Poor Things: 20th Century Wounds
Because it has decided to push away the uncomfortable consciousness of its wounds, the church has become ignorant to its own dysfunction. This is true on an individual level, of people in the body, and corporately, of the larger body itself.
The direct consequence of this willful ignorance, this ‘choosing not to see,’ is spiritual near-sightedness. I will illustrate this with an example. Light, in the Bible, represents truth. In the natural, light is used to see. Humans can’t see much if we’re in the dark. The same is true with spiritual light. If we hide knowledge of the truth from ourselves, we are putting on spiritual blinders. It’s dark and we can’t see. And if we are wearing spiritual blinders so we don’t see our own trauma, we might not see the other hazards on the road of life, either. (Arthur Burk, theslg.com)
So if we choose not to see or believe the truth, we’re stuck in unbelief. God can’t help us, and won’t save us from our own unbelief until we’re ready to give it up. He can’t save us from the sin we’re still clinging to. And we can’t repent of something that we refuse to admit.
Unfortunately, that means many Christians walk a shallow life of religious assumptions, running around being busy while the true state of their souls is buried in pride and unbelief. If the true state of our souls is woundedness that we can’t see and won’t admit is there, we are not going to be a very good witness for Christ. In fact, we will be the exact opposite. Would you ascribe to a business model that states it’s the most successful one in the world but everyone that had tried it went bankrupt? I wouldn’t either. We are actually living out the lie of the devil, that Christianity doesn’t work. The truth is that Christianity doesn’t work unless you do it right – take up your cross and follow Him.
Christians tend to be some of the most hypocritical people on the face of the earth – because our confession and the state of our inner selves are in direct conflict with one another. We are engaged in atheistic living – we effectively keep God at a distance as we live our daily lives without getting or expecting much help from him. (Sarah Young, Jesus Calling)
And what are we feeding on? Like spiritual vampires, if we feed our hunger with demonic sources then of course we are going to keep manifesting death and lack.
What is the point of writing all this? All this is to say that there is a huge gap between our actions and our words and if you think that unbelievers can’t tell, you’d better think again. If we confess that Christ is a healer, that he brings shalom, restored relationships, and reverses family dysfunction, that better be true in your own life!
Miracles, signs and wonders followed those who believe. But if we don’t believe, we are like wraiths – undead, but not fully dead, because we believe, and yet we don’t live it out. Living as a wraith is ineffective on so many levels. (Wraith word study, Paul Berteig)
If we are refusing to see it because it’s uncomfortable, we deny Christ the opportunity to heal us and bring himself glory in the restoration of wholeness to our lives. When I started my soul-healing journey, my life became immediately more attractive to unbelievers because my freedom was palpable- they wanted what I had. It was so clearly good.
Do you truly believe that God is good to you, or do you just say that you do? Is the state of your inner self so clearly fully healed that people flock to your presence just to get a taste of it?
They did with Jesus. And the pharisees hated it. And the church hated it when I got healed. I have offended so many religious Christians with my wildly abandoned life and unbridled creativity that I can’t even count them anymore.
Unbelievers, however, feel loved and safe in my presence, not judged and controlled. I can’t say that I feel loved or safe or free in the presence of these bitter and rebuking Christians who didn’t hesitate to pour out their venom on me at any chance they got. Most, if not all of them, had high ranking positions in the church because they cared about the things of God and had dedicated their lives to them. I respect that, and the work they had done. But did they respect the new thing that God was doing in me? Most of the time, I don’t think they paused long enough to discern it, before tearing into me.
Jesus himself said, "People will not desire new wine immediately after drinking the old, for they say, 'The old is better.'" (Luke 5:39)
This is sad and so true that the previous move persecutes the newer one. They think that what they had the faith for was the only thing they needed to expand their horizons to grasp, and that anything else, coming from anyone else must be a mirage or a deception.
If the blueprint is perfection, our ignorant human attempts are imperfect. But once we know better, we tend to do better, that is, unless we can’t because of our soul wounds. What is the closest culture to God’s original blueprint for family? Jesus Christ's love manifested in the blueprint of family. We need to look not at what’s normal for white North Americans but what’s a normal level of love, belonging, protection, achievement, work/life balance in traditional Jewish culture.
