A ‘faith’ used to turn people away from God

Jesus talks in a few places in Scripture about the unforgivable sin, a.k.a. blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Interestingly, he also uses imagery of a ton-heavy millstone tied to the neck of one guilty of such sin, dragging them all the way to the bottom of the sea—where they would remain. Are these concepts connected? I think they are.

I read a quote recently that got me thinking: “Once faith has been used to eviscerate, it doesn’t serve well as a healing balm.” (Christa Brown, lawyer, survivor, advocate)

Even as a disclaimer to what comes below, if you haven’t experienced abuse at the hand of a leader that brought your faith to apostasy, then you may not have experienced what would place you in a position to judge.

~

Society is littered with corpses of those who tried ‘faith’ and were either tossed out, sexually abused, hunted down, evangelised into submission, taught wrong, vilified, controlled, gaslit, neglected (another form of abuse), or burned at the stake; amongst myriad form of spiritual abuse.

There are many I know personally who either won’t have a bar of faith, or they turned their experiences into advocacy for right and true faith having been shafted. The latter were fortunate. It would be wrong to call them more mature. The former were victims of circumstance. It is all too easy to victimise the former for abandoning ‘faith’, while counting the latter heroes for what they overcame. But that’s our human nature isn’t it; to pigeonhole people. And we all love identifying our heroes and villains.

So many have been scarred by what men and women of power did for their own ego’s sake. Some might think that ‘evisceration’ is an overstatement, but you only need to be on the other end of abuse, and you know how it can turn your life upside down, just like it feels like your insides are being pulled out. Yes, evisceration indeed.

God is for humankind just as humankind was made for God. In a perfect world we would be perfectly in love with God. But the enemy of God works as hard as possible to separate our affection from God and to tell us lies about God’s affection towards us. “Does God REALLY love you?” The truth is, yes, our Lord loves us more than we could never know!

And then humanity gets in the way.

We have charismatic leaders who are in it for their own gain—whether they know it or not. They are hireling shepherds who care not to for the sheep of the pasture, but for the wham and glam of a ministry unto their own prestige, comfort and control. They exist to lift those they choose to favour into positions where they might cavort with a more nuanced sense of control—so they’re impenetrably protected; where power and control looks more like the image of charismatic leadership; where they are the hero, safe as can be, to devour the sheep according to the discretion of their appetite.

Such a leadership never sets forth as the goal the other person’s healing as its own end; though they may use that very concept (“this is for your own good” i.e. growth) as a form of control, justifying abuse. There is always a conditionality about the love and the leadership on display. It never takes on a genuinely servant hearted nature; and cannot depend on allowing God to be in control, which takes constant humility. In our humanity we need to get clear out of the way and let God be God in terms of other people.

Of course, people can stink the stench a mile off, but usually as a case in retrospect which can recoil as an intense betrayal when it sneaks up on the person, as covert abuse usually does. We usually see it years after. And many are they who never see it, and, in trying to bring ‘peace’, without knowing it they take delighting in gaslighting.

Anyone who’s both been a manager and been honest recognises the tremendous temptation of control. It is the manager’s prerogative to control, but the best managers don’t control the processes they manage in controlling ways. Yet, I know all too well as a manager myself I’ve fallen straight into the trap of exercising too much control; all I could do was admit it and repent of it, consequentially apologising to those I’m managing. It was my lack of trust, my insecurity, my fear, my ego; none of it theirs.

Leadership is a great tester of character and it finds us all wanting. Only those who admit this are worthy leaders in my view. There are no hero leaders, just servants willing to give those that look to them what they need to succeed. We desperately need to stop revering our leaders—biblically (Acts 3:12; 10:26) we’re just people! And this includes ‘great preachers’. Revere the God who gifted some to communicate in compelling ways.

~

Let’s finish where we started. Any of us pastors and ministers of any kind who have turned people off the faith for any reason have serious cause for reflection. Have we committed the unforgivable sin? I would never go that far. But when a pastor or leader sticks to their digs when a person has been driven out, or feels abandoned, or feel they cannot return, or the pastor or leader cannot and will not reflect over their own contribution to an impasse, that is a reprehensible situation. The response to the abuse—the cover-up—is far more telling than the initial abuse.

As pastors and leaders, we have far more control over the relationships around us than we realise, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good because we have responsibility and are empowered to lead redemptively. Bad because we have the potential to exercise control. We, first of all, must exhibit true fruit of the Spirit, which is patience, humility, gentleness and self-control. (The legalist will pick me up on my utterance of humility as fruit of the Spirit.)

Even as I write this there is an ugliness inside me, for the triggers that are now part of me, for the effects of abuse that I have endured.

How can people possibly come back to a ‘faith’ that once burned them? This is perhaps why such a dire punishment awaits those who lead the impressionable astray. Heaven forbid that those mature in the faith would be cast to the dogs. But it’s those who are least equipped—children, the poor, the disabled, etc—who are quickest disrespected. These are the ones we’re to care most about. The more vulnerable the person, the more the fear of the Lord should instill in us the weight of the law of love.

While there is always hope for some healing, those traumatised by spiritual abuse take a long time to heal, and it’s a complex and rocky process. Those they love learn that patience is best, especially when the survivor of abuse is triggered. They need care not condemnation. They need understanding not criticism.

Letter from a Social Anxiety Sufferer

Dear fellow guest

I don’t want to be here at this event tonight. There, I said it. You want me to be honest, don’t you? From your reaction you may have said you value honesty, but I’m not sure your demeanour shows you mean what you say. I have trusted you at your request. I’ve done what you asked.

My father can’t be here tonight, either. He too suffers at these kinds of events. And by not coming, weirdly, he feels even guiltier. Talk about a spiral of despair! Some people I know have to consume alcohol to survive this kind of thing. It’s difficult for some, and some find it impossible.

Imagine being in a room crowded with people you either know really well or with people you don’t know at all. Imagine feeling like your skin is crawling in a soul anguish because you crave deep connection, yet everyone’s either talking superficial nonsense or you cannot go there with someone because you cannot trust anyone. Imagine feeling like you need to be encountered at a very deep and felt level, yet all others want to talk about is the weather, how fast or slow the year is going, what they had for dinner last night or their zany boss. Imagine hearing someone blither away when all you sense is rising social dislocation and confusion. Imagine the soul loneliness of just wanting to curl up in a ball and howl. Several times you want to run, screaming from the building. But you can’t. Can you imagine it?

I want you to know, but I know you cannot. Unless you’ve walked a mile in my shoes you will not and cannot know. You must go about your business with hardly a modicum of concern, and most of the time you’re blissfully unaware of how tortuous this is for me. For me, every social encounter is a large-scale logistical event. It’s draining at best and debilitating at worst. Just the thinking that goes into preparing for any outing is exhausting.

I haven’t always suffered socially triggered anxiety. But I can tell you, right now I feel estranged to confidence, preoccupied of mind, and self-hateful. I wish I weren’t like this. I do not pray that you ever experience this, but if you ever did you might understand much more. I can’t ask you to fix this for me, and simply to understand (and not judge me for it) is like fixing it—it means I don’t have the awkwardness between you and I as an additional thing to manage.

How do I begin to describe how bad it can be in a social setting? If there are 10 people, I don’t know who will ask me the question I’m least prepared to answer. Will I be left jaw ajar? Do I have the words? Will I just break down in tears? How will I be embarrassed and shamed? Who will approach me? It only takes one person with a judging scowl and I’m toast. One to one I might be able to handle it, but the variables of a group are too big to counter. I realise much of this might be unrealistic and irrational to you, but this is my reality.

Please go easy on me. I don’t like the pressure you place on me to attend something I have no desire to attend—for all the above-mentioned reasons. How I pray that you might say, “Please stay home and look after yourself,” and “I just admire you for presenting in life so courageously,” and “Let me know if I can call by later to just be with you.”

I want to hear that I am of value to you for who I am, and that you do know I’m trying my best and that my best is good enough. I don’t want you to lie, not at all, but I think you’ll find it important to know how I think and how others feel on the day, too. I hope how others feel is important to you.

~

NOTE: I don’t have social anxiety, but many I do know do suffer it, and this letter is for them and anyone who must relate with one who suffers. Rather than place them under pressure to attend our events, we ought to simply tell them that there’s no pressure on them to attend, and back this up with a heart that views non-attendance or short attendance as nothing to be apologised for.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

10 Ways to Kill a Burgeoning Relationship Before It’s Begun

I love it when I see meme on social media, and it sparks an idea to write about. The meme that sparked this one said, “dance like no one is watching, but text and email like it will be read in court one day. —Your Lawyer”

So very apt, but this article is not about that. This article was prompted by the mention of text and email in relationships. Certainly, we should embargo texting and emailing anything but logistical details when we are dealing with an ex-partner, and even at that keep it to a bare minimum; something like a rule of three messages—one to communicate information and two more for clarification. Then, that’s it. Be kind, but leave it at that.

But seeing that texting and emailing in the context of intimate relationships triggered this article, let me begin by highlighting it as the big no-no in dealing with the loves of our lives:

1.        Text or email more than face-to-face or on the phone: the only exception to this rule is if texting and emailing are a mutual blessing. But even if they are a mutual blessing now, words in print have power in the future. “But you said this!” Apart from the fact that what we write can come back to bite us, and this is such old news, nobody can read us—our tone, intent of word, or even the words—properly without us actually speaking them.

2.        Regularly as a pattern, escape into withdrawal or attack through abuse: of course, these both can be forms of abuse, not just the latter. There is overt abuse, which is behavioural and very visible, but there is also covert abuse, which blurs into coercion and manipulation, and the latter may be worse than the former, because of how underhanded it is. All relationships feature a modicum of escape and attack, but when these behaviours become a feature of the relationship, relational death is not far away. Best to seek some conflict coaching.

3.        Refuse to open up and actually trust your partner: nothing kills a relationship quicker than a lack of trust, but we must establish early on if our partner is trustworthy or not. If you determine that they are not, the relationship is best ended before it gets toxic. A lack of trust can soon dissolve into a war. The quickest thing we need to know in a coupled relationship it is, “Can I trust this person?”

4.        An affair: is all I can say is, you (and they) better not! Not only will the relationship probably falter and collapse; that is the minor matter. The major matter is your partner (or now, ex-partner), or you if it’s you who’s cheated on, will be destroyed, whether they choose to stay with you or you with them or not. The relationship isn’t irredeemable, but there is no bigger relational challenge than unfaithfulness, which again, destroys the foundation of all relationships: trust.

5.        Spend more time with others than your partner: it’s your partner that deserves and needs your time. A partnered relationship demands a change in focus. This is not to say you can’t spend time with friends. You must spend time with friends. There must be a balance. What you cannot afford, however, is to split your intimacies. I have known men, for instance, who spent more time with and confided in other men (and some with other women!) more than their wives. It’s the same the other way around. A coupled relationship is not an extension or continuation of being single—when you’re in a relationship, you can’t do what you please without caring about what your partner thinks.

6.        Commit too early or don’t commit at all: these two are the opposite errors. Too many people get stars in their eyes and commit to a relationship too early, and yet others should commit and their relationships fail because they refuse to. Somehow fear holds them back. But in the former situation of committing too early, there is too much of a fantasy I call, “All my dreams are coming true.” The reality of life is that very few of our dreams come true, because they’re all fetched in fantasy. There’s nothing wrong with dreams so long as they are fitted to reality.

7.        Imagining your new partner as being more ideal than they are: in the romantic stage of our relationships we find it very hard to take off the rose-coloured glasses. Indeed, we may refuse. But give it 12 or 18 months and our reality is usually vastly different. Nobody is as good as they appear in first 12 months, and no relationship can continue in the romantic phase forever. There are characteristics of our partners we will discover and hate before we can imagine whether these characteristics are acceptable and not. It all takes time.

8.        Dishonesty of any kind: again, we make a return to the vital component of all relationships and that is trust. The greatest test of our integrity is borne out in the coupled relationship. If you trust is vital in all relationships, we can well imagine it is an imperative in a love partnership. We must be able to be honest if our relationship is going to survive in the long-term. Honesty often requires courage, and so our coupled relationship has been ordained for our growth. Every person in an intimate relationship deserves their partner’s honesty as a firm foundation for the trust so necessary to feel safe.

9.        Go it alone without any guidance or help: the amount of relationships I’ve seen flounder and fail due to a lack of counsel and support is astounding. At root, there is a lack of humility in people who will not engage with a counselling process. Pride rises up and says, “I will be in control, thank you very much.” But relationships only work, and were best, when neither partner is fully in control, and both have mutuality of control. All couples need wise eyes and wisdom in order to be shown facets of their relationship that they just cannot see.

10.     Criticise one another’s family and friends: this kind of practice is quite a betrayal. It is appropriate that we would find fault with our own family, but our partner doesn’t have that license. We all come from families of some kind of dysfunction or other. But a constant criticising about our partner’s family and friends will produce hurt that will impact on intimacy and trust.

Trust is the beginning, middle, and every bit between in relationships, and where trust abides there is no end.

Photo by 德綱 曾 on Unsplash

The people we fear, if only we could draw near

Some people I know I have removed from my life. Sure, some were toxic, but there are many more others who aren’t, who are probably good people, who have done me no wrong, but my concern is in their allegiance; they chose a side that I am not on.

And, of course, this reveals in me a weakness that I must face; I am often not the man you might think I am. I’m weaker than that. I’m less trustworthy than that. I’m nowhere near as impressive as the impression that you might have of me. I might present as a counsellor, a pastor, a chaplain, a peacemaker, but I’m not that good. I fear some people as much as anyone. I’m not friends with everyone universally. There are some people I choose to avoid. I so wish it weren’t so.

There are individuals who I fear. Believe it or not, it’s not just one or two. It would be like a dozen or two or three dozen. All fellow Christians. There are pockets of people who I should consider friends, but, because of our shared history, and because of what I think ‘went down’, it feels as if they don’t trust me, and because that is what it is, I don’t trust them.

And yet I do not know for sure in many of these instances if these people are against me or not. They don’t appear for me, so my mind does the math that my heart feels. I sorely would like to know, but fear keeps me from going to them, and revealing my fear for fear that I would be rejected again, even if previous ‘rejections’ are fanciful. They might say, “It’s all in your imagination,” but the fact they might say that doesn’t build any sense of confidence in me. It would be better for them to say, “So sorry you’ve feared me; let’s do something about it.”

Is it just me? Are there other people who feel the same why as me? Are there are other people who feel excluded from a set? Are there others who feel like they don’t fit? Are there other people quietly and not-so-quietly conspiring against you? Or, is it just me?

What we all need is a room that we enter, and whilst there, after having ingested some kind of love-and-truth solution, we might commit to speaking the truth to one another in loving ways, and to deal with the fear once and for all. This could mean calling the hurt for what it is and leaving our power—whether it be knowledge or position or capacity for coercion—in the room behind us, to become equals again.

We need some way of becoming human with each other again. We need some way to live as equals. We need enough love in our hearts to just stop the judging and to start the listening. It’s been too long now that we have been apart, warring spirit against spirit, disagreeing to the point of derisive division.

Can’t we just get together, agree to disagree, respect each other’s right to hold a different view, appreciate that there are myriad worldviews (all but one not ours), and rather insist on getting along, respecting one another for the humanity that we bear, and simply share in the uniqueness of being alive at the same time?

Can’t we just do that? Can’t we just stop fighting with one another? Can’t we stop running away from or avoiding each other? Can’t we just stop insisting upon our own way? Can’t we vouch for another person’s rights rather than our own? Can’t we just look at each other and smile? Can’t we just coexist in freedom without fearing each other? Can’t we just live freely? Or is that asking too much?

I’m leaving it at that. Lord, bring us together in the oneness of unity, humbling the proud, and exalting the humble. AMEN.

Photo by Katherine Chase on Unsplash

Defragging Your Life

This works for me, and it may work for you. Here goes.

In one of the hardest seasons of my life—the second half of 2014—God taught me something: there is always enough time to do everything God wants us to do. But for those with really busy lives it can seem impossible. This is where the principle of defragging comes in.

That wonderful compendium of all things information, Wikipedia, describes defragmentation thus: “In the maintenance of file systems, defragmentation is a process that reduces the degree of fragmentation. It does this by physically organizing the contents of the mass storage device used to store files into the smallest number of contiguous regions.”

How may we apply this common information technology term to our everyday lives?

Defragmentation is essentially about noticing where those fragments of wasted life are, and re-organising present and future life such that those wasted regions no longer exist. This is not about doing more. This is about doing less. It’s about identifying the phenomena of moments that have least meaning and replacing those moments with phenomena packed with meaning, therefore purpose, hence life!

Let’s unpack (pardon the pun!) what this means in terms of time, busyness, efficiency and effectiveness.

I believe that God ordains the moment, and that each moment can be discerned to know exactly what is good to do each moment. Sure, there are many good things to do any moment. Given exactly the same kind of opportunity, you wouldn’t do what I would do, but both of us might do the right kind of thing, which just means there are endless options in the economy of God’s will. Such is the mystery of life that many roads lead from benevolence to blessing, just as many roads lead from malevolence to maelstroms.

The period from about July to December 2014 was a pandemic of attack. Actually, it abated before the end of the year, but because we were still grieving the loss of Nathanael, let’s just call it six months. The season was unprecedented before and since for the sheer unabating series of moves of the enemy to thwart us. I know it can sound like some fancy and prideful exaggeration, but the things that happened, when they happened, and the way they happened, were just too off the wall not to be from spiritual warfare. But at every step God proved to be our very present Guide and Light. All through this season we had mentors helping us, and we needed their help, such was the uncharted nature of the ambiguous loss we encountered in tandem with a direct hit that was coming to my professional identity—stabbed in the heart at the same time as my heart was being ripped out. A real and regular double-whammy. But that wasn’t the extent of it. There was at least one other major factor. It will take a momentous period to shift October 2014 off the mantle as the most memorable and taxing month of my life.

Why do I share this in the context of ‘defragging your life’? Simply for the fact that the principle bore witness during this time; as I said ‘yes’ to God, within each and every decision brought to my consciousness, to act as the Lord’s agent, I was both aware of the divine presence and the presence of attack. I truly felt, it was one thing after another, after another, after another, and that I had just enough time to do everything that God wanted me to do in that season. I couldn’t have done each and every one of those things without relying so heavily on God, and my reliance was heavy because of grief and stress. I didn’t have the self-assurance to resist.

It was like my life was absolutely defragmented in that period. Not a moment wasted. Good sleep due to frequent exhaustion. Good movement due to the knowledge I had to be well. Good use of time due to the fact we were living a time bomb—our son would grow to term and be born to die. Good courage in the mode of confounding conflict beyond my control that eventually, like Nathanael’s gestation, became a runaway train with wreckage strewn everywhere. There wasn’t a choice but to make the very most of each moment. And in a very real way, there wasn’t the space to grieve. I just had to keep going.

Nowadays I recognise that I’ve carried that life forward; that there is simply a mountain of blessing in making the most of the time (a la Ephesians 5:15-17). By making every moment count, to act, to rescind, to rest, to reflect, to relate, and to ponder the universe and the ways of God is a defragmented life.

Certainly, in the period that was June 2016 to earlier this year, God propounded one word in retrospect: “Sow!” In faith, because for a very long time my life was lamentable professionally. And I guess I’m like most men, you hit me in what I do, and you hit me in who I am—surely a weakness of identity, but it is what it is. Yet, I kept sowing, by saying, “God, I’ll serve wherever I can.”

A defragmented life is a life whereby we have no further room for the activities that chase our lives away to death. No more addictions. No more spurious secrets waiting for embarrassing exposure. No more lies. No more compromises of integrity, but a life lived before the witness of the angels of heaven. Sound fanciful? I’m just too young to not give it everything, and too old to care what people think anymore. But, gee, it took a long while to get there.

God ordains sleep and rest, good diet, self-respect, honesty at every turn even when it hurts, courage in our interactions, and the preservation and enhancement of health. Where we say ‘yes’ to a defragmented life, God comes through and gives it to us.

Be truly careful if you’re forgiven too easily

Pure relief: having apologised and sought forgiveness and received their mercy. And yet, only later have I thought, “Hey, wait a minute, I wasn’t the only one at fault! Where’s their sorry and seeking for my forgiveness of their wrong?”

Some people say they forgive us because they truly do, whereas some people are just relieved that we took the ‘blame’ (responsibility) and so, for them, this proves they’re in the clear. We need to be careful about this.

When we are genuinely forgiven,
it costs the person something
who is forgiving us. They
were genuinely hurt.

It isn’t an easy decision. It takes faith, mercy and grace to forgive. It involves significant trust and is always a risk. Having forgiven someone, we are required to open our heart towards them; the one who has previously disappointed our expectations, and possibly even betrayed us beyond what we could otherwise bear. Sometimes it’s too much to trust them straight away or even at all. That’s why one of the hallmarks of an excellent apology is the acceptance of consequences, i.e. “I have no right to demand you forgive me or even trust me again—my apology is me putting myself at your mercy and I refuse to use it as a way of manipulating you.”

If we are forgiven easily, what we did probably didn’t mean much to them. It didn’t hurt them. And doubly watch out if their actions hurt you. If it did hurt them, you will probably see them wrestle in some way with forgiving you. It’s a significant grace.

If it didn’t mean much to them, if they weren’t genuinely hurt, we haven’t been genuinely forgiven, and it is probably more the case that they have overlooked what we did. Overlooking an offense is definitely a wonderful thing to do, but it isn’t really forgiveness in the true sense of the term.

But there is a person who forgives easily but who never seeks forgiveness, who never makes a lot about conflict, because they always want to project the appearance that they are beyond disappointment and betrayal. Of course, nobody is. But this is the person who must always appear to be in control. They won’t allow themselves to be vulnerable to being hurt. That is a ‘weakness’ they can’t abide in. They remain in the safe and impenetrable position of the champion. Think about any leader who has this psychology. They are dangerous for the simple fact that, in their right of mind, they will never be wrong, and if they can’t be hurt, nobody else has the right to be hurt, either. They endeavour to make conflict an impossibility, such is the façade of the kingdom they create. The key danger is they won’t deal in the economy of conflict, and given conflict is familial to relationship, leaders who refuse to deal with conflict can be abusive; when dormant at best, destructive when active.

We have come to admire ‘strong’ leadership like this; a leadership that is impenetrable to weakness, and that sneers at vulnerability, but that, for the church, is a blurring of a worldly concept for leadership excellence that high reliability organisations chucked out long ago. Good leadership is inherently relational, and deeply relational systems are punctuated by leadership vulnerability at crucial junctures. How else are people to be led and inspired? If a leader won’t enter conflict, as if they will not expose themselves to vulnerability and the possibility they could be wrong, they are not neutered, but quite the opposite.

Any person who refuses to engage with the possibility they could be wrong is a dangerous person relationally. They would rather protect themselves than allow truth to be the collective arbiter. They would rather protect themselves than allow another person a hearing who has a grievance with them. They would rather protect themselves than cooperate with a process that could set others free. They would rather protect themselves than see the Kingdom come in a ‘love one another’ way.

So, be careful if you’re ‘forgiven’ too easily. And in seeking to be forgiven, first ask yourself, “Do I have something to forgive this other person for?” Because that’s an important part of the conversation.

If we find ourselves in a relationship where there is constantly no recognition for the impact of conflict, and little or no ability or desire from them to take responsibility for the relational impact they cause, we are best served to create safe boundaries. It’s not a good long-term strategy to remain in relationship with people where we continue to take our portion of the responsibility, yet they never take theirs. And yet if these are our children, or others we have no choice to be in relationship with, we best guard our hearts (Proverbs 4:23), and model the best adulting we can.

Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash

Dear Men, of the Broken Relationship

Hello, my male friend of a broken romantic relationship,

Oh, how sad I am for you in your plight. You never wanted this to occur, possibly never thought it could or would, and now it has. She’s left. I’ve been there! I hated it. And I was very tempted to hate her for doing to me what she did. But it wasn’t all her… actually, it was me, too. It may not be all your fault, but what is yours to own is 100% of your own contribution. And owning your stuff is all that stands between peace with your ex-partner and you.

You may still be gutted in hurt, and barely able to get over what you feel that she has done. But you sorely need to refocus, and you can, because if you don’t, whether you think you can or you can’t, there are dire consequences.

The consequences that should motivate you, may not. These are the consequences that impact on whole families, innocent children, parents, brothers and sisters, friends. So many people want to help us out when our relationships are breaking down. Let’s not go down the track of those who want to prove a hindrance. But if you can’t be motivated around what this is costing others, be motivated around what this is costing yourself.

Let me narrow in on a term-of-reputation that will find you, that you would come to despise, but that may fit your behaviour, especially if your conduct is recalcitrant. Here it is:

Ways to guarantee you won’t be accused of being narcissistic:

Listen when you’re spoken to. Ensure you can hear the other person, especially your ex-partner. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry (James 1:19). You never know, you may be considered wiser than you are when you show such self-restraint (Proverbs 17:27-28).

Think about your ex-partner’s needs, and the children’s needs, above your own, and your needs will be catered for.

Be gentle and respectful in your demeanour, and don’t act in an entitled or threatening way. Think of how you would feel if someone behaved that way with you.

Don’t look to exploit every opportunity, and less so exploit opportunities that will come as a complete surprise to others. You will not get away with it. Remember there is a witness in the heavens. If anything, allow others to exploit you, because this is one way you can rebuild the trust you may have helped to destroy. Most of all, don’t exploit opportunities that will make you look good, when deep down you’re being selfish.

Pay your way. In fact, now’s the time to give more than is expected. Whatever costs you much earns you double respect and builds trust exponentially—if your motivation is pure, in that you’re doing it because it’s right, not to placate or please or patronise, and particularly not to punish, her.

Remind yourself often that it’s not all about you; that there are always others to consider. Be as pure in your motives as you possibly can. If you’re honest, you will see how dishonest you are prone to be. We all have many idols on our heart, which compete for benevolence and usurp God in the opportune moment dozens of times every day.

Be neither a threat to others, nor feel threatened yourself. This requires a commitment to peacemaking (look it up in James 3:17-18) and to the guarding of our hearts to the degree that we see and confess and own our anxiety. It’s too easy as men to be fearful, and yet shroud that fear in anger, because we are ashamed of feeling weak and out of control. Be both meek and resilient simultaneously. Be dependable. Offer your strength, which is quiet and gentle, not your anger.

Genuinely empathise with others at every opportunity. This is done simply by being other-centric. Discipline your mind to become aware of the many times you are egocentric, and continually repent by putting the spotlight on others’ situations and feelings and take the spotlight off your own.

Whatever you do, don’t do any of the above for rewards or accolades from your ex-partner. No, you do these things because they are the right things to do, or you prove you have the wrong motivation, and that is enough to destroy your reputation forever.

She needs to see that you really have changed. Accept that it takes not months, but years to change long-held perceptions. It may be too late in this situation to reconcile, and just about every time it is, but that doesn’t mean you cannot reconcile for a peaceful future. That ought to be motivation enough.

To the women who are reading this who can see their ex-partner is putting in some work, please encourage them by removing your goads. You are understood as doing the right thing in holding your own in the presence of a tyrant, but if and when you see him making efforts to be reasonable, commend the behaviour, but silently. By saying nothing you communicate a lot. Indeed, by saying nothing, and thereby not resisting, you offer tacit encouragement. That’s all the encouragement he should need. Otherwise don’t back down. Remain firm. Hold your own. Whatever you do, don’t do his work for him. It’s his to do.

Photo by Jordan Whitt on Unsplash

What do you do when spiritual abuse arrives on your doorstep?

What happens when you hear a knock at the door, and wondering who it is, you open it in expectation, only to find someone selling you something; the worst kind for so many… someone selling you religion.

A friend was relaying to me a story that happened for them at their home. They are a young family. They work hard and do their best in bringing their family up. They are nice people, always friendly, and would do anything to bless anybody. In many ways, such normal people. But as we see so often, it is the normal unassuming person who wouldn’t hurt a fly, who is vulnerable and intruded upon by the one peddling wares, with ‘holy’ intent, who does so at the threshold of the family home, knowing their message is likely not to be welcomed.

The scenario just sounds so normal. A family is inside their home, minding their own business, as families very often tend to do, and a knock is heard at the door.

Let’s imagine it’s a Sunday, but it could be any day of the week. The kids race to the door wondering who it is, and a parent is quick to chase them down and ensure it’s safe to open the door.

The door is opened, and two people stand on the other side of the doorway, both immaculately dressed. Until they start speaking, the parent doesn’t know for sure who these people are and who or what they represent. It is soon discovered they are religious callers. That is not always a bad thing. We need to determine what they have to offer. They may be bearing gifts. The trouble is, and this happens so often, the religious caller believes to the bottom of their heart that they have the most precious gift to give.

What the family received, however, was anything but a blessing.

The parent was kind in their approach to the visitors, but politely declined any further discussion, which is an expected response. Religious callers, and all salespeople for that matter, understand that rejection is a normal phenomenon. It comes with the territory. Most people are very nice about it, and even those who are not nice are breaking no law so long as they don’t inflict assault.

When the parents opted not to take the magazine that was offered, the person talking to them wondered if they knew that a fiery eternal damnation awaited those who reject the message. At least one of the parent’s children was there as a witness to the discussion—old enough to understand the words said, yet young enough to be confused and worried. This troubled the parent. The interaction at the door was later brought up in family discourse to an extent that the parent grew concerned. Not an angry concern, just a what-to-do concern.

When the parent raised this with me, knowing I’m a person of faith, the first words that came to mind were ‘spiritual abuse’.

Now let’s get this right: a person knocks at someone else’s door, so therefore they are on another person’s property, and they are there at that doorway with a specific purpose in mind that could well be hostile from the viewpoint of the householder being visited upon.

They know that there is a good chance that the householder will not share their beliefs, yet they are convinced that they must share their message; even to the point that sharing their belief, they feel, is a supreme act of love. It is their belief that anyone who does not believe is going to hell, and they love others that much, they are prepared to say it.

There is a massive problem, however, in that by saying this very thing, stranger to stranger, with no shared context, and certainly no evidence of God leading the conversation, when the religious caller utters the words, “you must believe before you die or you are destined for the eternal fire,” especially with children listening in, spiritual abuse is performed.

It does not matter whether it is theologically correct or not. Even if we were to assume a correct basis for saying such words, to say such things with children as onlookers is abuse. It is an abuse of someone impressionable, and therefore vulnerable. It is an abuse of territory—where is ownership of the property respected? It is also an abuse of the family, given that no parent wants their children to see them pushed around, and potentially in conflict with someone else, on their own property.

This kind of behaviour is a reminder to us all about how tenuous our interactions are around spirituality. It is safe to assume, and so sad to realise, that any of us can spiritually abuse anyone. Whenever we get pushy about our beliefs, relationships suffer and abuse is quickly apparent.

So, what do we do when a religious caller arrives on our doorstep?

Well, as the parent in question said, it is good to be kind and to offer peace. But if we know where the conversation is going, the fewer words we allow them to say the better. We can be kind and at the same time, direct.

“Hello, no thank you very much, I hope you have a good day!”

Photo by Anthony Rampersad on Unsplash