Life in the pressure cooker

We had a big pressure-cooker in the house I shared with 11 other guys as an undergraduate. It was always threatening to blow up if you didn’t treat it well, and take a load of potatoes along with it.

I spent a day recently trying to help three different people whose life is in the pressure cooker. All three situations were very serious and bringing almost unbearable stress and pain.

Life in the pressure cooker is not easy. We manage to fall into it different ways. Sometimes it’s our own stupidity. Sometimes it’s a complicated mixture. Sometimes it’s just stuff that happens totally out of our control.

The only thing we can manage is our response. And even that can be very hard when our resources have been so depleted. But there are two keys to surviving.

One is the lifeline of our relationship with God. I never fail to be amazed at how God hears my desperate and despairing cries at those low moments. One thing about God -- he is always there. That is one of his names -- Yahweh shammah, which means “the Lord is there.”

It doesn’t matter where “there” is. That’s where you’ll find him.

No matter how deep your darkness, God always has a light to turn on. But you have to ask.

The second key is friends and family you can count on. We all need friends who will also be “there” when trouble strikes. Cultivate friendships in the good times. Be there for others. Cast your bread on the waters and it will return. I can guarantee it.

And remember if you need to ask God for help, you also need to ask your friends. It never ceases to amaze me how we fail to reach out for the support we need. Sometimes we feel too ashamed, sometimes we’re too proud. Get over it. Let your friends help you. Tell them how bad things are. Their job is to help you: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).

And so the question arises: “Where is God in all this?”

The answer is obvious. God is in the pressure cooker. Even though it may not be accurate to say he created it (after all, he is not the author of sin, sickness or any other earthly disaster or misfortune), he still is watching over it and using it.

The pressure cooker has a more Biblical name: the refiner’s fire. It’s where James tells us to count it all joy. It’s where Peter tells us our faith is being refined to bring forth gold.

Of course you can’t see any of that when you’re in the middle of it. That’s where it’s up to God and friends to carry you through. But when you look back, the gold is there.

And if there’s someone you know in extreme need, go just sit with them. A friend of mine was executive assistant to Margaret Thatcher. One day the great lady found a staff member in tears. Her husband had recently died. Mrs. Thatcher stopped her activities at once and focussed all her attention on this lady. She went and made a cup of tea, and then sat with her until she felt better. That was the best use the Prime Minister of Great Britain had for her time that day.

The God of all creation is there to sit with you until you’re through your crisis. Just ask him.

Your faith is proven real in the pressure cooker. You have faith even when you think you don’t. When all you can do is cry out to God in utter desperation, that’s all the faith you need. And out of that faith he will bring his gold.

When things look hopeless, just remember they’re not.

And that old pressure cooker never did blow up. It kept turning raw potatoes into something as reasonably edible as 12 young men who were more interested in either studying or partying could produce!

How can I forgive?

The life and death battle I was going through was very real. We had been badly hurt by people we trusted. After God delivered us from that danger, I found myself in an even harder battle I had not expected. My bitterness was destroying me. And one day the Lord spoke to me that if I did not resolve this, I would do more damage to myself than what had been done by others to me and my family.

The first time I heard my mentor and spiritual father, Duane Harder, make the following statement, I could not have disagreed more: “A woman who has been raped will damage herself more through unforgiveness than through anything the rapist did to her.” How could he say that? All I heard was what seemed like a minimizing of the rape. But what I really missed was the fact that I was minimizing the reality and power of forgiveness.

I should have got it. After all, Jesus said a person who refuses to forgive will be handed over to the tormentors (Matthew 18:34).  Let’s be clear: Jesus was not addressing the person who committed the act, but the victim.

The reason for this is simple: you were forgiven an infinite debt. Therefore, you must forgive others who owe you a finite debt. Your debt is infinite because it was paid by One who was sinless, whereas you, already a sinner, have been sinned against by other sinners.

If we can’t truly forgive, we are letting ourselves in for a lot of trouble. So why is it so hard for us to forgive?

I believe the answer is in our failure to understand what forgiveness is. We live in the deluded belief that forgiveness somehow involves the idea that we have to forget or deny what was done to us. And that we find it understandably impossible to do.

Yet nothing could be further from the truth. Forgiveness cannot in fact take place without the blunt acknowledgement of the wrong that was done. After all, God, our perfect Creator, is more violated when wrong is done to us than we are. It is God’s standards and God’s law which are being violated.

The Bible paints a very clear picture that God hates sin. When a woman is raped, God hates that even more than the woman does.

So forgiveness begins by putting on the table the wrong that was done to us. Being open about it before trusted friends and mentors also makes us accountable for how we may have had a share in the wrong that was done. The fault is very rarely one hundred per cent on one side.

As we put the wrong on the table, we also declare alongside those with us how much greater God was wronged than we were, and how much more even than us he hates the sin that was committed.

But here is the key. The God who was offended is the only one who has the right to judge. And so in the declaring of the wrong, we hand the person over to God for him to deal with as he chooses.

This, I am convinced, is the key to forgiveness: I renounce my attempt to be the judge, and hand that right over to God, to whom it alone belongs.

If I take the place of judgment, I hand myself over to Satan, the greatest legalist of all, who knows I have no right to it.

And handing the person over to God does not mean I have the right to petition God to do anything other than act in the same mercy he showed toward me. Prayers for God to visit judgment on my enemy are not heard by God, but they are heard by the devil. That is why Jesus commands us to bless those who harm us, not curse them.

Over the years, my wife and I have had more than enough things to forgive. We have been through some truly awful situations. The hardest thing to accept is the fact it has most often been professing Christians who have been the perpetrators. In the end, we came to realize some of these folk were not really Christians at all. The hurt at the time, no matter who the perpetrators were, was very real.

But our story is this. When we forgave, we were free! The burden of hate and hurt lifted. We were no longer controlled and dominated by those who had hurt us and what they did to us. When you refuse to forgive, you allow the wrong that was done to be replayed and re-enacted in your mind every single day of your life. What will that do to you?

Let me give you some advice. Time does not heal. It only allows the wounds to fester.

There is only one way to freedom. Hand those people over to God. Let him be the judge. And move on.

And know this: his Spirit will set you free.

The day I almost gave up

I remember so well the day I almost gave up.

We had experienced a major division within the church which looked completely unresolvable. The division was both doctrinal and personal. Twenty years of my life were about to go up in smoke and I could be out of work with no place to go.

It was garbage day. As I walked down the driveway carrying the garbage out, I realized two things. First, the only thing I had strength to do was to put one foot ahead of another and get the garbage to the end of the driveway. Second, that was in fact all that God required me to do that day.

And in that instant, I learned the first secret of never giving up. Don’t stop moving forward. It’s as simple as that. Why is this so critical? Because it’s the simplest way of acting as if you still believe God has a plan for your life. You may not know how he’s going to deliver you, and all your emotions may be shot to pieces, but deep in your spirit you still believe he is God and he will come through for you. Even if you can only move one small step ahead, just do it. The steps will add up, and eventually the darkness will begin to lift.

The strange thing is that it was something I loved -- the church -- that brought me to that place of of despair. I am convinced that both the problems and the answers for our lives often revolve around church. Let me try to explain.

The Bible presents the body of Christ as the place of healing. It is the place where we are loved and cared for, and also the place we are discipled and corrected. So far so good.

When people become Christians, they bring all their own baggage along with them. That includes you and me. It isn’t acceptable for us simply to complain about the problems people have. Church is the place where those problems begin to be fixed. In the process, a mess usually occurs. How could it not? This is where love and patience is required, just like in any family.

But when those problems are not handled with maturity and integrity, it isn’t long before the enemy shows up. That’s when the mess can turn into pain and hurt.

There is no such thing as a spiritual vacuum. If church stops becoming a healthy place where people receive healing, it quickly becomes a toxic place where people get hurt.

The devil does not play merely to win, he plays to destroy. The best strategy he has of winning is to destroy the place God designed for healing. In effect, he bombs the hospital.

If the first secret of not giving up is to keep moving forward, the second secret is not to give up on God’s plan for his church. That’s hard, because it involves believing for others, not just for yourself, and for others who may at this minute be hurting you. At that awful time, I cried out to the Lord to save the hospital and the people in it -- including me and my family. And he did. He acted very quickly and very powerfully. It was a supernatural intervention. To this day I give thanks for it.

I have watched with great dismay the shrapnel hitting people when churches or movements divide or break up. Why should we be surprised at the hurt that causes? What difference is it from the way children are affected for life when their parents break up? Family break-up is often caused by selfishness. How sad it is when the same selfishness invades the family of God. You can give up and walk away. But remember this. If you walk away and church implodes, who will be there to help you when you hit your own personal wall?

It takes a decision of the will to keep moving forward when things are very bleak in your own life. But if you do make that decision, God will come in behind it and help you. And it takes energy to step into the breach when the enemy is ripping your church apart. But if you do, God will come to your aid.

Bob Mumford once said these words to a room full of leaders: “There isn’t one of us here who hasn’t thought of giving up. The difference is some of us have not.”

The very point the battle is hardest, the point where you are tempted to give up, may be the moment the battle is about to turn.

Never give up. You won’t regret it.

When you've been hurt by leaders

I only had a year as a new Christian before I got recruited into leadership. It was against my will. There was no one else to lead the Christian fellowship on campus through which I had first truly understood the gospel, and the alternative was to disband it. How could I say no? By the grace of God, it prospered. I think I can honestly say that I have entered in fear and trembling into almost every leadership position I have held since then. When I told my Dad I felt called into full-time ministry, he quoted Jesus’ words, “Be wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove.” Though (just as well) I didn’t really understand what he was saying at the time, it turned out to be probably the best leadership advice I ever had.

So I am a reluctant leader. Can I suggest you should never trust someone who isn’t? Think about that for a minute and you’ll get it.

In defence of leaders, let me first say this. Leaders who try to walk in the way of the cross (and most do) pay a price few people ever know. In our case, they never knew how our two year old daughter was thrown by the son of a church member down a flight of steps onto a concrete floor. They never knew how children of a church leader stole Elaine’s engagement ring, and the parents (who knew) never apologized when it came to light. They never knew how we were verbally threatened with homelessness by a well to do businessman and leader in the church who promised us financing, arranged the purchase of our first house and profited from it, then withdrew the financing after we had signed the papers when his wife’s demands concerning the church were not met, telling us we and our baby daughter would be left on the streets.

God rescued us from all these situations, and they are now all thankfully in the very distant past. Looking back, I don’t know how we survived those days. The answer must lie in the faithfulness of God.

I realize there were also times I acted like Solomon’s son Rehoboam, who took the unwise advice of his young friends to be heavy-handed rather than open-hearted. Sometimes I did this in self-defence, sometimes in insecurity, sometimes in simple lack of understanding. Where I felt I caused hurt through my own actions, I have tried to ask forgiveness. Leaders who leave in their wake a long string of aggrieved ex-followers are a poor example of what Christ called them to be.

When you’ve been hurt by leaders or a leadership, the first thing to do is ask yourself this question: did you contribute to the problem by putting the leader on a pedestal or expecting of them something they could not or should not give? Were you looking to them for the care, praise, recognition or position that can only come from God? To that extent, you need to take responsibility for your own poor judgement. It’s a trap I have fallen into myself.

All that being said, here are some practical steps we can take to avoid falling under dysfunctional or harmful leadership.  Sadly, some of the following scenarios may be all too familiar to you. If that is the case, don’t blame yourself for the failure of the relationship. Be glad you got out of it.

1. Avoid leaders who have more of a position in church than they do in God. A true leader does not need a human position of any sort to exercise genuine spiritual influence. For them, position is incidental, not primary. They can live with or without it. People who need or campaign for position, or people who consciously use position or titles, even Biblical titles, in order to place themselves over others are not to be trusted.

2. Follow leaders who truly have a servant heart. You can only exercise as much authority as you are submitted to. Never follow a leader who demands submission while not walking in it. A leader truly submitted to God is the best servant of those he leads. Leadership is not a stepping stone to personal or ecclesiastical success. It is a footstool on which to sit to wash the feet of those we lead.

3. Never follow an insecure leader. They are always trying to be something they are not. Never follow a leader who talks incessantly about who they are, but whom you have never heard articulate equally clearly what they are not. Insecurity is one of the greatest curses of leadership. An insecure person uses human means to gain a position only God can rightfully give. An insecure leader is surrounded by weak people who will not stand up for their own convictions if it means confronting the leader. Politics surrounds insecure leaders. They damage the church and bring harm to God’s people.

If you have been hurt, disappointed and broken by a bad experience with leaders, here is a piece of advice straight from my heart and from the very real battles I have gone through when I felt hurt and betrayed by leadership over me: Your bitterness will cause you more harm than any leader ever did. You need to forgive. People often fail to forgive because they do not understand the nature of forgiveness. Forgiveness is not paving over the wrong or pretending it never happened. Forgiveness acknowledges the wrong. It acknowledges that God is more angry about the wrong than you are, because it is a violation of his law. But forgiveness assigns to God alone the right to judge.

Hand over your bitterness to God. A person reaps what they have sown. My experience over forty years has taught me that leaders who consistently handle people wrongly are eventually dealt with by God himself.

David was terribly mistreated by Saul, but he would not take the role of judgment upon himself. There are too many Sauls in places of leadership in the body of Christ. Can I implore you to follow David’s example, and let the Lord himself deal with them? Otherwise you are only fighting fire with more fire. You may justify your actions to yourself, but they do not impress the God who allowed his own Son to be nailed to the cross for your sin.

And here’s my last word. Even if you have been let down, you can use the experience to push yourself into deeper dependence on the one Leader who will never fail you.

Keep your eyes on him. He’s still in charge of his church.

When the pain is from church

Why does pain come so often from within the church?

I have been in Christian leadership for over forty years. I love the church.

While it has been the scene of my greatest joy, it has also been the place of my deepest pain. Why is that the case?

This question has always bothered me. The Bible presents the church as the bride of Christ, the body of Christ and the temple of God. Why can there be such brokenness and sin within it?

I guess, if I’m honest, for the same reason there is brokenness and sin within me. Since studying Romans 7 as part of my doctoral studies, I have always felt that its portrayal of the individual torn between the flesh and the spirit was a genuine picture of the Christian life. So why would I expect the church to be perfect if I’m far from it myself?

Yet still that answer does not satisfy me. I have to dig deeper.

Those we love and trust have far greater capacity to hurt us than those we know only casually. And here is the problem. Church is the place where we are called to be open to each other, love each other, trust each other.

Betrayal, as Jesus knew only too well, is the worst hurt we can suffer. Yet it can only exist where there is a love and trust to be violated.

Bob Mumford used to talk about his experience driving down a road seeing a crushed Coke can lying at the roadside. He felt God reminding him that’s how Christians so often treat leaders and each other -- they drink everything the person has to offer, and then crumple the relationship and throw it away.

I used to get to the point when we saw new people arriving at church I wondered how long it would be before, having taken whatever we had to offer, they went on their way, usually with a complaint rather than a thank you. And I began to harden my heart.

A lot of people find an easy solution. Just walk out. There are millions of Christians in our culture who have left church and, short of a revival, will never return.

I understand why they’re doing it, but I feel sorry for them. They are taking the easy way, not the way of the cross.

So then what are we to do? Are we to expect church simply to be the place where we open ourselves only to be hurt? Where we serve only to be betrayed?

Here’s the wisdom forty years of hanging in has taught me:

1. If you want to follow Jesus, you’ll have to take the risk of hurt and betrayal the same way he did.

2. Find your strength in the Lord, just like he did also. Stick the straw of your spiritual and emotional need into God, not other people. Don’t expect from people what only God can give. They will disappoint you, but he won’t.

3. There is no ideal church, and no ideal network of churches. If you’re a leader and still saying that, stop it. You’re lying. If you’re a member and still seeking it, you’re looking for perfection while not living perfection yourself. You’re living a lie too.

4. Hanging in is always worth it in the end. If you hang in, you will gradually accumulate a network of friends who will not fail you. We have friendships going back 30, 35 and 40 years which are still yielding dividends to this very day. We did not give up. They did not give up. Now we have each other. God honours those who commit. Those who drop out often wind up lonely, bitter and away from God. They have shot themselves in the foot. You may have to change a local church, but don’t leave church. If you’re the one who’s been to every church in town and still isn’t satisfied, the problem is not with all of them, it’s with you.

As Christians, we live at the convergence of the real and the ideal. We have an ideal, a standard, we are aiming at. That is why Paul says, “Aim for perfection” (2 Corinthians 13:11, NIV). We will never reach the standard in this life. We live in the real, not the ideal. Yet the ideal pulls us toward itself, thus transforming the reality in which we live. We may call that frustration, but the Bible calls it sanctification.

The church we all long for is not described in the Gospels, the book of Acts or any of the apostolic letters. It does not exist in recorded history. It makes its appearance for the first time in the second last chapter of the Bible. Only those who have proven faithful in this life will be part of it.

Hang in there. It’s worth it in the end.

Photo credit: David Bennett