Johnson/VonVonderen write:
How would you picture a Christian who is growing in godliness? Would they convey restfulness, which comes from being comfortable and at peace with God? Would they convey a sense of fulfillment knowing that whatever spiritual work they were doing was in God's will, instead of feeling they had to keep striving for more perfection?
Would their advice be directing you to Jesus, or would it cause you to focus on yourself and your behaviors? And, ultimately, would this Christian bring with them a sense of life, which Paul describes as the "sweet fragrance of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 2:15 Amp)?
What follows are the ten most common areas of struggle for those who have been spiritually abused. (Tina's note: I am going to include the first 5 in this post.)
1. You develop a distorted image of God.
Here are some distortions people frequently have:
a. A God who is never satisfied, who keeps setting higher and higher goals and is eager to let you find out how much you have missed the mark.
b. A mean, vindictive God, who is waiting for us to make a mistake.
c. An apathetic God who watches when people are hurt and abused, but does nothing to help because it would mean having to challenge an authority figure or structure.
d. A God who is asleep, and doesn't even notice when people are hurt and abused.
e. The "utterly holy" God. He is like a spiritual burglar alarm, ready to go off anytime you think about sin.
2. You may have a hard time with grace.
The idea of being treated gracefully (treated to a fullness of grace) causes you great difficulty. This springs from the shame-based identity, which tells you that you don't deserve to be treated this way.
For Christians who have been taught an unbalanced idea about the way holiness comes into a believer's life, there will be an automatic rejection of living under grace -- really drawing upon grace daily -- as nothing more than "cheap grace," sensing that others are lazy, or are taking advantage of God, or are getting off the hook too easily. If you have to work, others should as well.
3. You may have a problem in the area of personal boundaries, an unclear understanding about "death to self" teachings and "rights."
People who misused their spiritual power have disrespected or beaten down your boundaries. They have shamed you out of your "no" or clouded your will and intruded into your life with religious agendas. They have violated our spirituality by playing "Holy Spirit." Having an opinion has come to equal lack of submissiveness. Have a right not to be abused is selfish.
4. You may have difficulty with personal responsibility.
If you've been spiritually abused, you may tend to the extreme of being under-responsible in your relationship with God and others. This simply means that you have realized that no amount of performance results in the promised prize of love, acceptance and rest. Therefore you either decide to give up, or you expend the least amount of energy possible in order to just get by.
On the other hand, you may have learned to be overresponsible, a burden bearer. Everyone's issues are yours to solve. Their heavy feelings are yours to fix. You have an impossible time saying no to people's needs and requests. After all, if you don't do it, who will? You have a greater sense of God needing you than of you needing God.
The most extreme form of overresponsibilty happens when you martyr yourself. You believe that having needs or opinions is selfish. Being affected by insults and thoughtless actions is immature, and having any feelings is oversensitive. Going without is a prime virtue. Feeling numb to life is the end result.
5. You may suffer from a lack of living skills.
Abusive systems develop a "bunker mentality." This is characterized by being closed and paranoid toward the outside, and secretive about what goes on inside. The mentality is not only separatist, but highly judgmental. With this mentality, many Christians may think only one or two colleges are "separate enough" from the world for students to be able to safely attend.
Spiritually abusive systems like this can produce a lot of college-educated common laborers. Let me quickly clarify. First, there is no disgrace in being a laborer. A laborer who depends on Jesus will do as much damage to the gates of hell as a minister who depends on Jesus. The disgrace is in promising people the benefits of a college degree, then giving them a second-rate education and charging them as if it were first-rate.
Second, there are many people educated in religious settings who have a first-rate education. There is nothing inherently wrong with home-schooling your kids or sending them to private Christian elementary, secondary or post-graduate schools. In fact, the concept of a first-rate education that includes the component of building people in their faith is wonderful.
The danger is in educating people in religious settings as a result of a "bunker mentality." People who think this way act as if contact with evil things present in "the world" are the reason people have problems. The solution, therefore, is finding ways to keep people isolated from contact with the world. This is naive at best, and, more probably, dangerous.
No comments:
Post a Comment