Freeing Hearts to Grow Up

I HAVE studied human maturing in relation to caring for children in our daycare and in shepherding the children of God in the church. One question has plagued me for decades: why are so many adults still children in their hearts? 

I DON’T MEAN children “at” heart, which has a very good side to it both in working with children and living in God’s kingdom. I mean people who still ARE children inside themselves, adults who should have grown up by now, but they haven’t. An objective view of their maturity-level says they are still children, sometimes even infants! 

WHY? 

THE SIMPLE answer is that, passively, immature adults were denied the childhood environment of mature adults to show them how to handle life maturely and, actively, they reached some experience where they decided to send their real self into hiding for protection and began playing a pretend role to survive. 

FACT IS, we can’t mature from a role we are playing. We can only mature by being our real selves in relation to more mature people who are being their real selves. 

AND that requires the kind of love we were designed to thrive in, the love of God. 

I WISH I could say that the church is the safest place to learn to be our real selves in Christ. It should be. It could be. But the world, the flesh, and the devil don’t want broken people to feel safe with God, and they know that a church filled with the love of God would help all the children of God be themselves and grow up for real, and so they are constantly conspiring to “steal, and kill, and destroy”, as Jesus explained. 

MY MENTOR, Paul, described the way safety should look in the church Jesus is building: 

“RATHER, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” 

HOWEVER, I have to admit that I have far more experience in “the church” (typically the manmade variants) with “predators” than with “gentle protectors”. And too many people have responded to the scary people in churches by being “possums” who play dead with their souls while acting out a pretend role to avoid notice. 

AND THAT has left me with the one thing that belongs to every child of God who has received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior: The Triune God IS our safe place to grow up!!! 

ALL THE scriptures that picture God as a “refuge” or a “stronghold” are telling us that he is our one safe place. By constantly showing us that he is greater than all others, that he is unstoppable in working all things in our lives for good, and that he will carry on to completion the good work he has begun in his children, God is relating to us in the ways we need to be assured of his faithfulness to us. 

THE POINT this morning is that we can’t look to a church, or a Christian, or a friend, or a family member, as our safe place. We’re all too broken to be 100% trustworthy. And even the best of us don’t pick up on all the secret cues and clues that someone needs something only God knows about. 

BUT GOD is 100% true. His love is the only perfect love. As we attach ourselves to Jesus Christ like branches of a vine, we are filled with his life and his love so that we become like him in loving one another. That will make the church a safer place, but only to the extent that each member of the body of Christ is finding their ultimate safety in Christ himself. 

MY ENCOURAGEMENT to you is, learn to be honest with God. Learn to admit to God how you are doing. But listen to his word. It will amaze you as you pour out your heart to God about anything you are facing in yourself, and then read his word and hear what he has to say to you each day, and discover that you are learning to trust God as your refuge and strength, your ever present help in trouble, and that it feels like you are growing up to be your real self. 

AND ONE DAY you discover yourself thinking of others differently. Instead of the self-protective reaction to keep yourself safe, you have thoughts of how to love people as Jesus loves you. You find yourself asking God to show you how to help someone who is hurting. You begin praying for people about their needs instead of only petitioning God for your own benefit. You know, signs of maturing! 

THIS MORNING, God has already done this for me again. He led me to talk with him about how it feels to have people “spurn your name as evil,” and to listen to his view of what it means to “rejoice and be glad” in mistreatment and injustice. That made me so thankful for the transforming power of God in my life and got me thinking about how others might need this same encouragement. 

AND EVEN THOUGH my maturing today might seem miniscule to anyone else, God does grant us the grace to simply rest and be his beloved who are still children at heart while no longer being scared and self-protective children in our secret hearts. 

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”

 

 

Note: the imagery of gentle protectors, predators, and possums, is thanks to Jim Wilder of “Life Model Works”.

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

A Personal Journey from Shame to Honor

LONG AGO, when God first showed me the “Deeper” of my orphan-mindedness, he began leading me on a journey of getting to know the Triune as the “first” of my family. Each “higher” that followed revealed to my orphan-mind what it meant to have a Father in heaven, a Firstborn Brother as Savior and Lord, and a Helper in the Holy Spirit who would be Jesus with me always. 

HOWEVER, in one memorable Deeper I discovered that, of the three persons of the Triune, it was Jesus who triggered the most negative-emotion reaction in me. I realized that I had a “fear-based identity”, and the fear reactions seemed to come from a stronghold of shame that was free to do whatever it wanted in my life. I also learned that the shame felt strongest when I pictured Jesus looking at me. 

THIS MORNING, I was traveling through a deeper layer of the familiar orphan-minded territory. I was facing how my life has been affected by the reviling and harsh criticism Jesus is talking about in his Beatitudes. And God totally surprised me with one word of his word: “HE”. 

I HAD BEEN praying through the first chapter of John’s gospel in a surprising journey of statements I was affirming as true in themselves, but also very real to me personally. I acknowledged that Jesus was the true light who came into the world, that he was the Creator who made all things, that the world did not know him and his own people did not receive him, but that there was this glorious contrast in God’s gift of grace to those who did receive him, and who did believe in his name. 

AND THEN it hit me: “HE gave the right to become children of God”, and that “HE” is talking about JESUS!!! 

WHEN I REPLAYED my life, starting with my first awareness of God at age seven, and knowing that I had been one of those in the world who did not know him or receive him, God was adding Jesus to the picture in a way I had never seen him before. What I have always thought of as “God” letting me know he was watching over me even from an early age now had this distinctive addition, that it was JESUS who was giving me “the right” to become a child of God! 

THE POINT is not that I have been a dufus all these years and had never noticed the left-brain-obvious. 

RATHER, the point is that today was the day God chose to expose a “deeper” of woundedness infected with shame that needs to be healed for me to rejoice in the persecutions of the past, present, and future. His love, grace, and mercy chose this for today because it was the only way I would notice the “higher” of “HE” (Jesus) gave me the right to become a child of GOD! 

WHICH MEANS THAT, in the most real and personal of ways, Jesus Christ my Lord was granting to me, a seven-year-old boy, the divinely-given right to become a child of God right then and there (1965). And, because Jesus did this, personally giving me the right to become a child of God, I was “born, not of blood (my human lineage) nor of the will of the flesh (me trying to be born) nor of the will of man (my parents wanting to have children), but of God (by God foreknowing me, and predestining me to the adoption of sonship, and calling me to himself by the gospel, and justifying me by grace through faith, and glorifying me in his presence when I will be just like Jesus when I see him as he is).” 

AT PRAYER MEETING last night we were just talking about how, when we pray about things, we do not decide what to look for that will match our expectation of how God will answer our prayers. Instead, we pour out our hearts to God like children, and then watch what happens in the coming days to see how God is working everything together for good in our lives. We know that whatever he does next will come from his thoughts and ways that are so much higher than our own that we can’t possibly imagine we can tell him how to answer our prayers! 

WHICH MEANS THAT, noticing the beautiful pronoun “HE” is like a one-word answer to my prayers from last night. It serves as the first domino falling into every truth and reality about Jesus Christ my Lord that God wants to be far more real and personal to me than ever before. 

AND, it is knowing Jesus Christ as the Savior who personally granted me the right to believe in him, and to receive him, and to become a child of God by grace through faith, that shines in direct contradiction of all the shameful things this orphan-minded child has ever felt, and all the fear-based-identity reactions that have hindered my walk with God, so I could feel the attachment to my Savior that he was not merely doing what his Father told him to do, but he was doing for me what his own love delighted to do! 

AND SO, I “consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that I may not grow weary or fainthearted” in the hostilities that have come against me because of knowing him. HE granted me the gift of the new-birth into the adoption of sonship. And HE is worthy to be worshiped by me rejoicing in the reviling and harsh criticism that is now a badge of honor instead of a bruise of shame. 

I HAVE heard what God is speaking to me about this morning. I can see what he is doing in me to prepare me for things he is doing around me. And I am joining him in his work by praising Jesus for personally granting me the right to become a child of God by grace through faith, and by practicing joy in response to any form of persecution that may come today, and in every memory of harsh criticism and reviling that plucks at the heart-strings. 

AND I HOPE that facing these things in my walk with God this morning is as helpful to you as it has been to me!

 

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

Morning Sharing: Returned to Joy From Evil Words

I’m continuing to pray through the parallel passages (rhyming) that address the “blessed are” in relation to “the persecuted”. This morning I came to these two expressions: 

Matthew 5:11-12	Luke 6:22-23	Prayer
and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely	and revile you

Here’s the short of it: 

I’m choosing to just be myself in my sharing in the hope that this may help others who are struggling through such things and need to see someone being honest about the “deepers” while honestly admitting and pursuing the “highers”. I don’t know if I have any significant unresolved or unhealed pain about these things, but it is comforting and affirming to see that the way I was treated as a teen was more about me living for Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior rather than being a bad kid. 

This obviously comforts me about the whole trail of good church-folk who led up to the most recent experiences, but the main focus is the good it will do for me, and for my church family, if we obey Jesus and practice rejoicing in our persecutions (I think we need some songs written for just this expression of worship!). 

I’m sure this is looking forward into what is coming as much as backwards into what has been done. Either way, God continues to return his children to joy in the heartaches of slander and reviling, and one day that joy will last forever… no painful interruptions!

 

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

I did write a song based on rejoicing in our persecutions a number of years ago, but I think we need more and I am eager to find out what may already be out there to help us express our longings and hopes as we worship our Savior as worthy of our joy in such sufferings as Christians endure all around the world.

In the Day of Trouble, Rejoice in the Lord 

https://youtu.be/j37TmEw_3jk

Morning Sharing: Returning to Joy in Persecution

This is the essence of my time with God this morning since developing this chart yesterday.         

Matthew 5:11-12	Luke 6:22-23	Prayer
“Blessed are you	“Blessed are you
when others revile you	when people hate you
and persecute you	and when they exclude you
and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely	and revile you
	and spurn your name as evil,
on my account.	on account of the Son of Man!
Rejoice	Rejoice in that day,
and be glad,	and leap for joy,
for your reward is great in heaven,	for behold, your reward is great in heaven;
for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.	for so their fathers did to the prophets.

I am sure I will be here for the week. I am using the “prayer” column to pray through each of the expressions from this Beatitude regarding the blessing of being persecuted. Today I was on the third row regarding persecution and exclusion. There is some comfort in God simply using the words that describe our personal experiences. 

The main conclusion is that God is not telling us to deny our sorrows and just rejoice, and he is not allowing us to baby our wounds as if pain is all there is to life. The third option (plumbline) is that God returns us to joy. 

So, for each of the things Jesus mentions, I face how I am affected in that way, and bring it all to him for whatever healing and helping I need. As an injured soldier gets the help needed to return to health, the grieving servant gets the help he needs to return to joy.

 

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

A Beatitudinal Return to Joy

For a long time, I have viewed the Beatitudes of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount[1] like a valley. The first four lead down to rock bottom; the second four lead up to joy that cannot be hindered by anything we go through. It looks something like this:

This morning, being up unusually early set the stage for a new focus in the Beatitudinal Valley. It felt like finding a new viewpoint from which to see how everything in the kingdom operates. And what it showed me was the work the Triune was doing to return me to joy in the very areas of life Jesus described. 

From there, I looked up the Beatitudes as recorded by both Matthew and Luke and focused on the last one recorded in both gospels.[2] I made a chart to see what they looked like side-by-side.         

Matthew 5:11-12	Luke 6:22-23
“Blessed are you	“Blessed are you
when others revile you	when people hate you
and persecute you	and when they exclude you
and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely	and revile you
	and spurn your name as evil,
on my account.	on account of the Son of Man!
Rejoice	Rejoice in that day,
and be glad,	and leap for joy,
for your reward is great in heaven,	for behold, your reward is great in heaven;
for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.	for so their fathers did to the prophets.

Before continuing with today’s lesson, there are a few possible reasons why Matthew and Luke have different wordings. One, that Jesus said a lot more than what was recorded and both men are picking different words and phrases from the whole message. Two, that Jesus taught these things on more than one occasion and the men are using words and phrases that came up at different times. Three, that both are summarizing Jesus’ teaching with different choices of words, or one is giving a verbatim account while the other is summarizing. And, of course, since there is also the dimension of this that the men were writing down the words “breathed-out by God”,[3] they were simply recording things as they were “carried along by the Holy Spirit” to write them considering the different readership on which they were focused.[4] 

I am always reading God’s word with the aim of answering the three questions: What is God saying? What is God doing? How am I to join God in his work? And that led to me realizing that God was speaking directly to things I have been through recently enough that they still hit the feels on a regular basis. He had something to say about his will in the matter; he is doing something about it that is different from what comes naturally to me, and he intends for me to adjust to what he is doing with some distinctive changes to my focus on feelings.

Which led to adjusting the chart to allow room to prayer-journal about everything.         

Matthew 5:11-12	Luke 6:22-23	Prayer Focus
“Blessed are you	“Blessed are you
when others revile you	when people hate you
and persecute you	and when they exclude you
and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely	and revile you
	and spurn your name as evil,
on my account.	on account of the Son of Man!
Rejoice	Rejoice in that day,
and be glad,	and leap for joy,
for your reward is great in heaven,	for behold, your reward is great in heaven;
for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.	for so their fathers did to the prophets.

I will likely be at this viewpoint for a while, so here is just a summary of what it looks like to pray God’s word back to him:    

Matthew 5:11-12	Luke 6:22-23	Prayer Focus
“Blessed are you	“Blessed are you	To process how mistreatment because of Christ is to be seen as an expression of God’s favor that is cause for joy.
when others revile you	when people hate you	To acknowledge to Father how these things have applied in real life scenarios and what it has felt like to experience them.
and persecute you	and when they exclude you	To acknowledge the experiences of persecution and disowning that have taken place and that God is fully aware of them.
and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely	and revile you	To address the distinctive attachment-pain of loved ones speaking to others about us with lies and reviling, and that God’s view of this is still contrary to what is natural.
	and spurn your name as evil,	To face how painful it is to be given a bad name by slanderous spreading of lies and accept that God doesn’t see this the way we do.
on my account.	on account of the Son of Man!	To acknowledge this qualifier that determines why the descriptions of hatred are a blessing and not a condemnation, that the negative way we have been treated is distinctly because of Jesus Christ.
Rejoice	Rejoice in that day,	To receive this command as Jesus’ will for returning us to joy, and then to join him in his work of returning us to joy by responding to his word with rejoicing!
and be glad,	and leap for joy,	To pray through whatever “deepers” are exposed by this “higher” of being so glad in how we are treated that we would leap for joy (at least in our hearts, if not in our actions) in response to things that would normally fill us with sorrow.
for your reward is great in heaven,	for behold, your reward is great in heaven;	To pray through any “deepers” exposing how little we live with this mindset, and to allow ourselves to attach to this “higher” that we are laying up treasure in heaven simply by being mistreated for living for Jesus Christ our Lord.
for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.	for so their fathers did to the prophets.	And finally, to talk with Father about this wondrous reality of his kingdom, that the prophets we admire so much in God’s word were also mistreated by God’s people for speaking God’s word to them. There may be feelings to process, but there still must be an acknowledgement of God’s word and will.

At the time of writing down these thoughts I have not finished my own prayer-journaling through this Beatitudinal viewpoint. However, I hear how God is speaking to me about his Beatitudinal work to return me to joy; I see a variety of things he is doing to make this real in my life, and praying through these things is just the first step in joining God in his work. The other steps will follow as I face the feelings of grief that accompany the mistreatment of this past while, surrender them to the healing of Christ and the helping of the Holy Spirit, and join God in each particular assignment where these same things come up again, or I see the people who have done the harm, or I need to relate to others I meet out of joy instead of sorrow. 

And all I know right now is that God will not fail to work this for good beyond what I can ask or imagine!

 

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

 

 

 

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[1] Matthew 5:1-12

[2] Matthew 5:11-12; Luke 6:22-23

[3] II Timothy 3:16-17

[4] II Peter 1:21 (Matthew was showing a predominantly Jewish readership how Jesus fulfilled the law and the prophets; Luke was focused on a detailed historical record for Theophilus and others with the same need to see how certain we are that Jesus lived, died, rose, ascended, and established his church to proclaim the gospel throughout the world)