The Importance of Being Honest–With Ourselves and Others

Sometimes God will give me a shocking dream in order to drive a particularly uncomfortable point home about character issues. I never emerge from nights like this particularly well-rested or happy. 

Last night was one of those nights. So be careful poking at me, I might snap at you. (Just kidding)

The dream started out with a familiar face, a face that I trust more than most to be kind to people. But she wasn’t being kind. She was saying something positively vile, just beyond the pale of civilized conversation, about our server–the woman who had taken our order. The comments were unnecessary and based on conjecture, cruel conjecture at that. They were personal in the worst sort of way and not because she knew our server but just because. This otherwise seemingly kind person was being incredibly petty and cruel. I was stunned. I still am hours later.

Then I watched as the realization swept over her face (I love in dreams how I can read people’s minds even though I can’t in real life) that this server was making the food and might spit in it. 

Yes, I know, servers don’t make the food but this is a dream and not a documentary. 

My friend panicked and, when the server came back around, begged for forgiveness but she told a huge lie in order to secure that forgiveness. Plus, I knew she wasn’t sorry but concerned over the consequences. This was an escape act of the highest caliber, containing just enough of a grain of truth to draw the victim into the lie. I am going to change the story in order to protect the person in question (remember this was a dream meant to teach me something and not a newsflash about this person’s character–the overwhelming majority of dreams are not predictive):

“Oh, I am so sorry,” she sniffled, starting to pour out the waterworks. “I can’t imagine how you must feel about me right now but I have a terrible medical condition that I have suffered with for many years and when it strikes I just say the cruelest things and oh my gosh I am so embarrassed. You have no idea what it is like to just be like this but that’s no excuse, what I said was so terrible and horrible. I am so sorry…” and the excuses and the sobbing continued on and on and on until the server, struck with compassion, told her that it was all okay and that she totally understood and not to think anything more about it.

It was a masterful performance on a number of levels. Of course, I knew it was pure bupkiss. She wasn’t currently suffering from her condition and hadn’t been for quite a long time–plus, she misrepresented how it affects her anyway. But she sure sounded convincing, I will give her that. 

The most interesting thing was watching as my friend wove this woeful story, how as she got deeper into it, the more I could see her beginning to believe it herself. No, she wasn’t the bad guy. She wasn’t responsible. This woman didn’t have the right to feel injured or wronged. And not only that, I watched as she fooled herself to the point of actually beginning to feel good about herself, justified even. Yes, she and only she was the true victim. 

I could see it dawning on her, “I am not a bad person. I am not the kind of person who would say such things without a really good reason.”

The yarn she was spinning became the very web she was now entangled in. 

As the server’s face softened and her shoulders lowered–as we all do when we begin to believe and empathize with someone else–my friend’s guilt lifted away and she began to feel more and more justified. By the time the server told her how okay everything was, my friend was fully engrossed in the righteousness of her own cause–feeling like a good person once again.

Dang, I half expected the server to return with a free cupcake for my friend.

**************

Yes, it was just a dream but how often do we lie in order to escape the consequences of our own actions? How often do we render our apologies meaningless by explaining why we don’t need to apologize at all? How often do we fool ourselves into thinking we have apologized when the necessary words have never crossed our lips? How often do we turn ourselves into the victims instead of the villains? All too often. 

(And as a side thought, how many times do we get angry that our non-apology wasn’t accepted because the other person saw right through it?)

I even wonder if the dream had continued on (which it didn’t but I wish I had been able to smack her to her senses–and hard) if going forward she might have actually related the entire incident differently to others–just in case she wanted to head off any outside consequences or to continue to reframe the narrative in her mind whenever her pesky conscience reared its ugly head. I’ve seen people do that as well. 

The truth is that we tend to be liars when faced with seeing ourselves and our actions for what they really are. We want to be the heroes of our own life stories. We can’t bear to remember the horrible things we do and so we change them. We change them even to the point of believing it when we do. And, I mean, the crazy thing is that by doing this we make ourselves twice the villain and our victims doubly wronged–or more if the story really gets out there. But we have saved our reputation, even if it is based on a lie, and thus evaded the well-deserved consequences of our actions. 

This is why it is healthy to come to a place where we see ourselves as one part villain and one part hero, part wronged, and part perpetrator. We can never lose sight of the evil we are capable of and we must embrace that truth or we can slowly inch our way over to a place where we become unsafe and tyrannical–to the place where we cease to be trustworthy because lies never get smaller, only bigger. Those who lie to strangers to avoid consequences are going to lie to friends and family because the need to be trusted and seen as good comes to outweigh the need for actually being trustworthy and good. But we can never stop at lying to strangers, or to loved ones–in order to live with ourselves as liars, we must also deceive ourselves into believing that we are, in fact, justified and even good.

And it generally starts with the anti-fruit of pride and fear. Fear of consequences. Fear of having to change. Fear of confrontation (that’s a biggie). Pride in a non-realistic perception of our own integrity–one that we have not earned because the illusion can only be maintained through lies and excuses. And when religion gets thrown into the midst and we need to be seen as super-spiritual warriors fighting the good fight? Oh, man. Seeing ourselves as anything less can be devastating–and yet we are less. We are all less and when we embrace that, we can begin to become what we need to believe we are.

But dishonesty is never the way. Avoiding confrontation is nothing but cowardice. Shirking consequences is just making someone else pay double for what we have done wrong.

The people we wrong deserve justice and truth–and not to be further wronged. The path toward justice and righteousness begin with the truth–not what is modernly labeled “our truth” because that is often a lie but the truth. What really happened. What we decided, of our own free will, to do. Taking full responsibility. No excuses.

Refusing to embrace the consequences of our bad acts is the same as refusing justice for someone else–in doing so we become oppressors.

Our God can work miracles with our courageous honesty. The enemy can work his own wonders with our lies, fears, pride, and cowardice.



The Seven Deadly Hangups: Insecure Pride

I tell you, I had a hard time deciding on a name for this because pride is complex and there are many different kinds. You have, on one hand, that true narcissistic pride which sees no fault in itself and there is no point even writing about that because a narcissist will never see themself in it so why bother? Then there is the healthy sort of pride in one’s own hard-earned accomplishments and there is nothing wrong with that either. But what I want to discuss here is what I call “hangup pride” or “insecure pride.” It is the kind of pride that protects a fragile ego instead of projecting a strong ego. It is a very dangerous sort of pride not connected to healthy self-esteem but rather self-centered protection that is ultimately damaging to self and others.

This is the fourth in a series that has previously covered shame, rejection, and neediness. 

Although this sort of pride predates the internet, online social media has become a veritable playground for people who suffer from self-esteem issues in real life. This oftentimes results in posters reveling in relative anonymity and indulging in the sort of bravado that they could never muster up the courage to engage in in real life (sometimes because of their fear of being punched in the face when they do deserve it). This can be bad or good, of course–even Paul noted how bold he was in writing and how meek he was in person. I can totally relate to that by the way. But the Apostle Paul didn’t seem to suffer from any sort of self-esteem issues! Quite the contrary. He was confident and put his life on the line often in the preaching of the Gospel to the heathen Gentile world. He was motivated by a love borne in Him by God and Paul was confident and bold in that love and in his mission. So, that’s not what I am talking about here–not the love that sacrifices self for others but instead the love/hate of self that endangers others in its insecurity.

Have you ever run into someone who is seemingly bold but cannot be told they are wrong? Maybe people so determined to be right that they will lie or promote lies in defense/promotion of their agendas and opinions? Or maybe someone willing to shift blame and lie about themselves and others in order to evade the shame of having been caught in error or sin? How about those who ruthlessly lash out against and demean those with whom they disagree (even if only passive-aggressively)? And when they go on later to find out they actually were wrong, refuse to apologize and sidestep the issue entirely so that they are still correct? People who don’t know the difference between truth, speculation, and opinions yet are willing to destroy others in defense of them? People who refuse to be held accountable by anyone?

There are people who will rush in and proclaim, “narcissist”! But haven’t we seen that word overused by folks way too much? Isn’t it just an easy insult (often a cheap shot meant to discredit) instead of an actual professional diagnosis? We make such words sadly meaningless in a world where all you have to do is hold a person accountable for their own bad acts in order to be called that. I wish people would toss that word away and allow it to be used exclusively by those who know how to use it.

Insecure pride is very much insecure and very much prideful. People who qualify for this label project an aura of pride, but that pride is so fragile that it cannot bear being threatened. Everything they do has to somehow be justified–even when they know in their hearts that it cannot be. People whose pride is insecure are therefore untrustworthy and I know that is going to hurt people to read but it is very much true. A person who cannot admit error is not trustworthy because they do not live in the real world. They see the sins of others (although sometimes they cannot see the sins of loved ones because that is also tied together with their own shaky self-esteem) but when faced with their own sins, their minds immediately put up walls of excuses. 

An insecure and prideful person might realize that they have said something cruel for an instant and then their egos swoop in to cover it up, “Oh I was only speaking the truth in love.” Or maybe, “Sometimes the truth hurts.”

Or perhaps they find out that they have spoken and promoted lies and, again, their egos come to their “rescue”, “Well, my intentions were good so it really wasn’t wrong. The ends justify the means.” Or my favorite, the unspoken “If I don’t lie then they won’t change their mind.”

How about when faced with personal failure? Oh, that’s actually someone else’s fault or they were treated unfairly–anything but just facing and admitting the failure that all people experience and healthy people can cope with.

People with insecure pride–their minds work overtime in order to make themselves the heroes and martyrs of their own life stories. Being normal folks who succeed and fail, who can be jerks and who can be wrong–well, that just ain’t gonna cut it. They have a neurotic need to be unassailable, unchallenged, and to have the illusion of being perfect because their self-esteem is based on an illusion of perfection. An illusion that is driving them increasingly toward sin and imperfection.

But all that I have related–it’s all a life based on self-deception. And those who deceive themselves will deceive others as well. They will lie about things and about circumstances and about people and they have often become so adept at fooling themselves that they might only feel a momentary twinge of conscience before their minds move in to excuse and shut that nagging voice of reason down. You see, in a person with insecure pride, the conscience and the Holy Spirit which convicts are natural-born enemies to the fragile ego. I can tell you this personally because I used to be that person who could not admit error, who would lie rather than take responsibility, and who would shrug off the conviction of the Spirit. 

I’ll tell you when I started to stop all that–when I was taken before the throne of God and judged for it. That’s right, that’s how bad I was. God had to translate me to His throne room in order to get me to start facing the truth about myself, my intentions, and my lies. Of all the things in my life, I am probably the least proud of this episode. I was destined for the ministry and I was begging Him to change me but that was the first step and it was painful beyond belief. No one wants such a hefty dose of truth all in a moment. No one wants to see the truth of their every word, thought, and deed. I could no longer effectively hide from who I was. There are no lies in the presence of God.

And in the years since then, sometimes I am a goober head still but it’s easier for Him to convict me now. I am no longer under the delusion that I am always right, or that it is dangerous to admit error (and even publicly, no more hiding!), or that my worth as a person hinges on always winning and never being shamed. When I was like that, I couldn’t be trusted because a person like that can do anything, excuse anything, and justify anything. I wasn’t a safe person because you couldn’t trust what I was saying–everything revolved around making sure that I wasn’t perceived as being anything less than perfect and sadly, even if someone else had to look bad in order for me to achieve that goal. I always secretly felt that humiliation would somehow kill me when all it really did was reveal my insecurity.

Goodness, you want to avoid humiliation? Do you think it will kill you to admit error? The God whose Bible contains very unflattering descriptions of even His greatest servants isn’t really interested in our trying to maintain an aura of perfection.

Truth be told, I was so terrified of being wrong, of not having a good excuse, of not being totally justified–frankly, of being the villain of my life story sometimes–that my insecurity became a destructive force. Tragically, too many people suffering from this malady are in the ministry, where they ran to seek out relevance, importance, and authority–not to serve God but to live in the illusion of being good. I have been the victim of some of these men and women and I am not alone. But people who can’t be disagreed with, who cannot tolerate being eclipsed by another ministry, who can’t bear being wrong–in other words, people who must unceasingly exalt themselves at any cost–they tear down the Kingdom and the people who are the very building blocks of that Kingdom. Unfortunately, people like that gather around them enablers who feel useful protecting the ego of such “great men of God.” And maybe they are great in some ways but insecure pride is a devastating tool in the hands of the enemy. A lot of people who end up in the ministry were once children under the authority of unpleasable parents who used disapproval as a weapon of control–but no one can afford to live like that forever. We must want more for our own children and for the people to whom we minister. Abuse is no excuse–it’s only an explanation. 

I understand that this is a kind of long ramble, but I hope you get my point in writing this. We cannot be the kinds of people who lie to ourselves and others in pursuit of feeling comfortable and safe and correct. It is anathema to the Kingdom, a curse to the people in it. The first casualty in our quest to maintain the illusion of our insecure pride might be the truth but that is never the last casualty. With me, being judged and being progressively set free in this area began with a simple prayer, “Lord, please kill me before you allow me to hurt others the way I have been hurt.” In the Kingdom, we must be willing to die in order to serve; otherwise, we will kill in order to have the illusion of being perfect servants.



The Seven Deadly Hangups–Neediness

I remember getting the social media friend request from a complete stranger. I accepted it on my home computer right before Mark and I drove the forty-five minutes down to Costco in Pocatello, Idaho. This was in my “pre-smartphone” days (yes, I have only been plugged in for 2 1/2 years now and I still only rarely have messenger functioning) and so you can just imagine my shock when, three hours later, I return home to a bunch of hostile messages:

Her:

*wave*
“Hello, new friend!”
“Hey there, how are you?”
“Are you there?”
“Boy, it must be nice having SO MANY FRIENDS that you can ignore people who are reaching out!!”

I will spare you where it went from there.

So, I got home and found all this, reading with growing disbelief, and replied,

Me: “I was shopping. We had to drive to another town and shop. I don’t have Facebook on my phone because it’s a flip phone. Even if I did, why do you expect me to always be on my phone and why do you think I have an obligation to answer your messages right away?”
Her: “Oh, well maybe I was wrong. How are you today?”
Me: “You WERE wrong. Otherwise, I am a liar.”
Her: “Oh well, it’s no big deal.”
Me: “It is a big deal, you just subjected an absolute stranger to abuse because you figured that by accepting your friend request I owed you my undivided attention and when you didn’t get it you got really nasty and you haven’t even had the decency to apologize. You’re still holding out hope that this is actually just a misunderstanding but I understand perfectly–you are always going to be demanding and I don’t have time to deal with a demanding stranger.”

I unfriended this person and blocked further messages because I recognized the poison of neediness coupled with entitlement. A lot of people are needy but when it is coupled with an unfettered entitlement complex then they need counseling and an in-person relationship to get through it. I am well aware of the limitations of my skillset coupled with the inadequacy of Facebook messenger. Dealing with an already hostile and needy individual who is quick to jump to conclusions, when she can’t see the look on my face or hear the tone of my voice, was just going to be one big mistake. Any further communication was going to feed right into her paradigms.

But, you know, I have also been that needy person–just not with the added hostility. And I see neediness crop up in so many people’s lives in so many ways but it always comes down to the same thing–we have developed an unreasonable expectation that we can find significance and joy only in others or in stuff and our lives become a reflection of that misperception. Neediness, however, is never about actual needs–it is about desires. A desire not to be lonely anymore. A desire not to feel pain or sadness. A desire for significance. A desire for respect. A desire to be attractive. A desire to be approved of.

We all have these desires, and a little bit of these is okay, but neediness is when they get out of control and they rule over us and do harm to anyone else who gets close.

A single parent whose desire to not be alone anymore outweighs their good sense will often subject their children and themselves to terrible abuses in the quest to satisfy that neediness.

A desire not to feel pain or sadness often ends in addictions to food, sex, porn, online gaming, alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs.

A desire for significance, and especially when it is sought out in the ministry, can destroy lives as one person’s desires swallow up an entire congregation or community.

A desire for respect often manifests in manipulation and lies in order to maintain the illusion of being worthy of that respect–not to mention the tearing down of anyone who threatens that respect in any way.

A desire to be attractive can become a financial and emotional pit of despair as people spend more and more money on cosmetics, clothing, surgery, and worship their own perceived image at the gym.

A desire for approval–that can be the most deadly of all. I have seen people completely deny themselves in the quest to be approved of and I have also seen them destroy anyone who seems to disapprove.

As I said, a little bit of each of these is normal and even healthy. But neediness is never good. Neediness is always going to hurt those around us. Neediness is always unreasonable and a horrible taskmaster. Neediness is a liar. Neediness tells us that we can find fulfillment in others and in things but have you ever noticed that neediness is never satisfied? No matter how much it gets? Neediness always demands more as nothing is ever truly enough.

We have to confront our own neediness head-on. We have to learn the difference between what we actually need to survive and what we want to have in order to make us feel good. They aren’t even remotely the same thing. Neediness poisons every personal relationship and every relationship with things that could otherwise be beneficial–like food. Neediness is never satisfied. Neediness is the god of our own desires and will prevent us from serving the Kingdom of God.

Speaking from experience, God can heal neediness but He doesn’t do it by giving in to it. He conquers it. He doesn’t mollify it or enable it.

And it is so desperately important that we cooperate with that process. Otherwise, we will suck dry the lives of everyone around us in our neverending (and ultimately futile) quest for self-satisfaction and unrealistic ideals of fulfillment.

Part one–shame

Part two–rejection

 



The Seven Deadly Hangups–Shame

This is the second part in a series concerning the mindsets that hold us back from growing in Messiah and becoming fully functioning members of the Body. Last time, I covered rejection but this time we are going to explore a much more complicated issue–shame.

You see, shame is the proverbial double-edged sword. Shame can be very good and shame can be very bad. The entire Bible was written from the vantage point of honor and shame, the ancient societal mindset that still governs two-thirds of the world today. In its proper context, shame can be a powerful force for good but, used improperly, shame can be crippling. Now, in the past, people who are not familiar with me or what I teach have made the accusation that I advocate a return to honor/shame dynamics but that’s absolutely untrue. The western world could not function sociologically that way, we just couldn’t. And frankly, I really wouldn’t want to! I teach the sociological context of honor and shame so that people can better understand the Bible, but anyone who suggests more than that is being untruthful. Anyone who has come from a shameful family past would want to avoid living in the type of society that takes “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” with deadly earnest. Western society judges people as individuals who make personal decisions to be good or bad, honorable or shameful, on their own. I like that.

But what I am wanting to discuss today has absolutely nothing to do with the Biblical concept of shame! So, if you are familiar with my teachings on that, just put that to the side. I am wanting to discuss modern shame from a Western standpoint–where there is a lot of overlap with ancient shame but also some very significant differences. People in the ancient world were not as introspective as we are and, if they were accepted by society, didn’t spend time feeling ashamed of themselves. They only cared about what other people thought about them.

So, what is shame? Let me start with an amusing example:

A lack of shame is why toddlers delight in streaking. I will never forget the day the Pastor’s daughter escaped from the group on the way to the nursery, ripped off her dress, and paraded nude and giggling through the sanctuary during services. To the delight, of course, of absolutely everyone in attendance. We were roaring with laughter–well, except for her parents. We all laughed because it wasn’t our kid. Shame is why an adult wouldn’t do the same, and why, if he or she did, no one would be laughing (except any teenagers in attendance).

You see, in this sort of situation, shame is good and a lack of shame is bad. There is nothing wrong with healthy societal norms that are enforced by a reasonable dose of community-implemented shame. Pedophilia was considered to be respectable in ancient Greece and expected even as one of the rights of adult males. If you tried to shame them over it, they would look at you like you were nuts. Nowadays, pedophiles go to extreme lengths to go undetected, because their actions are grossly shameful to us. In fact, they use a weaponized form of inappropriate shame in order to keep their victims from exposing them. They have shunned good shame and are using inappropriate shame in order to control. Their world is upside down and that is a big part of the reason why molestation victims have such a hard time healing and often offend themselves–their sense of shame is manipulated and warped out of shape.

So, we aren’t going to talk about good shame here, at least not yet. I want to talk about shame that was once good but has been held on to for way too long, past the point of usefulness, and shame that never should have existed in the first place–what I call inappropriate shame.

Inappropriate shame can come in many forms–I already mentioned one:

(1) When the victims of a crime are manipulated into feeling as though they are to blame for the actions of another. The Bible explicitly speaks against this–rape victims are labeled as innocent as murder victims. Deut 22:26 “But you shall do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no offense punishable by death. For this case is like that of a man attacking and murdering his neighbor…” Now, I know men and women who have been raped and children who have been molested–as well as teenagers who have been seduced by much older manipulators who took advantage of their position of authority. The shame lies with the person who had the intent to do evil, who chose evil actions. We would never shame a murder victim, nor does the family of a murder victim feel any shame. They feel grief. As a society, we need to look at this situation the way the Bible does and put all the shame on the person who did evil and give all our love and compassion to the person they victimized. To do otherwise is upside down and unbiblical. A good example, biblically, of handling this wrong is found in how King David handled the sexual assault of his daughter Tamar by his eldest son Amnon.

(2) Hanging on to shame over things we did as children. Oddly enough, we tend to look back on our own childhood with adult eyes–as though we knew then what we know now. Nonsense! We were foolish idiots, every single one of us. Whenever I am talking to people about the shame they feel over things they now regret having done as kids, I ask them if they would subject a child who is doing the same things now to the same sort of vitriolic abuse they are heaping upon themselves. Generally, they think about it and are horrified at the very idea of treating a child the way they treat themselves. At that point, I point out to them that they are doing harm to an innocent–the innocent just happens to be their younger selves. The repenting for the sins of their childhood has to end at some point, and they have to let that child go. Really, that child has been gone, dead and buried for a long time and only that child’s memories and scars remain. Let the child rest in peace.

(3) There are folks who are masters of inducing shame as a means of controlling others over debatable personal choices that are neither moral or immoral, and sometimes over choices that are flat out immoral. I will never forget the time my friend had breast cancer and had to undergo a radical double mastectomy to save her life. Well, miraculously she got pregnant the next year. She was on a mom’s forum and there was a woman there berating her because “breast is best” and that, and yes she actually said this, my friend was dooming her child to mental retardation and a lifetime of illness because her child would be formula-fed. I mean, it is ludicrous. If this was true then every adopted baby would be in the special needs classes and sickly. BTW, I was formula-fed because my mom was never able to maintain a milk supply and I am a college graduate and my first job out of college, where I graduated with a degree in Chemistry, was in aerospace research. My own exclusively formula-fed adopted son is currently getting a degree in Criminal Justice and Criminology and he never gets sick. But I mention this to point out that there are a lot of people out there who, in order to promote their choice, will ruthlessly shame everyone who doesn’t want to go along with it. The homosexual revolution has been chugging right along on the very successful trail blazed by trying to shame everyone who disagrees with their lifestyle. I have seen homeschoolers call public school kids “brainwashed zombies” and public schoolers calling homeschooled kids “unsocialized” and women with a lot of kids calling women with no or few kids selfish and sinning, and being called all sorts of silly things in return. Moms who decide not to vaccinate, or fully vaccinate, are called uneducated and their kids are called feral–and those who do are called uneducated and fearful tools of big pharma. How do we battle this sort of shame? Well, first we need to see it for what it is. It is propaganda and recruitment tactics. Instead of making a case for why their choice is best, or at least acceptable, they are making all other choices bad and shameful–no matter how silly. Learn to recognize when someone is manipulating you with inappropriate shame and refuse to accept it. Heck, call them on it. It was probably done to them and maybe they don’t even realize what they are doing, might be totally subconscious, but don’t play along. This shame doesn’t belong to you–it’s theirs. Just be sure not to turn around and do it to others. If someone isn’t comfortable enough with their positions and beliefs to stand alone in them, they will often try to shame people around them–but they can’t do it without your cooperation.

(4) Shame which does not lead to positive action is useless. In truth, we all acted like beasts before we were saved to a greater or lesser extent. Everyone. Dwelling on it is generally just a facet of being prideful. Let me explain. I can’t even begin to tell you how much it offends me to know what I am capable of without Yeshua/Jesus. And for years I tormented myself thinking about it, being embarrassed, absolutely drowning in humiliation. But it wasn’t leading to repentance–I was already repentant. I was already living my life differently and was determined never to do those horrible things again. The truth is that my shame was a cover-up for the absolute gall I felt toward myself at the reminder of the decisions I made. I was offended that I could be so stupid, so sinful, so unaware of common decency and kindness. It was all pride. The memory of my decisions was the unbearable proof of my need for salvation and the new creation life that comes with it. I didn’t like to acknowledge who I am without the Cross. I didn’t want to face the weakness, the cluelessness, the focus on fulfilling my desires, and the sometimes mindless lengths I would go to in order to get what I wanted or avoid what I wanted to avoid. But it was fruitless. My sins had long since been recognized and repented for and are no longer part of my life. To move on, I had to own who I was and stop being embarrassed by it because nothing can be done to change my past. Healthy shame can change our present and our future, but it can’t do a thing to change the past–UNLESS we can turn it into an opportunity to right a past wrong. And so this shame, like the aforementioned examples, is inappropriate and fruitless.

So, when should we feel shame? Frankly, when we are doing something wrong now, or when we have done something wrong in the past where we could make things right but don’t, or when we could provide someone with justice but refuse to. That’s what Yeshua was talking about here in Matthew 5:

23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

Although we like to fool ourselves that telling God we are sorry is enough, this passage right here tells us that we aren’t completely right with God when we have wronged someone and don’t make it right before seeking restoration of our relationship with God. That’s what the sacrifices were about. Repentance and confession of sin happened first. The sacrifice was there to fix the broken relationship with God, the relationship that was damaged when we sinned. But Yeshua here tells us that before we can be right with God, it takes more than just saying we are sorry in secret–we have to go make things right with the person we hurt. I was reading a book once–I think it was Living on the Devil’s Doorstep. A man had participated in the commission a murder and had escaped his homeland only to come to salvation in Amsterdam, where he joined the ministry work there. But he was increasingly convicted of his guilt in the murder. He thought about the man’s family and that they deserved justice, that he had wronged them and needed to make things right. Finally, he decided to go back and take his legal punishment. We can only imagine how God used him in jail! Such a great saint! In the same way, people want to come to faith and simply forget the evils of their past but is it the right choice? Do we get to come before the altar with the blood of Christ while our victims are still wronged and call it good? What of them? Shame is a good thing in that case and we should always make restitution when we can. If it is impossible, we have to let that shame go. How terrible it is if we think we can get salvation and be on good terms with God while our victims are still suffering! What kind of salvation is that? We must always want justice for others just as we want it for ourselves.

That being said, we need to give ourselves justice as well and learn how to stop suffering for entirely wrong reasons.



The Seven Deadly Hangups: Rejection

This is the first of a series on the damaging mindsets that hold us back both in our personal lives as well as functionally within the Body of Messiah. There’s so much talk about the sin that holds us back, but what about our fruitless and sometimes fictional perceptions of this and that caused by abuse and sometimes by our own unreasonable expectations?

It sometimes seems as though the Western world suffers from a manufactured rejection crisis. Now, I am not denying that rejection exists, and often for some pretty nasty reasons, but oftentimes we feel rejection when we have, in fact, not been rejected at all. We just simply haven’t been given the preference that we feel we deserve and take personally when we do not receive it. Millennials, whom I feel are unfairly attacked for this, didn’t get this way because all the adults around them are well adjusted and reasonable, but instead because we tend to take stuff personally that is in no way personal. We want what we want and when we don’t get it we tend to assign blame instead of shrugging it off as part of life. Believe me, as a woman in a teaching ministry I have had to learn the difference between what is and is not personal and to stop trying to change what is beyond my ability to change.

I have suffered through rejection issues for most of my life and so I know how debilitating and heartbreaking the real thing is. However, I also know what it is to assume rejection when it simply isn’t there. You see, in order to actually be rejected, you have to rank high enough on a person’s radar that you even entered into their equation of whom to accept–otherwise, every time Facebook has a computer problem, you’ll be screaming persecution instead of checking the outage meter to find out if it is actually a worldwide problem or perhaps you’ll be sitting at home heartbroken when your friend simply chooses someone else to go shopping with for a change. I guess I could say that there is a big difference between the folks whom the popular cliques in High School bully and torment (that’s a prime example of real rejection) and the “unwashed masses” whom they simply ignore and who do not get invited to parties (which is not rejection). I have experience with being in both groups.

Let me give you an example.

If I was going to put on a conference, any of you who know me could probably guess whom I would invite to speak. I have my inner circle of teachers whom I not only trust to be responsible with their material but I also know to be drama-free and work well together with no one undercutting the others or encroaching on someone else’s allotted time or posturing or trying to be the main deal or only voice. There are also a whole bunch of teachers whom I would not even consider inviting–not because there is anything wrong with them but because they are not on my radar. I might even like their teachings, but they aren’t on my go-to list. Nor am I on theirs! They aren’t rejected by me, they just aren’t chosen by me (and vice versa). On the other hand–well, there are some teachers out there, and I use the term very loosely, that I wouldn’t even want to be in the same state with, much less invite them to my fictional conference. These people are flat out rejected by me because of their destructive behavior over the years.

We have these sorts of circles everywhere in life. Now, the same people I would invite to the conference to teach are not necessarily who I would invite over to my house to watch a certain kind of movie, or to go on a walk with me, or to go shopping, or to a family gathering. I still love and respect them, but I don’t have them in every single circle. Nor do they have me in every single circle! Nor should they! I don’t want to be invited over to watch the Superbowl–not since I saw the movie Concussion because all I want to do now is cry when I watch football. I don’t need to be invited to the wedding of an acquaintance’s son–or to the wedding of an acquaintance for that matter. If someone is holding a conference on the Book of Revelation and they invited me to speak, I would send them to my friends Ryan White and Dinah Dye instead–and I would wonder why on earth they invited me, frankly. Certainly not for my company because I am as awkward at social gatherings as a pimple on a supermodel’s nose.

But actual rejection is personal, it is intentional and requires a conscious choice. I was invariably chosen last for every sports team in school–but then, I was also so horrible at sports that it was probably wise on their part. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been quick to add the captain of the wrestling squad to the State Spelling Bee team either. Nothing personal, just different circles. And not rejection, because he was never being considered in the first place. Nor, I imagine, would he care to be.

Oftentimes, we assume rejection when we just aren’t on the radar for any of a multitude of reasons. If my friend is doing such and such and they ask me to come along, and then they do something entirely different and ask someone else–well, am I really being rejected or was I just not considered for that specific activity on that specific day? Was the person who wasn’t chosen for the first outing that I went on rejected? Do we define everything by the time we don’t get the privilege or should we always take into account the times we were chosen as weighing more heavily on the balance scales? I guess what I am saying is that not everything is about me. Most people, and even most people I know personally, aren’t weighing me into every decision so when they don’t tell me something or do something without me, or choose someone else over me–well, it probably isn’t personal. When we make everything personal, we become prisoners of every little perceived rejection as though people are either always accepting us or always rejecting us. In truth, we really don’t inhabit that big of a space in most people’s brains and sometimes not even those in our immediate family. When my husband goes hunting, I don’t even enter into his plans. I don’t want to enter into his plans. I will help slaughter whatever he brings home but he has more fun without me and I have more fun at home reading and playing sudoku. Is he rejecting me? Am I rejecting him? Nope.

And I also say this as the mom of a special needs child who really struggled in sports. Andrew wasn’t going to win anyone any games and as much as we like to think of everyone being included, not being included isn’t always about being rejected as a person. Sometimes people honestly look at what you can bring to the table in a group endeavor and make decisions based on pure numbers. We do it all the time and in everything. People who aren’t bright don’t go to the National Science Fair–people who go have to earn their place. Who screams persecution about that and gets any traction? I remember my son, at the age of thirteen, being absolutely crushed that he could never be in the military–but we handled it in such a way that he saw the wisdom of it and now as an adult he no longer takes it personally. He hates his limitations and knows they aren’t fair, but he also knows that there is more to life than demanding an entirely even playing field. He is not being personally rejected, and so his very understandable and appropriate disappointment isn’t turning to fruitless resentment.

We could say that it isn’t fair that some people just aren’t athletic, or artistic, or socially competent, or brilliant, or beautiful and point out that exclusion from certain things based on those criteria amounts to rejection–but it wouldn’t be accurate. I was never going to compete in a beauty pageant or get accepted to Julliard and I am certainly never going to be the life of the party. The people who are those things might get chosen for one thing or another based on qualifications, but those who don’t meet those qualifications, when they aren’t chosen–that isn’t the same thing as being rejected. It’s something we need to learn ourselves and start teaching our kids again. Some things really are personal–some because of the consequences of our own actions and some because people can be petty–but until we learn to take our offense out of the situation and honestly ask ourselves if this is really about us, we will never be able to see clearly or live free from inappropriate rejection issues.

That’s the deal in the secular world–what about rejection within the Body of Messiah? If someone really wants to be a teacher but did not receive that gifting, are they rejected by God or do they just have unreasonable expectations? If they feel as though they should be working miracles, or should be in local leadership, but aren’t–is that tantamount to rejection as well? Do we get to decide what we want to be doing or what we think we should be doing and judge God’s love and wisdom based on our sense of entitlement? Based on our own understandings and desires? Does anyone in life really have carte blanche and can they reasonably expect to get what they want?

I remember wanting to be an evangelist in the worst way (those of you who know me personally are facepalming and rolling your eyes right now). After expending countless hours in prayer, I had a dream one night where I was trying to get to the missions field only to watch a woman who wasn’t even trying but who, unlike me, was an ace with foreign languages get plucked up and chosen to go instead. And me? It was like I didn’t exist and as far as missions go–frankly, I just don’t exist. Not only am I not good with languages (actually, I am abysmal) but I am also just a disaster socially. I can’t read macro or micro-expressions so I don’t know if someone likes being with me or wants to throttle me. I am not so much rejected for missions as not even in the running! But I can teach and I can write. God chose me to do those things that a lot of other people want to do but can’t. They, in turn, can do other things and so might have been chosen for those.

Being chosen is not always the same thing as being accepted and not being chosen is not always about being rejected. Nebuchadnezzar was chosen to enact God’s wrath on Judah, but was he accepted by God? Saul was chosen as king, only to be rejected later. It’s a complicated issue. But until we accept those complexities and come to understand the big picture, we will always be crippled emotionally by even the faintest shadows of rejection that oftentimes exist only in our minds. Perhaps it’s our expectations that need to be rejected before we will realize that we aren’t nearly as universally rejected as we believe ourselves to be. And I have to tell you, from personal experience, that rejection issues destroy joy. Best to eradicate as many false perceptions as possible so that we can grow in the Fruit of the Spirit.

I have to say, here at the end, that many people have rejection issues because of family dynamics. Families with favorite children often have a rejected child as well. Parents who seek to control through disappointment while never acknowledging accomplishments leave their kids unprepared to not take every setback personally. Kids who live in an atmosphere where every transgression is met with over the top humiliation also are unequipped to discern the difference between rejection and just not being chosen. In fact, inappropriate humiliation is probably going to be our next topic as it is cruelly debilitating–but entirely conquerable.