|
|
Sometimes it is very difficult to open up to others and reveal our pasts.
We may have been impacted negatively by someone and that has caused great pain throughout our lives. It is wonderful
when we can take off our masks and reveal our truth. It feels good when we can prosper because what was weighing us
down has come to light and has been casted down.
God is the saviour of all men(1 Tim 4:10) and that salvation rescues,
heals, and restores. Blessed be the name of the Lord!
Facing the Truth, Finding My Spiritual Ground Zero
by Jay Hopson
7/20/2008 / Mens Issues
Become a Christian and live the life victorious! Sounds great, but,
the truth is that multitudes of Christians today are far from fully experiencing the life abundant our Lord promised. Positive
visualization, goal setting and the attractor factor illustrated in "The Secret," seem to be based on biblical principles,
but, have had little effect for some, including myself. We are flooded with sermons on how to live that abundant life, how
to overcome and walk in righteousness, but somehow our walk and our talk seldom seem to resemble one another.
Immediately
upon my salvation I began to stand upon the promise in Psalm 1:1-3. "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel
of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of
the Lord and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth
fruit in its season, whose leaf shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper."
Fifteen years later,
I find myself questioning, "why do I not seem to be blessed, why did my season of fruit producing apparently pass me
by, and, most of all, why is it that nothing I touch prospers? I think I have found the answer to those questions. You see,
all the positive thinking and visualization in the world will get you nowhere, if you have no foundation
upon which to build. Good seed must have good soil, and shifting sand is hardly good soil.
My life was a bit of
a shambles in 1992 when the Lord captured my heart. I'd been a relatively successful cattle rancher in NE New Mexico.
At the age of 35 I'd finally begun to question what life was all about. Having the mistaken impression that I was already
a Christian, I believed that Jesus was God, but I had no clue what that meant to me personally. When salvation came it seemed
anything but gradual. In fact my salvation was radical. Caught up in a zeal I had never known and with a great longing to
serve the Lord, I changed my life dramatically, leaving the ranch soon afterwards and throwing myself into ministry in the
nearby city of Clovis, NM.
Perhaps we all need a little wilderness to truly bring us to the point of obedience.
In my case, you could say that my wilderness has lasted fifteen years. Year after year I've circled the same mountains
time and again, always wondering, if my salvation was so radical, why were my deliverance, my redemption and my promised land
so slow in arriving? Today, I can see, finally that His transforming power often works much more gradually than we can guess.
And, yet, it is not only Him, the speed of our redemption has much to do with our response to His prompting.
You
see, I circled those mountains with a limp, a besetting sin that acted as a millstone around my neck. No matter how much zeal
I spent in pursuing Him and His ways, this sin kept dragging me back away from His blessing and destiny. Many of these years
I spent fighting this sin. I cried out to the Lord year after year for deliverance. I counseled with numerous pastors and
counselors and attended many healing and deliverance seminars, but the truth is that I was battling against the symptom, not
the root issue. My feeble blows were never hitting the mark, because my aim was way too shallow.
The reason for
this was that my sin seemed totally unacceptable to speak about or to acknowledge in the Church as it is today. To admit I
struggled with pornography meant that I might not be accepted in many circles. Though I confessed this sin
to my pastors and mentors, I felt it not wise to acknowledge it openly. And, most unfortunate of all, in all of my counseling
sessions, there was one episode in my past that I made certain never came up. I felt surely, God wouldn't expect me to
admit that childhood experience to another person; surely, it was alright if I only confessed that one to Him alone. Every
time I came close to getting into a relationship that would force me to open up about the most painful experience in my life,
I would run. That experience had ripped my very existence creating a crater of pain that I was loathe to revisit.
I never expected to speak of this incident aloud to anyone, much less to write about it. In fact I was determined that it
would always be my secret. Little did I know that the Lord was slowly but surely bringing me lower and lower, cornering me
in a pit of financial pressure and propelling me into a position where there was simply no way out. He surrounded me with
people I could finally trust and I began to see there was no option, but to start sifting through the ashes of my past, and
clearing away the self protective ruins by telling my truth publicly, finally digging deeply enough to hit my spiritual ground
zero.
I'd spent all that zeal forging ahead trying to build something for God, and everything I built came
crashing down, because it was not built upon the Rock. It's easy to find ways to serve the Lord outwardly. In fact I spent
several years in pastoral leadership roles priding myself for being on the cutting edge of the next move of God. It was just
too difficult to look inside, finally face the ashes of my past, the source of my grief, and begin the slow painful process
of clearing away the residue of destruction upon which I'd been trying to build.
#
Therefore whoever
hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the rain
descended, the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.
Mathew 7: 24 & 25
Finding that rock to build upon, in my case, took some digging. As I began to dig up these
memories, tears of pain flowed frequently. My consolation is that I now know, this was Godly sorrow. Every time I tell this
story, I still experience pain, but I also tap into more truth and cleanse my life, my soul with His light. I wish the graphic
nature of what I relate here weren't necessary, but I've come to realize that the more detail I bring into the light
the more poison and venom I release from my heart. I also believe there are many who may receive healing by hearing these
details.
These memories are slightly foggy, but I know they did take place. I've heard the stories of many
abuse survivors and have found the same is true for them all. Our memories become foggy, as a thick cloud of denial builds
up over the years, some of which is good because it shields us from the things we're unable to bear, but too much denial
becomes a breeding ground for bitterness, shame and self destructive behavior. When we face the pain, we begin to grow again.
I now understand that there was little the Lord could do to bless me, because for years I have subconsciously been trying
to pay for my sins, to live the life of the person I felt I really was, to bear the blame I felt the kind of behavior I am
about to relate merits, unworthy of the abundant life, undeserving of anything but failure.
There are some verses
in Colossians 2 that pretty well summarize this. " Do not let anyone cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false
humility and self imposed religion." You see, I have cheated myself of reward. I have no one else to blame. I have simply
been a prisoner of my own past, a prisoner of the ash heap upon which I could build nothing worthwhile. Shame and self protection
kept me from shedding light into the areas I am now opening up to you.
Somewhere between the ages of 5 and
7 a homosexual relationship developed between another person and myself. I shall not name names here as I do not
wish to point fingers. As well as I can remember, it began innocently enough. I can't remember thinking that it was wrong
at the time, until when I was about age 9; it progressed to where this other person wanted to perform anal sex. This, I seemed
to know was wrong, and I struggled with both the physical pain and the humiliation of it until I took steps to stop it. The
steps I took were not easy, but even in the midst of them I did not tell anyone what was happening, even though I knew my
parents would have stopped it immediately.
Perhaps that one point shaped much of my future, that unwillingness
to tell someone; but rather to hide the disgrace and humiliation deep inside myself. In many ways I wonder if had
been able to open up to someone about everything at that time, if things would have been different in my life. I think a habit
developed then and there and I chose never to tell anyone, which affected a great deal of my life. The physical part of the
nightmare ended in 1966, but my reluctance to face it, to deal with it and bring it into the light severely hampered my Christian
walk.
Keeping the matter secret somehow added to its power over me. Had I not become a Christian, who knows what
kind of effect it would have had on me, but since I did become a Christian, my heavenly Father loved me too much to allow
me to keep this under wraps. This bottling up of emotions and pain triggered a distorted self image, an inward turning perception
that bred selfishness and self-pity as well as bitterness for decades. The horror of not feeling able to tell anyone, of not
being able to get help literally warped my personality, breeding self loathing and self destructive behavior which simply
became an habitual way of life.
I still struggle with my perception of homosexuals. I know God
loves them and hates the sin, but I will admit openly to being somewhat of a homophobe. There are still forgiveness
issues that I need to work through with that whole episode.
Perhaps because of these events I became a prisoner
of pornography at an early age and all the remorse and shame that go along with that addiction clung to me for years. I think
deep inside I felt I was perverted since I had engaged in those activities and I allowed that sense of perversion to drive
me deeper into the addiction. I continued for years in this behavior which only inspired more isolation, selfishness and hopelessness.
I became my own judge and my relationships with family, friends and all of those around me have been deeply affected. My reluctance
to open up about the matter even when undergoing counseling prolonged the pain and empowered the lie.
However,
I now know that the sin was a part of me, but it is not me. Christ forgave and transformed me fully, once and for all on that
cross. I have now asked for His forgiveness for not forgiving myself. I am on the road to recovery. It will be a process and
not an over night occurrence, but I am sensing deep down more authentic hope than I have ever known. For the first time in
my Christian life I know beyond a shadow of doubt that I have the ability to walk in purity and holiness with His grace leading
he way. That which is built from this day forward in my life can be of eternal value and worth.
Jesus told Peter,
" Upon this rock I build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." As I dig away those ashes
of deception, denial and self protection that have acted as shifting sand, I know I have now finally touched that rock. I
encourage everyone who reads this testimony to dig deep in your own life. Don't be afraid to relate your deepest pain
to those who love you. Get it into the light! Ask the Lord to help you step off the shifting sand of shadow, innuendo and
half-truths onto the rock of revelation. Reveal to yourself and your loved ones the depths of your pain and allow Him to restore
to you that which has been lost.
As I look back over the long journey, it appears to be a trail of tears, but those
who sow in tears really do reap in joy. As one pastor often says, "your source of pain will be your source of rain"
(spiritual). For most of my Christian life I ran from my pain, but since facing the truth and clearing away the ashes, I am
actually starting to feel like that new creature we're supposed to become upon salvation. Behold, all
things are become new!
Jay Hopson is slowly but surely
finding his way into the freelance writing field. Although a former pastor, he has struggled for years with direction and
vision. He seems to be just now finding his niche in the Kingdom through writing. "I have always loved writing that springs
from the heart and tells of Truth gained through experience.
I hope to be able to come to the place where I am able
to write articles that heal and change the heart, not just educate. Words can be of eternal value, if they come from the throne.
If I can possibly attain to that, then I have done something worthwhile."
Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com-CHRISTIAN WRITERS
|
