Break the Rules

Jim Palmer of Divine Nobodies posted at his blog several days ago a list of rules that he broke when he was in religion which he now is glad he broke. A few stood out to me that I'd like to comment on.

"Assume that everything you’ve been told or currently know is all there is to truth and anything refuting it must be wrong. In other words, you’ve arrived with virtually nothing left to learn except for trying harder with what you already know."

I believed this. It produced a life that became stale, mundane, and without vitality. Deep down inside I felt that what I had built regarding "belief" didn't work. The "abundant life" that was supposedly afforded to the believer was nowhere to be found. What I had been told over the course of many years turned out to be built on false assumptions. Anyone believing they have learned it all or have come close to that height is certainly one of the more self-righteous persons around. That was me. The extent of my knowledge I see today as small. There is so much more that I don’t understand, that I don‘t get. This fact is liberating.

"If you keep applying the same formula or beliefs and it doesn’t produce the result it promised, assume the problem is you."

I certainly believed that I was the problem. Weekly berating sessions by professional clergy wore me out. I felt so useless to God and believed I would never make the grade so I gave up trying. (My husband has the same testimony.) I became an unbeliever. It affected every part of my life. I was a regular attendee but I wasn't a believer. I couldn't relate to what the people up front were talking about. They were talking about something that didn‘t seem real to me. And I blamed myself for this failure to believe. I was somehow deficient. There was no option either. If I didn’t fall into the parameters presented, there had to be something wrong with me. I reject this today!

"Just accept at the outset that your humanity is your enemy."

This was easy. The do’s and don’ts of the elite in charge made it clear that if my life was not transforming into a more peaceful and righteous life, it was me (my flesh and humanity) that must be getting in the way. I reject this today!

"Equate God’s blessing with improved circumstances or existing in a constant state of 'good feelings'."

Again this one flows right out of the last one. Emotions of anger, anxiety, and fear, to name just a few, were not acceptable in my belief system. These would be labeled with a “lack of faith” thus putting the feeler into a lesser position with God. The polarity then would be that those who never displayed anger, anxiety, or fear, not to anyone from the church at least, were more righteous and better Christians all around. This resulted in me stuffing my feelings and becoming a good fake. I reject this today!

"Don’t ever let yourself fully give into love and freedom."

This one is an accumulation of all the others in my opinion. This one kept me from experiencing life with my God, my husband, and my family in the ways that the creation is designed to experience life here on planet earth. Love and freedom are what God is all about.

So what is different now? Well, the difference between then and now is revelation. I know this word can have negative connotations. I don’t mean it that way. It’s simple really. I see and believe now that Jesus and Father agreed to make redemption available to me before I had any say in the matter.

It never was about our doing good enough or being good enough to receive his gift of salvation. And there is nothing we can do to keep it. We never were and never will be good enough for God in and of ourselves. He made us righteous through Jesus. This is grace. I walk daily now believing that what I do or say will not distance me from Father. This is the gospel, the good news of Christ.

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes...” Romans 1:16 NKJV

I threw it all away

I read this post tonight at the Free Believers Network. One of the paragraphs spoke so directly to the path I’ve been traversing.

"I visited an atheist's website the other day and was astounded by what I found. This guy believed exactly the way I did. He just got fed up with the god that Christianity had served him and he finally made the decision to throw it all away. I have found that for a Free Believer, the quickest way to recover from organized religious thinking is to become an atheist of sorts. You have to literally divorce your mind from the god you were raised with if you ever want to know the one true God. Most of us spend a lifetime trying to fix our broken image of Him, when in reality, we need to throw it all away and start from scratch."

I threw out my religion because it wasn't working. So much about it not only seemed fake and hyped, it also left me empty inside. My life received no fulfillment from religion. The system I participated in wasn’t producing what it promised. So I wiped the slate clean and started over. I opened the door to God inviting him to show me what was real and what wasn’t.

Over two years later, I have no regrets for taking the path I’ve taken. Life has returned to my soul. Emotion and hope have returned. I’m not an atheist, not by a long shot. My life is certainly different and definitely on more solid ground than ever. I recognize that I’m a spiritual being living a human life. The spiritual separate from the natural. I accept both but I don’t live trying to reconcile one with the other in this natural world.

My spiritual life is settled. It was settled 2,000 years ago with no help from me. The life I life in this world I live by the faith of Jesus.

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20

Mummification - Part 2

You may want to read Part 1 first...

These verses tell it best from Galatians 3, starting in verse 10... “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.” 11 But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.” 12 Yet the law is not of faith, but “the man who does them shall live by them.” 13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), 14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”

I had fallen under a curse because I believed I had to “keep the law” of requirements that God had given to Moses. Did I think I was meant to keep all of them? No, that would be silly. My religion taught me that just some of them needed to be kept. This went against scripture however. “The man who does them shall live by them.“ If I was going to live by some of the Law then I was going to have to keep all of the Law according to Deuteronomy 17:19: “…that he may learn to fear the LORD his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes…” (my emphasis). And if I didn’t keep them all, I could condemn myself by reading James 2:10... “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.” I put myself under the curse without even knowing it.

How was I to live my life then? There had to be a solution to this seeming setup from God. He told me that I was to live according to the Law and then I was almost destroyed in trying to do it. Did He really tell me to live according to the Law?

After a search and many months later, I came to the understand that Jesus had finished the law and all its requirements at Calvary. This understanding began to transform me from the inside out. It was like a light went on inside. Jesus had taken the curse for me so that the blessing of Abraham might come through Christ. The same righteousness that Abraham received from God has been given to me through Christ. Right standing with God has been accomplished. It's finished. Not by me, but by Christ. And not just for me, but for all mankind. This is the Gospel message that people need to hear.

God is not looking for my obedience any longer. He knows my weak humanity. He understood from the beginning that man would never be able to make himself right before a holy God by keeping commandments. Because of God’s plan of redemption, He now sees me perfect in Christ. And so it is with anyone else who breathes air. When we recognize that Jesus did it all, we begin to walk by faith and not by sight. We begin to live a saved life.

I now live my life by faith not by laws. Living by laws cursed me, pushing my heart and mind into an unhealthy state. A walk of faith cannot be mixed with laws. Laws bring death. Preachers of the Law are reenacting the ancient Egyptian practice of mummification!

“[It is He] Who has qualified us [making us to be fit and worthy and sufficient] as ministers and dispensers of a new covenant [of salvation through Christ], not [ministers] of the letter (of legally written code) but of the Spirit; for the code [of the Law] kills, but the [Holy] Spirit makes alive.” (II Corinth. 3:6 Amplified)

The clincher is this. I'm no longer obligated to behave a certain way in order to please God. There's nothing I can do to displease Him. I'm dead. Why would I want to return to cause and effect life? It's a lose lose situation. I won't do it because...

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." Galatians 2:20-21 (KJV)

Mummification - Part 1

I’m going to make an attempt to describe what happened to me emotionally and mentally over the past 30+ years. I used the word “mummify” in a conversation with my husband recently. It seemed to identify so succinctly what religion had produced in my life.

I used to believe that God was displeased with me whenever my behavior fell below an unseen line of acceptability. In the same manner I thought that God was pleased when I measured up to His standards put forth in the Bible. I would feel guilty or ashamed when I failed. Conversely, I would feel pretty good about myself when I succeeded. Not only did God have these standards for me to keep but I also had to keep a posture with the church people that indicated I had my act together. I had to act right for God and them too.

This created a false me. It created responses that were not true to my heart. I felt condemned at times and didn’t think highly of my ability to carry through on some of the behavioral requirements for a good Christian. When I did achieve it caused a “good for me” attitude, which also was not my true self. Over time, layer upon layer of fakery smothered my soul.

This is much like what happens to a mummy. The mummification process in ancient Egypt was the way a deceased person’s body was embalmed and wrapped. The abdomen cavity was emptied and dried. The organs, which had been removed, were also dried and put back into the body. Even the cloths used in the drying process were put inside to make the body look like its normal proportions. The outside was prepared with oils to keep the skin elastic. A final application of good smelling oil was made just prior to wrapping.

The wrapping process began with the head and neck. Then the fingers, toes, arms, and legs were wrapped. Between each layer trinkets or charms were placed to protect the dead person from evil spells or actions. A priest read spells out loud while the body was being wrapped. These spells were to ward off evil spirits and to help the deceased pass to the afterlife.

When the wrapping was complete, the body was placed inside a coffin and that coffin inside another coffin. The ancient Egyptians believed that the deceased must then pass through the underworld on its way to the afterlife. There his heart was to be judged by his good deeds on earth. If his heart was found to be pure he would live for all eternity in the beautiful “Field of Reeds”.

After years of guilt, shame, fear, and false security, I lost my ability to think and feel in healthy ways. I lived my life thinking that my feelings were not important. My opinions about how things were to be done also were not important. Emotionally and mentally I shrunk. My strength of mind and heart diminished.

It seemed that God had checked out of the process also. This happened gradually. It wasn’t like I woke up one day and thought that God had disappeared. I simply was not aware of what had happened to me over time. I knew that I wasn’t happy and that my life was empty. Any evidence of spiritual fruit was nonexistent. At least that was my perception. I had unknowingly declared fruit bankruptcy and stopped trying to please God. About this same time I got slammed into a wall.

This “wall” incident was the end of the road to my Law keeping ways. Why do I say Law keeping? I thought my behavior mattered to God. I thought that he would not and could not accept me unless I acted in the right, good Christian way. This meant being filled with the Spirit and having all the right fruit flowing out of me. I believed in cause and effect religion. If I didn’t perform properly, I was doomed. If I performed right, I’d be blessed and problems would be avoided in life. Obviously this did not work. The wall proved it.

My life was kick started into survival mode. It was the beginning of me recovering my soul. I was right where I needed to be... empty and finished with my ways.

Read Part 2…

So You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore

This is the book that gave me permission to stop going to church. It started the revolution in my mind toward everything “God“. I began to realize it was okay to question everything that I had always considered “right“. Of course, I already strongly felt there was something desperately wrong with the institutional system of Christianity. Reading this book gave me hope that there was a way to live and give God His rightful place, which is simply Him living His life in me.

You can read it here online for free. Download it or read it online.

The authors of the book are Wayne Jacobsen and Dave Coleman, former pastors.

How many cults have you belonged to?

A couple of days ago I wrote about cults. If you read it, you might surmise that some of these events were mine. That would be correct.

If you look up the definition of “cult” in a dictionary, you would find mostly positive definitions. Random House Unabridged defines it as “a particular system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and ceremonies”.

I’ve been thinking about all the churches that I have attended throughout my lifetime. They all had definite rites and ceremonies. A “rite” is “the prescribed or customary form for conducting a religious or other solemn ceremony”. (American Heritage). Therefore, it could be said that any religious group that holds to a customary form in the conducting of a ceremony is a cult.

Wait a minute. These weren’t outrageous cultic groups. The churches I’ve attended since birth are of a wide variety and persuasion and most would be considered to be within the mainstream church realm.

I was born into an evangelical denomination in the Midwest. It was a small rural church and they taught that I needed to be born again in order to get to heaven. Nothing radical there, right? I resisted this teaching until I was 17 years old when I made a public profession of faith at an evangelical crusade in a neighboring town. I know that I definitely had a salvation experience. I felt like I was a new person. Certain aspects of my behavior changed overnight and I knew that I had nothing to do with it. I knew God accepted me because my sins were forgiven. My sins weren’t hanging over my head with impending judgment coming. I was happy and free. I wasn’t so sure about future sins. The “lay me down to sleep” prayer, which I learned as a child, seemed to take care of those. At least for a while.

The next church I attended after leaving home for college was a Baptist church near the college. I attended Sunday morning service for most of my freshman year. It was easy to come and go because we were college students and we had commitments elsewhere. I was a part of the Campus Crusade for Christ group at school so didn’t feel any need to participate at the church.

Several friends of mine from college had exposed me to the charismatic movement during this first year. The whole charismatic/pentecostal experience was totally foreign to me until I read a book they gave me. This started me thinking that if this experience was real it might explain why I felt empty so much of the time. I didn’t get along well with my roommate (a strong Catholic) and this bothered me.

In the spring, a singing group from a nearby Christian Bible college gave a concert on our campus. After the concert the choir members came into the audience and “ministered” the baptism of the spirit to those who wanted to be prayed for. Of course I was sitting with the friends who gave me the book and I thought what could it hurt to be prayed for. After that experience (tongues and all) I felt a depth of love inside me that I didn’t have before. I attributed it to the “baptism” experience. Something definitely happened… but what? Another salvation experience?

No longer could I attend the Baptist church. I had to go to a church that accepted my new experience. My choices were between a spirit-filled Lutheran group and a Pentecostal church on the other side of town. Someone from the Campus Crusade group convinced me to go to the other side of town. I experienced culture shock… to say the least. These people seemed on fire and in tune with God. I thought “this is much better than the previous church. It’s alive. These people know how to get in touch with God.” Much to my dismay over the next two years while attending several churches of this denomination in several cities, my life didn’t become more sanctified but just the opposite. Looking good in church and being someone else behind closed doors became a large part of my life. It wasn’t difficult to do. On the contrary it was quite easy to play the game.

Next, I found myself going west where I became involved in a startup Pentecostal church (different denomination) in southern California. The church didn’t last long. I never gave it much thought why. Personally I was relieved when it was closed because I could never put my heart into visiting people in their homes asking them to come to our church. I figured there must be something wrong with me. I never felt good about doing all the things we were supposed to be enthused about doing to fulfill our pastor’s vision.

My roommate, who was part of this church, found a para-church group in town that piqued her interest. After I attended a few meetings, I was hooked. The people were very friendly and took a personal interest in me. This was overwhelming. Being part of this organization over the next 14 years proved to be the best of all my experiences in organized Christianity. Not only did I meet and marry the man of my life, three of our children were born during this time. There was group Bible study every day. We lived on the same property with other believers and shared our lives with each other.

It was great at first. My heart was to be part of a group that was “really doing something for God“. I felt that this ministry’s heart matched God‘s heart. After a number of years however, the group thing wore thin on me. One example of this would be having to answer for our whereabouts. As a family we felt controlled and manipulated. This ended when the pastor died in his sleep one night. From that point the group dissipated.

Less than two years later we moved to my husband’s hometown in northern California. We had three children under the age of eight and no worldly possessions to speak of. My husband’s parents helped us get settled. Our way of dealing with the past was to simply start doing something for God. We joined a local church. Not just any church but a church that was antithetic to the one we just left. This new one had Baptist church affiliation that leaned toward the Willow Creek seeker-friendly approach. Part of our decision to attend this church was because we believed Christians were supposed to be united despite doctrinal issues. We found ourselves amongst friendly people. Friendliness, however, proved to not be enough. After a couple of years, doctrinal issues surfaced. My husband had begun to minister the baptism of the spirit to some of the members and they started speaking in tongues. Oh, oh. We found ourselves gently escorted out the door. This experience was quite difficult for me. I struggled for a number of months with the question... Where was the unity and love in all that?

Then I realized, through the turmoil of this experience, that we were going to start a church. Evidently my husband and the previous pastor had talked about it as a next step for us. My memories of these decisions are very dull. It is hard to believe that I was alive during this time. I had absolutely no heart to be a pastor’s wife. It terrified me. I was raising three boys. How could I find a heart to raise other people and their kids too? It didn’t seem fair. After a few months of trying, we dropped the idea and we found another church to attend.

We’ve always endeavored to find a place of service to God wherever we‘ve gone. A place where we could “serve God’s people“. This was our heart.

The next 12 years at this next church proved to be the culmination of all our efforts to please God. This is where we played out cataclysmic experiences which served to catapult us out of traditional church.

We raised our boys and a late edition daughter at this church. We gave our time and energies to this church, and so did our children. Practically every time the doors opened some representative of our family was there. We wore ourselves out in the name of God, over and over and over again.

Personally, I got tired. I felt alone. I hid this from those around me. I became a non-person, disconnected from life itself. I lost heart and gave up hopes of having abundance again. The basic message from the pulpit was one of reaching the lost. Being a full-time mom and teacher to my children left me little time or energy to go out and get people into the church building so the pastor could preach his messages to them. The Gospel of peace and grace was not taught. There had to be a way to live the Christian life abundantly. This dissatisfaction went on for years. We thought the church experience was good for our children. Eventually all hell broke loose. Our personal lives fell apart. I’ve written about this in earlier posts. Expectations which I had for the church to be able to help us fell short. We left quietly.

In almost two years since that time my life has returned to me. The grace and peace of the Gospel is restoring life to me. The obligation and expectation that I functioned in for so long finally caught up with me. I now choose freedom. That doesn’t mean there aren’t days that I struggle. There are plenty. But the good days far outweigh the bad.

What is a cult?

The word “cult” has a negative connotation in the church world. If anyone is involved in a cult they are believed to be out of the normal flow of Christianity. Dictionary.com’s definition #6 states a cult as “a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader.” These leaders have a special “calling” from God. They are idealized by their followers who feel special to be a part of the group. Acceptance and love are an important part of the experience. Belonging makes a person feel good about themselves. Validation (approval) is earned from the group by following the parameters laid down by those in charge.

What kind of people get involved in these groups? All kinds. People want truth. We’re built to go after it. Our mind and soul desires truth. There is usually some element of truth espoused by these groups. The meeting of basic human needs (love and acceptance) draws people. We want to belong. Our chances of becoming involved in one of these groups increase simply because we are human beings.

Inside the group, definite parameters of conduct are spelled out by those in charge. It is understood what is acceptable and what is not. These parameters are not to be crossed. If you fail in any rule of conduct, either intentionally or unintentionally, you will experience guilt and shame. You don’t want anyone in the group to know about your faults. You want to protect your safe world. If your inconsistencies are exposed you might lose the fruit of being a part of the group… validation, acceptance, and love. You must hide. Others must not know your faults. Hiding becomes part of your nature. You become a liar and a fake. Ironically, this runs opposite of what drew you to the group in the first place… TRUTH.

You may end up confessing your faults to someone in “authority” with the intent to alleviate the overwhelming guilt and shame and to possibly fix your problem. If this happens, watch out! Known rule breakers must be dealt with. If rules are not enforced, the structure of the group is in jeopardy. It is the structure that holds the group together. Its creeds and laws help the leaders maintain control of the group.

The leaders will discipline you. This can follow any number of directions. You could be hauled up in front of the whole group and corrected. Your shame and guilt have now been multiplied several times over even though the purpose of your confession was to alleviate these very feelings. The most strict of cults use these methods. Talk about behavior modification’s effectiveness!

Another method of discipline might put you in a place where you need to answer to certain people about your behavior. This keeps you on a leash. You are watched. You are monitored. This is meant to keep you in line so future failure does not occur. This discipline may work for a while but usually does not have the lasting effect it is meant to engender. You will end up feeling like a failure. This method is called “accountability” in real churches.

A third disciplinary action that may be employed is shunning. The American Heritage Dictionary defines the word shun as this: “To avoid deliberately; keep away from”. This disciplinary response can create paranoia in the shunned person. Paranoia is “a mental disorder characterized by systematized delusions and the projection of personal conflicts, which are ascribed to the supposed hostility of others, sometimes progressing to disturbances of consciousness and aggressive acts believed to be performed in self-defense or as a mission.” If paranoia results from shunning, a terrible cruelty has been inflicted upon this person. To alter the mind of person is callous at best. I don’t doubt that people who shun other people in this way don’t necessarily intend this damage. Those in charge may deny it as “discipline” altogether. Shunning will drive a person to “mental disorder” if allowed to continue. Another element that may be employed indirectly is gossip. The well meaning leader may tell someone of your fault and this person turns out to be a gossip. Before you know it, all sorts of people in the group know of your failure. This also tends to paranoia. Who knows and who doesn’t? You end up living in a surreal world when you are around these people. You know gossip is occurring, yet no one talks to you. They just smile. The “all-knowing” smile. Or the “you really blew it” smile. Or the “you poor thing” smile. Or the best of all “I don’t want to catch what you have” smile.

By the way, if the leader is telling someone about your situation and that person is in no way involved, does that make the leader a gossip too? Oh, no, they're probably just asking prayer for you. This is the road to insanity! GET OUT!

pharisees and heresies

Saw this this morning... pharisees and heresies

It goes right along with what I wrote last post.

an imagined god

Who is God to you? Is he real or is he imagined?

Religion created an imagined god inside me. I didn’t need to personalize him as long as I did the things I was supposed to do as a good Christian. It was about “doing” in order to maintain acceptance in the group. This kept me in a shallow, safe place in relation to others. There was little or no risk involved. It wasn’t until I needed Him that I realized what I had done and that my image of Him was not sufficient to get me out of my mess.

The image I had of God was not real. Dictionary.com has as it’s 12th definition for the word image… “an idol or representation of a deity”. Now that sounds to me like the breaking of one of the 10 Commandments, doesn’t it? Idols are unacceptable, right? Get rid of the idol, right? God wiped the slate clean and started over. Actually He restarted me like a computer needs restarting to clean up corrupted files.

This was His doing. The journey I’m on is the one He's designed. None of us would have gotten to where we are without going through our stuff. This is good. This is God’s doing.

Expectation vs Expectancy

Religion produces expectation
Relationship produces expectancy

Years of my life were spent in a religious system that taught me to expect certain results from God according to my behavior. It was never said in a way that made me think I was manipulating God, but that is what resulted. I never thought "hmmm, I'm going to manipulate God today to get such and such". If it was that obvious I'd have seen it. It was much more subtle.

In my heart and mind, performance created acceptance from God. I walked believing that my actions made me right with God. What I did in the institutional church made me acceptable to God and His people. Well, maybe it was true regarding His people, but it is not so with God.

Ephesians 1:6 says... “to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.” He freely has bestowed grace on us and accepts us "in the beloved" because we are in Christ, not because of any works we produce.

By thinking that I needed to do things to be accepted, I felt obligated to perform. This created a false security in my relationship with God. Because I seemingly did all the right things (such as attended church, raised my children in church, did tasks in church in order to "do my part", and did not cause waves by openly disagreeing with how church happens, etc).... I followed the rules.

The expectation that I was somehow "protected" from bad things happening to me or my family proved to be a false belief system which collapsed in on top of me. When my marriage became threatened by forces I could not control, my life disintegrated before my eyes. This wasn't supposed to happen to people who were sincerely serving God. To say I was disillusioned at that point would be an understatement.

False beliefs do not produce intimacy with God. Jesus said He was The Truth. Believing lies about God produced in me a complacency that grew over years. It did the same in my husband. When we crashed and burned, we were set on a course by God that was meant for us to recover His heart and love. A living relationship with Him.

I’m now beginning to learn to live in expectancy. What new truth does He have for me? What new understanding does He have for me to know He’s working inside of me, that He’s renewing my mind daily and teaching me that His Way far exceeds my way.

Freedom in the Spirit has never been more real. Freedom to be who He made me to be. If He lives inside me, which I believe He does, then He is able to live His life through me. That creates expectancy. The future is not regulated and dictated. I believe He wants me to live in His faith and move forward. Releasing my expectations of how life should be has freed me to live. Every day is new.

Alive Again to God

Yesterday my husband and I went to a gathering of believers here in town. I’ve never been to this gathering before. It was like a beehive when we arrived. After walking around for a short while we figured out where the adults were supposed to be. After everything was said and done, I felt like I had witnessed a motivational talk on how to act as a Christian.

This really was no different than all the other gatherings we’ve visited in the past year. The liturgy was consistent. The order goes something like this: 1) pray for God to come and be a part of the service; 2) stand; 3) sing; 4) sit; 5) give your money to God (so the bills that make the building work can be paid); 6) listen to a motivational talk which tells you how to behave as a Christian; 7) stand; 8) pray in closing and ask God to grow the message into our hearts; 9) leave the building and find your car.

For years I went through this routine believing that I was doing God’s will. Yet I could never be sure because the system I submitted myself to was continually between God and me. It became a substitute to a personal, living relationship with my Father. I didn’t know it at the time. If I had known it, my life may have taken a different turn than the one it did. Thus after many years of following this pattern, my first love grew cold. Disconnected from God, I remember thinking a number of times in recent years before the crisis, “Is this all there is to serving God?”.

After hearing a message like we heard yesterday, in previous years, I would have felt guilty for thinking that I couldn’t possibly fulfill what the preacher was saying, no matter what the subject matter. I would try. At least for a while. Eventually I would give up and relent to unbelief. Unbelief is so destructive. It robs of all that Father has for us to be and do, in that order.

Now I’m beginning to see what went wrong. My trying is not what God wants. He wants me to rest. Abiding in Him must be the first thing. Loving Him and having a consciousness of Him inside me is what’s different now. I truly feel alive in Him again, as from the dead. Only God knows what's ahead for us.

church

I want to clarify what I wrote yesterday regarding the institutional church.

Last spring, I found a podcast that described life outside the institutional church as a path in which some people were finding freedom. To me it sounded like an interesting idea. We had been in the process of “looking” for a church for about five months. (We had left the church which we had been a part of for 12 years the previous November.) As we searched we found that each one we visited was not much different from the previous week’s visitation and that left us in a quandary.

It was necessary for me to reach an end to my understandings and beliefs about church. What I had believed about “organized” church was that it was meant to function as the body of Christ. I believed that people with problems should be able to go to those in charge and find people who understand and will minister and care for the needs of that individual. When I needed it to function in that manner, I found that it did not. I found that there was an absence of care. Never mind that I was a total emotional and mental basket case. My life had been lost. What I thought was real no longer existed due to the personal issues with which I was dealing. I felt that I needed someone to help me sort through all my confusion and pain. I was a mess. I didn’t find what I was looking for at my “local church”.

I know now that it doesn’t necessarily work that way. We (my husband and I) were squeezing oranges and expecting apple juice. It didn‘t work. We asked for support from people who could not give it. We needed people who would love and care for us. I think that if we showed up on Sunday morning, we looked like we were doing okay. We’re connecting with God, right? That wasn‘t the case however. I was looking for people support… not God support. I was looking for the Body to work without understanding what that really meant.

My thinking was wrong in at least two ways. 1) I was looking for relational help from people in whom I had no relationship. The “local church” was supposed to be “The Church“ (the Body of Christ). It does not automatically work that way. 2) I was looking for help from the Church first and not from God first. I saw God as someone far away and observing only. So the people in charge at the church should know what to do to help, right? Not so. It didn’t happen that way.

Is the institutional church setup wrong? Not necessarily. Expectations should be limited, though, depending on your own “local church”. I look at the institutional church as a club. An organization that must do certain things in order to maintain its existence. In order to survive it must function like other clubs and have rules and regulations which its members need to follow. Time is limited for the pastors. How can soul care happen when so many people need help? Enough on that for now. Just realize that it is what it is and don’t expect something that it is not. I expected a certain level of care and concern. When I didn’t get it, I turned to other sources… mostly books and the internet.

That doesn’t sound very relational, but it helped more than a person would expect. Since I believed it was up to me to fix and resolve the issues at hand, I immersed myself in the problem seeking to heal and restore my marriage so that I would never have to go through this again. I was certain I would rather die than experience the pain again that had visited itself upon me. As we went forward, God stealthily maneuvered us each step of the way for which today I am very grateful.

Gratefully Disillusioned

Why is it that so many people seem to be going through the same thing that I am or have gone through this past year? Something’s happening. I just read a blog where a woman described how her many years’ journey in Christianity had taken her to a place of total nothingness. It reminded me of me.

I’ve attempted to serve God for over 30 years in many different ways and finally came to an end of it all. My serving left me empty, lost, and wanting for God. After trying to fix things for so long, I came to the realization that my abilities weren’t adequate. I had no answer. I finally gave up. Not feeling love from God or for God was the last straw. If feeling the love of God was not possible in this lifetime, then what’s the use. Where was this “abundant life” that the Bible talked about? I went on a search.

Last spring, I found a podcast that described life outside the institutional church as a path in which some people were finding freedom. To me it sounded like an interesting idea. We had been in the process of “looking” for a church for about five months. (We had left the church which we had been a part of for 12 years the previous November.) As we searched we found that each one we visited was not much different from the previous week’s visitation and that left us in a quandary. We could not return to the original church because of “oh, so many reasons” and after that experience we were left wanting for something with substance.

After dissecting the process and analyzing all the what‘s, why‘s, where’s, how’s, and who’s of my “religious” life, I came to a simple conclusion. God is different than what I thought. He is much different than what I had concocted in my mind. My religious tendencies had created a distant god who didn’t really care for me and was just kind of watching to see what happened next. He was separate from me. I wanted to believe different about Him, but up until this time I wasn’t able to put it together. I know now that He wanted a relationship with me on a minute to minute basis. He wanted me to know Him.

I believe that my “religious” life, over the course of many years, had taken my first love for God and mechanized it. As long as I was doing the acceptable things and showing the acceptable attitudes, I was doing what God wanted. My own feelings didn’t really matter. My own discontent with “church” didn’t really matter. I believed that if I put up with it God would honor my “so called” servant attitude. I believed it for a very long time. Religion taught me. It was a form of godliness with no power.

When critical issues hit my life thirty-three months ago, I felt like it was up to me to solve the problems. I was not strong spiritually. I came to believe, whether correct or not, that those around me weren’t strong either. Teaching Sunday School classes, never missing Sunday morning services, making sure my children were involved with children’s church or youth group, all these represented my ideas of what it meant to serve God. My husband was also very involved in the church we attended. He was on the board of directors, in the worship band, a teacher of classes, the "so-called" spiritual leader of our family… and he turned out to be the source of my greatest pain.

As my life collapsed around me, I was broken, devastated, lost. Expectations that I possessed caused me great anxiety when people I thought should be able to help me didn‘t. I became thoroughly disillusioned with God and His Church. Despite all this, God knew what was happening and what I needed from Him. Grateful disillusionment was on it’s way…

Shifting Paradigms

For the past 33 months, I’ve been replacing or putting aside some foundational paradigms that have defined “my religion” for many years. Why? Because when I needed my religion to work, it didn’t. Having experienced extremely hurtful personal problems and reaching out to God with no recognizable response, I was left with an impression that God didn't care and was far off. Expecting the church people to help my husband and me through our difficult valley I was met with disappointment and a feeling of being shunned… at least that was my perception. After many months of disillusionment and finally leaving the church our family had been a part of for 12 years, I came to realize that my expectations and beliefs about God and his followers were both misappropriated and wrong. I plan to define some of these changes in future writings.

The Random House Dictionary defines “paradigm” as “the generally accepted perspective of a particular discipline at a given time”. “Shift” means “to put (something) aside and replace it by another or others; change or exchange: to shift ideas.” This is what I am doing. The process has brought great freedom to my spirit.