Husband Replacement

Something strange happened to me the other day. It made me stop in my tracks and say, “Whoa….what was that?”

I was in another ‘church’ two weeks ago. It was a United Methodist Church in the center of our little town. I was attending a funeral of a friend’s husband. The pastors were all dressed in their robes and long collars with rope belts. The windows were beautiful stained glass and the organ was gigantic and melodically soothing. As the service started to close the younger pastor stood over the casket and prayed to usher this man’s soul into heaven.

Now normally I would have expected me to cringe at the formality and religious overtones of the service. But on that day, I liked it. It was safe. The scriptural readings and written prayers were solid and comforting as well as theologically deep and sound. None of it bothered me. In fact I found myself relaxing and enjoying the service.

But something significant happened when the pastor stood over the casket and prayed. I felt myself wanting to lean on his spiritual leadership. I found myself drawn to this man. He seemed strong spiritually. Almost as if you had a twisted ankle and you had to lean on someone for support, I suddenly felt like I could lean on this man.

This was the thing that made me stop myself and ask myself what was going on.

I did not know this man. I didn’t know if he was a good person or a selfish one. I knew NOTHING about him and so I stopped and wondered what was it that was in me that felt like I wanted/needed to lean on someone, unknown to me, for spiritual guidance and support.

In chewing on this in the subsequent days I marveled at this need that was evident in me. I did not even know this existed in me and why did it exist at all?

Here is my theory. I think I have often wanted someone to take the place of the Holy Spirit and/or my husband in this spiritual partnership of the journey through life.

The easy answer that we all know from Sunday School is that the Holy Spirit is supposed to be the one we trust and lean on. He is our comforter, guide, and teacher. We all know that.

But I also feel like God gave me my husband as a partner through this life. We lean on each other emotionally and physically but in this area of 'spiritually' I often found that it was easier to trust someone else. Someone who I thought had it more together spiritually.

Why did I look at my husband and want to replace him with a ‘pastor’? Let me tell you what my own heart revealed to me. I wanted to replace him because I KNOW HIM.

Marshall is a wonderful man but early on (like the first month of our marriage) I started to find out that he did not have it all together spiritually. He had strengths, yes, but he had weaknesses too. Yes, he loved people (and that is what initially drew me to him) but he was about as organized as a junk drawer.

For a while I tried to make him into the spiritual leader that I thought he needed to be. I even remember giving him a full page, hand written out, of how I expected him to lead me. He was to keep me accountable to all the spiritual disciplines, pray with me every day, teach me what he was learning in his daily devotions and so on and so on.

Guess what??? He sucked at my list!! So instead of resting in the Father and resting in the strengths of my husband that he DID have, I found it extremely important to find that place in a church structure and specifically in a leader. Now here was a pastor who encouraged me to do all this outward stuff that I thought would change me. Here were leaders who were strong where my husband was weak. I put weight, my spiritual weight, on these men and took it away from my husband. I took away the respect that I should have given him and gave it to another man.

I did not want to rest in him because I KNEW HIM!! These other men were unknown to me. I did not know their weaknesses. I did not live with them so it was easier to trust them. How whacked out was that thinking? In some ways, I almost felt like I had been cheating on Marshall in wanting to put my trust/weight in a pastor that I did not even know!!! Oh my God!

I just wonder if there are women out there who are like me. Do you find that your husband does not ‘measure up’ to your spiritual expectations? Do you miss having a ‘pastor’ carry this weight or journey with you? Would you rather journey spiritually with another man than with your husband?

I’ve had to do some serious repenting to my husband. While none of this was thought out in detail in my mind and I had no idea that this is what I had done, I had still done this my entire life. It even kept us at the ‘church’ we belonged to probably 10 years beyond what we would have stayed. I would not listen to his questioning of our leaders because I did not trust him. (A writer, Darin Hufford, said to me once that he hears so many stories where the husband was the one that had wanted to leave their churches but the wives had balked at it. The wives, thinking that their husbands were wrong, kept the family in bad situations much longer than necessary.)

Here is what is so crazy. I measured Marshall for so many years by a measuring stick that was skewed. On one stick was all the things that I thought made you a good Christian - things like being faithful to daily Bible reading, memorizing, journaling, church attendance and fulfilling all the expectations of the leader of whatever church we were in. On the other stick – (God’s stick, btw) - were things like faithfulness, kindness, loving the unlovely, willingness to help me and others, love for his kids, the ability to laugh with those who laugh and weep with those who weep. If I were to have used the right stick he was head and shoulders above any one I knew. But in so many ways I took what other men were better at and measured him by them.

So there is my revelation for the week. I’m not too proud of this one. I'm breaking my sticks - all of them.

And today I am committed to walk the rest of my life together with my husband. I commit to (appropriately) “lean” on him in all the areas of my life. I want to make him my partner in ALL aspects of our relationship.

And as a note to all those who read my blog who are in full time ministry:

Please encourage all of those who wish to put you into this position to refrain. Show the women that you are no better than their husbands. Don’t allow women (or men for that fact) put you into this unhealthy position. Make those around you aware of your weaknesses. Stress that you are only journey mates together with them and not this high and mighty spiritual leader. Encourage wives to listen to their husbands and husbands to their wives. Encourage them to make decisions together instead of always running to you. And go home tonight and give your wife a hug. She knows you and you are her ‘pastor’. She has my love and respect.

Broken on the Political Front

As I listen in on the political front I have decided that something is deeply broken in me.

I don’t trust leadership right now - church or state. The hurts of the church have gone deeper than religion. They effect how I view the world and thusly how I view men and women in the world that want to be my political leaders. Ms. Palin might be a very wonderful woman....but I have seen very wonderful women do very horrible things to protect the things that are valuable to them. Mr. Obama might be a captivating speaker but I have sat under captivating speakers before who spoke what turned out to be outright lies.

I wasn’t always this way. I trusted the government to take care of my family when I was a child - my dad was in the military. This breeds a deep trust in your government. I trusted my church and their teachings growing up through my teens and 20’s. That was destroyed but I just thought I had bought into the wrong brand. So I trusted again. I trusted our ‘church’s’ leaders. I trusted their teachings, their vision and their professed love for me, my family and our ‘church’ body. That did not work out so well…

I have seen firsthand what the desire for power and prestige does to a person. Heck, it just occurred to me that I have been that person. It is not so very far away to the core of who I am.

You take a man (or woman) add power, throw in a bunch of money and prestige, shake, and I am left with the bitter drink of distrust.

So I think that is why I am having such a hard time. I believe no one. I trust no organization. I can’t even start to believe that what they say now really reflects what they will do later or what they even believe in their hearts. Sound bites do not reveal the heart and motives. I want to believe them as I hear them speak…but something in me warns me again that I cannot always trust what I see. Great orators have deceived men for ages.

Add that to the fact that I don’t believe that I can start to understand the world in such a way that I could make informed decisions on the basis of my present knowledge - as limited as that is. Our world is too complex. When you think you understand and grasp an issue - there is a corresponding result in another quadrant that you didn’t even see. I don’t have the time to become a political science major. And even if I were an expert in a field such as that or economics or government - who’s to say I would have been taught a true and balanced perspective?

I understand why someone would be a one issue voter - whether it be abortion or the environment or health. Please don’t make fun of these people. Maybe that is all they have confidence in their own intellect for.

I know who I’m voting for. It’s not that. It is just that I don’t trust them, or anyone, anymore. And I really don’t like that about myself.

This is going to be a long few weeks for me.

One For The Leavers - From Abmo

Abmo at Windblown Hope has been blogging one year today. I started to leave him a comment on how instrumental he has been in our lives and it got so long that I decided to post it here. This will give new readers an idea of why he is on my reader list.

Dear Abmo,

On December 12th of last year I left a comment and asked you to TELL ME HOW TO LIVE THIS LIFE!! I was frustrated, running out of hope and didn't know where to turn. I wanted to know what was next. You emailed me back these 7 questions and said the following:

"It is unfortunate that I cannot "show" you how we live or what we do. On the other side it is fortunate that I cannot "show" you. This is a struggle that is meant for you alone. Like Jacob (Gen 32:24) it is a wrestle with God in the dark. BUT I can give you hints in the form of questions that you can mull over in this time...:-)

1)Who is Jesus FOR YOU? What do you know of His character? What did He struggle with? Is He as fickle as us? Does He change? What is His love like? What can you do in order to make Him love you more?

2)If you were the only person on this planet, what would your relationship with Jesus look like? What would you "do" for Him? Could you do anything for Him? What does your relationship with Him look like?

3)Who are you? Have you made peace with yourself? Are you a loved person?.....by Jesus. Are you a liked person?.....by Jesus. What does surrender look like? I like the word "brokenness". Can you tell me why?

4)Time. Is God in a hurry? Is every moment holy? Is there a thing such as a time away from God? Do you have to meet people once a week to develop a special bond with them?

5)What does your everyday life look like? Mundane/ordinary? Is God present in the mundane/ordinariness of your life? He came to set the captives free. Free from what?

6)What is the church? (What you know of church has to die completely).

7)Our struggle is usually between right and wrong. Is there a third option?

A lot of questions. Some answers take a long time to be born. When it is time. Give yourself time. I will be praying for the scary part.

As I look over these questions today, I realize that only through the Father addressing each of these questions in His own time allows me to be who and where I am today. Thank you for not giving my husband and me a plan to follow or even your journey to emulate. Instead you gave the most important questions I have had posed to me - ever - in my life. They were the questions that seemed to be on the heart of the Father to answer in our lives. They were insightful and prophetic. I kept the email and check back to it almost monthly to see what Father has been teaching me about them.

I am grateful to have been able to read along on the window that you (and your wife) have provided. I have benefited so much from your encouragement. I remain grateful.

Barb

Favor

Mary over at One Thing Is Needed has asked a brilliant question about the idea of asking for favor or expecting favor on our lives because we are believers. Please read it here. I didn’t want to take up all the comment space there so I’ll reply here.

As I said in the comments, Marsh and I discussed this most of last evening after I did a brief study of the words favor and grace in the Old and New Testament. In the New Testament I love that the word favor is actually the word grace. They are interchangeable. As I read all the verses that use the word grace in the New Testament I found that grace means so much more than just God bestowing good things on us. It is totally wrapped up into the Person of Grace. Often it is referred to as the “grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” I love that it is not just a concept anymore but a Person.

So much like me, I was ready to throw out asking for favor or grace at all because we now live IN grace. But then Husband asked, “What about all the verses that make it clear that God wants his children to ask for things. Paul even talks about asking for grace/favor to do things. You can’t throw those out.” (He is always doing this to me…..grrrrr….balance and all that) We then decided that there is a big difference from asking for favor or grace and asking for preference. Preference says “bless me and not them.” Preference says, "Give me the job and don’t give it to the other person.“ Preference says, “Give me the wealth of the Gentiles.“ (See preference was totally understood to the Jewish people in the Old Testament. This is how they saw it. If you obey - you will get favor - preference - from God.) But favor - this New Testament idea - can include just asking for the blessing that Father has already said He wants to give us.

It is kind of like the two sons in the Prodigal Son story. Both sons could have lived in the grace or favor of their father. Neither son did. The wayward son was not living in the grace that was there all the time but we find out that the elder son also was not living in it because he would not ask for anything.

It will probably change my prayer life quite a bit. I really do trust the Father to give me good things. I want to stay as far away from the “name-it-claim-it” “I get preferential treatment because I’m a believer” camp. But I also can’t be shy about asking for things either. I want to ask in a much more humble way though. Not “Give me preference over all the heathen,” or “Me first!!" kind of prayer, but more like, “ Father I would really like this and know that your heart is to give me good gifts, so I’m asking, but I trust You with the giving part.”

Thanks Mary, this was very helpful.

UPDATE: Sara, in the comments gave a link to a blog that mentions a famous preacher in the news lately. It was his sense of ENTITLEMENT that is so off. This is a perfect word to describe the very thing that I am trying to describe above. Favor that becomes entitlement is twisted. Thanks Sara!

Drifting

Isn't this how you feel somedays?



The tags I added to this post say it all. Doubts, Faith, Fear, Father's love, Shunning, Trust, Depression. They are all with me in my little tub.



I've always seen the ocean as the vastness of God and his love for me. So actually this is a peaceful picture to me. Lonely but peaceful.

(comic by xkcd)

Prophecy - Flushing the Ducky

Do not put out the Spirit's fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. (1 Th 5:19 NIV) KJV says, "Despise not prophesyings."


Something that you need to know about me. I tend to react to things and not respond to them. I know it is a fault. I even know it hurts people around me. I try and try to keep it uppermost in my mind so that I remember to slow down and respond wisely to someone instead of reacting immediately to them, but unfortunately my system seems to be wired to react first and think later.

So when leaving our old group behind I wanted to distance myself from EVERYTHING that I had learned there. This was true especially of those things which I had struggled so hard to believe and live under.

Prophecy was one of those things. I wanted NOTHING to do with it anymore. Even the other day when I posted about how it still shakes me, I felt myself reacting to it. I want to push it away. Not deal with it. It goes beyond throwing out the proverbial baby with the bath water. I also want nothing to do with the soap, the towels, the little spongy thing that the baby lays on, or the rubber ducky floating innocently on the surface of the water. I HATE THOSE DAMN DUCKS!!

See. I am crazy.

I am keeping my ear to the ground (in a Google kind of way) for those who are begining to write about spiritual abuse. The other day I read still another story of a woman who was dealing with this whole subject of prophetic utterance, the devastation it caused a beloved friend and how she is now dealing with it in her life. I can so relate to these stories.

Husband and I talked a bit about it the other day. We talked about those who had prophesied over our lives. We have some great stories. I forget so many of them.

There was the man who early in our lives here prophesied that our sons would be like trees, grounded and established in God’s love. Well unbeknownst to him, we had daughters – not sons. But unbeknownst to me, 9 years later we would have 3 more children – all sons.

Then there was the preacher who stopped in the middle of a service and came to Husband and said, I don’t know if this will make any sense to you but I see you in a sort of office….or closet….no it’s an office – but it seems to be a closet too…..oh well never mind….. on the 2nd floor of a house. God wants you to know that he is not punishing you for bringing you out of full time ministry but is instead answering the very prayer that you prayed in that closet. The preacher then went on to pray the exact prayer that my husband remembered praying one day about 3 years before. The closet was a dormer that was used first as a small study and later closed in as a walk-in-closet. The prayer was that he was willing for God to do anything that it took for him to know Father better. This very act, released my husband out of a dark, dark, depression and back into relationship with a loving Father who was not angry at him.

Then there was the quiet humble man who looked at Husband and said, “I see you on a roof – Do you do some sort of Construction?” Husband owned a chimney sweep company at the time. That prophet went on to “read our mail” and give great encouragement.

Then the last time was a big black Prophet man who came into our home. He prayed with us and then said, “You have a daughter who is causing much heartache.” We laughed/cried and asked if he wanted to meet her. We brought our daughter down to him. He gently asked her some questions, told her that he didn’t want the “spiritual” answers, told her that he was grateful that she was honest and then assured her that God always would be there for her and would always love her. After dismissing her he told us that we were going to have to let her go and find God. Another sermon from us was not going to change her heart. We could trust Father to chase after her and be there for her. From that point on we were changed. Peace flooded our home and our hearts from that day even till now.

We have seen major prophetic stuff. We are privileged and when I recount these things, blessed.

But we have seen horrendous things too. The same kind prophet that spoke over our daughter later prophesied from the front stage of our ‘church’ that the Apostle and his wife and their children were “The Royal Family”. They were Royalty and should be treated as such. We have heard the same prophecies of, “This is the year God is going to release great wealth” or “2000 whatever (Pick a year – any year – in fact each year) is the year of breakthrough” or “God is establishing his kingdom on earth in the governing body of Apostles and Prophets of this movement.”

How can fresh water and salt water flow from sometimes the same well? How do you tell the difference? How can you keep some that brought so much health and throw away the rest that brought so much death?

I don’t’ know the answers to those questions. I only know this. I can’t throw my brain and spirit away in the process. I am required to do what the verses following the ones that say we shouldn’t despise prophecy say:

(1 Th 5:21 NIV) Test everything. Hold on to the good.

For me, this is easier when I am one on one with a prophet. I think I am mostly done with “stage prophecy” – that done on a stage where often there is money involved. I realized, in those prophecies where we were truly touched – each one of them had the same similarities:

- They told us something that only we were knowledgeable of – that the prophet had no way of knowing – before going on to encourage us with what God wanted us to know. We felt the prophet must be hearing from God to be able to have this information about our lives.

- They were not directive – they were encouraging. They didn’t demand that we DO something to prove that we believed. They were strictly for our encouragement. For building up. For strengthening.

- There was no money involved. No ego trips.

- They were personal

- Because it was personal and not public, we were free with each one to go – “No, that does not sit right with me.” We had the time and freedom to test each one.

- No one was going to further “their ministry” or schedule more conferences because of their insight into our lives.

I would love to know the similarities that you see to the true prophetic words that you have received over your lives. Do you have more to add to my list above? Do you have any good examples of what I call “Stage Prophecy?” Husband, am I missing some valuable “Stage Prophecy” that you can remember? I would love to hear your stories.

But as for me, and where I am now with the whole prophetic thing – trying to respond and not react …..Maybe I’ll keep the duck.

Should We Trust?

I just read something that has overthrown my world for the moment. I was reading again on LifeStream’s BodyLife’s articles and decided I would start at the bottom and work my way up. The first/last one on their list was one entitled, “To Trust or Not to Trust.” The main point of his article is that trust only belongs to Jesus. That nowhere in scripture were we told to put our trust in another person or a church body. Not the church. Not a leader. No one. Just Jesus.

Wow.

I have wrestled with this for two days. I thought church life and life with other believers was all about trusting each other. Even in our last meeting with our leaders the words were spoken, “If you don’t trust us, I don’t see how you can stay.”

Trust was everything. People who have actually talked to us since we left have said, “But we trusted you.” It has been said that we “broke trust.” I feel that others that I have trusted have betrayed me. (Betrayal can only happen when you have trusted someone.) Trust, when broken could never be restored in my mind. It was like a broken glass. You could glue it together again but it would always be cracked and scarred. Can you see how this idea of trusting each other was woven completely into my relationships? I did not see this as unhealthy at all. Yet the fruit of it was and is terribly unhealthy.

What if my hurt (in what happened here at my CLB) was actually caused by this whole idea of trusting in something and someone that never was to be trusted in the first place? What if I realized that my trust needed to be placed ONLY in Jesus? Would I have been so hurt? If this were taught to a congregation, would there be so much abuse of authority? I don't think so.

I looked in scripture today to see if Wayne had missed something. I looked up every verse that had the word trust in it. Then I looked up the different words used for trust in the Greek and searched them all out. I can’t find it. It is not there. We are to trust God, Jesus, and Scripture. That is it.

Jesus says that he would not entrust himself to men (Jn. 2:24, 25). Paul told the Bereans (Acts 17:11)that they were more noble than the Thessalonians because they basically only trusted Paul to a point. They went to Scripture to see if what he said was true.

The only place that I can remotely find trust towards others is in 1 Cor 13:7 where love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things. The word for hopes is the word translated in some other places as trust. So it does say it there. But does that mean we are to foolishly put ourselves in a position where we never question and are devastated when someone does not do what we expected them to do? I don't think that this is what was meant.

I talked to my daughter about this and she was amazed at my black and white world. To her she feels like she never really trusts someone completely. Her point is that every man and every institution will eventually let you down. People are not perfect therefore how can you have total trust in someone?

Why was trust such a big deal to me?

When I look at it I realize that only trust in God is able to be fulfilled. And even my trust in Him has been shaken when he does not do what I think a loving Father should do. Maybe trust goes much father than people living up to my expectations of them. Maybe if I can “entrust” everyone to the Father and even “entrust” the Father to himself I can be free of the bondage that trust has put on me. That way, trust is not a controlling thing but a way to give God and others freedom to be in relationship to each other and to me.

Maybe I should do like 1 Corinthians 13 says. Maybe I should hope or trust all things and leave the results of that up to God. Maybe it is accomplished in the trust that I place in God. But also at the same time it gives people the freedom to be human in whatever choices they make (and give God the freedom to be God in the way he chooses). If they let me down, there is a bigger picture of a God who loves me and provides me with an ability to love others.

He loves me, even though he can’t always trust me. He pursued Peter even when Peter broke his trust (In fact he did not trust Peter from the outset – even predicted his failure). Maybe the passage where he is sitting with Peter by the shore really shows us what 1 Corinthians 13 means. He does not pull back emotionally when I am not trustworthy. Therefore he gives me what I need to do the same with others.

Right? Am I missing something else that you can think of?