voices in our head.

A common thread of these voices is to hurt back. Who hasn't been hurt by others--or inflicted hurt on our own?

Jesus modeled absorbing every hurt in the universe so that we might consider absorbing a few hurts from others, returning love rather than hurting back. This doesn't sound like such a winning formula, but it has a power of its own.

Dr. Peck describes this mystery in People of the Lie:

...the only ultimate way to conquer evil is to let it be smothered within a willing, living human being. When it is absorbed there like blood in a sponge or a spear into one's heart, it loses its power and goes no further.

The healing of evil--scientifically or otherwise--can be accomplished only by the love of individuals. A willing sacrifice is required. The individual healer must allow his or her own soul to become the battleground. He or she must sacrificially absorb the evil.

But, you ask, what will happen if you become this willing sacrifice? After all, you are the "victim" of the hurt. He continues:

Then what prevents the destruction of that soul? If one takes the evil itself into one's heart, like a spear, how can one's goodness still survive? Even if the evil is vanquished thereby, will not the good be also? What will have been achieved beyond some meaningless trade-off?

I cannot answer this in language other than mystical. I can say only that there is a mysterious alchemy whereby the victim becomes the victor. As C.S. Lewis wrote: "When a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards."

I do not know how this occurs. But I know that is does. I know that good people can deliberately allow themselves to be pierced by the evil of others--to be broken thereby yet somehow not broken--to even be killed in some sense and yet still survive and not succumb. Whenever this happens there is a slight shift in the balance of power in the world.

Be a power player.

When a Voice Says: "You Deserve Better"

It seems there are contrasting "betters."

The world would urge you to take what is yours--more of this and that, possessions, entitlements, anything based on self. The energy flow is from the world to you. The timeline for this better is now.

The Bible would urge you to give what you have--launching your service to the world out of your God-given gifts, with little thought of self. The energy flow is from God to you to others. The timeline for this better may be now but more likely will be far into the future.

So tempting to settle for the wrong better.

The fight between the two began with the voice speaking to Eve in the Garden of Eden:

You won't die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you'll see what's really going on. You'll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.

Implied: You (we) deserve this better.

It is a trap--this temporary, for-sale-at-all-costs better.

Can we trust God that there is really a better better?

Only if we can trust that Jesus actually spent his life on a cross, dying to bring us a holiness that reunites us with the God that wants to give us what He deserves--an eternity we cannot conceive.

Hold out to receive what God deserves.

When a Voice Says: "Quit"

The interval from "quit" to "don't quit" is a hard and dusty road, full of potholes and failures and unrelenting voices.

You are a parent or teacher with a child before you who is ready to give up on a particular endeavor. With what you hope is wisdom, you say, "Don't quit now!"

You are an adult with a goal (eating right, exercise, training for a better career) and you are ready to give up. Someone close to you, with what he or she hopes is wisdom, says, "Don't quit now!"

How, exactly, do you not quit?

The gap between quitters and those who keep going may be less about personal strength and more about understanding how to combat the voices of defeat.

Understand that if you are on a God-approved mission, you have two voices with which to say no to the bullying, quit-now voices: yours and God's.

When yours is weak, His is strong.

I love the saying:

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Certainly your goal may appear as out of reach as eating that elephant.

One day at a time, one quitter voice deflected at a time, asking God to help your voice join His voice in the fight to stay with the program.

It's all about the voices. Feeding your strength means recognizing the incredible power of your desire matched with God's authority in the matter.

Team up. The quitter voices will scatter.

You Come With a Warranty

A strange manufacturer makes a strange product.

The product is guaranteed to last forever...forever.

That's a really long time.

This manufacturer sets the product in motion for the express purpose of getting it returned.

What manufacturer hopes for that?

The product often resists return to the manufacturer because it strangely wants to exist on its own, without needed repair and regeneration.

It acts more like it wants to expire.

Crazy product.

But now the warranty...that is really something. The manufacturer speaks the warranty through his manager, a guy who goes by the name of Jesus:

Every [product] the [manufacturer] gives me eventually comes running to me. And once that [product] is with me, I hold on and don't let go.

See, I told you the manufacturer wants the product returned.

So fight, crazy product, fight. Resist repair and regeneration.

It looks like one of these days, your warranty is going to win in spite of you.

When Anger Takes Over

When loss or intrusion or violation is so giant and so tragic that it takes over your life for a time, anger usually takes center stage at some point in the healing process.

Anger is useful to the holder, as it restructures a protective spirit. It is your soul fighting for the right, or fighting to be righted, once again.

The danger is to those with whom you share life, for anger can spill out of your container into theirs with unintended consequences.

Consider this:

Be angry until your anger is spent. Don't leave any behind to congeal into bitterness.

Freedom is spent anger--when spent in the presence of the Lord--for He alone can hold it for you.

Be angry at Him, with Him, but not away from Him. Your anger in His presence is your compass back to freedom.

Anger is a God-given segment of our spirit.

Transform it into the useful tool that it is by waging it with the power and in the presence of God.

Don't Forget to Dance

Is dancing with God on your long to-do list as you start out this week?

The thing about dancing is that it pretty much requires your total attention. It doesn't really lend itself to multi-tasking.

That would give God your full attention, at least for the duration of the dance.

And you need music. It is entitled Grace and is found in Matthew 11:

Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.

If you dance--or keep company--with God at least a little each day, you learn to live freely and lightly.

The unforced rhythms of grace, I think, are the countless ways He shows up through your day, always creative, always personal, but you miss it when you force your path onto your day.

If you set out to dance, you are free to be captured as His partner when He shows up with a circumstance, a remark, an intersection of events that whisper only to you.

He can do that, you know. He can make you His one and only dance partner this week.

But, as in any dance, He needs your permission.

Does your calendar having dancing with God on it?

I bet He hopes so.

The Withholding

Let's be honest. There are more than a few things about God that drive us crazy.

He zigs when we think He should zag.

He's slower than Christmas.

Or, He dumps us unceremoniously into a situation with lightning speed that leaves us breathless. (I went from teacher to assistant principal in a K-8 school when I was eight months pregnant with my third child. Now that was some crazy timing.)

But the thing I understand least is His withholding.

He withholds things I'm sure I need, but then lavishly provides those things I didn't realize I was lacking.

In the midst of my arguing with Him about His withholding, I discover perhaps the deepest secret He teaches:

Trust the judgment of the Lord.

Wait on the withholding.

The reason there must be a reason for what He withholds? He is a parent, too.

Just as we wisely withhold from our children--when we want to give them everything--He must have to stop Himself from doing the same.

Kind of a cool thought. Maybe that doesn't drive me so crazy after all.