I want to know where your brother is. I want to know what you think happens when you leave the fallen behind. Do you think that you can sit in your churches and worship when there is an empty space where your friend used to sit? How can you sing songs and hear sermons about grace and forgiveness, the essence of the Gospel, and not connect that to the one who fell behind? How can you tell the people on the outside that something is true when you can’t make it true for one of your own?
Where is your brother?
There is a very real enemy who preys on the weak places of our lives when we least expect it. People don’t make damaging choices just to make damaging choices. They’re fighting wounds that never healed as children. They’re deceived into thinking that their healing is just around the corner. They’re shown a substitute for reality and they take it because it’s the first opportunity to escape the hurt that is breaking in on them.
They get on the wrong bus. They take the wrong pill. They drink from the wrong well. When they’re falling, they still think they can make it. He drives fast because he doesn’t think the crash will kill him. She gives herself away because she thinks it will deepen their love. People make poor choices because they don’t grasp the reality. They’re cashing in before the bidding is done.
The fantasy of completion is intoxicating. The intoxicated are the drunk. The confused. They need a sober friend to help them find their way home. They need someone to share the bitter tears of a little girl who gave herself away to the wrong boy. They need someone to tell them it’s going to be alright while they wait for the ambulance to come.
Why did you leave them?
There is a thief who is here to steal, to kill and to destroy. There are people who get caught in his lies, are being drug off to be destroyed. But, those who are marked for ‘LIFE’ will not die in the hands of the thief, but they will be tormented and lied to. He’s effectively convincing them that they are destroyed. We are not the judge of who is ‘marked for Life’. What are you doing leaving them? Where are your prisoners of war? Where is your brother?
“How should I know? Am I his babysitter?”-Genesis 4:9
Yes! Yes, you are his babysitter and his blood is your blood.
“What have you done! The voice of your brother’s blood is calling to me from the ground.” -God, Genesis 4:10
We all do stupid things even though we know better. We all have our limits and those limits are set by our own mistakes. ‘I’ve done that, so I have grace for that.’ ‘I haven’t don’t that, so I have no tolerance for that.’ We set our own limits and then we mistakenly attribute those limits to God. As though we’re so close to Him, we can freely pound gavels and reject testimony based on our surefire understanding of the situation.
We’re one body. We are connected by one Source of Blood. When one falls, we all fall. It’s designed to hold us together.
Can you sit in your churches and ignore the empty spaces? Heartache and sentiment are your offering, but your offering is rejected.
Leave your gift at the altar and go. First make peace with your brother, and then come back and present your gift. -Matthew 5:24 AMP
If your relationships are incomplete, unreconciled and left for dead, then your offering is not fit. If you leave your brother behind, left for dead, then you will be called to questioning. You’re trying to offer worship, but where is your brother? You’re trying to feed the hungry, but where is your brother? You’re trying to share the Gospel, but where is your brother?
Where is your brother? The voice of his blood is calling from the ground.
What have you done?
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.-1 Corinthians 13:1-3
This isn’t the emotionalism of a detached greeting card religion. This is a message to those who are too busy feeding the call of the social gospel to stop all their religious projects and self-indulgent plans to stand by the drunk kid wrapped around the light post waiting for the ambulance to get there. This is the ‘good Samaritan’ who dropped his agenda to carry the wounded to safety. This is the church leader who cries with the girl in her youth group who just got a pink positive on her pregnancy test.
Love doesn’t give up on someone. Love doesn’t keep score of sins. Love isn’t happy when the person suffers as a result of their bad choices. Love doesn’t assume the worst. Love puts up with anything. Love doesn’t look backward, but keeps pushing forward.
Whatever you’re doing that doesn’t include going back and walking at the slow pace of a fallen brother is nothing but noise and distraction. It’s not fit as long as his blood is calling out from the ground. You are trapped in relationship of love. You need to serve as much as he needs to be served. Wash his dirty feet. Help him carry his mess.
‘Carry each other’s burdens….’-Galatians 6:2
Judgement says: You did this. Grace says: It could have been me. I did this.
“Love will hold us together
Make us a shelter to weather the storm
And I’ll be my brother’s keeper
So the whole world will know we’re not alone”
It’s interesting how people whose sin has taken them to a temporary place of transition still feel like they’re in control. Delusions make them feel like nothing will happen while they stall. Sin has isolating factors and a person who is isolated is also blind to things they would normally be able to see. Sin causes relational divisions and those people aren’t just frozen in time. Sin causes detachment from reality. Reality doesn’t go away just because you’re not dealing with it. Sin is numbing. When the poison wears off, the pain is unbearable. Sin makes a person not be able to trust themselves anymore, they just don’t know it in the middle of it.
We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.-1 John 5:18 ESV
This verse tells us that children of God absolutely have, do and will sin. The difference is, they do not stay stuck in it. It’s like the parent who has a toddler that runs off. The parent is watching and is calling his name. If the child doesn’t abandon his course, the parent goes after him. Either way, the child does not continue away from the will of the parent.
A person who is in the trenches of an affair, of a scheme of deceit or some other timeline of falling dominoes most often feels like coming clean is impossible. They’re already in trouble, so what’s the use? It’s especially difficult to come clean when the known details are enough to cause an uproar. If the unknown details are brought up, the havoc wreaked could be too much to bare. It’s hard to come clean when coming clean won’t reverse the damage.
I understand wanting to wait on the inevitable laws of physics. As long as the apple hasn’t landed, then you can still find peace in denial and ignorance. What a cheap form of peace you have settled for. Can’t you warn the people in the apple’s path to move out of the way? Maybe they can catch it. Maybe they can lay down a tarp to catch some of the debris. Maybe they won’t be wearing their best clothes when it hits the fan.
You’re not ruined or lost. You just ran off in the wrong direction. You may be too scared to come home and face the music, but would you rather spend the rest of your life running from the only thing that can heal you? God doesn’t leave that up to you. He’ll come get you.
But, if you have it in you at all, go home. Remember the last part of that scripture I used: God will protect you. Evil will not be able to touch you. It’s going to be okay.
‘…if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.’ -Jesus, Luke 18:14
How many times have you worked yourself up into a ball of stress and disappointment because you can’t seem to be who you think you should be? Being average makes you feel discontent. You wear yourself out trying to chase down the whisper in the wind. On stagnant days with no wind to stir the air, you wonder if you’ve done something wrong. Faith is easy when the voice is audible. Faith is built when you have to endure the silence.
If you want to be more than who you are, then you have to be yourself. The only sense this makes is that you don’t get to play a role in making yourself into who you think you should be. You’re just supposed to be. This covers those of you who are wearing yourselves out trying to do everything right. This also covers those of you who have messed up so bad, you think you’ve ruined everything.
“Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant. If you puff yourself up, you’ll get the wind knocked out of you. But if you’re content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty.” -Matthew 23:11
We’ve already been created into the wonder that we are. We don’t have to try to be who we should be. We’ve been playing that conformity game our whole lives. Trying to fit in so we can be approved and included. We are who we’re supposed to be and we continue to evolve through experiences that teach and mature. Everything counts. All of you is needed. Even your junk. Bring it all and be content. Pretty soon you’ll see your quirks as the source of your beauty and you’ll find who you are in Him, not in who you’ve tried to be.
You are extraordinary. Own it and don’t conform. Be honest about who you are and you’ll find out how much more nourishing that is for others. Beauty is found in scars. Jesus is found in the broken. His strength is in your weakness.
Take particular care in picking out your building materials. Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you’ll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won’t get by with a thing. If your work passes inspection, fine; if it doesn’t, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won’t be torn out; you’ll survive—but just barely.-1 Corinthians 3:13-15
When you are making your choices, everything you use to make them will be scrutinized. Absolute honesty is the only way to pass inspection. Justifications are not good enough. They may hold up the same way ‘wood, hay or straw’ hold up, but as soon as the Wind comes they’ll be shown for what they are. When the Fire comes, all of your secrets will be out and you’ll have to watch what you’ve built out of desperation turn into a pile of ash. You can do what you want, but you will get away with nothing.
‘Purified as in fire.’ You’ll learn to despise your excuses for choosing failure. You’ll learn to abhor ‘what you want.’ ‘Not my will, but yours be done.’ That’s not a joyful wrist flutter or a flower you stick in a prayer bouquet. It’s a scream. It’s the earth shuddering at its core. It’s an acknowledgment. It’s the submission before the death.
Is it that we don’t think God actually exists? Is that why we do exactly what feels good and make sure we’ve covered our bases just in case anybody asks? They beat the servants while the master is away. They take a nap while they’re supposed to be ready.
“The servant who knows what his master wants and ignores it, or insolently does whatever he pleases, will be thoroughly thrashed.”-Jesus, Luke 12:47
This isn’t some backwoods hellfire rant with a rattlesnake bite communion. This is a lesson from someone who’s been there. You may be thrashed and burnt, but you won’t be lost. ‘You’ll survive ‘ and have another chance to do it right. Nobody can make you do anything, but I can warn you about what’s down the wrong road.
“You don’t have to be a genius to understand these things. Just use your common sense, the kind you’d use if, while being taken to court, you decided to settle up with your accuser on the way, knowing that if the case went to the judge you’d probably go to jail and pay every last penny of the fine. That’s the kind of decision I’m asking you to make.”-Jesus, Luke 12:57-59
There is always grace. There is always forgiveness and mercy. Nobody can take that away from you. But don’t underestimate how or how much it will change you. Grace doesn’t give someone the last laugh. It changes them into someone who would choose differently if they’re ever in that situation again.
If you fall to pieces in a crisis, there wasn’t much to you in the first place.-Proverbs 24:10
If you’re feeling tapped out, whose well have you been tapping? We say that our lives belong to God. That our time, money and talent are a gift from Him, but you can tell what you really believe when you actually have to use them for something that doesn’t benefit you.
Rescue the perishing; don’t hesitate to step in and help. If you say, “Hey, that’s none of my business,” will that get you off the hook? Someone is watching you closely, you know—Someone not impressed with weak excuses.-Proverbs 24:11-12
Don’t yell to a lamb in a ravine and call out the obvious. It does them no good to have you gathered on the bank talking about it. Secure a rope and meet them where they are, not where they should be. They are, after all, where they are.
What if they are trapped by a limb and the only way out is to cut it off? Give them a second to come to terms with that. What they have to do is just as traumatic. If you can’t be there for them when they’re stuck, you can’t be there for them when they’re maimed and free.
Spouting off scriptures about sin and right living doesn’t do anything but point out the obvious. They’re face to face with that reality before you speak it.
Let’s not pretend this is easier than it really is. If you want to live a morally pure life, here’s what you have to do:… -Matthew 5:29
They have to maim themselves to get out. They have to lose a part of themselves.
Don’t stand over them and talk about this with no gravity for their reality. Put yourself in their position, look at your own arm and picture it. If you have any bit of ‘I wouldn’t be in their position‘ in you, then please, get far, far away. You haven’t earned your degree in grace. Yet.
Don’t get mad at them when they snap at you. I am mean when I’m hurt. Everybody who knows me knows not to talk to me when I stub my toe or hit my head on my cabinet door. Are you a tart when you have a headache from hell? Don’t take their sharp tongue personally and don’t carve them and their sin in stone. They aren’t themselves.
Things don’t always end up the way you think they should. Put your hope and expectations in God, not in the person. They’ll get out of it the way God sees fit for them. His goal is not their veneer, it’s their vision of Him for the purpose He’s given them. Our experiences are orchestrated in a way that forms us to be who we are called to be. Don’t lose sight of hope when you’re in impossible. Sin never gets the last word.
‘You’re about to be given new grounds for believing.’ -John 11:14
Andafter you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to hiseternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.-1 Peter 5:10 ESV
Job answered God: “I’m convinced: You can do anything and everything. Nothing and no one can upset your plans. You asked, ‘Who is this muddying the water, ignorantly confusing the issue, second-guessing my purposes?’ I admit it. I was the one. I babbled on about things far beyond me, made small talk about wonders way over my head. You told me, ‘Listen, and let me do the talking. Let me ask the questions. You give the answers.’ I admit I once lived by rumors of you; now I have it all firsthand—from my own eyes and ears! I’m sorry—forgive me. I’ll never do that again, I promise! I’ll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor.”-Job 42:1-6
God doesn’t have to follow your rules. If you’re in the middle of it right now, don’t make the mistake of thinking He’s been tied up by poor choices. There’s a purpose for everything. Trying to figure it out is just ‘muddying the water.’
When you’re going through something, especially the things nobody talks about, you feel like your situation is unique to you. That nobody would understand what you’re going through.
This isolation we feel when we’ve taken a departure from ‘normal’ removes us from the general rules of society. If you’re in new territory, then you’re a survivor in the wilderness.
If nobody understands, then it’s pointless to talk to them. You close up and your relationships start to suffer.
What if you knew that you weren’t the only one going through this? You’re a text book example. I could finish your timeline before you could act it out.
Most of your poor decisions come from feeling like you’re in new territory. They’re fueled by feeling like an isolated exception. There’s a split in your personality, much like someone trying to act normal when you’re incredibly distracted by something you can’t talk about. The distraction is so powerful, it starts to push the ‘normal’ out. Soon you have to explain where your head has been and you grab as many excuses as possible. Usually having to attack ‘normal’ in order to take his voice away.
When it doesn’t work and ‘normal’ still has a valid voice, it makes you feel agitated. Angry even.
You don’t want to be talked out of it. Starting fresh and breaking away into this new fantasy actually seems like a possibility. As much as you don’t want to be this way, you’re thinking about yourself more than ever. You think about your years of sacrifice…things you’ve settled for.
There is always a fight to continue in sin. You have to fight for it. You have to be brutal to the things trying to hold on while you’re slipping away.
The harder they fight for you, the harder you hit. This is why a person comes to a point down the road where they can’t imagine going back because of all the destruction they’ve done.
If you don’t connect with anything else I’m writing right now, please connect with this. The person fighting to move further into their path of sin will get so emotionally cold, brutal and heartless that it’s like taking a sledge hammer to the hallway photos and memorabilia of a happy life. Most people can’t take it and that’s why there are lesions in the Body of Christ.
We all have a nature within us that will fight to go it’s own way. It’s selfish, inconsiderate and doesn’t care about the walls it has to tear down to get out. If you haven’t met that part of you yet, you will. I’m not talking about the everyday head butting with your proverbial angel and devil. I’m talking about the destructive force that creeps like black tar over your toile throw pillows and gets caught in your children’s cornsilk hair. You’re lost in your own head trying to find yourself, meanwhile your ’self’ is destroying your home.
Something you can take away from this is the same thing you can take away from any relationship. You learn to recognize the voice. In this case, it’s the voice of your selfish nature. That’s something. If you can recognize it, you can ignore it. Also, God knew how destructive that nature is and wanted to make sure you could never look back at the damage you’ve done and feel like He’d never take you back. He’ll always be there, standing in your mess with a set jaw.
That’s when you’ll find yourself. And when you do, nobody can take that away from you. What you may not know, is who you are has nothing to do with what you’re trying to leave behind or trying to run to. You’re a wanderer in a desert running to and from mirages. Distractions. You, self-inflated delusions and all, are His child. Nobody can take that away from you. Not even you.
I don’t know how far down the road you have to go to see things clearly, but I promise you, you’ll always hit the dead end. People may leave you at some point, but He never will. Never ever, ever. You have the freedom to destroy and grace will give you the power to grow new life out of death. When you see your worst, be thankful. Seeing your worst makes it easier to let yourself go. To let ’self’ die. People who have been there will understand that the details are just details. What is the most important is your faith and your faith will bring you back to the path of life. New life.
Hopefully it helps to know that the sooner you abandon your self-searching mission, the easier the cleanup will be. It’s crippling when you finally find out that the answers and superficial happiness you’re seeking will not be what you’re really after. I’ve been there and nothing on this planet can ease the pain of breaking away from ‘right’ to find it.
You’re not alone and you won’t be abandoned. If it doesn’t change your course now, then hold on to it because it will help you when you’re ready to fight what you think is your ally right now. Hell gains your trust with a seductive, soft caress until it gets you settled in your new address and then it starts to eat you alive. A snake charmer bit by his pet. It’s a classic story of evil seduction and you’re not immune to the well practiced song of the ‘father of lies.’
I’ve been there. I know that heartache all too well. I made it out. You can, too.
Until then…
Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better than to catch you napping. Keep your guard up. You’re not the only ones plunged into these hard times. It’s the same with Christians all over the world. So keep a firm grip on the faith. The suffering won’t last forever. It won’t be long before this generous God who has great plans for us in Christ—eternal and glorious plans they are!—will have you put together and on your feet for good. He gets the last word; yes, he does.-1 Peter 5:8-11
Opposite sex friendships aren’t limited to being between two people. They’re also not like same sex friendships.
They pull in the attention of significant others and there is a delicate balance that may be hard to keep.
You confide in a friend. You build up a friend.
You experience certain aspects of life with a friend and those experiences make the friendship grow.
There are inside jokes. Feelings. Emotions. Bonds.
What if they’re better at being a friend than your significant other?
What happens when they start to become a distraction?
What about when something happens and you wish you could have the ear of your friend because they would respond better than your spouse?
Frustration digs his feet into your marriage.
Thoughts wander to the other side of your walls.
What if you find more in common with your friend than you do your spouse?
Disrespect leaves crumbs in your bed.
With the distraction of someone else to confide in, there’s no real reason to fix the parts of your marriage that are breaking. By the time you notice them, it requires too much attention. And by this point, you have to search for reasons to fight. Reasons that have nothing to do with love.
This is the point when you wonder how this happened.
What could you have done different?
Are you friends with their spouse? It doesn’t matter how you know your friend, when it spills into your personal life, you should be able to be their spouses friend, too. If you’re not their spouses friend, then you’re not their friend.
If their spouse doesn’t connect with you when you try, there is a reason for it. You don’t get to blow past it and you’re not entitled to an explanation. It doesn’t matter if they’re wrong or crazy. It ends there.
As a married person, your thoughts, actions and voice should be filtered through your spouse. Not because you’re co-dependent or insecure, but because you’re one.
You represent each other when you’re out in the world. Don’t divide yourself in public.
I cringe when women talk about their husbands like they’re children. I don’t care if you’re right. Don’t make a woman who sees the treasure you have feel sorry for him and try to sooth his bruised ego. You don’t know what people can see. You see everything, the rest of the world only sees a piece and it’s probably the best piece. Protect him. If he goes down, so do you.
I’m annoyed when men talk about their ‘nagging’ wives. Where does your marriage win if you succeed in making the rest of the world feel sorry for you? Just because you don’t want to make her feel adored doesn’t mean that somebody else wouldn’t be happy to.
Don’t let anyone else see the gap between you. There are too many people who don’t see your spouse the way you do, they see your spouse the way they are longing to be seen. Don’t let a ‘friend’ in the vacant space. Fight to bridge it.
If you find yourself in the emotional mess I described in the beginning, try tracing your steps backward and make new choices. You’ll still suffer a loss. It’s your choice as far as what you want to lose.
With so many people on the planet, you face an overwhelming assurance that the intimate details of your life will not be witnessed. No one will know how good you smell or notice that first hint of your workouts making a difference. I watched a movie recently about a guy who went off by himself to survive in the wild. He started out with no understanding of the significance in relationships. What he learned in the process of exploring his limits and hidden abilities is that the joy in his achievement and mountain top experiences were hollow.
‘Happiness: only real when shared.’-Christopher McCandless
We need to be known. To be seen. There is a world of people out there who will never know your intimate details. The freckles, scars and shapes.
I asked my sister-in-law about a scar near her eye a few weeks ago. The look changed in her eyes and she stared at me for a moment and then laughed. She said that nobody had ever asked her about that scar before. It meant something to her. It’s simple and didn’t really matter to me, but it’s part of her story and she got to tell it. Now it matters.
I have a freckle on my left pinky. I’ve had it my whole life. Of every hand I’ve held, gift I’ve given, and gesture I’ve made, no one has ever noticed it. The only person who has is my husband. It’s so simple, but it’s part of me. No matter how old I’ve been or what I’ve gone through, when I look down at my hands, it’s there. When my husband tells me he loves the freckle on my pinky, I know what he’s really saying. He’s saying he sees me like no one has ever seen me and he gets to be the one who gets it.
If we could slow down for a second and take the time actually see the other person, our relationships would dig in so much deeper. We wouldn’t have the emotional void of feeling invisible.
Emotional affairs are had by people who don’t want to be invisible anymore.
Imagine the difference you could be making in your marriage if you made sure your spouse knew they were seen.
A while back I started answering some of the questions people send me on a video blog. My latest deals with a reader who wanted to know if he/she was in the middle of an emotional affair. My video response deals primarily with being honest with yourself. The question alone alludes to the lack of emotional honesty within the asker. It’s common, but not something I’ll feed. Then I address the emotional ‘need’ that is being fulfilled by the foreign substance (in this case: a person).
As the survivor (spiritually speaking) of an affair, I have a much different take on the foreplay of a full-blown physical affair than someone who hasn’t overstepped the more obvious boundaries of adultery. There are so many ‘first steps’ that people take regularly that have my antenna up. I’ll list a few of the ones I can think of and call on some of you to add to the list. The point is to educate people who could be traveling down that path and still think their behavior has no real destination and doesn’t hurt anybody. This list is only intended to make you examine behaviors and be honest about what is behind them. I’ll only put a few to start so that you guys can build on top of it. The video is posted at the bottom.
‘Harmless’ flirting (even if you make sure to mention their spouse in the banter.)
Private, unnessesary messages (texts, emails, etc.) no matter how innocent the content.
You should be aware when you can be friends with a member of the opposite sex, but not with their significant other. (Real and cyber life. I have a lot to say on this, but may have to devote an entire blog to it.)
You should be aware if you notice yourself dressing up a little extra or getting a little excited if you know you’ll see a specific member of the opposite sex (or same if you swing that way).
I’ll end my list there to leave room to add your suggestions (or experience).
This weeks blogs will mess around in this stuff a bit heavier. Please share your thoughts (privately or publicly) because my blogs often feed off of them.
