Category: faith | Page 3 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

Struggles with faith and doubt

When I first left my former church, I thought I wouldn’t struggle with doubts or faith. I never thought I’d come to a point of wondering whether God was real or cared about me. I was wrong, and here are some reasons why:

When I left, I hid some of my feelings, my doubts and fears. I was busy proving to myself that I was still a Christian, and I was very good at it for awhile. The problem with that is that I could only maintain the facade for a time, not forever. Eventually the fears, doubts, and questions came out, and because I’d hidden them from myself for so long (well before I left), they kind of came out in a big jumbled mess, making them perhaps more difficult to deal with.
When I left, I kept thinking that I would get answers, find resolution, be healed, and see new success. None of that happened, and since people had promised God would do these for me or promised these to me, I blamed God when they didn’t happen. I became disillusioned… and that disillusionment hit around the same time as the facade fell.
After leaving, I was told too often by both myself and others to just get over it, to move on… to BE as though nothing had happened that changed my life, my thoughts, my beliefs. Walking out of that church had the effect on me that dropping a bomb on a small town might have to the survivors–I lost friends; family dynamics changed; the culture, beliefs, and perspectives that shaped a good deal of my life were suddenly in tatters; the place I’d considered safest was now seen as most dangerous–the world was turned on it’s head. “Get over it” and “move on” are absolutely ridiculous expectations in such cases, no matter how much we want to do just that.
I suffered from ‘shell shock’–I’d hear similar things to what I’d come to recognize as danger and ‘duck for cover’ so to speak. Most people did not recognize the signs of this and didn’t want to help or admit that this might be a problem… it was perhaps as difficult for them as it was for me to admit that someone could get PTSD from a church. And they and I both thought that exposure to a similar but more positive environment would ‘fix’ the problem. It didn’t.

Unreasonable expectations are behind all of these. It wasn’t until I stopped expecting things to go a certain way that I started regaining real hope. And yes, you read that right. I actually find myself having more hope since I stopped having these expectations. Not hope that everything will be OK, not hope that things will be ‘fixed’… this is a different kind of hope, or maybe more of a peace, than Christians I’ve known seem to talk about. Maybe more of an acceptance. This is what happened. This is what is. And though I have no idea what will be, I can be OK with that. And I think God is, too.

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Baptism and Re-Baptism Part 4

Continued from Part 3

I’m happy. I was concerned that I would have nightmares, that I would be so nervous I’d make myself sick, that I’d have last minute doubts… that I’d get food poisoning and wouldn’t be able to go. LOL

None of that happened. For me, getting re-baptized was the best thing I could have done at this point. I wanted it to be a faith thing, and it very much was. I didn’t want it to be a denial of anything I’d already experienced. There was only one person who didn’t understand who said anything. I didn’t try to correct her–I met her in a Bible study a few weeks ago and knew she had very little understanding of a whole lot of things. My decision would have confused her, so I stayed quiet.

Baptism was a very important thing to me. I stayed in Oneness churches, miserable, for nearly ten years simply because they baptized in Jesus’ name and no one else did. Standards played a very small roll, and worship styles and “moves of the Holy Ghost” played probably an even smaller one for most of those years. But baptism to me was huge.

I do have to say that the pastor was great today. I’m not sure how I would have reacted if he hadn’t said some of the things he did last week and this. He was careful both last Sunday when I joined and this Sunday when I was baptized to explain that I had been a Christian for “awhile.” Today he mentioned (without letting anyone know who had asked) that he’d been asked several questions about baptism recently. He then restated the answers he’d given to those (my) questions. Remembering those questions and answers at that moment was encouraging and reassuring to me. He also restated the meaning of baptism as signifying the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, which holds a whole lot of meaning for me. Though those may all be common practice for him, the significance for me was very meaningful.

Also, the words he said as he baptized us–and maybe he always does, I don’t know–was something like, “by the authority of Jesus Christ, upon your confession of faith and trust in Him, I now baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” That was really terrific. Any last minute concerns I might have had were gone after the first person he baptized that way. (hee hee I’d wondered if I might get there and in my mind be saying “in the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus” but I didn’t!)

For me, it feels like things have come full circle. When I joined the United Pentecostal Church, I was told that I hadn’t really been a Christian before. But I was, and I couldn’t deny that. It put me on shaky ground. They told me one thing, I believed another, yet I believed what they preached about baptism and the Holy Ghost–the same things they used to say that I hadn’t been a Christian before I started attending their church. Things just felt out of kilter.

Over the last year and a half, there have been several times that it seemed like another piece fell into place and I regained a bit more balance. A few months after leaving, for instance, during an invitational at the church I then attended, they led “whosoever will” in a “sinner’s prayer.” At my pew that day, I modified that prayer to a re-commitment to Jesus, asking His forgiveness for my lack of understanding (through the years of trying to follow a church, organization or man, and trying to please people rather than Him), and asking His direction from that point. That was a wonderful day. It felt like the pieces reconnected somehow, that I could finally accept what had made a huge impact in my life as a child–accepting Jesus as my Savior. (Something strongly taught against in the Oneness churches I’ve been in.)

There have been several other times that it seemed like a piece would fall into place–talking to a pastor and questioning him without being rebuked, leaving one church for another and still being accepted at both, learning what others truly believe and finding out that I agree… and etc.

That really has little to do with baptism in itself. Someone else will find that balance and that feeling of fitting or of all the pieces falling in place another way. No matter where or how that balance is found, I hope we all find it. But for me, there was huge significance in that simple act today.

For me it was just a very, very good experience.

Baptism and Re-Baptism Part 1
Baptism and Re-Baptism Part 2

Love Without Fear

This morning I woke up around 4:40 am as usual, because I’m getting older and I have to go use the restroom about that time. After I got back in bed, I dozed off, but the rest of my sleep was rather light and restless. Over and over in my sleep I kept hearing an old verse that I learned years ago, “perfect love casteth out all fear.”

Now, to be honest, I have been in a process of recovery lately. I’m in the stage where I have been detoxing from religion. I have still been talking to God (though irregularly—but, hey, at least I’m still on speaking terms). I haven’t read the Bible in months, and I haven’t been to church since October. I have altogether avoided any religious influence, other than chats with friends, and support groups that help with my recovery process.

So, needless to say, at first I was rather annoyed that this Bible verse kept tormenting me in the early morning hours. Yet it has nagged at my mind all day long as I wondered, what can that verse really mean? On the surface, it sounds comforting and I surely could use some comfort!

Well, this evening I decided to look it up. I got involved in it the way I used to do. My mind is still trying to wrap around the concepts. I will share them with you, knowing that tomorrow I may not read any more. Maybe this was enough for me to chew on for a long while.

My understanding of 1 John 4

^“7Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.”

The cult taught that “sloppy agape” love was not true Christianity. It taught that one had to follow a three step formula to get saved: Repentance, Baptism in Jesus’ Name, and the “infilling of the Holy Ghost as evidenced by speaking in other tongues.” This verse says that ANYONE who LOVES is a child of God, and KNOWS God. That means that many who we were taught were lost are really God’s children and know Him intimately.

⁸“But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

In the cult, there was a lack of true love. “Love” and acceptance came only with a price tag. You did as the leadership wanted you to do, and you were “loved.” You questioned the rules or the leadership’s decisions at all and you experienced shunning, punishment, hatred and vicious disdain. Yet that very “sloppy agape” that was made fun of from the pulpit—that very thing is what determines a person’s belonging to God, according to these verses! So, here it says plainly that if anyone does not love, he does not even KNOW God! God is love, so if you know God you show love. No love=no God.

^“9God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.”

God showed us what REAL LOVE is—by sending his only begotten son to sacrifice his life for our sins. THAT is real love—it wasn’t conditional based on our performance or righteousness. If we have real love, it has to be patterned after that—Unconditional.

^“10This is real love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.”

The real love is not us loving a God who sacrificed everything for us, because all of us can recognize that he DESERVES our love. Real love is that He sent his Son to be a sacrifice, giving his life, because he saw we were sinners. Sinners—we didn’t deserve anything but death. He gave us what we DIDN’T deserve—that is REAL LOVE!

^“11Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. ¹²No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.”

Since God loved us that much…Unconditionally…when we did not deserve it in the least…when we were unlovable…when we were filthy in his sight; because of that, we ought to surely be able to love one another. There has never been a gap any wider than that between God and the sinful human. If He could breach that gap with His love, then anything is possible!

IF we love each other, God lives in us and loves through us. This indicates that the opposite is also true. Does this mean that if we do NOT love each other that God does NOT live in us? If he cannot show his love through us, because we do not let His love into our lives, does that mean we are not His?

^“13And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. ¹⁴Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. ¹⁶We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.”

The 13^th verse seems to back up cult teaching that being God’s and His living in us is based upon whether or not we have His Spirit. However, the verses before and after clearly state that ‘God’s love in us is the true proof of belonging to him,’ so, we have to take the verses in context. Because of this, it seems to me that His Spirit being in us or not is not a matter of whether or not we speak in tongues, but whether or not we have and show His love!

It goes on to say that everyone who declares Jesus as the son of God is infilled with God’s Spirit. There is that idea again—the one we were indoctrinated against because it is just too easy. To declare Jesus as the Son of God is not EARNING anything. Humanity cannot seem to grasp the concept of simple faith and getting something as valuable as salvation without effort. Yet, here it is again and again. We have him living in us and we live in him by our declaration that He is God’s Son.

This involves a rudimentary understanding of God’s love—the REAL love of God—the unconditional love. By trusting Jesus to be our Lord and Savior, we have put our trust and faith in that unconditional love. We have given up trying to earn our salvation and we have embraced the idea of His unconditional love that caused him to come and sacrifice His life for filthy sinners, loving us in spite of our condition. To wrap our hearts around that kind of love is a spiritual work of faith that really is quite a bit more challenging to the human mind than the idea of striving to DO in order to receive. Think about it! Isn’t it mind-boggling that the God of the Universe sent his son to die for people who were sinners and were not able to pull themselves out of the filth? He took the place of every sinner in order to show His love and to free us from our sin. He says we simply receive that gift and love Him and others in return.

“God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.¹⁷And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.”

We all know that God is love. It is a basic fact we learned as children. But, here we see that all who live in love really live in God. Think about that for a second. If God is love, then to live in God means to live in love. To have God in your life automatically means you have love in your life.

The more God we have and the more we live in Him, the more perfectly we are able to love others. That completely undoes the life many of us have lived within cults. “Godliness” and “Holiness” cannot mean a list of rules one follows. It cannot then relate to judgmental attitudes and haughty spirits who feel that they are more “godly” than others. In fact, it is completely the opposite! The more “godly” we are, the more we will LOVE others—all others, even those who least deserve it.

“To be like Jesus, to be like Jesus, on earth I long to be like him”…remember hearing it during altar calls where you were guilt tripped into crying and repenting over everything imaginable, including your lack of following the rules?

That is not what being like Jesus means! Living like Jesus here in this world means loving like He loved, showing compassion like he did, mercifully befriending the outcasts. When we live like this, we don’t have to be afraid on the day of judgement. We can come to him with confidence because we lived like him here in this world—overflowing with love towards the unlovable and the lowly.

^“18Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.”

Speaking of the judgment day, when we live in His love and His love is shown through us, we don’t have to be afraid, because this love relationship gets rid of all fear. What a revelation!

Life in a cult is based on fear. Fear, shame, and guilt are running our lives when we are trying to live by the rules and earn our salvation…always trembling lest we somehow fail and fall into the hands of an angry God. No, no, no! That is not what God wants for us!

If we have fear, it is because we think God is just waiting to punish us. That thought pattern shows that we haven’t really had a full experience of his “perfect love.” Wow! Did you get that?

How is it that one like me can spend forty years of life living to the best of my ability to try to please God and thinking that I had to work harder and harder to measure up—only to realize I had no clue who God really is?

When we understand His perfect love, His unconditional love, there is no longer fear. He is going to love me when I am doing well, and he’s going to love me just the same when I’m covered in mud and filth. He is not searching for an opportunity to punish me. He loves me and he wants me to love him and others. There is no fear in that at all!

This is why a chorus I learned after leaving the cult meant so much to me: “I’m no longer a slave to fear, I am a child of God.”

^“19We love each other because he loved us first.”

How are we able to love each other? Because He loved us first and showed us what love looks like.

^“20If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? “

How many liars have you known down through your years in cult environments? I’ve known a lot. I doubt any of them would admit to actually “hating” anyone…but “actions speak louder than words” is an old adage that holds true in this case as well. Lack of love is the same as hatred.

I grew up in a conservative preacher’s home. I heard the verbal vomit about the “liberal” leadership and neighboring pastors who “don’t believe fat meat is greasy.” I heard preachers who claimed to be holy and godly spout out comments like “he’ll never amount to anything,” “he’s good for nothing,” “I wouldn’t give you a plugged nickel for him,” and “I won’t give him the time of day.” These comments were all in reference to other ministers or saints who were in the same organization with the same doctrine, but disagreed over rules and standards of living.

Where is the love in that? Can you say you love God when you talk about another believer in this fashion? When you can be in the same room with another believer and completely avoid talking to him or her because you can’t stand them, is that love? How can you say you love God and behave in this fashion towards his other children?

^“21And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their fellow believers.”

It is a command…the true and only command to indicate our salvation.

What a lot to take in! It really is all in the concept of love. Remember Jesus saying that all the Ten Commandments could be condensed into loving God and loving others? That really is all it is about. It isn’t difficult to measure up, and it isn’t supposed to be an anxiety trip. It is all in that one little word, LOVE.

The Still Small Voice

So you’ve faced a storm lately? Faced deafening winds, the heat of fiery trials, earthquakes that seem to shake everything right out from under you? Listen closely. Maybe there have been a lot of earthquakes and fires and wind in your life. A lot of huge, noisy, tumultuous, chaotic occurrences. Disasters, if you will. But they weren’t God, no matter how many people would like to say they were. Listen closely, now that they’ve passed. Sometimes what sounds like silence after all that deafening noise is actually the whisper of God. (1 Kings 19:12-13)

Elijah knew that none of those things that came before God was God. He was on a mountain in an earthquake. Did he cry out? Did he wonder if what he was experiencing would crush him? I would have. But he realized, somehow, for all his fear and upset, in spite of the drought and the wickedness and a king and queen who killed prophets like him, that the fires and earthquakes and winds weren’t God. They came before, proclaiming the power and glory of God, but they themselves were not God. God came as a quiet whisper. Gentle. In the hush after the deafening noise. I wonder if Elijah realized the parallel to his life? That God wasn’t in the craziness of the world around him, in the actions of Ahab or the wickedness of Jezebel, the dryness of the drought or the fury of the rain, but was there, nonetheless? I wonder if he realized though that God would proclaim His glory even in those stormy situations, that His great power would be known even in those things that shook Elijah’s world? But that it would be through those quiet whispers, almost missed after the tumult, where he found God’s strength?

It’s easy, in life, to look at what we consider our most desperate and darkest situations and think that God isn’t there, or that there’s no way God could get glory from those. But we don’t stand where God stands, on the edge of eternity. We don’t know the plans He has or the beauty He foresees for each of our lives. But He does. The God who spoke to an earth without form and void and made something very good out of it is still speaking to bleak situations today. He is still creating, and recreating, our lives. Listen, and maybe you can hear His whisper, too.

The Trial

It’s the Bible, right? It’s a church, how wrong can it be?

I think the most insidious thing about beginning my Christian life in a United Pentecostal Church is all the things I missed out on – the pure joy of knowing Jesus Christ as my Savior and the goal of the Christian life, which is to grow up in Christ, go on to maturity. I missed out on knowing all the treasures that I have in my new identity in Christ – I am deeply loved (John 3:16), completely forgiven (Ephesians 1:7), totally accepted (Ephesians 1:6), and complete in Him (II Peter 1:3, Colossians 2:10).

So when the trial came fourteen years later, I wasn’t equipped. I was still an infant. I remember saying to members of my family, “I thought trials were supposed to make you better.” I felt I was growing worse by the day. I was crying out for help but there wasn’t any. All those black dots on the map, I was one of them.

All I knew was, I must have done something wrong, I was bad. God was getting back at me; I had been weighed in the balance and found wanting (one of the pastor’s favorite sermons). This was the kind of God I learned. Why had God zeroed in on me like one of those dots to be pinpointed like a destination on a map? I had no truth to cough up, no words of wisdom to hang on to; it was just me, singled out for the trial of my life. And I failed. I didn’t draw closer to my faith.

Wait, Faith? Faith, they didn’t even call it faith; faith was just a word to describe what you needed more of to see miracles, it was one church service to the next, one emotional high to the next. It was faith in – faith, an outer garb, and in a man and his church. Faith was not the very word used to describe this marvelous salvation in which we stand. There was no substance, no solid ground to stand on. Instead of standing, persevering, I just wanted to run, to do whatever it took to get out of the trial.

It would be two more years before I would leave the UPC and twenty more before I would leave the last vestiges of the scars that its false doctrine would leave on my heart and mind.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:3-4