It is Satan
who wants the church to deny what people are going through, because then the
church will not listen to Jesus and learn from him how to minister to them. When
the church makes it unsafe for people to bring their inner pain to Jesus, especially
when it feels strangely like bringing a weeping child to him for comfort, these
people never experience healing from Jesus, and Jesus never receives the glory
of the healing he would joyfully, gently and most certainly give.
When we accept
that the people whose childhood trauma caused something to happen inside them
that feels like a little child that has never grown up beyond the pain that was
experienced, we can keep asking Jesus what he wants to do about it. We can then
follow him in ministry that may make us the target of scribes and Pharisees,
and yet the friend of brokenhearted sinners looking for a Savior.
I do not need
a biblical justification for something I can see. As the fossil-record shows me
all kinds of animals God created that weren’t specifically mentioned in
Scripture, so people’s stories show us all kinds of heartaches and wounds that
are not specifically described in God’s word. If someone tells me that it feels
like there is this little child inside them that cannot stop crying because of something
bad that happened to it, I do not need to find a corresponding experience of
this in the Bible before I help the person. What I do need to find in the Bible
is the ample description of ministry to the wounded no matter how contemporary
life would describe those wounds.
A couple of
decades ago God gripped my heart with this Scripture as his declaration of how
he would respond to anyone who came to him no matter what happened to be wrong
with them:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has
anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim
liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty
those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's
favor.”[2]
This Scripture
tells me that I need to learn the way that Jesus releases the oppressed, even
when the oppressed feel like it is some inner child that carries the oppression
in a way that is distinct from the outer person who appears to have grown up. I
need to learn how Jesus speaks good news to the poor in spirit, even when the
poverty the poor in spirit feels is like an orphaned little child deep within
the hidden places of their inner being. I need to learn how Jesus gives sight
to the blind, even when the blind feel like a little child who cannot see Jesus
for the darkness that they have hidden them in deep within themselves. I need
to learn how Jesus would speak release to the captives, even when the captive
who needs to hear such words of release feels far too much like a little one
that has never known life outside the bars of its childhood trauma.
The church
cannot tell someone: “You cannot possibly be oppressed in the way you describe
because the Bible doesn’t describe that kind of oppression.” Rather, we tell
people, “If that is the way that you would describe the oppression you live
under, let’s bring it to Jesus who promises to “to set at liberty those who are oppressed”.
If you have
been so protected by the grace of God that you have never experienced anything
like what I am talking about, please open your heart to the fact that every
church is within arm’s reach of people who need such help from Jesus. Since Jesus
does his work through his body, simply ask Jesus how you and your church can be
his arms to those who carry such things in their hearts.
From my heart,
Monte
© 2013 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
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